Update of Unspecified Time Period

Since I haven't been playing as much as I'd like to on the weekends, here's a general update of what Frijona's been up to since the last time I updated:

-Frijona received her adorable little Oracle companion from the Northrend Children's Week quests. The little Wolvar is cute, too, but this little guy was being picked on. His name is Ickl0o, Ickle for short. You can see His Adorableness in the screenshot to the left.

-Ding! Fri reached level 78! This is the home stretch! I should be 80 in no time!

-I completed the super-long quest chain in Zul'Drak involving the Loa Har'koa, at least up to the dungeon. It's a fascinating quest chain I suggest everyone do if they get a chance. It's full of lore! And trolls! It starts with Strange Mojo which begins on a mojo that drops while killing Trolls for the quest Mopping Up. I also had the opportunity to do the Amphitheater of Anguish while I was in the area.

Post-weekend update should resume as soon as my weekends stop being so odd.

Politeness Goes A Long Way: The Valiance Expedition Rep Grind

Here’s the thing: I don’t have very much gold. I’m level 77 and I’d like to be able to take an epic flyer around Northrend. The reputation discount for Artisan flying in 3.2 really excited me. Right now, I’m Revered with Valiance Expedition so I could get the skill for 4250 gold. But since I’m nowhere near that, I’m pushing for Exalted, by doing four PVP daily quests in Grizzly Hills and one PVE daily quest in Howling Fjord.

The Howling Fjord quest is called Breaking the Blockade and involves riding around on a stolen Zeppelin and bombing pirate ships. The best part of the quest is the imprisoned Goblin that yells when the zeppelin arrives and leaves. The first time I did it, it took me about five tries and quite a bit of time.  I can now do it in one run. Stand as far towards the very front of the zeppelin as you can (think “I’m King of the World” in Titanic) and then tilt your camera at the boats. When the boat is behind the zeppelin you can tilt your camera around and get a few shots in. Be sure and hotkey the bombs as well.

The PVP quests are fairly straightforward.  The only issue I’ve had with them is being ganked by Horde players. I don’t PVP. When a Horde player attacks me, and he’s not say 5 levels below me, I’ll just run away. With level 80s this sometimes doesn’t work. Yesterday, I had to hop Hordeside to ask a Belf Priest to stop ganking me. She apologized and said she was having a bad day and went to play on another toon. Later, another level 80 decide to start killing me, until I /plead–ed him to stop. He /sorry–ed and left me alone, so I /thank-ed him and he left me alone. Politeness goes a long way even in skirmishes between factions!

My Wishlist to Blizzard: Things I Want in the Next Expansion

1. Some graphic updates. I'd like to see trees that don't look like paper cutouts snapped together.

2. More customizable characters. And by this I don't mean a small selection of additional hairstyles nabbed from other races, but I want to change my character's weight and maybe eye color.

3. Quests with plot. I don't want to run around grabbing animal parts, but I that doesn't mean riding around in a vehicle and chopping off tree limbs is any more enjoyable. I love really long quest chains with fascinating plots.

4. More cut scenes.

5. New races that start at level 55. The Death Knight class to me wasn't as exciting as the races in Burning Crusade. Perhaps if we'd had two epic classes that would have seemed more even. But since Blizzard doesn't want people spending all their time leveling so they can experience more of the endgame content, starting the new races at level 55 would be the way to go.

On Vanity Pet Achievements

Most people love them. Some people couldn't care less. There is probably a collective of cold-hearted individuals out there who hate them. Unfortunately for them, more and more players will be collecting vanity pets due to two changes: one, the removal of pet carriers as items that take up bag space and their replacement as summoning spells that characters can learn upon acquisition of a new pet, and two, the associated achievements:
Can I Keep Him? (Obtain 1 Vanity Pet)
Plenty of Pets (Collect 15 unique vanity pets)
Plethora of Pets (Collect 25 unique vanity pets)
Shop Smart. Shop Pet... Smart (Collect 50 unique vanity pets)
The final one has a reward attached: A Stinking Pet Carrier. I. Wants. One!

Since I'm obviously not alone, WoW Insider included this excellent post on a few fairly easy-to-obtain pets we may have missed. Worg puppies are adorable, so I'll have to finish that quest for sure! The chicken quest will probably be a little more difficult for an RP-er, but I may just play temporary insanity or have Frijona liquor up first.

A few extra tips:
1. The sprite darter that can be obtained in Feralas. Wowwiki has a guide to the quest chain. (Sorry Hordies, this one is Alliance only.)
2. Faction-specific pets can be found in the neutral auction houses.
3. If you completed a quest with a pet reward and deleted your pet, you can get it back by going to a stable-master. Sometimes, however, this doesn't work and you have to open a ticket with a GM.
4. Engineers can make the mechanical squirrel which is bind on equip, so it can be auctioned off. It's a fairly low-level schematic (Sprynklez knows it already).
5. Winter Veil is coming up, with companion pets as presents and rewards.

[Image: A tiny spore bat from Wowwiki. The tiny spore bat is my favorite vanity pet in the game. What's yours?]

Wrath Love

Behind the WoW world as usual, today is my third day playing the Wrath expansion, and here are three things that I love already:

1. The quests! I'm enjoying reading the quest content in a way I haven't since Frijona was running around killing Defias in Northshire Abbey. I've been searching for missing soldiers, killing moles, trapping trappers, and riding mammoths. The plot pieces are fascinating and there is so much more to do than collecting 15 pieces of something.

2. The new racial abilities are very exciting. Humans now have "Every Man for Himself" which "removes all movement impairing effects and all effects which cause loss of control of your character." WoW Insider has slightly outdated descriptions of the new racial abilities here.

3. Achievements were one of the first things I noticed when logging into the game again. They allow players to get recognized for doing both amazing feats and completing rather odd tasks. Blizzard gives a solid introduction to what it's about here, and WoW Insider lists a few of their favorites.