Destylae the Noble!!

Bit of an update to a previous post, but last night I finally got the Noblegardner Acheivement last night! However, it involved some very fancy footwork and learning the limits of the Guards at the main Horde City, Ogrimmar.

As I mentioned in my post on Dalaran, I had luck finding a Blood Elf and an Undead there, but for the achievement (the very last one that I had left in the series, too - EVERYTHING ELSE was easier), I also needed an Orc, a Tauren, and a Troll. All females. All over level 18.

Dal was coming up short, obviously, so I decided to try checking out the Horde secondary cities, Brill and Razor Hill, hoping that perhaps there would be appropriate Hordies looking for eggs for their own achievements. I flew from Stormwind to Brill (not very long with Master Flying, and faster than any auto-gryphon could get there), and quickly realized that it was worse than Dalaran as far as finding level appropriate Hordies. Especially the ones I needed.

So my next stop was going to be Razor Hill - which is, of course, on the other continent. I groaned inwardly at the thought of winging all the way back to Stormwind, just to boat to Rut'theran and have another incredibly long flight to Durotar. Then, just as the Horde guards spotted me and shot at me a little, causing me to fly up and turn around, I spotted the solution to my problem - IF I could pull it off.

You see, I was hovering over Brill. Which is right next to Undercity. But something even more important was between the two cities. That would be the Horde Zeppelin station.

Now, I've played Horde before, so I was familiar with the routes. However, I'd never attempted to ride a Horde Zeppelin, while playing an Alliance character. So I circled a bit until the Durotar Zeppelin came in to dock, sized it up, and decided to land right on top of the blimp balloon. I figured, if I got attacked by the bruisers or the crew, that would be the easiest place for me to escape straight up from. However... no aggro warnings flashed. I didn't get marked as PVP... and the blimp shortly began to move.

I was congratulating myself for an awesome idea as the screen changed and I entered Durotar. Then I realized I hadn't taken something into account.

Pre-Cataclysm, which was the last time I played Horde, the Zeppelins dropped you off outside of Ogrimmar, to one side or the other. Well out of Auto-PVP range.

Well, apparently, SINCE the Cataclysm... the Zeppelins have been moved into the exact center of the city. I freaked out and took off straight up. I was marked PVP, because I was in the HEART Of Ogrimmar, so of course I was PVP... And I hate PVP. Players gang up and beat the crap out of me. Guards I can outrun. Players? Nope.

However... nothing attacked me.

The Zeppelin station is already very high, and the flights of winged guards don't pass close enough to aggro me - and apparently most Hordies fly below the Zeppelin level when they fly on their own mounts. No one saw me.

My first thought, after I did a little mental dance for not being dead, was that hey! I was in the middle of Ogrimmar. Maybe I could spot a pool of water deep enough to fish in, from the air, and figure out a safe approach to it, and get the Fishing Diplomat achievement. I pulled that off with... incredible ease compared to how annoying it would've been pre-ability to fly. (Not that I attempted it.. four times... over the course of leveling up... or anything...)

Then I took to the air again, swooped out of Ogrimmar, headed over to Razor Hill... And only managed to knock "female Tauren" off my list. That left me with an Orc and a Troll still needed, and me with very little patience.

Around this time I struck up a conversation with someone in whispers who was likewise haunting Razor Hill. Together, we decided to go see how close we could get to the Ogrimmar gates without getting marked PVP, and therefore be able to just sit out there and wait until we saw what we needed to complete the achievement. Since Horde and Alliance are similar in many ways - one of them being that the players like to do their dueling outside the gates of their main city. So we flew there.

Over the course of the next few hours, I got aggroed by guards, marked PVP once and flattened by the very Hordies we were observing, but overall it was fairly uneventful. I found a female Troll, but I got incredibly bored after awhile and decided to see if I could fly back INTO Ogrimmar and land on the blimp, to plan and see if I could get out the same way I came in.

It was easier than I thought it would be. So I wound up landing on a VERY HIGH outcropping of rock - higher than the blimp dock - and watching the goings on below. Also, much like Stormwind, the area between the Bank and Auction House seemed to be fairly busy. So I started hovering over players and clicking on every one that the tooltip identified as Orc, looking for a female. Now, as I was in the city, I was marked PVP. So I knew that if I was to pull this off and get out with my life, I'd have to do it carefully.

I mounted my Albino Drake - a big mount that blocks your immediate view of who might be riding it, and that is also faction neutral, as it's given by an achievement that both Horde and Alliance can complete. I put out my Horde Windrider noncombat pet, and dismissed Hatari so I wouldn't have to worry about him running off and attacking some random Hordling if I DID get knocked off my mount, which was a possibility.

Then, I saw one - a female orc. I selected them so I'd be able to see my target, and dove off the rock spire I'd been sitting on. I already knew from previous encounters that the item I needed to use for the achievement could be used while mounted, but this would still take PERFECT timing.

I swooped down into a whole group of Horde, skimming right over their heads, and the moment my button turned white, I clicked it. The achievement, the title, and the final achievement all snapped on at once, even as I was pulling up hard. I saw general chat - the crowd was yelling, and I was hit by an arrow and what I think was a fireball... but then I was too high. No one chased me... I went as high as I could and waited. I guess the random Draenai swooping down out of nowhere and essentially throwing a pair of bunny ears onto someone's head was strange enough that they were all kind of caught off guard. Anyway, I put on my shiny new title, and slowly swooped down when I saw the Trisfal Glades zeppelin come in for docking, and landed on top of it, dismounting from my drake and remounting my Armored Snowy Gryphon in the process so I'd be a smaller target, but no one seemed to see me, and within a few minutes I was back at the dock in Brill, where I'd started.

Wearing my shiny new title, I winged my way back to Stormwind and logged off for the night. It was exhausting, but SO very worth it. And now I'm one step closer to the Violet Proto-Drake mount as well!

And, so, now Galakrond server welcomes it's newest titled lady, Destylae the Noble!

Dalaran: City Of Emptiness...

Destylae is working her way toward the "the Noble" title, for this year's Noblegarden. We have completed every achievement save one - "Shake Your Bunny-Maker." The object of this achievement is to use the Spring Flowers item to place bunny ears on the heads of a female PC (player character) of every race but Goblin and Worgen.

In the Pre-Cataclysm days, this was fairly easy. You'd do your own faction in the main home city (Stormwind for Alliance, Ogrimmar for Horde), and then head to the neutral Sanctuary of the day (Shattrath City in Outland for the Burning Crusade expansion,  and then Dalaran in Crystalsong Forest for Wrath) to find the requirements for the other faction.

Cataclysm has made this difficult in that there... isn't a Sanctuary for the highest level players. The closest you get is Tol Barad, and you get marked PVP just for entering it. I decided to go to Dal to try and find my required opposing faction women, figuring SOME people must still use it, right?

Wrong. The gorgeous city that used to be affectionately known as Da-lag-ran, thanks to so many players being on and causing a huge amount of lag, is now more like Da-lone-ran... In that I am currently the only player in the zone.

Now, I have found both a Blood Elf and an Undead here. This isn't completely without hope or reason. However, it's just so striking the difference. When I was of level to be questing for exp in Northrend, Dal was my central hub. My hearthstone was set here for such a long time, I can hardly remember a time when it wasn't. But now? If I /yell-ed, there would probably be an echo.

Come on... I just need an Orc, a Tauren, and a Troll... That can't be SO hard... I'm this close to pulling the trick I did accidentally last night and riding on top of the blimp from Brill INTO Ogrimmar, and trying to find them that way.

Drat. That Tauren was male. Double drat, now I have a five minute cool down to wait through...

This title is getting more annoying by the second.

Scientific Theory Applied To... Mario Kart DS?

I borrowed Mario Kart DS from Nyx, a few months back. I've done this several times, because - for some strange reason - the urge to play it never shows up when I have the money to actually buy the game for myself.

However, as a result, I've now beaten the game approximately 4 times. And as I was playing it again this time, I noticed a pattern. It doesn't happen until you get up to the 150cc Grand Prix races, though.

In the 50cc, with my experience, I can get first place every race and unlock everything as quickly as the races can be completed. The 100cc is just about as fast - a little faster because the cars have more oomph, and the characters are more competitive - essentially the "medium" mode of difficulty. However, usually I can still practically be so far ahead of the NPCs by the time that I cross the finish line that I've actually not only been in first place, but simultaniously, I was also in sixth place. IE, I'm so far ahead that I've caught up to and PASSED the cars that are in 8th, 7th, and 6th place. No challenge.

You get to the 150cc, though, and suddenly the difficulty amps up dramatically. The cars are slamming into each other, have great aim with items, and seem to be deliberately out to get me.

Now, I've noticed that the computer seems to randomly pick two NPC cars for each set of races, that you will be in the most direct competition with. If I get into first place, the cars that are fighting with me the most for that spot are consistant, throughout all four races of the Cup set. I play Dry Bones (once I have him unlocked) and tend to use his Banisher car - on account of the fact that while it's slow, it has an incredible acceleration (read: recovery from item attacks) speed, and it gets a wide variety of items out of the boxes, which gives me the most versitility in "fighting" my way to the front of the pack of cars.

By the end of the first race, whoever the top other two cars are (no matter where I land - it'll be 1st and 2nd if I'm not up there, and 2nd and 3rd if I am), they will be my direct competition for first place throughout the entire set of four races that make up whatever Cup I'm currently playing.

Scientific theory states that you come up with a testable hypothesis, then proceed to put it to the test and try as hard as you can to disprove it. So once I realized what seemed to be happening, I started trying to disprove it.

I played different characters, different cars, and reran the lower cc races, even. However, this hypothesis seems to hold true. The game chooses at random two of your opponents to be your biggest competition for first place, and it goes straight through whatever Cup you're playing.

Now, however, I was very... invested... in the game. I kept playing, and started to notice another pattern. It doesn't happen in the lower cc races, but in the 150cc and the 150cc Mirror classes, it seems like you fight through normal opposition to reach first place in the first two races (the "free Cups" that are unlocked from the moment you have access to the engine class - you unlock the other two by getting first place in the first two, then the next one that unlocks, and so on until you've unlocked them all). However, once I got to the 3rd Cup, the first unlockable, something changed.

Suddenly, no matter what I did (or how many times I'd run those races before), the first time I played the Cup, I would end up in 3rd Place. And it would literally be through no fault of my own. I'd be in first, going along just fine, and suddenly be hit with a red shell, a blue shell, and maybe even knocked off of a cliff by an object, JUST enough before the finish line that I didn't have time to recover before the NPC competition got ahead of me and forced me into 3rd place.

The next time I played the same Cup, something similar would happen - except that I would wind up in 2nd place. And finally, invariably, the 3rd time I played the new Cup, I would come in first.

Now, I was driving the same way every time. I was careful of that. I fought just as hard for first place each time. I got almost the same items, though not at the same times, and I made the same decisions. Uncontrolled forces would still force me to repeat the pattern - first run = 3rd place, 2nd run = 2nd place, 3rd run = first place.

This was strangely consistent under all the unlockable Cups. So, being the scientist that I am, I formed a hypothesis that the game was actually programmed not to let you win the Unlockables the first time, or the 2nd - forcing you to go through getting 3rd and 2nd place before you won. To.... what end? Make the game longer? I wasn't sure. But it was too... constant... for it not to be deliberate.

So I began the process of testing the hypothesis. I started an Unlockable for the first time, I fought for first place.. and due to a red shell a moment before the finish line, I came in 3rd.

Step one confirmed, it would seem.

The second time I ran the Cup, I was hit with a blue shell that knocked both me AND the car right behind me out. The car that had been in 3rd place shot up into first, and I, with the Banisher's quick recovery time, came in 2nd.

Second step would appear to be confirmed.

Now, I decided to REALLY test this hypothesis. I started the Cup for the 3rd time, and I drove BADLY. After all, if the game was trying to allow me to win this time no matter what, it wouldn't MATTER how I drove.

Well, to make a long story short, I think I pushed it a little too far. I came in second. But I drove HORRIBLY, at one point driving OFF of the Rainbow Road on purpose. That was my fatal mistake, it would seem... But still - I drove like an IDIOT... and I came in 2nd?! There is no WAY I would've pulled that off in a 1st or 2nd run of the Unlockable. I would've wound up in 8th place!

So, with first test down, it would appear that my hypothesis is confirmed. Because I would've gotten 1st place if I'd driven quite as offensively as I usually do. However, I'm going to have to do further experimentation to confirm the hypothesis.

It just goes to show you - scientific theory isn't just for class anymore!

For The First Time Ever!!!

I've played a lot of video games in which "leveling" was the main focus. Primarialy, Pokemon, and various RPGs and MMORPGs. Never, though, have I ever leveled a character all the way to "level cap," that is... As high as you can level it. The point where experience becomes a moot point, and you're as far with that character as you can get, as far as getting more powerful in any way other than through gear or moves.

Until tonight.

Tonight, Destylae, my Draenai Hunter on the Galakrond server in World Of Warcraft, capped. She is level 85, and it happened while fighting her way through the guts of a huge Sarlac-like monster in the Twilight Highlands zone.

This is a huge deal for me, because I've been playing the game for going on 2 years. Now, granted, Des wasn't my first character. My first character was Kalitri, the Night Elf Druid who I lost interest in by the time I reached level 30, and was then on to playing Des. She was my second character that I leveled past 20. I tried mage, I tried warrior, I tried paladin, I tried pretty much everything, and at the time, humans couldn't be Hunters. So I became a Draenai.

For over a year, I've fought my way through the game. Through achievements, through levels, and then through the biggest disaster to hit Azeroth - the launch of Cataclysm.

Shortly after Cata's launch, by the way, I deleted Kalitri the Night Elf druid and remade her as a Worgen. I LOVE playing her now. The class changes that came with Cataclysm got rid of the issues I'd had playing her, and being a Worgen just feels RIGHT (yeah, big surprise, me, a werewolf, feels right? :P ). So it isn't like I'm out of things to do now that Des has capped. But I'm just SO thrilled that I made it! I capped a character!

I had another thing to talk about in this entry, however, and that's one of the last quests I did in Twilight Highlands before deciding to abandon the zone for awhile to get ready for the Noblegarden event that starts on Sunday.

The quest requires you to take these seeds and plant them at the bodies of large, dead dragons, at which point the plants you plant will "bury" the dragons properly. Now this is all good and respectful - except that there weren't any dead dragons in the area.

There were, however, dragons that were dying and under attack by their enemies (and therefore, MY enemies, as I was allied with this particular dragonflight). Everything in me said "attack the enemies, save the dragons!" Except, in order to complete the quest... I had to have dead dragons.

I rose into the air on the wings of my Albino Drake, and watched as dragon after dragon met their slow, agonizing death. I couldn't help. I could do NOTHING. Not without failing the quest. I had to sit there and watch my allies die, just so I could play undertaker.

I've never encountered a quest that I've hated before. I've encountered exciting, thrilling, terrifying, thought-provoking quests, in my 85 levels. But I have never before encountered a quest that I hated. I did tonight.

Blizzard, here's an idea - I know that the concurrent quest requires dragons to be under attack so you can save them. But could you please just have some already dead dragons spawn, rather than forcing your heroes to stand back and away from innocents having their lives stolen, just to complete a quest?

I felt kind of dirty after that. I abandoned my remaining quest (I can always go back and finish the story line later), and exited the zone.

But the main point is that Destylae is at level cap now!!

At least... until the next expansion...

Hatari - It means "Danger" in Swahili...

Why the impromptu language lesson, you ask? Especially on a gaming blog? Well, I'll tell you. See, Hatari is the name of my Draenai Hunter's Hyena. He's my primary pet, and has been with me since level 33, when I caught him out in the old Thousand Needles, where he was originally Snapjaw, the now no longer existing hyena boss of the area.

I couldn't ask for a more loyal pet. But today, he did something that even shocked me - and it all started with me being a bit of an idiot.

I was working on the beginning of the Twilight Highlands quest string, discovering the corruption in Stormwind. There was a bishop who was really a high level in the Twilight Cult (just as scary as Twilight FANS, even), right in the middle of the city - in the catacombs under the church.

So, I went down with Hatari at my side. We fought through the mobs between us and the Bishop, and then took him down together.

Now, pulling out of the game - Before I could turn and leave the room where we'd killed the bishop, Nyx got my attention with something in the real world. So I got distracted. I clicked back onto the game to find that the Bishop had respawned, attacked me, and Hatari was single-handedly (paw-ed-ly?) fighting him. He was a level higher than us at the time, and I decided to take the route of the time-honored pirate tradition... and run away.

So I ran. None of the other mobs had respawned, and I figured when I got far enough away, Hatari would despawn, which would let me resummon him to me again, and continue on our way. However, it's what happened next that made me realize just how aptly named my old friend is.

I still had the bishop selected, and wasn't far enough away for that to have disappeared by the time I made it back to the first floor of the church. And what shocked me was that his health was almost halfway down - and Hatari's didn't look like it had even been TOUCHED. So rather than continue to run until my pet despawned, I stood there and waited. After all, I could easily rez him if he died in the fight, just as easily as I could summon him. So I waited... And I watched the Bishop's health go down, while Hatari's stayed VERY high.

It took him longer than it took both of us to take down the bishop together, but... My pet is strong enough to kill a mob a level higher than him, ALONE. He killed the bishop, and came running up the stairs a few seconds later, to join me in the church hall.

I fed him a smoked talbuck venison, even though he didn't need to eat... I just felt he deserved a treat. Because if nothing else, he proved just how freaking dangerous he IS, on his own.

Together? Nothing can beat us.

Good boy, Hatari.

A Random Story...

So, in my house, my brother-by-love is the big time gamer. He's awesome at pretty much any game he picks up. He's an absolute natural at everything from WoW to Pokemon and back again. So yesterday, when he was playing a Pokemon Tower Defense game, he suddenly IMed me with a strange question. Due to the developer's wording of the description of a specific move, Sucker Punch, he couldn't figure out what it would do within the game he was playing. So he said to me:

"As the resident Pokemon Master, I thought you might know this. What exactly does Sucker Punch do?"

Now, I respect my brother as the most amazing gamer I've ever met. So when he called me "the resident Pokemon Master," I got possibly the biggest ego boost I'd ever had as a gamer. I was beyond thrilled. I had an answer for him, too, though I did have to look it up to be sure.

For those who are wondering, the move Sucker Punch is a hugely powerful Fighting Type move that always lands first and hard - but ONLY if the Pokemon using it would have naturally gone second due to their speed. In the terms of the game, "A powerful attack that will always land if the foe is readying an attack." Now, even *I* am not sure what that will do in the context of a tower defense game, but, but the fact is that I KNEW what it would do was cool. And my brother calling me a Pokemon Master was even cooler.

However, later that night I remembered WHY Sucker Punch was so memorable to me, even though I never use Fighting Type Pokemon (the Girdurr in my current PB party notwithstanding). And it had to do with a gym battle that changed the way I looked at the game completely.

Back in the good old days of the GBA (Game Boy Advance), the hottest Pokemon games were the Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald series, set in the Hoenn region. Prior to them, I had played Silver, and Red - beaten both completely, but on power alone. In my original Silver game, I played as if I was in the TV show - only my favorite Pokemon really ever came out to do battle. As a result, by the time I got to the Elite Four, I had a level 80+ Typhlosion that could one-hit KO almost every one of their Pokemon, even with type disadvantages. When I played Red, almost the same thing happened with my Charizard. So I powered my way through the game, like a true fire trainer - all big explosions, massive impact, and very little staying power if I ever lost that primary Pokemon. But in the early games, you could do that.

In the Hoenn generation, that changed. And changed massively. Partially, it was because I had, for the first time, someone to play with. My then best friend and now fiancee, played with me once I'd gotten her into the games via some ROMs I had. We started link-cable battling as well, and I quickly learned something that most Trainers who'd always had someone to play with probably already knew - power cannot flatten strategy. Lona played with the finesse of a water trainer, and already had the type advantage on me. I soon learned that my power play style of playing would get me nowhere when we crashed into each other in battle. So I had to change my style.

I began careful leveling, keeping my entire party in level line with each other through use of rotation, EXP Share, and other techniques. I raised a varied team, I carefully schooled them all in each of their moves.

And I still couldn't beat Lona.

The one time I came close involved knowing her team very well - they were all male. I had a female Gyarados. I taught her Attract. And the combination of that move, the genders of my opponent's pokemon, and the fact that she was caught off guard by my NOT relying entirely in big ticket power moves and actually using a stat changer (which I loathe in-game), ALMOST pulled a win off for me. Then her electric type managed to ignore the Attraction once, and that was all it took. She slammed my team into the ground after that. But I came CLOSE. Because of strategy. However, I'd never had to think strategy when dealing with the Gyms and trainers in-game before.

All that changed when I met Norman.

Norman is the leader of the Petalburg Gym in Hoenn, and according to the in-game story, also your (the player's) father. He is, I believe, the 4th Gym you come to. And he is a trainer of Normal Type Pokemon. Now, the only thing that's super-effective against Normal Types are Fighting Types. Well, I didn't have one. However, I didn't expect it to be too big of a deal. After all, my Pokemon were being carefully trained and raised. I wouldn't be screwed if I lost one - so I went into the battle quite confident.

And came out with everyone fainted.

Norman has two Slakings with two devastating moves - Focus Punch, in which the Pokemon takes a turn to "charge" up, and then slams HARD on the next turn. It can be interrupted, however, if that Pokemon naturally goes first, causing it to lose the next turn, essentially. However, Slaking is SLOW. Naturally. Therefore it always went second, to any of my Pokemon, and as a result, we got Focus Punch'd out. The other move, however, is Sucker Punch. Which, again, was horribly effective, since because of the Slaking's natural slow speed, it always naturally went second - which meant that any time this move was used, it went FIRST, and landed hard. My team was decimated.

Three more attempts later, and several level gains on my part, I realized I wasn't going to beat him without either a LOT of running around in the grass nearby and training (which I hate and gets incredibly boring incredibly fast)... or some strategy. I'd been up against his team several times now and I knew that I could take out his Vigoroth that always came out before the two Slakings. I knew I could sometimes take down ONE Slaking, but my team was so far gone by the time the second one came out that I was no match. However, I knew his moves. I knew his pattern. And then, suddenly, while going through my bags to find things to sell to buy revives and potions to try and outlast him in the next battle, I found my trump card.

The item is called a Macho Brace. It greatly ups the strength of the Pokemon that's using it, but slows them down horribly at the same time. I suddenly realized that, if my strongest Pokemon was holding this, it would make me slower than Slaking, thereby making both of the moves he kept destroying me with completely useless. If my pokemon naturally went second in the battle, Sucker Punch would never land. If I was slower than Slaking, he would use the "rev up" part of Focus Punch before I got my turn, and therefore I would be able to interrupt him far more reliably, rendering that move useless as well. I gave the Macho Brace to my Combusken, and went in to challenge the gym again.

This time, I swept the Gym without losing a single Pokemon. Which is good, since I only had ONE Macho Brace, and therefore if my Combusken had fainted, I would've been back in the same loop I'd been in the previous fights.

However, this fight changed the way I look at Pokemon battles in-game. Which is good, because as I'm playing through Black, I'm realizing that they've changed the game enough that a varied team isn't enough - you NEED strategy for each fight, especially the boss and Gym battles. Having one Pokemon with a type advantage isn't enough anymore - you have to KNOW what you're doing to win.

And it all comes back, for me, to exactly why I knew what Sucker Punch did off the top of my head, when my brother called me a Pokemon Master.

And you know what? Maybe I am.

I write like...

Doing this for each of my blogs as an experiment. For this one:

I write like
Cory Doctorow

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

Adventures In Vash'ir

I will NEVER understand the Earthen Ring. I mean, I get the whole preservation of nature stuff... After all, Kalitri's a druid. I get it. But... Perhaps I should back up.

I (Destylae) have been questing in Vash'ir for some time now. Establishing bases, taking down Naga, rescuing people and supplies - the usual, really, at this point. In my 82nd level now, I'm quite used to this sort of thing. However, there was something I wasn't prepared for, honestly... And that was when the Earthen Ring sent me inside a giant, ancient nautilus.

It wasn't just a shell. I thought maybe it was just a shell. It wasn't. After getting a very up close and personal look at the creature's heart, brain, vascular system, and several other unidentified parts, when I reached the next Inn that allowed me to rest, I passed out. I will NEVER look at sushi the same way again.

But it's more that the Earthen Ring believed from the beginning that we could communicate with that ancient creature. Now, I'm used to animal communication, to a point. I think I have a damn good relationship with Hatari, my hyena, as well as all of my other pets, companions, and mounts. But... talking to a giant cuttlefish is beyond anything I'd ever... I mean, why not just go out and try to hold a one-on-one with the Whale Shark!?

Speaking of the Whale Shark - I don't know why, but I get the feeling the bugger is stalking me. Every time I look away to do something else, then look back or turn - THERE it is. Big, close... It hasn't attacked me yet, but the dang thing's the size of a house! BIGGER! And it's eyes are the size of my head. To find yourself being peered at by an eye the size of your head is possibly one of the strangest, most disturbing things that I can think of. And remember, I'm a Draenai. I can think of all sorts of horrible things, and the head-sized eye is still freak-out worthy.

I'll continue my adventures in Vash'ir soon, but for now, I would like to say one thing.

The Earthen Ring is just a bit nuts.

Ok. Two things.

Also. I am never going inside a living creature EVER again.

Ok. I'm done.

The Hunter is BACK!

Thanks to a dungeon with my guildies yesterday, I finally got back into playing on Destylae. In an odd way, it's almost a relief. I wanted to do the high level stuff with her before I got there with my druid so I wouldn't be doing it "blind," so to speak.

I'd forgotten how nice it was to play the hunter - I don't use my keyboard for that character. Everything is mouse-controlled, which takes a lot less concentration than playing on Kalitri. I loved reconnecting with Hatari, my hyena, and spending time exploring Vash'ir. Though the highlight of the day was subduing my Abyssial Seahorse mount. She's GORGEOUS, and I love her whole lots. I'm sorry she only works IN Vash'ir, because I'd love to use her in normal water situations, too.

Honestly, though, I am still completely enamored with my druid. How do I know? Well... the whole time, I kept catching myself thinking that aquatic form would be awesome down here. And that I wondered if the "sealegs" buff you get would stack with my Glyph of Aquatic Form. In which case, I'd be swimming at 200% riding speed, and almost wouldn't NEED the Seahorse on Kalitri. Which is appropriate, I suppose - she doesn't care much for mounts. She runs on all fours, shifts back and forth from cat to aquatic form when necessary, but has only mounted her horses and cats a couple of times. I can't wait until she hits 60 and can leap into the air and shift to flight form. I have a trick in mind I want to perform the moment I can - leaping off of Dalaran as if it were a high dive, and shifting to flight form to pull up. Oh, it will be glorious...

But for now, I'm going to play Des until she caps. :)