Fashion, or "You're Still Wearing WHAT?!"

I realize that the tabard you got for winning a battleground during the Olympics is all rare and everything . . .

But it's an ugly, ugly tabard, and it's time to put it in the bank.

There are other, better tabards in the world. Find them. Use them. Love them.



This has been a public service announcement on account of me seeing way too many people still wearing that hideous Competitor's monstrosity.

Land of the Fittest, or "Oh, For the Love of God!"

A year ago, one of my husband's best friends left our guild and transferred his main to a high-population PVP server for various reasons, but mainly because our server was too small of a PVP fish for him to be happy.

I'm the exact opposite. Today I got incredibly frustrated over the fact that the ONLY reason I haven't bought Dustfire the title "of the Shattered Sun" is because nobody on my server will understand why I bought it. They'll think "Oh, that's just another moron who has to have the latest fad to show everyone how much money (s)he has." Because that's the only reason to do anything on a PVP server. To figure out whose is bigger.

Even though they'll never read this, allow me to type a message to the impotent losers on my server: Yours is. Because I don't even HAVE one. Idiots.

I don't want to be on a PVP server. I don't like it. I hate the constant aggressiveness and the way even friends seem to be in competition with each other all the time. I hate that I can't dress my characters up in pretty clothes without worrying that someone will come along and laugh at me for having my character in level 24 greens. I hate the gloating of the Haves and the wild vengeful ambition of the Have Nots.

I hate all of it.

It's always a letdown after I come back from my little role-playing breaks on Birdfall.

And the only reason I stay is because people I love are there. I'm not going to leave like my husband's friend did. But if my guild ever falls apart (unlikely, but hey), I'm transferring to a Normal RP server. At least as far as today's mood goes, I am.

[edit] Okay, I won't transfer. Even if my guild falls apart, there's a core group I'll want to stay with no matter what. :P

Brew of the Month, or "Drink for Fun, Drink to Achieve"

The Brewfest post was getting pretty long, so the Brew of the Month Club gets its own post.

If you've done the repeatable quests every day since the first day, you should have 200 tokens on your character. I missed the Dark Iron daily once and have 4 characters with the following amounts: 211, 195, 191, 196.

To be honest, I've never cared about drinking funny drinks to change my look. After my first character, I started passing by the guy with Noggenfogger because, to be honest, it just took up bag space. I don't use vanity food or drinks -- I like to keep them stocked away to look at and think "I'll use them when the time is right," but it seems like there's never a right time. I'm either too busy or the occasion isn't special enough.

So when I advise you to go ahead and get this (200 token!) club membership, you know I'm not doing it because of my insatiable appetite for wacky consumable fun.

I'd Rather Have a Dress

So would I. And you can get it if you don't care about the following things:

1. "Brewmaster" title. Get the club membership first, then concentrate on filling out the other acheivement requirements, and next year you can be "Brewmaster [Character Name]." Getting the acheivement requires patience and a willingness to forgo that beautiful outfit in case, after getting the club membership, you only have enough tokens at the end of the holiday for the hat and shoes (tokens disappear after the holiday, so you should definitely buy what you need before it ends).

2. This wicked awesome Violet Proto-Drake. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the reward for completing all the holiday achievements. He's covered in purply Win:


What If I Don't?

It's up to you. But if you change your mind later, it'll take a full year after the next Brewfest to get the full benefit of the Club Membership achievement. You get a drink a month, and you have to drink all 12 to get the credit for it.

What If I Do?

I come bearing pictures, but the essence is: Pick up the membership, start the quest. Take it to the required person in the city and turn it in. You'll get one new drink on the first of each month and you can head to that same turn-in guy to buy more (but only the ones you've already gotten). You should receive a confirmation mail immediately.

Grats, you rule!

Brewfest 2008, or "Rams and Kodos for Everyone!"

This post will constantly be edited as I see what's new this year.

We've had quite a few things change since the extremely buggy Brewfest 2007. You can exchange last year's tickets for this year's currency by talking to your goodies vendor. He has an option for Ticket Exchange. I got 50 for 50. ^_^

The vendor no longer sells mounts. The boss you can fight drops both the ram and the kodo but each party member can only summon him once a day. The vendor does, however, sell Wolpertingers for 50 silver (no tickets) instead of it being a quest reward.

And the Dark Iron attacks no longer give you tickets per dwarf hit (this has been noted as a bug and might be fixed). It's now all about protecting the kegs and requires a lot of people to help. There is a reward if you succeed.

Quests

S.T.O.U.T. - 10 Prize Tokens - Pick up a mug from the tables behind the quest giver. Click to throw them at a target in front of you. Hit it 5 times.

Bark for ____ [DAILY] - 15 Prize Tokens - Ride a ram to the listed sections of the city (past the Brewfest flags) before the timer runs out. You do not have to turn it in before the timer runs out, just hit those points. Hotkey your reins and keep your speed between the blue and yellow (a buff) and you'll make it just fine. (Do not use the fastest, the red speed, as it will rapidly get your exhaustion to 100 and put a Slow debuff on you.)

Ram Riding Practice - Opens up two other quests.

1. Souveneir This Year - Accept, go turn into the prize vendor. Get this year's stein color and equip it to drink from the kegs.
   
2. There and Back Again - 10 Prize Tokens - Whip your ram into a frenzy of speed on the road to the appropriate town, run into all the barrels of apples you see (make sure you flash red!!), then ride past the guy with an arrow above his head (don't stop, he'll toss you the item), run into the barrel of apples just past him, then run back north, touch all the apples on the way there, pass by your quest guy to turn in the first of the deliveries, and take a second to touch the apples in the stableyard. The apples remove your exhaustion debuff, allowing you to ride at full speed the entire time.
3. There and Back Again [DAILY VERSION] - You talk to the Ram Racing Master and click on his next-day followup (conversation text) asking if you can get him more barrels. He gives you the ram and you run back and forth between the barrel guy and this guy as many times as possible until your ram runs out. You get 2 tokens per turn-in. I got 9 turn-ins, 18 tokens.
   

The Dark Irons Took a Beating [DAILY] - 10 Prize Tickets - If you stop the Dark Iron Dwarves from breaking the kegs (must be a group effort of everyone on the grounds), they drop one of their gears and you can accept the quest to turn in (you don't even have to have been there -- I found it on my warrior after just running up to the camp).

I'll have links to the quests soon.

Prizes

Bought with Prize Tokens which disappear at the end of the holiday.

• Dress & Regalia (200 each)
• Slippers & Boots (100 each)
• Blue, Brown, Green, Purple Hat (50 each)
• Wolpertinger (50 silver)
• "Brew of the Month" Club Membership (200) - Provides you with drinks that do silly things. Don't have all the details at this time.
• Pony Keg (100) - Gives you Brewfest Brew all year long.
• Romance Goggles (100) - Changes all other people into gnomes or orcs (depending on alliance or horde).
• Hops (2, 5, 20) - Changes your mount until you dismount. I don't know the exact difference between the three types other than the fact that the most expensive doesn't disappear after the holiday.

Boss

Coren Direbrew hangs out in BRD. The quest is level 70, the boss is 73 elite, but a good team can 4-man him. I was on my 52 and my family beat him down a bunch (trying to get the Ram mount).

Cosmetic item drops:

Brewfest Ram

Brewfest Kodo

Brewmaiden that Buffs

Brewmaiden that Attacks

Amusement

This was a brief conversation between two guildmates about a serious raiding guild on our server, made around noon the first day of Brewfest. It made me laugh. Because it's true. (It's probably true about a lot of hardcore raiding guilds.)


Achievement: Brewmaster

Can't do it all this year, but you need: 1 outfit, 1 shoes, 1 hat, 1 mount, 1 wolpertinger, 1 "BOTM" club membership, kill Coren Direbrew. (Cost: 550 prize tokens.)

Pirate Day, or "Get Your Buff While You Can"

In pirate news, International Talk Like a Pirate Day has received an in-game nod in the form of pirates standing around willing to give you an hour buff that makes you look like a pirate. Alas, there's nothing more substantial to the holiday at this time, and it only lasts today, but anyone who grinds out Bloodsail reputation should be getting a shiny new title in the expansion.

The Buff: Like your hearthstone or the hour-long Valentines debuff, it keeps counting down while you're logged out. So don't expect to log and continue as a pirate the next day. Also, it does not do anything other than change your physical appearance--including hair, skin, face, and clothes--and shifting form removes it. Your weapons and race remain the same.

Dustfire in the Middle

My Druid, Breaking It Down

[Yes, that's my cute little Netherwhelp. No, it's not her permanent companion. That one will be announced in November.]

Pets Account-Bound, or "I Know They're Going to Nerf This"

Pets you get at Blizzcon or in a Collector's Edition will become heirlooms--meaning you can trade them between characters and thus give all of your characters the "spell" to learn that pet. (Blizzcon pets include Murky, Tyriel's Hilt, and Murloc Suit)

Blue poster Tigole answered the following question with "Sure":

If I move a character with a CE pet to another one of my accounts, do I still have the pet learned? What if I move a character with the account-bound item on it? Could I use this method to move the CE pets around to my different accounts and have all the characters learn them? Intra-account realm moves to have characters learn the pet on different realms on the same account?

If he was being serious and they don't change this, since collector's edition pets will still be mailed to each character as you create them, people could potentially create a horde and alliance level 1, send them all of the CE pets (panda, zergling, mini diablo, netherwhelp, frosty), move them to a new account, and auction that account off on eBay--essentially selling the CE pets to populate whole accounts. (This would not be feasible for the Blizzcon pets, because sending your original away means you can't learn it on any new characters.)

But people who have Murky on all the characters they want it on could sell off a level 1 with the pet item in its bags.

This has been implemented as a way to reduce "Customer Service requests in regards to item restoration" -- a way for players to take care of their own CE pet issues without hassling Blizzard. Thus, since it's being done to make their lives easier and not ours, they have not done this for Trading Card Game pets or mounts. But I have hope. Tigole said "For now it just applies to Blizzard Items or CE items" and I'm hanging onto that "For now" like a kid with a runaway Dragon Kite.

Cooking, or "Chow Down on Some Awesome"

Non-Gamer's Guide to This Post

Cooking is something you can train in the game to make food that gives you more power! Your character sits down and eats this food when he or she right clicks on it. Eat it for 15 seconds and you have a Food Buff.

This is a secondary profession, meaning it does not count toward your two main professions. There are three secondary professions and you can have all three at the same time -- in fact, it's encouraged!

Reasons for cooking: make money, buff food (leveling/instancing/raiding), achievements, fun.

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This guide is going to be a little different from the others, so bear with me. I'm going to list the cooking skill and the items you can/should gather to get through that skill level (linked to the appropriate recipe). The items listed are by no means the only items available, merely the easiest to get. I'm listing several at a time because, while leveling, you'll find an assortment of these things in your bags.

Any recipes that require a vendor or quest instead of a trainer will have a "-Buy" attached (low level cooking quest recipes do not bind on pickup and can be found on the AH).

• 1-30 Spice Bread
• 31-45 Raw Brilliant Smallfish-Buy / Raw Slitherskin Mackerel-Buy / Small Egg / Chunk of Boar Meat
• 46-50 Small Spider Leg-Buy / Stringy Wolf Meat
• 51-90 Raw Longjaw Mud Snapper-Buy / Raw Rainbow Fin Albacore-Buy / Clam Meat / Coyote Meat
• 91-120 Raw Sagefish-Buy / Crawler Claw-Buy / Boar Ribs / Crocolisk Meat-Buy
• 121-150 Gooey Spider Leg-Buy / Big Bear Meat-Buy
• 151-175 Tender Crocolisk Meat-Buy /Lion Meat-Buy
• 176-215 Raw Mithril Head Trout-Buy / Raw Greater Sagefish-Buy / Mystery Meat-Buy / Raptor Flesh-Buy
• 216-225 White Spider Meat
• 225 Artisan Quest: 12 Giant Egg, 10 Zesty Clam Meat, 20 Alterac Swiss
• 225-250 Raw Glossy Mightfish-Buy / Raw Redgill-Buy / Raw Spotted Yellowtail-Buy / Giant Egg-Buy / Tender Wolf Meat-Buy
• 251-275 Raw Sunscale Salmon-Buy / Raw Nightfin Snapper-Buy / Bear Flank (caster & melee)-Buy
• 276-300 Raw Whitescale Salmon-Buy / Darkclaw Lobster-Buy / Large Raw Mightfish-Buy
• 301-320 Barbed Gill Trout-Buy / Spotted Feltail-Buy / Buzzard Meat-Buy / Jaggal Clam Meat-Buy / Ravager Flesh-Buy
• 321-340 Figluster's Mudfish-Buy / Icefin Bluefish-Buy / Chunk o' Basilisk-Buy
• 325-335 Raw Golden Darter-Buy/ Talbuk Venison*-Daily
• 336-355 Raptor Ribs-Quest / Serpent Flesh-Quest
• 356-375 Crawdad**-Quest / Barbed Gill Trout

*Talbuk Venison can make either stamina or hit food, and hit food is by FAR the most valuable raid food in existence. Do NOT make +stam food with this until something in Wrath replaces it.
**Requires flying mount.

Role Playing Girls, or "Giving Married Couples a Whole New Set of Problems"

So my husband and I are role-playing a pair of female night elves, and I have to constantly fight the urge to toss /love and /kiss at him in game. Because that would bring up some really awkward questions about the characters' relationship.

The basic story is that my Birdfall was a little girl at the same time as one other girl in her area -- Mistwing -- and the two played together as they grew up. Their personalities mesh really well -- Birdfall enjoys silence and Mistwing is mute. Though we still haven't figured out why Mistwing is a mute (working on it), the two women communicate without words -- not by telepathy or anything silly like that but by simple understanding. They know each other so well, and have lived without words for so long, that they don't need words.

My favorite moment in deciding all of this was when I described Mistwing as fairly feminine in the way she dressed and acted, whereas Birdfall tries to meld with her surroundings, to my sister-in-law. She had just described her character as hating anything feminine, and thus said "I LOVE that your husband is the girliest one of the bunch."

^_^; Yes. I made him a girly girl. WOO!



A big thank you to my hubby who allows me to publicly humiliate him for my own amusement. /hugs /loves

Harvest Festival, or "Might Be Good for an Acheivement"

You get a special item that makes food that replenishes 2% health over time. Pretty bleh. But with the new patch coming soon and Achievements arriving with prizes like pets, mounts, and titles for us to salivate over, it's worth doing what we can now to prevent waiting another year to get that sweet-sweet Achievement love out of the way.

Levels 30+ have best success rate, but if a lower level is willing to corpse-hop a bit, you'll be on roads until the last little section.

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Alliance

Go to Ironforge, talk to the guy right outside and get "Honoring a Hero."

Head to Western Plaguelands (you can ride north from Southshore into Alterac Mountains, then take the eastern fork into W.P.) and get the Flight Path at Chillwind Camp.

There are various ways of getting in -- some suggest going north around the town of level 50+ mobs, some say just keep going through death and armor breakage. I kept to the hills to the south (level 39) on my mount and only aggroed two mobs, but I lost them by the time I got to the tomb because I kept running. That's my path in the image. Didn't take very long except for the pulling my hair out over all the conflicting directions on Wowhead.

Use the item on his tomb and return to the guy at Ironforge.

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Horde

Head out front of Orgrimmar and talk to the guy. Pick up "Honoring a Hero."

Head to Ashenvale (follow the road north out of the Barrens and then east along the southernmost range; if you have the Splintertree Post flightpoint, head southeast on the road until you get between the two rivers and then go straight south) and you should hit a bunch of level 30 demons -- look for a path going south into the mountains with more demons and head in there. Take the western fork to its end.

Use the item in front of the monument and return to the guy at Orgrimmar.

PVP for You and Me, or "A New Reason Not to Roll PVP"

A while back I had a post about PVE vs PVP servers and how PVP servers no longer serve their original purpose as the only available PVP a player can have (since now we have battlegrounds and arenas).

Today, Blizzard announced that people from PVE (or "Normal") servers can pay to transfer to PVP (formerly not an option), and my 3 reasons to roll PVP were reduced to 2:

Learn to play your class in high-intensity conditions, thus becoming better at your class faster. I personally think that you can learn to play your class just as well in battlegrounds. Twinks are similar to high levels in that they have an unfair advantage and you have to figure out how to withstand them, and you can forge your skills on a fairly even field of battle.

Get bragging rights with all the schmoes who actually care whether or not you had to withstand massive gankings like they did. These guys are the ones who make fun of you for pretty much any reason they can yank out of their pasty white rears. They'll be the ones going "HAHA, you don't have the max gold limit and I do, HAHA!" They have no life and their opinions don't matter. Don't waste your time trying to impress them, because you will ALWAYS fail, even if you accomplish everything in the game they have and even some they haven't. They will never ever respect anyone other than themselves.

So, yeah, if you have the $25 per character to level PVE and then transfer, I say go for it. Take it easymode, because the only people who will grief you for it are the ones nobody likes anyway.

Application Tips, or "How to Bluff Your Way Into a Guild"

We all realize that not everyone is a perfect fit for what they want. Sometimes you have to fudge things a little, take liberties with your experience, say what people want to hear. This is true for job interviews and this is true for guild applications.

As the person who manages my guild's applications, I can assure you that we can tell if you didn't try. For example, we have an "in depth" section of the application. If applicants write 5-word answers to all of the "in depth" questions, it's kind of obvious that they . . . well, they just aren't trying. And if they aren't trying, then they must not care. And if they don't care, then we don't have to either.

/facepalm
/castsequence [target=Application, exists, lame] Spit, Spit, Shove in Trash, Set Trash on Fire

I've seen some interesting things -- people who have friends in the guild and just don't bother filling out more than their name and level and expect me to let them in anyway, people who obviously haven't read anything about who we are or what we do but expect their generic answers to sate me, and one guy who gquit and wanted to return but just copied and pasted someone else's application who returned successfully.

The people who review your application do not have the word "Stupid" on their foreheads. In fact, they can tell when you think they do have "Stupid" tatooed somewhere on their body, and they take glee in casting the above macro on your app.

Any guild that has an application is likely to take that application seriously, and doing a lazy job of it is a gamble you're taking -- the gamble that they care about their app as little as you do. But, if that was true, they wouldn't have an app.

So take your time. Read the questions and mull over them for a day. Read their website and understand who and what they are. See if they're really worth the trouble of applying. If they are, do it right, make it persuasive, describe yourself in a way to fit what they want in a member, and let them know this is something you want, not something you're "meh" about. If they aren't something you want, then don't waste your time applying. And don't waste theirs.

Do it right or don't do it at all.

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Tips

Applying to a guild is like trying out for a job. Both will take one look at you and form an opinion, and it's up to you to make that first impression the best you can. It is not the guild's job to accept you just because you spent hours filling out their 5 page application and 7 bonus essay questions.

• Know what they want and strive to be it. For raiding guilds, this means hitting a certain level of stats and experience and proving you know your class (never apply to a raiding guild if you don't meet their guidelines). For social guilds, it means proving you're a pleasant person who would mesh well in their social context.
• Be charming and persuasive. I've found that the best applicants try to convince me that they're good for my guild but that they don't expect to be handed invites -- they assure me that they would be honored to get one and are waiting patiently and humbly for my decision. They put the power in my hands while assuring me that they are willing to love my guild as much as I do, that it's exactly what they've been looking for.
  
• Pay attention to the questions. The applications I usually reject are the ones that give me very little information, those who don't read the questions thoroughly and are obviously skimming and trying to just get it over with. It might just be poor writing skills, but it translates as laziness, boredom, and stupidity. If you aren't the best wordsmith, have a friend proofread it and make suggestions. It'll take time but will seriously increase your chances of getting in the guild. And if that's what you care about, then you'll do it.
• Don't be fake. Yes, I told you to be what they want, but that doesn't mean lie. Rather, focus on the things about yourself that they would be interested in. In a family guild application, describe your family. In a raiding guild, give them facts they can hang their raiding caps on. Put yourself in a light that catches their attention while still being honest about yourself.
• Don't be a jerk. Don't brag, don't whine, don't put down your last guild, don't gossip, and don't insult any other classes. I haven't had much of a problem with this because our guild is built to be unfun for jerks and very fun for nice people. But some guilds find applicants who do nothing but praise themselves and put others down, and that is never the way to impress anyone. It just turns people off.
• Follow instructions. If there are rules or tips you need to read before applying, read them. Don't just assume that you know what you're doing. A lot of applications have a secret "answer question 15 with 'Moo I'm a Pretty Girl'" or something to catch people who haven't read the rules. A little time now saves a lot later.
  

Feel free to add your thoughts. :) That's all I could think of off the top of my head.

Triple XP Followup, or "Hit 30 in Less Than a Day"

A follow-up to this post about the recruit-a-friend XP Bonus. My character and my husband's.

Birdfall (Level 30)

Total Time Played: 51 Hours
1-25 Normal, 25-30 Triple XP

Mistwing (Level 30)

Total Time Played: 19 Hours
1-30 Triple XP

Real Life Birdfall, or "What Do You Look Like?"

I was tinkering with Modelviewer and thought "I could make a me!"

I'm a lot like the human female model, but not nearly as "gifted." I'm tall, have a pretty typical Scottish-influenced complexion (red hair and blue eyes), and am "cute" more than pretty.

Here's an example:

I like wearing hats. I only have two that I would wear all the time, but they're winter hats. And since I work at home, I can obviously slum around in my pajamas until I have to leave for church or to get necessary food supplies. >_>

Here's another version, using all in-game items (flying tiger goggles):


That's a lot like my hair when it's down. Everyone tells me I have nice hair. And I part it like that.

Cluck for Horde, or "Supplying Your Guild with Chickens"

What am I talking about? Why, the quest to get a chicken pet! Warcraftpets.com tells us that you can't get a chicken with your horde character--you can do the quest but the chicken turns hostile when it's time to turn the quest in for the egg. Rather, you get an alliance character (any level) to do the quest. The chicken drops the egg and anyone can pick it up. Even horde.

I did the quest for free for my guild with my husband's referral account, but if you have an alliance account you could ostensibly do it for the horde on your server and accept tips on your main (PVP servers only, otherwise everyone can just do it themselves). Chicken feed is just 25 copper. Just form a raid group, get them to the farmhouse, and tell them when the egg is up. /point at a character to pick it up if you don't use vent. :) Happy clucking!

I took pictures for proof. The chickens below the horde characters are their pets, not the farm chickens. I'm targeting the farm chicken. :)