Cockroach Merchant, or "Ew Ew Ew Ew Ewwwww!"

Yes, one of the available horde pets is, in fact, a cockroach.

Rated R, or "How Blizzard Can't Control Everything"

Offensive content in Warcraft goes back to money.

1. Plenty of guys like to play a game with a sexy succubus, low-cut clothes on women, and other somewhat-offensive things, so Blizzard isn't going to take them out because they mean cash.
2. Blizzard isn't willing (able?) to spend enough cash to properly monitor things like guild names, character names, or player chat, especially when technical issues take priority.

I'm usually much more concerned about the content of other people rather than game content. The game itself is rated T (for teen!) for a reason, but players, through general chat, whispering, and even personalized emotes, can bump that up to Mature.

For people like me, cursing and vulgarity are just facts of gameplay that I have to put up with. For the other side, it's sensitive prudes that like to click on the red question mark and write up reports. (You can never make everyone happy. Blizzard is doing it's best, but in the end, it's still a company. Money will come first.)

I've only reported two things so far in the game. Both have been people joking about rape in public. See, I can deal with some sketchy language and sexual humor. I'm a Christian and kind of sensitive, but I know that it's inevitable and I just try to ignore it. Some of the tamer stuff can even make me chuckle, like the popular guild "Two Dollar Horde" that was forced to change its name recently.

But there are some things you just don't joke about. You don't joke about the dead, you don't joke about cancer patients, and you DON'T joke about rape. I don't think those guys realized how disturbing a concept rape is for women. It is ugly, it is cruel, and it is degrading. And you do not -- YOU DO NOT! -- joke about it. Ever.

I mean, I don't expect everyone to be squeaky-clean (or even competent -- see other venting posts), but I at least expect a little humanity.

Prank, or "Attack of the Clones"

To explain this properly, I have to tell you that my blood elf is named Dustfire and that I play horde on a different realm with a large amount of friends.

Well, after the Ïmpŗŏvίŝέ post, Thesden and Latoria decided it would be fun to play a trick on me. Now, they'd decided not to play with us Saturday evening, but I had told them we would be outside Ragefire Chasm in case they changed their minds.

They didn't, but they did decide to pop on for a short amount of time to mess with my head.

Imagine my surprise when I ran into an exact duplicate of me named Düstfirë. Same face, hair, earrings, skin. Same class. But she was level 1, and I was level 13.

Crazy Cat Lady, or "My Personal Heaven"

I wish I could be the crazy cat lady. Not only does she have tons of cats running around, she gets to wear a pink shirt. The best of both worlds.

She sells only four types of cats: Bombay (grey/black), Silver Tabby (white/grey), Cornish Rex (white/orange), and Orange Tabby (orange). You can see examples of all four in the second screenshot. Cornish Rex is up by the fireplace.

36 silver each.

The house is just south of the gate to Northshire Valley, the human starting area. I took the first screenshot with my back toward the gate. Just look for a cow pen with lots of cats running around it.

Naming, or "What I Want is Taken, So I'll Ïmpŗŏvίŝέ"

In general, it's really hard to name your characters because a lot of the best names are taken (and names can't be repeated). Fortunately for everyone, there are a few easy ways to get around this.

Trick 1: Replace certain vowels or letters with a tricked-out counterpart from another language. (Example: Ïmpŗŏvίŝέ)

Trick 2: Pick a name that isn't actually a name. (Examples: Ikillhorde, Imterrific, Hotnightelf, Killerdwarf, Maneatingtiger)

Trick 3: Add an extra letter to the beginning or end of a name. (Examples: Ssteve, Xxmoonlightxx, Ddurr)

Trick 4: Pick a name that nobody else would ever want ever. (Example: Dungpoop)

Trick 5: All of the above. (Example: Ïέatdungpŏŏpp)

Now, some of the things people come up with can be pretty creative and funny, like the screenshot I took of Huntyou, who belongs to The Lustful Knights. That just fits.

But what really gets to me is when I see someone with a name like Dungpoop at level 65. Making a character with a dumb name like that and running it for a few levels before the joke wears out is one thing. But taking it all the way to 70? What are these people thinking?! I mean, I guess they're 8 years old or something, for it to last so long. But why isn't their mother coming in and giving them that look parents get -- you know the look. The one that makes you pick up all of your toys even though they haven't said a single word.

I really just want Blizzard to ban all of the characters with misspelled or dumb names. That, or go in and change it to something reasonable.

I, for one, refuse to group with anyone with a bodily function in their name. Thank you very much.

Lunar Festival, or "Finding Your Sugar Daddy"

Lunar Festival is an event, as defined in the Valentines post. It celebrates the lunar new year.

The fun part is that they have a lot of neat clothes, like pink dresses and black pantsuits. You need 5 coins per outfit, and you can get all of the clothing colors if you have enough coins. For example, I had my priest get both the pink and purple dresses, and together they were 10 coins.

Where do you get the coins? From daddy, of course. Daddy being over 70 "elders" spread across the world. Each elder gives you one coin, making me think of teenage girls asking dad for money to go shopping.

It is definitely beneficial to have traveled a good deal prior to this, otherwise you'll be walking everywhere.

Yes, you can get coins from elders without doing anything else Lunar Festival-ish. When you get the coins, take them to a giant moon portal thing (I've seen one in Darnassus and one in Stormwind) and do the very easy quest (shooting off fireworks) to get the invitation to Moonglade. Then click it while standing in the giant moonbeam and run north-ish to town. The guy you want is in the northeast corner of town, on the docks. I included a picture of him.

Men and women can wear both types of clothing, but they are soulbound, so you can't pick some up for a friend.

Tip: Ctrl-Click on the outfits to preview how they'd look on your character.

Annoying Zulox, or "Taurens are BIG!"

Non-Gamers' Guide to This Post

Camping: Killing a non-player character (NPC), then waiting for respawn so you can kill it again, and again, and again.
Quest Giver: There are certain NPC's that you have to talk to when you want to get or complete a quest. They have yellow exclamation points or question marks over their heads.
PVP: Player-vs-player. You can flag for pvp on a normal server and attack or be attacked by any other player flagged for pvp. PVP servers auto-flag you when you go into certain territories.

-------------------------

We were on Fenris horde for a while, and my husband and I played Taurens. (I think Tauren girls are so cute!) And we were in a little party with our new guild and trying to get this quest at the Crossroads so we could go into Wailing Caverns. But there was a group of PVP alliance killing all of the non-player characters, including our quest guy!

The main camper was Zulox, a shadow priest. Even though five horde players were standing around the remains of the quest-giver, waiting for him to respawn, Zulox would dance off, come back, and kill him as soon as he could. Though we got the quest done anyway by waiting for the respawn and doing our stuff as fast as possible, it was annoying that Zulox came and re-killed him every time.

Now, if you haven't played Warcraft, or if you just haven't seen a tauren male yet, here's a picture. Tauren males are bigger than EVERYONE else. Everyone. They're not just big, they're BIG.

Priests, or "HEAL ME!"

Non-Gamers' Guide to This Post

Aggro: Stepping too close to an enemy so that it detects and attacks you. It will follow you if you run, but will stop following after a certain amount of time.
Murlocs: A shore-dwelling enemy with a very distinctive battle cry. The cry sounds like gargling, and the boss name "Mmmrrrggglll" is funny because that is a phonetic reproduction of the murloc aggro sound.

--------------

Priests can be designed to focus on either healing or damage, though they are the very best healing class in the whole game. So when other players see a priest, they assume "healer." Now, I have a Shadow Priest, a priest that is being designed to officially "melt faces." And I was whacking some murlocs, waiting around for Mmmrrrggglll to show up so I could kill him for a quest, and this hunter came along whacking murlocs of his own. (Yes, I died while taking these pictures. Yes, it was totally worth it.)

Night Elves, or "The Dumbest Race"

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm a night elf. I like night elves. I have friends who are night elves. But something about this race draws a sliver of people that aren't so much mean or vicious or cruel as just . . . well, dumb. My brother said some people play night elves because they want to be like Legolas. His wife said it was because all the elf girls are the most attractive.

Let's call it the "Legolas Syndrome." New players buy Warcraft, say "Oooh! Night Elves!" and make it their first character. Not evil, per se. You have to start somewhere.

The problem is when these same people get in your way. For instance, today I was doing a quest that another guy was obviously doing too. I was lvl 18, he was lvl 17, and we were both tough enough to do the quest on our own if we laboriously killed off the furbolgs one by one. So I offered to group with him and gave him an invite.

He joined me without saying a word, and helped me kill the baddie that came after I opened up my bowl of cleansing on the camp. Then I waited for him to do the same, which called the boss a second time (this was necessary). He never said a word this whole time, mind you, and the quest item appeared in a little basket by the fire as soon as the baddie appeared, right? And instead of helping me finish off Mr. Big and Bad, this idiot goes after the basket (which I haven't even touched, even though I had time to) and LETS ME DIE! I start running away, and this guy gets up to lay the final stroke on Mr. Big and Bad JUST as Mr. Big and Bad kills me.

And I wanted to strangle him. Instead, I ran back to my body, checked to make sure I got the quest done, asked him if he'd gotten it done, but he didn't say anything except "help," so I killed the thing that was killing him and left the group since it was obvious that he'd finished the quest, because I died while he was finishing the quest.

I was really annoyed.

My husband says I'm too nice. I think I am. Anyone else would have told that guy off, but I just ran back to town and got on here to rant. So. Rant, rant, rant.

There, I feel better.

Prairie Chicken, or "You're Pulling My Leg, Aren't You?"

Non-Gamers' Guide to This Post

Pets: You can get small, useless pets that look cute and follow you around in Warcraft. You get them a variety of ways, through quests or vendors or rare drops from monsters.

These little pets have nothing to do with the kind of fighting pets you can get as a hunter. These are just decoration.

------------------------

I got a chicken. Not so much because I wanted it as I wanted to see if the quest to get it was real. Because here's the thing: You have to cluck at a random chicken (/chicken at any random chicken in Westfall or Elwynn) many times in a row to get the quest.

Yes, you heard me. You have to find a chicken and make a fool of yourself at it to get the quest. The end prize is your very own chicken, and you're only out a little dignity and 25 copper at the end of the quest.

Valentines Event, or "I'll Pay You 1 Silver for a Guard's Card"

Non-Gamers' Guide to This Post

Warcraft usually has events that correspond with holidays. You can get details on these events by visiting the official Event Calendar.

----------------

It seems as if love isn't all that's in the air this holiday season. Greed has shown its ugly green face in the form of people trying to trade Valentines items for cash.

I myself was approached by a guy in the Auction House who opened a trade window and gave me a heart candy. I thanked him, thinking "This is the holiday spirit!"

Then he tried to give me more but wouldn't trade until I greased his palm a little. ("Pay me," he said. Really, it was so romantic I almost swooned.)

Love and Kittens, or "Further Adventures in Pinkness"

So the other day I saw another guild with a pink tabard called "Love and Kittens." One of its male members was getting down in nothing but his tabard while drinking Warcraft booze. Alongside him was a female character (played by a guy, maybe?) that somebody paid to dance in nothing but a pink shirt.

So if you're wondering why I didn't ask to interview "Love and Kittens," that'd be why.


In other news, my amazing sister-in-law just sent my priest (a tailor) the recipe for how to make pink shirts. Only problem is that the recipe requires 235 skill and my tailor is at 125.

15x Mageweave Cloth (or) 3x Mageweave Bolt

--------------------------------------

Have YOU seen anything pink on your realm? Does your guild have a pink tabard? Reply to this post and tell your story.

Guild Interview, or "Rocking with the Very Pink 'Snugglebunnies of Doom'"

I'd been going on and on and on about pink tabards to my husband, so the other day when he was in Stormwind, he cried out, "I just saw someone with a pink tabard!"

I leaped out of my chair and ran over, demanding, "Who? Where? Show me!"

"They ran off," he replied.

"Follow them!" I screeched, gripping the back of his chair.

Instead, he opened the Social panel while I asked him questions like "How pink was it? Was it bright pink or soft pink? Because I like soft pink. What was the icon? What was the design?"

"It was pink. Just pink," he said, sounding harassed as he searched for her character level in the Who tab. He'd remembered her level, and he knew the name when he saw it.

"There," he said, pointing. "Her name is Frãye and she belongs to 'Snugglebunnies of Doom.'"

Dating, or "How to Ask a Girl Out Without Getting a Double-Handed Axe in the Chest"

I recently addressed this question on the WoW Forums (a guy asked for help with a girl he liked), but the thread was quickly deleted. Maybe it was the subject of dating that Blizzard didn't like or maybe (and it had better be this) it was the asinine, hey-baby answers the poor guy got.

But I did my best. And here's a cleaned-up version of what I told him.

Montage at 13, or "Look at pictures of Birdfall!"

Screenshots: You can take a screenshot in the game by hitting the [Print Scrn] key on your keyboard. Then go into your World of Warcraft folder on your computer and find the Screenshots folder. They'll be in .tba format, but I change mine to .png with Paint Shop Pro.

Level 12-13 Gallery

There will be other galleries and photo ops as things progress. I just thought these were pretty, especially with the sunsets. The in-flight pictures are me heading for Darkshore. Please excuse the down-the-vest one. I'm getting a shirt to go under it. (Birdfall just isn't that type of girl.)

Guilds, or "Where are All the Pink Tabards?"

I admit it. I'm a girly-girl. I like baking, kittens, and wearing ruffled skirts. The first time I learned you could have a white kitten as a pet, I shrieked (with joy) and scared my husband half to death. I almost rolled on the floor in excitement, which isn't exactly "rolling on the floor laughing," but is about as close as I'll ever get to it. (Thank God.)

So my question is, where are all the pink tabards? Does anyone have a pink tabard? I went and looked at the tabard designs, dreaming of what might be, and this is what I came up with.

/flirt, or "Boys Like Naked Night Elves"

Non-Gamers' Guide to This Post

/flirt is a command that produces a flirting action. If you have another character selected, then you will flirt with that character.
------------------------------

I've found a few things to be true as I, a girl, play Warcraft.

1. Male characters are very likely to /flirt with me. (Though I never encourage this.)
   
2. Male characters are much more likely to talk to me (I've had many random players ask me for help or just start chatting with me, but this has only occasionally happened to my husband -- he is more often approached for money).
3. Male characters, whether they /flirt with me or just chat, are likely to run off without another word immediately after I tell them I'm married.
4. I feel safer talking to other girl characters, because girls are less intimidating to me (even if the player is male).
   
5. Male characters who have played with me in a group (even with my husband in the same group) are more likely to talk to me again than any of the other players, even if I didn't say much while in the group.

Noob-Wrangling, or "I Feel Like I'm Back in Highschool"

Non-Gamers' Guide to This Post

Noob is a term used for new players. Personally, I think it's a dumb word. Like the word "blog." It just sounds ugly. Like someone should be vomiting when they say it.
The highest level you can get used to be 60, but it's 70 if you have the expansion pack.
lol means "Laugh Out Loud" and has really started to get on my nerves. You shouldn't "Laugh Out Loud" unless you're actually laughing out loud. And please don't get me started on "Rolling on the Floor Laughing."
-------------------------------------

The fact of the matter is that I'm a 23 year old married woman who plays this game with her husband, brother, and sister-in-law. I'm shy and responsible and polite, I was raised in a southern Christian home, and both "southern" and "Christian" ought to imply that I've had impeccable hospitality training.

/yell, or "Help Me and I'll Give You Stuff"

Non-Gamers' Guide to This Post

/yell is a chat command that sends your text over a broader area and turns it red, so it shows up brightly among the softer-colored chat text.
Realms are just different servers you can play on, so that one server doesn't get overloaded with people. Everything (land, quests, etc) is the same on each server, but the players and sometimes what you can attack (just enemies or other players) are different. Anvilmar and Fenris are realms.
-------------------------------------

I used to run Birdfall on Fenris. I'd gotten her up to level 15, but my family and friends decided our Alliance characters should be on Anvilmar, and I was too cheap to pay $25 to move one Night Elf. So I said to myself, "Self, how can I benefit others when I delete this character?" So I went to the cave with the spiders, in Aldrassil, the very first Night Elf area, and yelled "Help me! Help me! Please, someone help!"