Tag Archives: recruit-a-friend

…and number four. And number five.

Sooo, I’m not gonna beat around the bush. I’ve kinda been on WoW hiatus lately. Hence the rather spartan blog post schedule.

It’s not that I decided WoW is boring or I don’t like it anymore, oh no. I love WoW. But I’ve simply found that writing and drawing is more fun at the moment. So other than logging on for a raid every so often, I’ve mostly been AWOL.

Then I realized something. Namely, today is the day my Recruit-a-Friend ends.

Dang. I wish I coulda somehow put that on pause through, ya know, ALL OF NOVEMBER when I was doing my NaNo. But ah well. It is what it is, right?

Sooo I promptly opened up two WoW windows, logged in, and ran around like an excited uromastyx (dontcha just love my similes?) trying to reach a little goal I had in mind with my main RaF project. The result:

AlthalorAndSonglarkDarkPortal

Man I love Recruit-a-Friend. Yesterday these characters were like, level 55 and 56 respectively, and here they are all-growed-up and headin’ to Outlands after a mere three quests in Silithus. (To be fair, all Silithus quests are “Kill a billion of these, and another billion of these, and each time you kill one something else randomly spawns”, so that may have had something to do with it, but you know.)

Umm yeah so this is another hunter and another resto druid. SHUT UP >_>

Anyways, I managed to hit the big “five-eight” literally a minute or two before the battle.net Account Management page told me my RaF would end (they conveniently tell you not only the date, but also the exact time and time zone). This was followed by the pleasant surprise, though, that Blizzard is apparently not super accurate with this so I wound up heading to Hellfire and getting to 59 (or very close to it) and still having RaF active. I was also able to do that “Grant-a-Level” thing and distribute free levels to a bunch of lowbie alts of various classes I had hanging around. Dunno if these alts are ever gonna see any playtime, but hey, now I’ve got a veritable army of Hordies all sitting between levels 10 and 15, and it’s kind of neat. One of them is a shaman and one of them is a priest and I haven’t played either class past level 8 before. Hrmm.

I considered continuing to plug away at Hellfire and see how long my luck would last with the mysteriously-tenacious Recruit-a-Friend, but I got hungry so I logged out to eat and write this blog post. Exciting! …sorta. *shifty eyes*

…well, that’s all really. It was TL;DR, I know. NEXT TIME: Pike’s Five Most Epic WoW Moments That Do Not Involve Boss Fights.

But for now… *scoots away to write n’ stuff*

In Which Pike Discusses Things At Random

Recruit-a-Friend is insane. Last week my tauren druid was level 38 or something. As of yesterday, she is level 50.

Proof:

SonglarkTheTree

(I’m actually leveling as fast as a normal person levels now! Crazy I know!)

At this point the goal is to get her to level 60 as quick as possible for two things: a.) Outlands instances and b.) Wild Growth. Let’s discuss these. Outland instances… I don’t think words can describe how much I love these. It’s really funny cause during Burning Crusade I was like “Well the Outlands instances… they’re okaaaay…” but now that I look back on them, oh my gosh. Have I lately mentioned my undying love for Underbog?

But yeah, healing Outland instances on Tamaryn = one of the best things I’ve ever done in WoW and I can’t wait to do it again.

And Wild Growth I need. I feel like a gimpy tree without it. Nourish is handy but I can live without it. Lifebloom… as much as it saddens me to say it, I’ve used it like… three times since the latest nerf. Poor Lifebloom.

But yeah Wild Growth, give please. *grabby hands*

For the uninitiated in Alpha-Theta-Pike Fraternity, this means I now have in my possession: Two level 80 hunters, one level 80 restodruid, one level 53 hunter and one level 50 restodruid.

You are now free to leave copious amounts of comments about how I really need to branch out and experience more of the game. Go ahead, I’ll wait while you do that. /nod

Don’t worry though, I’ve started the World’s Most Adorable Gnome Warlock Ever and I’m going to pair her up with my long-forgotten paladin and they’re going to be the Team Chaotix to my Hunter/Druid Team Sonic. I’m excited for that.

In other news, I signed up for… something… tonight on Tawyn. I say “something” because it is either going to be “Finishing up 10-man Ulduar, or 10-man ToC”, according to the calendar invite. I’m kind of nervous about it being Ulduar because I’ve only done up to Thorim so far and I’m going to feel like a noob. >.>

It’s funny because I am totally not a raidy-type of person. I mean, I love it, but I can really only do it once a week or so and then I burn out for the week. So, I would actually be pretty okay if tonight’s dealy didn’t happen and then I could do alts instead~ ^^

What Happens When You Combine Two of My Favorite Things

The desert stretched far and wide under the young druid’s hooves and she found herself sighing at this wasteland that she had come to. The goblins had plenty of tasks for young entrepreneurs, but few would help to test and grow her skill with the healing arts, which was her focus– no, most of the goblins asked for bandits to be chased off and roving animal bands to be culled.

She shifted effortlessly into the form of a dust-colored lion and stretched, as she did so briefly inspecting her claws– they were not as sharp as they could be. Neither were her teeth. She hadn’t studied feral combat at all, and she knew that as time went on and she dealt with more and more dangerous foes, this form would no longer cut it. She sighed again, shifted back into her tauren form, and muttered a brief prayer to the Earthmother as she strode into Gadgetzan’s inn.

That was when she saw him; a blood elf with a red lion’s mane of hair and a large, beautiful cream-hued moth fluttering next to his head. There was something about this elf that shook the druid as unusual, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

She thought for a bit, wondering if she should approach him; these blood elves were somewhat unpredictable in their actions and many of her comrades at home in Mulgore had muttered their quiet disapproval of having to work with them. Still, she figured it was worth a shot, since there was no one else around at this time except for the goblins, and so she sat down next to him on the bench.

He immediately glanced up at her with expressive bluegreen eyes as she attempted to word her request in Orcish, a language which she still did not have a strong command of. “Hello, sir… I am a healer… would you like my help?” Mentally she berated herself for not being able to word that as eloquently as her mind cwas able to, but her thoughts were soon interrupted by the blood elf chuckling and responding– in Taurahe, no less– “I certainly wouldn’t mind some company.”

The druid found herself taken aback at his use of her language. She blinked as he continued, “Did you have anything in particular that you aimed to do while here? I have spent a lot of time here myself; I’m sure the goblins are sick of me by now.” He laughed a bit again– a friendly, good-natured laugh.

The tauren studied the blood elf; here she noticed what it was about him that had flagged him as “unusual”. Namely, instead of wearing the bright, polished armor and colors preferred by most of his race, he was dressed in practical and somewhat bland mail and leather garb, and wore beads and feathers in his hair. His weapon was a gun of typical Tauren worksmanship, and to top it off, his Taurahe, albeit having a foreign (but not entirely unpleasant) lilt to it, sounded fluent.

It was as though he had come from Thunder Bluff instead of Silvermoon.

All at once the druid relaxed. It was a mystery to be sure, but there was a down-to-earth friendliness in the blood elf’s face, and it was reassuring.

“To tell the truth I just arrived not to long ago,” she replied, glad to be conversing in her native tongue. “I am training to be a healer, though, and it’s getting hard to find such work when there are so few about…”

The blood elf nodded. “That’s unfortunate, but sadly, understandable. You’re welcome to adventure with me, though… I could use the company. Not that Chakapas here isn’t good company…” he reached up and gently stroked the moth’s furry face, and it chattered back happily. The elf turned back to look at the druid. “We’ll start you with the basics; this is a rough land. I know a good place where we can practice working together.” He stood up and brushed off his trousers, then extended a gloved hand out to the tauren. “I’m Althalor,” he said. “And you…?”

“Songlark,” the druid smiled.

So for Recruit-a-Friend I transferred my Sapling Tree (as opposed to the Full-grown Tree I already possess) over to my new account, specifically so she and the third hunter in my repertoire could level together. The main catch is that for the lowbie to receive bonus XP, the group must not be killing anything that is “gray” to either character, and for both to receive bonus XP, they must be within a few levels of each other. And currently, Althalor has a head-start on Songlark of some ten-odd levels.

Still, I figured I could find something in the middle of their respective leveling ranges and at least get Songlark started on her way.

Enter Zul’Farrak.

The mobs are orange (or red) to Songlark and green to Althalor. Armed with Spirit Bond and a Glyph of Mending, I was able to successfully solo the vast majority of the trash in that place, with Songlark obediently following along and providing Mark of the Wild and the rare backup heal, whilst soaking up all the bonus experience.

I experimented with a couple different computer setups, including this one:

WoW_RecruitAFriend1

(Mega Man wallpaper is sexy and you can’t stop me from thinking so! *nods sagely*)

However, the windows were too small to do much work in, and since I was spending 95% of my time on Althalor the Hunter anyway, I eventually wound up making both windows larger and simply keeping one minimized. I didn’t full-screen either of them, to make it easier to swap between them, though.

Oh, and before you ask, it works flawlessly on Linux/Wine. /flex

By now I’ve toted Songlark through good portions of ZF, several quests in both Feralas and Tanaris, and also jumped onto Lunapike to run her through Scarlet Monastery a few times for Whitemane’s infamous hat (which failed to drop and then I got bored…) Suffice to say she was level 38 when we began this little adventure and she’s now a fraction of a bar away from level 43.

I like this Recruit-a-Friend thing. *cough* It feels super awesome to have both Hunter PewPew and Druid HoTs at my disposal– two of my favorite things!

It does feel odd, in another way, though. See, leveling is something I really enjoy doing. I even like leveling “the normal way”. So this would aaaaaallllmost feel like cheating, except that I already have a level 80 hunter (two actually) and a level 80 druid and I’ve leveled both Horde and Alliance characters to 80 at this point so it’s not like I’m missing out on anything new, ya know?

I don’t think I would actually ever use Recruit-a-Friend with someone who hadn’t played before, though… I’d level with them the old-fashioned way, I think. Personal preference, really.

By the way– I’ve gotten LOTS of comments about dual-boxing and programs to use and that sort of thing. I do appreciate all the advice, but at this point I have little interest in “serious” dual-boxing beyond sticking the druid on follow and having the hunter go demolish stuff. Not to mention, I have my doubts about how well various dual-boxing programs would work on Linux. Still, I will keep all the input in mind, just in case.

Recruit-a- …me?

I’ve been feeling a little silly lately since I feel like I don’t have much to blog about. Not to say that I’m not enjoying myself in game, but really, I figure who really wants to hear about me ramble about dailies, alts, and the occasional heroic?

(Though if you do want to hear me ramble about that stuff for some reason, lemme know =P)

Fortunately I may have found something of interest to talk about: namely, yesterday I decided to splurge and I got myself a second WoW account and Recruit-a-Friend. The whole set up + upgrading to WotLK + transferring a “test alt” over there was kind of pricy, but I allow myself to splurge a little every six months or so to keep me from going completely nuts about watching 95% of my income go to bills and food, so this was my splurge this time. /nod

Also, this is the graphic Blizz displays as an Easter Egg on the “Upgrade-to-WotLK” page:

UpgradeEasterEgg

For great justice.

Anyways, I haven’t had much of a chance to play around with my new second account yet, other than discovering I can’t invite my alt back to my little personal Horde Guild (I think maybe you have to have had an account for a few days or something before it will let you join a guild?) I have also decided the way battle.net handles more than one WoW account is pretty nifty. You just log in with one overriding account and then you choose which account you want to log into before you get to the character selection screen.

But yeah, looking forward to messing around with it after work today. To tell the truth I have no major overriding plan for what I want to do with a second account. I have little interest in the zebra mount, and no real alt plans for Recruit-a-Friend (other than satiating my morbid curiosity about just how fast the 3x experience + herilooms + rested goes…) and seeing as what I’m most excited about is being able to do things like get myself into raid groups for solo’ing stuff, or being able to invite myself to alt guilds (things that I was able to utilize the boyfriend for until his account expired >.>) I’m actually not sure it will be worth the extra $15/month in the end. But we’ll see how it goes– I’m pretty sure I’m creative enough to come up with something interesting– and if it isn’t as fun as I was expecting, it’ll be easy to just cancel that subscription and go back to one!

*nod*