8/30/08

Orcapalooza Fun

Another BRK event over, but this was the first I participated in. I had an absolute blast. Found three of the items and one of Bloodmoon Chosen, the guild that was sponsoring the event.

Saw a number of major names there... and wasn't sure what was more amusing, the NE hunter that showed up flagged and started taking on all orclet comers, or the lil orclets that kept trying to kill her.

I also spotted a dwarf on a cat watching the event. BRK, this was the ultimate blast for me, even though it was only an hour. Managed to get to level four, die twice and log out in Ratchet of all places (yay for falling off the wrong part of the Valley of Trials and landing in water).

All I can say is, thank you for the event, insane orcs running amok and a server going WTF is with these orcs everywhere?! Made my night.

Thank you Temerity Jane, thank you BRK, and thank you a ton Bloodmoon Chosen.

It started off with me getting my regular name the day before and just sitting on the character selection screen. I was happy with that.

The actual event started with me logging in right next to Temerity Jane. I literally saw tons and tons and tons of little orcs milling about and ONE troll, so obviously I've got to mouse over the level 6 troll, only to realize its TJ! I managed to contain myself from jumping up and down, then I looked over all the lil orclets and found Brksorc.

I made a bee-line for the character. Hey, its not every day I get to stand in the presence of great hunterness that's also got a kick butt blog too! (Yes, my guildie hunters rock, but they don't blog ^_^). Anyways, this was at 7pm server time. The whole show didn't start til 7:30, so I had plenty of time to poke and jab at my UI so it'd be at least remotely working.

And then I realized I was more or less sitting next to the Guild Lead for Bloodmoon Chosen, on a war bear. Since I'd not really gotten a chance to study a war bear mount before, I took the time to look it over while BRK was spamming macros trying to get everyone organized.

I joined the raid, with a polite "I'd like to join the raid, please." whisper, and got into the orcapalooza chat channel... didn't bother to colorize that channel, probably should have... would have made it more fun somehow.

Then somebody showed up with shirts! Lot of people were running around with the Orange Mageweave Marital Shirts. I got a regular orange mageweave one... but I was perfectly happy with that, while some other people wanted to trade for the black sleeved one. But, I noticed something that a lot of the WTTs didn't... BRK was wearing a regular orange shirt, and if that's good enough for him? Certainly good enough for me. ^_^

Somebody else showed up with bags, so I picked up a pair of six slotters, and then got ready to go and kill things.

Volley went off, and I took off running to the words GO GO GO GO GO GO! from BRK... killed my first thing and realized it wasn't sparkly... oops, BRK forgot to switch it to Free-for-all, but my XP shot up since I think we had a full raid and everyone in it (aside from BRK) had just tried to kill something at once. Literally I went from 0xp to about 1/3 the way through 1 in the first 20 seconds.

BRK was yelling at us to all drop group, so I did as I ran after the second boar on my list. Shot at it while a warrior swung... yay for hunter being better at pulling (duh, what else would I be playing with this sign off?)! I got the tag, so I finished killing the pig, pivoted and shot at the next thing... warlock got it (which is about the only thing faster than a hunter when it comes to tagging something). The entire Valley was alive with Orcs just murdering anything that moved in sight, it was fun. I made a bee-line past the pigs for the scorpids as soon as I hit level 2. Killed every scorpid in sight that i could get my arrows into.

Helped somebody with a Vile Familar that was trying to separate the orc's head from its body, and then pivoted to kill my own as I went up in a woosh of gold, yep level 3. I slid back towards where Sarkoth spawns and found that same war bear, snapped my screen shot and killed something right in front of the other hunter, using a bit of jumping back, swinging and shooting (hey, whatever works at that level) then circled back towards the Familiar Cave.

My blue pouch fell off a Felhound-thingie, and I hopped up and down briefly before killing the next thing in my line of sight and then I scrambled out of the cave, after a quick Alt Tab to realize that the Scorpid Worker tail was on the list... oops! Scurried over, grabbed the boars pre-cursor quest, slaughtered all my boars, ran back, turned in, picked up the scorpid one, murdered a scorpid, got the tail; and then dinged four and ran like heck for the entrance of the Valley. I killed a level 5 Scorpid got a Stinger and got my third item on the list (my last item too). Which also ran me out of arrows (you'd think after just having leveled not one, but two characters through there I'd have remembered to GRAB ARROWS?! Nope >.>).

Then, after foolishly deciding to jump at a level 7 boar, I found myself rezzing in Sen'jen Village. Scurried over to Echo Isles to see if any of the BMC were visible... nope. Saw the 10 minute warning... yes I went from 1-4 in an hour with only one quest done... and scurried back to the Valley... I was going to get a SS of Brkorc if I could... he wasn't around. So I scrambled up the Hidden Path thinking that maybe, just maybe, there'd be a BMC hiding back there... nope.

And then I fall off, into water and die to a level 7 Muckshell... and rez in Ratchet. The event ended, and that is where Tzia the orc of Argent Dawn is logged out, in Ratchet in the Barrens of all places.

Like I said earlier, thank you everyone that made this possible. I had a blast!

Word Clouds and Cool Hunters


First off, thanks goes out to Green Hunter, who is on my notable blogs section. I was flipping through my WoW related blogs gearing up for another play session. Feel free to note the time stamp... yes, I am playing very, very early in the morning right now; or very, very late - depending on how you want to look at it.

Anyway, I hit Green Hunter's blog and came face to face with a word cloud by Wordle. I thought it was the coolest thing... so of course I had to pop in Have Bow and see what it gave me.



How cool is that?!

Now, however I'm not sure where the word Collins or Joan shows up in the blog. I've noticed the word in several different renderings of my cloud... guess I'll have to dig through my post history and see if I can uncover it.


In other news, I've created a little gadget off to the side listing my hunters... I will eventually get them linked up so that they can be tracked, if people wish to do so. As I write this I now notice I'm missing at least one major hunter off my list... my Deathwing Hunter, whom I just created yesterday.

Anyone that is familiar with my travels through WoW will remember that (QD)Tzia originally came off Deathwing and I swore I'd never go back... well guess again - I guess.

No, Tzia is not moving back to Deathwing, for one you cannot move a PvE character to a PvP realm. No, my guy is playing again. He insisted that we play on Deathwing even though I hate the sound of snapping bones and screaming lowbies with a passion (hey this IS a PvP realm). And I left because I was sick of being jumped by over-geared jerk offs, but no... if I want him to play its going to be Deathwing. Ugh. We've reached a compromise. I get whatever pet I want... no exceptions, none, nada. If I want a friggen Sporebat... I get a Sporebat. The other compromise (which was more to get me to play on Deathwing than anything) was we will be perma-grouped. He's rolled a blood elf priesty, I, as previously stated, rolled yet another hunter - this one a blood elf.

This hunter will not be a main by any means at any time in the foreseeable future. Right now she's level eight and I am foaming at the mouth... I want ten, I want my pet. The guy is currently at work, and we left them in Newbie Blood Elf Territory.
I will probably post a lil blip when she hits 10, with a screen-shot of what I hope will be her first and final pet.

Yes, if you haven't noticed yet, I can't seem to stick with one pet... even though I try my hardest. Something new and shiney always comes along... but let's see if this alt can actually stay with one pet all the way instead of jumping through five or twenty thousand before hitting 70... if that even happens.

8/25/08

Memorable Tames: Helki


As I said in a previous post from many, many months back we have all had memorable tames, or just pets that stand out in our minds. Another one of those for me is one of my wolves. Specifically, my white wolf. I’m a big cat fan – as I’ve said before. I’m also a pretty big wolf fan, in total I’ve had four. Only one really stands in my mind. Helki.

I was level 28, in Ashenvale Forest, on Deathwing. I was hiding from a group of marauding Alliance on mounts that were trying to kill anything with a red name plate in site. Believe me; I was not happy at all. I had some temporary thing next to me that I had been using to test out the different families of pets. I am intently watching the road, knowing I’m far enough back to not be seen. I hear a growl behind me and suddenly I see blood flying and my health dropping. I flipped my camera right as I died to see, not the alliance, but a glorious white wolf covered in blood and starting in on my now lifeless body.

While I was running back to my body I stopped on the road and flipped to Petopia, I wanted to know what had just ripped out my throat… typical hunter reaction – I wanted it as a pet! I found out that I’d just been killed by a Ghostpaw Alpha. I also noted that it had Furious Howl and a new rank of Bite, so either way it was going to be a really good tame idea.

I found my wolf again, cleared every other thing that wanted to kill me from the area, ditched the temporary pet, dropped my trap. . . and died to alliance. Ahhh! Litterally that was my only comment. I ran back… and then sat there for about five minutes just waiting for the coast to be clear. I popped up, dropped the trap, tamed my wolf and then ran like hell for Splinter Tree. I got to Splinter Tree and then sat there, staring at my new companion, wondering what the heck I was going to name it.

Luckily for me, I was also playing a browser based simulation that allowed you to bred, train, and show both horses and several ‘types’ of dogs. I logged off WoW and logged into that game, found a cheap wolf for $10 in game currency, and then popped up an Imaging Program, and made myself a little image.



I didn’t tell anyone on that game that the name would be for a World of Warcraft pet, but I did toss out a two million dollar game cash prize. I got a ton of name suggestions, some of them completely and utterly stupid (its amazing what two million will draw out of the wood work) and some amazingly good.

A woman by the screen name of Embla gave me the best name. Helki : Native American for ‘to touch’. I loved it and ran with it… and I will admit for a while there I had a set of wolves… Vash and Helki. They didn’t amount to much, I’m ashamed to admit.

Here is what that Helki looked like:


I ran with Helki from 28 to 40 on the Deathwing Server in WoW, and then foolishly got rid of her. I’ve regretted that decision for quite some time, but now, I’m making up for it on (MG)Tzia. I went back at 36 and grabbed a Ghostpaw Alpha, and have named her Helki. I’m now 41 and Helki is 35.