Casual Huntering

Posts Tagged ‘Achievements’

I have like 5 minutes to write something. I should have written this morning, but instead I spent the morning before work transcribing Leyenda (classical guitar piece) from sheet music to tablature.

So, as you may have already known, I have been very nervous about this week, Children’s Week, and the PvP achievement “The School of Hard Knocks” I’ve been doing more BGs lately to get myself prepared for it, and it paid off!!!!

Yesterday I finished up the achievement relatively quickly. It took 5 Eye of the Storms, 2 Warsang Gluches, 2 Alterac Valleys, and 1 Arathi Basin. It helped that I paid money to get a run boost enchant, and I already had a 10% bonus to my mount speed because I was playing as a beast master, and it also helps that I’ve had some dumb luck as of late (see previous post about the spirit beast).

So, now I get to learn how to PvP as a mage, and a DK.  I don’t know if that’s going to happen or not, we’ll see how it goes. I’ll give a report.

Anyway, I hungry, and that school lunch food is calling to me.

I finally got working on the “Love is in the Air” holiday achievements on my Deathknight, (with my wife the mage to help me out, I wonder how I ever get along without her, the ports are so nice).

Oh my goodness, “Love is in the Air” this year is a breeze. I thought maybe the candies would be difficult because you have to still buy bags, which still has the random element, but I bought a bag, it gave me 10 charges with the heart candies then. I got half of the achievement in one bag. Well, the candies aren’t soulbound. So, you ought to put those duplicates on the Auction House, and then simply buy the ones you don’t have for like 50 silver each!!!!! Wow, could it not be any easier!

Oh and the achievement with the Romantic picnic Basket? You don’t even have to have one, just get someone else to sit down with you and eat your Buttermilk Delight (which by the way is the only expensive chocolate on the AH, it was going for about 40 gold). So, save your love tokens.

The achievement Fist full of love, the one where you through flower petals at people, now that can be a bit of a challenge. We hung out in Dallaran forever last night trying to finish up that, never could find a Troll Rogue. If I can’t find one, I’m just going to roll a troll on my wife’s account and go throw petals at him in the beginning area. A little bit of a pain in the butt, but still easy peazy.

The rest of them are easy as well. I pitied the fool achievement just makes you go all over the place to do that. Oh, and yes you do have to be 80 to get into Naxx to pity the fool there. And you need to turn your group into a raid group, easily done if you click on the raid tab of the social box. On the top it says “convert to raid”, you’ll need at least one other person with you or at least in your party to do this.

Oh and by the way, those bracelets that you make and take to the different leaders in the capital cities? Yeah, those aren’t soulbound either. I saw them on the AH for about 12 gold each. This is actually going to be an easy way to make extra money doing what you normally do and selling off the bracelets.

Makes me wonder if they made this holiday achievement too easy, almost flip flopped from last year. They’re giving us more time it seems like as well. So, take your time, enjoy and savor the holiday.

By the way, it’s Friday and that means Friday Fiction! Today I’m introducing Aoirselvar Silversmith. Yes, he’s my main character and I talk about him all the time, but not from a role play perspective. I decided to roll him a twitter RP account (http://www.twitter.com/AoirselvarRP). I’ve only written a small little bit for him so far. He is much different to write for than Praxton. He has a much more jovial personality, closer to mine but more daring than I am. He’s a little crazy and has symptoms of ADHD like I do, very tangential (prone to tangents). At this point he’s not interacting with any of the other RP characters so all of this is my own writing. (sorry about that).

Hope you enjoy.

It was foggy as Aoirselvar walked off the boat at the Menethil Harbor “Aye, it good to be home.” He said as he watched crews unload his bike. Aoir knew it would be quicker to probably take a gryphon, but he wanted a chance to take a ride, took him long enough to build, he wanted to take every advantage he could, besides, he wanted to take in the familiar sights, he had been in Northrend far too long.

Aoir’s mind drifted as he rode past gators and such, it seemed like a lifetime since he had been here in the Wetlands. He felt so nostalgic. It was chilly this time of year, even some of the swamps here were frozen over, it started to lightly snow, which made for a more exciting motorcycle ride. Aoir grinned in anticipation.

The lake in Loch Modan was usually frozen this time of year, ‘I wonder how much weight it can take. Wonder if I dare…’ Aoir thought. ‘Best not to think about it’, he thought as he took off towards the lake, revving his bike as he went. As he came to the edge of the lake, he hesitated for a second then gritted his teeth and accelerated. Amazingly enough the ice held, Aoirselvar yelled out in triumph, then cranked the handbars hard right and balanced the bike as it slid. He then brought it straight as he popped a wheelie and yelled! Then heard a hard cracking sound. He looked back and saw that maybe he over did it.

There was a splinted crack following him quickly where he had previously ridden. “Oh @#%”, Aoir exclaimed. He looked forward and again revved his bike turning for the shore. “#$@#$ @#$%”, he found himself in the middle of the lake, ice breaking quickly around him; there was a little island just up ahead. Aoir gunned it as he felt his back tire dropping down occasionally. Finally he felt firm ground below his bike. He gave an audible sigh.

“Should a thought that one through better.”, he said out loud as he scratched at his braided beard.

He looked about, thinking that an island wasn’t the best place to be with a motorbike. Just then he heard a snap, and growl. At least 13 starving gators started taking turns snapping at him. ‘It was turning out to be a fun day after all.’, Aoir thought to himself. He reached down, he’s gun was attached to the bike next to the collapsed sidecar. It had been awhile since he hunted gators. A few moments later, Aoir, surrounded by dead alligators, surmised his situation.

Still on the island with a motor bike.

However, maybe the southern side of the small isle would work. Without a moment of hesitation he kicked his bike in gear. Ice began to crack, but not quickly enough. Aoirselvar was able to glide nicely along without any further problems.

A little while late Aoir pulled up to his family’s ranch house in Dun Morogh just outside of Kharanos. Aoir had long since been on his own, but his sister who now ran the place still let him house his animals here. He made sure there was plenty of coin to go around to keep the animals housed. He had plenty from mercenary jobs he pulled in Northrend lately. He didn’t have as much time as he would have liked to stay around, he needed to get some supplies in Ironforge then head out to Stormwind to visit Kydra.

Aoir had left a couple of his pets in the stables at Dalaran, particularly his large snapping turtle and his wolf. He had a little whelping he liked to keep around with him, it was amusing at best during long gryphon flights.

He went to the cage where his ghost saber was quietly sleeping. “Misty, how’s it going?” The big cat rolled over slightly eying her master. Then she rolled back, closing her eyes.

“Oh, get off your butt ya’ silly cat. I got somethin’ for ya’” Misty’s head perked up.

The dwarf threw in a large piece of raw meat. That got the cat’s attention. She got up, excitedly, but then insisted on slowly meandering towards her mid-morning breakfast as if to say, ‘well, I guess if you insist.’ and then she devoured the meat.

“I’m looking for some company, and I er, missed ya, ya silly oof of a cat.” The cat looked away.

“Oh come one, don’t be jealous. I wanted ter give ya a rest fer a bit. Let’s get going.”

The cat finished the last of her food & looked up. A little while later, Aoirselvar found himself roaming the halls of Ironforge with Misty at his side, “Agh, it feels good ta be home.”

This interaction with Aoir and his pets is really fun to write. I loved giving his cat an attitude problem. If you’ve ever had a cat before then you completely understand. I’m really not sure what I’m going to be doing with Aoirselvar, but it should be a fun ride.

I’m finally getting back into raiding with my hunter. Its been awhile since I’ve done much. I got the alt bug (altitis) back in November and its been difficult to focus on any alt for more than 5 seconds which you could read about on a recent blog post Alts and ADHD.

So, I’m not exactly going gun ho or anything. I’m only raiding once a week on our “gearing up” raid night. We’ve been running 10 man ToC on Tuesdays for those who aren’t quite ready to go to ICC. My dps is slowly increasing as I’m learning the fights and improving my gear. I was very happy this last Tuesday to finally get a gun. I’ll admit that I haven’t had a gun on my dwarf hunter since Burning Crusade. I know I know, it’s sad. I’ve been told that my dwarf probably should cut off his beard because of the shame (especially with the dwarven racial gun crit bonus). In my defense, I’ve seemed to have the worse luck in this regard.

In the last couple of weeks I have replaced a lot of gear, my shoulders, bracers, a low low trinket, range weapon, melee weapon, and head piece. I know I could do it probably a little quicker if I exclusively focused on the hunter. Probably should do more daily randoms, but I don’t. I still got the alt bug (not to mention the holiday bug, or worse yet… the alt holiday bug – that’s where you have to do the holidays with your alts as well.) I’ve been trying to get my death knight the “Love is in the Air” meta achievement on her way to getting a 310% speed violet protodrake as well. She has a little farther to go than Aoirselvar does. I guess there is just too many things I want to do with the very limited time I have to do it.

So, I’m slowly becoming more and more useful to my raiding team. My gear is at the moment in disarray. I just picked up a new trinket with hellova lot of hit on it. Also haven’t gemmed or enchanted any of my new gear that I got this week yet. Oh, and I need a scope for my gun (yay!!). Too much to do. But at least each week my dps is getting better (I won’t admit my dps as to not shame and embarrass myself – maybe later).

This is I guess what I would consider an “update” post, letting you know what’s going on in my neck of the woods. I’ll try to keep these to a minimal, I don’t know if you care to know what I’m doing or not. But then again you are here reading this on my blog so maybe you do. I have some more informative posts in the works. I’ll make sure when I do such things that I either have first hand knowledge or that I at least do my research.

Alright, I finally hit an accomplishment that many people will think isn’t much, but it was totally a big deal for me. I got my second character to level 80.

The funny thing is that my second character is a death knight. Shouldn’t they be the easiest class to level to 80??? Yes, I’m afraid so. So, how long did it take me to get the toon to level 80 though? Well, I rolled her the night Wrath of the Lich King came out, when everybody else was rolling death knights as well. So, it’s been over a year. I remember the death knight starting area being crazier than hell. My wife and I rolled death knights at the same time and went through the death knight begin area together.

Now my wife and I ended up parting ways at level 58. I really wanted to level this death knight. I know my wife is still a little mad at me about that. Well, we do have a pair of death knights that we are leveling on the Feathermoon server at least. Originally, the death knight was going to be my farming toon. So, I leveling mining and skinning on her. By the way, leveling mining can be a pain in the @ss! It took a good deal of time to level that high enough just to take it to the outlands. Since then I’ve enjoyed playing the death knight so much I’ll probably try to get her geared enough to do some raiding, and maybe someday I’ll try to learn how to tank with her.

Well, with my attention deficit problem it has taken awhile to get my first death knight finally leveled all the way. In the mean time, I’ve taken four other death knights through the beginning area to level 58. I don’t keep rolling death knights cause I love the class (I do actually love the class don’t get me wrong), but mostly because whenever you go to a new server, well you ought to roll a death knight. It’s the quickest way to make money and get established.

So, how long did it take to level the dk? When I checked the /played feature it said I’d played this character for 6 days and 13 hours. That’s nothing compared to my hunter, but its still a freakin’ lot of time to be playing a game. My next highest leveled alt is only level 36, my druid on Deathwing. Now getting the druid to level 80 will be much more of an accomplishment. Of course I think just the fact that when I leveled my hunter it was still back in the day before Blizzard increased the speed at which you could level. I tell you, by golly, back in the day the grind from level 40 to level 60 was really bad. And leveling in the outlands took a lot longer as well. So, in my opinion leveling a toon in vanilla WoW was much more an accomplishment than it is now. Leveling from 70 to 80 still takes a good long while, but much easier and more fun with LFG. I would quest while sitting in the queue and then I’d jump into a group and take out an instance somewhere. Keep going if they would or jump back to questing. It’s the ultimate help while leveling. You get good gear while getting a ton of XP.

Well, there you have it, I’m probably one of the most casual guys in the game you’ll know, of course the very fact that I’m writing a blog means that I’m probably not quite that casual, but now I have my second 80. Well, neither of them are geared very well, so I’m still rather pathetic.

Well, I woke up thinking that I was going to start my Valentines holiday with my toons. It did start today after all. Last year I got everything done with exception to the things that require you to be level 80, at the time, I still wasn’t, very sad I know. So, it’ll be a cinch to get this year. I already got the really difficult random drops. But as I’m running over to the inn keeper to start the once-an-hour routine (to hope to get the random drops on my DK) I notice that the inn keeper doesn’t have any thing for me at all.

Confused (as I assume most people in my predicament are) I turned to do some research and most people had great guilds how to get through the “Love Is In the Air” world of warcraft holiday for 2009 and earlier, not helping me at the particular moment.

By the way, here are some links with in-depth detailed information being updated as we speak: The WoWhead guide (which has usually been my favorite), the WoW.com guild (they’re updating as we speak as well), the WoWwiki guide (which tends to get updated much slower than the other two)

It appears instead of getting on once an hour, you need to instead do dailies to get Love Tokens, which then you can use to buy all of those difficult random drops (not so random anymore). You can also get Love Tokens by trading them in for bracelets which you can get materials to make them by killing regular mobs that you would be able to get XP for or would have even if you’re at max level. So, basically any mob that isn’t gray to you.  The drop rate is suppose to be roughly about 38%.

Instead of hoping to have enough luck to get the perm-pet Peddlefeet (ugliest one in the game), or the picnic basket, or the lovely black dress, you just buy them with the Love Tokens. Oh, and now there is a Rocket mount drop from the holiday boss.

There are plenty of other stuff you get to do, but this post wasn’t suppose to be a definitive guide, there are plenty other people doing all the work for that. I suggest that you go to WoWhead, for their “Love is in the Air” guide. Their guild will give you every bit of information you could care to know about the event (and some you probably didn’t care about).

So, I guess this is Blizzard’s answer to all of the complaints they had last year when many people weren’t able to finish the meta-achievement just because they weren’t able to get some random drop. The holiday changes from the hourly drudge to something that might actually be fun.  I think most of us don’t like much trying to get “random drops” to finish the meta-achievement. Many of us are attempting to do all of this to finish the big old grand meta achievement “What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been” so that you can get that 310% speed Violet Proto Drake. I know there are many people out there that were very diligent and already got this last year, but there are always alts and many of us weren’t cool enough to get it done.

So, get at it make love happen in your small part of Azeroth.

Okay, I know its February now and I should have already made this post. I’m already a month behind. Well, if I would have made the post before this last weekend it would have disappeared. You see we backed up the blog early this month to move it over, but then we had some difficulties moving (mostly because I’m a noob when it comes to the technical stuff), but we figured it out! So, I’ve been waiting to post my Azerathian new year resolutions, so here goes.

• Level at least 2 more characters to max level before the expansion.
  • This should be so hard to get, I think… I have my DK at level 79.66 right now so we should just be about there in a little bit if I can stay focused.
• Finish the “What a crazy year” achievement and get my violet 310% speech proto drake on Aoirselvar.
  • On a side note, I want to get started working on this for my DK as well.
• Get my Dwarf Hunter raid worthy
  • I admit it, I’ve lapsed on this in the last couple of months. I know this should be easy if I focus, but every time I sit down to the computer I get side tracked by one squirrel or another.
• Learn how to tank on my DK and feral druid
  • I have not problem trying this out, my only problem is that I don’t wand the LFG to be my first attempt at it. So, I’m going to have to talk some patient guildies into letting me try this out, oh and my druid is only level 35 anyway, so it’ll just be swipe heaven I’m told.
• Learn to heal on my druid (hopefully duel spec sometime) and priest
  • Okay, so I’ve been wanting to try out other aspects of the game. I realized that the days of me being a one character player are over.
• Tank something I’m not suppose to with my turtle.
  • I’ve been obsessed with pet tanking since 3.0 and no one ever takes me seriously. I guess I can’t hardly blame them, but I think non-hunters don’t understand what a good tenacity pet can accomplish. Once we were trying to do the Brewfest holiday boss and we didn’t have a tank, not a big deal, it’s a pretty easy fight actually. So, I tell my boomkin brother that I’ll tank and he told me, “Okay, but you watch, I’m guaranteed to pull aggro off your tank cause I do super massive DPS.” I shrugged in return. He thought I was stupid and only was letting me do this cause it was an easy easy fight. So, at the end when he didn’t even come close to my turtle’s threat he was a little surprised.
• Write at least weekly with quality and at least somewhat useful posts here on this blog.
  • On a side note, I’m also determined about being better to not let this blog, twitter, forums, or another blog from affecting my work performance. I’ve been guilty of that in the past and I’m going to try to keep this to a minimum when I’m at work. Now I’m not saying I’m going to never do anything WoW related at work, I know that I can’t keep that promise.
• Obtain the 100 mount achievement
  • Do I dare put this as a goal for the year when I’ve become an altoholic? I don’t know, but this has been a fun thing for me on Aoirselvar, so far I think I’m up to like 75 or so.

At least that’s some of the stuff that I want to get accomplished. Well, see how the year goes, but writing it down I think helps you stay focused, something I have a problem with that I’ll have to write about on a different day.

Well, this was the first year that we cooked a turkey. It was our turn to host thanksgiving for my family. So, we got to have 18 people over in our little house (it was cramped to say the least). We got to roast a turkey. But it wasn’t quite what I expected.

Here are some steps, first go find yourself a bird, probably around elywn forest or something (yeah, that’s just around the corner from our house, so we were in luck).

Then build a fire. At this point the turkey will sense his foreboding destiny.

This is the exciting part, the little gobbler will actually throw himself to the fire.

The presto, instant roasted turkey. I really thought it would have taken like 7 hours in the oven. This was a little surprising.

The whole Pilgrim’s Bounty holiday was a lot of fun, but let me tell you what. If you don’t have a mage that you happen to be married to then good night it would be a pain in the butt. Overall, we had a lot of fun with this holiday, and the turkey pet that throws himself in the fire? Priceless. I used the WoWhead guild again (I do for all the holidays, they haven’t lead me astray… yet).

Happy Thanksgiving!!

It’s that fun time of year again, where you try to get to you computer hourly for the possibility of a treat or to be tricked again by that sinister innkeeper. It’s Hallow’s Eve!!! So, apparently my wife and I got most of the stuff done for this holiday meta achievement last year (by the way, here is the link to the WoWhead guide, but if you really don’t know where that is then I have some nice property to sell you as well).

So, last night we got most of the stuff done. We loaded our selves with Gnerd candy and went off to do some battlegroups. I had forgotten how much fun controlled PvP is. I have been gripping about PvP lately, but the stuff I don’t like is the rogue sneak up on you while you are trying to mine an ore and then steal the ore from you kind of PvP. Not too big on world PvP. But I think my wife had fun. This was the second time she had ever done a battle group. She likes to do AoE and kills lots and lots of hordies. So now all I have left is to get the stink bomb quests up in south shore and I’ll get my nifty title, and be one step closer to getting my violet proto drake. I’ve seen several people have them and I’m a little jealous, I must admit. I’ll have to be patient though. I didn’t get a whole lot done last year in regards to the holidays. So, far I’ve only completed Brewfest and Winter’s veil meta achievements.

Some quick tips for your Hallow’s End Holiday Season:

Keep trick or treating, you can get your squalshing pet and your pumpkin head this way (that’s how I got it). The other two ways are to kill the Headless Horseman and then roll on it (oh it seems that someone else always wins the roll) and then you can get it by dousing the fires in one of the small towns like Goldshire (I couldn’t do this because there aren’t enough crazy people like me playing at 6am). Course I would still try to kill the Headless Horseman every day if I were you for that chance of a mount, one of the coolest mounts in the game. The only flying horse, its soooo cool, I wants it sooo bad. By the way on your way to attempting to get the pet, pumpkin head, and mount, you’ll get so many of those stupid rings it’ll make you sick. It’s like brewfest all over again, but just replace trinkets for rings. Very annoying.

That’s actually the hardest achievement to complete for Hallow’s Eve. The PvP achievement is easy peasy, you have to do some quests and stuff, no big deal. You’ll have to go to practically every inn in Azeroth, but why complain; you’ll be making a lot of money in the process. The costume wand achievement can be a bit tricky, but if aren’t patient (like me) and just want to get it done quickly then just go start asking around, your guildies will likely have a few they can give you themselves. Then for that last one you can’t seem to get, go to the trade channel (yes, the vile trade channel) and just tell someone you’ll pay them if they’ll use a charge on you. The going rate for this on my server is 10g per charge. And if you have extra charges you might as well make some money while you are at it. I personally think there’s easier and more fun ways to make money that spamming the trade channel, saying you’ll turn someone into a pirate for 10 gold, but to each his own.

Oh and don’t worry about the mask thing. Yes, its near impossible, and that’s why Blizzard took that off of the meta achievement. Over the years you might get it, if you are lucky. Actually, the masks drop from trick or treating a lot more frequently this year, have you noticed?

So, I have an advantage over some of you for holidays like this. My wife doesn’t have a paying job (our kids don’t pay very well you see) so she’s home during the day and she will get on and trick or treat for us hourly. In exchange during these holidays I’ll work on some of the achievements she’d rather not do (like children’s week PvP achievements). We both really enjoying do the holiday achievements. It’s a blast and it breaks up the monotony.

So, have fun, be safe trick or treating. Remember to only go to houses of people you know, beware of traffic (mechano hogs), check your treats before you eat them, and go with an adult. Have a happy Hallow’s Eve!!

I forgot to post this when I got it.

I have finally finished making my Mekgineer’s Chopper and I love it. I realized that I had the last of the mats for it right before I went on a raid with my guild in Ulduar. It was nice to be in a raid where I can break out my bike for part of it. Of course it was the only mount I rode while I was there. I was surprised how many people like to jump in for a ride. I felt like whenever someone jumped in my side-car that I had to give them their moneys worth and drive around doing 180 degree jumps and what not. Of course I guess they got their moneys worth because it was free after all. It was fun nonetheless. By the way, anybody in Deathwing US server, if you get me the mats I’ll make it for you.

Here are some family photos with my bike. My brother and myself in the hog. Kind of weird to have your brother be a night elf, I know, but he’s really my bro (Kygongyn), promise.

And the picture with me and Delu, well that’s a cousin picture. I have a few cousins that are in our guild.

So, I have been doing the argent tournament quests recently, which is actually kind of fun, but really its fun to be playing again. There is so much to do in the AT area, I just barely became a “champion” this morning. Yup, champion of Ironforge, its about time my stupid home town recognized me for something.

Sadly, my main focus is, again, mounts, how can I get more mounts, so sad. Really, who has more mounts than vanity pets???/raises hand sheepishly. I’m still 5 pets away from getting my skunk, but I have 63 mounts. Right now I’m doing the Argent Tournment quests to build rep up with Silver Covenant which in turn gives me rep with Alliance Vanguard which I need to be exaulted with in order to get my schematic for my motorcycle!!!! Yes, this is going to be horribly expensive, and yes I still have like 12 days of smelting titaianm steal bars (let alone farm a ton of freakin gold), but its so going to be worth it (even if I don’t really need another land mount). But there are a ton of other mounts to be had with the Argent Tournament, nothing as cool as the hippogryph that you can get with 150 of those champion badge things. I haven’t decided if that one if worth going after for or not.

Why am I soooo obcessed with mounts? That probably should be the big motivation for playing. I guess its the obtaining of mounts thats really fun. It takes a lot of work for some of them, but its the joy in the journy, right? That’s why I’m so obsessed.