Inspired By Boredom: Professions Day

I have been trying to find a single character to focus on the last few days, but just haven't found the inspiration. So I did my daily cooking quest with Tirron (scored some level 300 recipe from my barrel of fish reward), then just diddled around trying to economically skill up professions on the lowbies.

Flugh - Engineering up to 125, First Aid to 147
Remil - Blacksmithing up to 215 (Mithril Shield Spike finally!), Fishing and Cooking both to 129 (way behind on those)
Shortlock - First Aid up to 196, Mining up to 79 (also quested from level 31 to level 33, woot!)

I really couldn't get into any one thing. Sort of a blah weekend. Ah well, guess I could take a run at real life for a change...

Fishing: Why??

 
Before heading towards the Blasted Lands, I decided to work on Remil's cooking and fishing (trying to get all my alt's skills to at least 25+(level * 5). His fishing and cooking were both right at 100, about 155 points behind. So I headed to Southshore so I could catch and cook a ton of Bristle Whisker Catfish. Fishing, meh. Boring, tedious. Why?? I thought it was funny though, having this big scary plate-wrapped Paladin wielding his fishing pole and hunkering down next to his cooking fire. Rawr.

Nice level-up screenshot...

 I use an addon called "Levelsnap" to automatically take a screenshot when my character achieves a new level. It's really cool if it happens in the middle of a fight and there you are, fighting your way to the next level. While playing with my Undead Warlock, Dotrot (in our Horde Alt guild on Zangarmarsh, KS Horgey), I hit level 23, but not very glamorous circumstances.

Unbelievable Lag!

 I unloaded in Southern Louisiana (near Morgan City), and ended up laying over for the evening. Unfortunately, the AT&T's cellular internet service here is the absolute worst I have encountered so far (aside from just not working at all). My latency went as high as 16,000ms at times. So I logged in my Shaman, one Chestymchoof, figuring the lowbie level 1-10 quests might be doable given my high ping handicap. After a few failed attempts with Dranei, I am committing to getting this guy to at least level 30. Today did NOTHING to make me want to stick it out. Stinkin' lag. I should have been playing via snail-mail.

Anyway, I went from level 2 up to level 6. If it weren't for the lag, I could have probably made it to level 10. Meh.

What a boring post.

The Roguinator: Level 15 and 16!

 
I had over six hours to burn while waiting to load in Houston, Texas today. So I used the time to login and work on my level 14 Rogue, Flugh.

Picking up where he last left off, the intrepid rogue grabbed his blades and headed off to Eastern Loch Modan. There were several quests available at the Farstrider Hunting Lodge, involving the elimination of several Buzzards, Boars, and Crocolisks. During the questing frenzy, Flugh achieved both level 15 and level 16, assigning talent points in his Subtlety tree. Sneak and stab shall prevail :-)

Discovery: Battleground!

  So last night, as I was getting ready for bed (after being up about 20 hours), I decided to finally try this "battleground" thing everyone talks about. Holy cow! I had a blast, staying up another 5 hours doing my best to waste all the Horde's mana, ammo, and durability on me (yeah, I died a LOT). I screenied the best performance of the night. It's Warsong Gulch Weekend, so I stayed in there primarily. We won a few, we lost a bunch. In the end though, I started getting the hang of it. Definitely going to be doing more of this!

Evil Website Account? Hrm...

  I was checking for new forum posts at my guild's website just before bed the other night. Notice the time logged in, with the message count as a bonus.Precious wantses it to log it back in it does yesssss....

Flugh heads to Loch Modan

After finishing up all the quests currently available in Dun Morogh, Flugh made his way to towards Loch Modan, stopping off to deliver a package to Mountaineer Stormpike. There is some work to be done in the Silverlode Mine to the East, but after a couple attempts, entering the cave proved a bit too much for the level 12 rogue. So he settled for sniping kobolds around the mine, collecting their ears along the way.

Our rogue took a break from questing after hitting level 13, spending a few minutes working his fishing and cooking skills up. Then it was back to the task of whipping troggs. The guards in the South Guard tower had a few trogg killing quests available. One very close fight involved 3 troggs. At the end, Flugh was down to 7 health, but managed to pull a gouge/bandage combo that gave him just enough health to come out on top. Probably his most exciting fight so far.

 

The troggs are proving to be tough foes though, as they have handed Flugh several defeats so far today...

I am having a lot of fun with this guy so far, hitting every quest in no particular order. No guides or anything, just enjoying the content. If Flugh hits level 30, I will go ahead and get him invited to the guild, buy his bank slots, and get him some real bags.

Stealthing around Dun Morogh: Another Alt to feed

After rolling up a Dwarven Rogue and questing my way out of Coldridge Valley, I decided to give him a shot at making it to level 20 or so...

Flugh logged in at the Inn in Kharanos. The first item of business was turning in Ammo for Rumbleshot. The little drama that plays on completion is pretty funny. 

After culling the animal population around Kharanos for a few quests, the intrepid rogue headed west towards Brewnall Village to broaden his horizons. On the way, he stopped and took time to raise his fishing skill to 40 (appropriate for level 8), then continued on to Brewnall. There, he collected several quests, including one that would take him into the Frostmane's cave to the west. This is where our adventurer met his first defeat, quickly followed by his second. At that point, the Spirit Healer intervened.

I've started getting the hang of waiting on energy to build up, then doing a gouge/backstab/eviscerate. This seems to be a pretty effective technique at his current level. I really have to get the hang of doing the quick 180 for the backstab though. Also going to Google up a pickpocket/backstab macro (Gweedo mentioned how, but he's not online right now).

(First post using Picasa's Blog This feature)

Westfall Revisited

So I've been taking it easy, just goofing off the last week or two. With the faster leveling changes made with patch 2.3, my alts have been seeing a little action. After doing a little cruising around, I noticed Edrow, my original 63 druid, had never been to The Deadmines and done any of the quests there. So this morning I hit the Messenger, escorted the Traitor, and collected all 5 quests to do down around and in The Deadmines. I'll wait until later tonight maybe to do them. There's probably some guildies with low level alts that need to do them too. Maybe it will be a Deadmines party night... if Deadmines could ever be defined as a 'party' place ;-p

Level 70, FINALLY!

This past Saturday, November 3, I finally found my way to Level 70 with my Night Elf Hunter, Tirron. Thank goodness that is out of the way! Special Thanks go out to my friend Eric, aka Gweedo, for coming out and helping with the Bessie escort quest that put me over the top. The friends in Kindred Sprits have been so cool to play with. I'm sure I would have quit the game long ago if it wasn't for their kinship... Wait, maybe I should be mad about all that time spent playing... Well, anyway... :-)

I went out and bought the flying mount for a big fat 900 gold, taking me down below 100g AGAIN. Before logging off Sunday night, I was back up to over 550 gold. This whole gold instead of experience thing is great! My alts all need a new pair of shoes!

Anyway, just wanted to post something so I'd remember the day. /wave

First visit to Middle-Earth in a while.

I hadn't reinstalled LOTRO since redoing my notebook a few weeks ago. Warcraft has been dominating my gaming efforts, so I didn't feel a need. So this morning during WoW's regular weekly maintenance and restarts, I installed LOTRO, then copied the backup files I burned to DVD before wiping the previous installation.

I found my level 24 Guardian, Flughorin, sitting at the southern edge of the Fields of Fornost. A great area for my level, with several mining nodes and level 25-27 mobs all within close range of vendor NPC, making grinding/selling/repairing very convenient. Half an hour of grinding Barghests and some Oath Breakers got me to level 25, and my total coin up to just over 900 silver. I'll be donating my coin and bank to the kinship here soon, as the upcoming Housing feature will be expensive.

Although lacking much of the fantasy and magic aspects I enjoy in Warcraft, LOTRO is always a relaxing, enjoyable experience for me. My Kinship, Kindred Spirits is a great bunch of people to game with, on both the LOTRO and WOW fronts. These folks help me keep what's left of my sanity while out on the road :-)

Well, back to WOW. Gotta check up on those 85 auctions I posted last night...

A new twist for my paladin.

A while back, Gweedo blogged about Protection Spec'd paladins as a change of pace. My paladin Remil was at about the right level for the respec, so I swung through Stormwind, respec'd putting all 31 points I had into Protection, and thanks to Nihow picked up Thermaplugg's Central Core in Gnomeregan. Willam logged on and put an Iron Shield Spike on the shield for me (me being so dopey didn't realize I could do it myself until later, doh!). So with a Striking enchant on a Tiger mace, I headed out for a little grind.

Man, this is a nice change from the old Crusader/Command Retribution stuff I was doing. Deadmines was a breeze, pulling 10-15 at a time. A trip to Hinterlands to take on some level 42-45 wolves and owlbeasts went well too. I took on an owlbeast 4 levels above me, and finished the fight with over 80% health and mana remaining. As of this morning, just tinkering around has gotten me 1/4 of the way through level 42, just grinding, no deaths, and some time for a blog entry..

Anyway, if you're looking for a new twist on paladin'ing, give it a try.
Guide to Prot Spec Leveling and AoE Hotspots!
The Light and How to Swing It: The sadist's guide to PalAOEadins

Oops, I must have toggled my /kickme flag...

Last night, I was toodling through the Fields of Fornost, just doing some grinding and hoping to find some Oathbreakers I could pummel looking for my Metalsmithing "Ancient Seal" drop. There was a Gold Ore node just ahead, so I took on the critter (4 levels above me) guarding it. After a solid minute of fighting, critter gives up the ghost, I turn towards the ore node, and watch as some Champion comes flitting in and snags the ore. Cool.

So I continue my plight, gathering hides, looking for Oathbreakers. Then I spy someone in trouble, being chased by a big angry bear (was red to me, not sure of the level). He turns straight towards me, and trys to train his mob onto me without so much as a "Sorry" or "Sucks to be you". Luckily this bear didn't have a taste for Dwarf and I got away unscathed.

Finally, after whooping on another beast four levels above me for a minute or so, a helpful Hunter meanders by, apparently doesn't notice I still have at least 60% of my Morale, and helpfully one-shots my mob to death. I'm not too bothered by this, as the guy was just trying to be helpful (a lot better playstyle than my previous two buddies), but the experience reward dropped from 208 to 76 for my 1-minute-plus long fight due to that single shot. Ah well...

So, it just wasn't my night. I scrambled back over to the Provisioner NPC on the west side of the area, sold off my junk (broke 500 silver for the first time), repaired, and called it a night.

Are you living a secret double-life?

While digging through the mailbox on my 38 Gnome Mage, Gnobby, I spied a familiar name hovering over an unfamiliar face. Smile for the camera buddy! Or /dance! ... Wait, that's kind of creepy...

What do they feed those gazelles in the Barrens?

While running around the Barrens with Dotrot (my level 17 Undead Warlock), I spied what I suspected was a taco-eating gazelle! Who pulled his finger??

My first Cow-Tipping expedition

So it was Saturday night at the Petro truckstop in Knoxville, TN. Great connection on the wireless, so I had Ventrilo running and was having a good hangout with my fellow Kindred Spirits. Tirron was nearly to level 40, but I was a little tired of the grind, so out came Edrow and I followed Gweedo to Bloodhoof Village for some shinanigans.

The next hour or so was spent cackling hysterically as I nuked everything my Starfire could 1-shot. Yeah, kind of a jerk thing to do, waiting for a Tauren player to approach the quest NPC before burning the poor NPC down, but somebody had to step up to the plate. Eventually Gweedo headed to Thunder Bluff for bigger and better things (you really should read that, great post) and I headed off to get Tirron logged on and buy his mount before sacking out around 2am.

More later, Safety Man just called me. Time for a random drug test.

No expiration date on Blogger accounts?

It would seem so, as this is the first time in nearly two years I've logged into the account. How lucky the world is to have not lost this resource...

Just reading back over the old posts, Nascar still sucks, Bobbie was back on drugs (drug addicts never change, so if you have one pestering your life, cut them loose and don't look back), and I now live my life through the windshield of my truck and the viewport into Azeroth.

I'm still a loser.