Ruins of Korune screenshots

I got on the quest to retrieve the Divine Bell from the ruins of Korune, and I thought the quest took place under pretty cool circumstances.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent and the Refinery, anyone?

The Divine Bell.

In addition some music I thought of while bullying those mogu statues.

IntPiPoMo 2012: Mantid

The goal of IntPiPoMo is to post 50 screenshots in 30 days. Learn more about it as introduced on Revive & Rejuvenate, with a list of the participants.

45/50

IntPiPoMo 2012: Mount Neverest

What makes Mount Neverest in Kun-Lai Summit special to me is that it doesn't snow like that anywhere else in Azeroth. I also love the sound of wind there.

The goal of IntPiPoMo is to post 50 screenshots in 30 days. Learn more about it as introduced on Revive & Rejuvenate, with a list of the participants.

19/50

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 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!

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!