Fashion in the Cities, or "Pretty Princess Dress Up RP!"

I'd like to see roleplayers able to "enlist" in their city guard and get the appropriate title and gear.

Right now, only plate-wearers can have the full effect for most of these outfits, and several of the outfit pieces don't have great alternatives.

I included options for the few places where nothing quite fits, and highly recommend you look over weapons for your own favorites. Often, a simple white or grey item will serve just as well as the fancy stuff.

I scanned through hundreds, maybe thousands, of clothing items to find the best matches. If you want further alternatives, I can't remember any without re-scanning. Feel free to download WoW Model Viewer to do your own searches.

Novelty Policies, or "Nepotism or Good Sense?"

I read over the Azure Drake details (1.2% drop on Malygos 25) on Wowhead and came across the following comment that got voted down and heckled:

Droped for my guild last night.Rolls were limited to guild members of certain rank or above. I got really lucky and snagged this bad boy. This is by far the most sexy mount in my colection and dare I say in game...

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People shouldn't have heckled until they found out what the rank was, honestly. It could be anything from "full member" to "veteran member" to "GM only." And each deserves different feedback. As for the fairness of guild policy -- as long as the policies are in writing, discriminated members can't complain when the roll goes the way it was designed. They had their chance to complain or gquit when they heard about it. If they don't like it when it happens, they're morons for being lazy and not fighting it sooner (or, OMG, even reading it).

Wanted Tags, or "Can Has Fun?"

Emotes that might help alliance/horde relations:

/kos - "[Player] thinks you are kill on sight."
/warn - "[Player] issues you a warning."
/grin - (NEEDS FIX) - "[Player] grins at you."
/accident or /oops - "[Player] didn't mean to do that to you."
/safe or /noharm - "[Player] means you no harm."
/gather - "[Player] is gathering." / "[Player] thinks you are gathering."
/space - "[Player] gives you space."
/tsk - "[Player] shakes his/her head at you. Tsk tsk!"

Perhaps you could even add certain words to change an emote, like:

/polite - "[Player] makes polite motions at you."

• /politespit - "[Player] politely spits."
• /politenod - "[Player] politely nods."

/wicked - "[Player] feels wicked."

• /wickedgrin - "[Player] grins wickedly."
• /wickedspit - "[Player] spits wickedly."

/cute - "[Player] thinks you are being cute."

• /cutespit - "[Player] spits cutely."
• /cutecurtsey - "[Player] curtsies cutely."
• /cutelisten - "[Player] listens cutely."

Onyxia 10, or "Did I Just Have . . . A GOOD TIME Raid Healing?!"

I have three 80s: a raid character (Dusty), a PVP character (Plum), and a character that stands around looking pretty (Birdy). They have their jobs and I try to stick to them.

I'm also spoiled. I admit it. I usually only do things with my brother and his wife, who've raid-healed over half of our guild's 10-mans for Wrath; my husband, who keeps his gear in sparkling shape; and my husband's best friend, who has 8 characters and reasonable raid gear on all of them (yay alt raids).

I also spent months pimping out my raid character's shadowy dps gear to get my pretty bird (yes, that's how to get me to care about gear), so she's now fit to enter and pwn any of the current raids. She even occasionally heals 5-mans (dual spec ftw!), but that's rare because I have the 2 best raid healers in the guild in my immediate family (I'm totally biased, but they really are very skilled and experienced).

Nice to the Enemy, or "A Good Reputation is Worth Its Wait in Thorium"

I saved an alliance today. A level 44 in Un'goro was dying to a pterrordax and I saved him while farming thorium for Cataclysm.

My husband's best friend would say to kill them all, they deserve it, then shake his head at my live and let live philosophy. His thing is that he's a paladin and leveled up before that little OP spike in early Wrath, so he hates PVP as much as I do, except that he never survives a world fight and I sometimes do.

I've killed maybe 3 or 4 lowbies in my time, but for the most part I'll help them if they don't meet any of my auto-gank criteria.

The thing is, I want a good reputation. I told husband "I realize that they have horrible people, but they're not all bad, and I want to be the better person."

Now that I have pretty bird, I'm a little more visible on my server, a little more memorable, and I frankly don't want a rep as a huge ganking b-word.

So I try to be nice, because being a good person (and being seen as a good person) matters to me.

Just, you know . . . don't get between me and a rich thorium node.

Farming Multitask, or "How to Soften the Grind"

You have two great options.

If your system can handle it, watch a movie while you grind. Do this by going into your login screen, click "Options," and choose windowed mode. Squish your screen down and have the movie (or TV series) running below it on your screen. How big do the mobs have to be, honestly, for you to kill and loot?

If your system can't handle video+WoW, try some radio programs or audio books. Your local library is almost sure to have popular books on CD that you can check out (from Stephen King to Twilight) and my husband loves to listen to This American Life, which streams shows for free from their website. I personally have all of the Lake Wobegon discs on my Amazon wishlist because Garrison Keillor cracks me up.

The only drawback is you can't watch anything subtitled.

My Current Faves:

• Eastwick
• 10 Things I Hate About You
• Sunny With A Chance
• Vampire Diaries
  

Rewatching:

• Buffy
• Veronica Mars
• Firefly
  

Stuff I have to wait and watch with husband:

• Everything else.

WoW Financial, or "How WoW Economy Can Apply to Life"

I'm always amused by the irony that despite how much I hate math and how much my husband loves math, I'm the household financial guru.

I've been listening to financial guy Dave Ramsey, who offers strategies to "be a millionaire by retirement" in completely legal and tidy ways, and what he says about real world money can easily be applied to Warcraft money. (I'm less interested in riches and more interested in stability, but what the hell. I've always wanted to be rich so I can give to charities. Is that weird?)

The big super-secret financial tip? Work hard and don't do anything stupid.

He says it's not hard but you need to educate yourself on money just like anything else in life. Throwing your money around with no clue what you're doing is the easiest way to lose it.

New LFG, or "Does This Bode Well?"

One of the reasons my friends don't pug on Zuluhed is that the pugging climate is terrible. Anyone worth pugging with has a guild and doesn't need to pug, and the people who want to pug are mostly the server ninjas.

The next patch gives us a new Looking for Group interface, where you queue with people from other servers in a massive pool of pugging.

No waiting, no mess.

Quite a few of the comments on the WoW Insider post were "Can't we limit the pug to our own server?" Which defeats the purpose, I think. You could just ask in general and trade for that. (Of course, everyone will be pugging with this system, so... yeah.)

Achieve This, or "Flaws of the System"

My brother is planning to switch his class again in the next expansion pack. He had a warlock in BC, a paladin in Wrath, and he's thinking druid for Cataclysm. It's not his altaholism or even the desire to try something new.

It's simply that he hasn't found his perfect fit yet.

Today, discussing his move to druid, he said "I hate losing my progress and achievements."

I got to talking with husband about it and discovered that the achievement system is, in fact, flawed. Achievements were my big reason for Blizz to add race changes, but what if it isn't your race that's the problem? What if it's your class?

Far from suggesting paid class changes, I think we need to take a look at the way the achievement system works for (and detracts from) people who want to change their main.

Hallow's End 2009, or "Trick or Treat is Awfully Sweet"

Peruse Hallow's End 2008 for more concise quest and achievement listings.

First things first:

• Grab a pug for the level 80 boss in Scarlet Monastery for his kill achievement (75+ can have summons). You'll have more success getting a pug these first two or three days from a major city.
  
• Every hour, trick or treat at an innkeeper for the bag of super-goodies.

Pets DO Fly, or "That Guy Was Right"

One of my commenters was all "Flying pets fly now" and I was like "No way" but I forgot to check.

Then I flew off something high and my phoenix hatchling followed.

O.O


Hey, look, proof.

DND, or "Chatting With The Fam"

Non-Gamers' Guide to This Post

If you type "/dnd" it puts you on "Do Not Disturb" for anyone who whispers you.

You can add details to the DND if you wish, like "/dnd Eating" or "/dnd Moo" which will show up as "[Character] does not wish to be disturbed: Moo"

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

I have a policy:

Never ever ever ever ever do anything during PMS week.

I broke this policy last week. My brother ran an impromptu VOA, then we went to TOC and I had fun there even though I don't love the place.

Mr. Chilly, or "Hey, Wait, Wut?"

Um... I guess it's a Battle.net deal (yep). If you have a merged WoW/Battle.net account, from today to Nov 11, you get a Mr. Chilly. He looks just like the Kalu'ak penguin, except with blue eyes instead of red.

He's also Account Bound, so you can send him around (though all your characters get him in the mail.)

I got Battle.net during the first "get a pet for doing this" promotion, and I haven't regretted it. I read about some bugs when it first came out, but I've never had a problem with it.

Cute penguin! Wheeee!

Slow Times Are Slow

For those who haven't been reading, I just moved and thus have RL. And Disney channel (very distracting)! Also farming a Hyacinth Macaw.

And I have to get back to my "real" writing so I can pay off my student loans.

All of this makes for a slow blog period.

I'm neither taking a hiatus nor intentionally being slow. There just hasn't been anything exciting happening beyond farming pets and cleaning our new kitchen. I'm sure I'll have more frustrated PVP stories soon, though. :D

Speculation, or "Worgen & Goblin for Novelty Players"

Folks have talked about the lore and the racials and the designs -- but what about the fun pointless stuff? The stuff we noticed first about our own characters when we started this game?

The dances.

The flirts.

The pets.

Every race has personalized pets, mounts, and emotes. We have semi-solid knowledge about the mounts we'll see -- but not so much about the rest.

The Grind, or "Getting Something for Effort"

I've mentioned before, I don't mind dying constantly in battlegrounds. Dying is part of the day-to-day if you're going to PVP (I like PVP when I choose to PVP, as opposed to someone else choosing it for me).

So I have two grinds I'm trying to consolidate: hyacinth macaw (1 in 5,000 droprate) and PVP mounts (150 WSG/AB/AV marks). I'm up to 19 WSG marks and about 600 tries for the macaw.

Consolidation, or "The Perks and Drags of Bringing Home Birdie"

I don't have to make this decision right away, but it's definitely a thought: Should I transfer my alliance characters to Zuluhed?

Pet Super Collector, or "New Achievement? Unknown Reward"

So I'm at my brother's, waiting for our possessions to arrive in town, and catching up on the news I missed over at the best two sites ever, and it seems that MMO Champion has mined up a Special Vanity Pets achievement. No known reward, but considering the insane difficulty of these suckers, Sateena at WarcraftPets is hoping this might be the one to give us our long-awaited baby murloc.