One Week After

One week without a subscription to the World of Warcraft. I miss my guildies.

It has definitely been an interesting week. I hadn't played too much for a few weeks before my subscription ran out so it's not the actual missed playtime that is weird. It's more when I find myself sitting down at my computer at the end of the day thinking, "What was I going to do again?"

Then I turn the computer off and go to bed. I've been getting more sleep which is good! (Unless I have a good book, but that's always been a problem of mine)

WoW was just THERE for me when I was 'bored' (i.e. had other things I should be doing, but would rather veg in front of a virtual fantasy world) - so now I'm trying to fill that time with other more useful things. Not that WoW isn't useful - it was a major help to me in stress reduction and winding down at the end of the day.

So what do I do now that I don't play WoW?

I have started learning some Jujitsu and playing sports weekly with coworkers.
I do the dishes and other housework more (which my wife LOVES)
I've read some great Fantasy books (my favorite genre)

Finally, I have even started another Blog - mainly on such interesting topics as Exercise, Art (My crazy drawings/doodles), and whatever else randomly pops into my head. If you'd like to check it out (and I don't blame you if you DON'T :p ) here's the link:
http://warlordblade.blogspot.com

I wasn't going to share that here but a friend thought I should, so there you have it.

Hopefully we'll see you all again soon - possibly with WOTLK!

August

I had a very refreshing month and a half in which I didn't play WoW for more than 1 hour total in that whole time!

It was very strange, I would log in, nobody I knew was online, nothing kept my attention, so I'd log off. My time was occupied by work, family, exercising (Forza is a lot of fun!), Naruto and Bleach.

A few weeks ago I logged in and decided to play a BG or two and got sucked in again. Nowhere NEAR the suckedinnedness of before, but I enjoyed it, and I felt like I should get more of the s2 gear, just for fun.

I wish the Feral Druids S2 pants weren't a freakin dress!!

I also spent the 1200 gold I had to make some Swiftstrike Shoulders and regem re-enchant a few pieces of my tanking set so some of the pieces would work more for tanking rather than PVP. Now to find the time to actually get into some Heroics.

As for Katryona, I love BGs as a rogue. As long as I have some support I rip through Horde like crazy. When I'm alone, Warlocks, Mages, Elemental and Enhancement Shamans, Balance Druids and other Rogues usually die pretty quickly unless they have the s4 gear. A lot of fun. Now I have the S2 Shoulders and am working on more.

So yeah. Nothing really useful here - but I'm still alive if anybody cared. ^^

It has been almost a month...

Wow time is going fast.

So is life.

It has been one week shy of a month since I last posted an entry. Since that time I have been able to accomplish my goal of getting all my alts (not including the Druid Army) to 20 (The Druids will achieve that soonish I'm sure), my Priest to level 40 (he's 42), and my Warrior to 50 (51).

Other than that though - I've had a hard time playing Tigersoul or Katryona... Tigersoul reached exalted with the Shattered Sun Offensive, got the awesome tabard and Neck piece, and haven't barely touched my 70s since (other than a few helping runs). I'm tired of dailies, tired of trying to level on a PvP server (with so many 70s it is seriously ridiculous).

Add in the very good "Is WoW Still Your Cheese?" post by BBB, the release of the Age of Conan with NEWness, and the leaving of a bundle of wow bloggers, including the very first WoW blog I ever read, Adventures in Azeroth, and it really makes you think, "Why am I playing WoW" and "Is it worth it?"

I still like WoW. I'm not leaving yet (although that day is definitely inevitable for all of us - WoW will not last forever! I am paid 'til September so we'll see what happens (if anything) with WOTLK until then!) but often I find myself logging in for a half hour or so before wondering what I'm doing and logging out.

As for the status of this blog - It's not dead yet. I just needed a break. And it was a good one I think. I think my wife appreciated it as well, and that's always a good thing!

Happy Mothers Day!

I would like to wish a wonderful and Happy Mother's Day to all mothers out there, especially my own mother and the mother of my children.

Without you I wouldn't be here and I love you for that.

To all you mothers out there - THANK YOU - and thanks as well for putting up with us and suffering through our ineptness...

(especially where Mother's Day gifts and overall appreciation are concerned.. I really am trying!)

An Update

It's been a busy time what with a new baby and work and all. I've also been reading a lot, most recently the A Song of Ice and Fire books by George R. R. Martin. (I'm only on the 2nd book A Clash of Kings) Yes I actually found out about this through the blog of the webcomic Looking for Group. Usually I hear about good Fantasy series but somehow missed this one. I also read all the available books by Brandon Sanderson who is finishing the last book in Robert Jordan's amazing Wheel of Time series. I actually might like a lot of Brandon Sanderson's work more than Jordan's. It'll be interesting to see how the 12th book turns out. His downloadable book Warbreaker is really good too. So if you don't want to go to the library and like reading PDF books... go check it out!

Tigersoul has been on a bit of a hiatus - he really wants the Shattered Sun Pendant of Might but is seriously sick of dailies. He's getting low on cash for some reason and needs to get a group together for a Heroic Sethekk Halls run to finally get Swift Flight Form. He also needs to get back into the Arena scene. I think we need to start our teams over before the next patch fixes point buying. I haven't bough points and don't plan on it - our ratings just stink right now and so I think it'd be a good time to start over!

Katryona dinged 68 last night (which took me WAY too long but I got in a bit of tunnel vision there) and became honored with Aldor's too. Finally I can get the Aldor quests in SMV and start turning in Marks of Sargeras instead of the less available Marks of Kil'Jaeden. By the time she reaches 70 she will definitely have enough to buy the regular riding skill for flying and make a helicopter. Did I mention I think engineering is fun?

Silverthorne is finally 35 and is almost to my 275 Enchanting goal so I can disenchant all the otherwise worthless high level greens I find while farming/questing. While going from 33 to 35 I discovered the joy that is Shadow Priest (without shadowform yet) utilizing Vampiric Embrace, Power Word: Shield, Shadow Word: Pain, and Mind Flay = Pure Awesome! I was amazed at the quests I was easily completing. Oh yeah - Psychic Scream is handy too. Almost invulnerable and self healing while inflicting pain is awesome!

Soulsword is still at 46. It is hard to play him. My guild officers want me to get him up to 70 and spec Protection so we can have another Tank option other than our Feral Druids (one of which is also me). I like tanking all right... but do I want to be one of the ONLY tank options in the guild? Good thing I'm the guild leader...

The Druid Army isn't doing much lately. Too busy with other things (Mostly Rogue leveling and Shattered Sun dailies) - but they are building up some good mats for professions and Treesoul ALMOST has bear form. Yeah I know it's pretty sad. She's level 9 and it REALLY doesn't take that long.

On Fantasy

Nothing of real import here...

Like many I'm tired of the "Daily Quest" grind - but I love regular questing. So it's allowed me to get to almost 65. 5 more levels 'til I have my second 70! I'm excited.

I love books. One of the first fantasy series I read (after Lord of the Rings, which while in no way my favorite - got me hooked on Fantasy books and probably reading in general) was the Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander.

Good books - if you've never read them you should. Even if you have seen the old Black Cauldron movie! (or maybe ESPECIALLY if you have seen that!) They are "Young Adult" books and fairly easy reading... but don't let that stop you!

Anyway. Mr. Alexander wrote a short little treatise "On Fantasy" that I love. I linked it there for you. Go read it.

I'll write more about books later... pretty much entirely Fantasy books. But being as this is primarily a World of Warcraft Blog... That shouldn't be too far fetched.

On to Azeroth!