Aneyah’s Journal: Have arrived in Northrend. Chose to go to Howling Fjord rather than the suggested Borean Peninsula despite the Warchief’s “suggestion” I go there (he’s rather bossy).
… I’m not sure about this place.
This is the, ah… “inn”.
The innkeeper greeted me and invited me to “rest my weary bones for a spell”.
Notes from the field: After being stalked by a Blood Elf hunter around Sholazar, was relieved to find she wasn’t stalking me, but a rare leopard of sorts. Must be extremely rare – while I was resting at Nesingwary’s camp, she brought out a white leopard with glowing blue eyes and indicated she was happy with the beast – I can only assume she had just tamed it. After congratulating her as best I could (I don’t speak that non-sensical language she was prattering on in) and giving the leopard a scratch or two, I figured I should do some research and see what other sorts of rare spirit beasts could be tamed.
I’d heard there was a spirit cat to be found in Zul’Drak and figured I’d set out and try to find it, even though I hadn’t set foot in that place. After flying in, it didn’t look very inviting at all and I nearly wanted to turn around (the trolls didn’t look… right). After picking a starting place, I flew low to the ground in a counter clockwise circle around the center of the area. There were some very interesting looking cats that caught my eye, but they were blooded beasts – not spiritly. Spirited. Spiritual. …not what I was looking for.
After flying over some huge staircase to some temple for who knows what, I got a tingle. In the shadows of the staircase, pacing companionably with an ice pawed bear was a purplish spirit beast with glowing blue eyes, so spectral I could barely see her in the shadows.
Conclusion: despite a mis-timed tame attempt resulting in an attack by the ice pawed bear, the spirit cat was tamed.
I’m going to gloss over the fact that it’s been a shameful amount of time since I’ve posted here, in my brand spanking new blog. I didn’t want to bore you with my dorf/tauren switching (I’m leveling both a Dwarf and a Tauren hunter. Don’t ask why.)
However, the dorf has been getting the most attention lately and lo and behold, she’s reached the ripe ol’ level of 75. (The highest level of any alt of mine, mind you.) Halfway through 74 it occurred to me that there was something I was supposed to do at 74. Think, think, think…
OH RIGHT, TAME ARCTURIS.
I fire up the ol’ rocket and fly towards Grizzly Hills as I hurriedly pull up Arcturis’ page on wowhead (I was totally not prepared – I didn’t think I’d really get to the appropriate level) and figured out where he was supposed to be, and upon seeing 852 comments, I inwardly groaned and figured I’d probably never get him, since so many people have commented (therefore making him a popular pet, therefore guaranteeing lots of competition for a pet on a long timer).
But hey, that’s part of being a hunter, right? Not just “camping” but tracking that pet you want, hiding, waiting until the time is right to tame… so naturally I find his spawn point, *see he’s not spawned, fly in a small circle and think, “He’s still not here!”, repeat from *.
Luckily, my guild, Waypoint, went “Hey, let’s go do Mt. Hyjal, let’s go!” and I went “Hey, ok!” and I went to see Mt. Hyjal for the first time. Was totally unhelpful in any way, but I got to see it! Afterwards, I hearthed to see if he’d spawned… nope. Black Temple time! Cue dorf deaths, despite my Super Awesome Feigning Abilities. (Also, does anyone know if the concubines that were in the Room of Pleasures 1 were there voluntarily? Were they coerced? What was the purpose of that room, in that type of temple, besides Pleasures? Inquiring minds want to know.)
After nearly getting a glaive to the face (startling, to say the least), I checked back. No spirit bear. (Sadface).
I logged off, making plans to check if I woke up in the middle of the night, and in the morning before I left before work. I only just remembered in the shower this morning that I was supposed to check, so after quickly getting dressed, I log in and sure enough, who do I see?
SPIRIT BEAR.
Not sure what to call him yet. That’ll have to come with time. (What does one really CALL a spirit, besides it’s own name?)
Also, he has a creepy Cheshire cat-esque grin on my log in screen. Should I be concerned?
Despite my plans (resignation?) to level alone on my Tauren hunter, Aneyah, I ended up joining a guild after all – I mentioned them in my last post. While I don’t have hardly any good expectations for guilds anymore (ever since they made guild rep and levels, it seems like unless you were already in a tight knit guild or know someone in one to let you join, guilds nowadays are just there to get people to level the guild and enjoy the guild perks, not to be a guild), I always have hopes when I join guilds on my alts.
Because of the guild leader’s reaction to my simple /roll request, I allowed myself to be curious. When I saw that there was a Sizzlin’ Summer Challenge, my interest was piqued. On the guild’s website (which I hadn’t bothered to look at yet – they never seem to have any content) the guild leader had posted a Challenge to anyone who wanted to play – if you answer questions one through four correctly and post a screenshot, you win a Mooncloth Bag and fame. The questions were about various zones and things in them – one required you to travel to Surwich in Blasted Lands and report the number of dresses hung on the laundry line. Another required you to get on the Maiden’s Fancy and find out what the “chef’s special” is good for killing, according to its one taster. You needed to post a screenshot of you looting Felcloth from particular mobs in a particular zone.
So I decided, “Hey! I don’t need to schlep down to Silithus just yet, I want to play!” and I trotted right out and figured out the answers to the questions and I got my felcloth drop in a decent amount of time (and killed a rare in the bargain!) and I had a great time. Even though it was nothing “epic”, it was diverting and I enjoyed myself, and I was happy that I had a guild leader that had thought of something fun like a scavenger hunt to do, to break the doldrums.
Turns out there’s a Frosty challenge from January that no one’s completed yet… going to hurry my little cow along to 68, so I can complete that one too!
(P.S. – turns out the guild leader has 11 RP posts about the guild on the guild website too! On a PvE server! I’m on the third post.)
Do you remember back when, if you were in a group, you would /roll to see who could mine/pick/skin a node? (Or at least the first one to start, and then going in rotation if more than two were present?)
I remember those days. Those were quite a while ago. That used to be the way everyone did it, it seemed – at least with the parties of server mates I might have grouped with, then later in guild events.
However, when randoms started, I think everyone forgot about common courtesy and just ran around picking and mining and skinning anything, screw whoever else might have wanted to also participate.
Last night in Silithus, I got a polite whisper from a guild master about their guild, asking if I’d like to join. Because I was so tired of having guild invite screens shoved in my face, and I appreciated the politeness of informing/asking, I decided to give it a go, even though I had thought I might want to stay guildless through the leveling of this Tauren hunter.
After joining I was immediately given an invite to a party – there were three other guildies and the guild master in Silithus, also questing. After killing lots of spiders, there was a Rich Thorium Vein that I definitely wanted to mine, but in /p I asked, “Anyone else a miner?” and when I was informed another was, I asked them to /roll, to see who would get this node.
Turns out the other miner wasn’t high enough level, but I was thanked effusively by the guild leader for even asking. (In caps, which perhaps says something about the last time that’s happened.)
Before I logged, I was told to expect a welcome package in my mail, since I was so polite.
Have we reached the place where a common courtesy /roll request is rewarded with a special welcome package?
(I got a great package – a bigger bag, some gold, a tabard and an Adventurer’s Journal.)
Because of my rampant altoholism, I’ve played through every starting area for every race (some more recently than others) and became pretty familiar with the general personality of each race and their views on things.
However, also because of my rampant altoholism, I’ve not reached very high levels for the large majority of my alts. While I have fond memories of certain higher level zones, really the only character I remember playing through them on is Anea1. I’ve played a handful of shaman through Outlands (or nearly though Outlands) but haven’t done it on an Alliance character in entirely too long.
After much struggling to get her to the proper level and find the breadcrumb quest to get anyone at Telaar to talk to my Dwarf hunter (#12023948) I happily skipped up to Nesingwary’s camp to get the kill quests. Usually for the kill quests, I just take them and go, since I know I’ll have to do subsequent kills of the same types of animals, and who needs to read quest text, right?
Well, I do, apparently. I’ve always wanted to have a Loremaster (for years) but because again, of my lack of resolve in regards to alts, that’s fallen by the wayside. And been stomped on. Repeatedly. By kodo mounts and bear pets and shaman totems. However, I suppose I was just in the right mood one night in Nagrand and I slowed down and I read the quest text.
Shado “Fitz” Farstrider gave me this quest:
Do you live for the hunt as I do, hunter? Do you seek the quietude that comes as you stalk your prey? Would you know what it is to honor the last heartbeats of your fallen quarry? I will help you to achieve this.
Nagrand is a lush land, full of life in the midst of this broken world. Bring down a handful of the windrocs and then we will speak more.
You can find them in many places nearby in all directions around our camp.
For some reason that really struck home. While that may seem like something that appeals to every hunter (and some non-hunters), it didn’t seem to match the Dwarvish attitudes that I had felt so far in the game. While all hunters have an affinity for animals and hunting, it seemed to fall far short of actually making a connection with your prey, and honoring the last heartbeats of your fallen quarry. It was very Tauren, I thought.
So naturally, I logged out of my Dwarf hunter (after being scolded mightily by Naithin for doing so) and rolled a Tauren hunter to truly be one with nature and animals and learning The Hunt.
Today I felt like playing my Dwarf and thought, “No, I can’t, I have to play the Tauren. She is a True Hunter” and I was unhappy about it – I wanted to play with my bear pet. And only my Dwarf has a bear pet2. After much back and forth, I finally wondered why it is that I went directly to rolling a race whose philosophies and characteristics I wanted to embody, rather than giving my Dwarf a chance to learn them. (Most likely ingrained habit and lack of RP mindset, respectively).
Of course our characters can learn and adapt. That’s how they are able to level and encounter tougher monsters and even go into dungeons and fight bosses many levels above them. That’s how they learn to group with others and, in the case of hunters, fight with different pets. We already learn and adapt, but we (or at least I) only give certain races certain characteristics and personalities based on their race – and that’s it. If I had a Gnome, I would feel like she needed to have a squeaky voice and be perky and adorable and most likely live for engineering. As one example, and I could go on, but you already know the stereotypes for each race.
Do any of your characters break the racial mold and embrace the philosophies and ways of life of other races? Or do you, like me, have your Dwarf always use a gun when hunting and Tauren always use bows? I am extremely interested to see how many of you have been able to make that connection that, just like us, our characters can learn from others and become who they want to be, that their people are isn’t all they can be.