The Last Week(s) In Pictures….

Start off with this! Been going and grinding bones in ten minutes downtime since I resubbed. I didn’t do it at-level (I got about 6k) because I hate competing for mobs, so I went back the other night. It took a couple of hours to get the rest at a quiet period.

Other fun news: Oondasta is now on a 15min spawn timer if you want the mount…

Small but significant victory against the AP grind. I’ve given up now though, too many 0’s!

And on we go….

I have been working so hard for this one!

Found this gorgeous little house on my travels in Val’sharah. Reminds me of the fairy houses my daughter loves so much.

Showing off my cool fidget spinner

This was the reward from the mini holiday in Thousand Needles not so long ago. I thought I’d include it as firstly, it’s fab and secondly, it was super fun.

Well, these following ones are self-explanatory. So beautiful.

Radio Silence

Hello!

Just dropping in to apologise in advance for few updates in the next couple of weeks. Our IRL stuff is so busy with weddings and work and kids that we haven’t had much time to play.

I have, however, scheduled lots of our Community Project posts which are  absolutely brilliant to read, learning about the people in our lovely community so do keep an eye out for those.

See you next week,

Mr and Mrs B ❤

A little shout out

After our moan the other day about people and the warcraft community I think it’s only fair that I give a shout out to all the awesome people who have helped me out the past few days (weeks!). 

Thanks Chromeeh for all your advice and taxi services. I’m glad our last grouping was beneficial with that fab legendary!

Thanks to Rellic who boosts me through more content than I could say… I would have been dead much more frequently if it wasn’t for you!!!

Thanks also to my new pal Alunaria who is so friendly and always cheerful and willing to help. You should follow her blog and twitter by the way!

Finally, to all the people on twitter who tirelessly answer my nooby questions and help me on my journey to become less of a nooby mage: Sivation, Neondwarf, Crow and Marathal. I’ve missed so many off I know, but honestly we really appreciate it! 

Spread the love, friends. Oh and tomorrow is the first installment of the the Community Project! Exciting!!!

Now I’ve done my acceptance speech I shall receive applause and leave.

/bow

Mount #236

Not particularly momentous, but I didn’t even realise I hadn’t collected the Garrison mounts yet. Bit expensive at 10k, but hey, I like to treat myself.

He’s a bit of a beast [Rocktusk Battleboar] !

Spread the love

We try to be positive on these blog posts. We love the game and we love the twitter community and the friends we have made there.

However, I’ve really been struggling with the toxicity of the general community in-game. Time after time, day after day, I find myself fighting against various people and their bubble mentality.

No one ever HELPS anyone any more. Look how hard it was to find a guild that has an active chat and did things together. Trade chat is full of spam and idiots being stupid. People only group so they get the quest done.

What also makes me laugh is when you’re questing in an area collecting XYZ and someone next to you is doing exactly the same thing. Last week I was collecting bear steaks for a quest with another Mage… We worked together killing and looting then without another word, the other mage hearthed and left. I always invite to group, most decline. 

I also always say hi if I join a LFG… very few respond and even fewer say goodbye and the end. It always makes me /sigh a bit -you’ve been through a journey together and haven’t acknowledged the others who made it possible. Possibly akin to going on a team building exercise at work, completing it and leaving without ever saying hello to your colleagues. 

Baffles me. 

What also pees me off are YouTubers making huge amounts of money with huge followings… by BITCHING ABOUT THE GAME. Why play it if all you do is moan?!

All I’m seeing is overwhelming negativity on YouTube… moaning about every aspect of the game and I just can’t get my head around it. I also don’t get why people would want to watch it?! Just stop playing if it annoys you so much and stop cluttering my recommendations with your drivel. I just want to watch some PvP without a negative voice over.
It’s all so self centered. Doing your own stuff for your own gain and only joining if you have to, not because you want to. I get not everyone is social, but manners cost nothing. 

Maybe it’s because younger people are joining the game? Maybe it’s a product of modern society. Maybe people don’t want to play socially or with strangers. I love to meet and chat to new people.

Perhaps we are spoilt being surrounded by lovely btag friends and twitter people, but it does drag you down.

Me being a sad gnome… get it?! 

I’d love to do another community project (we did one in 2014), maybe it’ll make us feel better… any ideas let me know.

In the meantime – be nice, spread happiness and be awesome ❤

Gnomercy

@chromeeh_gnome came to my rescue yet again last night by helping me finish my Mage Quests. I capitalise that as a proper noun, because I don’t actually know what they’re caller,  but they’re just for Mages and they’re quests. So… Boom.

Anyway,  off we went to Suramar where *shock horror* with Chromeeh’s help I DIDN’T DIE. I also got a tour of the place so I know where to avoid.

We also went to the zoo. That was awesome.

As for me? I don’t know what to play. Help.

To PvP… or not to PvP

So the plan was for me to write a super exciting blog series about leveling using PvP from scratch. I asked twitter what to level (undead Rogue won by a small margin) and off I went.

I love PvP and one of the greatest let downs in WoD was how stupid the queuing system was in Ashran. It really put me off for a while, so I was excited to start again this expansion.

I got to level 10 and queued for my first BG. TWENTY MINUTES later I got my first one. This continued all the way to level 15 where I gave up. I don’t know if it’s the time of day I play, the norm these days or what. I can’t waste twenty minutes waiting for the queue to pop I don’t have that time anymore. #dadlife

So that idea is a bust, sorry folks. I may try levelling a DK and seeing if queue times are better in the higher levels, but for now, back to levelling the Shaman.
/wave

Geeking Out

So after the very exciting announcement yesterday, we’ve had a few hours to ponder over the news. As I’m sure everyone else is doing, dissecting the little bits of information we have (honestly, we haven’t received that much ‘new’ news) and picking apart our favourite bits.

13th November 2014. Will you be there??

How good was that cinematic (click here for the link)?? If the movie is anything to go by, it’ll be amazing. Shame about the lag on the stream, but we’ll live. We also enjoyed the short animated movie-thing… excellent introduction to lore and gives some brilliant info behind the expansion.

There are lots of awesome things to look forward to, many of which we already knew: Garrisons, new models (those Gnome eyes!), lots of lovely new scenery – how beautiful does Shadowmoon look?? – plus lots more. The quality of life changes such as the transmog collections, stats, item squish, toybox are all very promising, as are the new dungeons which look pretty epic! Finally…. ASHRAN BABY! As a non-PvP-er, it sounds pretty fun as an experience at least. I’m not going to list anymore, as I’m sure nearly all of you are fully aware of the new stuff and would /yawn.

However, certain aspects do make us feel a tiny bit meh – “orcs orcs everywhere and not an Alliance in sight” for one. Lots of tusks, ick. I think people taking the “Horde are the favourites” standpoint do have half a leg to stand on – although we don’t particularly share the same view, we understand where they’re coming from. I’m also not too happy being stuck near Ashran on a base – I’d rather be out the way somewhere (doesn’t matter where!). It feels like I’m being forcibly encouraged towards the content which is… not nice. However, Mr B can’t wait so what can I say??

The Anniversary event looks AMAAAYZING.

I can’t wait to experience Molton Core 40man! I don’t care it’s as an LFR, makes it accessible for people like us which as a one-off can’t be bad. Mount and pets and 100man PvP. Awesome. All this amazing-ness makes me question why they are banging Blizzcon, WoD release AND Anniversary into the same time frame. For people who can’t take time of work for the release, or those of us who have other commitments…. eesh, not easy to experience all the awesome.

It was announced on MMOC today that we will get ‘plenty of time’ to get to 100 for the Anniversary. This is excellent. However, with the amount Blizzard change their tune, I’m going to hold off getting too excited until I see numbers. 

I did have a discussion on Twitter about why people are cross about not having content for so long. At the risk of repeating myself, I’d really prefer they release a quality product that I have to wait for. We took a 4 month break which was more than enough to refresh us ready for release. We may take another one in September until 6.0 comes out, but folks… if you’re bored go do something else and don’t moan at me. I won’t sympathise ^^

Let us know what you’re excited about. Or not. Whatever :p 

When “in-game” becomes “in real-life”.

We have talked a fair bit about how important gaming with friends is to us. You can read the start of the series here.

These two friends are a couple whose anniversary happens to be a week later than our own, they’re a similar age and we have known them since the middle of Cataclysm. For those who don’t use expansions as time indicators: around 2 1/2 years. We like anonymity here, so I’ll call them by their WoW names; Thondar and Kiwii.

In all the time we had known each other, we had never been able to meet “IRL” because they live in Denmark and we live in the UK. Typical, eh? We had spent hours and hours on skype and in game chatting so we thought it was time to finally meet. When the opportunity to have a short summer break presented itself, we went for it.

We had a FANTASTIC time.

 

We always joke with the Danes about how we don’t feel part of the EU, so this was their welcome sign coming into Denmark. I don’t know how Hello Kitty started, but the two blokes always joke about their “love” for it.

It was a little daunting, turning up in a foreign country whose language doesn’t even closely resemble the one you know, to meet people you’ve never ‘properly’ met. However, the worry was unfounded, as it was like we had always known each other.

We have heard many times, especially from people outside the gaming community, comments along the lines of: “how can you possibly form relationships in a GAME?” or “they aren’t real friendships”. When you spend so much time with these people, you can’t help but get to know them. As I’m sure you have experienced, the friendships are very real, and we wouldn’t be without them.

We can only urge you to take the opportunity to meet your online friends (safely) if you have the opportunity. These people have shared experiences that you don’t always find in the ‘real’ world.

Finally… to Thondar and Kiwii – we love you guys! 🙂

 

Feeling Nostalgic

Since our return to Warcraft, we have been enjoying revisiting places which make us happy – for me, Nagrand and the older dungeons, for Mr B, the Horde and its various races. Here are a few of our favourite screenshots this week.

Nagrand

Sethekk Halls

Riding Brutusk, Ashenvale

A Gnomes-eye-view of a Wyvern flying overhead.

A birds-eye-view of one of the Tempest Keep dungeons (Arcatraz if I remember correctly!)

We are off on holiday tomorrow for a few days, so we look forward to seeing you all next week. TTFN! 🙂