89!

The holiday weekend was a productive one for me, gaming-wise. I was actually able to sit down and put in some quality time on both WoW and LoL.

In Azeroth, I made a strong push and am now 89! I know, the title gave it away. I've been able to knock out almost a quarter of a level this week as well. I'll be 90 before Christmas. Wild and crazy times, I tell ya.

For a change of pace, I swapped over to League of Legends for a few matches. My skills have deteriorated somewhat, but not as bad as one might expect. I'd left off just before level 23, it seems, because after only a couple matches, I leveled up there as well. In seven short levels, I'll be a max level summoner. Maybe I can make that by Christmas too. We'll see.

And I have yet to purchase Assassin's Creed III. I'm horribly behind on my gaming. (Also on my writing. These few paltry paragraphs took me four days to write. Such is life, I suppose.)

Ah well. All's well that ends well, right? Hope you had a productive and happy holiday as well!

Anniversaries Etc

I logged in and was rewarded with WoW's 8th Anniversary celebration. Because of that, I became curious and went to look for my first WoW Anniversary achievement. For me, it was year 4. How about you?

That's pretty much all I have to report this week. In the interest of not writing the Shortest Post Ever, I'll pad it with some rambling.

I'm halfway through 88. Still chugging along.

I really want to place Assassin's Creed III, but I'm holding off on buying it until I hit 90. Then I figure I can split my time between "group activities" and ACIII. For now, my solo time should go to WoW (and I'm enjoying it).

LoL has gotten no love as of late. I know. I shall return at some point.

I watched Wizard of Oz this weekend. I never realized that Glenda was a disc priest.

I want a flying monkey minion.

Those last two were related.

Happy Thanksgiving. I'm hearthing it tomorrow IRL. Here's to a wonderful celebration!

*Cheers*

Can't I Just Make My Pet Do It?

I realized I hadn't checked in this week. Work has been super-busy, and after work hasn't been dull. I've been pretty drained and just not had the energy to log in much. Ever have those nights where you want to keep working on your character, but you know if you log in you just won't enjoy the playtime because you're exhausted? In the past, I'd probably have pushed through.

I suppose it would seem obvious to some... don't play when you don't feel like it, right? The problem is that it's two different forms of satisfaction. The completionist in me wants to get to 90. It knows if I put in an hour or so each night, that I'll get there. When I miss a night, that part is unsatisfied. I have not chipped away at the goal. The other part is the immediate enjoyment. Most nights you can satisfy both, but on the nights where you know the immediate enjoyment just won't be there... what do you do? It's sort of a catch 22.

Anyway, I did get some done this week, just not enough for a "real" update. I'm planting and cooking carrots. I've knocked out a couple more quest hubs. I'm still having fun, but kind wish I'd get back to the point where I could do group stuff. I know I'm way behind the gear curve, but I'd be more than happy to be the "better-than-no-one" sub. And, honestly, I can overplay my gear, so I'm not that much of a drag. Gotta be 90 before I can even voice that opinion though.

Oh well. I'll get there. Just in time to play with everyone else's alts, amirite?

88!

I hit 88 last night. At this rate I'll hit 90 just in time for Thanksgiving. Then... ??? I'll probably do some casual gearing so that I could maybe sub for my guild's raid team. I do not plan to level an alt. I don't really have enough time. It's been tough enough to scrape by with my main (and there's plenty still to do.)

I did notice for the first time yesterday, when I was doing the quest that is sort of a scenario with three boss fights, that my practice of using Fel Fire really did drain my mana. It felt like I was OOM almost immediately. Apparently I'm going to have to modify my behavior for boss fights.

I keep running out of bag space because I'm holding on to so many cooking materials. I should probably just stow them away in the bank for later, but I suppose I'm being lazy. If you're a lowbie like me, is there a way to know what you should be farming? I've just been planting and harvesting random stuff each day, really for no reason other than it's there.

Is it just me, or are there a lot of items with like, fun effects? All kinds of weird stuff! And if you'd like me, you feel like you have to hold on to those items because, well, they're neat. I wish I could just transmog all of the clever effects into one super wand of doom. It would do all kinds of dumb things depending on where you're using it (since most effects seem location specific).

I've never really cared for the location-specific thing. It sort of makes it so you have to hang out in that area to get joy out of the item. I suppose that's the point, but it makes my holding onto the items especially silly.

Anyway, that's the update for now. I'm over the leveling "hump!" (Through, from what I hear, the later levels are much, much slower...)

87... and Cooking.

These are really inspiring post titles, I know. The generic nature of the content seems to merit a numeric title in my mind. That, and it's a not-so-subtle reminder that I'm totally behind. It's by choice, so I'm not totally angsty about it. In fact, it's been a nice flip-side for me. Instead of rushing to try to understand everything and then provide good information here... I'm sort of learning from y'all. I definitely appreciate all the commentors who have been stopping by.

So as the title indicates, I hit 87 over the weekend. I was actually able to do a good amount of leveling, and I'm almost halfway to 88. I'm doing a lot of work with the farm folk right now, and some young Pandarian girl is following me around exclaiming about all of the neat things. The Warlock in me wants to shard her.

Or is it "orb" her now that I'm a vampire warlock?

Joking aside, the leveling process continues to be fun. They've done a good job. Even going as slowly as I've been going has been engaging. Seems like the right amount of story to me.

Here's another question perhaps you guys can help me with. What's up with cooking leveling? Do you only run into the trainer later? I have all these cooking ingredients but can't find any recipes. I generally like to simply level my stuff as I go, making use of drops and what-have-you. I have all these items marked "cooking ingredients" filling up my bag... but no recipes to utilize them. Without doing a whole bunch of research, I simply looked up a trainer and he/she/it seemed to be someplace I'd not discovered yet. Anyone else have this issue during their initial leveling journey?

86.75: A Balancing Act

Yep, crawling along. Do you ever experience the phenomenon where you have an hour or so "blocked off" in your mind for gaming. I tell myself, "Okay, I'm going to give task X until 11, then I'm going to play some WoW." The problem isn't with task X, it's Y and Z that pop up and interrupt X. Then, all of a sudden it's 11 and X hasn't even gotten started.

This keeps happening to me. Football is over for me, so a bunch of time has been freed up. However, all the other crap I put off during the season is also vying for the same time. And, with the last couple of months I've had, stuff isn't exactly organized. Generally, I'm great with lists. Right now, I have lists of lists. It's ridiculous.

Gaming, at best, is a balancing act as far as hobbies go. You could always play more. And right now my sense of balance is all topsy-turvy, but not in a horrible way. It's not all been bad things. There have been a lot of good interruptions. Like unexpected family visits. Friends stopping by to say "hi." That sort of thing.

Inevitably, in the above situation, I end up actually logging on at 11:30 with the intention to play for a half hour. As soon as the pixels load, I notice that like three or four friends are on, and I have to say hello. Generally at least one of them has a proper topic of conversation (the others are all raiding), so I end up chatting. And circling Dalaran Stormwind.

And then my time is up. I needs mah beauty sleep.

Last night I completed three quests (I'd picked them up where I logged off, so they were locked and loaded so-to-speak), one pet battle, a bag cleaning run, a repair, five tailoring levels, five enchanting levels, trained those both up, and finished with the cooking and fishing dailies (they were right there). I was chatting the whole time.

Now, that's pretty productive, but if you notice, the actual amount of straight experience gained is not massive. Such has been my problem. I like to do all the things and a half hour just isn't enough. Or maybe it is, if you're okay with achieving the "server last to 90" achievement. (I wonder how they could implement such a thing).

I've decided I'm okay with it. Before, I've always been one of the first to be ready to raid. This time, I'm just going to saunter on in several months from now. I'll probably catch up in boss kills to the rest of y'all in like a week (You know, with the nerfs and all. Because there will be nerfs). Then you are all going to be super-indignant. But only Paladins are allowed to relish in the righteous fury. Just sayin'.

86.5 Now

I'm really burning through these levels, aren't I? Side benefit: I'm in that awkward space where I'm behind everyone, but everyone isn't far enough ahead that there are a bunch of alts in my areas. The leveling experience is quite pleasant, even if slow.

The last time I asked a question (about pet addons), I got great replies. I've installed pretty much all of the suggestions and am well on my way to becoming an expert pet battler. Except... well, how do you level? The intro quest guides you through the zones nicely. When you get to the continent quests, the first guy it pointed me to was sporting level 17 pets. Mine are just this side of 10. How do I get from 10 to 17? What zones should I be in?

I did some searching, but I didn't find a good resource that will tell me which zones contain certain levels of pets. Oh, I found plenty that will tell me where the rares spawn, or a list of what is available. But what about the naturally occurring levels? I'm 98% sure I'm just being a derp and missing it somewhere simple. So I figured I'd ask. Any of you pet battlers out there know what I'm looking for?

Thanks in advance for the help!