A Day in the Past: Vanilla Feral

Back in the day, when Androgyn might have looked sorta like this...

rough estimate. this was awhile ago man.

 Or more accurately, usually like this...

(mouth breathing sounds)

Most of our enemies were dragons and undead, we didn't have flying mounts, and only 1% of the playerbase even saw our most difficult raids. It was a simpler time, when the world was new and
"of the Boar" was for some reason a stat combination that appeared on gear on purpose.

yeah we're doing this

I reminisce a lot. I can't help it. Nostalgia is one of my most frequent post tags. Well, I'm doing it again, and this time I'm going to do it with purpose. I've written about parts of the following personal history before - it was actually my ninth post on this blog. This time it has a little more of a narrowed focus and specific purpose. I'm going to do two things that I really like - I'm going to reminisce, and I'm going to tell stories about my reminiscences.

Welcome to A Day in the Past, my new series about Warcraft back in the day. Specifically, my Warcraft life. If you're a stick in the mud about that dreaded nostalgia, feel free to read my post about what it is and why it's totally normal and okay!

Now, on with the show!

Jungles, Shipyards, and Orcs Oh My

So 6.2 came out yesterday. This was me, today, on Wednesday.

zeroed in on the druid changes

Yesterday, I went on a day trip and played MH4U, forgetting there was a huge patch. So, I dove in today.

I updated my addons, - except for Master Plan since it wasn't updated and doesn't work and my life is in shambles - half assed some of my garrison chores, and built a shipyard. I'm killing orcs in Tanaan Jungle, and vaguely remembering that there was something about being able to fly.

pigeons?

I didn't read up a lot on the new patch. Honestly, I haven't been keeping up to date with what's coming in and going out in patches for awhile. This is the biggest patch of Warlords so far, and here is an exhaustive list of what I knew about it before today:

• A meta-achievement to grant flying but apparently not yet or something
• Timewalking and relevant weekends (which I wrote about)
• Tanaan Jungle, supposedly kinda like Timeless Isle
• New raid instance
• Shipyards are a thing

Funnily enough, I've really been looking forward to 6.2. Not for anything in particular really, since I haven't been paying that much attention, but for a dive into some (hopefully) exciting new content.

Seriously, Monday

Welcome to Monday, where I've prepared for you another of my excellent, top quality posts!

I'll believe it when I see it

Before I go on with this lie, I'll admit up front that this post is a bar above being about nothing. I browsed the internet for awhile and logged into WoW to see if I could be inspired, but nothing turned up. It's long been my policy that if I am not interested in writing about something, I will not waste anyone's time forcing words out onto the keyboard without any personal investment. That's how these wonderful cop out posts come to be.

I'll let you in on a secret, though. I totally have a post idea. Several post ideas, actually. Like, maybe even ten or twelve that follow the same basic principles. A series you could even say. The only problem is that it will require in game traveling and artistic screenshot gathering and editing - in other words, lots of time. Time isn't something I have today, so that makes it something for me to start another day.

Why don't I have time today, you ask? Oh, don't be shy, I know you're totally interested.

Sleepy Caturday

Happy Caturday, internet! Cats, like people, yawn before they go to sleep, when they wake up, and also randomly for no apparent reason. Cats, however, are much cuter when they yawn. If you were prepared to disagree, my reasons are listed below.

where did my chin go

Those Damn Dirty Scoundrels

Recently, Blizzard went back on a thing they said. It was super significant. Discussion about it had been going on for kind of a long time if I remember correctly.

As any time where Blizzard does something differently than they said they would earlier, people jumped out of the woodwork and wrote angry forum posts about how Blizzard are LIARS!

NO! THRALL SAVE US!

Liars, all of them! They said they would never do this thing, and then they did. They said this thing would be a thing forever and now it's NOT! This other thing, they said it would be made this thing, but now it's a totally different thing! How can we ever even trust any single thing they ever say?!

these things

The very idea!

Nostalgia Explained

In my post about timewalking, I touched on how revamping old dungeons and 'updating' them for current content was one of the ways Blizzard has tried to accommodate people who want to revisit some of their favorite old dungeons. I also mentioned that I'm really not a fan of this method.

pictured: not me

Now, I understand the arguments in favor of revamping dungeons. One big one is the stories in them are outdated and they seem irrelevant. Why wouldn't the Gilnean traitors see Shadowfang Keep and say "that would make a good base of operations"? It makes sense that Scholomance would have changed over the last so many years since we first visited it, the school must be getting funding from somewhere. It makes sense that Warlord Zaela would commandeer UBRS and use it as a stakeout point for her planned invasion of alliance cities. Wouldn't it make sense that the old threats within them have been successfully neutralized? Why wouldn't big baddies see these strategically placed structures as a cool place to go start a new cult of evildoers?

But my gut says "Now why would you go and do something like that? Didn't you see the sign that said 'DO NOT PUSH THIS BUTTON!'?"

How will we finish testing with the self-destruct mechanism active?

World of Identity Crisis

It's been a little under three months since my guild dissolved. We had been struggling since WoD's release, a veritable rollercoaster of events with an initial huge influx of new members, the splitting off of one of our best healers, followed by a full split of the entire guild where both our most casual and most hardcore people left the guild for different perceived reasons. Our GM quit and we tried to merge with another guild, which failed tremendously. We had just enough good people to hold on while we tried to rebuild, but recruiting was impossible. Of the about six good people that were holding us together, three of them left to greener pastures due to our stagnation. We were done.

We never made it to a level of progression and success that I was used to, and I've been struggling with Warlords as an expansion on its own since December of last year. Without a guild, a raiding schedule, or any interesting content, I haven't had much reason to play the game. I keep logging in, though, and I want to play. I don't know if I should look for a new guild or not. I feel completely conflicted about what I think I should do right now.

Cat Circus

While looking for Caturday ideas, I found out that there is a traveling cat circus show.

I've never been, having just found out about it today obviously, but their website's worth a look!

They were also featured on Animal Planet with the world's only cat band.

And they say you can't train cats, pfft.

I have a few more playing kitties for you this Caturday. Have a good one!

Flying's Back, Alright

Well, I honestly didn't think they'd do it. I also realize I lied about not doing another flying post, but I feel like this is a monumental decision and there are some words I'd like to put all in a row about it. 

If you're late on the uptake like me, who was very confused to hear people talking about flying in Draenor yesterday, Blizzard has made a concession to bring flying to Draenor. That's right, everybody!

Backstreet's back! wait

The way they have decided to implement flying into Draenor is to award it to you, account wide, after you've accomplished a meta-achievement that requires you do a ton of stuff in Draenor on foot, first.

The way this change has been implemented is getting a wide variety of praise, complaints, death threats, and the rest of the usual - but let me tell you why it's absolutely perfect.

Going, Going, Guano!

It's been a minute. I've been so busy lately, and yet I haven't had anything interesting enough to post about. I have a few ideas, but in the end I opted for the quieter, lazier option, and just didn't write anything.

it's not that I don't want to write, I've just been really preoccupied

I've started getting back to playing DnD, and we're setting up to restart our original campaign that we abandoned oh so many months ago due to various reasons. That's something to be excited about. We have had some new players come into the picture and new campaigns, so things have been a little up in the air lately about who we're playing with and which characters.

In general, I've just had higher priorities than video games and blog posts, which is kind of uncomfortable really. Whenever I've been free, I've been socializing, which has also been getting too frequent for my comfort.

Get the Cop Out Ready

Whoops. I didn't update Monday or Wednesday. Well, I've been busy.

As I mentioned here and there, I craft stuff. I want to do super cool things, but I'm still pretty novice. As I've also mentioned much less often, I'm unemployed. I was an employee and then later a manager at a fast casual restaurant for a total of four years, but due to a number of overwhelming situations, I put in my two weeks without having a back up plan. It's been almost a year since I took on the role of being a slacker and burden on my family, but I may have found an opportunity to make money through my crafting.

I made dis

The risks, fear of failure, and a general lack of confidence were the main reasons I avoided starting any kind of business or situation where I would attempt to sell my creations. A good friend of mine offered to host and sell my stuff alongside hers at the store where she works at no risk to me. I can see if my stuff is worth people's time and make a decision if I'm talented enough to invest money into starting a "business". Please give her crafts a look at her Etsy and if you're in the Ocean City/Maryland area, you can give her a visit at Shipwrecked, where she works and sells her crafts alongside a large variety of other merchants in the Maryland area.