New mounts!

After a bit of ore farming and patience I finally got my first of the Jewelcrafting mounts, the Jade Panther!

My next one I am aiming for is the Sapphire Panther. Just got to finish building back my gold and getting the Trillium for Living Steel. This mount is very cool. I think it may be one of my favourites. The animations look really nice (love the running in the air instead of flying) and he makes a fair amount of noises as well which I like.

My other new mount is my Golden Cloud Serpent!

Another very cool mount, with the added bonus of matching my mog set!

Now I have to decide what dailies to focus on next. I've been taking them one by one - I'm in no hurry to get them done.

Happy Hunting!

I don't even like pink...

Cecil

But there he is, and I will admit I do like him. He's so darn cheerful all the time it's hard not to like him.

His footprints were pretty hard to follow, in the end I decided to wait for him in a bottleneck area I knew he was soon to walk through (based on his footprints latest direction and location) and flared him out there.

And that leaves me with no more pets I am interested in taming and minimal stable slots in which to keep them anyway. My remaining stable slots are reserved for any future spirit beasts, fingers crossed that I can actually stick with that rule this time around.

Happy Hunting!

Book Recommendation: "Jaina Proudmore: Tides of War"

Should be sub-titled:
"What happens when
Jaina gets Mad"

WARNING: THIS POST TALKS ABOUT THE "FALL OF THERAMORE" SCENARIO - POTENTIAL SPOILERS. (I try not to give any details of the book away though, except briefly where it links with the scenario)



I signed up for the Theramore Scenario when it was initially released, and found myself wondering just what on Azeroth was going on. The brief cinematic which played before it started did little to help explain anything. In short, Goblins dropped a bomb on Theramore and supposedly, everyone died) All in all, the whole thing was a bit of a disappointment and from what I heard, a lot of other people felt similar about it. Shortly after running the scenario for the first time, I read the latest lore/bridging novel for Warcraft.

"Jaina Proudmore: Tides of War" by Christie Golden. is the story of what happened before that scenario, and what happened after. While some of what happens in the book isn't reflected in game, it explains almost everything. I wont go into too much detail about what happens, just in case anyone decides (or is in the process of) reading it, however I will say this about it:

This novel explains what the bomb (referred to as the "Focusing Iris" during the scenario) is, where it came from, what happened before it hit, and what happened after Jaina "secured" it. 

"Tides of War" is a very intense and emotionally charged book. It touches briefly on Jaina's history, along with the difficult decisions she has had to make in her lifetime and how they have shaped her as the person she is now, as well as how she copes with a personal tragedy of epic proportions.

I read a review where someone said that Christie Golden gets better with every Warcraft novel she writes, and I have to agree - this one is her best Warcraft novels yet and I loved it. It's not often that a book (especially a book based on a game) will trigger strong emotional responses out of me, but this one did. Christie has done a fantastic job of writing Jaina and has managed to portray not only Jaina, but the other major characters, wonderfully. As well as really showing you just how devastating and thorough the destruction of Theramore really was.

I came away from this book with several points:

1. If you didn't already hate Garrosh before reading this book, you will afterwards. I disliked him before (having had read "The Shattering" - the pre-cata novel also by Christie Golden), I utterly despise him now.
 
2. I do not want to ever make Jaina mad. Ever. Jaina gets MAD - and I do mean mad with capital "MAD"

It looks like in future patches the aftermath of the destruction of Theramore will get some game time - I certainly hope so. If only to find out more about Jaina and what she is capable off. 

So, if you like reading about game history/lore, want to know more about what happened to Theramore and why, or even just want to learn more about Jaina, then definitely read this book.

Happy Reading! (And Hunting)

So much for that idea

Well, despite telling myself that the rares I had were enough, I couldn't help myself and went looking for another. This time it was Portent, from the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, that I had a itch for.

I don't really need another 5% crit pet - my devilsaur and wolf (for the rare non-BM spec occasions) were good enough, however I managed to convince myself that a battle-res pet was a good idea. I was originally going to settle for a "normal" purple quilen obtained through questing, however the more I looked into it, the more I realised that 3 of the 4 colour options for Portent were actually quite nice. Of course, once the bug had bitten, I had no choice but to go looking for him.

The biggest problem with finding Portent is that a lot of the area he paths in is phased, and having only just hit 90 a few days ago, I hadn't unlocked any of those areas yet. Unfortunately I didn't know which parts of the Vale would be phased and which were not. After following his entire path a few times and having no luck I decided to stick to half which I knew I could find him in (thanks go to Kalliope's Portent video for that information).

After taking a short break I decided to have another look and this time I got lucky.

Well actually, this time was a fluke. I didn't find his footprints, instead, there was a minor latency in switching the "layers" where a non-phased area met a phased area, a latency which caused me to catch a shadowy glimpse of Portent without needing to flare him out first. Enough so that I was able to see which direction he was going. From there it was a matter of flaring him out where I guessed he would be, and after two attempts, I found him and managed to tame him. It wasn't until after he was tamed, did I finally see his footprints.

What made it even better is that I found him in the colour I wanted the most. I really love the purple look, and in some places the colours really stand out so I am quite happy with him. Once again though I am struggling with a name - hopefully he won't remain nameless for too long.

He looks so smug...

Happy Hunting!

Latest Tames!

Despite my initial "meh" attitude towards the looks of the new challenge tames, I have now gone out and tamed three more!

Bloodtooth

I hit 88 yesterday, so that set me off on a new taming frenzy. First, I went looking for Bloodtooth. I wasn't too interested in him at the start, I already had Terropene and that filled my turtle quota, but when I thought about it, I realised I hadn't gotten very attached the fire turtle skin at all. After seeing some screenshots of people with Bloodtooth I found I quite liked his appearance and decided to give him a shot. Running down to Krasarang Wilds, I picked up his tracks about 1/4 of the way down his path, then found him about 3/4 of the way to the end of his path about 15 minutes later. After much thought I named him Takeshi.

Stompy!

Stompy was the only new tame I was originally interested in, so shortly after taming Bloodtooth I made my way into the Kun-Lai Summit to hunt him down, after falling off Mount Neverest once, I found his tracks, followed closely by him not 5 minutes later. Now named Irving, thanks to my Sister. (She strongly believes that he looks like an Irving, and who am I to disagree?)

Glimmer

I wasn't going to get a water strider at all, but after using most of my water walking potions in the last few days I figured I might as well, and if you are going to do something, you might as well put some effort into it. Having heard that Glimmer was one of the hardest ones to track down and find I got myself ready for a long haul, and he certainly gave me the run around. I found his tracks heading up along the map towards the Arboretum. Even with ground clutter downed all the way down his tracks are hard to spot in some places and I lost him many times. When I found him again he was going in the opposite direction, then I lost him again due to phasing areas. I made the decision to head to his end point, then try run into him by going in the opposite direction. A plan which turned out for the best - in the time it took me to get to his finishing point and start heading back he had almost caught up with me. The hardest of my four tames, but I am very happy with the outcome - Miles is going to be my fishing buddy from now on =D

I have to say this new challenge tame system for hunters is a lot fun - it makes finding new pets more interesting then just sitting around camping. It helps that my server probably doesn't have too many people looking for the new pets so they have always been around when I have looked for them, but I find myself really enjoying the tracking part of hunter taming. I doubt I will go after any others of the new pets, but I certainly hope that any new hunter specific pets are introduced in the same way.

Hopefully other hunters are enjoying the new system as much as I am, and getting all the pets they want without too much stress.

I'd also like to throw a special shout out to Sneaky Sams for all the wonderful pet pathing maps - I wouldn't have been able to track my pets down without them!

Happy Hunting!