Celestial Family

Awhile back I told Thul I was leveling some pets to 25 for the Celestial Tournament. And he was like, "Don't you already have a bunch of level 25 pets?" and I was like, "I have 57" and he was like, "WTF?! How is 57 pets not enough?" and I was like, "I need specific ones to beat certain tamers," and he was like, "WTF," and I was like, "One does not simply walk into the Celestial Tournament..."

In the last few weeks before the expansion I finally managed to kill Garrosh, but that pales in comparison to finally defeating the Celestial Tournament for the 10th time and getting my last celestial pet. Now I can move on to Warlords knowing that I beat the endgame in Mists.

Get Off My Lawn

I didn't blog during Mists of Pandaria. For much of the expansion, I wasn't actively playing.

So much has changed.

My go-to in-game title is "Crazy Cat Lady," and sometimes I feel like shaking my cane and yelling "GET OFF MY LAWN" at everyone who's gotten into pet collecting since the introduction of WoW-Pokemon. I collected pets long before it was the cool thing to do! There was a time I prided myself on having every pet in the game and being on warcraftpets.com's Top 50 Collections (not for the server, for the whole game) list.

With the introduction of pet battling, it became too impossible to keep my collection complete. The sheer volume of new pets added to the game has been staggering. Many of them are incredibly difficult for a casual player like me to acquire. I didn't belong to a guild that could access the elite raid or challenge mode pets. I'm allergic to pugs (pick-up-groups, not cute wrinkly dogs), so running LFR was out of the question. And the large number of rare-drop pets with massive time-consuming eye-bleeding grinds required was just depressing.

Hunter pets haven't been too exciting either. The only spirit beasts they added this expansion were glowing porcupines. And despite how un-cool porcupines are, I probably still would've camped them if they had actually been rare spawns, but after all the time and adrenaline invested in my old-school pack of 18+-hour-spawn-time beasts I just couldn't muster up any enthusiasm for these readily available ones.

So I took a lot of time off. I got married and we bought a house. I've been getting established in my career. I adopted a cattle dog puppy to be my partner in the fun sport of canine agility. I quit the game and gave away a ton of my minipets to a friend, hoping that if I decimated my collection I wouldn't be tempted to come back. But then some friends from my beloved guild got excited about Warlords of Draenor, and several who'd quit during Cata or Mists returned, and now I'm getting jazzed about raiding again, and my friend insisted on returning my menagerie, and so I'm back!

And for all my griping, I actually do love the pet battle system. I love storing my pets in a journal rather than having bags and bags stuffed full of them. I love how they're account-wide. I especially love being able to name them! Pet battling is pretty fun (except when it gets grindy or frustrating). And it's neat having so many cute critters to collect, even though it's a pain trying to "catch 'em all." Tonight there are 23 in-game pets I don't have. That number is about to go through the roof when Warlords drops tomorrow. I'm trying to let go of my completionist urges and just be okay with that and learn to enjoy pet collecting as a side hobby to the extent that I'm reasonably able.

So um... who wants to give me a Viscous Horror? ;)

We're moving soon, so I decided this would be a good day to sort through my overstuffed file box and see if I could find some papers to discard. Ancient utility statements from past addresses, that sort of thing... Well my file box also has several folders of "nostalgia," relics from my childhood, and soon I found myself thoroughly distracted and browsing through memories, really old artwork, cards, and letters --

Yeah, letters. Handwritten ones, even. And I found a set of letters written in pen, on lined paper, mailed from Australia and addressed to my mother, because I was in high school at the time and not allowed to tell my name to "people from the internet." They were from one of my oldest AOL friends, who'd temporarily lost his internet connection when he moved overseas, so for a while we kept in touch in traditional pen-pal fashion. Crazy, the things we'd chat about when we were kids, yet also not so crazy at all...

Even back then, the characters I chose to roleplay were typically of the animal variety. So I bust up laughing when I got to the paragraph in one of his letters that read, "If I were to make you a humanoid character, you'd be something like this: You'd be an elf, for they are very environmental. Your profession would have to be a ranger, for they are ten times more environmental than any normal elf even. Your profession would be a 'guardian of the earth' so to speak. You'd also probably have an animal familiar, perhaps a large black panther?"

Well Jax, just in case you're reading this, I'm happy to introduce you to my elf "ranger," after all these years:

Good call, my friend.

Till the next,

Nightglare

Pixel therapy

I am very arachnophobic. So when I learned that five of the new rares were spiders, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. That means five pets I do not need to camp. That could add up to days, even weeks worth of spared sanity!

Spiders freak me out, even in WoW. The first time I ever tanked Azjol-Nerub on my druid, I didn't know what to expect, and suddenly Hadronox was hitting me in the face... I think I screamed loud enough to alarm the neighbors, and then I was crying with my eyes squeezed shut and desperately mashing my tanking buttons and praying that I was at least facing the right direction because there was no way I was opening my eyes until it was dead, or the party was dead, or somebody polymorphed it into a kitten. That's how much spiders, even pixel spiders, scare me.

Well I'm getting married next July, and my arachnophobia annoys my fiance. He's very chivalrous, and he always comes to save me if I'm cowering fearfully in a corner and pointing all panicked at a spider on the wall, but he does find the situation irksome. I jokingly told him that I might consider taming a spider in WoW, to become friends, and maybe desensitize myself a little bit and face my fears. If I can befriend a pixel spider, and learn to think it's cute, maybe I won't flail around helplessly making high-pitched shrieking sounds when I encounter one in real life? Okay, it's a long shot, but at least I'm making an effort?

Right, but mostly I was joking. Ew, spiders. My hunter is a mammal person. She likes kitties and spirit beasts, and pretty much anything cute and furry. No spiders, no ty.

But today I ran into Kirix. I keep an eye out for all the new rares, because even though I'm done camping my own, I like to watch. It's fun to see clueless, armor-wearing non-hunters get pwned by Magria or Ankha. And if I'm in a position to help someone tame, by sharing my knowledge of the strategies, I love to help other hunters catch their pets. So I stopped and observed Kirix for a while, thinking yay, this will be a good show!

Only nobody came. I alerted some friends, who asked around for hunters who might be interested... Nada. Then Ramu, my shammy friend, logs on. I don't own a corehound, but suddenly I'm thinking, hmm... If I can make it to the Stable Master and back (I was carrying 5 beloved pets already), and get my shammy buddy out here, and Kirix is still there... Maybe I'll go ahead and give it a shot...

So about 10 minutes later, Ramu and I are staring at Kirix and I'm telling him to Bloodlust when I start the tame and yadda yadda. Well, like I said, I have only half an idea what I'm doing. I know Kirix is deadly, and I know I need as much haste as possible. I know there's a Disengage method that involves flying through the air, but I've always been terrible at executing such maneuvers so I don't want to risk it. We try, we die. We try again, die again.

By now, other players have finally arrived on the scene, but they're not hunters--they're random other classes trying to kill Kirix. My heart is pounding a bit, just cause I'm trying to get the tame right, but I still have to giggle each time I watch the awesome green spider totally pwn someone. Corpses begin to litter the hillside. I chat with a friend, and she recommends the floating rock method, which I'd also been avoiding because I happen to suck at jumping on rocks, too. But I decide to try it. I really focus, I take my time, I get to the upper ledge without falling to my death. Yay. Only now a rock elemental is beating my face, so I quickly summon my Ankha to save me (...do you see where this is going?). Last jump onto the correct floating rock, where Kirix pats by within tame range.

Kirix is still one-shotting people who try to mess with him. Ramu's Bloodlust is off cooldown. I tell him to hit it, and I pull Kirix. After that, everything got fuzzy. The first moment of panic happened when I'm mashing Tame Beast and getting the message, "You already have an active summon." OH, right, Ankha is still standing right next to me on the floating rock. I Dismiss. Bloodlust is going, my haste pot and Lifeblood are going... I keep mashing Tame Beast. It doesn't seem to be doing anything at all, I'm not getting a cast bar. Something must be wrong, but I don't know what. Maybe Kirix is evading, like I read he can do with the rock method.

And then suddenly the spider shrinks. I squint at the ledge, thinking omg, someone else appeared out of nowhere and managed to get him somehow. But no, it says "Jagwyr's pet" - victory!

And the winning quote of the night, right after the tame went off... one of the players who'd been trying to kill Kirix whispers my shammy friend and asks, "How did you make him so small?"

I named him Skeerd, because I have a lolcats naming theme, and skeerd is how I feel about him. But he's already growing on me. The epic effort of getting the successful tame makes me feel quite attached. I ran around and took screenshots of the corpse piles that Skeerd left in his wake. Let this be a lesson to anyone who dares challenge us in PvP... ^.^

Best of all, though, he matches my eyes.

I am excite

So this was me on Facebook the other day:

 Patch 4.2 is coming, and I'm spazzing out because Hunters and Druids are getting some serious graphical love. My kitty is going to set the world aflame by waving her tail around, and my hunter will be on the prowl for shiny new beasties. We're finally getting an ability that I have wanted forever--pets will run alongside our mounts. And Kibler's Bits snacks will make our animals bigger! I'll also be adding several minipets to the great collection.

This is truly the stuff for which I play WoW. New raid bosses are cool, gear upgrades are cool, but nothing holds a candle to being a kitty on fire. Thul pointed out that I'll be sad when 4.3 rolls around and I get a weapon upgrade and can't be a firecat anymore. But I'm not worried; that will never happen. I won't ever need a weapon upgrade because raid bosses will gaze upon my fierce, fiery feline of destruction, and they will simply roll over in terror and hand us all their loot.

In other news, I've started a Facebook page for Aspect of the Wild where I'll be posting more regular updates about my WoW adventures, with screenshots.

One day my Rare will spawn

Karoma. Spirit Beast. My first Rare tame of Cataclysm, found in Twilight Highlands the morning after I hit level 85. Named Koda, after my RL dog.

Things have been a bit quiet here at Aspect of the Wild because I've been leveling to 85. And camping fantastic new pets. Every time Blizz releases a new Spirit Beast into the wild, I know I'm about to spend several days in a kind of sleep-deprived zombie state. Cataclysm brought not one, not two, but three new Rare spawn animals for me to tame.

Spirit Beasts (and other Rare creatures) spawn once every 6-24 hours. Probably. They’re highly desirable Hunter pets, the ones from WotLK also dropped gold and blue items, and some gave Achievement credit upon death. This means that many players compete to tame/kill these Rares. I’m usually not the only person circling or camping their spawn points, waiting to swoop in.

When I camp a Rare, my obsessive superpowers activate, and I’m forced to eat-sleep-breathe the Rare until my tame is accomplished.

I begin the hunt cheerful and optimistic, thinking luck will shine on me. I’ll make a few loops and there she’ll be, just waiting for me! When that doesn’t happen, I pass the early hours gathering herbs and goofing around in guild chat. As the hours drag by, I begin to feel discouraged. No sign of the beast. What if I missed it while I was afk grabbing a mocha? What if someone tamed/killed it right before I got here, and it won’t spawn again for 10 more hours? Should I give up for now and check back later? That would be the sane thing to do...

But no, my obsessive brain whispers. You can’t give up now...

You’ve been here 5 hours. That means it should spawn any minute.

If you leave now, it will spawn, and you’ll miss it.

If you leave now, you’ll have no idea when it spawned, and you’ll just have to waste 5 more hours tomorrow.

Three hours later, all my friends have logged for the night. I’m alone in guild chat. I’ve quit picking herbs because I’m worried that if I pause my patrol even for a second, another Hunter will ninja my beast at a different spawn point. Morose and exhausted, I stare at the screen and ride around and around the spawn points, obsessive brain insisting, Just one more lap. Check one more time. Five more minutes. Okay, maybe fifteen more minutes. You can’t give up now...

You’ve been here 8 hours. That means it should spawn any minute now. Really. ANY MINUTE. If you leave, you’ll miss it. You’ll have to surrender 8 more hours of your life, and your sanity, tomorrow.

Also, now it’s 3:00 in the morning. That means that most sane people are asleep. Even on the east coast, it’s only 6:00, which means that most sane people are still asleep. Your odds of catching it in the middle of the night are better. Less competition.

An hour later, and still nothing. It kills me to give up, because the longer I wait, the more likely it will spawn, and the more time I’ve wasted on a wild goose chase. But eventually I can’t take it anymore. I’m slumping in the chair, nearly dozing off at the keyboard. I’m freezing cold, because the garage where I play WoW has no heat. The idea of a warm bed and blissful unconsciousness wins out, and reluctantly I shut down the computer and collapse into bed.

But blissful unconsciousness denies me. I toss and turn restlessly, haunted by images of my character flying from spawn point to spawn point, ceaselessly searching. Waiting. Hunting. Seeking. Finally, I drift into a fitful sleep, where I dream about the beast. In my first dream, I spot the animal and swoop down to tame, only to find that somehow I’m PvP flagged and another Hunter pwns me dead and then tames my Rare. In the second dream, I log in and NPCScan blares that my Rare is found, but I quickly discover that it’s just a corpse—I was a few minutes too late. I wake up every hour or so, groggily turn over, and I think... Maybe you should get out of bed and log on, just for a minute. Just to check. Maybe it’s waiting there, right now, and if you go back to sleep you'll miss it.

Then, after all this, comes the heartbreak of camping another 5 hours the next day, only to approach a spawn point and see that indeed, another Hunter has just finished taming my Rare. Another Hunter that just happened to stop by at the right place, and the right second, and get really lucky. It’s hard not to cry. Maybe I do cry. Just a tiny little bit.

But at least now I have a timer. 6-24 hours. I’ve heard tales of people getting really lucky at the 12 hour mark, so I go to bed at a reasonable hour and set my alarm for 5:27 in the morning, exactly 12 hours after I witnessed the tame. When my alarm buzzes, I swat it groggily and think... This is ridiculous. You’re exhausted. Just go back to sleep. It’s a stupid pixel animal. It’s not worth torturing yourself. You’ll catch it someday if you’re patient. Just forget it and go back to sleep.

But I don’t. Wearily, I drag myself out of bed and heat a cup of coffee. As the coffee is heating, I remember my dream where I logged on moments too late, and start to fret. I hurry to the computer, log in, and NPSCAN BLOWS MY EARS OUT. RED ALERT. Yeah, I’ve logged in directly on top of my Rare. It’s still alive. Nobody else around (did I mention it’s 5:00 in the morning?). I panic. I tame. I win.

And then I bask in the glow of sweet, pixilated victory. Until the next patch. Until the next Spirit Beast.

Sambas. Cat. My second Rare tame, luckily spotted mere hours after I found Karoma. Named Ceilingcat because he looks like Aslan.

Ghostcrawler. Spirit Beast. This is the one that tortured me. Appropriate, rite? Took several days to catch him, at 5:27 in the morning, at the Abandoned Reef. I named him QQ because it fits my lolcats theme, fits Ghostcrawler, and fits the suffering I endured to tame him.

There can be only one

One of my alts is a Blood Elf Priest named Kyttyn. So yesterday I was standing around Dalaran, and this random chick walks up to me. She stands there looking at me for a minute, and then says in /say:

"there is only room for one kitten on this server and it aintt you slut." (Typo replicated for historical accuracy.)

While laughing so hard that I was struggling to breathe, I related the story in our chat channel. A few minutes later, Thul goes, "I found the other kitten. Her name is Kytyn."

Suddenly, it all makes sense. This poor person must be stark raving mad with jealousy over my name, which is about eleventy-jillion times better than hers. She's harboring a vendetta against me for having stolen her extra 't.'

Thul and I watched an episode of Deep Space Nine tonight, "Accession," in which an elderly Bajoran pops through the wormhole and claims that the Prophets have appointed him as their Emissary. As everyone knows, The Sisco is the one true Emissary. But seriously, this was all I could think: