Baby Shaman On The Move!

If you visit my main blog about gold making in WoW, Auction House Addict, you'll have seen that I have been working on a little project for the month of December. I called it my 30 Minutes a Day project and it involves spending just 15 minutes a day leveling one alt and 15 minutes a day in the Auction House on another. As I promised myself a baby Shaman for Alt Appreciation Week and never got around to it at the time, I chose a Dwarf Shaman to be my leveling alt.

Anyway, it turned out that the best laid plans of mice and men didn't take into account how hard it is to make any progress with questing for just 15 minutes a day so I changed it up a bit & decided to make it more flexible - basically a maximum of 2 hours leveling per week. I haven't reported on my leveling progress over on the other blog so I thought I'd put it here - it makes sense as my gold making readers probably aren't that interested in my leveling adventures after all!

So with a slow start and no heirlooms, no friends and no back up from other alts, my baby Shammy, Lyssara was born in Coldridge Valley. The first few days were very slow - 15 minutes really isn't very long at all to be honest and it quickly started getting boring before I even left the Valley to head to Kharanos.

Once the latest patch update hit and we could send heirlooms to other servers, I decided to see what I had available on my main server and send them over. It turns out, I didn't have any intellect leather/mail gear - I have the agility leather from leveling my Rogue and the agility leather/mail from leveling my Hunter. Luckily though, my main is in a level 25 guild with access to the guild heirlooms so I bought those and sent them over.

I looked up Icy Veins and various other sites to see what an Enhancement Shaman needed and saw that the cloth heirlooms weren't too bad for low levels so I nipped back to my main server and sent some cloth heirlooms over too, as well as the staff.

What a difference heirlooms make! I guess I've used heirlooms since my second alt four years ago so it was a rude awakening indeed. So relieved to have them available cross server now too. A lot has changed since I last leveled through Dun Morogh too - Steelgrill's Depot was always the place to find a Bronze Tube to sell for a bit of gold but now it has a fancy Ultrasafe Personnel Launcher which comes fully equipped with a VLD Parachute (Very Late Deployment). I was lucky enough to not get splatted and made it over to the next area for questing but the best bit is that I got the Going Down achievement & some great screenshots too!

I hit level 13 last night and arrived in Loch Modan ready to start my next zone but not before noticing these guys. I'm not sure I ever noticed them before but it's been so long, I may have just forgotten them! Blogger is messing with the picture colors but the night sky was super dark & the stars and clouds really stood out. I murdered my way through a whole valley of troggs before finally getting enough teeth to complete the quest and headed back to Captain Rugelfuss.

I'm enjoying her so far but then I enjoyed my Elemental Shaman who got to 50-something before being unceremoniously deleted. I can't even remember why I deleted her now but I hope I'm not tempted to delete this one after this project is over!

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IntPiPoMo - Preliminary Wafflings!

Orange Rose © Helen Shorey (me!)

Ok so it's 16 days into November & I promised myself I'd spend most of this weekend catching up & prepping some posts including the IntPiPoMo that Jojo at Admiring Azeroth is organising. That means I need to post about 3.5 screenshots a day until the end of November to hit the target of 50 - that didn't sound too bad, did it? Well it didn't, until I realised that 50 shots of the Auction House, Mailbox & Bank in Ironforge wasn't going to make for very interesting viewing! Oh for the exciting life of an Auction House Addict!

So what shall I do? I'm still hoping to get my Alt Weeks finished so I've started a new baby Shaman & am going to spend a little time leveling her a bit this weekend - that should give me some screenshots to post. Then I should go & say hello to my abandoned Warlock - she's still sitting in Ironforge too so she won't be much help towards the screenshots total unless I take her out & about. At level 50 something though, she'll be questing in a totally different area to the baby Shaman. Then there's my level 90 Warrior sitting in Pandaria somewhere - she'll be easy to take out & about & Pandaria is so photogenic, it shouldn't take too much to get some really beautiful images.

Now I'm going to cheat a little bit too - it's actually International PICTURE Posting Month and as I'm a keen photographer as well as a blogger & WoW player, I thought maybe I could post some of my photos instead of screenshots. I sell my photographs as Microstock images & have a small Zazzle shop too.

I have just bought a new Photography book from Amazon which arrived this morning! Food Photography - From Snapshots to Great Shots is written by an online acquaintance of mine from a few years ago. Nicole & I started selling our images as Microstock around the same time but I never took the chance to make a career of it. Nicole has been doing really well so when I saw her name on this book, I had to have a look. All I can say is - the pictures in the book look edible on the page! I hope I can learn & improve my own images across many genres with the help of the techniques & tips in this book!

So! Enough faffing here - I have a baby Shaman to level a bit & some screenies to take to show you all :)

have a great Saturday

Nev

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Too Many Projects!

I posted my Rogue Week entry last week which was very late but I still have Shaman, Warlock & Warrior Weeks to do in the Alt Appreciation Weeks project and now it's November & Jojo over at Admiring Azeroth has taken over the reins of IntPiPoMo (International Picture Post Month) which is the visual version of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writers Month?).

Suddenly I have so much to write about but I'm away from home for another week with no WoW access which makes it pretty tough to do the whole screenshot thing! Not to mention I do actually have a story idea that I wanted to develop & I was going to use NaNoWriMo as my impetus although that was the plan before my trip dates were finalised! I don't get home until 11th November so I'll be very late even getting started!

I started a baby Shaman just before I came away, with the intention of leveling her for the whole week so I'd have something to write about for Shaman Week - I didn't manage to get that done so that's something else for when I get home again. She's a dwarf as I don't have any dwarven characters & my first ever Shammy was a dwarf. She didn't survive one of my alt culls but hopefully this one will!

I also have a joint project with Cold of Cold's Gold Factory that we started in late September but we hit a few glitches which are just about fixed finally but it means that project is 'Go' again too! Once we get it going properly, I'll probably bore you silly with it here too - I'm really looking forward to getting that going strong!

With all that is currently on my to-do list though, something has to give somewhere and I don't want it to be WoW. I know it sounds silly to say I don't want to give up my game time to do more 'real' stuffs but as I have 2 blogs relating to WoW & my joint project with Cold is kind of WoW related too - it's fairly central to getting those other things done. Of course, if family, work or health was dictating my priorities, it would be totally different but until then, WoW stays!

You may also have noticed a total lack of Blizzcon enthusiasm from me, either here or twitter. Basically everyone counting down to Blizzcon is counting down to the end of my stay here with my fella so I'm trying desperately to ignore it! I don't even want to think about going home. The only things I'm really missing is my PC & my Mum. Oh and the notebook full of post ideas I left on the desk by mistake of course! Hence the random posts & weird timings at the moment :P

Back to normal next week though - time to catch up with Alt Weeks & get going on some screenshots stuff, not to mention all the stuff at work I thought I'd got done early but will undoubtedly have piled up anyway!

Have a great week everyone
Nev

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Rogue Week - Pinkie Gets Her Moment!

I know this is really, really late as Rogue week was about 3 weeks ago in Laeleiweyn's Alt Appreciation calender but I decided to write anyway - I'm not so good at keeping up with these blog projects but I am going to finish this one! I'm also away from my PC right now so no interesting screenshots of my rogue but I'm sure you can picture the pink pigtailed female gnome so you'll get the idea I'm sure!

My Rogue was my 2nd ever alt and was also the 2nd one to reach level 80. I've spoken about my guild breakup before & my Rogue was my go-to alt when I needed space. She dinged somewhere in Stormpeaks on July 4th 2010 and I almost immediately put her away and have never seriously played her since. She is or rather was my herbalist so during Cataclysm, she spent a lot of time swimming around Vash'jir. I say she was my herbalist as I've recently converted her to Engineering - she was the only alt that it made sense to lose a profession on and I really want that Sky Golem mount!

Why did I pick a gnome and why a Rogue? Well, I remember thinking she could hide in things easily especially with her stealth too and I was right! She even ends up inside jars when doing Archeology! One of my favorite things to do on her is a bit of basic PvP - I load up my weapons with the slowing poison & spam Fan of Knives - I don't get many killing blows but my team mates love me :)

She's also the alt I take out when running guildies through lowbie dungeons - before they changed The Stockade, she was the perfect AoE killing machine for all those humans in there dropping linen.

This time round, she's stuck in Halfhill. She has a very basic farm there and she's been handing in meats for Ironpaw Tokens - as it's a quest hand in too, she earned enough XP to hit level 86 and I've also done a little pet battling on her so she's almost level 87 now. Will she hit 90 before the next expansion - I hope so! I have it in my to-do list along with my neglected priest too - I just have to find my mojo to play her.

Pinkie Lookalike

She is my lucky mount alt though - she won the Headless Horseman's mount in my 2nd year of playing and she also got the Brewfest Kodo & Ram the same year. She was the first one with the bronze Dragon from Stratholme and if I remember correctly, she's the only one who's even seen the Time Lost Proto Drake!

Early on, she was a banker alt too - long before I ever knew what that was! She was just the unplayed alt who stayed in town so she got to do all the running around there! I did take her out & about a lot for a while - as my Alchemist, she was the first alt to dabble in Archaeology for the Vial of the Sands mount. I then realised I wanted the achievement for all profession slots maxed on one alt so I swapped Archaeology to my Main and guess what? Yup - my Rogue got abandoned again!

She's one of my favorite alts to hang around on though - A pink haired gnome on a chopper or a mammoth mount is so funny to me and I love using the Kodo mount around town too. Now that we have account wide mounts, I have been having great fun just changing mounts to see which ones to put on her toolbars! It's the little things that make me giggle & a pink haired gnome on a mammoth has to be one of the silliest moments in game!

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I'm So Late! Priest Week

So Laeleiweyn had a great idea and Alt Appreciation Week was born. Almost two full weeks ago now was Priest Week so I'm really, really late posting about my Priest but I've been at a total loss for what to write! During Priest Week, I didn't even log in to do her daily Tailoring cooldown. It hit me today as I was snoozing between alarms that maybe I've been avoiding her!

My Priest was my 3rd alt to hit level 80, back during Wrath. I even remember exactly when she dinged - it was our August Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK and I was alone in game after a Spring/Early Summer of guild drama. Not long after she dinged though, I rejoined my current guild and added a Holy spec to try healing for guild runs. My guild was lovely, with lots of new faces & rebuilding after the near collapse but I didn't know anyone very well anymore & I really sucked at healing - Forge of Souls was a total nightmare but I got there eventually!

Then we come to Cataclysm - the bane of many of my alts it seems. I've already told you about the really sucky Paladin run through Grim Batol but there were many sucky runs through Cata dungeons, including some healing ones on my Priest. I did have the sense to stick to Guild runs on my Priest - I knew I didn't have it mastered yet & I didn't have the courage to face LFD players.

I did do some PvP battlegrounds as a healer & quite enjoyed it. I think I felt less responsible, less exposed to criticism perhaps? I don't know. I have a feeling now, looking back, that my moods & depression affected me more than I ever realised during Cataclysm which is strange because I really enjoyed some of the zones.

I clearly remember the awe I felt as I went through Vashj'ir for the first time and what a fantastic job the designers & artists had done there. I know many people don't like the zone from a playing perspective but if you've ever fancied having a go at scuba-diving, go and just 'sit' around in Vashj'ir for a little while. It really can be that colorful, serene and amazing!

So now here we are in the next expansion, Mists of Pandaria & my Priest isn't even level 86 yet. She's about 85 3/4's at the moment but it's been so long since I played her, I had to re-do my toolbars completely! I've swapped to keybinds since I last played her so it really is a learning curve all over again! I will get her to 90 though - she's part of my to-do list after all, I just don't know when or which spec will have priority.

Just looking at the screenshot I took of her - I have a feeling I'm going to need to transmog her soon too - I love that staff even if it is just a common old green piece quest reward! My only other transmog is my Draenei Hunter & she's in lilac - I'm sensing a theme here, you know?

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Dearest Lyssith - Paladin Week

Blue Drake - Flying High

It's Paladin Week in Laeleiweyn's Alt Appreciation calendar and as my main is a Paladin, this should be easy right? Well, yes and no - the thing is my Paladin is not only my main, she's my very first ever toon so as of this week, she's four years old and we've done almost everything together. She's my achievement queen, my mount collector, my first love in game and these days, the wayward child I'm almost tempted to give up on!

Albino Drake

It all started so innocently - I chose human as a race and Paladin because of Sparhawk & Kalten - two main characters in David Eddings books, The Elenium & The Tamuli series. I love all the David Eddings books but Sparhawk is a grumpy old man wearing armor & armed with a healthy shield of sarcasm & cynicism and for some strange reason, that has always made me like him more! So once I chose the class & race, I needed a name. I wanted Lessa - the main female character in Anne McCaffreys Dragonriders of Pern series but that wasn't available so after about 20 minutes of thinking, I came up with Lyssith or Lyss as my friends and guildies call me in game.

Brewfest Kodo

I started playing just before Brewfest started and had no idea about any of the holiday events but the following year, I'd learnt a lot more about the game and set out to get as many achievements as I could. One of the very first special mounts I managed to acquire was the Brewfest Kodo. I'm cheating a bit here as I actually got it on my Gnome Rogue first and it was only with the arrival of account wide mounts in Mists that Lyss could finally ride her dinosaur! She did get the Brewfest Ram though so it's not totally cheating!

Leveling during Wrath was fun but kind of slow too - as my first character, I had no heirlooms, very few add-ons and no clue where to quest next or even really how to play well but I managed. As part of the gearing up process back then, grinding dungeons for the various reputations and currency was normal so when I stumbled across the Oracles in Sholozar Basin, it was just another reputation that needed grinding. I was super lucky though and once I'd hatched my first or second Mysterious Egg, I was rewarded with the Green Proto Drake, much to the chagrin of my guild mates!

Green Proto-Drake

I learned to tank and spent many hours in ICC as off-tank for my guild as well as running guildies through dungeons. I started working on Achievements seriously at this time including the Argent Tournament. I never quite finished that though so it's still on my list! Running all those dungeons did have their rewards though - the Blue Proto Drake and the Blue Drake both dropped for me quite early on - apparently in those days, the Gods of RNG liked me & Lyss!

Fast forward a year or so and I was struggling to adapt to the changes wrought on my Class by the Cataclysm - I hated the Holy Power mechanic and I'd lost my guild too. I did find another, by the name of Bloodthirsty Meercats which I joined just for the fantastic name! It was being run by 4 teenage Danish lads but at summers end, they all graduated to higher education and had to give up WoW to concentrate on their studies. By this time, my old guild was almost derelict so I re-joined and my Meercat guildie Ben soon joined me there.

All through that first winter of Cataclysm, I tried, I really tried hard to master the Holy Power mechanic but it just wasn't happening and after a particularly nasty hour in Grim Batol, I pretty much gave up on Lyss. We did grind the Wintersaber Trainers reputation before it changed so this beautiful cat became mine and was my main ground mount for a long while.

Winterspring Frostsaber

After that Grim Batol experience, I retreated mostly back to the Auction House but I did run quite a few dungeons on my other alts. None came close to my Lyss though so for the remainder of Cataclysm, Lyss & I ground our way through reputation after reputation - Sha'tari Skyguard for the Nether Ray mounts, Netherwing for the gorgeous Netherwing Drakes and the Kurenaai for the riding Talbuks - I absolutely love the White War Talbuk! Purple is my favorite colour and he is so regal! Look how proud & tall he stands!

White Riding Talbuk

So that brings us to Mists - a new chance to fire up my Zygors leveling guide, raise alts and explore new lands and that is exactly what Lyss & I did, straight out of the gate. She was the first to open up her farm and reach Exalted with various Pandaren factions but I still struggled with the Holy Power thing - she felt so squishy that doing the Golden Lotus dailies was a real chore. We struggled on though, after all, she owed it to the others in my team to get those Commendations to make their struggles easier and she is proud to be my Achievement Queen. She nags me constantly to keep trying, I have tried to ignore her & promote one of my other alts to Main but I always come back to her in the end.

If you look at my to-do list (on the tab at the top) you'll see a long list of things she wants to do before the next expansion but she has given me permission to get the others leveled too - she knows I need some 'alt time' occasionally. Dearest Lyssith, my demanding first love!

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Random Stuff is Random!

Guess who couldn't think of a topic for today? Well, actually I could but none of them would have made for a whole post so I'm gonna lump them in here all together & be a bit random for a change! This blog tends to be a bit random anyway so it should fit in nicely!

Milestone Interviews - I launched this last week on my other blog - it's kind of aimed at non-blogging goldmakers in the community but if any of my lovely peeps here want to join in, you'll be more than welcome! I've had a few interviews submitted already, the first will be going live tomorrow. I'm pretty excited by this mini-project - now I just have to work out how to get the shy ones to send their interviews in!

Paladin Week - yup - my main is a Paladin so I'll be doing a full Paladin post in the next day or two - she's my Achievement chaser, my first ever alt & still my favorite so I'm trying to work out which bit to write about for that post!

Hearthstone - Blizzard have just announced they are going to do a 'wipe' which basically means that all my progress over the last few weeks will be reset back to fresh meat level. I know I'll have the knowledge to get back to same level again (which isn't that high anyway to be honest) but it kinda feels like a waste of time playing now until after the wipe. That's good news for WoW though - maybe now, I'll log in and actually do something other than Auction House & cooldowns! If you're interested in Hearthstone, my friend Cold is a long time, very experienced Card game player & has written a couple of posts over on his blog. The Starter Mage Deck is the one I started with on his advice and it works really well.

Real Life - work is going great - I really like my boss even if she drives me a little crazy now & then. Got some niggling health stuff to sort out but nothing major and finally, after 18 months on the market, my house has sold! Yup - I'll have some cash out of the sale & the first thing I'm going to do is fly out to see my friend! It does mean I'll miss the Blizzcon London weekend meetup but hey, I need his hugs more!

Monk Week - I kinda got distracted by Hearthstone again last week so I totally missed Monk Week. I do have a monk - she's been level 5 since about 3 days after Mists went live! I was seriously put out when I couldn't send her any heirlooms straightaway so she got shelved until further notice. That was a full year ago now! I did pop in and get her to level 8 this morning but it's Paladin Week now so I guess she'll be sitting around for a while longer. Why Tishamaru? One of my old Etsy friends has a beautiful Siamese cat called Maru & her sister is Tisha - probably the most photogenic pair of cats I've seen in a long while & not only do I have a fondness for Siamese cats - it's vaguely Asian too!

Blogging! - as if I didn't have enough to do, I've been invited to contribute to a new site (along with a few other known bloggers) which I've accepted AND I've started a new one of my own. Once everything is running smoothly on that, I'll tell y'all a bit more about it but I want to polish the edges a bit more first! Oh and in my usual scatterbrained fashion, I have a great idea for another one too! Eeeek!

My Fav Guildie - I did log into WoW last night, intending to do just a little bit of crafting but my Fav Guildie was online & we started chatting (as usual!). He noticed I didn't have my new trinket from the Timeless Isle yet so he dragged me off to go get the Burning Chest across the broken bridge. We hit it lucky and the mobs were almost all dead so I just ran in & got the chest - one Trinket & a Burden of Eternity later & I was a happy bunny! On the way back, we stopped to join in on a Huolon(sp?) kill & he summoned the Tiger rare nearby for me too. He's pretty much been living on the Isle as far as I can tell so it was easy to pick up a couple more Rares to kill for the quest. I'd forgotten how much fun it is to do stuff with other players & once I reforge, gem & enchant, I think I may be pleasantly surprised with my Paladin. Big {{{hugs}}} for Ben - apparently I don't talk about him enough here - do you think this will keep him happy? lol

Okay, time to get back to my alt-hopping ways - got a Paladin post to wrestle with & I need screenshots! Got to discipline myself not to log into Hearthstone though - it is kinda addictive once you get going you know!

Have fun y'all, talk soon xxx

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Say Hello to Fyzz - My New Mage

Fyzz!

Yup, after all my expressed dislike of playing a Mage, I felt that it was time to give them another try thanks to Laeleiweyn's Alt Appreciation project! To be honest, Fyzz has been around a while but with 3 days played, she was still only level 2 - shows how much time I spend in the Auction House though! So late on Friday, I made a last minute decision to send all my cloth heirlooms to her & give this whole Mage thing another try.

As of this morning, she is now level 10 and I have no idea what spec to choose! I've always gone Frost in previous incarnations so perhaps I should try one of the other specs but which one? She does look pretty in her heirlooms though and as I haven't played a Mage at all since Mists arrived with all the changes that brought plus I'm now using keybinds more, I'll probably keep her going for now.

I think the highest I've got a Mage to previously was mid level 20's but as my character slots fill up on my main server, I tend to delete them to make space for new alts. I've leveled a Priest to max level before & my Warlock is in her 50's but for some reason, I've always found the Mage to be particularly squishy. One incarnation died about 6 times in 20 minutes over near Thelsamar and needless to say, she got deleted rapidly that evening!

This time though, I have about 6 or 7 heirloom pieces for Fyzz so I'm hoping she won't be quite so squishy! With all the blogging & playing of other alts though, I don't think she'll be leveling very quickly unless something magical happens and I fall in love with her!

So why Fyzz for a name? Well, she's a gnome & she's a Mage - she needed something expressive to go with all the whizzbangs & flashy spell effects of a Mage so I thought Fyzz was appropriate especially as I'm such a bad Mage, most of my spells fizzle out before reaching their target!. If I had to give her a family name it would be something like Flashmaker or Fireblaster but as I don't Roleplay at all, that's just a bit of fancy.

Next week is Monk Week and so far my female Pandaren Monk has only made it to level 5 in the first week of Mists, I don't think I've even logged her since! I'm planning on leveling her a bit for Monk Week though so it gives me yet another excuse to send Fyzz back to the Auction House for a while longer!

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Alt Appreciation Week - Hunter-time!

Netherstalker Set

So this weeks topic for Laeleiweyn's Alt Appreciation Week is Hunters - I have a few dotted around various servers & just a couple of weeks ago, I dug out my level 86 Hunter on my main server to level her as my 2nd Leatherworker. She's only got to 86 by pet battling though so when I realised I needed to do a few quests to get the Magnificent Hide patterns for Leatherworking, I took her over to the starting area for Pandaria. Once I got my toolbars set up, it still took me a couple of hours to remember how to play her! I got her almost to 88 though so not too far off 90 now.

I used to play Marksman in Cataclysm and did quite a bit of PvP. I'm really not very good at it but I do enjoy it on a Hunter more than any other class. She's also the only alt I've really transmogged too - she was involved in an An'Qhiraj run when she was 60 ish & picked up the gorgeous Dark Edge of Insanity 2H axe. Not long after that, I was questing in Outland, killing Skettis if I remember correctly and some of the netherstalker armor pieces dropped. I love all kinds of purple anyway so once I saw that armor set & had the Axe in the bank, I just had to give it a try!

My US Account has a Hunter as my main - I broke all my reserves & created a Horde toon! She's a Troll with purple hair and I like her for that more than anything else! I did the Scroll of Resurrection
level to 80 instantly thing thanks to Cold, so I didn't have to level her all the way through unknown territories! Probably just as well because I spent the first couple of weeks lost in Orgrimmar!

When Mists of Pandaria arrived, I changed her to Beast Master & tamed one of the caterpillar/wormy things. I was still getting used to keyboard bindings etc but with lots of help from friends, I got there in the end. I did get her to 90 and did quite a few Scenarios early on but she's still not very well geared though - I had to let my US account lapse for the time being.

Grassfed

Then this week brought about a new Hunter - another Horde - a Tauren this time called Grassfed - I wanted to call him TwoVeg so his pet could be called meat but that name was already taken! Now I just need to think of a name that goes with Grassfed :) I created this Hunter to join in with the EU shenanigans over on Draenor - the Godmother got herself talked into started a Hunter only guild so it's full of fellow Twitter peeps! I did log in a couple of times but my Auction House stuff is building to a climax before the release of Patch 5.4 next week so I've been kind of busy elsewhere!

I also swore to myself that I wouldn't spend hours in the AH on Draenor but it's my first glimpse of a high population AH & I'm loving it! I created a bank alt purely to sell anything I collected whilst leveling but I soon fell back into my gold making habits. If you have TSM or Auctioneer - run the vendor scan - it really helps build up some starting capital! I went from 3 gold to 30 gold in about 15 minutes just buying stuff to vendor and running back and forth from Auction House, mailbox & vendor!

I was hoping I could knuckle down & get my main Hunter to 90 by the end of the week & I still have a day or so left to do it but I got lucky & the Hearthstone EU Beta test went live so I've been sort of busy there too!

Next week is Mage week but it's also patch week. Mage is my most hated class & one I've not leveled past level 20 yet! I have a feeling that there won't be a Mage appreciation week for me although I am playing a Mage deck in hearthstone! Does that count? lol

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A Tale of Two Bears - Alt Appreciation Week

In the spirit of Laeleiweyn's Alt Appreciation week, I guess I should tell you about my druid Cassieopia but as she's been sitting in Honor Hold since the middle of Cataclysm, there's not much to tell really! So I thought I would tell you a story about my first friend in WoW.

It was early October 2009 - I know this because it involves my main character questing through the Quarry area in the Wetlands so she was only level 22-ish and I know she still only had a bunch of 6 slot bags because that's part of the story! It was early on a Sunday morning, maybe around 7am or so and as I was dying a lot to the dinosaurs in the quarry, a young Mage came & helped me out.

As is so often the case, we got chatting and continued to quest together for a while. I kept having to run to a vendor/mailbox to empty my bags & it was driving my new companion crazy! He told me to stay put, he'd be right back so I sat my Paladin's bum down and waited. A few minutes later, my new friend was back and immediately opened a trade window. I was gobsmacked! Four shiny new Netherweave Bags and all that space! I tried to refuse them but he wouldn't let me so I promised I would pay him back as soon as I could. We continued questing for another hour or so then we both had to log off to attend to real life stuff. He asked if he could add me to his friends list & I did the same.

Roll forward a couple of days & I hadn't seen my new friend online at all. I must admit, I was kind of disappointed as it had been great fun chatting & questing but I assumed it was just one of those fleeting moments. Then I got a whisper from someone called Cuddlie, a giant bear jumping around in front of me in Stormwind. He asked me how I was getting on with my new bagspace so I realised it was my friend. What I didn't realise when I first met him was that he was the GM of one of the largest, most successful raiding guilds on my server!

Our friendship continued and he would often take me & my husband through dungeons - boosting us, guiding us & generally being a really great mentor. I had no idea of loot roll etiquette until he told me, rather hesitatingly that rolling 'need' on everything was bad! He also had a Hunter called Elf as well as a whole bunch of other alts but it was his Druid that was his main & probably the one I remember best. It turned out the Mage I had met was his son's alt that had been abandoned but over the next few months, the Mage & I continued to level together occasionally.

When all the guild drama happened & I needed somewhere to go, I joined his raiding guild as a social. It was very very different from what I'd experienced so far in game & although it was nice enough, I never really felt comfortable there so I left to join a guild called Bloodthirsty Meerkats - I just loved the name but that's another story!

I don't know where Cuddlie disappeared to though - towards the end of Cataclysm, I know his real life intruded into his game time a lot more & his guild disintegrated as he couldn't give it the time it needed. He was the driving force and when he had to step back, no-one else either could or would take the reins. Last I heard from him he was struggling but he was quite a private guy & I never knew much of the story. I often wonder where he is now & hope he's ok.

I do know he was chuffed to bits when he first met my Hunter - I went all over the place looking for a certain colour bear to tame & of course, I named my bear Cuddlie, in honour of my first in-game friend. I still run with my bear pet - I could never replace him!

So that's my first Bear story. My second Bear story is a little shorter - a fellow Brit & gold blogger who lives not too far away from me, also runs a Bear. Gimpsgold was one of my first British WoW friends & one of my first Twitter friends too - he even let me practise my healing on my Priest in a few Cataclysm dungeons as I later found out, he knew he wouldn't die no matter how bad my healing was!

What is it about Bears? I've met & chatted to quite a few over the years & they have all been lovely. I've actually only really known two healer Druids - one was a complete bitch & wrecked the guild & the other was just kinda weird all round! Needless to say, my own abandoned Druid is a Bear too - I just hope that one day, I'll be one of the good Bears!

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Alt Appreciation Week - Death Knight

Riding Her Black Drake from Obsidian Sanctum

Laeleiweyn has come up with a great idea - Alt Appreciation Weeks - running for 11 weeks (or maybe longer apparently!) and as the name implies, celebrating a different class each week. This week is Death Knight week and better late than never I suppose but I have no idea how I missed this during the week! Being so late to the party, I can't really celebrate by playing my DK much but I can tell you a little of her story :)

Aww, She Blinked

I started the DK early in the summer before Cataclysm arrived. I got her to 75 around about November 2010 and there she sat for a few months. She was leveled to be my Scribe as glyphs were a hot market in those days and at 75, she could max out to 450 in Wrath. Then all my guild drama happened and I found myself pretty much lost & alone in game which is when I really turned to gold making and as part of that, my lovely gorgeous Draenai DK became not only my Scribe but my Jewelcrafter too.

During Cataclysm, I spent more time on her than on my main Paladin. I hated the changes to Holy Power & just could not get my head around the new rotation for Pallys. I also lost a lot of my confidence when I tried my first heroic dungeon on my Paladin - Heroic Grim Batol - never was a dungeon so aptly named - 45 minutes of the others bitching at me before I finally left the group and to this day, I still haven't completed that achievement!

So I turned to my DK - dual wield Frost spec at the time, I felt like I was doing ok mostly and I loved the whole Path of Frost thing too. Between milling herbs for inks to make glyphs and prospecting ores for gems, she did most of the dungeons in Cataclysm. I almost mogged her too and if you've been reading here or over at AH Addict, you'll know I don't really mog much!

Tidy Tidy!

I took her to Molton Core to farm for Blood of The Mountains - determined to make her the Dark Iron set - until I found out there were replica pieces available from Shattrath vendors! So I sold the Blood of the Mountains for a nice profit and now she's just wearing quest drops again.

So Mists of Pandaria arrived and out came my Paladin again - always my first love, even if I can't play her very well anymore. Oh man did I struggle to get through to 90! I died so many times I felt like she was wearing cloth armor or something. So when it came time to choose my 2nd alt to level, the gold maker in me made me chose the DK - Jewelcrafting & meta gems from drops meant she had to be out in the world but I let my friend talk me into leveling in Blood spec!

Just to try it out, I took her to the Trogg farming place in Deepholm - oh my! that was so much fun! It turns out she's a very neat DK - she likes nice tidy arrangements of dead bodies but sometimes she attracts a little too much attention! She survived though which is something I was never able to do on my Paladin!

She's In There Somewhere!

What a totally different experience that was! She was virtually unkillable in tank spec - slow for sure but I saved so much time not resurrecting every 5 minutes it didn't make that much difference! I  love questing on her now but I still haven't braved any dungeons! I have no idea how to really tank on a DK and I'll be honest - I don't want the nasty people found in randoms to spoil my enjoyment of the class.

I'm planning on dual spec back to Frost though - I want to do stuff on her, just not tank dungeons! She's also my richest alt as JC is still churning in the gold! I should probably treat her to a nice shiny new weapon or something, I think she's earned it!

She's also named after a character in a book - I wonder how many of you recognise it? I thought the ghostly pale skin & the fact that DK's are kind of bad guys was very appropriate so she became one of my 3 alts named after fictional characters. You know me as Nev but that comes from Nevyn - another book character and my priest is yet another but I'll leave her story for her week :)

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