The Love Rocket is Dead, Long Live the Love Rocket

For the past 2 years that I've been back in WoW, it has seemed like catch up all the way. I haven't gotten back into raiding, as I am not happy with lfr. I loved raiding with my guild back in the day and lfr is just too random and often unsatifying or downright awful. Now, I have lost track of all my old guild mates, and have not been drawn to joining another guild.

I re-prioritized my game goals, and dedicated myself to pet collecting, while slowly transferring my few high level characters to my current server, and then leveling them all. No raiding, no push for achievements, no mount collecting or anything else ... just battle pets and character improvement. Now I have 731 pets and 5 level 100 characters on my main server and I have become weary from the grind. I have to say though, I love grinding and I love farming, or I would not have lasted this long.

Oh, and one must not forget the holidays! Pets and holiday rewards - Merriment's Domain!

This brings me back around to yesterday's post - "Where's My Lucky (Lovely) Charms" - Lovely Charms and Love is in the Air - and yet again NO Love Rocket. Questioning myself - why am I still playing this game? One of the reasons was to keep on participating in the holiday quests, for surely after 11 1/2 years of WoW, this year had to be the year that I got that Love Rocket.

Would my continuance in playing be dependant upon that one mount? Would my bitterness about the evilness and cruelty of rng cause me to rage quit?

After expressing my disappoint in trade chat about not getting the Love Rocket, and having been witness to a lengthy sermon on how Rare was Rare, did I know what Rare meant, and did I realize that if everyone had gotten that mount that it would no longer BE Rare ... the dogma of WoW, oh my word! I decided to yet again shift my priorities. I have come to this conclusion - the Love Rocket is dead to me, long live the Love Rocket!

WoW RNG will rarely be kind, and that is that. I have faced the facts.

Whatever is my heart's desire, if I can't obtain it through a reasonable effort, then I'll buy it or a satisfactory replacement with gold or forget about it and move on.

It's not right to fool with the Almighty RNG - Rare is Rare, bro! (and let's explain the seeming sexist use of "bro" - there are no sisters who play WoW, only GIRLS - Guys In Real Life).

All in good fun, my friends, all in good fun.

Where's Me Lucky (Lovely) Charms?

Love is in the Air, a February World of Warcraft festival, was over at noon today server time... and on the dot, as I was just ready to turn in quests and buy from the vendor ... poof! All the Lovely Hearts, all the Lovely Charms, all the Lovely (though every time I start to say that, I think,  "Where's Me Lucky Charms?") Charm Bracelets ... all gone. All that work!

Partway through the festival, all the most rewarding farming sites for the Lucky, erm, Lovely Charms were nerfed by WoW. I actually witnessed it, and it was later confirmed by posts or comments on various WoW related websites.

One morning last week, I was able to play early. I went to an area with a reasonable amount of mobs and made sure that I wasn't moving in on someone who was questing or also farming the area. No one was there. If someone appeared, I moved to a side area, and only focused on a few mobs in that area, so that I'd not be depriving anyone.

I don't usually go crazy on dps. I was playing my hunter, who is usually spec'd Beast Master, but who had changed for that time to Marksman, as I had just tried out a few Timewalking instances. I don't often choose the uber blaster multishot, Barrage, as I find it often attracks more than I want. That day, I was in the middle of almost a month of Recruit A Friend leveling, and just wanted to see how feasible it might be to grab some charms and get an idea of how long it would take. I'll admit, I was in a bit of a rush to get back to leveling the RAF characters, so ... ready, aim ..... FIRE! BARRRRRRRAAAAAGE!

Holy Moses in the reeds!

I watched my text log, and in that one barrage I got 5 Charms. Oooo! I'll try it again! 4 charms! I used Barrage every time the cooldown was off and in less than 30 minutes, I kid you not, I had easily about 120 charms. That was nice.

I left there and went to leveling a bit. Later, I came back to the garrison of another hunter, yes, I love hunters. She went to the same spot, about 4 hours later, and I tried the barrage technique. First time ... nothing. Second time ... nothing again. Third ... fourth ... not a single charm. I changed back to my original hunter, thinking that it might have something to do with the stats, the dps, etc. Same thing ... no charms when using barrage. I tried going only to single shots, and then every 4 to 10 shots I got a charm. Boo! I tried it with Multishot ... no charms. I also found that if I had my pet active and it attacked - no charms.

Granted, I was at the bottom of the xp gain, killing 90's one a level 100 character. Why then, was I gathering mad charms 4 or 5 hours before this with my pet out, using aoe as well as single shots? It seems, from the posts and comments, that people were reporting this wondrous bounty to GM's, and WoW went right to work nerfing all the prolific drops zones. -Sigh-  Some people were gathering hundreds of charms in an hour in certain places, and I can see that that was a bit much. I had gathered nowhere near that, and in the end was left carefully plinking away, with my pet on passive, hoping that I would get a charm here and there ... agonizing!

Is this the new Zen of Farming?

Oh, yes, right ... another Love Fest has gone by, and still no rocket. It should be a two-seater anyway. I'll get the Touring Rocket. Problem solved. No more rocket envy. I'm moving on.


[An interesting aside: As I had said above, I was leveling RAF characters before and during Love Is In The Air. One of the characters had taken the quest "Test Your Strength" from the Darkmoon Faire and had not completed it. As that character was questing in Pandaria, as well as looking for Lovely Charms, I was curious to see how WoW would handle the tallying of each of those at the same time. Last month I found, just by chance, that having the quest "Test Your Strength" on a character who was doing Halfhill farming dailies made gathering Grizzly trophies go rather quickly. Each mob killed was counted toward the quest. When on a hunter, using aoe spells, and with an active pet during Love Is In The Air with the "Strength" quest active ... after the Holiday nerf ... again, no ticking off of trophies for quest and no Lovely Charms.]

Am I Crazy ...

I've been debating for months whether or not to post something. I've thought of it many times, composed many a post in my head while gaming, and yet I don't write. The most prominent reason to not post is - why do it, when I hardly ever post anyway?

I'm doing it.

 This post started out to be about how I am now using the 4 Recruit A Friend accounts I bought in December 2015 so that I could receive the 4 battle pet rewards. I've leveled 3 characters to 90, and am just finishing leveling another 3 characters to 90. That will be finished later this afternoon. I've got a third group to level from 50 to 90. All of these characters are Horde. I hope to level another group of 3 characters on Alliance before my 90 days are up. Am I crazy? Of course. Now for the best part of my WoW experience today, and the game is not even back up yet.

Recently I've wondering why I'm still playing, since all the people I used to play with are no longer playing, and if they are, I've lost touch with them. Is gaming still in line with who I am? On the Real Life server, I am a person who believes that there is a sacredness to life, to all aspects of life. I've often wondered if there are others like me who play games. I'm currently playing World of Warcraft, and have been again for the past 2 years.

WoW shut down for maintenance earlier today, and was supposed to be up by now. As in days of yore, restart has been delayed, so I decided to read some WoW blogs that I've enjoyed in the past. I am happy that I did, because I found out that there are other people who play WoW who think similarly to me.

I was touched and inspired by a post by Zwingli on his blog Zwingli's Weblog O' WoW: When Life Intrudes, about the death of someone that he knew, honouring that person's life. I was quite touched and inspired. Thank you, Zwingli, and blessings to the family of Jeremy in their time of loss. Blessings to the spirit of Jeremy, whose life touched, brightened and inspired those others around him.

Warcraft: Knight's Armor

Here is a simple look for my level 100 night elf hunter - a fairly low level set - Knight's Mail.

On the Beach | Attack of the B-Team

 

Beach house bordering a jungle biome, created in the Techics modpack Attack of the B-Team.

Games for mac

Minecraft and Guild Wars II work fine on a mac.

I played Guild Wars II, aka GW2, for several months, starting last September. Maybe a few months before that, I tried Minecraft, which was suggested to me by my nephew. I was so disappointed at not being able to return to Everquest 2, and also Lord of the Rings Online that I just lost interest in posting here.

I do have some screenshots floating around somewhere, and may post some of them.

I am now just playing Minecraft, and have some recent screenshots. For a "basic" game, with simple graphics, Minecraft is really very engaging. The game dynamics, if that is the proper term, are what makes Minecraft so entertaining, as well as the features of the game.

I like that I can play in either Single Player or Multiplayer mode. Also, being able to choose either Survival or Creative mode is another great feature, as well as world interaction modes from Peaceful (Passive) to Hard mode.

Many very creative people play Minecraft, and have produced a number of great mods. There are also many great videos of Minecraft tutorials and gameplay. "Vanilla" (unmodded) Minecraft has much to offer by itself, but adding mods gives many, many more options for gameplay.

Being able to interact with and alter the environment in Minecraft in many ways can provide endless hours of game play.

I can raze a complete forest or jungle, demolish a mountain if I so choose. Make a lake, grow a garden, tame wild dogs and cats, and breed cows, chickens and sheep. I can create new materials from gathered materials. Then there is redstone technology, a way of making "machinery" and circuitry to animate aspects of the game. Amazing!

I didn't have as many screenshots as I thought, however I am including one. Below is a picture of my original ostrich farm. This is from a modded version of Minecraft 1.5.2, using MultiMC to create instances of Minecraft, customized as I choose - either vanilla Minecraft, or any combination of Minecrafts mods. I am using Dr. Zhark's Mo' Creatures mod, which adds ostriches to the game. Ostriches can be gotten as tamed pets by gathering and hatching eggs from wild ostriches. After you hatch an ostrich, you can ride them by equipping them with a saddle. Additionally, ostriches can be equipped with armor, to protect them and help them to survive better.

I'll post more info on Minecraft with links to some helpful youtube videos, as well as screenshots of some of my Minecraft world adventures.

Marija Gimbutas Honoring the Goddess