Leafshine: Lust for Flower

Quit WoW? Nearly…

I was sent this screengrab a couple of weeks ago by Dale, who managed to come up with this while using the in-built YouTube video browser to look at other videos after watching the one I embedded here.

I uploaded the picture, intending to blog about it, but didn't get around to it. And, while it sat unseen on Typepad's servers, it very nearly came true for me. For one reason or another, I just didn't have time to play WoW at all for a couple of weeks. And I found that I'd stopped thinking about it, and wasn't missing it. Three weeks in, I was seriously contemplating quitting for good.

By last weekend, I genuinely thought that the next post on this blog would be the "goodbye, WoW" post that has been so common on blogs of late.

And then, I signed up for one last Naxx raid last Monday evening and, to my complete surprise, I had a complete and utter blast. Despite the fact that we spent much of the evening learning Heigan and his dance dance revolution, which meant lots and lots and lots of death, everyone stayed very good-natured. We got better with each iteration, and people were still laughing and joking as we did so. And, in the end, we had a massively successful night (for us).

So…

I'm back in the game, and back on the blog. Didya miss me? :-)

Once Upon A Leafy

Once upon a time, a very long time ago in fact, I was tagged to do a meme. And I thought "ooh, that looks fun. I must dig out a really old screenie and do that". And promptly forgot all about it.

Once upon a much more recent time, Admiral Bob Llianion got around to fulfilling his tag. And I thought "oooh, blimey, I should have done that". And this time I remembered to dig out my old screenie! And there is young Leafshine, in her 16th season, exploring Westfall, and being awestruck both by the sunset, and by how clean her UI was, back in those 1.x days of WoW. 

So, what were my n00bish moments?

When Dailies are a Grind

I'm getting to the point many of you have been for a long while: the end of Wrath questing. I have the achievement for every zone, bar Northrend, and I'm 102/140 there, at the time of writing. A few solid hours of playtime, and I'm done with the main questlines in Wrath. 

With a couple of hours to spare, I went daily crazy:

And the verdict?

That's something I don't want to do again in a hurry. Doing 25 daily quests is very, very different from doing 25 normal quests. You know how it will pan out. You know how the quest plays out. It's familiar. 

Now, that can be part of the appeal. I'm a big fan of most of the Knights of the Ebon Blade dailies, for instance. Fun, varied, quick and good rep. On the other hand, the Sons of Hodir dailies are a bit of a pain in the arse already, and I'm only half way to Revered. 

I suddenly realise when so many of my guildies are running alts right now: there's only so may dailies you can do in a day. And running an alt, even through quests you've done before, gives you a whole new perspective on them.

So, that's the plan: clear Icecrown, finish up my manifold group quests, grab Heroics wherever I can, do a set number of dailies and devote the rest of the time to an alt.

Sound reasonable?

All Quiet on the Leafy Front

10 days since my last post. Ooops. What's happening in Leafy-land and why is everything so quiet?

Well, for one thing my day job is keeping me hellaciously busy, launching blogs left, right and centre...

Oh, and Mrs Dr Leafy and I are busy house-hunting, which is keeping me away from the iMac at weekends. (And we just celebrated six years of marriage! Yay!)

Oh, and we have a friend staying for a few weeks, which is denying me access to the study most evenings.

So, actually, my WoW time has been pretty light for the last few weeks. I'm steadily working my way through the Icecrown quests (72 of 140 right now, and just hit the first of what many people have warned me will be umpteen group quests), and I've been busy getting gear crafted with the hope of starting raiding in a few weeks when my schedule opens up a bit more.

But for now, well, it's all a bit quiet. And that seems to be guild-wide, right now.

*tumbleweeds*

Busy Evening

So, not only have I dinged 80, but I also managed these two, both unexpectedly:

This happened while I was knocking up some Very Burnt Worg after doing the cooking daily and buying the recipe. And then, on the way back to Zul'Drak:

Uh, is there any point at all to Crystalsong Forest?

Leafy Ding 78

They just keep coming don't they?

Is it flight form making everything faster?

Or is it Glaive the super-pally helping me clear that backlog of group quests?

Leafy Ding 77!

I'm sure I'm not the only person who likes playing with my guildies' minds just a little bit. For instance, last week I was able to time this:

so that just as all my guildies were saying "Gratz" for the achievement, I handed in a second quest to make this happen:

What's in Leafy's Bags?

You like somebody, you trust somebody and then what do they do? They tag you so you have to post your UI and bags, and then everyone can see how much of a n00b you are.

Cheers, Bell. :-)

Right, here we go. Chocks away:

Yes. I'm a n00b. I use pretty much the default interface. I do have HealBot and Omen installed, which will pop up when I'm in a group, but generally I just use the out-of-the-box interface. I can't get into wholesale revamping of the interface now. Sorry. I'm just too used to the default after four years…

As for my bags, well, four normal bags and one enchanting bag. As I'm levelling and disenchanting quest greens a lot of the time, it makes sense space-wise to be carrying an enchant bag. It also means I can be doing enchants for guildies on an impromptu basis, too. I level enchanting faster that way. 

There's the best part of 2 sets of gear in there, too. There's my kitty feral gear, with some swap-out bear gear. And a few spell-casting orientated swap-outs from my normal healing kit. There will be some pots, some cooking mats, and some quest items. And probably a few trinkets or idols I should have got rid of by now.

Actually, my bags are a mess, aren't they?