Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Lynxr's adventures in Northrend






Just a few of my favorite moments from Lynxr's early questing in Northrend. She's mostly focused on Howling Fjord (it's beautiful!), though she did some of the Borean quests as well. She's been questing daily for the Kalu'ak to get enough rep for Pengu, the baby demon penguin. I've found most of the Northrend quests to be delightful--compared to classic WoW and BC, the quests tend to be a lot more creative and interesting, and often involve something beyond a simple "kill X number of mobs" or "collect X number of drops off the mobs." Wotlk is fun! Lynxr dinged to level 76 yesterday.

Baby Blizzard Bear


Cuteness attack! Lynxr has the "WoW's 4th Anniversary" achievement, and the adorable polar bear cub. Now if only they would let me has Polar Dire Bear Form...

We happy few...





The Lightservants defended Stormwind Harbor during the Lich King's attack. The top screenshot, from left to right: Eleiswan, Phasers, Lianwen, Romex.
My friends and I went to the midnight release of WotLK. We had a good time waiting in line and nerding out together. I got the Collector's Edition--baby frost wyrm ftw!

Monday, November 10, 2008

Snarly


Eeeeeeeeeeeeee!!@!@#!!! I got Snarly from the Crocolisks in the City fishing quest today! Now Lynxr has Snarly and Chuck, and Jag has Toothy... so all I need for my collection is Muckbreath, though eventually I'd like Lynxr to have all four. Happy, happy, happy! Joy, and joyness!

Saturday, November 8, 2008

BRK's Running of da Bulls for Ezra







Today I had the chance to participate in a truly epic WoW event -- a "running of the bulls" in memory of Ezra Chatterton, a child who recently died of cancer. Blizzard and the Make A Wish foundation made it possible for him to participate in WoW as a game designer--he created the quest in Mulgore where Ahab needs help finding his lost dog, Kyle; he designed an epic crossbow; he was given the first Phoenix mount in the game.

In memory of Ezra, BRK organized a massive event where players from all across WoW created level 1 Tauren on Argent Dawn to sack Stormwind. Participants were encouraged to make a donation to the Make a Wish foundation.

I made a Tauren Hunter named Ezerah, and Thulgasta made a Tauren Hunter named Makeapwn. We got them to level 10 and tamed coyotees, which we both named Kyle. We joined the newly formed "Run for Ezra" guild, and donned our generously donated starry tabards. Then we joined the great stampede... but alas, the when the herd arrived in Ratchet, the servers began to crash beneath the weight of thousands of baby Tauren. Hard. Before long, the Blizzard GMs told us to cease and desist our attempt to reach Stormwind because the server was so unstable. It's possible that we crashed more than just Argent Dawn, because Authentication servers went down WoW-wide.

The stream of Tauren stretching all the way from Mulgore to Ratchet, and into Strangletorn Vale, was a sight to behold. In Ezra's memory, and for all children living with severe illness and their families, I'm making a donation to Make a Wish. My thanks go out to BRK and everyone who helped to organize this event, and to all who came to show their support!

Related Links:

BigRedKitty: Smackdown (event screenshots)

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Jagwyr the Hallowed

Jag has earned the Hallowed Be Thy Name achievement, and the title "the Hallowed."

Monday, November 3, 2008

Scourge Invasion



Zombies invaded WoW. And it was awesome.

A lot of people were upset about the zombie plague--it made "business as usual" virtually impossible for several days, because zombies overran much of the world, causing tremendous amounts of chaos and death. Personally, I think it was brilliant. It was so fun to be part of something that was affecting everyone in the game, something lore-related that actually mattered, actually had an impact on what people were doing. Our Kara group went on a little zombie raid, trekking from Grom'Gol all the way to Goldshire as zombies, eating the brains of everyone in our path... and it was the most hilarious fun I've had with WoW, ever. Sure, there were a few occasions on which I was inconvenienced by finding myself suddenly hungry for brains, and I can certainly understand how it might have been discouraging for low-level players to be totally unable to quest and level for a couple of days. Nevertheless, I think it was good for us to have an actual lead-in to WotLK, story wise, and I'm glad it had as big an impact as it did.

Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaains!

It's been fun questing for the Argent Dawn, too, combating the Scourge at the Necropolis invasion points. Lynx and Jag both got their Tabards of the Argent Dawn, some rep, fun trinkets, and Jag got some really nice gear upgrades. Thulgasta/Eyebrows and I had a lot of fun slaying zombies and spectres late into the night.

Hallow's End


Jagwyr the Pumpkin Queen.

This event marks my one year anniversary of WoW playing. It's the last holiday event that I hadn't yet experienced, since I started playing right after Hallow's End ended last year.

Jag will be getting the Hallowed Be Thy Name achievement once Blizz removes the Mask for All Occasions requirement. We killed the Headless Horseman many, many times... typically with either a tank or a healer on the team, but not both. He was easysauce.

Phasers

I created Phasers as a silly joke. Server was down, boyfriend and I were bored... I said, "Let's make spacegoats! C'mon, it will be fun... we'll be... from space." He resisted at first, but finally caved under the pressures of boredom and the opportunity to poke fun at Draenei. He made a Drae named Eartentacles, and upon logging in, went directly to the nearby pool of water and drowned himself.

I deliberated a long time over what to name my silly alt, who I figured I'd never play again, really. I finally settled on Phasers. It seemed perfect because she's just crash-landed in a spaceship, she zaps her enemies with bolts of electricity, and I'm totally a Trekkie. And so, Phasers was born. While Eartentacles remained forever-dead in her pool of water, I played around with Phasers and found that I was enjoying myself. She made me smile. I liked the way she trotted around and blasted things with lightning. It was easy to make silly puns like, "Phasers online!" when I logged in, or "Aren't I stunning?"

I got hooked on her and leveled pretty rapidly from 1 to 58. I joined Daughters of the Alliance, an all-female guild that I discovered through the wowladies livejournal community. The ladies of DotA were delightful company, and I felt proud of Phasers because she felt like she was especially mine. I leveled her up almost entirely solo, and since most of my RL friends won't even consider playing Alliance, she gave me a chance to see the "pretty" side of the game that I'd always wanted to experience. At level 58, I decided to transfer her to Thorium Brotherhood so I could play with a couple of Alliance-side friends there. She is now part of a RP guild, the Lightservants, and working her way through the 60s. She is exalted with Darnassus and has a couple of riding cats, and her favorite vanity pet is the Sprite Darter Hatchling, which is the only vanity pet that's impossible to obtain with my Horde characters. She's looking forward to having a gryphon once she hits 70, as I've always wanted one of those, too.

Screenshots:

On golden wings. Lowbie quests on Azuremist were especially fun.


Swift Mistsaber. I love Alliance mounts, especially the riding cats.



Sprite Darter Hatchling. Phasers loves her baby faerie dragon.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Jagwyr

Jagwyr was my second WoW character, created sometime in November of 2007. The Hunter class appealed to me because I could tame pets to fight by my side. Of all the lovely animals in WoW, the cats are my favorite--lynxes, lions, tigers, moonstalkers, the list goes on. Jag's first pet was a lynx named Lolz. At level 23, she tamed the black lion that she named Roflz, who became her constant companion all the way to level 70. Once Hunters scored four stable slots, Jag tamed three more cats: Cheezburger the golden lion, Srsly the white lion, and Ohai the tiger. Jag also has all of the cat vanity pets in the game--7 total. In addition to cats, Jag likes fire, dragons, and killing things with her bow. She never has, and never will, use a gun. Elves are meant for bows and arrows. Guns + Elves = dumb.

Eyebrows, my boyfriend's character, was Jag's leveling buddy. Eyebrows is also a Blood Elf Hunter, and Jag loves him, even though his pet is a spider (ew) and he uses a gun (dumb).

Because Jag likes cats so much, I had always said, from the day that I created her, that someday I wanted her to have the Swift Zulian Tiger mount from Zul'Gurub. As a Horde character, it was the only riding cat she would ever have access to. I used to drool over the Tiger and talk about how someday I would farm ZG one hundred millionty gillion times, if necessary, to get her the mount. On the rare occasions that I saw another player riding the Tiger, I would ooh and ahh and say, "There's someone with Jag's mount!" ... but in reality, I knew I'd probably never get it. It's a 1-in-200 drop rate from an instance that nobody runs regularly anymore. Sure, I could probably convince my friends to go and kill the tiger boss with me a few times, maybe even several times.. but eventually, we'd get tired of trying, and Jag would have to go on without her Swift Zulian Tiger. When she hit level 60, I got her the Skeletal Horse PvP mount, since it's red and fiery and awesome, so it suited Jag well in that sense. Then, one day, my friends suggested that we run ZG just for the fun of it. None of us had ever been inside, so what the heck, right? I grabbed Jag, who was level 68 at the time, and with 10 people we cleared the instance very quickly. When we downed High Priest Thekal, he dropped the Swift Zulian Tiger. I just about died. My friends, who are the most awesome friends in the world, all wanted to pass the Tiger to me. I insisted that people roll, but I rolled a 98, and Jag got her Tiger. :) This was my ultimate WoW dream come true. I still feel like I won the game. Playing Jag with her Tiger makes me so happy! They are the perfect match, and I'm still in awe over the fact that she really has it.

Jag has poked her nose into Kara a couple times, but she's never done much raiding. She's currently wearing the Undead Slaying set from the recent Scourge Invasion event. Following the Scourge Invasion, she dyed her hair black.

Titles: Jenkins

Noteworthy Achievements: Swift Zulian Tiger; Friends in High Places; Tabard of the Argent Dawn; 500 Quests Completed; 1,000 Honorable Kills; Professional Master

Screenshots:



Black cats and stylish hats ftw. This was taken in Thousand Needles when Jag was around level 30ish. That's Roflz, her black lion, and Bombay Cat.


Look, we saved a turtle! Jag and Eyebrows had many such grand adventures while leveling. Turtle saving is extremely important. For the Horde!


Jagwyr was dead when she dinged to level 49. She had just turned in the quest where you must be dead in order to talk to the ghost in Forgewright's Tomb. Note that in this image, Jag is a ghost, but she also has a full health and mana bar. :)

Date at the Dark Portal. Jag and Eyebrows had a romantic trip to the Dark Portal before entering Outland for the first time...


The demons on the other side kinda ruined the mood.



The beaches of Auberdine. Jag is riding back from extinguishing flames in Night Elf land.

Queen of the Fire Festival. Have I mentioned that Jag likes fire? She succeeded in stealing all the flames from the Alliance capital cities, even though she was still level 60-something at the time, and couldn't stealth.


Safari Jagwyr. I recruited my brother to WoW, and so Jag got herself a Zhevra. This was before the time of the Swift Zulian Tiger... now the poor Zhevra gets no love.

Rawr! Jag has her Swift Zulian Tiger, and my friend/guildie, Tiesiez, has the Swift Razzashi Raptor.

Lynxr

Lynxr was my first WoW character.

Several of my good friends play WoW. Zeiseit used to pester me to join WoW so I could play with them, but I've never been interested in video games. I do, however, like animals quite a lot. I told Z that I had zero interest in running around as a troll or an elf or an orc... but gosh, if they ever made it possible for me to play the game as a cat, maybe I'd give it a try.

The funny part is that he forgot to mention Druids. Druids can, more or less, run around in cat form all the time... exactly what I was looking for! Eventually, I overheard my friends talking about "cat form," and sure enough, I agreed to give it a try.

Why must Tauren cats be so ugly? QQ. If I could have played Alliance from the beginning, you bet that I would have. I thought all the Horde races were ugly (except for Blood Elves, they're all right), and the Tauren Cat is especially bad... I'm a mangy male lion with my jaw constantly hanging open in a stupid grin, and nasty back hair running all the way down my spine. The ears are the worst part of all, disgusting little pink flaps of skin that wiggle back and forth, entirely out of place on a feline. Eww. Night Elf Cats are gorgeous! But alas, all of my friends play Horde, and so I gritted my teeth and resigned myself to a lifetime of ugliness. But hey, I had four paws and a tail, and I could bite and claw stuff to death, and that was pretty sweet.

And so, Lynxr was born. Her name was a typo, btw. I was trying to see if "Lynx" was available, and accidentally stuck an R on the end, so I went with it. Learning to play WoW was hard, since I've never played video games on the computer (or anywhere else, really) before. How do I run forward, backward, turn around, or jump? What do all these buttons do? How will I ever remember which keyboard keys correspond to which actions? I picked it up pretty quickly, though, and within a few days I had powered through the first ten levels and gotten Bear form. Then I sped up to 20 as quick as I could, eager to be a kitty. WoW was fun! Taurens may be ugly, but Mulgore was pretty, and filled with pretty animals.

My friends and I formed a core group of characters to level together. We created our own guild, called WoW Cave, after the room in our house were several of us play WoW all together. We stayed within about 3 levels of each other at all times, and we did every instance on the way to 70. Early on, Zeiseit the Paladin tanked. Thulgasta the Shaman both DPSed and healed (as Enhancement). Livormortis the Warlock, Raiynaha the Rogue, and me the kitty DPSed. Eventually, as we entered Outland, it became apparent that we needed a dedicated healer, so Z respecced to Holy and Shylar the Paladin (Raiynaha's main) took over tanking. We had many grand adventures on our way to 70. At 70, we had finally caught up to Baro the Priest, our friend who has been playing WoW since the beginning and who was level 70 long before the rest of us were level 1. For me, the best part of WoW (aside from the kitties ;) is playing with friends.

Since reaching 70, WoW Cave has grown to include several more friends and friends-of-friends. We do Karazhan and Heroics regularly, and have also gone to the occasional 25-man. We're super excited about all the 10-man content that we'll be able to run together in WotLK.

Lynxr has been fully "epic," wearing 100% purples for Cat gear, for some time now. She's sporting a mixture of Kara, T4, and Badge gear. She has always been a Cat first and foremost, though she's been doing a lot of tanking over the past few months. Lynxr's main goal in life is to collect as many vanity pets (minipets, companions) as possible. She currently has 55 vanity pets. I keep track of my vanity pet collection at warcraftpets.com.

Lynxr's Titles: Bloodsail Admiral, Jenkins

Noteworthy Achievements: Avast, Ye Admiral!; Tabard of the Argent Dawn; Shop Smart, Shop Pet... Smart; 1,000 Quests Completed; 1,000 Honorable Kills -- she should also have Classic Dungeonmaster and Outland Dungeonmaster because she's cleared everything on those lists, but since they were not all retroactive, I'm still working on re-doing some of them.

Screenshots:


Lynxr's first Christmas. My boyfriend (Thulgasta) got her a Firefly and a Crimson Whelpling, my first rare vanity pets! For a low level character, these were amazing gifts... he even farmed the Whelpling for me himself, which took many, many hours (both of these are 1-in-1,000 drop rates and sell for upwards of 1k gold on the AH). <3>


Lynxr in Booty Bay, dancing with Cornish Rex. With help from my friends, I purchased all the Alliance-side vendor pets and transfered them to Lynxr through the neutral AH. Of course, this was before she turned to a life of piracy and became the enemy of Goblins everywhere...

Lynxr and her friends have been on many adventures to scary dungeons. We have defeated a lot of really bad dudes and dudettes.


Lynxr's first trip to the Dark Portal. Outland awaits... and I hear there are vanity pets there...


Arr! Avast, mateys! Lynxr became a Bloodsail Admiral in order to obtain a very rare vanity pet, the Blood Parrot. To this day, she is Hated by all of the Goblin factions... with good reason, since she slaughtered legions of their kin to win the favor of the pirates.

In Outland, brave adventurers dig through poop!...



And get covered in slime. It's all very epic...


Lynxr loves Thulgasta. He's especially adorable when he's a wolfie.


In Aquatic form, Lynxr will give you nightmares. Tremble in fear, ye mortals.



During the Midsummer Fire Festival, Lynxr stole the flames from all of the Alliance cities. Ninja kitty! Im in ur cities, stealin ur flamez...

Characters


Welcome to my World of Warcraft scrapbook. :)

I have three primary characters:

Jagwyr, level 70 Blood Elf Hunter, Beast Mastery, on Malfurion

Lynxr, level 70 Tauren Druid, Feral Combat, on Malfurion

Phasers, level 65 Draenei Shaman, Elemental, on Thorium Brotherhood