Category Archives: screenshots

alts, outlands, screenshots

The Littlest Heroes

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Over the last three and a half years I have sent three hunters and two druids through this portal but this is my first warlock.

Obviously the ceremonial screenshot had to happen.

I love how Tawbree is as big as Lil’ XT.

Now my favorite part about going through the Dark Portal is the hugely scary Pit Commander on the other side, because it makes me stop and go “whoa” every time. So I charged in, eager to be reunited with my big scary friend again, aaaaand he was dead. Guess that says something about the state of the Outlands these days. Good times…

pets, screenshots

New Pets!

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Getting a new pet can be very exciting for you and your family but your other pet may not share the same excitement when it comes to meeting your new furry family member.

Introducing your pets to one another is going to be a lengthy process and unfortunately won’t happen overnight. It’s better to introduce them to one another slowly and build a safe, healthy, and long-term relationship, rather than forcing them to get along and one becoming aggressive, scared, or even hurt in the process.

How to Introduce Your New Pet to Other Pets

There are a few stepping stones to go through before your pets become best buddies. First of all, don’t panic. The first meeting, for most pets, is going to be uncomfortable and it’s normal for pets not to get along at first. It could take up to six months for the two to get used to each other. Consider your pet’s characteristics and come up with a plan. Read Pitbull breed information articles and more to be prepared. Think of the unique factors of your pets. For example, puppies and kittens are easier to introduce as older dogs and cats have already developed their personality. You know your pet, so develop your plan based around how you think they will react.

Once you have your new pet, take your existing pet out of the house, either for a walk or a drive. This way your new pet has the chance to explore your home first and feel comfortable in their new environment, smelling the other pet without the stress of meeting them. Make sure to follow your vaccination schedule with one of these dog vaccination companies in Texas.

Then slowly bring the two pets closer together in neutral territory. Allow the two to sniff each other through a closed door. When both are comfortable and ready, allow playdates for short periods of time for them to connect, then return them to their safe space when they want to. Don’t force the interaction if one pet is not comfortable in the situation. The feeling of being safe and secure is crucial when introducing your pets to one another. Keep these playdates short, relaxed, and fun.

How to Introduce Your New Pet to Other Pets

HANDY TIP

Try taking your pets out before introducing them. For example, if you are introducing a new dog to the house, take them on a long walk or play a game of fetch in the park. This will make your dogs use a lot of their energy and will help prevent them overreacting when you introduce the two. However, before taking your dog outside, it’s important to ensure your all of their vaccinations are up-to-date. This will prevent your four-legged friends from contracting serious infections and diseases.

During the play time, both your pets with positive reinforcement. Give them treats, praise, and playtime as rewards. But make sure you give equal love to both pets. You don’t want one to get jealous! Also, make sure you give your new pet their own new items. Don’t take away or share your older pets beloved bed, toy, or water bowl as this will lead the older pet to become confused and jealous.

How to Introduce Your New Pet to Other Pets

If you are introducing a cat and a dog, take extra care when they first meet. Beforehand make sure you trim your cat’s nails to prevent any sharp scratches and set up an easy escape route. For your cat, create a separate area filled with food, water, and a fresh litter box where they can retreat, just in case they don’t feel safe for a few days. When it comes to the introduction, keep your dog on a leash and slowly let the two connect. Keep this time short and then allow them to go back to their safe areas where they can relax and calm down.

goals, screenshots

I Was Told I Could Farm at a Reasonable Pace From Nine to Eleven

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I was really casual about it. Did the easy quests when I remembered and didn’t stress if I skipped a day or two. (Or three, or four.)

But it turned out to be a really enjoyable little grind. I would not have wished doing it at 70 upon anyone, though. I mean, all those elites running around and everything, yipes.

But yeah, logged on every morning (I’ve been working evenings), did a few quests, and here we are less than a month later.

Shiny!

goals, screenshots

I Believe You Have My Internet Dragon

15 Comments

Hey guys remember the Netherwing questline and how it was super hardcore back in the day to have one of those netherdrakes?

…so yeah, I never did it. I dunno, just wasn’t my style. I know it was the hip thing to do back in Burning Crusade, but I just never got around to it.

So anyway, the other week I randomly decided, you know what, let’s do that Netherwing quest chain. I mean, at the end you get what I like to call an aetherdragon mount. (Fact: Attaching the word “aether” to any other word as a prefix instantly makes said word several more levels of awesome than it already is.)

Furthermore, I’ve decided to do it on my Hordie rather than on my main. I’m not exactly sure why. Maybe it’s because I hate myself, because it’s on a PvP server and all. Or maybe it’s because I already like my mounts on Tawyn. Who knows. Sometimes I just get the urge to do things on a different character. My Hordie is, after all, also the only one of my toons with the talbuk mounts and the Diplomat title, and I have no intention of ever repeating either of those feats on my main (partially because I think it’s out of character and partially because the grinds suck).

Anyways, I’m at the point now where I’m logging on, doing a few quick Netherwing dailies while in queue for a random, doing the random, and then calling it good for the day. I’m taking it nice and easy and I’m not spending hours hunting around for eggs or anything, so this will probably take a while. Honestly, if I have the drake by the time Cataclysm comes out, I will be utterly shocked.

Oh well! I’m in no rush.

In related news, doing the Netherwing dailies gives you a spiffy male Fel Orc costume, even if you are a female, and I have discovered that using the Darkspear Pride item here will turn you into a male troll. I love crazy gender-bending tricks like that.

Speaking of Cataclysm, I’m rather apathetic about it. Not in a emo/ragequit/etc. way, but more in a “Well Cataclysm probably isn’t gonna affect my silly Netherwing grind or my newfound addiction to battlegrounds as a gnome rogue, so I’ll take it or leave it” way. That’s not to say I won’t go nuts rolling ten thousand goblins when the game comes out, but you know.

Though now that I mention it, reserving a copy would probably be a smart idea…

(Edit: Just occurred to me: flying around Orgrimmar on a netherdrake is gonna be boss)

alts, pvp, screenshots

The Art of War(song)

7 Comments

My rogue was about halfway through level 18 this morning, so I decided to do some Warsong Gulch. The first game was kind of a failure; we lost pretty badly. I was sort of preparing for this to be one of “those mornings” where it was just a string of losses and crying.

But then something interesting happened.

We started communicating.

See, there was a pretty solid group of about six or seven of us who kept re-queue’ing over and over. We didn’t always get into the same games, of course, but we’d always be there with at least a few buddies from the previous game or two games ago or whatever. A couple of us were pretty twinked out but there were a lot of your average lowbies in our little re-queue’ing group as well.

Anyways, pretty soon we’d figured out what everyone’s strengths and weaknesses were, and we were making and executing plans. We knew who our best flag-runners were, who was best on defense, and who made the best distractions. There was no QQ, no whining, no crying if somebody messed up. Just a lot of “gj”‘s when we made yet another flag capture.

Game after game we just dominated. 3-0, 3-0, 3-0. Anytime we queued up and saw a friend we could rely on from a previous game we would say hi and /cheer at each other. Even the people from the Super Hardcore PvP Servers were /cheering and /waving. And every game our motley little group just smashed the Horde. It was, quite honestly, the best PvP I have participated in in a very, very long time.

But all good things come to an end, and pretty soon came that fateful game where I announced at the beginning that it would be my last: I was gonna level out of the bracket. The response was a few “Noooo”s in BG chat which made me feel kinda warm and fuzzy.

Perhaps fittingly, this was our hardest game of the morning: the Horde had some pretty geared folks on their end this time, including a rogue who was basically equal to me in gear and who I locked one-on-one horns with several times. But we managed to eke out a victory in the end– with a flag I captured.

Thanks, BG9, for making WSG surprisingly awesome again for one morning. I hope to see you all in Arathi Basin! <3

screenshots

Quick Logistical Post

7 Comments

I get a lot of spam comments. A lot of it. I clear out probably five or so spam comments a day on both of my blogs combined– and that’s not counting the several thousands that Akismet has caught in its spider-web.

Yeah.

Most of the spam tries to cleverly disguise itself as not-spam, which is how it gets through the filters. But it’s still not something I want to deal with every day.

As a result I have decided to auto-close commenting on all posts older than 14 days. I hate to do this, because I know some people have a lot of blogs to catch up on and don’t get around to individual posts for a while, but it will help tons with the spam situation (as 90% of it happens on old posts).

You are, of course, always welcome to contact me via e-mail, Twitter, or by commenting on more recent posts, though!

alts, meta-wow, screenshots

Rah Rah Ah Ah Ah

10 Comments

I always loved hunters but it was a bit of a bizarre relationship. I loved them for what they were, obviously, but I also loved them because I was afraid to try anything new. Because anytime I tried anything new, I was expecting a carbon copy of a hunter, and when this never turned out to be the case, I would quit said new character in frustration. I was, for lack of a better term, caught in a bad romance.

After several months of hiatus things are different. I no longer feel like I have to keep writing hunter guides. I mean, tons of you guys followed me over to my new blog to hear me talk about things like aquarium test strips. Seriously.

I can feel the excitement.

I have also Officially Quit Raiding. I don’t have the time or the previously discussed mental stamina. My guild keeps trying to talk me into letting them drag me to an Arthas fight so I can see it, but I’m pretty apathetic about the whole issue. If I see him, fine, if not, fine. Ya know?

So my beloved hunter has been relegated to the status of BadgeBot. I run random LFGs with her when I’m feeling up to it. I spend the badges on those BoA heirlooms and Primordial Saronite. That’s right, I’m in Ulduar tier stuff and spending badges on stuff that isn’t better gear. Savvy?

Instead of raiding and endgame, I’m dinking around in alts which are tons more fun. When I started WoW again I made a pact to myself that I was going to be The Very Model of a Modern Major Casual, and I’m happy with how it’s turned out. I’ll spend a half hour or so in game every day, doing things that are familiar (starter areas/old instances anyone?) but also different. For example, after avoiding melee like the plague for years, I have a Feral Druid. And a rogue. My word, I love my rogue. And her vanity guild.

...gaga ooh la la?

Stuff dies before I can use Eviscerate. It’s hilarious. Also I’m a gnome, and an engineer, which means that as soon as I go into WSG I am going to become the embodiment of everything that Every Horde PvPer hates. It will be glorious.

I also really like her name. Tourbillon. This is a tourbillon:

It’s POWERED BY PHYSICS! Fully mechanical; and it goes on a watch, which means it’s about the size of what, your thumbnail?

Perfect name for a gnome rogue engineer, no? <3 I've also started making alts on the servers of friends and fellow bloggers. I used to avoid doing that because I was really bad about logging on to them and then I'd feel horrible about making an alt somewhere and never playing it. I'm trying to be better this time, though. I'm Pike, and I endorse this Pointless Post.

screenshots, special, stories, Uncategorized

Every New Beginning…

70 Comments

…comes from some other beginning’s end. ( – Seneca. Or Semisonic. Whichever…)

The account has expired, and I’m done with World of Warcraft for the foreseeable future. Having done everything I needed to do on my “mains” last night, I was actually in the process of going around and double-checking my lesser-played alts today for any rogue items in their mailboxes when I was kicked off of the server.

So wait, you’re coming back, right? When?

I’ve hesitated to say for certain one way or another because I don’t want to make any guarantees. At best I want to give myself a few months to get things sorted out. If needs be I’ll wait until Cataclysm and see how things are looking then. Let’s just give it the ol’ Blizzard “Soon“™

What about the blog?

As I said, I will keep blogging. Probably in more than one place, because apparently I’m an addict like that (or a masochist, take your pick.)

I’ve thought about it for a bit and although I initially figured I’d just keep blogging here, I think I’d rather leave Aspect of the Hare “as is”. That way, people who want to continue linking to me for guides and the like can do so without worrying about people having to wade through non-WoW stuff. Plus, if/when I come back, I can just jump right back in to a ready-to-go WoW-themed blog.

What I’m probably going to do is set up a couple of subdomains here and then when they’re all set I’ll make another post linking you all to them. Gimme a couple days and I’ll get back to you!

Also, if you have a LiveJournal account and want to read my somewhat less-structured and more non-sequitor rambles I don’t mind if you friend me over there, either.

Commissions?

Will continue, send ’em my way! I’d like to think the fabled “Sitemeter Avatar Contest” will continue in some fashion also, though we’ll have to wait and see how things go once I get my “New Blog” all set up.

And now, roll credits:

Thank you…

…to BRK and Lassirra, without whom I would never have started blogging. Your blogs were inspirations that got me excited about the WoW-o-sphere and taught me how to play a hunter in the first place.

…to the WoW Twitterati for giving me one epic chatroom to rant, laugh, cry, and joke in, to bounce ideas off of, and inspire me to do crazy things like draw pictures or write books. I’ll still be around, don’t worry.

…to my guild, Order of the Rose, for being made of at least ten types of awesome. For dragging me around to their alt runs when I was an undergeared nub and then tossing me head first into their 25mans and hard modes, for passing gear and weapons to me, and for pulling together special raids just for me so I could get my Champion of the Frozen Wastes title– on not one, but two characters. For not just “letting” me raid as Beast Mastery, but for flat-out encouraging and challenging me to do so. Every outcast, non-flavor-of-the-month player should be so lucky.

…to my guild in Burning Crusade, the now-defunct but never-forgotten Entelechy. This is going to sound dorky and cheesy to the Nth Degree, but ya know what, I’m gonna say it anyway: you guys are some of the best friends I’ve ever had. I love that a good number of us have kept in touch outside of the game, via our forum or our nightly AIM chats, which is awesome because I know a lot of us have quit playing. I think back to the best memories I have of this game– Karazhan, countless Heroic Mech runs, opening all the graves in Zul’Farrak when we were all level 45, marching in on the Caelestis Templares’ cathedral twenty-strong– and I wasn’t doing it alone, but with you guys. May there always be Five Seconds to Evocate on Curator and may “Thundercats, Ho!” always ring through the hall before Shade of Aran.

…to Blizzard, for, well, making the game to begin with. I’ve been a BlizzHead since StarCraft stole my heart away in 1999, and it’s you guys and Nintendo more than anybody that have instilled a love of gaming in my soul. Being a citizen of Azeroth these past three years has been an honor and privilege. You guys are masters of making living, breathing worlds and characters. I was trying to emulate that solid real-ness when I was writing my book and inventing my own fictional world and characters, and if I was even half as successful as you with it, then I think I’m good. And if my book ever ends up published and with even a modicum of success then I’ll owe you a grateful hat tip.

…and finally, to my readers, for being the best readers that any blogger could ever hope for. It’s been almost three years of blogging and I can count the number of truly negative comments that I’ve received on one hand. And it’s because you guys are all amazing and mature and here to contribute to this little community. I have read every single comment ever posted here– every single one– and I wish I could go through and name names one by one and thank you all individually but it would take too long. Suffice to say if you have ever commented here I consider you a friend. Thank you for making me a part of your lives. I really didn’t deserve it.

If you’re going to follow me along to the rest of my blogging adventures, then I very much look forward to seeing you there. If not, it’s been a pleasure and I can only hope that something I said at some point made you smile or made you think. And I hope to see you again should I return.

—

Before I logged off of my characters last night, I tried to make sure I logged off appropriately. Tawbree, for example, is astride her new Epic Fiery Horse cause I did in fact manage to hit level 40. Tamaryn is in tree form, dancing away, with both trinkets activated and all of her HoTs ticking on herself.

And Tawyn pulled out Tux, her very first pet ever, and went on a little road trip. She went to Teldrassil, where it all began; she went to Azshara and explored the entire thing– including even more things I’d never seen before!– and then… then, she went home.

Bestial Wrath’d right before I logged out. That way she’ll be Bestial Wrath’d out there in Pixel-Land until I come back, and if I don’t come back, she’ll be Bestial Wrath’d until the servers go down.

I thought it was a nice touch.

—

Long past were the days when Medivh’s tower was much of a threat and adventurers flocked to the pass to donate their skills to the cause, but the few Violet Eye delegates that were holding out there did see the occasional visitor.

Archmage Alturus was on a first name basis with a few of these visitors, the night elf Tawyn being one of them.

“Back again, are you?” he asked, eyebrow raised.

“Ayep,” Tawyn replied tersely as she dismounted.

“What keeps drawing you here, really?” The Archmage was genuinely curious. “The time is past that we really needed you…”

Tawyn blinked. He may as well have asked her why fish swam and why birds flew. “Maybe it’s the ley lines under the place. I dunno. You don’t ask the gulls why they return to the sea.” She shrugged.

“Fair enough,” the mage replied. “And we could always use good scouts, I suppose. You never know if something new might pop up in there.”

“Good. I’m goin’ in.”

“Alone?”

“I’m never alone.”

It was then that Archmage Alturus saw the big gray owl with yellow eyes perched nearby in the shadows. As if in response, he took wing now and alighted on Tawyn’s shoulder as she opened the front gate. She stood there a moment, gazing inside, her eyes clouded a bit as if distracted. “We aren’t getting any younger I suppose, are we, Tux?” she murmured.

Tux hooted something in response and then the hunter and her owl went inside.