PVE Me?, or "Blizz Can Just Randomly Change PVP Realms to PVE?"

Oh thank God, this gives me hope.

I'm gathering that Drak'thul was changed from PVP to PVE due to massive population imbalance. (Note that they gave free transfers to PVP realms for players who still preferred that type of realm.) In another thread, people mention that alliance got overrun by horde on Drak'thul and were never allowed to level, so alliance became almost non-existent.

Due to a recent article by wow.com that linked to an older article, it seems that PVP realms have been on the decline for more than a little while.

Now that we have precedent for this sort of action, I must beg the question -- when does Zuluhed get to be fixed?

It doesn't have to be soon. But my birthday is in November.

*hint hint*

Goblin Female Dance, or "I Should Have Found This Sooner"

[First Goblin Video Deleted from YouTube.]

Different video:

The dance is from Beyonce:

Leaders Rule The World, or "Yeah, This Should Be At The Other Blog, But Whatev"

This is a Family Guild topic, so it should be on The Family Business, but what the hey... it's only Teo and my brother over there, and they don't care where I post stuff.

So I was considering the dilemma of wanting to finish old world and BC content before Cataclysm (which I wanted to do while still in BC, but it fell flat) and mentioned my interest over pizza to the four officers* in my guild who have been known to get things like this done.

Let's take Kael'thas in The Eye, for example. These are people who do research, instruct everyone else in the encounters, and pull the semi-interested together to do things like city bosses. If they lead, it will succeed, and everyone knows that.

During our discussion, I realized something interesting -- guild members are at the mercy of those willing and able to lead.

Models, or "My Husband is a Sweetie"

So my husband is changing his tauren shaman to a female orc because he hates that he can't see past his tauren. I tried to talk him into changing to a goblin far into Cataclysm, but for some reason he doesn't want a goblin (even though he'd love to have a gnome).

He really loves his new model -- he's race changed two characters to it. I created her for him in WoW Model Viewer last year when he decided he wanted to change his undead warrior to a female orc. Not a month into playing the first version of her, he told me he loved her and would have gotten sick of a paler skin or different face.

He now has all three of his mains and one warlock alt of this exact same model:

Whereas I would hyperventilate if all my characters looked the same.

Worgen Females, or "You See How I'm Resisting the Urge to Type This in All Caps?"

This is a twofold photo of awesome.

1. Worgen female.
2. She's in a pretty dress.

Look at the detail on that dress! Wowza. This makes me very happy because it implies that we'll get more detailed cloth clothing (dresses) in the future.

Now look at the rest of the worgenettes. :)

100th Mount, or "Gold Helps... a Lot"

I bought irl or received help to grind about 6 of my 100 mounts (see my collection). The rest I got on my own, per my guide. Instead of buying or grinding those 6, I could have gotten any combination of the following: 3 more Argent mounts, 1 Time-Lost Drake, 1 motorcycle, 1 Oracles drop, 4 holiday mounts, 1 Oculus drop, tailoring, or engineering.

Thus, this is not impossible to solo, and I've proven it. Birdfall has 1 other player to force to do stuff (husband), and she only got his help with the Ahn'Qiraj grind. She did almost all of this in level 80 5-man heroic gear and 1 fancy emblem cape.

You can do this.

I'm going to continue grinding mounts for Cataclysm in case they give us a new "Get more mounts for this achievement!" thing. It's not like I have anything better to do until the expansion. *shrug*

Sidenote, or "Playing a Stereotype"

I've been reading a WoW comic by a female player and this one made me think "Hey . . . what's wrong with wanting shinies? *sadface*"

After the sadface, though, I got to thinking. I quite often goof around and play a role on this blog -- I am honestly delighted by fun novelty items, but I also like to ham it up and play the stereotype. I tend to assume my readers will infer that I'm being silly.

When I was young, I didn't get into the girly side of life. I was a girl, but I was taught by culture or cartoons or whatever that strong women aren't feminine. I wanted to impress my brother with my knowledge of anime and awesome things, and he wasn't a girl so I didn't need to act girly. In fact, I didn't indulge in anything over-the-top girly until I got married. Somehow, husband unlocked the wacky, pink-loving, obsessed-with-Disney-princesses side of me.

Husband acted like it wasn't a big deal, like it was normal or even natural for me to be . . . a girl. He didn't respect me any less or think I was stupid for liking Disney princesses -- he even got me Disney princess stickers after our first fight.

Bad Leaks!, or "MMO-Champion Takes Down Its Cataclysm Shots"

Blizzard asked MMO-Champion to take down the Cataclysm alpha info and screenshots. MMO-Champion did, because they're nice (that's my story, and I'm sticking to it).

In a blatant effort to suck up to Blizz so that they don't ignore my pleas for more pink mounts, I'm taking down my posts of Cataclysm screenshots until they're allowed. When they are, I'll reinstate them in their old date/time slot with all comments intact.

I seriously doubt Blizz cares that I have a handful of Cataclysm screenshots on this blog, but I feel that my crusade to make WoW cuter, pinker, and more fashionable is a noble one and worth small sacrifices such as these.

/salute

Irritating, or "What The...."

I do the Argent dailies every day. I have 3 mounts left there. I can't solo Chillmaw, so instead I do the heroic which gets me 3 extra seals. I have no problem with this.

I get a whisper while gathering quests. "Are you doing Chillmaw?"

Eager to get 2 more seals than usual, I say, "I can be. Invite."

No reply.

I wait a minute, then say, "Invite?"

Wait more . . .

"Hello?"

Deadly Boss Mods informs me he's busy fighting in Azjol-Nerub.

He whispered me about Chillmaw either while in an instance, OR he took an instance queue right after inviting me to do a quest. And then he refused to acknowledge my whispers.

What the hell?!

I eventually decided to put him on Ignore, as I was too annoyed to not chastise him if he finally deigned to whisper me back.

I can go back to being perfectly content with my Chillmawless grind. I don't need 2 seals that badly.

Space Issues, or "We've Gone Over Some of This Before"

This isn't about the necessity of bank alts or even that I've been desolate over Birdy's inability to benefit from my horde guild's awesome talents/mounts/pets in Cataclysm.

This is about having only 10 character slots per realm.

Let me list my characters for you:

• Alliance AH Bank Alt
• Horde AH Bank Alt
• Alliance Neutral AH Bank Alt
• Night Elf Rogue
• Draenei Mage
• Draenei Warrior
• Blood Elf Priest
• Tauren Druid
• Name Save Slot #1
• Name Save Slot #2

Husband's best friend doesn't even have any alliance characters, and he still won't have a spot to make a Goblin.

So I think they should bump it up to ~15 characters per realm. Maybe even 20.

Because you can never have enough (pretty) alts.

Preview Cataclysm Part 2, or "I Love Goblins Now"

*gape* I cannot not make a Goblin now. She's SO FREAKING CUTE! But what would I do with her? O.O This also makes me wonder -- these skins are really detailed. Do you think that Blizz will offer players new skins for current races? Perhaps not by taking away old skins but just by adding new options and maybe even making them available at the barber shop? (Though if they did replace the old skins, it would seem sensible to just make those skins more detailed instead of utterly changing them.) It seems cruel to make the new races so detailed and do nothing to tempt people to stay with the old ones.

Qiraji Resonating Crystals, or "The Sentinel Grind"

Green, Yellow, Red, Blue

The red has a 1% drop rate, but the other three are 13-15%.

They're all in The Temple of Ahn'Qiraj, which has no prerequisites. As long as you're in a raid group, you can stroll right on in.

There are two instances. When you hit The Scarab Wall, you'll see one straight ahead to the left. Don't go to that one. You want to go to your right up the winding path to the top of the hill.

Preview Cataclysm Part 1, or "Here Are Some Fun Screenies"

Two shots of the Stormwind bank. Is that round thing a new type of vault? I say vault. If you'll notice in the first image, the round vault doesn't have hinges like the door does in the second image. Also, the angles in the second suggest that the guild vault (square) is in the back of the vault-space as seen through the door, whereas the round vault in the first shot is perpendicular to (and offset from) the guild vault.

Violet Proto-Drake, or "I'm So Sleepy I Forgot To Post This"

I had to run Utgarde Pinnacle, which I did at 6AM, and badabing badaboom. Done.

This is more than just my 93rd mount. The violet proto-drake represents one of my favorite parts of the game -- holidays. Holidays have an amazing amount of nostalgia for me. Except for non-combat pets, holidays were the first things I got excited about in WoW. Not just excited, but felt truly at home. It was like they'd made the holidays, these frivolous little events, just for me.

I loved the decorations, the atmosphere, the toys and clothes and pets. I reveled in it the way only a lowbie, unfettered by the pressures of endgame, can.

I had fun. No competition, no uberness, no "my mount is bigger than your mount." Just simple, uncomplicated delight.

So the violet proto-drake is special to me. Not as a number or a speed or a color (though, seriously, yay purple). But as a symbol of what I love about this game--

--the uncomplicated delights.

>_>, or "Yes, I've Done My Orphan Quests Already... On Two Characters"

Birdy and Dusty now have 2 more pets each. I've done the Azeroth and Outlands quest lines (note that the Northrend quest line has not respawned, either intentionally or due to a bug that will not be fixed this year).

See, I dreamed that I had to pee. Then I woke up and did have to pee, so I went to the bathroom and found we had a problem with our toilet. I then woke up husband who called maintenance and long story short I've been up and playing since 5AM while husband has run around getting the toilet fixed. (GOD, I love having him around.)

So it's not even 9AM on the first day of the holiday and I have all my orphans done for the week.

Easy Pet Tracking, or "Warcraft Pets for Lazy People"

Warcraft Pets has come up with an addon that allows you to track your collection and update it to the site without any bothersome looking to see what you have.

You still need to manually exclude pets, but if the collection feature was too much trouble to keep up with, this baby will fix that. There is no longer any reason for pet lovers to be lazy about posting or updating collections. The only thing that still bugs me is that you can't have two separate characters on one account without mixing their pets into a pool of confusion.

Outfit of the Month, or "Alliance Plate for Your Faction Conscious"

I've always liked sets that go together with a purpose. The brighter the color the better, imo, but something that screams "Alliance!" like this has to be toted.

I feel that the top looks best on human women because it seems to gape open less, but you can soften its "barely there" vibe with one of the shirts I've suggested below.