Tracking Redbeard

Hello!, today is the last tuesday of September an so concludes my first full month of weekly posting.

As luck would have it, today was the first Tuesday in a while where my server only suffered a rolling restart and not a full maintenance. I however, was busy working for the better half of the morning. When I came home from work I could either A. Log on WoW.. plug away at grinding achievements or B. lay in bed with my girlfriend and watch Charlie Bartlett. Charlie Bartlett was a good watch!

Typically before I post I log on WoW, take a peek at my recently achieved, then start sorting through my screenshots from the week. Although you will not feel the time lag, I’m going to do just that right now.

This week wasn’t very busy for me, nor was it fulfilling. I did however manage to get exalted with the Argent Dawn thus earning the Argent Champion title. I also went back and revisited all of the Outland dungeons that the achievement system decided I didn’t do.. even though I did.. a lot. I got the Outland Dungeon Master achievement and of course all of the little meta’s associated with it. I’ve finally broken 6,000 achievement points and am finding that most of the achievements left for me to do require either: A lot of time, not like a lot of hours, a lot of weeks, or a group of friends to help out. I’d like to aim for the Diplomat title but with Loremaster / Seeker staring at me I think I’m just going to try and complete those for the time being.

One last note: In the next couple of weeks I’ll be transferring to US - Shattered Hand to join a few of my RL friends I used to play with. Switching from Horde to Alliance for the first time with over 106 days played on my only 80 has me feeling squeamish.

Picture time!

^ The Argent Champion.

^Some church / castle thing in the Eastern Plague Lands. I think that action shot came out pretty well. That dude doesn’t know what the hell is up.

^Outland Dungeon Master.

^The Black Morass. It was nice to revisit this place. The real fisheye lense.

^This picture is the most significant of all. Not that it has any cool WoW related thing, other than it’s captured from WoW.. but  because last week when I posted a similar picture of my new Drake in Zangarmarsh my girlfriend Samantha liked it, and posted it on her blog. It makes me very happy that I have a loving and understanding girlfriend who throughout my nerdy-ness and hours spent playing a game still thinks I’m an alright guy. So Samantha, even though you don’t really care about WoW, I took this picture for you.

That’s all. See you in October!

Happy Tuesday to ya’!

I’m starting this  a little late today for a of couple reasons. I’m in the process of fixing my sleep schedule; e.g. My last two posts were drafted after staying up all night, and composed at 9 in the morning. This week I woke up at 6am, and went to work at 9am. When I first woke up I didn’t feel like doing anything, especially typing and sorting through screen-shots.

This past week of WoW has been busy for me so expect this post to be a little more heavy on the picture side. I’ve accomplished a few goals I was really eager about and am pretty satisfied. I am however a little worried about this new patch business. Is it going to make loremaster/seeker unattainable? If so… ah well.

Picture and Caption time, this time in order of relevance/importance to me.

^ My “new” UI. Definitely worth clicking to see it in it’s full size. It’s pretty standard..pretty similar to a lot of custom UI’s. I did it all myself though, no packages or preset profiles for any of it. Minimalism makes my beard happy.

^ On Wings of Nether. Got it. :D

^Showin’ off!

^Cenarion Circle reputation-quest-grind. I went from neutral to exalted in one day.

^ Gaurdian of Cenarius. I finished the Cenarion Expedition rep the next day. No more Steamvaults for me!

^ Overlord Darkuru and the Lich King about to square off!

^ Immediately after the Lich King destroyed Darkuru. Pre-UI update, too.

^My last achievement of the week. Kind of unimpressive.. but, still decent I suppose. If nothing else the picture serves as an “action shot” of my UI.

I haven’t really the interest in typing anymore about WoW as after those tedious reputation grinds I’m kind of fed up with the game. I’ve been thinking it might be wise to do mini-updates throughout the week so I don’t end up with a crap load of stuff each tuesday. I don’t know.

Hope you’re tuesday is filled with 100’s and thusly, purples.

-rad bird.

Mornin’!

It’s been another long night of playing, drinking coffee and plugging away at what seems to be a mountain of different goals I’d like to achieve before cataclysm. Like last week, I’ve pulled an all-nighter and am forcing down even more coffee so I can function in our weekly house cleaning. As of last week I was still working on Loremaster of Outland. Scratch that off the list. I did all 108 remaining quests in Netherstorm in one full day as well as earned the medium rare achievement after finding one of the rare mobs. The armory is down right now, and so is my memory, so I’m unsure of which mob it was. I love achievements like that; the ones you really want to get but also understand that it’s better to just let them come to you. Post-completion of the Outland Loremaster achievement I went back to PvP, enjoyed Zalazane’s Fall and have been working on some reputation grinds!

To elaborate on the aforementioned mountain of achievements I’ve undoubtedly created for myself, here’s a list of what I’m working on currently:

Loremaster / Seeker achievements: Even though I’d like to say these are the two things I plan on completing first pre-cataclysm, they aren’t. I can’t find the inspiration to fly around Kalimdor to do 350+ quests right now. I’m around 675 quests for the Seeker and am actually working on that vicariously through the Zul’Drak meta.

The Dungeon Diplomat: This achievement will not even be implemented into the game until Cataclysm’s release. If you haven’t already heard, the Alliance is getting a Lion mount*. I’m transferring to the Alliance. I want this mount as soon as it’s available. I’m either revered or exalted with all of the listed factions, so this should be easy. Not to mention Alex (Prebu) can tag along and grab some free experience.

Check out the Lion on Youtube: Reigns of the Golden King

*Side note: I have a half sleeve (right arm) of a lion’s head/mane. The excitement over this mount, for me, is exponentially exacerbated by this fact. And I’m a Leo. :]

Netherwing Exalted: This is something I’ve been working on for months. The dailies aren’t hard. I have a Blessed Medallion of Karabor which leaves me with no excuse to make a trip out to SMV for an hour or so. I’ve just been lazy. Well, today has been a different story. I grinded out about 11k rep and am only about 13k (~8275/21000) from being exalted, and getting all of the drakes. Finally.

To break up the monotony of all this grinding and seemingly never ending goals I have really begun to acknowledge the power of music. Sounds weird, stick with me. As I have an insatiable appetite for WoW, high fantasy in general and nerdy melodic metal equally, there is nothing, for me, that breaks up the mindless faceroll of rep/quest farming better than music. I’d like to plug a band: The Contortionist. Nerdy space-science metal with incredibly intelligent lyrics and equally impressive musicianship.

Continuing on, screenshots! I’ve decided to have all of my screenshots be-able-to-be right-clicked -> view image = large version. The large version obviously looks much better and I encourage you to view them that way.

Zalazane’s Fall!

Arathi Basin waitin’ as a blood elf / echo isle troll hunter on a raptor.

My oldest pet. Cyordin, named after my old GM on Twisting Nether.

Subduing the Subduer.

Wrecking Ball! My proudest WoW related moment this week. I was nervous past 16-0. Each killing blow crept by at a snails pace. Special thanks to my friend Rene on his Priest Gartraz.

That’s all for this week. Time to clean house!

-Redbeard

Where to begin this Tuesday morning? It’s been an all nighter filled with Eye of the Storm Call to Arms and quest after quest in Netherstorm. Organizationally speaking I’ve decided that instead of having a blog that’s mostly post-when-I-feel-like-it, I’ll just post on Tuesday’s. It’s a great time to sift through the piles of screenshots I’ve taken, try and remember what I was doing / thinking at the time, as well as feel relaxed that servers are down and I don’t “have better things to be doing.”

I left off last week with almost all of the quest required for “Shadow of The Betrayer” complete, and a hopeful outlook on continuing the Loremaster of Outland binge. I did end up completing the Shadowmoon Valley meta, but ultimately took a long break from questing. There’s something not-right about having dreams involving NPC’s and gathering things. During my break I decided to chase the “other” aspect of the game, Player Vs. Player. In all my 103 Days /played I have only managed ~27,000 Honorable Kills. In just the past week I’ve racked up 2,000. It’d be fair to say I hardly PvP, only on occasion to rid my mind of the raiding blues. I’ve been doing some reading on Arena Junkies, testing out different pets, and finally coming to understand the finer side Hunter’s abilities. It’s quite nice, PvP. I am feeling the competitive vibe I used to get while playing CS 1.6. Roughly 6 days of unadulterated player vs. player, grinding honor ( o.O ), and getting resilience pieces has been just what I needed to get back into questing once more.

As I previously mentioned, I have a hefty stack of screenshots to share; since there is no order of importance, I’ll just go chronologically:

^Shadow of the Betrayer. This achievement was actually a lot easier to get than expected. 90 Quests seems like a lot, but in reality, the bulk of quest givers are giving out chains with 10-15 quests.

^Prebu and I getting attacked by Piranhas in Zangarmarsh on our way to the Slave Pen’s all while on a rocket run on sentences rule.

^This screenshot does not do justice for the battle happening in it. More or less the Alliance had about 10 Sieges coming through our courtyard with both walls down. Some how we managed to down all the vehicles and win. Of course, you’d have had to’ve (?) been there to understand.

^A quest in Netherstorm in which Ethereal’s from the Protectorate/Consortium “help” you take out a bad guy in one of the mana-forges. Synchronized netherbeings?

^You may have noticed this screenshot is a little different looking than others. It’s a click-through to a full sized screenshot. Warsong Gulch. No flags capped. 0/0. 1 Minute remaining. We cap. We win. 27 minutes of “srsly….” adding up to a round of compliments from fellow Horde members throughout the battlegroup.

^ Tauren Deathknight Kimbostrike of <The Great> being incredibly huge, and puking on everyone. Vertigo, perhaps.

^ Another click through. I took this right before the server went down today. I am 6/7th’s of the way done with Outland (questing-wise). I am 90/120 in Netherstorm currently, which I’d like to think is impressive, or, depressing, seeing as I started out today at 12/120. Surely within the next few days it will be complete.

As for me now? I need some coffee. Or sleep. Or both. Just sleep. However, it is cleaning day at my house and I’ve got a hankerin’ to make some french toast and eggs (provided to us by our 4 chickens!) for myself and 4 housemates.

Hope you enjoyed reading this, and enjoy your Tuesday!

-Redbeard.

A Shattered Halls run with Enforcere of <Knights Templar>. After this run I am currently at 89/90 in Shadowmoon Valley. I already have the quest in my log, but I’ll need to A.) Wait for my ping to drop below 600 (if I want to solo it) and/or B.) run it with someone else.

Back again!

After a very nice three month break from the World of Warcraft, I have returned! It’s been a long strange trip (achievement pun intended). I’ve gone from being in the top 15 ranked hunters on my server, to being in the top 200. I’ve disregarded formal raiding since I’ve returned, and will continue to do so until Cataclysm.

I’ve been working on a multitude of things, achievements, mostly.

I’m currently 88/90 quests in Shadowmoon Valley which will only leave me to finish Netherstorm. I only have 12/120 in Netherstorm which leads me to feel very apprehensive to even begin the questing there.. but, Loremaster is calling me.. even if it is miles and miles away.

This blog has been in the back of my mind since I went on hiatus, and I’ve been planning on making a return post with enough content to make me content. Ha. That being said, enjoy this mash-up of screen-shots I selected for your viewing pleasure:

This is from a quest in Blade’s Edge Mountains. Being disguised as a Draenei is kind of lame, but my new tenacity pet, Magilla (as named by Prebu).

Alex “Prebu” and I on our linked-account-reward at a Spirit Temple in Auchindoun.

Acid rain sent down to destroy infernals. A quest in Shadowmoon Valley.

Prebu, Me, and my old friend John on his rogue, Vaelynn. Fighting Murmur.

Nagrand! One of my favorite zones.

I’m going to attempt at keeping this blog occupied with tales of my experience with friends and strangers alike. If not stories simple pictures like the ones above with brief captions. I’m also going to try and snap pictures of random groups I end up with and tell them about this blog as to create some buzz. I’d like to eventually write for WoW.com, may as well start here.

Thanks for reading!