A Return of Things

It's been a while since I frequented these dusty halls 

*blows dust and cobwebs off the front page*

Many things have changed since I last wrote here, both in and out of game. Firstly, I now have a job, so my time is a lot less than it was when I started this thing.

However, to look forward, we must cover what happened in the past.

Warlords of Draenor

WoD as released on November 13th 2014. As I wrote at the time, the launch was not the smoothest with long log in queues and high latency for many, including bottle necking while levelling with the start of the garrison - a new feature added by Blizz that everyone had to partake in to be able to continue with the storyline.

Through WoD, I managed to meet my goal of getting at least one of every class to level 100. This did end up meaning a few multiples of certain classes (e.g. hunters and paladins), as well as a few others dotted around. By the end of WoD I had 19 level 100 characters spanning both factions, and even two different regions as I had been playing on the US as well.

One unexpected benefit from the garrisons, and one that was better the more alts you had, was the gold quests from both the garrison table and the shipyard. This made WoD the most profitable expansion for a lot of players, and made Blizzard make sure to remove the gold quests from the garrisons once Legion was almost ready to go live so that players wouldn't return to do this old content.

My guild underwent a rebrand as well during WoD, changing from The Drafia to Seren. This ended a period of uncertainty for us and we are still going strong today as our progress on the left hand side shows. For those wondering about the new name - it is Welsh for Star, hence the logo.

My New Love

Fast forward two years to 2016. We are in the longest content drought since WoW began with many people fed up of Hellfire Citadel. The previous Blizzcon a new IP for Blizzard had been announced - a FPS game called Overwatch, a completely new direction for Blizzard. I was lucky enough to get into the beta, and absolutely fell in love with all of the new heroes. The first cinematic that was released mesmerised me, and even my nephew fell in love with it and I had many requests to play him "the video with the monkey who gets his glasses broken"

This and the subsequent hundreds of hours I have played in the game have led to my love affair with being a support main. I am a proud Mercy main, and I will not be shamed because of it, Mercy is love, Mercy is life.

Falling in love with Overwatch led me to a fantastic community of like minded geeks and gamerfolk who have made the past year of my life amazing in so many ways, and the amount of creativity that Overwatch has brought out in people never ceases to amaze me, from new art pieces, cosplay to OW inspired musical pieces.

Legion

The new expansion for WoW released February 8th 2017 - many players returned excited to see the promised return of the Legion and hopeful for a return to the most exciting times of the game. Sub numbers were indeed boosted quite high with the release of legion, with many people seeking to complete the new artifact weapon quest lines and power their weapons up as they levelled to the new maximum of 110. 

There have been many things I have loved about Legion so far, along with a number of things that I have not loved so much - but i shall leave those for another post!

The Future

My gaming habits may be evolving, and I have branched out into games other than WoW and Diablo . However, Azeroth is still my home, I just like to occasionally vacation in other areas.

The blog is going to focus on my changing relationship with the games and what they mean to me as I continue to share just why these games are so special and invite you all to enjoy them with me!

The two important gaming ladies in my life

The Important Things in Life

A few things have happened in real life this weekend that have made me appreciate what, and who, I have.

You've heard me talk about my Nephew many times. On Saturday morning, we heard the sad news that his other Grandfather (his Mum's Father) had suddenly died from a heart attack. My Nephew's Mum and my brother and broken up (amicably) and she was due to be moving back in with her Father - much shock all round.

Due to this we had my Nephew all weekend as the last thing his Mum needed to worry about was a two year old running around.

Even though I didn't know her Dad very well, it was still a shock and made me want to re-establish my own relationships, both outside of the game and inside.

My very good friends Landerolin and Siorai have alt characters in my horde guild, and we spent the day yesterday levelling together, nattering on Vent (until I had to go afk to help with dinner).

Kudos for those of you who can tell where we are!

I also have applied and been accepted for one of my old Alliance alts back on SWC to rejoin The Wanderers, so I can re-establish old friendships there also. My shaman has started the levelling path between 85 and 90 (currently 86!) though she was very confused when visiting the inn at Dalaran:

Yep, someone had managed to get Gymer the Storm King up here and he is dead in Dalaran - at least it looks that way. I'm starting to think it may be a bug as the corpse has been there for a few days now (and I doubt someone is purposefully bringing a new one here every time it despawns!)

My druid is settling in well in Draenor, she has a nice new transmog also!

Her gear is also coming along nicely, she has gone from ilvl 494 on SWC to a current ilvl of 517! She's done a bit of Flex raiding and has started making her way through LFR, and is currently queued for ToES for the legendary part (tho I doubt I shall get all the way to the end of the legendary questline, already have umpteen characters at various parts of it.)

My gold making plans for the next expansion keep going awry as I keep spending the gold....

I needed a Traveller's Tundra Mammoth okay? Honest!

A Preparation of Sorts!

After doing some catching up on blog reading, I have decided to sort out my characters' bags and banks in preparation for what ever may be to come!

On many of my alts I'm already running out of space so today shall be dedicated to sorting out what can and can't be put in Void Storage, and shipping the rest off to the bank alt to see what profit can be made with the rest.

If all else fails, I may clear out the stash of Lootistics Island gear I have and once "used" vendor the results on each char for a tidy sum! (Though I may just farm more and do this anyway for fun and profit, and more coins towards that mount!)

This is how my bank alt's bags and banks last looked:

As you can see, apart from a ton of Timeless Isle gear, I have a boat load of not very useful stuff.

So the goal over the coming weeks/months shall be to rid myself of the clutter that I no longer need/have use for, and to start hoarding various trade materials that will likely still sell quite well in the coming weeks/months. Then I will actually remember to log on my banker occasionally and even list some auctions!

With the help of a friend actually looking after gold for me at the end of Cataclysm, I managed to come into Mists with a nice sum of gold behind me, so much in fact that in the time it took me to hit 90 I had enough for my Grand Yak. However this time round I need to do this on my own.

I've always had a bit of a lazy attitude when it comes to gold, i generally have enough on each character to cover their repairs if needed and buy food etc, but generally not massive amounts. As an example most of my alts generally run around with roughly 200 gold on them.

Even my "main" character generally doesn't have much more. In fact I possibly have around 5000g overall currently, and that includes low level alts.

Gold making has never been a priority for me, and I find that if I do end up with a large chunk of gold, I tend to spend it quite quickly on companion pets, gear for the alts, things I don't need but look fun, so its a very fluid commodity for me with me generally spending slightly more than I make back in any one session.

However this has never impinged on my enjoyment of the game and I always have enough for the things that my characters need at any given time. No I may not be able to go out and afford the latest craftable gear, but my characters will always be gemmed and enchanted from my small army of alts that have all of the professions covered. I've even levelled up a second engineer, but I did it the old fashioned way by going out and mining all the ores that I needed until I had enough to proceed further with my training.

Ideally, I would like to have a stash of around 50k by the time the next expansion hits, but with so many mounts that I can buy for gold that I still don't own because of the cost (I'm looking at you http://www.wowhead.com/item=85262, and you http://www.wowhead.com/item=89304, not to mention http://www.wowhead.com/item=44235 and all the JC crafted mounts!)

So my aim is to make gold, but also to try NOT to spend it!

I think I need some luckydo!

A Farmer's Life for Me!

I've been attempting the last few days to actually set up a full farm on each of my 90s as a way of getting easy mats and to use those mats to make myself some gold.

So far I have 2 fully open farms, and the one above on my mage which is getting there! The hunter ha been growing Snakeroot plants on her farm for the past week anyway so has a nice little stash of Trillium growing in her bags.

This still leaves me another 3 90s on Draenor who have yet to do their farm, but I can't face any more Tillers dailies quite yet ^^

The Mage has successfully completed the second part of ToT LFR and got herself some very snazzy bracers

See her here staring down Tortos:

The baby Warlock is also coming along well! She got to 65 yesterday along with a guildie's monk teaming up in some dungeons!

a busy time :D She should hopefully be 90 in no time ^^

Other than that I've been pretty quiet on the WoW front, but have managed to catch up on some films! Normal service shall resume shortly :)

The Blog Where I Have No Idea What to Write About

Not much gone on in game the last few days, we had another fun run to ICC, and I managed to reach exalted with the August Celestials!

I am also immensely jealous of my guild member Jhatz's transmog - you can see in this screenshot, they are the Pandaren farmer look-a-like! It is almost enough to make me roll a male Panda - and I don't have any male characters ^^

Finally hitting exalted with the August Celestials was nice, but means I need to make even more gold now to be able to afford the mount (seriously 7000g is a little ridiculous!) and I still haven't been able to buy the Klaxxi one (also 7000g T_T)

My relationship with gold in this game has been a funny thing. I always have just enough to do things I want to do and not worry about running out - a few times back in Wrath I did reach the unfortunate point of having to sell offspec gear to be able to afford repairs, but I've gotten better at making gold since then!

My gold used to be spent on all of my alts, getting them geared up and flying etc. and while there has been some of that going on so far this expansion, the gold each character has made on its levelling journey has generally been enough to pay for its own flying.

I have most professions maxed out and while for most people these are gold earners, I levelled my professions for fun, and have rarely used them to actually make gold back! (This is my downfall, I'm aware, as this is where most of my gold making should easily be accomplished).

I've toyed with playing the Auction House, and had Trade Skill Master installed for a while, but it didn't feel fun so I uninstalled it again.

Nowadays, most of the gold I get is either from the day to day activities my characters do (world bosses - because you know i'm getting gold bags and not loot, heroics, the occasional LFR), or from vendored gear drops/grey items.

Its enough to keep me ticking over until I encounter something like a mount I can buy at the end of a rep grind!

Somehow I shall make the 14,000g I need for the Klaxx iand August Celestial mounts, then maybe I can look into actually getting the other mounts I don't have, such as the JC mounts and continue with my Archaeology to try and find the elusive Vial of the Sands recipe on one of my alchemists!

Also, I have decided that the people on Draenor like Mammoths a little too much ^^

Levelling yet more alts!

I have spent the last few days amusing myself by levelling a baby priest (yes, another one!) 

Apart from that, on a Friday we look after my gorgeous (almost) 2 year old Nephew, hence no post yesterday.

(Seriously, look at this face!)

Real life > Game/Online Life etc. Can't be sitting at the PC typing away when he wants my attention or to pretend to play on the "Puter".

Game life, not all that much has been happening lately. Summer slow down has begun in earnest, and guild roster is looking pretty sick with regards to folk on-line most evenings, but then, the sun is actually shining which is almost unheard of in recent years in the UK.

To add a bit of extra challenge, I'm levelling her as holy (a spec I have very little experience with), and only as holy. So no dual spec, not DPS spec to make questing faster/easier, and I'm still avoiding too many dungeons, as I enjoy the actual questing part of play.

I've also read interesting things about Chakra: Chastise DPS being comparable with Shadow which intrigues me, so figured I would experiment. I also didn't send this alt any gold to see just how much she can make through the levelling process.

So far, I'm the grand level of 52, and have nought both ground mount training and have amassed a stagger 203g! I can remember struggling to get enough gold to learn my first riding skill at level 40 on the hunter, so its a nice change.

Quest wise, things are dying fairly fast. Sure some of them might take an extra hit or two than if I was levelling as Shadow, but I'm enjoying this character and its sufficiently different to my other priest that I'm not bored, which is of course the important thing!

As she is such a low level, I don't have many screenshots, but here is one of here in the weird looking light of Swamp of Sorrows:

I shall keep you posted on her progress ^^