Category Archives: Uncategorized

guides, Uncategorized

So You Want To Be a WoW Blogger?

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I get a ton of e-mails every week (which is why it sometimes takes me a few days or more to respond to them /sheepish) and one of the most frequent e-mails I get is “I’m thinking of starting a blog… any tips?”

So because it seems to be so common I figured I’d lay out my advice here in a post! =P

For starters the technical stuff. The two most commonly used free blogging platforms are Blogger and WordPress. Of those two, I actually much prefer Blogger. WordPress.com is rather limited in terms of what you can do in designing your blog– yes, more limiting than Blogger– and various types of Javascript such as WoWHead links will not work for you, whereas they will on Blogger. I see a lot of people switching from Blogger.com to WordPress.com, and I gotta admit, I don’t see the appeal, beyond the fact that you get an “about” page =P I tried it a while back when I was on Blogger and was thoroughly unimpressed. However, it’s all personal opinion really, so my advice would be to try out both platforms and see what you like. They are both good, solid blogging platforms and each has their pros and cons. I do also want to add, if you have any intention of switching to a self-hosted site later… then WordPress from the start is probably the better option. (Although I did the Blogger->self-hosted WordPress switch myself… it wasn’t that bad!)

You want the name of your blog to be catchy, have a ring to it, and easy to type out in the address box. I don’t recommend using acronyms or abbreviations in your address unless they are very easy to remember. aspectofthehare.blogspot.com is sorta long, but it is easier to remember than aothare.blogspot.com or something similar. You can click this link to improve your google ranking, this is essential when starting out. Also remember that your blog name is going to define what your blog is. Want in on a little secret? Aspect of the Hare was not originally a hunter blog. *gasp* I know, right? I mean, yes, I played hunters and only hunters, but originally it was “World of Warcraft thoughts in general” that I was going for, and my early blog posts even reflect this. However, it was a huntery name, so the blog wound up becoming, well, huntery. That means if you have a serious case of alt-itis you may not want to go with a class-specific name, and if you like to mess around with different specs you don’t want to name your blog “[InsertSpecHere]4Life”, unless, well, you really are. =P

When I was starting out two years ago, it was all the rage to name your WoW blog after various in-game abilities. There were all these blogs named The Hunter’s Mark, Blessing of Kings, Mark of The Wild, Trueshot Aura (which I’ve seen used more than once)… etc. I think pretty soon blogs snatched up all the available abilities and you started seeing other titles. =P I rather like the name of my own blog, even if the “hare” part is often confusing to people that don’t know me well. I combined the “name your blog after a WoW ability” meme with an animal that I like– I personalized WoW, so to speak. It worked out well.

You want your blog design to be uncluttered and have basics like a search box, a way to contact you, and of course, a link to your RSS feed! You don’t want to go overboard right away. I see a lot of new blogs that have a ton of “stuff” on their blog, but no real content yet. It’s okay to wait to add that “stuff” later, what most people want to see is your writing!

Visual identity is always a bonus. I’m not sure, but I often think that the cutesy picture of Tawyn and pets on my banner is a large part of what initially draws people to this blog. Even if you aren’t much of an artist, try getting a strong screenshot-based banner going, like at LessQQMorePewPew for example. Of course, you don’t need big flashy pictures or anything. Sometimes understatement works better. Try things out!

Content, oh, your content. I hear it all, from people saying “don’t go looking for a niche!” to others saying “you have to find a niche!” and everything in between. Lemme tell you about Aspect of the Hare. Nobody was ever supposed to read it. I was writing for me. Apparently people liked it. This is what I tell almost everybody who e-mails me wanting blog advice:

1.) Write what you love.
2.) Love what you write.
3.) Comment often.

Commenting on other peoples’ blogs is the easiest way to get traffic to yours, and if they see that you are passionate about what you are writing, and it is written well, they will stay.

Have you all seen the movie Mrs. Doubtfire with Robin Williams? They have this whole scene about a guy who has a TV show where he drones on and on about dinosaurs with little models and it’s really boring. Then Robin Williams shows up and starts having the dinosaurs sing songs and he makes it all funny and entertaining. That’s what you want to be. You want to be having fun with this. You want to be writing to make yourself happy. You want to be writing because you enjoy what you are writing about and because you’re excited to share your ideas with people. People will pick up on that enthusiasm.

Lastly, I sometimes get questions from people wanting to maximize their traffic. I have always seen traffic as something you don’t want to get buried too deep in, partially because I don’t think it matters as much as your content and secondly because the number of readers you have does not necessarily equal blog quality. However, I will say that in my experience, I have found that John Q. WoWBlogReader works a boring Mon-Fri job and reads you Mon-Fri mornings. So use that to your advantage. ;P

Aspect of the Hare is what it is today largely via word of mouth. Winding up on BRK’s sidebar was also a pretty big boost, but even without that, I was doing okay. I think it’s because I managed to corner a market of sheer enthusiasm for the hunter class, regardless of spec or playstyle. In short, I think I was in the right place at the right time. Regardless of whether you can hit that sweet spot or not, I find blogging to be a very rewarding (if time-consuming!) venue and anyone who wants to try it… please, jump into the pool! We don’t bite! =P

Questions or comments, leave ’em for me!

Uncategorized

The Prodigal Son

10 Comments

Something super awesome happened over the weekend: a really good friend of mine, our beloved main-tank from back-in-the-day, decided to start playing WoW again.

He’d sort of unofficially retired a while back while our little group was all still in a “raiding guild”, then he came back for Wrath of the Lich King for a couple of weeks before disappearing again. He had his reasons and we never pushed him back to the game, in fact, many of us in our group have taken breaks from the game for various stretches of time and we all still keep in touch via AIM and Ventrilo. However, his most recent declaration that he missed playing with us and was going to try to keep things in more balance this time was superawesome news.

He was sitting at level 74 when he came back so we went joyriding through Azjol-Nerub and Ahn’kahet, with yours truly on her level 70 (now 71) treedruid. I was scared at first because I felt a little under-level for the instances, but amazingly things went very well (I think this is largely because my druid is decked out in things like Karazhan epics and Badge of Justice duds– I’ve been shoving her into Kara almost every week because I love the place so much).

You know that boss in Ahn’kahet where if you don’t kill the adds fast enough, the boss goes absolutely insane and one-shots everyone?

…ever had to heal through that when all the adds live? Oh my gosh. That was probably the craziest (and most ulcer-inducing) non-hunter thing I’ve ever done.

The weekend culminated in a Kel’Thuzad kill where everybody started dying when he was at about 5%. Those huge bug adds were running all over the place and people were freaking out and healers were dying and tanks were dying and then KT died. It was great. I love crazy moments like that.

Still, the successful Naxx run was nothing compared to instancing with an returned friend. <3

memes, Uncategorized

The Honest Scrap Award

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honest_scrap1The Rules are thus!

1. When accepting this auspicious award, you must write a post bragging about it, including the name of the misguided soul who thinks you deserve such acclaim, and link back to the said person so everyone knows she/he is real.
2. Choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or improvise by including bloggers who have no idea who you are because you don’t have seven friends. Show the seven random victims’ names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog. Well, there’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon.
3. List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself. Then pass it on!

1. I was tagged by a lot of people for this. I’m going to name nine that I can think of off the top of my head but I know there were more (and if you tagged me and I didn’t notice and/or forgot, please mention it in the comments so I can edit you in here!): SlowWolf, The Alliance Guy, All My Mains, Master’s Call, Eye for an Eye, Stabilized Effort Scope, The Angry Butterfly, SpicyTunas, and A Little WoW For Me all tagged me, but again, please tell me if I forgot you!

2. I’m not tagging anyone because a.) most people were already tagged, and b.) I don’t like tagging people for these kinds of things. I don’t want anyone to feel left out, or poke someone to do it if they don’t want to. So as always… if you want to do it, consider yourself tagged!

3. Ten honest things about myself, huh? Hmm. Okay.

  • 1.) I was born with Ventricular Septal Defect— a hole in my heart, among other issues, such as the aorta being backwards and other fun stuff like that. Because all the blood was leaking out, my heart had to work overtime to keep me alive, and since the heart is a muscle, it grew with all that exercise, so by the time I was a few months old I had a heart the size of a full grown man’s in my body. I don’t know exactly what they did to fix it (I was, ya know, a baby at the time!) but last I heard the hole had mostly closed up on its own, via a bloodclot, although there is still a small leak. And the tubing is still backwards. Now my heart was still too big for me, and the doctors said I’d grow into it, but what they didn’t know was that I would eventually stop growing at 5-foot-2 and about 110 pounds. So, I am a very small person. With a very big heart. Literally. =P
  • 2.) I’m a horse racing geek. Actually I’ve sort of fallen out of “practice” and I haven’t followed it in a while, but I can still rattle off more stats regarding thoroughbred racing than most people can, and I can’t watch Secretariat’s 1973 Belmont win without tearing up.

    …dangit, where’s my Kleenex… yes, I just watched it again… /sniff

  • 3.) I have weird habits when it comes to listening to music. Aside from my bizarre musical taste, I have this tendency to latch on to some random song and listen to it several times a day for months, never tiring of it, until a new song comes and dethrones it.
  • 4.) I’m a child of Science Fiction. I grew up on Star Trek and Star Wars, to such an extent that I can say that the heroes of those two respective universes were basically a second set of parents to me, which is probably why I quote them all the time in this blog, because they’re largely who taught me about life, love, and everything in between.. The ending of Star Wars Episode Three, where Luke’s aunt and uncle overlook Tatooine, makes me cry, and the teaser trailer to the new Star Trek movie gives me chills.
  • 5.) I know how to clip a bird’s wings. Yes, in real life.
  • 6.) I’ve written (though not published) two full-length novels. I wrote them when I was a young teenager and they are about my toys coming to life, a la Toy Story, except a heckuva lot darker. They have wars and territorial conflicts and stuff. The second book, which I finished up when I was taking AP English in school, is actually pretty good, if a little heavy on the allegory and references to obscure poems >.>
  • 7.) My three favorite books, in order, are The Brothers Karamazov, Watership Down, and The Golden Compass. If I had a daemon, I am convinced it would be a bilby.
  • 8.) I have long considered myself to be too sciencey to be an artist, but too artsy to be a scientist. Those “Are you right- or left- brained?” tests usually put me smack in the middle, and I went into college quite torn about whether I wanted to major in filmmaking or chemistry. I finally opted for filmmaking and I sort of think it was the wrong choice, but ah wells. I still think that an animated short featuring cute cuddly animals dressed up as the Karamazov brothers, performing a serious music video set to Losing my Religion, would be brilliant. As would a film about anthropomorphic chemical elements (you can see why I felt uncomfortable bringing up my ideas in classes full of indie artsy kids).
  • 9.) I am a tropical fish geek. If you are too, let’s sit down and talk about cichlids. I’m serious! >.>
  • 10.) I am the oldest of six kids. My youngest sister turns ten this year. True to the stereotype, we’re a pretty tight-knit bunch and I grew up eating stuff like Jell-O Popcorn on family night. Which, by the way, you are missing out on if you’ve never tried it.

Well, hopefully you all found that at least marginally interesting. I figured that since I was tagged for this by so many people, I’d have to get it out. We’ll return you to your regular WoWness momentarily, worry not!

Uncategorized

I Have Never Been More Confused

12 Comments

This morning I wrote a post, posted it, got like twenty comments on it according to my e-mail inbox… (I’m sure most of you saw it and many of you even commented on it), and I come home from work and it’s completely 100% gone. It’s like it never existed. Heck, there’s even a 10% done version of it saved in my Drafts. It’s like my blog rolled itself back a day or something.

If any of you guys have any clue what could have possibly happened let me know… otherwise I’ll be reposting it later, sadly sans-comments.

*extremely confused*

rp, screenshots, Uncategorized

The Negotiator

12 Comments

So remember that post I made a while back that got tons of publicity where I said I wanted a Violet Eye title?

Well I’ve been thinking I need to clarify something, namely, my wanting of that title is purely from a Pike perspective. Tawyn, the character, from a roleplaying standpoint– is titleless. Partially because I haven’t seen any titles in the game that fit her, and partially because I don’t think she’d want a title or feel very comfortable with one. Oh sure, I’ve got Jenkins (like everyone else), and I’m gonna wind up with Champion of the Frozen Wastes sooner or later (Oculus and Malygos left… my money is on getting Malygos first… that is how much I stink at Oculus =P), and I might wear that one for a bit later down the road when not everyone is using it, but… that one doesn’t fit Tawyn either. Tawyn is Tawyn. Period.

Lunapike, on the other hand, is a different story. I view her as being not only very intelligent but also good at understanding people, particularly “fringe” groups that she can connect with on some sort of deep level as she, too, is a bit of an outcast. This is in contrast to the more acerbic Tawyn who is sort of a misanthrope to people until they earn her trust. Anyways, this was largely why Lunapike wound up exalted with the Mag’har before achievements even existed– reputation is one of my favorite forms of “passive roleplaying” (mounts and tabards, by extension, are another favorite).

So then came Achievements and with it the Diplomat title and I knew immediately that it was Lunapike’s title. Since I already had the Mag’har finished I was 1/3, and I knew from experience with Tawyn that getting Sporeggar up there isn’t that hard. So I opted to work on it after Tawyn hit 80 and the resulting initial WotLK hype died down.

I really wanted to get a level on Lunapike first before I started, so I did that, and then for the past several weeks she hasn’t set foot in Northrend. Instead, I slowly worked on getting rep with the Timbermaw and Sporeggar between doing things on my other characters. The Timbermaw one was the most tedious especially at Revered when you stop getting rep-per-kill (except for named mobs) and have to go through turn-ins, but lemme tell ya, having House on in the background while you do it makes it go a lot quicker. >.>

Sporeggar was done mostly through solo’ing the first 25% or so of Underbog over and over and farming Sanguine Hibiscus (Hibiscusus? Hibiscusaii? Haibisukasu?). The mobs in there were all still green to me as a level 71, so not only did I get some experience for my pets but I also got experience for myself– 35% of a level entirely from Underbog. Not too shabby.

My hard work culminated in this today:

wow_lunapikethediplomat

It looks good, and fits her character. Passive roleplaying for the win. *nods*

Oh, one last thing (off-topic!)… if you are actually at my “physical” site, you will notice that the Sitemeter button on the right hand side of the page is hanging rather precariously close to 200,000 hits. I would like to officially extend the offer I made at 100,000 to this one, too: e-mail me a screenshot of the 200,000 ding and get a free “WarCute avatar”. Oh, and if I already owe you one (I know I’ve offered out “freebies” before on my LiveJournal), I apologize and I’ll try to get right on it >.> And my apologies for forgetting to announce the “contest” until relatively late in the game. /phail

memes, rp, screenshots, Uncategorized

Meme Me

8 Comments

I’ve been tagged by a couple-a memes! Guntitan and Faradhim are the duo guilty of it.

First we have some questions to answer, which I’ll be having Tawyn answer in character, RP-style. That’s right, I said the “R word”. Picture yourself sitting across from her at the Pig & Whistle Tavern if you’re Alliance… or perhaps the Broken Keel Tavern if you are Horde.

1. What is your name, and where did it come from? I’m Tawyn Starshifter. That’s Tawyn to you. I dunno where it came from. Blame my parents. You can also blame them for the odd looks Night Elves give me when I do tell ’em my family name.

2. How old are you, and what is your birthday? Eh, I stopped keeping track of age a long time ago. I was born on the shortest day of the year. [Ed. note: So was I. >.> -Pike] Make of that what you will, I’ve had plenty o’ shamans tell me it’s important somehow. [Tawyn shrugs]

3. Are you in love, and with whom? [Here Tawyn makes some sort of vocalization that is somewhere between a chuckle and a snort, and refuses to go into any further detail, instead taking a rather large swig of her beverage.]

4. What is your favorite mount, and why? [Tawyn seems to open up more at this question.] I’ve a Palomino stallion named Chip– fiesty bugger, you’ve gotta have a firm hand and a firm heel with him. But he’ll take you anywhere, and fast, once you’ve shown ‘im who’s boss. He’s got a fire in ‘is eyes, the likes of which I rarely see in citybred horses these days.

Of course, horses ain’t got wings, but I’ve a… companion for that. His name is Spirakistrasz… I call him Sparks though. He doesn’t mind. [Tawyn grins.]

5. Do you prefer a certian type of Azerothonian meal, and where do you get it from? I’m really not that picky, but lemme tell ya, they make a mean meal in the World’s End Tavern in Shattrath. Have you ever been there? Worth the trip through the Dark Portal just for this roast they have sometimes. Hey, tell ol’ Shaarubo that Tawyn sent you… he might get you a discount.

6. You know those giant mushrooms in Zangarmarsh? What is your theory on how they came to be, and why they are so huge? Things are supposed to make sense up there? [Tawyn laughs good-naturedly.] You couldn’t get me to go back there anyway. Well, except for the World’s End, but I think we’ve already established that.

7. If you saw the Lich King walking towards you, what would you do? Shoot him. [Tawyn chuckles then quiets down.] I dunno, he’s a force to be reckoned with. I’ve faced a lot of things in my day, but… yeah. I suppose I’d shoot him.

8. (Dav added this one) Be honest, how many times have you used the Grizzly Hills outhouse without any real reason? Not even going there.

—

And Faradhim’s meme is to post screenshots from when you were much “younger” in this World of Warcraft. Now I’m such a screenshot junkie and I’ve got so many of them that it was hard to really narrow it down, so I’ll just toss up a few random ones I’ve found…

wow_1300health

Working on Solo’ing Deadmines with Tux. I believe I mentioned how I used to attempt this every couple of levels until I finally cleared it at 41. Since then my personal record has been lowered to 36.

wow_creepypentagramkids2

Creepy Pentagram Kids from Goldshire wandered into Stormwind. I was really confused. Yes, that is Wash. Of Heigan Dancing fame.

wow_enjoyingthefire

Just enjoyin’ the fire…

wow_fishingatbrill4

I went exploring and wound up in Brill, in the heart of Horde territory. I was sure I was going to die as I stood next to the Undead fishing trainer and calmly pulled out my own bait and tackle…

wow_meaniehead

Darkshire quests were hard. (Mor’ladim, anyone?) Here I am doing them with the boyfriend. This is right about the time I stumbled across hunter-blogs online; anytime people mentioned ravagers (the “in” pet at the time), I assumed they were talking about the big wolves that attacked you in these parts.

wow_mybed

Possibly the oldest screenshot I’ve got. I was level six, in Goldshire, 31 copper and a handful of abilities to my name– got in bed to log out (it just felt right to do that) and had a gnome inform me that I was in his bed. It amused me.

wow_nightflight

I was struck by the simple beauty of flying across Darkshore at night…

wow_sunsetflight

…or sunset.

Okay, that’ll do it. I tag whoever wants to give either (or both) of these memes a shot!

Uncategorized

Interviews

21 Comments

At some point today– I’m not sure when– a “Fifteen Minutes of Fame” article about me is scheduled to be going live on WoWInsider. This is terribly ironic to me for two reasons, firstly, I have to confess that I really don’t like being linked to on WI, so the thought of being interviewed by them is quite terrifying, and secondly, I’ve no idea what about me would be so interesting! Other than perhaps my WoW-on-Linux tendencies, which we didn’t touch on in the interview.

I also find it super ironic that I get WI’d on a weekly basis, that my sisters have been WI’d (they were the ones who made the pompoms), and that my boyfriend writes the warlock column over there. Considering that two years ago I wanted absolutely nothing to do with this game (long story), it’s all crazy, I says!

However, I did agree to go through with the interview, mostly because as far as I’m aware it means someone out there is interested in hearing about me for whatever reason, and I wanted to oblige! So… if you’re curious, keep an eye out over there for the impending article. And leave me kind words, if you’re feeling so inclined… I’m super nervous about it.

And now I head off to… another interview. A job interview. Yes, I am in the market for a new job, one that won’t make my allergies go haywire and one that will align itself with my World of Warcraft schedule better than my current one does. Yes, that is a motivating factor. Yes, I am a geek. Guildies, I do this for you. /salute

guides, hunter kindergarten, pets, screenshots, Uncategorized

Bon Appetit: Pet Snacks!

25 Comments

Buff food for us hunters is pretty self-explanitory. We like food that gives us Attack Power or Crit or Agility, or possibly even Hit or Haste, depending on our gear, spec, and circumstance. Don’t forget, though, that our pets can get buff food too:

lockenom

Currently, as far as I am aware, there are three foods in the game that will buff your pet. These are they:

Sporeling Snacks: An Outlands recipe available from Sporeggar rep, this food will give your pet 20 stamina and 20 spirit for 30 minutes. Requires level 55 to use.

Kibler’s Bits: An Outlands recipe from the Shattrath cooking daily, this food used to give your pet 20 strength and 20 spirit for 30 minutes– now it has been revamped and gives your pet 30 strength and 30 stamina for one hour. Requires level 55 to use.

Spiced Mammoth Treats: A Northrend recipe from the Dalaran cooking daily, this food has the exact same effect as Kibler’s Bits: gives your pet 30 strength and 30 stamina for one hour. Requires level 70 to use.

Now by looking at these three foods, it’s pretty clear that our poor old Sporeling Snacks have been outclassed. It doesn’t last nearly as long as the others and the stats are subpar. Still useful for leveling through Outlands if you happen to snag the recipe and mats, but even then, not really worth reaching for.

The other two, though, are your pets’ new best friends in raids or heroics!

Most cooks find that the Kibler’s Bits are much easier to make due to the easier-to-obtain ingredients. Me, I don’t have the recipe for either so I stalk the AH for both of them. They tend to be pricey when they pop up (though I can occasionally find Kibler’s Bits for quite a steal– I’ve bought a full stack of 20 for 3 gold) but the benefits they provide are pretty nice: a DPS boost and a survivability boost for your pet.

Plus, c’mon, he’s just so happy when you give him a treat!

So don’t forget to bring some with you alongside your hunter buff food: your pet will thank you. Oh, and also remember that the food doesn’t work like normal “pet food”… you don’t use the Feed Pet command to feed him. Rather, you “use” it like you would a food for yourself.

And no, I don’t know why an Outlands recipe and Northrend recipe with a usable-level discrepency are exactly the same either. I sort of suspect this may randomly change in a future patch, but hey, who knows?

In closing, I was a “caster tank” on Four Horsemen today. It was really fun, and I got a shiny new sword. *swings it around and hums contentedly as her pets dash for cover*

raiding, stories, Uncategorized

The Fable of Karma and The Naxx PuG

35 Comments

pauldronsofhavoc They say every piece of loot has a story behind it, whether it be an exciting tale or a more mundane one. Let me tell you my latest story then…

I am sure most of you know by now that due to scheduling difficulties, I PuG a good portion of my raids. And PuGs are like that proverbial box of chocolates– you never quite know what you are going to get.

So I was sitting around in LFG last night, watching with a rather unamused expression as nobody seemed to be running Naxx. Finally, after several long minutes of running in circles around Stormwind, a glimmer of hope: “LF1DPS for a partially-cleared Naxx.”

Now one of the side effects of my PuGging tendencies is that I have seen most of the starter bosses of Naxx a dozen times, it’s just the last few that I have yet to see. (In my experience, the main thing that prevents most PuGs from getting to those last bosses isn’t so much issues with the group performance, so much as people having to leave and constantly having to stop and find more people, which drags raids on for far too long and makes them end early.) Anyways, I was 100% okay with not downing all the bosses as long as there was a small chance I would maybe get to see the bosses I’ve yet to see, so I tossed the person a quick whisper, and after being informed “Yay, you win!” I was invited to the raid.

They summoned me in. Right in front of Four Horsemen. Not a problem, Four Horsemen is one of those fights I have pretty much nailed by now in terms of strategy and I actually rather enjoy the fight. I looked around at the people I was raiding with, almost all of them were in the same guild. They had a camaraderie to them and seemed to just be having a good old time. Good, gooood, I thought. Shouldn’t be too painful.

The raid leader began explaining the fight via a strategy that sounded unusual to me, but I was up for it. We got into position, and pulled.

…I’m really not sure how to describe how bad the subsequent wipes were. They were racecars careening off of tracks and exploding in a mess of fire and metal on a wall somewhere. They were people slipping at the top of the stairs while holding a bowl of soup and tumbling all the way down, making a huge mess. They were wipes on a fantastic scale. Every time we started again, we would try a different strategy, eventually settling on “burn down Thane”.

…have you ever seen the debuff on one of the Four Horsemen go up to six? Yeah, I didn’t know it could get that high either.

I pulled up Recount for the first time after the third or fourth wipe. I was the only member of the raid doing above 2k DPS. My pet alone was outDPSing someone. And that was when I looked around at these people I was raiding with. They were in blues and maybe a heroic epic or two. This was their first night in Naxxramas. And yet there was something about them, something that I couldn’t pin down…

We tried again, and again. As always, everything ended up in some sort of spectacular wipefest. We had to have a repair break and after yet another wipe the resto druid, who was not in the guild and had been pulled in as a PuG not long after me, began to despair over Ventrilo. “I get online and hope to get into a Naxx group tonight and we’re not even going to down Four Horsemen!” It wasn’t even a complaint or an insult or anything, just a pure sheer cry of sadness and frustration. Inwardly I found myself agreeing with him. And yet…

I thought I saw something out of the corner of my mind’s eye. My subconscious looked up and saw him there; the Deity of WoW Karma, a creature just as powerful and pervasive in this World of Warcraft as Elune, if not moreso. He was giggling at me, and there in my mind he painted a picture…

…a picture of a young group of friends all in one guild, sitting in Deadwind Pass trying to fill up our first ever Karazhan group. All of us excited and so full of hope. We pulled in a few unsuspecting PuGs, and told them right before we went in that we’d never done this before. We downed Attumen, we downed Moroes, and then we hit this wall with Maiden. Couldn’t down her. Pulled the plug on the raid having only downed two bosses. One of the PuGs was really frustrated with us. “You’re all terrible, you’ll never down Maiden!”

And yet we did, the next time we went. And every time we went we got a little farther and every time we went we had one or two PuGs with us.

There were the two people who did Curator with us. We had no idea what we were doing. Sparks were everywhere and we wiped and wiped and wiped. Patiently those two people told us what to do, over and over, until finally we downed that thing.

There was the priest who fell in with our little group and raided with us solidly for about a month, coaching us through Shade of Aran and Illhoof before one day saying goodbye to us and going off to make his own raiding group.

WoW Karma showed me all of this; the memories vivid in my mind. Suddenly a voice from Ventrilo shook me out of my reverie. One of the people in this guild.

“Don’t say that. We will down Four Horsemen. We will,” she said, her voice firm.

There was no room in that voice for uncertainty. I believed her.

We marched back in there for the… seventh, eighth?… time, and we did it. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because that’s how many people in the group hadn’t done it yet and we had to do it that many times for everyone to finally get it (for those of you who don’t know, Naxx bosses are largely “gimmick-based”… most of them have some trick to them that you have to “get”.) It was long and it was strenuous and there were six debuffs on us at one or two points but somehow the tanks tanked through it and the healers healed through it and the DPS was DPS’ing their quest-blue-clad hearts out and I felt like Wash and I had never before DPS’d harder in our life trying to pick up the slack, and we downed Four Horsemen.

We opened the chest; out tumbled some shoulders for me. I won the roll for them with some exorbitantly high number that I didn’t need to roll because I was the only one who wanted them anyway, which meant that I had officially wasted my one good roll for the week. I made a comment on this and was met with good-natured giggles from Vent.

This was followed by wiping on gargoyles and the longest Noth the Plaguebringer battle of all time, and then everyone conveniently deciding to be tired and ready to call it when we were at Heigan’s doorstep (a tad disappointing, I had FRAPS ready and everything so I could try to make a “Teach Your Pet To Dance” movie.)

And so I sat there with sort of a confused look on my face, clutching my new shoulders and my lone two badges, still a little bewildered at what had just transpired.

“I’ve added you to my friends’ list,” said one of the guild members. One who had giggled at my terribly dorky jokes I tend to make in raids. I glanced up at WoW Karma. He nodded at me. I nodded back.

“Thank you,” I said, “And thanks for the group!” and then I took my two badges and my clear conscience, and hearthstoned away.

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Of Bandages and Campfires

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The three “forgotten” professions.

Okay, maybe not forgotten per se, especially with all these achievements and titles all over the place now, but they’re sort of the three we don’t think about often. You know the ones I’m talking about: First Aid, Cooking, and Fishing.

Anyways, I was thinking today about my relationship with them and how it seems to be somewhat interesting. Observe…

First Aid: I love First Aid. I don’t know why. It’s basically the first thing I train on any new character I make and I level it up to max as quick as I can. I went to WTA and did a course on first aid that helped me learn alot. Heck, I have a level 69 full-blown restoration druid and she has a high first aid skill. Perhaps I’m psycho, or perhaps it’s me being smart in a roundabout way because I have a tendency to tote around a full feral set with her and kitty things on my rare excursions outside of instances, and bandaids allow me to stay in form. Regardless, it’s true, my resto druid is also a first aid freak.

I love when you get about halfway through First Aid and you have to go do the Triage quest. At first it was the most frustrating quest in the world but having done it several times by now I’ve learned to really like it. Plus, it makes me all giggly that they call you “Doctor”. I wish Doctor was an actual earnable title. Then I could go around either informing people that it wasn’t Lupus, or freaking out when people ask me to do stuff because “I’m a doctor, not a hunter!” Er… something like that. /cough

Cooking: I have a love/hate relationship with cooking. I like the general idea and the process, but the problem tends to be that cooking mats go for an arm and a leg on the auction house and I’m too lazy to go farm them. In that sense, it’s not at all like First Aid where cloth just sort of comes to you as you go along.

My main, Tawyn, is at a decent enough cooking level– she can make various moderate-level stat food like Wyrm Delight although I don’t really go out of the way to level her cooking. None of my other alts have gotten anywhere near that point; poor Lunapike is still puttering along with the food that restores like 552 of your health and gives you 4 spirit. She did get a Savory Deviate Delight recipe as a random drop when she was but a wee young taureness in the Barrens so she can make that, so that’s at least impressive!

Fishing: I have a confession to make, I actually don’t hate fishing. In fact, I find it rather relaxing if it’s done in conjunction with something else (the other day we had a Standup-Comedy-bot running in the guild Ventrilo and I was fishing while listening to that). However even then I’ve never gone above about 200ish in fishing. Lunapike is my character with that honor for some weird reason, while Tawyn is still floating around 155 or something. I keep telling myself that one of these days I’m going to sit down and powerlevel fishing because I want the minipets you can get, I want to be able to fish up Dalaran coins, and I want to be able to sell all the fish I get, but the fishing leveling process just goes so slowly that it hasn’t happened yet.

Now for a hunter, all of these professions are useful to have at a decent level. First Aid because there are many times when it’s nice to have it as a backup heal, Cooking so you can make your own stat food, and Fishing to power the cooking (and it used to be to feed your pet, as well, but I hardly have to worry about that these days. Though have you noticed that owls can eat fish now? About time, I say. I always wondered why they couldn’t pre-WotLK.) But none are really super-super-mandatory though I’d advice one to at least get First Aid. For me, the secondary professions are really mostly about having another mini-goal to work on while waiting for something else to happen. And because I love having goals in this game, even mini-goals, I’m rather content with that!