F is for Farming

No I'm not talking about Farmville you freaks!

Farming in WoW means going out and doing nothing but gathering materials to create items from your profession (or others if you're one to stock up and sell on the auction house).

You're a miner?  Ok.  You go out and collect as much ore as you can.  Every last deposit you find, you harvest.

You're a tailor?  You go kill mobs and gather as much material from drops as possible.  Then you eat up your gold and gems (if you have them) making items of clothing to sell.

That's farming in a nutshell.  It's time consuming and can be boring but sometimes it's a necessity of playing.

D is for Ding & E is for Experience

A twofer today!

DING!  That's one of my favorite things to do in WoW and likely explains the numerous characters I have.  Running end game stuff is fun but sometimes you just wanna feel like you're really accomplishing something so you jump to a lowbie character and grind to ding the next level.  Yep that's all it means.  It means completing one level and getting to the next.  But how do you do that?

Every mob kill, every quest turned in, every dungeon run gives you experience (or XP as we call it).  The lower levels are pretty easy and in an hour (if you have that kind of time to run non-stop) you can get from level 1 to probably 5 in nothing flat.  But the higher you go, the longer it takes.  Lluvy is stuck at level 74 because of the millions of XP she needs.  Not to mention she's hella squishy and dies with just a couple of hits.  It took me a total of 11 days over a 4 month period to get Heralyn from level 55 (the level a Death Knight starts at) to 80.  And let me tell you, that ding of 80 was soooooooo much better than when I got Lluvy to 70!

D is for Dungeons

I think my absolute favorite dungeon is the Deadmines.  I've made many runs with lowbies and think it's hilarious to get a HUGE group of mobs all together and just wail on them one by one.

"HEY YOU! *wack* Haha you're dead!"

The Deadmines are full of pirates.  And the last part of the dungeon is on a big boat. It is so awesome!

The Stockades are pretty fun too... especially as a high level character.  LOL

My other favorite original dungeon is Uldaman in the Badlands.  I love running that one solo!

I don't have too many in Outland that I jump over myself to get into.  And many of the Northrend ones are fun but I have yet to see them all!

I still have yet to run all the way to the Lich King.  One day I swear I will have Shadowmourne regardless if it's just junk by the time I get it!!

Here is a shot of Lluvy and Andur at the end of Uldaman... had to wait on a guildie to help us unlock the final door because back then you had to have at least 3 people.

C is for Cataclysm

The next expansion coming out in December that changes EVERYTHING!

Horde get a new Goblin race while the Alliance can channel their inner werewolf with a Worgen.  (I sooooo want a worgen!!!)  A new profession is introduced that has Andur excited -- Archeology!  Level cap is moved to 85.  The original zones of Azeroth -- Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms -- get a huge makeover that changes the landscapes forever!  New race and class combinations are available, new battlegrounds and raids, and finally.... flying mounts in Azeroth!

While a lot of this sounds exciting, I'm actually pretty sad that Azeroth will never be the same.  My favorite areas will be forever changed and I may grow to hate them.  From my understanding these changes also void out the old quest lines in some areas.  *pout*

While the lore makes this expansion sound amazing, I still have reservations about it.  Hopefully I'm proven wrong and it'll be as great as Wrath of the Lich King was.

Here is the trailer for Cataclysm:  http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/cataclysm/media/

B is for Burning Crusade

The first expansion.  (Sorry for my sleep deprived mistake of saying it was the second expansion!)

With it they introduced new races:  Blood Elf for the Horde and Draenei for the Alliance.  (My main character Heralyn an 80 Death Knight just happens to be a Draenei.)  Level caps were bumped to 70.  An entire new continent -- Outland -- awaited excited players.  Flying mounts!?!  COOL!  I loved running the end game stuff with my guild.... when I wasn't dead of course!

Since our accounts aren't active we're missing a fun time of year right now in game:  Hallow's End.  One of my favorite holidays!  So as a treat.... here is my first character Lluvy after defeating the Headless Horseman.  Yes she's wearing a pumpkin on her head (thanks to one of my guildies) and is see-through and floating.  Gotta love Hallow's End treats!

B is for Battlegrounds

Oh battlegrounds!  The bane of my WoW existence.

I hate them so much I don't even know what to say about them.... except Andur (a.k.a Mr Indy) is really good at some of them!

Here... read up on them yourselves if you're so inclined!  Hehe

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/pvp/battlegrounds/

A is for Add Ons

Since I have more days than letters I figured I could get away with doing more than one post for some letters.  Yeah I'm a ninja!  Ok so technically I'm a death knight but it's almost the same!  LOL

When I started playing WoW I didn't even know what an add on was.  I heard my guildies talking about them but had no idea what they did.  I eventually ventured out and tried a few here and there (hello Quest Helper!) and now I run quite a few.

I have to say the few I cannot do without are Recount, Omen, Bartender, Titan, and XPerl.

If you're a DPS, I highly suggest you get Recount and Omen.  They will save your ass!  I became a much better DPSer once I got them (and some kick ass gear.... that is now outdated... damn).  The other 3 are just for looks but they make it look so much better and give me more control over the user interface (UI).  I love that!

Oh I totally forgot another great one:  Stalker!  It allows you to mark players of the opposite faction so you know when they are near by.  I have several Horde on my KOS (kill on sight) list.  Punks!

Here's one of the last screen shots I got of my UI before we canceled our accounts the last time.  Click on it to get a larger view.

A is for Aggro

To not clutter up the family blog with my mad ramblings about obsessions many don't care about.... I'm back to using this blog for now.

Now onto the post......

Sadly Mr Indy and I have not been able to play World of Warcraft lately!  Oh how I miss it!  In my longing I've decided to do a letter a day blog until the new expansion comes out.  I know there are more than 26 days til the release of Cataclysm but I'm starting today regardless!  =P