Justamom's Sunday Warcraft Trivia

On Sundays I hope to put up some WOW trivia questions. Test yourselves and see how many you know without looking them up. These questions will be all WOW related with varying degrees of difficulty. Just place the question number and answer in your post.

This time our trivia is a little different. It's all about acronyms (abbreviations that are formed using the initial components in a phrase or name). Some of these will be very difficult and old school or perhaps just not as popular as other acronyms. Trust me, a few of these I've never heard of, but perhaps some of the more experienced players will know them. Remember...no Googling.

1. RFD

2. AQ40

3. ROFLMAO

4. SFK

5. MP5NC

6. EULA

7. LOS

8. BRS

9. LFG

10. BFD

Druid Pooh-ness

This post is meant for all my druid friends, particularly for BBB whom I think will love my new druid bear model *raising eyebrow*. He was talking about the new night elf druid forms but I propose a softer more loveable bear as I've shown here. Yes, this is Druid Pooh on steroids.

Bears don't have to look mean with long teeth and big claws. They can have a face that would melt hearts and have children begging for hugs. They would have a brand new top level talent and that would be the "big bear hug" ...

Rank 1 - a light gentle squeeze

Rank 2 - a pressure with affection

Rank 3 - a wee bit of difficulty breathing

Rank 4 - one by one ribs begin to break

Rank 5 - with the ultimate squeeze the enemies' head blows off

And while your sweet druid pooh-ness is squeezing a horde's head off, he will be smiling contently.

Farmer for Hire

So lets say you are an alchemist and you need lots of Lichbloom for flasks. You have been watching the market and become aware that the price dips a little on Wednesdays to 20g per stack but you can't pick them up quick enough from the AH before they have been bought out. Instead of playing this race during the week waiting for the prices to fall, find yourself a regular farmer. Someone who is willing to do that 20g per stack with your commitment to buy everthing he has. (not specifically referring to a gold farmer) I simply mean someone who makes gold for their toon with that particular profession and farms regularly.

Many regular farmers find this much easier than waiting for the items to sell in the AH or having to relist them. This way you get a good supply and he gets paid immediately. I met a JC who did this with saronite. He would buy everything the guy had in order to prospect it. The guy got rid of everything and got paid immediately and the JC always got his ore for a fair price, still making an excellent profit.

Now, don't mess with folks. If you say for 1 month you will buy every stack of Lichbloom they have, commit to that and don't play games. If they are mailing the stacks COD to you, don't let them sit there without paying the gold immediately. Its unfair and you will lose your good farmer and good rate for your herbs.

Start this process by doing shoutouts looking to purchase 10stacks of lichbloom and once you find someone who has that many, make a prosposal.

I'm sure this will help keep you in mats and keep your expenses in check.

Family Raid Nights

We enjoy raid nights together but always plan a little in advance as a family to get ourselves prepared.

On raid nights we eat our dinner ahead of time or have something prepared in advance(a hungry raider will only wipe the whole group).

We help each other get ready with passing herbs to my hubby Krys to make flasks, pots and getting our buffed food ready. We hate going unprepared.

My daughter Sarah has a list at her desk that she has been marking off the best pieces for her class as she obtains them but from time to time you'll hear yelling from room to room with the "SHOULD I ROLL ON THAT" from my daughter or a "I CAN'T BELIEVE I ROLLED A ONE". You'll hear screams of joy from my daughter (and sometimes Krys) when a new piece of gear is obtained. After a couple hours of raiding, Krys will usually give me the look of a 5 year old saying "are there any snacks?"

If we say we need 30secs from the game, we are absolutely no longer and you may see a mad rush to the washroom or to get a drink often having us bang into each other in the hallway (a wow family ain't always pretty)

My hunter hubby has yet to get the Envoy of Mortality but still holds onto hope it will drop one day. This is the one item that would really give him a big boost in DPS. I have just about everything I need from Naxx and I think so does Siarah.

Once the raid is done and we are getting ready for bed, we discuss how the raid went; where we need to improve, our damage/healing, how the pugs (if any) behaved etc.

Outside of raiding we do some instances together and share our WOW stories when something happens. I think I'm still shocked that my teenage daughter enjoys the game so much, although she isn't much of a farmer *shaking head*. Even in the game a mother can nag "you should be out farming so you always have gold for anything that comes up".

Both Siarah and Krys love the pvp aspect of WOW but Siarah has gained a new appreciation for PVE lately. For me, its just nice we are in the same space and often take on tasks working together for a common goal.

Mary Had a Little Lamb

I was reading a great post from Pike at the Aspect of the Hare. She talks about how chain trapping for hunters isn't being utilized much any more and same goes for sheeping.

As a mage, its been devastating the lack of needed sheeping. I'm assuming the reason for this is because of the AOE affect of most tanking classes. Pallies, DKs, Warriors which now all have exceptional AOE abilities. There are many glyphs available that enchance AOE damage in some way ie.

Glyph of Devistate (Your devastate ability now applies two stacks of sunder armor)

Glyph of Cleaving (Increases the number of targets your cleave hits by 1)

Glyph of Shockwave (Reduces the cooldown of shockwave by 3 secs)

Glyph of Hammer of the Righteous (Your Hammer of the Righteous hits 1 additional target)

I know there are many others and I'm also certain healers must be on their toes for this craziness. I know many folks may feel it makes moving through an instance much faster not having to CC stuff, but for me there is a sadness to giving up the strategy and I hope they create some stuff that will put hunters and mages back to work.

That being said, what about my sheep? I had been continuing to pay him even with this anti-sheep campaign going on but now the funds are drying up and I had to give him the pink slip. There was a alot of snooty looks with .."bah" this and "bah" that. Mary had a little lamb but now I've hired him on a contract basis. Please keep this information on the Q.T. as Mary is going through some difficulties herself with the whole recession thing going on.

I couldn't even tell you at this moment which of my keys is sheep as its been that long since I've used it.

I say "Sheep, Pull FTW"

She Who Fights and Runs Away.....

As you all know I am from the pvp server Bleeding Hollow, but recently created a new toon on a PVE server, now at lvl 40.

It's been very quiet but earlier the week I was doing my usual herb run when I came across two horde around Dun Garok in Southshore. They were questing, I'm assuming. When I clicked on the first one, a hunter, the icon changed. Is this a dagger I see before me? The "flagged for combat" knife hovered ominously over his head. Now I, a pacifist at heart, could count on one hand the number of times I've ever ganked someone. Doing so on this.... a PVE server felt very dirty, but a deliciously wicked urge came over me. There was someone else with the hunter, but I paid him no heed. I swear a cloud passed in front of the sun as I held my breath and summoned a frostbolt. The blast hurtled toward him and the terror I felt only intensified my excitement. The unsuspecting hunter was so focused on killing his target that he was unaware that he had become the prey. I used the aptly named Icy Veins... 2 more bolts and he collapsed, dead.

Then there was a shocking stab in my kidneys... the pain was horrific. I knew I couldn't take a rogue and so, when I could, I blinked. He was not far behind me and he wanted revenge for killing his friend. I ran, 'cause thats what I do best *GRIN*. He caught up to me once again and I was stunned for a moment and when I had the opportunity I hit my Life Blood for a good heal and blinked again. My next step was to use my Free Action Potion while he wasn't close to me (I never leave home without it). Then there was no stopping me, I was near the entrance to the Arathi Highlands when I was finally free of him.

Now, I know most of you are probably rolling your eyes and saying "what a coward" "how cheap" and I say YES & YES. But, then the excitement of killing was overshadowed by the sneakiness of getting away. I think I enjoy the pleasure of knowing that he was beyond frustrated not being able to finish me. That was always my pleasure in PVP since my skills are severly lacking in pvp. The game of getting away was the challenge.

Hard to believe on a PVE server, I have become evil:(

Justamom's Sunday Warcraft Trivia

Test yourselves and see how many you know without looking them up. These questions will be all WOW related with varying degrees of difficulty. Just place the question number and answer in your post.

1. Who is the last boss in Mechanar?

2. At what level can you mine silver?

3. What level 11 elite Riverpaw gnoll chieftain would you find in Southern
Elwynn Forest?

4. Who sells the "Gigantique" Bag? (Which building/city)

5. How many turkeys do you need to kill in the Friend or Fowl achievement?

6. What is used to summon a Tiny Snowman pet?

7. Although the area is almost completely isolated from the rest of the world and sandwiched between two deserts, the region is filled with exotic plant life and even more exotic creatures. Which zone are we referring to?

8. What is the increase in attack power upon drinking an Endless Rage?

9. What profession creates the Philosopher's Stone?

10. What are the 3 faction options for turning in Obsidian Warbeads?

Warcraft Landfill

"This is a post I had written on my guild site a while back and thought I would share it with you"

I continue to hold on to the merciless gear in my bags, having difficulty letting those pieces disappear into the warcraft nothingness. I often imagine there is a very large and dirty warcraft landfill where all these items from every dedicated warcrafter find their way. A scummy looking undead shovels them into a huge pit, filled with what was once the best of gear. In the air, the faint cries from those who have typed out the "DELETE" phrase for these once precious items. The undead simply gives a loud and content laugh and continues to shovel.

I know its a very silly attachment to have, but I loved my gear. I loved the colours, the way it fit and resilience that kept me alive in many dangerous situations. Everyone strives for the EPIC pieces that make us feel "we are finally there". These pieces represent experience and hard work, wipes, massive potions and elixirs, excitement and of course great memories. NOW, back to blues, back to grinding and armor that just doesn't fit well, and well...make me look fat:(The greatest thing about the upcoming months are the new adventures with my guildies. The excitement to get the epics again and whether that is for me or a guildie, its always a great moment. Sometimes I feel like the bionic woman before she was enchanced. "We can rebuild her, we have the technology....."God dammit....BRING IT!!!

Who is Your Social Director?

Over the last couple of years we have had some fun events to bring our guildies together. Aside from having a great time and getting everyone together, I take the opportunity to help clear out the guild bank by using stuff for prizes. (If you are anything like us, stuff builds up and people don't ask for anything) I would refer to myself as a Social Director like Julie on the Love Boat.

My hubby would create some clever ads for it like these to make it more alluring to folks.

Here are few events we've had over the last couple of years:

Trivia Nites - we do this in vent and have people type out the answers so there is no chaos in vent.

Beach Party - have everyone meet on an island outside Booty Bay, drink booze, have duels and prizes.

Wee Lost Girl - place a female gnome in a major city and give gradual clues as to her whereabouts until she is found. Start off very vague and difficult with your clues.

Naked VC Run - this was my favorite event. Have groups of about 3 people remove all amor and weapons. The only things you can equip are things you pick up in VC. Each piece of armor or weapon has a value ie. greys 1pt, greens 2pts and blues 3pts. The team with the highest amount of points at the end, wins. Myself and Bre were usually sat at the end of the instance waiting for the players to come out. OMG I'll never forget seeing one our (at that time) level 70 pallies with these nasty pink pants on. It was a hoot.

Group Achievement Nite - Pick a silly achievement or two and get some guildies together to go do it. We did the "To All the Squirrels I've Loved Before" and with a couple of mages it didn't take long. I had already researched the most efficient order in which to do it in.

Musical Chairs in Karazhan - this game I have never played but I'm anxious to try it. Here is a video of it. Looks like a hoot. *WARNING* turn your volume down a little ..its a tad loud.

Musical Chairs

Its been a while since our guild did some silliness so I better get my so Social Director hat on and plan something soon. I've been a slacker for sure.

WOW PET PEEVES

Yes there are many and I'm sure you can add to my list...where to start hmmmm

1. Strangers asking me for gold (my response is always ..don't you have a profession?"

2. People abusing the AH...folks who put a light feather up for 100g I assume to increase the price or have someone accidentally buy it thinking it was 1g...(eh hum,yes I've done that)

3. Lag....no other major city other than Dalaran do I have crazy lag and in 25man, which puts me over the edge. I turn off my addons and anything extra crap I don't need but still it doesn't help much.

4. Dishonest salesman...I had a guy I provided mats to in my early levels to make something for me ...he indicated he needed tomake it somwhere specific and took off with my mats and put me on ignore...my husband then messaged him and put the pressure on to return them and he did

5. Strangers asking for runs - I'm always surprised at the number of strangers that ask me to run them through an instance. My suggestion is always the same "ask your guild" or "join a leveling guild"

6. Gold Farm Spammers - I'm still shocked how these people can get away with this so easily. I guess I was living in La La land thinking there were Blizzard people monitoring this activity on each server.

7. Dependent guildies - Don't get me wrong I don't mind helping guildies but its when people step over the line of asking for help with anything that remotely looks scarey. Help from guildies should be for those quests when you just can't find someone in that zone or if you need to run an instance, just one shoutout to your guild asking if anyone else needs it....not spamming and not harrassing. Help should always come at your guildies convenience.

8. Lack of class knowledge - I am absolutely no expert in my class but did certainly look up a rotation for raiding so that I would not cause my raid to wipe because of lack of dps or be foreced to carry me. People don't need to do top damage but should be attempting their best to ensure a safe run without too much aggravation. I am never at the top of the meter but I hold my own.

9. AFKers - Even with the new system, BG afkers are still there. They move their toon from time to time to avoid being reported but they are useless and avoid combat as much as possible. Makes me crazy!!

10. Ninja Looters - I know this is a top pet peeve for many and I so wish Blizzard could offer some safeguards from ninja looters. If you pug its always a risk and lately I'm shocked at the amount of ninja looting going on. I've heard more than ever stories from guildies of Ninja Looters when they pug. Nothing disgusts me more.

On a happy note there are many things about WOW that I love which I will discuss in another post.

When to /GKick

I wonder do most of you have the same difficulty I do when it comes to kicking people from your guild. Most offenses are small ones and undeserving of a kick but a warning. I think the hard kicks are those kicks for people you actually grow to like but have a quality that comes out from time to time that is displeasing to some guildies.

I think I've only /gkicked twice as an officer. First time to a member that was showing online but was farm botting in Shadowmoon. I happened to see him while I was farming elementals and I knew from his movements and lack of response he was botting. After two days of botting, I felt this was not the kind of representation we wanted from our guild and so he was gone.

Second time was a more personal drama that was initiated from a guildie. He was over sensitive and being very difficult about small issues and complaints were beginning to trickle in from other guildies. It eventually grew into a blowout and he was toast.

I think by solving issues quickly before they grow helps to prevent a kick. For me there are some "no no's" that will get you a warning and some things will give you the boot from Justamom.

WARNINGS:

1) asking for gold in guild chat

2) repeatedly asking for help questing

3) spamming the meters in raid chat

4) making an inappropriate comment to another guildie

5) not bringing Justamom chocolate:)

GKICK

1) Another offence after a warning of above

2) Ninja looting from a raid (whether its us or pugging elsewhere)

3) Taking from the Gbank to resell items

4) Racial slurs

5) giving Justamom white or dark chocolate ...must be milk chocolate

Hmmm have I missed any?

My Dreanei Mage Update

I've just hit level 37 on my new toon and I'm flabbergasted at how easy it is to level and make gold.

It seems every quest almost gets me a bubble. It doesn't have that same grueling and at times overwhelming feeling it had in the early WOW days. I'm sure I'll feel different from 70-80.

Since I hate being without gold and I'm on a new server, I'm working that much harder to ensure I have gold at 80. With my Herbalism and toon level, its a perfect time to farm around Arathi Highlands. Steelbloom, Goldthorn and Fadeleaf sell for very good gold since not just the alchemists need the herbs but the scribes are using these lower end herbs and duel spec is a bonus

Presently, I have 1066g which I thought was pretty good for my level. It would probably be about 1200g but I did treat myself to a couple of armor pieces here and there.

Don't tell anyone but I've been purchasing the Icy Cloak Pattern regularly from Micha Yance, Trade Goods vendor in Southshore for about 14silver and then reselling it for 14-15g. A very nice profit for a low level. This makes it worth keeping my hearth in Southshore even though I'm questing elsewhere. Mages FTW:)

My good friend Rorik from The WoW Street Journal is a big WOW economy watcher and loves to follow the warcraft trends. For me I just kinda watch for them as they come to me.

So make sure as you are leveling a toon (especially a first toon) that you have a gathering profession that has no investment. It will make getting those mounts much easier.

Oh and I'm thoroughly enjoying myself with no ganking horde and my great new guild:)

JUSTAMOM'S SUNDAY WARCRAFT TRIVIA

On Sundays I hope to put up some WOW trivia questions. Test yourselves and see how many you know without looking them up. These questions will be all WOW related with varying degrees of difficulty. Just place the question number and answer in your post.

1. Who is Gryth Thurden and where would you find him?

2. ________ is a female guardian; requires the Staff of Prehistoria to gain access to her chamber.

3. Where would you find someone named Turpster?

4. Where is the most northern Inn in Northrend?

5. The __________are humanoid walrus people who live in Northrend. Although seen throughout Northrend, they make their homes primarily in the Borean Tundra.

6. Which popular blogger is a retired Air Force major, with degrees in psychology (UCLA ’74) and business administration (Missouri ’78).

7. In which building would you find the portals for the alliance in Dalaran?

8. Which mobs and zone drops the “Captured Firefly” pet.

9. ______________ is an orcish outpost built on a crossroads in central Durotar

10. What is the name of the achievement for reaching an arena rating of 1550 in 2v2?

NOTE: Special thanks to my dwarf hunter husband Krystofar for creating that great trivia image for me.

Would Millions of Dollars Change Your WOW Life?

Myself and my hubby often discuss if we won millions how it would change our lives and those of our family. Aside, from traveling, new vehicles, clothes and sharing with family how would it change our WOW life. Well, first we need to call into work as permanently rich:)

Here is how we would spend our millions to make the game that much more awesome sauce (as Bre would say). A new house with a very large gaming room with a few extra stations set up for our gaming friends. Of course, we need a amazing gaming systems with 30"monitors.

An absolute must is a small kitchen area in the room with lots of gaming snacks and a direct line to Dominos Pizza hehehe. We would pay to have friends travel up for some crazy gaming weekends and do it in style.

Yup, we have every loot card and so would everyone in our guild. Want to go to Blizzcom, we'll have a private plane pick all our guildies up.

OMG I'm excited thinking about hehehe. /sigh What a crazy WOW life it would be to have the best of everything. Now, if only I had won enough money to do away with ninja looters hehehe.

Mage Glyphs While Leveling

Obviously we are very limited by glyphs we can use as we level since glyphs have level requirements. Glyphs cannot be aquired until Level 15 but at least now you can add your glyph anywhere and do not need the Lexicon of Power. For me its about defense as well as offense while I level. At level 30 I currently have:

Majors:

Glyph of Frost Nova

Glyph of Ice Armor

Minor:

Glyph of Frost Armor

The minor glyphs are very "meh" to me. Nothing great really and for the major I liked the defense of the ice armor glyph and the additional damage of the frost nova. I am currently frost, although some folks have said I should level as fire, but I'm a creature of habit and leveled my main as frost so I'm pretty comfortable with it.

I am, however, going to put my next couple of points in Fire Blast so I'll probably then take the Glyph of Fire Blast.

Euripedes from Critical QQ did an awesome breakdown of the mage glyphs and their suitability for raiding, soloing and pvping.

I'm sure as I hit the higher levels I will change up my glyphs, but for where I am now I think these glyphs work quite nicely. Here is a full list of the mage glyphs.

Wet TShirt Contest!

I recently won a t-shirt donated by the Twisted Nether (good Lord, am I pluggin' them again?) in an Ebay auction for a childrens charity hosted by The Hunting Lodge My husband already had the tshirt and I really wanted one and so the bidding began and I was fortunate enough to win:)

Now the Twisted Nether is desiring a new tshirt look so they can have a tres chic appearance while attending Blizzcon. I'm hoping with my super "fill in this blank later" and my hubby's sweet design talents that we can come up with something cool.

If you have a creative bone in your body...give it a whirl. There are great prices for the winner. OH, and the wet t-shirt contest thang was just to get you reading:) And you read this didn't you?? You read this whole post ....PERVES hahaha

TNB TSHIRT CONTEST

Where Did You Come From?

I came from a land far far away... blah blah blah... actually we came from Quake 3 Ufreeze. This simple but fun game of freeze tag that was totally addictive. For those that aren't familiar, I'll give a brief explaination.

Quake is a first person shooter game and you would be either be on the blue or red team. You would shoot your enemy with either a railgun, rocket launcher etc., but instead of ending their life they would be frozen. If you froze the entire enemy team, you got a point, but if one of their team members stood by them for 3 seconds they were "thawed" and back in the game. Needless to say there was alot of camping frozen opponents to keep their team members from thawing them.

It was a very fast paced game and we used grappling hooks (a beam of light that would shoot out, attach to a wall or ceiling and then rapidly pull you to it. You flew though 3D space like Spiderman). Eventually many members moved on to Warcraft and other games. One of the things my husband liked most about the game was that it was entirely skill based. There were no levels, no classes, no better armor or weapons. If you won, it was because you had more talent or a superior strategy.

Ufreeze was my start and damn, I could mess you up with that railgun:)

Where did you come from?

List of World of Warcraft Blogs

For those of you not famliar with this list, the great folks at the Twisted Nether have created a wiki list of wow blogs. It's a great way to see whats out there, especially if you are looking for something specific about your class, professions etc.

You can have your blog added to the list, which I just signed up for this morning. The list is extensive and there is a section of general wow blogs and those separated by class. It's a great way to get yourself out there in the blogging community by visiting other blogs and bringing them to yours.

Specially thanks to Bre & Fim at the Twisted Nether for starting this great blogging network

My Sugar Daddy

My husband, like myself, prepared well for 3.1 to make his fortune. He knew that glyphs would be the highest demand item once the patch came. He prepared by having a hugh supply of inks ready to go. Duel spec was going to make him rich:)

He diligently has been putting glyphs up every morning and every night before bed. The pure volume of glyphs makes this a time consuming task. As of last night my dwarf hunter husband has earned 40k gold since the patch dropped 4 weeks ago. He was tickled pink. However, this is not pure profit. As you probably know, the new glyph recipes came in the form of Books of Glyph Mastery. There are 61 books I believe and he just obtained the last one a couple of days ago. He paid approximately 1200g the first week or so for the books after the patch and then in the last most week or so they have dropped to about 300g. In total he spent 25k on the books for a net profit thus far of 15k. With all the glyphs learned, it is now pure profit.

This morning he has 22 glyph sales for a total of 651g. The market is tough as he is often undercut; however, there is still a huge opportunity to make substantial gold.

So I'll have to pick out somethin nice for myself that my sugar daddy can give me. He already got that condo for me at SW Harbor...so now I'm a kept woman. Sugar daddy FTW!

WOW GPS FOR DUMMIES

I am the type of person that comes out of a store in the mall and isn’t sure which direction I came from. My sense of direction is absolutely miserable. Thank heavens for coordinates and addons with arrows in Warcraft (still doesn't help me in SW where I am eternally in a lost state) .What a huge difference from questing without any addons to questing with them. I would say your time is definitely cut in half. Presently, I use Lightheaded and Tomtom which make questing very smooth. Lightheaded provides details about each quest as to where the mobs are, whether there are adds, if it is a difficult quest, or any bugs with a quest. Tomtom also provides coordinates with large arrows pointed in the direction of your quest. These are priceless.

ie. You just picked up the Hogger quest, when you open the quest log there is a little tab for Tomtom on the right side. This is where you will see the information provided by others about that particular quest from Wowhead. You can click on any coordinates in blue to have them make a waypoint on your mini map. Immediately an arrow will appear on your screen, noting the quest and the direction to travel. Once your toon steps over that location, that waypoint will automatically be removed. You can also get coordinates for the quest turn in NPC.

In my opinion, the information from Tomtom is approximately 98% accurate. Every now and again I’ll find some ill advice, but it's rare. Knowing exactly where to go when you pick up a quest is half the battle. Questing doesn’t have to be painful and people like me don’t have to remain lost in the realm.

Progressive Percentage?? What the Hell?

Since I'm now leveling another toon, I am always up for doing some complaining about drop rates but apparently this was done in vain. According to a former World of Warcraft lead designer and current next-gen Blizzard MMO director, Jeffrey Kaplan, Lich King Warcraft has now adopted the Progressive Percentage system.

So, with this system your chance of getting a quest item increases as you farm it. There is apparently a base drop rate now of 45% which, depending on how long you farm a quest item, that percentage will gradually increase. Of course as soon as I read this I did notice with the quest I was working on that it did drop more frequently/faster for the last 4 quest items I needed.

Hmmm has anyone else noticed this? Here is the link to the article....interesting stuff. Hopefully I explained it properly. Here is a link to the article.

Progressive Percentage

Favorite Places in WoW

I have found traveling from zone to zone that certain zones appeal to me for different reasons. Westfall I love for the errie music which I actually find quite peaceful. Elwynn Forest is just so quaint...who wouldn't want to live there.

When I first walked into STV I was amazed at the jungle atmosphere. The colours of tigers against the flora of the jungle. The sounds of the gorillas and the birds. It was very captivating.

If I could live anywhere in warcraft where would I live? I guess Elwynn Forest since my husband also loves it there and its close enough to a large city for shopping and a nice walk to the beach in Westfall:)

We are often very quick to get on the attack of Blizzard with the issues we have but I think if you take an indepth look around in the zones, you will gain a greater appreciation of the work and detail put into creating this magnificant magical world and all the entertainment and fun it provides us with.

My First WoW Embarrassing Moment

I think I was probably level 8 or 9 when I first went to SW. The impressive buildings, beautiful scenery were pleasantly surprising to me. I made my way to the Trade District and was told by a friend there was a bank to store any extra items. That sounded very cool to me and so that was one of my first stops in SW.

I walked into the lovely building and was smiling as I entered seeing the cordoned off section of line up space. I navigated through and saw 2 or 3 people standing at each teller. I stood at the end of the roped off area waiting my turn...yes you heard me right, I was stood in line at the bank waiting until the people in front of me finished with the teller. I thought people were just being kinda rude in each others space while the other person did their banking. Besides what was the roped off area for ?? Esthetics?? (Yes fool thats exactly what it's for.)

When people started to go ahead of me and running up to the teller I couldn't believe how rude they were. I know its just a game but come on people, wait your turn.

My husband laughed his buns off when he realized I was waiting in line.

Now I'm always first in line:P

Authenticators – An Absolute Must

It was our worst Warcraft nightmare come true. I logged in first thing in the morning to check my AH sales. While stood at the mail box I got a glimpse of my husbands toon standing there as well. I glanced at his screen to see if he had logged in before me, but it wasn't opened. When I opened up my bags, all my gold was gone. Nothing else, just my gold. I yelled for my husband who immediately logged in but quickly gets kicked, as now the hacker has changed his password. My daughter now checks her account only to discover all her gold is gone as well.

I was shocked and felt very violated. Yes its just a game but I consider it my personal space on the internet. We finally resolved that we had all at some point logged in at my husband’s computer into WOW where the key logger obtained all 3 account information. Our security system didn’t flag it unfortunately. My husband immediately mailed Blizzard and got the password changed.

That day, we ordered our Blizzard Authenticators which were about $7.00 each. We keep them on cords attached to our desks so we always have them on hand. It took about 2-3 weeks to get our accounts back to their existing state and as much as we were frustrated about the hackers, we were more frustrated with ourselves for not ordering the authenticators sooner.

For those that are not familiar with the Authenticators they are a small electronic device with a digital screen. Once you enter your user name and password, another little screen appears to enter your authenticator number. Every time you log into Warcraft, you simply click the button to get your new code. This prevents key loggers from obtaining the information since it changes every time you log in.

For more information about the Authenticators you can visit this Blizzard page to get the details.

Trash or Treasure

If you have leveled a toon before you may already know this information but for those of you that don’t or may not think of it there are few tips about what you are vendoring. There are many items that you might normally vendor that have value to someone in the game.

One item in particular that has value is meats. Most animal meats you come across are used in a recipe or two. Take a look at the list of cooking recipes and keep in mind any meats that you could sell in the AH. A lot of folks with gold could not be bothered farming meats, especially the low end stuff. Take a look at each item before you vendor it and determine whether any professions can use that item.

Also, note which festivals or events are going on at the time. Right now small eggs are required for Children’s Week to make the Chocolate Cake and are selling for about 1g each. For my lowbie toon this is a great opportunity to boost my income.

Please don’t trash those low end greens. New enchanters are always looking for inexpensive greens to DE. Even at my low level of 14 I can get a couple of gold for the low end greens I pick up.

So never be too quick to vendor the goodies from your bags. Perhaps some hidden treasures will bring you closer to your first mount.

Making A Living

Well it’s a been a huge adjustment starting over financially on a new server. Usually when I start a new toon on my main server I simply send myself a few gold to get things going. This is different though. This is truly a fresh start but now I have the knowledge of the game and professions to get me moving.

My initial instinct was to take Herbalism and Mining since there is no gold investment in these professions but I really wanted to try out alchemy and knew at the high end of the game there is good money in Alchemy. Herbalism feels easy and while I level its easy to pick flowers. At level 12 I’ve just capped my first level at 75 and have gone for training. I may have to wait a while to level any higher since my next herbs are mage royal, briarthorn and stranglekelp which will be in an upcoming zone.

I’ve already earned 12g, which at level 12 I felt was pretty impressive. I can sell my stacks of peacebloom, earthroot and silverleaf for about 1.5g-2g per stack which is a nice sum at my level. For those that don’t have gold to get their first mount I blame it either on their lateness to start their professions, not having any professions or just laziness. Making gold isn’t that difficult.

Checking Out The Carebear World

What's this? No ganking? I can complete a quest without interruption you say? I must check this out, and so my adventure begins. I've started a Draenei Mage on a server with my good friend Bre.

I've now been considering moving a toon over with some gold but I thought it may be a fun adventure to start from stratch to see how quickly I can now make gold while I level. Bre helped get me out of Exodar since I really hate questing in that area and made the journey to SW. Should be fast leveling since I know the area and quests pretty well. (Hey I thought Hoggar was a non-elite now ...lets just say "it got ugly")

I think when I start questing in STV that the realization of no horde confrontation will really hit me. STV was always one of the nightmare zones while leveling. This is certainly an efficient way to get a toon to 80 without those ganking interruptions. Will I miss the excitment of calling on guildies for help and watching my guildies kick some horde buns...we'll see:)

Right now, I am enjoying the quiet with my level 10 but look foward to playing with the big boys at level 80.