Faction Change Now Available

Wow. Didn't see this coming this fast.

Faction Changes are now here and ready to go. FAQ can be found here. Very cool, as I've been thinking about moving Poloma, my tauren hunter, over to ED and changing her to a draenei. Blizzard has made the service pretty simple and straightforward, it looks like. The biggest drawback, though, is the cost.

Good gracious-bodacious, $30? And it doesn't include the server transfer. That's hefty. $55 for a full transfer and faction change is too much, especially for me right now due to RL woes. I mean, that's crazy-expensive. Of course, plenty of people will use the service regardless, so the price probably won't come down anytime soon. I guess that means Poloma will be staying dormant for awhile longer.

Otherwise, though, my World of Warcraft life is peachy-keen. Seona is rolling right along in Northrend. The story is fantastic, the quests are fun, and the gear is good. Her 2H Sword skill is up over 320 so she's not missing every single time, although I've got to see what I can do about getting her a decent 2H Mace for the racial bonus.

On top of that, Ziir has about 20 mails full of Outland greens and leather from Seona's swift romp through those zones. I'm going to take the time tomorrow to get it all sorted out and put up on the AH in order to make some more gold. Hopefully the greens will be bought up by enchanters or something (One day I'll have an enchanter so I can shard all this stuff, but damn, it takes forever to level that profession...).

I popped over to Leodry this morning to check on him (the beginning of his story is up on my other blog...) and he's doing okay. His mining and blacksmithing are at the same level (around 120) and all the gear he's making is at his current level. I'd love to be able to continue that all the way to 80, though that might become difficult if/when he gets the heirloom gear. Right now he's in all "rough bronze" stuff, very dashing, very nice to look at since it matches. I've got him as arms right now, but I'm wondering if that's the best route to take.

I've heard that the best way to go as arms is with Poleaxe specialization, adding damage to axes and polearms. Human's get an expertise bonus with maces and swords, though, and I'd rather go a more RP route with him than min/max. The current plan (once he gets that far along) is to go sword specialization and have him always carry a giant 2H Sword of Doom.

I've also considered leveling him through PvP, but the experience gains in Warsong Gulch are terrible and his survivability right now is pretty poor. I was hoping to do this at least until Seona hit 80 and could get that badge gear. I might try again with Arathi Basin in about 10 levels, as the experience gain there is much, much better. I was planning to do this with my hunter, but discovered a huge flaw in that plan... the pet doesn't level with you, just you. So, hunters are actually screwed a bit by pure PvP leveling.

Still, it'll be fun. I want Leodry's story to really come out over the next year as he slowly levels from 18 (where he's at now) to 80 in time for the Cataclysm. Seona will be 80 in a couple weeks, at the current rate, so she'll be busy with endgame stuff, earning badges and, hopefully, finally seeing the raids.

Hunter is Overpowered

Last night included further experimentation with the Battlegrounds, again on a hunter, but this time on my Nelf Hunter, Berryl. I think I played five or six Warsong Gulch games, and two Arathi Basin games. She was about half-way through her level, fully rested experience, and managed to get to level 26 by the end of the night. I haven't had that much fun in a battleground in a long time.

I stuck with Warsong Gulch for the first two tries, just to get a feel for the character again. Unlike Gruun (level 12), Berryl has quite a few more tricks up her sleeve (level 25, now 26). I'm even proud to say that on one of the games, I was the top damage-dealer for the Alliance. I've never been the top of the damage list. It gave me giggles. :D

Luckily for me, talent points had been reset for hunters, so I made her Marksman. I'm liking her current build so far, and I'm loving the Spider pet's special ability. I'm sure it pisses the other players off to no end to be suddenly rooted in place by a hunter's pet while I'm whaling on them from way over here, where they can't get me. Plus, her little 8-legged beastie can do some decent damage by himself.

That's not to say I don't die. I die plenty. Usually to some class that can bubble or to those damn rogues. Many of them are over my level and can one shot me if they catch me at below full health. Their crippling poison is a real pain, too. Still, I do really well, especially on defense. Set a freezing trap at the flag, leave Obsidian (her spider) on aggressive in the center of the flag room and go to the corner to Shadowmeld. Perfect.

I even did the Battleground daily for Arathi Basin last night, which got me some extra honor. It's too bad I can't get her any heirloom gear. I see plenty of players in the heirloom shoulders and I'm green with envy. Not only are they probably getting an increase in experience, but the gear itself is a nice boost. And gear is going to become a main concern here, soon.

See, you can't get gear just from fighting in a BG. You have to earn enough honor to buy stuff, and it seems like most of it isn't available to use until much later. I'll have to do some research because otherwise it looks like the AH and I are going to be best friends. Or, rather, my gold and the AH will be... :(

Whoa... Level 51 Already?

Yep. Seona is at level 51 already. I can't imagine how fast I would have leveled if she would have heirloom shoulders. Can you imagine? It's no wonder you can level an alt in no time, especially with Recruit-a-Friend, if you have access to it.

The Thorium Brotherhood got her very close to 50. With a shipment of silk cloth from her Estate Manager (read: Bank Alt), she was able to help a dwarf who was stuck in an outhouse in the Burning Steppes. Also, at some point in her travels, she had looted a key from one of the Dark Iron Dwarves' corpses. The key just happened to be for the outhouse, thus, she was able to free the poor dwarf from the little shack, earning her level 50.

Yep, that's right. Seona got to level 50 from an Outhouse quest. I feel dirty. D:

Still, level 50 meant a trip to the Plaguelands. So, off she went (after killing some spiders for their legs... some goblin wanted them, and she was there, you know?). The gryphon landed in Chillwind Camp and her first tasks for the Argent Dawn were started.

She's equipped with her Commision trinket, now, and killing undead goes quickly, provided they're only 2 or 3 levels above her. I've quickly come to realize that anything over that, with a red number, takes forever to kill due to missing. Regardless, she was able to knock out several quests, including the first two cauldron quests, which managed to bump her all the way to the next level. So, sitting pretty at level 51, she's well on her way to getting ready for Outlands.

Oh, and yes, she's picked up the Redpath questline. I've heard it's a bit of a tearjerker, so I'm ready for that. The other thing I've noticed? Now that I'm over that hump and in an area so steeped in Paladin lore (Uther's Tomb, anyone?), I've slowed down again. I read the quest text (most of the time) and do my best to be all "Paladiny" and glowy.

One last little note: Patch 3.2 is still on the PTR, and they appear to be having a few issues with it. Since that's the case, Seona will probably hit level 59/60 before it goes live. Because of the mount changes, any new Paladins will never do the quest for their epic mount, but, luckily, I think I'll be able to do so with Seona. In fact, it'll probably be one of those instances where I'll just be squeaking by before the patch hits live. How cool that my RP pally will be able to do the quest as was intended? It'll be worth it, I think, for the Feat of Strength alone.

Of course, if I don't get to 60 before the patch then it's all moot. The questline requires expensive, rare mats, and at least 350 gold. If the patch hits first then it's 50G for the training and maybe 20G for the spell. RP opportunity or no, I'm not going to spend the 350 if I can get it for 70.

Quick Post: Bloody Gauntlet

Just a real quick post for today, as I haven't been playing much due to moving into my house, you know, for realz now.

Last night, Seona joined the Kingship in watching a dueling contest lovingly called "The Bloody Gauntlet." Honestly, there are some great PvPers amongst the citizens of the Kingship, as I was fascinated by the skills portrayed during the duels.

While one on one isn't usually terribly balanced, it was fun to watch. In fact, I'm thoroughly impressed with a certain priest in the guild who was able to make it very far in the competition. I've never seen a discipline priest do things like that before, and it was amazing. The final fight ended up being between a Paladin and a Warlock.

The Warlock used the terrain to his advantage (Fray Island was the setting, if you're interested, right off the coast from Ratchet) and gave it a good go, but in the end, the paladin won.

Congratulations Heimdel! Very well done indeed, surviving all the rounds and coming out on top!

Midsummer: Be Kind, Rewind

So the Midsummer Festival has been reset, allowing Seona to go back and visit all the fires she had before for a second time... getting the blossoms, coin, and experience all over again!

This is great news, as it means she'll be able to level a little more than before. Of course, due to time constraints, she didn't exactly hit a whole lot of the fires to start with, but still, this is nice. Also, those two dailies are still available, and they give really good experience as well, around 5500 experience for each of them. That's pretty amazing at level 45.

Unfortunately, Yrovi hasn't come out to play at all lately, but I'm not giving up on her, yet. There's still the meta-achievement to take care of, as this is more or less when she started last year with events, so she won't even have to do everything again. Just desecrate a few fires, steal some Alliance flames, and take care of Ahune... nothing major, right? ;)

The more Seona runs around on Caliburn, though, the more I desperately wish 3.2 were live. The regular mounts are so slow! I occasionally pop onto Ziir (my banker DK) and his mount is so speedy, especially with the pale horse talent, that going back to Seona's warhorse is agonizingly slow. If 3.2 were here, she'd already be on her charger, and it is really difficult to run around knowing that. I should be grateful, of course, that this isn't vanilla WoW and that the option will be here soon enough, but I'm impatient today. :p

All-in-all, this holiday couldn't have come at a better time for Seona. She'll speed through the rest of her 40's and by the end of the holiday, you'll probably find her in the plaguelands, kicking dead-dude butt in the name of the Light and Argent Dawn. She'll have gotten nearly all of the old-world flight points, plenty of coin for training and such, and new clothes (if all goes well, of course).

P.S. Turns out that battle Seona participated in last week was part of a huge storyline from Al'shar lo Dor'ano, another RP guild. They had a prisoner in the Stockade and the Horde had come in order to free him again, porting back to Silvermoon. In our zeal, we retaliated by taking out Grom'gol and then boarding the Zepplin to Orgrimmar. Cool, huh? I'll have to find out more and see when other events are occuring. I'd like to see how this plays out.

A First War

Seona has experienced a bit of RP with her initial joining of the Kingship of the East: a nice, quiet picnic at the edge of Crystal Lake in Elwynn.

Last night, she recieved her second dose... and what a dose it was. She had made her way back to the Hinterlands to attempt to further prove herself to the Wildhammer dwarves, only to get a rather frantic-sounding call from a member of the Kingship asking for all who were able to come to Stormwind at the behest of another guild.

Seona immediately called back into the stone, letting Lord Cendall know that her hammer was his to command, if it could be of use. Well, on the way back to the city, Seona was invited into a large raid and things got interesting from there. While she had no idea what was happening, she got some tidbits of conversation while joining the front lines in Stormwind around the Stockades. The Horde had infiltrated Stormwind and were breaking one of the prisoners out!

Long story short, they managed to escape and the group did a full on chase and scouting through the Eastern Kingdoms to hunt them down, leading to Kalimdor and the very gates of Orgrimmar. That's where Seona and the raid got their asses handed to them. They were a more or less full raid of 40, nearly all level 80 (though a few 70's were mixed in, along with Seona and a young rogue from the Kingship rolling 43 and 30), but they appeared to outnumber the Alliance 3 to 1, at least. The Horde, led by the guild Nyx, easily pushed the group back through Durotar into the Barrens, where they had to retreat yet again, some through a portal to Theramore, but most into Ashenvale. Unsucessful, morale was low and the warriors were beat down and tired. Cendall saluted those of the Kingship that had answered the call, and relieved Seona of duty, where she promptly used her 'stone to return to the Hinterlands.

Luckily, the dwarves there gave her a bed and some bandages.

Seriously? That was HELLA FUN! We lost. Oh, how we lost, and I never stood a chance. Honestly, the best I could do was buff with Kings and try to stomp some totems before I was singled out and one-shotted. I did more corpse running than fighting. But, you know, I stood proudly side by side with members from my guild and wore their colors, fought with honor, and did some roleplay. It was fun, engaging, and I got to participate in something bigger than myself. All in all, I'd say I'm having more fun now than I ever did before in this game, and I'm not even level 80, yet.

Can't freaking wait for the next time I log on. :D

A New Recruit

Seona Lightstone is officially a Recruit of the Kingship of the East. Pledged to her new king, she will do all she can to uphold the honor of her new guild in all matters, great and small.

It's quite exciting. I never thought roleplay would be this much fun. I mean, I doubt I'll be grabbing up the new D&D handbook anytime soon, but "acting" my character is fun. Seona was able to speak with the queen and king of the Kingship over a wonderful picnic by Crystal Lake in Elwynn forest surrounded by other members of the guild. While it was a touch overwhelming, especially since it was a very large group, nearly all at level 80, and all of them experienced roleplayers, it gave me a real taste of what this group is all about.

I definitely got the impression that there was a larger storyarc going on underneath everything, which is just cool. I mean, here you have a group of people (the guild has over 200 toons, to give perspective),creating a story within the larger story of the game. WoW will neverget old for them, because they write their own adventures, act out their own stories within the larger world. It's really quite amazing.

There's still a ton I have to learn, though. They use emotes in a really unique way, for example, nearly all of them custom (not hard, but not something I'm used to). They understand the lore far better than I do, I believe, and they really do have some major story arc going on that I'm not yet fully aware of, not to mention too low of a level to participate in. Thankfully, they definitely have various events that occur often, like the picnic I was able to witness and participate in (I even got some fishing in!), so I'll get a chance to hone my RP skills before I hit level cap.

This is going to be a whole new ballgame... and I'm oh, so ready to play. :D

Scheduling: Two Mains

Whenever you meet someone and say, "World of Warcraft? Oh, yes, I play" the next question is always, "What's your main?"

Yrovi is, of course, my main, seeing as she's the only toon I have at level cap and the one I (used to) play the most. My goal, though, is to actually have two "mains", one Horde and one Alliance. I think that for all this time, I've really only been using half of the game I play so often, and pay $15 a month for.

So, how do I honestly say, yes, I have two mains, and yes, I play them both about the same? I pretty much have to schedule time. Throughout the week, I'll play Yrovi and Seona on alternating days. Really, it's the only solution right now. Hopefully, with about 2-3 hours of play time in the evenings, I can get a level out of Seona every night I log in to her. Yrovi will continue plugging away at her goals, mostly rep grinds. Weekends are free-for-all, where alts come out to play and I can work extra on Seona.

In fact, just this weekend, I knocked out another three levels on the little lady dwarf pally, so she's finally over level 40. This means that at some point this next week, I'll be hoping to sit for that interview with Kristyl of the Kingship. I'll need to flesh out some backstory before then and really figure out Seona's character for the interview, but that's not hard. She's my character, after all.

I've also given one of my alts on ED a bit better backstory: Leodry, the soldier.

His full name is Leodry Emmerich (which means "work or labor", something a warrior/blacksmith knows all about) and he's definitely not a huge fan of humanity anymore after witnessing the destruction of Strathome as a knight's squire, where he promptly deserted the army. Still, he's returned to the front lines and is working his way through the dwarven lands, desperately hoping he won't run into any old soldiers who might remember him from his younger days. He's adorable, really. :D

With Seona fleshed out, and hopefully joining a guild soon (Actually, I hope to catch Her Majesty this evening for our little interview, which hopefully goes well. I'll make a quick reference card for Seona, I think.), and well on her way to level 50+, things are looking up. Keeping her rested is helpful, too, but it's not always easy to do as I level quickly. Oh, and those mount changes are going to be amazing for my alts and for collecting mounts. Can't wait!

Good Thoughts for a Fellow Blogger, and More Druid

First, because this is far more important than any WoW stuff, I want to extend good thoughts to Daniel, aka BRK, the greatest Hunter blogger ever to grace the WoW blogging scene. He retired from WoW some time ago to focus on family, but unfortunately is getting a divorce. Daniel, my thoughts are with you and your son. I read your blog, though I never posted (being a dedicated lurker), and I wish you all the best in the upcoming months. I am so sorry that things didn't work out, but I hope that, in time, you'll find your footing again. You'll love Star Trek, by the way.

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/WoW speak

Okay, so since I didn't really love Xyno when I logged on her, I was a touch worried that Opal would be in similar shape. She's actually much better, thank goodness. She was sitting at just into level 29, in Astraanar, not Lakeshire, with everything trained up, and had an empty talent tree. I actually considered going Balance instead of Feral, but her gear was actually decent and it was fully Feral gear (nearly all Agi and Stam) so I went with the Feral after all. While she takes a good amount of damage in cat form, she's no tissue paper kitty. She can easily tear through 3-4 mobs before needing to pop Lifebloom or bandage (or any other heal she can do), so it's not nearly so bad. She was fully rested, of course, so getting her to level 30 only took about 1.5 hours or so, and then she was able to get the travel form and riding training plus mount and such. Having the gold she had was nice, didn't even know she was that well off. :)

She's got gathering professions, so she's nicely set up. I might end up transferring her over to ED afterall, if for no other reason than her skinning is pretty high up, and she has herbalism fairly highly trained. Or, at least, she's where she needs to be to pick/skin anything she kills in the area she's questing in. I'm not sure how to RP a Nelf Druid, but I'll come up with a backstory for her if she moves to ED. I might keep her on Gilneas till she's at least ready for outland or northrend, though, simply because it's a PvE server, which is nice and "carebear" for her. Gilneas if pretty low-pop, I think, since I haven't run into any horde at all, and I've forgotten what it's like not to have to worry about getting ganked from behind when in a contested zone. While its nice at at times, it's almost too quiet. ;p

You notice I said that it took me about 1.5 hours to level her. I think I only played for about 2 hours last night total. Much less than I used to. My time seems taken up by other things lately, and that's probably a very good thing. The fact that I don't come home from work, deal with the dogs right away, then plop down in front of the computer till 10 or 11 pm is a nice change. Alts are nice that way.

/WoW speak

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Oh, and one last little IRL thing: my Wii just crapped out last night. It absolutely refuses to read disks, so it's going to need repairs. That means I'll have to ship it to Nintendo, pay $75.00 for them to figure out what's wrong, and have them send it back to me. I'm sad. :( I'm not going to do it right away. The downloaded games I just bought, literally two days ago, still work fine, and I need me some Ocarina of Time, a game I've never played before (I know, blasphemy!!). The very first Zelda game I completely finished was Twilight Princess, and now I know what I've missed all my gaming years. I decided to download the other two in the Twilight Princess timeline, which is Ocarina and Majora's Mask, and play through them as well. Hopefully all goes well.

Unfocused Play

Since closing on the house, I've been less and less focused on WoW, for obvious reasons. I'm not going to stop playing, of course, as I'm firmly addicted, but I haven't logged onto my main in quite some time. I bet my friends in CoF are wondering what the heck happened to me. Come to think of it, I really should jump over there just to let them know I'm still alive...

That doesn't mean I haven't been playing, it's just that I've been playing my alts and second main. Seona is now level 36 (nearly 37) and that means I'm just that much closer to getting her into her guild. Leveling is so much easier with rested experience, but managing to stay off of a toon for a day or so to earn it is hard, especially when they've been leveling so fast. Still, the double points are worth the trouble, and it gives me a chance to look at my other toons. Really I should go to Yrovi again while Seona rests, as there's so much I still haven't done that I want to do, but I haven't been.

I haven't finished my rep grind with the Netherwing, yet. The tournament is still ongoing and I've slacked there. I need rep with the Oracles so I can start buying eggs. I still want to gear up some with heroics. There's tons to do, and yet I have no real drive to log onto Yrovi and do any of these things. It's strange.

Perhaps it's that I actually like the leveling aspect of the game more than the endgame. Or maybe I'm just burned out, now, a little, when it comes to dailies and rep. Not running instances, obviously, as I don't do nearly enough of that, but the rest... yes. It is quite repetitive. Leveling, though, has a nice guage at the bottom of the screen, you know exactly how far along you are, you can measure your progress, there are numbers. It's a special kind of satisfying. Plus, the environment changes as you level further, moving on to new places. Yrovi is stuck in Northrend, and the only guage she gets is the rep bar, which moves far too slowly for my tastes. :(

Now, I've run Alliance toons before, up to about level 25 (aside from Liir who started at 55, which I'm not going to count) and the unique starting areas for them are interesting enough. I'm starting to get into zones that are "contested", though, and I'm already familiar with them, but it seems new, now, with the other side's quests.

Hillsbrad, for example. I've run two blood elves, not to mention Yrovi, through this area. I'm intimately familiar with Tarren Mill and the surrounding countryside. I've killed farmers, yeti, lions, bears, and Alliance in those hills, and I've had fun doing so. Now, though, the farmers are friendly, Tarren Mill is something to avoid, and the yeti are still in my way, just for different reasons. It's bizzare and altogether interesting to see a different role and side to the story.

I also like to switch it up a bit with my toons, especially on this RP server. As in, none of them seem to want to do the starting quests for their area. Seona, a dwarf, went to live in the human lands; Leodry, a human, feels more at home amongst the dwarves (where he can drown his considerable sorrows in ale); Loem, another human, found his way to Teldrassil and hangs with the elves there. I'm familiar with the game. I know what I'm doing and I'm comfortable going to other areas to level up new toons. Loem is especially fun, as I've got a special backstory set for him.

I also like my characters on a server to all be connected somehow. I like strange, sometimes convoluted social webs. They don't have to center around my main, though they do on Gul'dan (not that it matters, as it's not an RP realm). On ED, though, it actually might make a difference on how my characters act. So, my character web as I see it right now, though it can change:

Seona (Dwarf Pally, Main) is friends with Fandren (Human Priest), as they studied together in the priesthood. Fandren, as a young man, met Leodry (Human Warrior, primary alt), a jaded, former soldier of Lordaeron who believes everything he cared about is dead and gone. He convinced Fandren to become a priest, and Fan convinced Leo to not give up, but move on... which sort of worked, as Leo moved on to the dwarven lands to live. Unknown to Leo, not all is lost, as his brother still lives amongst the elves. His brother, Loem (Human Rogue), was a squire who followed his knight into battle in Kalimdor all the way to the Night Elf kingdom. When his lord died in the war, he stayed behind, learning some rather interesting tactics from the Elves, like striking from cover and then fading away again into the shadows. He befriended Berryl (Nelf Hunter), who used to live on the Kalimdor mainland. She's become fast friends with the Draenei, but has helped Loem find a place amongst her people as well. She also tries to keep an eye out for any of her friend's family, like a brother, for example...

Now, from that, you can see that Senkka (Gnome Warlock) and Liir (Human DK) are still left out, and perhaps that's okay. Liir is just a farming/banking toon after all, though I've thought about having him have ties to the Church, thus knowing Fandren and Seona. Senkka is by far the oddest one out, although the path that Fandren is planning on walking down (Shadow Priest) means he might end up meeting some rather darker members of the Alliance, such as a warlock, another class that uses shadow magics. I can tie them in, it'll just take time.

So I'm not focused. I think maybe it's time to buckle down, figure out what I want from the game and start making some decisions based on that. Perhaps I need a schedule to keep me on target, like, say play certain toons only on certain days. Maybe I need to take a formal, complete break from the Horde side of things for a while, you know, make it official in some way, and just focus on powerleveling Seona and Co. for a bit. Maybe I'm still overthinking the whole thing and need to worry a whole lot less about it. It's probably going to be a moot point when I have to move into the new house in a month or two anyway.

Leveling Gap?

So I've hit a leveling gap on Seona. She's sitting at 32, and I'm actually having a hard time finding quests that aren't red or orange. It's not that critical, I guess, but it's still unfortunate. Questing is by far the most efficient way for me to level up and I'm still desperately trying to hit level 40 so that I may finally interview with the members of the Kingship.

Of course, that's not to say that my quest log isn't full of quests. I have quite a few in there that are green. They're for the Stockades, and a few for Gnomeregan. Both of these are very Alliance-centric instances. In fact, I've only seen Stockades once, on Yrovi, on a wool cloth run. I don't know how difficult it is to find a group for these instances at their level, although I'd be willing to go as DPS or as a healer. I imagine it can't take long to do the instances, especially the Stockades. From what I witnessed on Yrovi, it's a short instance.

I'll need to go in with a very empty bag, though, since I have quests to gather up body parts from various inmates (mostly heads) and other items from the Defias inside. As I understand it, little good gear drops in Stocks, which is just one more reason why I think it might be very hard getting a group together to run it. Maybe I'll try this evening anyway. If it's anything like horde-side on my other server, though, I'll have no luck whatsoever.

I have been smart enough to at least have a few "healing" pieces of gear, mostly stuff with lots of Intellect and Spirit and such on it. Nearly all of it comes from quest rewards, but it's not bad. Verigan's Fist is a nice overall Paladin weapon, so I'll probably keep that on.

I feel a little guilty now about completely shelving Yrovi till I hit 40. Maybe I'll log on this weekend and at least run an instance or do some dailies, like maybe for the Argent Tournament, or for Netherwing. I plan to play them 50/50, but is it possible? Will I lose interest in one or the other? I'm hoping not.

I'm hoping that the roleplay aspect of the Kingship will keep me coming back for more and that being level 40 or 50 or 60 won't be an issue, provided I'm active in the various events and roleplay in general. I'll level quickly, I think, because it's all new. I've never played an alliance character this high before, not once, not even when I rolled my first character.

That's right. This self-proclaimed, die-hard Hordie's first character EVER in the World of Warcraft... was Alliance. A Night Elf, no less (No, not a hunter...). Her name isOpalandra, she's on a normal server, and she's a druid. I can't delete her, even though I long ago stopped playing her. The nostalgia is too great to do that. Still, it's sad that she just sits there, gathering dust. I only have so much time for them all, though, so what do I do. It's every altoholic's difficulty: balancig playtime amongst all your toons. Impossible to do, so many of them fall by the wayside, but I'll try anyway.

I may actually have to get a booklet where I log my playtime anyway. I've noticed that I spend far too much time playing and I think it's going to be an issue when I move into my new place. A house requires time and effort, from basic maintenence, like yard work and daily cleaning, to weekend projects (like modernizing the bathroom/kitchens). Bad time-management FTL.

Ah, well, that's for a whole other post on a whole other day.

P.S. It turns out I should have been in Southshore. Thanks to this lovely page on Wowwiki, I've realized that I've ignored Hillsbrad because when I was there 2-3 levels ago, I was too low, thus getting no quests. Now I'm just at the right level, so I should head back there. Who'd have thunk it.

Verigan's Fist and Nearly Mounted

Seona has her hammer, in all it's blue, 25 dps glory. Verigan's Fist isn't the best hammer ever in terms of stats for a retribution paladin, but I'll gladly take it for it's damage. I haven't gotten a chance to let her lose with it, though, thanks to maintenence this morning. She's still in Darkshire, having found a single quest line still unfinished dealing with one Mor'Ladim. It would have been completed much earlier, but those Hordies from "Die Lowbies Die" were once again in the Duskwood, killing the NPCs in town.

Seriously guys, I'm coming for you. You've been warned. You have one more enemy in this new Retribution Paladin, and she'll be swinging the Light into your faces soon enough.

Once she puts Mor'Ladim to rest, she'll move on to the Wetlands. This is exciting for the simple fact that she is now entering Kingship of the East territory. You see, the Kingship is dedicated to protecting the Wetlands and surrounding territory from the Horde, and as she passed though the area last night on her way into enemy territory to enter Shadowfang Keep she ran into a few of the Kingship's citizens. Though she was unable to stop and speak with them, she thinks that this won't be the only time she'll see them. Perhaps she'll even get to speak with them soon.

Speaking of Shadowfang Keep, I nearly had an apoplexy last night. You see, I ran my little dwarf butt all the way from the Wetlands, though Arathi Highlands, through Silverpine forest to the gateway of the Keep (which is well into enemy territory) doing my best to avoid enemies at all costs only to get an error at the gate. It was late, this was the last thing I needed for my hammer, and it's going to tell me "No, you can't enter because we can't pull up the instance."

Hell. No.

Little Seona said as much, out loud, enemies be dammed. I finally tried logging out/logging in, and that (thankfully) did the trick. Soloing the first part was acutally pretty simple, I only died once, because I'm an idiot and didn't care enough about my health bar to slow down. I easily made my way into the courtyard and to the stables where I found the hammer sitting plain as day, grabbed it up and left. Cakewalk.

Of course, I was doing this at level 28 instead of level 22 or 23, when you first get the quest, but still, nicely done on my part for being alone. I remember trying to solo SFK on Mål at this level but it was too hard (Exorcism did it for me, to be honest. Now that it works on everything, it makes killing things super easy).

So, Seona is level 29, has a nice blue hammer, and is ready for more. Wetlands will get her to 30, which gets her a mount, which will move fast thanks to Persuit of Justice, and I'll hit 40 in no time at all. Yrovi gets to come back then, hooray! Speaking of... I need to check my mail on my alts on Gul'dan before it expires. Altoholic has been harping at me. I think I'll post Seona's story about her hammer on Ink & Blood. Check it. :D

Backstory... Harder Than I Thought

Coming up with a compelling background story for a World of Warcraft character is actually a little harder than I thought. I definitely want something that works with the in-game lore, something believable, something that explains fully why a young dwarf lives and works for the people of Stormwind, rather than Ironforge. I want to have that background cover her family ties (what few there are), her professions, and her personal beliefs about the Light, war, and the Horde in general (and Orcs more specifically). When you want to take all that into account, it's actually quite difficult. 

I'm certain part of my problem is my inexperience with the lore, especially the timeline. I know that the first war was just between humans and orcs, as the dwarves and other races were off doing their own thing. The second war is where the integration begins, with the Alliance comprised of the Humans (all the nations), dwarves, and a few high elves. I wanted to somehow include Seona Lightstone and her family in the second war and the rebuilding of Stormwind. She's tied to the humans through mutual faith in the Light, and she certainly feels closer to the Light than to the Titans, unlike the rest of dwarven society who now have a bit of an obsession with ancient artifacts and such. I thought about making her part of the Wildhammer clan, but that seemed a little over the top, so I'll probably just stick with a rather adventurous member of the Ironforge clan.

It's possible I'm overthinking this. I would imagine that, once the dwarves became steadfast allies with the human nations that there would be plenty of dwarves following them at all times. A cleric dwarf would no doubt have interest in how the humans follow the Light's teachings and how it would differ from how the dwarves see the Light, thus spending a great deal of time among the human Church. As a scholar more than a warrior, he wouldn't have been in too much danger, either, instead healing from the sidelines...

Or maybe I should make her a touch older and give more of her story to her instead of her family/father...

This will take more thought. Once I get it all hammered out though, I'll write it out and post it, either here or on Ink & Blood, my Warcraft Fan-fiction/lore blog. Now I'm off to brainstorm!

Forsooth, again!

It's pretty obvious that I haven't mentioned my little Alliance shaman in awhile. That's mostly because I haven't played her since I posted about her so long ago. And I'm honestly not really that into her anymore, so she's going to sit in one place and get lots and lots of rested experience.

That's not to say I don't want to try again, though. In fact, I am trying again, this time on the Emerald Dream server. Why there? Well, it all started with another burning need to try roleplaying. I took a quick look at the servers where I already had characters, and noticed that I had a few on ED. So I decided that, instead of rolling on a whole new server, I'd try to get involved with this one. Before just jumping in, though, I needed a plan of action. I knew I wanted to roleplay. I mean, that's one of the points of a RP-PvP server, right? I also knew from past experiences that roleplay by yourself is... well... not very interesting. That meant I needed a group or a guild.

My first stop was warcraftrealms.com to see what kind of population I was getting into. Surprisingly, the server appears to be pretty 50/50, with maybe a very slight advantage to the Horde. All of my characters on ED are Alliance, which suits me just fine, especially with the 50/50 split. Of all the Alliance characters, humans and night elves were dominant, and I wanted one of the less populated races, so I decided on a dwarf. A female dwarf, in fact, since they're especially rare, as evidenced by the recent holiday.

Once I had made my decision, I jumped over to the official forums to see if there were any guilds actively recruiting low-level characters for roleplay. For awhile, I perused the posts, but I was about to go away empty-handed. All of the guilds were only recruiting for raids, and I knew that it would be a very long time before I was ready for that. Then, just as I was thinking of giving up and checking other venues, a post showed up asking for "Roleplay on ED? Anyone?" I jumped to the post, reading through the responses. Most were saying it was within a guild (yeah, no kidding, that's why I wanted to find one) and not out in the world, though a few events happened now and again. Then, lo and behold, an answer that caught my eye.

A very lovely night elf pointed the original poster to a website for a guild by the name of Kingship of the East, explaining that it was the finest RP guild he had ever had the pleasure of playing with. Jackpot! I immediately visited the site and looked through all their lovely information. It turns out they are a heavy RP guild, but welcoming to newcomers, and would love to welcome me when I reached the 40th season of adventuring. Perfect. :D Getting to 40 shouldn't be an issue at all, especially since I was actually very familiar with the starter quests for humans, which is where I intended to begin, even as a dwarf.

Thus, Seona was born. Seona Lightstone, a dwarf of Stormwind. Her father was a scholarly warrior who followed Lothar and the then young Varian Wrynn back to their homeland when the Alliance was forged. He died during the second war, leaving her an orphan, with the church of Stormwind caring for her, rather than the orphanage. She became a priestess of the Light, only to cast aside her robes and choose armor and a hammer over a quiter life in an abbey. She believes all knowledge is worth having, that the Light guides her on her path, and that those who wish to do harm to the weak or the innocent deserve to feel the chastising burn of the Light's wrath. She bears no love for the Horde, who took her only surviving parent from her, and feels a deep gratitude to the people of Stormwind, particularly the priests of the church, for giving her a home and safe haven. Becuase most of her growing up happened among humans, she sometimes feels a little out of place amongst dwarves, but that doesn't mean she can't hold her ale! Now that she's begun her training as a warrior of the Light, she plans to strengthen ties with the dwarves of Ironforge again, and learn more about her homeland, without forgetting her adopted people.

Yeah, that's a start, and only a start. :) I intend to clean her story up a bit, maybe get a few more details hammered out, and really fix her up nicely. I'm still not sold on the whole, "scholarly/warrior father who dragged his only child to a foriegn land...) She's already gotten some roleplay clothes and such, thanks to the starter quests and the Noblegarden holiday (elegant dress, tuxedo, and a couple of nice shirts) so I'll be prepared with a few items when the time comes to roleplay with others.

I've even ran into a couple members of the Kingship already, though I haven't introduced myself, yet. Shyness, perhaps, keeps me from doing so, but now that I'm getting her closer and closer to level 40, I'm going to keep a lookout for a few more of them.

Which reminds me, with 3.1 I chose not to update any of my RP addons... guess that's next on my list! So, wish me and my newest project luck on our foray into Azeroth and beyond!

The Other Side

Noblegarden, and, specifically the achievement Shake Your Bunny-Maker, brought the Alliance and Horde together, if only for a moment. I know I tried to make myself as adorable as possible so that the Alliance wouldn't kill me on my quest to find a Female Dwarf for the achievement.

It also got me thinking about my long-forgotten Alliance alts, specifically my own lady dwarf, Ceridwyn. She's a hunter, one that had been sitting at level 20 for quite a long time now, on the Darrowmere server. I decided to log onto her and do the Horde there a favor by running her to the front door of Orgrimmar. Naturally I was killed a few times, but not that many, and I know that at least three members of the Horde got their Noble Gardner achievements thanks to me. Made me feel are warm and fuzzy inside.

The strange thing is, I have a hunter on Gul'dan, a lady orc by the name of Dahr, also around level 20. I seem to have a really difficult time with her, though. She doesn't hold my interest (it may be because I was trying to attack things way, WAY over my level... I've returned to the Barrens for a bit to level up some more before going back to Ashenvale). My alliance dwarf, though? Love her. Managed to get her half-way to 22 in about an hour, and plan on playing her a bit each day now to slowly level her to see the other half of the game I pay for. I don't have any high-level alliance toons (I'm not counting the Death Knights I made) and I'd love to have at least one 70+ toon. The storyline is quite different.

It was actually a bit funny to see the state she was in when I logged onto her after letting her sit for months. She still had an ammo pouch. lol I got rid of it, managed to earn some gold, bought a bigger bag to replace it, worked on her engineering profession to make better ammo and went after those quests. I think, as long as I can keep her experience in the blue, I'll level her fast. Her racials are even decent even though people hate treasure-finding, as a rule. I used it last night to get some free Melon juice, and who wouldn't want free drinks for mana? Especially since she doesn't have Aspect of the Viper yet.

I know Alliance is outnumbered by the Horde on her server, but it doesn't bother me much. It has a low enough population that leveling shouldn't be an issue, and hunters level pretty quickly anyway. Only thing I wish I had was a low-level guild for running instances with and such. I don't think such a thing really exists anymore, though, so I guess I'll just have to be guildless until I get closer to the level cap.

Regardless, I think in the near future there will be a few more posts about how the other side lives, and the story lines there that pique my interest. Should be fun. :)

Shamanistic Tendencies! Forsooth!

Being the altoholic that I am, and thinking about my more creative side lately, I've decided to roll an alt on a RP server. The Venture Co. server (RP-PvP), to be precise, as going back to a "normal" server might kill me. I've become so accustomed to a PvP server that seeing blue names on the opposite faction would confuse me. Of course, I've confused myself anyway, due to the fact that I've rolled... Alliance. *gasp*

That's right. I've rolled a Draenei Shaman by the name of Lisael. I haven't really played Shaman before (I'm not counting my little level 19 twink; I've hardly played her) and I'm looking forward to a totally new class and the questlines available to me on the other side. I'm hoping it will be unique enough to actually keep me coming back. I think I'll be playing her in the early mornings and on weekends, casually, to level her and potentially join a roleplaying guild.

I've gotten a role-play add-on to flag myself for RP and write a description of my toon and I'm hoping to run into some other role-players soon. Hopefully I don't screw it all up. ;-)