Blog Azeroth: My Weird Gaming Habits

This week over at Blog Azeroth, the Shared Topic by Red Cow Rise focuses on everyone’s weird gaming habits both in and out of game. What a cool topic because as gamers we all know we have some weird habits!

Ingame

So I figured that I would start with my ingame habits first, especially since most of my out of game ones are just odd. My first weird ingame habit is that I always must have 100 waters. Of course I cannot fill up when I am in a dungeon, but anytime I am in town I have to make sure I have 100 in my bags. I just have this weird fear that I will run out of waters and not be able to get mana and no one will be healed! When I used to have to care reagents, I had to carry 100 of them at all times too. My bags were mostly filled with water, seeds, and vines!

Another weird game habit is that I must always be 100% repaired. After every wipe I will try to repair, as long as there is a repair guy around. Sometimes I will even open and repair many times just to make sure I did repair the first time. Strange!

The final weird thing I do in game is making sure my bags are grouped correctly, and let me tell you, before I found Ark Inventory, this was a very daunting task! All the waters and food need to be near one another, all the gear in another bag, gray sell-able items in another bag, potions in another and so on. Usually I will run out of space pretty quickly. I would even arrange things in order of value or amount I had. But like I said Ark Inventory is a total time saver with this!

Out of Game

Now, I have to mention that I have slight OCD and have for as long as I can remember. This can make things difficult because I like to have things all put a certain way and when it is changed it makes me uneasy. For example, my computer desk has a certain set-up that I must follow or else it feels too cluttered and will throw me off. I will not even be able to play with it all messed up! I will sit there and stare at the problem until I fix it.

I cannot play unless I have a drink on my desk for me. For some reason why I play I am always thirsty. So I need to male sure I have a drink around so that I do not get too parched. A long time ago, I would play games with a two liter of pop beside me, now it is just a huge glass of water.

I also need to have the t.v on or a movie playing when I am gaming. For some reason, music doesn’t work. I like the background noise and it does not distract me. In fact, I feel like I play better. Raiding or questing, it does not matter, I am way happier with the t.v on.

Finally, I like to play with my dog on my lap. Yes he is bulky, but not too heavy at about 20 pounds. However, he can give me leg cramps. But he likes to lay on my lap when I play so I let him! Luckily, I do not need to look at my keys ever to know what I am hitting so when I cannot see my keyboard when playing it is ok!

What are your weird habits?

Blog Azeroth: The Best Profession Ever.

This weeks Blog Azeroth shared topic is something I found pretty neat. Ama at Specced for Drama wants to know what our favorite profession is and why. What a fun topic to post about. I have tried many of the WoW professions over the years and each has varied character to character. But my all time favorite is Alchemy.

Sarindre currently has the professions Enchanting and Alchemy, but she did not start out that way. When I first made Sarindre, I also had a Warlock named Calencil who was a Tailor and Enchanter so I initially made Sarindre take Herbalism and Alchemy. I really enjoyed flower picking with Sarindre. It found it a great way to pass the time and it was easy to do while leveling. Alchemy was great too. I liked using all my flowers to make needed potions. When I was able to transmute, I found a great way to make some money easily. Plus the mats have never been too expensive ( at least on my server) and I was able to gather most of them myself.

As some of you know I am a hoarder in this game and I never ever like to sell epics, no matter how old and outdated they are. So one day, when I had a total of 75 epics in my bank, I decided action needed to occur. I was also pretty poor and needed some gold. So I dropped Herbalism, picked up Enchanting. I quickly leveled with the help of my husband and some guildies and disenchanted all those epics for money! So now, I am unable to gather my own herbs, but I found Enchanting to be good to have and an easy way to gain money.

Alchemy is my favorite profession though. The ability to make flasks and needed potions for raids is awesome. Now, with all of the cool Cataclysm changes in Alchemy, I am liking it even more! I am working hard in Archeology to find the recipe that will let you turn into a dragon. C’mon! How cool is that!

Alchemy my be my favorite main profession, but I happen to be addicted to Cooking, Fishing, and now Archeology. In fact, I find them to be more enjoyable than any main profession. For Wraith, I would fish all the time, especially to look for the achievements. Now in Cataclysm I cannot stop working on Archeology! I think this profession is amazing and wish it was in the game from the very beginning. It feels like I am being productive and it is neat to be able to discover everything and find new items.

What is your favorite profession? What about secondary profession? Do you like any secondary profession more than a main profession?

Blog Azeroth: My Favorite Weapon of All Time!

The topic over at Blog Azeroth is such a fun one for my first week back at posting! Kallixa wants to know what our favorite weapon is in WoW and why. This is their first suggest topic and I think it is a great one.

My favorite weapon comes from my early raiding days. It was my 21st birthday and I was spending it in Karazhan…don’t judge me monkey! I had been in there many many times and we were on my least favorite boss, the Maiden of Virtue. I didn’t like her because she was hard, but more that she was just plain annoying. I thought if I had to hear her say “your impurity must be cleansed” one more time, I was going to vomit. Every time we would fight her, the same loot would drop: Bracers of Maliciousness or Totem of Healing Rains. Neither of which I wanted or needed. There was one piece of loot that I did desire from her and that was the Shard of the Virtuous. Oh what a pretty weapon it was for me! And of course it was never to drop! Or so I thought…

When I finally heard her announce “Death comes. Will your conscience be clear?” I knew she was dead and I was happy to be done with the fight. I started to run towards the hallway when I heard announced “Oh my god!” over vent. I instantly went cat form and sprinted back to the body to see what the loot was. Lo and behold my mace was laying on her body in all its glory. I yelled “yippy” so loud that my dog jumped out of his bed. The loot master was my boyfriend at the time and me and him were the only ones that were able to roll on it. I thought I had it in the bag until I heard him say “finally” from his desk across the room. My heart sank for he had always been on to loot EVERY SINGLE ITEM that he needed by claiming he needed it more than others, basically he was a loot hog! I knew he would do a roll for the item and I just had to win. I mean c’mon it was my birthday!

He finally announced the loot and linked the mace in chat for the rolls. He rolled first, rolling a 95. At that point, I think the entire raid could hear my internal tears. But it was my birthday and I was feeling lucky! I finally typed /roll and closed my eyes tight. I could tell I won by the huge sigh erupting from across the room (did I mention that he was also a big baby?). I looked up and saw that I rolled a 100! Very fitting for my birthday and everyone else in the raid thought so.

After I received the mace, I equipped it and sang “Happy Birthday to me” very loudly in the room, feeling the glare burn into the side of my head. But I did not care, I was very very happy. Needless to say I still have that mace and not the boyfriend.

Blog Azeroth: Why Sarindre is Sarindre.

This week over at Blog Azeroth, Pocketheals wants to know what is in a name. Great topic especially since it is talking about the thing I am worst at…naming my characters! I will sit there for HOURS pouring over the random name generator and typing in different spellings of my favorite names, only to be told they are all taken.

So how did your truly finally name her characters? Well it is a dark tale full of magic and mystery. A tale with wizards and goblins and ghosts and….yeah ok I will stop that right now. In truth most of my characters are named via the random name generator, which I love for that fact alone. But I did make a up few! Let’s take a look at some of my characters naming adventures!

Sarindre – This name was picked by the random name generator. I hit the button around 75 times before this name popped up. I even went PAST the name and had to just remember what it said. I love this name and use it for many other things now, not just for this character.

Calencil – Another random name with the generator. Being my first characer, I was just trying to pick a name quick so that I could play. I think it is really pretty though!

Chicktree – This was not her original name. In fact it was actually Aylice, but when I transferred servers that name was already taken and I needed to pick a new one. I thought I finally would make a character with a kinda silly name, but I had no idea what to call her. My husband at the time was playing a druid named Mantree, and I thought my character should be Chicktree because we healed together, were both Druids, and were always seen around each other.

Aylice – I really really love the name Alice and this was the closest I could get to that name. I love the book Alice in Wonderland and I thought it would be really fun to have a character named after her.

Rambosaur – I honestly have no explanation for this one! 🙂 I think I was feeling a bit silly that day and wanted to make a warrior.

What is in your name?

WoW = RL

This week the shared topic on Blog Azeroth comes from Six Inch Heals and asks us what WoW has taught us about real life or if WoW has impacted our real life in some way. This is a GREAT topic I think. And yes I am a few days late with starting it but for me this one flows freely.

How Shadow Labs Changed my Life

I think I will address the second part of this question first, has Wow impacted my real life in some way. When I read this I was a bit apprehensive to answer at first, most will find what I am about to tell you a little odd, but over the years I have grown to love and embrace the circumstances I faced.

Let’s take a step in my time machine and go back early 2007. I was 20 years old and had been playing WoW for a while. I played a warlock most of the time (while lvling my druid on the side) and would run dungeons constantly. One of my favorite of these dungeons was called Shadow Labs and I would run it constantly.

One of these runs contained two of my RL friends at the time and 2 random PUG hunters we found. One of the hunters (HuntardA) was horrible, calling out their crits in chat on little bugs that roamed the instance and in general low numbers and a poor attitude. The other hunter (Drewtwo) instantly whispered me saying just how bad this hunter was. I laughed and kept general chatter going back and forth about WoW and the other party members. By the end of the dungeon I thought it was great to meet someone so nice in this game and added him to my friends list.

Now, I am a very outgoing person, on the web and off, and I am not afraid to start chit chat with someone I have talked to in the past. I logged on after class the next day and saw he was on. I sent a quick little tell saying hi. I was not sure if he would respond because I thought he would not remember me. Sure enough he did remember me and we began chatting again. Asking general question about age (he was 4 years older than me), where we lived (he is Cali and me in PA),work, school, and interests. This went on for weeks just chatting back and forth and running dungeons for gear.

The guild I was in had a vent server and we would hop in that when doing dungeons. Now Drewtwo remained in another guild and I would occasionally run a raid or two with them for fun. One day he left his guild and asked if he could join ours. I was excited to have a nice and talented hunter join. Soon we were not only chatting on vent everyday but on the phone as well. Our bond was growing stronger and stronger and we were to the point where we could tell each other anything. We never even met and he was my best friend.

For my 21st birthday, I decided that my friend Bear and I would fly from PA to CA to meet Drewtwo and celebrate my birthday somewhere fun! Once we were there and I met Drewtwo for the first time, it was like cupid ran me over with a semi-truck. I was lovestruck. After a week of hanging out and getting to know each other in person, we decided to start dating. The feelings we had for each other were strong. We decided that I would move to Cali with him (Ok ok I know red flag right? But I was young and in love with my whole life ahead of me. PA was depressing and I wanted to get out and live my life. You only live once right?) .

18 days later, Drewtwo flew out and picked me up from my house and we drove across the country. December 22, 2008 he proposed at our weekly D&D game (yes HUGE dorks!) and March 7th 2009 we were married and we currently have a baby on the way.

While this story may be strange to some, this is the most wonderful thing to happen to both our lives. If we would have never played WoW, we would have never met. this game has shaped both our lives deeply.

A Short List of What WoW has Taught Me

1. Live in the moment. Sure things may seem bleak as you wipe on LK for the 100th time, but you never know what will happen when you do just one more attempt.

2. Your closest friends are ones who share your interests. I love my guildies as my good friends. We can talk about more than just WoW but it is WoW that binds us together.  

3. People take games VERY personally. This can be good and bad. Yes you want to enjoy the game, but you can take it too far. Competitiveness is good, but in moderation.

4. In game affects real life. I find this is especially true for role-playing. You need to separate out the game and life. Your friend betray you in a roleplay? Well that was just the character, not them. Do not let it ruin a friendship!

5. You can build confidence and learn to lead by becoming a Raid Leader. This may seem silly but I feel I have become more confident and effective by raid leading and being an officer in the guild. People come to you with issues and problems and it is up to you to sort them out. Plus being a female and getting on over vent to lead a bunch of guys may seem scary at first, but once you can you are ready to take over board meetings at work and speak your mind.

6. Finally remember, love and friendship could be only a LFG away. 🙂