Aw Crap, or "Am I Really Closing Down the Blog? Really?!"

Well, ladies and gents, it looks like it's time for me to move on from WoW and, thus, close Letters from Birdfall.

I don't have babies or mortgages (yet) but most of my friends and family have those and they're playing a lot less, which means I'm playing a lot less.

I've played Sims 3 the last two weeks (pets expansion in October, woot!), and I'm working on creating my own neighborhood to stick my Real Life friends in.  Been at it for a few months, but I've really been into it now while I'm between temp jobs.

I will be going into other MMOs eventually, but I doubt I'll spend much time in WoW except maybe a holiday or two for old time's sake.  Lots of my friends are happy with Rift and there's the Star Wars MMO coming out later, and the "Titan" unnamed Blizzard MMO is coming out much later, so lots of options for when I want a new game.

If you want to keep up with me as a person:

• personal & writing blog here
• writing website here
• web comics here
• Sims 3 downloads here

It's been fun, and I'm happy to have met everyone who's stopped by.  :)

Thanks for putting up with me!

/love

Mount & Pet Images, or "These Cubs are So Freaking Cute!"

You've seen the Fire Hawk, now for its friends:

Fire Hawk, or "Prolly a Super Raid Mount"

This is very pretty and will probably be uber-hard-to-get.  But enjoy the pretty picture!  :D

Good News, Bad News, or "3 Old Mounts Are New"

Good News

Zul'aman and Zul'gurub are coming back as high level 5-mans.  They bring along their old mounts -- bear, tiger, and raptor -- as rare drops.

Bad News

The models or skins for the three classic mounts will be different.  Hopefully, they'll be updated to become even awesomer, but probably they'll just have different colors now.

Photos when available.

Listing:

20	Pet			Landro's Lichling
20	Mount			Savage Raptor
40	Mount			Armored Razzashi Raptor
40	Mount			Swift Zulian Panther
60	Mount			Amani Dragonhawk
70	Mount			Flameward Hippogryph
70	Mount			Reins of the Crimson Fire Hawk
70	Mount			Reins of the Beryl Fire Hawk

Valentines 2011, or "Start Your Rockets, Ladies and Gents!"

It's a farming extravaganza!

I managed to get all relevant characters to 85 to farm the holiday boss for the mount (or, in Dusty's case, the rose helm).  This makes me happy.

An important change: you no longer queue from the LFD pane.  You now have to go to Detective Snap Snagglebolt [H] or Inspector Snip Snagglebolt [A].

Previous years: 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007.  2010 has the achievement info you'll want.

Lunar Festival 2011, or "Where are the Elders!"

A few elders have moved around, such as Stormwind's Elder being placed out front of the city (the game tells you to go to the destroyed park, but it's wrong).

Lunar Festival 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007.

Pick up the Lunar Festival quest.  Head to your Alliance or Horde Harbinger.  Pick up the quest to shoot off rockets.  Get 8 rockets (any color), 10 [Red Rocket Clusters], and 10 [Firecrackers].  Keybind the [Red Rocket Cluster] and shoot off all 10 as fast as you can to get an achievement.  Repeat with [Firecracker] for another achievement.

Grab your invitation, use it in the column of moonlight, go here and get the Omen quest.  Head for this spot and look for a group killing Omen (if you do this in the first day, he is always being downed -- later in the week is much harder).  Help if you can.  You want to stand in him while he's dead, it doesn't matter if you helped kill him.  Turning in the quest with the buff on you from his corpse (dying removes it) gets another achievement.

Elder Time

There's a list here, but it's not 100% accurate for Cataclysm yet.  I'm sure it will be fixed by the end of the week, but here's a good rule of thumb: if you can't find an elder where it's supposed to be, go to wowhead and search for the elder's name (given in the wowwiki listing).  Under the Comments tab, go to the most recent comments and glance over them for the elder's new position.  You will always find the answer there.

If only coordinates are given and you don't use coordinates, go to Tools > Maps and select the area you're in.  As you hover over the map, it will give you coordinates and you'll be able to see where on the map your elder is.  :)

After Getting All Elders

Buy clothes with your tokens.

You're an elder now!

Mediocre, or "Do We Need a Player Reputation System?"

I'm of two minds about reputation systems that let players rank other players.  On the one hand, it would be nice to downrate jerks and uprate awesome people.  On the other, it would add an aspect to the game that I'm not convinced would be beneficial to players.

Today on Birdfall, I had a mediocre group in Throne of the Tides that lost 3 healers.  The first healer left after three wipes on the same boss.  The second helped us through that boss but chewed us out for being terribad and left.  The third stayed until the last boss when the tank had to leave and the group fell apart.

Personally, I would have liked to give props to my group even if we were pretty mediocre.  The tank and other dps were new to the instance and perfectly willing to admit when they didn't know what they were doing.  But they were also willing to keep trying.  They kept a quiet, honest respectability around them that the second healer didn't possess in his littlest finger.  He might have been "pro," but his social skills were terribad and got a /ignore from me.

There's something to be said for a group that rolls with its faults and doesn't implode.  I might not have rated us very high in skill for that run, but I would have given my group mad rep bumps for tenacity and patience.

I think I'd like to leave a group or finish a dungeon and get a popup for "Did you enjoy this group?  Yes/No" and yes gives a rep bump to everyone and you can also choose to rate each player individually:

Skill: Terribad -- Poor -- Mediocre -- Fair -- Good -- Outstanding -- Don't Know

Attitude: Terribad -- Poor -- Mediocre -- Fair -- Good -- Outstanding -- Don't Know

See also: Pug Matching

Busy Birdfall is Busy, or "News on Why I've Been MIA"

Plum is 85
Dustfire is 83
Windwhistler is 82
Birdfall is 81

I work a day job, do rated bg's on Wednesday, do RL family stuff on Friday, and have been recuperating from Christmas, then my anniversary, then brother-in-law-in-law's 21st birthday, and this next weekend is the first I've had to really chillax in several weeks but I'm also pressing for 85 on my alliance so I can try for the Pink Love Rocket starting Feb 6th.

/exhausted

TL;DR - I'm super busy but should be back soon.

Fox Pet, or "Just In Case You Missed It"

Fox Kit is a BOP drop from foxes in the normal daily questing zone of Tol Barad Peninsula.  This is not the "join for battle" zone, but it is contested which means players on PVP servers will be flagged for PVP combat.

The droprate of this pet is currently unknown, so if you plan to farm it please download the Wowhead Client to help them get accurate droprate numbers.  I'm going to guess it's a 1/1000 pet.

Oh, and it DANCES.

Blue Poster on Penalties, or "Understanding of Your Rights as a Player"

Blue poster Nevalistis wrote a very good post about player rights, Blizzard on player infractions, and basically pwning whiners.

Paraphrase:

Players: WHINE WHINE YOU DON'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT JERKS!!
Nev: If you don't report them, that's true.
Players: WHINE WHINE YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT US, YOU ONLY LIKE MONEY!
Nev: Then why do we spend so much to employ GMs?


Know your in-game rights.

Outfit of the Month, or "Dress Right, Cook Well"

Winter Veil 2010, or "Srs Post for Srs Holiday"

Ironforge/Orgrimmar
a short list of supplies

• /kiss a Winter Reveler every hour (found at Inns)
• Buy and learn all 3 holiday recipes from a Smokeywood Pastures vendor.
• Buy a snowball from a Smokeywood Pastures vendor.
• Do the Greench quest chain.
• Do the Metzen quest chain.
• Get attuned to Ogri'la.
• Set aside a Fruitcake and a Holly from doing Metzen.
• Get a hat from dungeon bosses.
• Get clothes from a tailor.
• Get boots from a leatherworker.
• Save all snowflakes.
• Find your local Wondervolt Machine.
• Keep your Winter Veil Disguise Kit.

Dec 25th: Get your presents at the Ironforge/Orgrimmar trees.

For details on how to use these items, see my 2008 post.

Winter Veil Hats, or "Still Available in Northrend"

Winter Veil Bosses
The denizens of the dungeons of Northrend are also getting into the holiday spirit, and some dungeon bosses even wear festive Winter Hats just like Greatfather Winter's. Defeat a Winter Veil boss, and the boss' hat is yours!

Winter Veil bosses of Northrend:
Grand Magus Telestra (The Nexus) - Red Winter Hat
Jedoga Shadowseeker (Ahn'Kahet: The Old Kingdom) - Red Winter Hat
Mage-Lord Urom (The Oculus) - Green Winter Hat

Cataclysm Winter Veil bosses
Deadmines (Heroic) - Admiral Ripsnarl
The Stone Core (Normal + Heroic) - High Priestess Azil
Blackrock Caverns (Normal + Heroic) - Corla, Herald of Twilight
Shadowfang Keep (Heroic) - Lord Godfrey
Grim Batol (Normal + Heroic) - Drahga Shadowburner

(source)

More Winter Veil details this weekend, maybe, I think. I need to do it on 2 characters, and that usually prompts posts.

Anywho, feel free to check out the previous years: 2008, 2007, and Ogri'la tutorial.

Looks like I didn't do 2009. Would make sense, since we'd just moved and there was a blizzard and we were holed up at my brother's house with our cats.

Rainbow Generator, or "I Can Be Really Creepy When I Want To Be"

I looked at MMO Champion on getting home from work today.  I read some comics, scrolled down a bit, saw some new pictures, and went to the kitchen with a maniacal grin on my face until my husband saw me and stopped what he was doing.

"That's creepy," he said, looking alarmed.

Husband's Best Friend turned to glance at me.  "That is creepy."

I clung to a stair railing nearby and leaned over it to grin down at them.  "Did you see MMO Champion today?"

"No," said husband, still alarmed.

But HBF nodded in sudden understanding.  "The rainbow generator."

"Yes," I agreed in a voice that would fit well into an Exorcist movie.

HBF pointed at me.  "You're overreacting.  Am I going to go get nine of them?  Yes.  But you're [with an emphatic jab of his finger in my direction] overreacting."

Squee Mylune, or "Fun Times With Cata"

Husband's Best Friend posted on our forums about a quest that looked like I'd created it.  It's from Mylune, and she definitely says "Squeeeeee!" when you turn it in.

/happy

In other news, there doesn't seem to be a lot of fighting on my server while folks quest.  Husband had some trouble with a rogue at one point, and there's been a few 85's coming back to gank (a guildmate set his 85 up in the area to even things out just before I got into the zone), but for the most part things are peaceful.  Alliance and Horde seem to be focused more on leveling, and starting a fight means retaliation when you want to get back to questing.

My brother admitted that he thinks he accidentally ganked some Alliance while on his warlock.  His questing technique is Tab+Curse, and he doesn't look too closely at what he attacks.  Especially since the underwater zone makes him a bit woozy.

For myself, I've been killed once, but I rezzed and kept questing and no one bothered me again.  And I was attacked once as retaliation for a guy in my quest group who started (he said "continued") a fight with a druid -- the same druid later emoted "truce" at me and I emoted "pet" at him (he was in kitty form).

So, all in all, it's been pretty friendly on Zuluhed.  I imagine that once people hit 85, more will come back to starting zones to grief levelers, but for now it's really quite pleasant.