We Wish You A Merry Winter Veil.

Happy Winter Veil, everyone!

Yep, it's that time of year where once again we're sent all over Azeroth looking for that god forsaken reindeer, Metzen, who once again has been kidnapped by iron dwarfs. This is my fourth Winger Veil and every year it's the same thing! You'd think by now he would have learned to steer clear of the buggers, wouldn't you!

But in all seriousness, I have to say Winter Veil is my second favourite seasonal event in WoW, second only to Hallows End. The observant amongst you will have worked out just why these two are my favourites ... because they involve special mounts!!!

Yep, I'm a mount whore, I'll admit it. A pet whore too if I'm completely honest. And the only thing I love more than the preserved holly you can get to turn your mount into a flying reindeer at Winter Veil is the flying broomstick you get at Hallows end!

So this season I plan on flying everywhere atop a red nosed reindeer! I plan on giving away cheap crafted items wrapped in wrapping paper to any lowbie or gold begger I come across! I plan on logging on Christmas morning to collect my presents from under the tree in Orgrimmar!

Oh yes, I'm going to have myself a merry little Winter Veil!

I Miss Kara.

I miss Kara.

And after running Nax a few times, I really, REALLY miss Kara.

I miss the huge castle with all of the ghosts. I miss the horseman and having the raid leader yelling down the vent “Get on his ass!!!” because we’re all cluelessly milling around instead of standing right behind him and DPSing. I even miss Aran!

See, THAT’S how much I miss Kara.

I guess Nax just doesn’t do it for me. The fights aren’t really fun, the atmosphere is gloomy, and I swear if I have to do that whole kiting the skeleton ads again just because I’m the only mage in the group, I’m going to go all Leroy Jenkins on their asses!

Okay, rant over.

Sucking Up To The Goblins.

I'm sure you all remember about how my impulsive nature along with my inability to do math resulted in me alienating myself from the Goblin nation about six months ago? If not, go here and read about it. Go on, I'll wait.

So, finished? Good.

Anyway, I suppose a quick update on THAT incredibly bad idea is in order. You'd think by now, six months later, I'd have fixed it up so that I was at least neutral with them again. Of course, you'd be wrong.

So when I realised just how much work it was going to take me to bounce back from the whole Bloodsail Admiral thing, I did what any dedicated WoW player would do ... I looked for a loophole. I really didn't want to spend all my spare time running around in that field south of Ratchet and Arcane Exploding level 12 pirates (even if it does make me feel uper overpowered :P.

Some kind soul who felt sorry for me put a comment on here about how you can do a couple of quests in Feralis and I did that for a little while, but even so it was still slow going. They gave 25 points per quest, much better than the 2-5 odd point per pirate, but still not quick enough for my impatient nature.

Then I managed to find another option, one which I'm going to share with you now.

As it turns out, there are two quests inside of Dire Maul that you can do over and over again. One involves a random drop of a key that you can pick up off any of the ogres in there which frees a goblin being held captive. The second one is a little more complicated and you need to take some crafting mats with you, but you give them to the goblin, along with a vial of ogre tannin that you pick up from a basket just upstairs from him, and he makes you an ogre suit.

And the best part is each time you do them you get around a total of 400 rep points with all of the Goblin nations!

For a level 80, it's not that hard to do and each run only takes around 10 to 15 minutes. The key drops pretty much at least once a run, and if you get a second drop you can go back and pick it up after you've freed the goblin incase you don't get one the next time round. That's what I do, I always try to go in with a key in my bag.

And as an added bonus, the ogres inside drop cloth and silver like you wouldn't believe, and the greens in there can be disenchanted into mats that sell really well on the AH. All in all, it's not a bad way to re-earn that rep.

So, I bet you're asking yourselves "If she's worked all this out, how come she's still at war with the Goblins?"

Well, Mr Nosey, the reason I'm still at war with them is the same reason I went looking for a quick and easy way in the first place. I'm lazy.

Farmville Vs WoWville

So because I need another internet addiction like I need a hole in the head, I've been going onto Facebook lately and playing Farmville. Does anyone else think Farmville is just a simplified, gold farming version of WoW?

You go on, you create your farm, you plant crops, you grow them and then you harvest them. The more you harvest, the more gold you get. It's incredibly addictive, I only started playing it last week and I've already expanded my farm, bought myself a chicken coop and a dairy building, and am collecting pigs and sheep to harvest their wool and the truffles they somehow miraculously accumulate.

I guess it appeals to that whole "want to make as much gold as I can" thing I seem to be doing at the moment. I'm currently at 24,000 gold on WoW, and I'm listing armor vellums, netherweave bags, glyphs and gems as fast as my poor little AH mule can scurry. I know it doesn't sound like much, but I'm really not a saver so I'm pretty proud of myself.

But still, until an Orc comes out and tries to hit you over the head with a whopping great club while you're harvesting your cabbages, I guess there will always be a that distinction between the two games.

Long Time, No See.

Okay, I know it's been one or two months (or five even) since I updated this, but what can I say. I'm slack. Completely and utterly slack. Guilty as charged, but recommended for leniancy due to finaluniversitysemesteritis.

Yep, that's right, I have finally finished my university degree, which I began back in the stone age when you had to enroll by filling out a paper form and posting it in, and am now a graduate with majors in Archaeology and Ancient History! Go me! Actually, looking back over my time at Uni is like looking at the evolution of the internet itself. It's amazing how much as changed in that time! In my first semester I didn't even know if the Uni HAD a website, but in my last one my enrollment, textbook purchase, assignement submission, grading and even graduation was done online!

But I digress.

Anyway, all of this final semester panic and drama (mostly created in my own mind, of course), meant that I didn't have time for such luxuries as doing laundry, scrubbing bathrooms, vaccuming floors, or updating blogs. But now that it's all out of the way, I'm going to be getting right back on that horse!

As for where I am gamewise at the moment, I'd have to say I'm kind of meandering. I think I'm suffering from pre-expansion disillusionment. I log on and seem to spend a decent amount of time ingame, but I'm not really doing anything. I tool around on an alt, then I log onto one of my crafting toons and use the cooldowns, then I get on my fishing toon and have another try at the turtle mount. Things like that. All time consuming, but ultimately not productive.

In fact, I think the thing I'm paying the most attention to right now is making gold. I've worked out that by using most of my professions I can pull in a thousand or so a day without any great effort or organisation on my part. Make some cloth here, transmute a gem there, post some vellums and wham bam, thank you ma'am, I'm done. It's fairly easy to do and I have a funny feeling I'll be needing the gold when the expansion comes. I'm certainly not raking it in the way some of the gold bloggers seem to be, but I'm doing okay.

Of course, I should probably also confess that while I seem to have no problem making gold, I also have no problem spending it. Usually on items that are either impulse buys with no real value, or on patterns and mats which drop in value and popularity within minutes of my purchase. I lost a bomb when I bought some (what I thought were) cheap crusader orbs. Silly me, the next day the patch came and suddenly you could buy the buggers for badges. I just had to take the hit on that investment.

Still, I am determined to eventually buy a mechanohog AND a traveller tundra mammoth for Tammamou! But if I want to do that, I suppose I'll have to stop buying every bright, shiny thing that's waved in front of me.

That's Admiral to You.

You know I really shouldn't be allowed to play on my own. I make the worst decisions when I'm playing alone. Like when I was still a wee little level 20 and I decided to make some quick gold by catching deviate fish in Wailing Caverns without considering how I was going to get past the elite dinosaur thingies. Or the time I thought I'd catch every single one of the coins out of the Dalaran fountain, not realising just how long or how boring it was going to be.

But this time I've really done it.

I was in Booty Bay the other weekend for the fishing competition and I couldn't help but notice how many players were running around killing the NPC. I couldn't work out why, after all Booty Bay isn't exactly a combat zone, but after a bit of a google search I found out. They were trying to get the Bloodsail Admiral Title!

Of course, it was a short jump from that to deciding that, of all the things in the world, there's nothing I want so much as that title! So without even thinking about it, I quickly switched the Booty Bay rep to at war and started slashing my way through the bruisers who wander around in there.

Of course, like all of these little ventures of mine, I hadn't really considered all the consequences. Firstly, it took FOREVER to kill enough of them to become friendly with the Bloodsails! I mean, literally hours of just killing Booty Bay guys! But by the time I realised just how long it was going to take, I was already committed so I ploughed on.

Secondly, once I'd killed enough of them and could get the quest that gave me the title, I realised just what I'd done. I was now hated with Booty Bay, Ratchet, Gadgetstan and Everlook!!!!! And do you know how you have to get your rep back? Killing pirates for anywhere between 2 and 5 rep points each! I did the maths and worked out that to even get back to friendly, I'm going to have to kill approximately 36,000 pirates! Holy crap, what have I done!!!

But on the bright side, I've got the title. I'm now Bloodsail Admiral Tammamou. And I got a swish looking pirate outfit and a hat that procs a parrot. Arg me hearties, hoist the missen mast and swab the decks ye scurvy knaves!

Well I guess I won't be winning the Booty Bay fishing competition any time soon. It's really hard to hand in when the NPC that announces the winner is trying to kill you.

Podcast Recommendation

I haven't had much time for playing lately, or posting for that matter, so I'm just going to make a quick recommendation.

If you're looking for an interesting podcast, go have a listen to For The Horde Radio.

It doesn't have the same polish as The Instance or Legendary Thread, but this is a podcast by players for players with plenty of rants, gamer observations and amusing stories to satisfy anyone. I'd better warn you though, they're a bit prejudiced against the Alliance.