That Garalon we love

Who would grow tired of watching a berserk as awesome as Garalon's, anyway?

We've got this... Really...!

As we got around to doing our usual Wednesday Mogu'shan Vaults run, suddenly after the Stone Guards I got the idea of recording our raiding for the first time since Dragon Soul, from where we sadly don't have much better material than the Kalecgos part of the Madness of Deathwing Chromatic Champion achievement, a (very stylish indeed) heroic Morchok clip and some early Dragon Soul progression kills like Zon'ozz, Yor'sahj, Hagara and Ultraxion with the classic bad screaming, despite clearing the raid on heroic mode. Those videos actually make me miss Dragon Soul, heh. The oldest raid video of us, known as "Shannox now", dates back to early Firelands and, well, Shannox, Rageface and Riplimb.

We are well past our progression phase in normal mode Mogu'shan Vaults, but my sudden idea to Fraps the raid really messed with our heads. Before beginning, I told everyone how we should portray ourselves: we mustn't stand in poop, we mustn't die, we mustn't go out of mana, we mustn't do anything stupid! We mustn't do anything that wasn't what I did. For long I've thought I don't really tunnel vision, but after Feng, well, I am humbled. Please do enjoy this exclusive content of a Menagerie raid that was by far the most fun raid I have attended. We sure didn't live through our smoothest kills in history, but people were positive all the way from the first second to the last and beyond, which was really spectacular and made me incredibly happy. It really reminded me of why I fell in love with raiding in the first place.

I just wish Fraps had been running when the Eye of Kil'rogg made the first pull on Gara'jal the Spiritbinder.

Then came the time for the most flawless Elegon kill.
"Did you record that?"
"Nope."
"...You're kidding me?"
"Nope."

This is just one of those times when I try to say that you guys mean a ton to me.

85-90 in screenshots - Part I: Stormwind City & The Jade Forest

Most of them feature my UI, but you'll just have to deal with it. I wanted to capture those moments as accurately as possible - not to mention as fast as possible. It's basically my first and therefore most memorable journey from 85 to 90 in the form of screenshots.

Menagerie "base" highlighted. :D

This is where our server froze.

This quest took me/us at least 30 minutes to complete due to server lag.

Loads of gyrocopters!

PANDARIA IS NOT PREPARED!

First of all I'll say sorry for not posting anything for days! You know, this thing called Mists of Pandaria was released and it's not like awesome or anything like that... Yeah... Woaahaowou!
I could talk about the expansion itself endlessly, but I'll spare you for now and do that later sometimes. Instead, this post focuses on RP things. To me it's obvious who are the first of my characters to take on the war in Pandaria. Nicasia (who was the first one to get to 90), Raleigh and Vladan alike all travel to the long lost continent, but with different ambitions. I think I can pretty much promise we'll hear from each one as the expansion progresses. Here's a taste of where they started and are starting.

Nicasia, although not sure about her loyalty to the Alliance, joins the war, but most of all out of curiosity. Looking to expand her knowledge and power, she comes to the conclusion that the Alliance is her best bet at setting foot on Pandaria. It hasn't yet struck her that her endless curiosity and recklessness might cost her her life one day, so the Hex Machine continues to adventure alongside her loyal companion Reth'rek.

The ginger is taking Pandaria - in a retributive state of mind! Resulting from the attack on Theramore, Raleigh has experienced increasing rage and revulsion towards the Horde. Despite swearing he'd never pick up heavy weaponry again since he returned from the cold north, the ever so silent and calm paladin has decided to grab his emerald swo-- mace once more, and storm Pandaria. Known mostly for staying in the back rows, taking care of the injured and supporting the battle; how is the pissed medic going to make it in the unforgiving outback and jungles of Pandaria?
(P.S. He did get an actual, long desired emerald sword, too! More about that later.)

Vladan never fully "joined" the Alliance; his presence, like most death knights', is merely tolerated around Stormwind, and he remains aligned with the Knights of the Ebon Blade. However, due to his blacksmith background and therefore, his wide and deep knowledge of weaponry, combined with his unusually perfected combat skills, he was hired as a mercenary to aid the Alliance in the war in Pandaria.

My other characters will make their way to Pandaria later, too, but I'll be focusing on this trio intensively for the first months. As I get into my panda routines with Nicasia, I'll get to leveling the other two. See you in Pandaria!

A what now?

Scenarios sound like a fun thing, but they carry a despicable taint - Scenaterdist. That title makes me want to puke. It's by far the worst title in the game so far, and I can't see a single reason why anyone would want to use it. It's not even to show off a great accomplishment, it's just plain ugly and doesn't make any sense. To me it doesn't seem to have any depth to it what so ever. It's not even a real word! ("You're not a real word!" Yes, yes, that's true.)

It's better to not have a title than have one that carries no meaning to it. Scenarios are a new thing, sure, but the title doesn't need to speak of them. It could have been something more adventurous, something in the style of the Explorer. After all, the characters aren't really doing anything known as 'completing scenarios' in Azeroth, and I think titles should reflect the characters' adventures - even though they are sort of on the edge. A character also wouldn't know they have the title 'Light of Dawn' or whatever. All in all, I simply find the title Scenaterdist a stupid and unnecessary stain in an awesome-looking expansion! Urgh.

We are getting awesome titles in Mists of Pandaria, too, though. I like the sound of the Fearless, the Relic Hunter, Seeker of Knowledge, the Tranquil Master and the Undaunted. Farmer can be quite nice for roleplaying purposes! I immediately though of Blue Overalls and a pitchfork.

No title can ever match Slayer of Stupid, Incompetent and Disappointing Minions, though.

Oh, what is this? Activity!

On another note: I am just simply loving cross-realm zones! I hadn't paid much attention to the feature until I noticed that Dalaran looked a bit more like an actual city again, with more than a maximum of two people around. Some people stood at the auctioneers, RP'd in the streets, fished from the fountain and just made the place look less dead. I was very happy to notice this. It appears that Moonglade was "merged" with at least three other RP realms: Steamwheedle Cartel, Darkmoon Faire and Earthen Ring. I have no negative feelings towards this what so ever.

While leveling my baby warrior (gosh that sounds wrong!) in Westfall, I encountered multiple people of the same level - that's a completely new experience for me, since I've never really played on a high population realm. My main realm, Moonglade EU, is medium populated, but often quite empty. Sharing the place with others didn't disturb my leveling in any way, as mobs also spawn at a faster speed - that seems to be something certain people worry about.

I think cross-realm zones are a grand thing.

P.S. I noticed that Molten Core core hounds are back to their normal size!

Pups no more.

The Battle for Theramore

I've been really busy recently and only got to do the Theramore event the evening of the day it came out in Europe. Here are some screenshots of my first visit there, on the Alliance side of course, since I don't have a single level 85 Horde character, my highest one being level 80 since Wrath of the Lich King.

We started out as three DPS, but Kidney decided to go bear and the pugged paladin went holy. I have done the scenario a whole of three times now, and the only non-regular firework reward (excluding the tabard) that I've got is Everlasting Alliance Firework. I don't mind having it, actually, but I'd like some of the items for transmogging reasons - although I think they share models with some vanilla items that might still be in the game, I haven't really looked into that. I personally like the tabard, although a more epic and unique pre-expansion event would have been nice. But as Blizzard said, we'd rather have an epic expansion rather than an epic event before it. The question is whether we must choose between those.

And for nostalgic reasons... /sob

Glory, pride and bloodshed!

The opening cinematic for Mists of Pandaria aired for the first time today, and this is what it looks like.

I thought it looked epic... until the panda appeared. Sadly then it took a major turn for the worse. I didn't enjoy the humorous approach that Blizzard has there. Visually it's a very impressive clip though. I like that the human reminds me greatly of Warcraft II. It sort of takes you back to the whole Orcs vs. Humans setup, as the expansion is most of all about mortals. And the Pandaren is wearing nice-looking items. Despite this minor disappointment with the cinematic, I still believe the expansion itself will be enjoyable and I'll have a good time playing WoW.

Here are the previous opening cinematics.

For heaven's sake I miss Wrath of the Lich King. I loved every bit of that expansion, for me personally it was the best time on WoW, in a way I can't describe with words.

Well, what do you think about the MoP cinematic?

A mixed post!

I thought I'd start this month's posts with a beta one, particularly since there have been lots of new stuff added to it since the latest patch. Pet battles and all that stuff. I found out the beta post would have been way more text than screenshots, so this'll be a very mixed post. I meant to post it days ago already, actually, but things have come up.
I know July wasn't a very active month posting-wise, compared to the previous two. It's because I haven't been very inspired about WoW, and lots of unfortunate events have taken place. I'm definitely not going to quit playing WoW or anything, I'm just taking a silent break while maintaining all guild things as usual.

Part V of the story of Vlad is probably one of the things that will be out pretty soon, followed by part VI, which is intended to be the last part of the story. However, it will not be the last part of Vlad's story altogether - I've began to really like him as I've progressed with the story, so he'll be heard from.

Beta things start here, so spoiler warning.

Alright, let's get to Pandaria things. It's been a while since I've been to the beta. The first thing I noticed was a new launcher. I liked the old one better, because it was wooden. There was also a Pandaria loading screen, which I thought I screenshot, but didn't.

With my beta-shaman Nicasia I spawned extremely close to the newly introduced farming place in Valley of the Four Winds. What people mistakenly call the Farmville of World of Warcraft is actually much closer to the Harvest Moon of World of Warcraft with the Best Friends system and all. It is indeed a new minigame that lets the player take care of their own farm: plant and harvest crops, earn seeds and other rewards, build relationship with the various NPCs around the ranch, get gifts from them and take care of various issues around the farm. It's related to the Tillers faction.

I'm not sure whether I like this myself or not, but the most wonderful thing about the minigames is YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DO THEM IF YOU DON'T WANT TO. I wish everyone understood this. Plus it's in Pandaria, and a Pandaren thing. It's not like it's going to be a part of Stormwind City's dailies. Just don't adventure into Pandaria if it makes you sick. Let the Pandaren live their lives, and live yours somewhere else. Or consider it a holiday in China, with some Chinese tourists elsewhere in the world.

As most of World of Warcraft's players are casual ones - those that want to log on every now and then and do something, minigames like these are very understandable. They add to the casual player's to-do list, which before Pandaria included mainly questing, dailies and some dungeoning, perhaps PvP. I won't get into all the things I hate about the raid finder, but it's also one of those things for the casual players.

See that libram? It didn't show as I inspected the items, so it's a special thing. I have no idea where or how one can get it, but I think it's awesome! And that paladin PvP set, too, is one if my favorites paladin sets so far. To me it has a Judgement-like feel to it. To avoid confusion, the malevolent set was transmogged into the dreadful one, hence the inspection looks different.


I found a capturable pet in the Valley of the Four Winds, but I couldn't battle it, because I was stuck in combat for some silly reason that I couldn't figure out.

At times it is and has been very difficult to get through these last months of Cataclysm. I'm pretty sure that when September hits, though, we'll be very close to the pre-MoP events. And because of that, I recommend everyone to visit the good old Theramore Isle while they still can.

Here are some more screenshots of unimportant things.

I had my first Panda greenie drop!

I like this helmet in a twisted way.

PvP shield - trollish voodoo stuff.

Shiny paladin.

A very cute worm!

Mists of Pandaria release date and pre-purchase

It's finally out there and official - Mists of Pandaria will be released on the 25th of September 2012. The pre-purchase feature is also available on the battle.net site, accessible here. Two months of Cataclysm to go! Now off you go to order your pandas, I will do so very soon as well.

Recent beta discoveries

Please don't proceed if you want no spoilers of Mists of Pandaria.

I find myself spending more and more time in the beta, because a) I'm jaded with Cataclysm and want Mists of Pandaria, b) when I feel lonely on real WoW, I go to beta, and vice versa. I do hope the beta posts aren't getting boring. I try to add something fresh every time!

As stated here, the Jade Forest is currently offline and all characters who enter the zone are teleported away from 'no man's land'. That was the zone I have explored the least in the whole Pandaria, but apparently it will get some improvements and changes. Let us hope they'll be good. I have seen lots of comments about disconnecting questlines. I am personally not leveling on the beta, because I know I'd get fond of the character. Also, I don't want to see too much. I want the questlines to be all new and exciting when I first do them with Nicasia. I really want to do something else for a change, but I must resist the temptation of leveling.

A while ago I streamed the fight animations of human and blood elf paladins to a friend, who thought they looked awesome - that made me hopeful that I'll like the human one, too. If you don't have Mists of Pandaria beta and you'd like to see something, let me know. It can be arranged via livestream.

The following discoveries consist of a few separate visits to the beta. Two of them were together with Lanfranco. (I didn't ask his permission to mention character name here! I hope he doesn't have anything against it. He's also the handsome paladin on the background image.)

I have very little idea what's going on in the first three shots.

Wands are a new type of main-hand?

Glyph of Foul Menagerie.

Glyph of the Geist.

Glyph of Horn of Winter. I am so getting this - looove snow and frosty things. HoW now lasts 5 minutes instead of 2 or 3.

Corpse go boom.

<3

A rare!

A world boss, Galleon.

Something wrong with the chair.

Aaawww!

Stormstout Brewery.

Stormstout Brewery.

Capturing a lightning on a screenshot is just as difficult as it is on a picture.

I don't want to kill her, I want to help her!

Last but definitely not least, there's a story of me logging in one day. I had logged out on this rocket mount, so I also logged in on it. And what did I see? I saw a whole new UI and an action bar with two abilities on it: Rocket Radio and Shoot. None of this would appear if I just mounted the rocket normally - I had to log on it to get it. And yes, I'm swapping between prepositions, because I don't know which one I should use.

It's awesome!