Fishing in Ironforge

I logged back on last night for a second evening in the Forlorn Cavern, where the main body of water is, and also where you can fish without aggroing the NPCs.  My journey into Ironforge was rather fraught when I got to Dun Morogh, but more of that in a moment.


I got to Dun Morogh by travelling from Booty Bay on the transporter that drops you in the depths of Gnomeregan.  On my arrival I spent a good 10 minutes trying to work out where the hell I was in there, and noticed a couple of players who looked like they might know where they were going, so followed them.  I finally made it to the lift and headed over to Ironforge, picking a few herbs on the way and avoiding Kharanos.

I aggroed just about everything from the entry slope up to Ironforge into the City itself.  I forgot how chilly it was there, as I had removed anything that takes durability losses and put them in a bag to save repair costs, but that didn't stop the guards attacking me with their sharp pointy swords and shields.  I was transported tout suite to the spirit healer at the Gates of Ironforge.


As it was a shorter (and marginally safer) run into the City, I spirit rezzed there and started the tortuous journey to the Forlorn Cavern, wasting my potions of lesser invisibility on the way.  For one, you cannot use spells (blink) or a mount with the potion, so I had to (mainly corpse) run for 10 minutes until the potion cooldown expired.  This got me as far as the area outside the portal room.  When I rezzed there I had the presence of mind to check the cooldown, rez as far away from the guards as I was able, pop the potion and run in to the Cavern and head to the back of the cave before the potion ran out.  15 seconds is shorter than you think when running for your life!


My troubles didn't stop there.  Picture this, a nearly naked level 33 blood elf, fishing in Ironforge.  I am obviously there for one thing only, and it is not the attentions of the Ironforge Militia or any other player, for that matter, but I was easy prey and they took full advantage.


I was left alone for the most part, but every so often I got ganked - Alliance don't like Horde in their cities, and it seemed actually worse fishing in Ironforge than my Alliance gnome trying to fish for Old Crafty in Orgrimmar.

Anyway, I logged in last night, and all went well, at least to begin with.  I got worried when a Death Knight took an interest in me.  He wandered towards me and stopped.  Then a warlock appeared - I think they were from the same guild, and he stopped and both of them just sat there, looking at me.  I have to say the adrenaline started running, but the feeling of intimidation eased a little; they were both ?? to me and if they were going to gank me, there was nothing I was going to be able to do about it.


I couldn't believe that people sit there for that long, watching others fish, but they did.  A mage appeared, which added to my state of anxiousness, and the others closed in on me a little.  At that point Old Ironjaw dropped (thank god!!), and I hit the teleport button, hoping to get back to  safety.  The players regarding me in the Forlorn Cavern had other ideas, however, and back to the spirit healer I headed, where I rezzed and ported back to Orgrimmar.


One other thing: when you are killed outside of Ironforge you are taken to the Gates of Ironforge Spirit Healer; when you get killed inside, you are instead sent to Kharanos - a longer run back.


When I repaired, vendored the fish (the fish at that level is plentiful and therefore pretty much worthless, although I cooked it first!) and collected my mail, I went back to questing, grouped with a few SAN members and hit Scarlet Monastery twice, both of which were good runs, where I picked up three new items, including the Scarlet Key.


When I finished there I headed back to Undercity to skill up, as I hit level 34 as well!


All in all, a good (and productive) evening

 

April 1st Armory

I have just seen the first part of Larísa's post and before I read any further, went straight over to the Armory to check out my characters.

Tahliana is now a Tuskarr Mage, with primary professions of fishing, and, err, fishing.

In recent activity she has cheesed various things, and ninja'd others!

LOL!


If you haven't looked yet, I urge you to now, before your character gets restored! 


Elsewhere, other sites are getting in on the act - WoWWiki's pictures are upside down, and WowHead have changed to TacoHead!

Levelling/dying

I got to 29 and am now halfway to 30, questing in Hillsbrad.  

I noticed that there is quite a large range of levels in Hillsbrad, from the level 20 bears and spiders (and peasants) to level 32 murlocs and naga that are around Southshore, consequently I have been dying more often than I would like!

Frost nova and blink have got me out of a couple of tight spots, but the murlocs have given me the most grief.

I am trying to get a run together for Razorfen Kraul, and picked up the bat guano quest in UC while I was handing in something else.  I am not really inclined to pug it, but I might have to; Zaevi and Twospot were around, but Two was on his alt in Scarlet Monastery, and there was hardly anyone on at the right level (either too low or too high).  Larisa logged on very late last night; I am sure she would have been up for it, but it was a bit late for me, and I logged off soon after collecting some Troll Potion for another quest.

I still have some boss head from somewhere that I need to hand in at Thunder Bluff, but I am waiting to hit 30 so I can pick up the portal at the same time.  No need to make the journey twice if I don't need to.  The smell though is quite bad, so I am not sure how much longer I can put up with it - the bag will need a thorough wash before it is usable again!

Arugal disrobed and a rogue's wowcock displayed for all to see

After multiple runs of Shadowfang Keep, the Robes of Arugal finally dropped.  Twice.  Aaarrrgghhhh!

We first ran SFK a week ago, with 3 people from SAN and pugged the last 2 spots.  It was a good run, the Robes of Arugal dropped, and I needed, along with the healer, and lost the roll.

OK, fair enough, it happens.  I understood that it is quite a regular drop, so we did a couple of guild runs.  We got the Belt on one run and the Meteor Shard on another.  I did a few more runs with an 80 guildie, and still the robes didn't drop.

We ran again last night with Conjaw, Zaevi and Twospot (and one other, but I can't for the life of me remember who it was, so big apologies!), and the belt dropped again.  Conjaw had already said that he was happy to run again until the Robe dropped, so we ran it one more time, and finally they dropped!  Big sigh of relief from me, and the Robes actually look very good on her, with no adjustments needed.  Maybe Arugal wore a corset which would explain why he was so upset with everyone.

We got upset with a pugged rogue on a later run - Llarisa joined the party and we also had Anorak and Conjaw with us, so we pugged for one other for a random dungeon.  Llarisa was tanking and as she was new to the role, Deadmines was probably just a good a place as any to practice.  The rogue we had was from Crushridge, and was really chatty and friendly; in fact he (or she) stated that they rally enjoyed the run and it was almost as if we had another SAN member with us.

They sadly had to leave after Van Cleef was downed, and we had another rogue join us.  Alarm bells started ringing during a discussion with Llarisa, when a discussion started about gearscore on their respective 'mains'.

It didn't go much further after Llarisa told him that she didn't really bother with it any more, and our pug rogue seemed to agree, but then he posted recount stats toward the end, and this was when I thought things were going to get messy.

Let's just say that he was firmly put in his place, but then proceeded to pull everything in Arugal's room, including Arugal himself before everyone was sufficiently ready.  He died, trying to tank him, which was (I guess) just desserts for being a prick, and on this final run last night, the damn Robes dropped...

Not much of a whiny post

Last night my mage hit level 20, which means blink, portals and a mount.  The portal part meant I had to physically go to Undercity and Orgrimmar to 'learn' the portals, but it is easier to get to each of the horde cities that it is for Alliance, even with the continent split - maybe zeppelins are a better way to travel than boats.

Apart from that there is not really a great deal to discuss - I guess I could go with the flow and do a whiny post in recognition of Klep's Whiny Post Day.  Tobold's post today was 'win', as one of the commenters put it, and I am sitting here racking my brains to think of something worthwhile to whine about, that won't earn me a gkick from my Alliance Guild!

Perhaps I'll just leave that for another day...

Should Blizz wave their banstick?

I saw a post today from Tobold about Suzina of Kill Ten Rats admitting to buying gold to purchase her dual spec at level 40.  I have read Tobold's post, I have read Suzina's post, plus the comments, which I feel were quite a mixture of arguments for and against.

One argument I have read says that 1,000 gold is too high for a level 40 character to make, so this partly justifies her feeling the need to buy the gold to buy the dual spec, another is asking why you need the dual spec at level 40 anyway when you only have half the talent points, and the rest is that buying gold is evil, as it supports hackers, etc.

The fact is that buying gold is against the ToS, and is a bannable offence.  Yes, I will admit to using cheat codes in single player games, but as you get older you come to realise that the only person you are cheating is yourself, and I stopped that a long time ago (I think Donkey Kong Country on the SNES is the last time I think I can truthfully say I used a code/sequence of keys to modify the intended game mechanics).

Additionally, the idea that 1,000g is too high a sum to achieve at level 40 is bollocks.  I have a level 21 lock (not listed) who has 3,700g to her name.  She herbs and inscribes, and sells boe greens and blues, and I have used her to fund a dual spec for Rohain, my priest, who is level 75.  It all depends on how much effort you are prepared to put in to play the game.

And I also agree with those that say that you don't really need dual spec at level 40 - level 60 is far more reasonable as you have more talent points, you have learned more about your class and it perhaps makes more sense to look at it then rather than 40.

But when all is said and done, if someone told me in game that they had bought gold, my reponse would very likely be the same; I would add them to my ignore list and raise a ticket.  In the medium term it would not make a difference as she has admitted that she would start over with a new account, but in the short term it would cause her inconvenience and a small amount of cash to buy another game and set up a new account. 

What do you think?

Another Guild First

Last night I fully intended to level some more, my map in Silvermoon is covered in little round circles at the moment which need to be taken care of:



And indeed I did manage to complete a few of these. I was busy getting my face ripped off by gnolls, Kumquat-style, when Tam asked if we wanted to go to Deadmines. I was level 15 by that time, and so Tam was able to use the LFD tool to port us all there, instead of walking/swimming/flying, and of course, dying.

We only wiped once, on the boat. I took a picture as I was going to use it to explain that once, a long time ago, on my very first character, I dotted the marked Pirate, which caused a wipe when the whole ship's crew appeared...




I unmarked the pirate, but I think that Tam may have upset it, because the whole ship's crew appeared, and we wiped...

I really wish I had Tam's talent for explaining things like this, as I am sure after reading his version I will be laughing rather loudly!

We got a guild first though, and downed Van Cleef at the end. Unfortunately I didn't get a pic of this, but Tam mentioned he would put it on the guild website later, so you can see it there. As soon as I see it I'll put a copy here too.