Leafshine: Lust for Flower

Last Night, In Naxx Camp

In my excitement about having movie recording back, I forgot to mention that we got two new bosses down in Naxxramas last night, and I even have the end of the first kill on video.

Go us.

Are You A Process-Driven or Goal-Driven Player?

It's happening. I knew it would, and I've been waiting for it to happen for about 48 hours. And it's begun.

The guild is beginning to separate into the fast levellers and the slow levellers. People I ran Utgarde Keep with a week ago are plotting trips to Instances I'll be too low level for until early December at the earliest. And, surprise, surprise, sign-ups for the cutting edge content are over-subscribed, and those for the earlier instances are struggling to fill up. I shouldn't be surprised - I went through this both with the original game and Burning Crusade, but it's always a touch frustrating. 

The level differential is just going to grow, too. At the moment, I should break 72 at the weekend, but probably won't hit 73 until the end of the month. I imagine that several of my guildmates will be in their mid-to-high 70s by then. I would be surprised if we don't see the first guild 80 before I hit 75.

Now, partially this is a time issue. I really don't have much available play time right now. In fact, looking at my diary right now, I'm going to get a single evening's instance-running the whole of next week. And that'll be it for playtime. Every other evening I've got something in the diary, and a packed daytime work schedule as well. 

But it's more than that. I don't want to be levelling that fast.

A New Home for Andromache

Apologies for my silence over the last few days. I've been busy on various projects, including one that you can see above. My Guild Master Andromache was ken to move off Blogger onto a hosted Movable Type blog, so I've been building the blog you see above.

From now on Andro, a Mage, will be posting at The Witching Hour's new address, so please feel free to swing by and say hello!

How Long Does it Take 20 Level 70s to Kill Onyxia?

About three minutes. But they're a fun three minutes.

UPDATE: Video up on our guild blog.

Good News & Bad News in Leafy Land

It's been a bit of a bad news / good news 48 hours here in Leafy towers. Let's handle the bad bit first.

Bad News

We raided Zul'Aman on Thursday night. And we did Eagle and Bear bosses on the timer. I was excited, because all the decent resto loot comes from the chests on those bosses. We pushed onwards to the Dragonhawk boss, without opening the crates…

…and my screen froze. I had to force a reboot of the iMac, and it wouldn't restart. The hard drive had died mid-game. It took me 20 minutes to establish that the iMac wasn't coming back, switch over to my MacBook, find the external HD I use for WoW on that, and get logged back in. By which time, they'd gone back and looted the chests, including Elunite Imbued Leggings which went to a paladin.

Now, you can read the other side of the story on Andro's blog, but I think we both screwed up here. Sure, it wasn't a great call to open those chests without being sure I wasn't coming back. But it wasn't a great call of mine to bail from the raid when I discovered what they'd done. And the irony is, of course, that I listened without really reading, which was stupid of me. Because the drop is much more Boomkin gear than druid gear, and wouldn't really have been an upgrade anyway. Useful for caster soloing, but not really for my primary healing role. The combination of losing an expensive computer and then having the apparent loot loss adding insult to injury was a bit much for me - which suggests to me that, emotionally, I've got a long way to go before I regain my emotional equilibrium after the loss of my Mum and all the stress that goes with house clearance and funerals. Grief really works its way into every aspect of your life, and you always underestimate how profound an effect it has. 

Good News

The following afternoon, before I took my iMac in for repair, I had a chance to do some invasion-clearing with Glaive the super-pally and some other guildies, including an alt of Psia's. And I managed to complete my leather invasion set, for kitty-cat soloing and levelling! Hurrah!

I'd been lucky to pick up some leather from Karazhan which our rogues didn't need, but adding Blessed Tunic of Undead Slaying and Blessed Leggings of Undead Slaying to the gloves and shoulders I bought with Necrotic Runes from the last invasion has given me a robust set going into Wrath, which is pleasing. And I do like the look. Very druidy.

Oh, and we went into Kara again last night, and gave Tenris Mirkblood a good kicking, albeit one delivered on the run. So, I have my lovely little vampire bat now.

Guild Tech Pain

Oh, today has not been a WoW-filled day. Our Guild mailing list, affectionately known as GuildSpam or SpamMail went suspiciously quiet this morning, and a few e-mails around my guildies confirmed my worst fears - Dreamhost, the company I use for the guild hosting, has screwed up again. And this comes less than 2 days after they accidentally charged their users over a year's worth of hosting.

I think the time has come to shift the Guild's hosting elsewhere. I have my eye on a new host, and I'm probably going to be offering my guildies blog hosting on either Wordpress or Movable Type.

That may well mean that I say goodbye to Typepad here, and switch to Movable Type, too, which will make signing in to comment easier for people, as well.

Looks like a job for the weekend...

Anyway, Karazhan tonight! Hurrah!