Pages

Saturday, August 31, 2013

Wowscreenshotaday days 28-31


I'm such a slacker. Not only am I'm waiting until the last minute but I've been taking them in batches. I'll have to try better in September.

28. Corridor
Nexus! The land of the amazing corridors. Hardest part was choosing which one to submit.

29. Lucky
Lucky Quilen Cub and two role models for him

30. Cluttered
The dead scar is just cluttered with rib cages and skulls. At least.. I like to think those are rib cages. For all I know it's just dead grass. But I like to think it's rib cages because it's just that much creepier. 

31. Dangerous
If you're a mob beware! This death knight is dangerous!

Apologies

Sorry for the double post about my finished drawing. Was trying to make a new tab to show the different drawings I've done of Warcraft characters. I was able to hide the other posts further back around the time they were done but... this one was recent. I'm not sure how to make it post just in the new tab or if that's even possible. I'm still a blogging newbie. I'm leaving it for now but I hope I can get it figured out soon.

Tyledres


Practice coloring using my toon
Done in Photoshop
Time: about 20 hours

Friday, August 30, 2013

Finished Drawing

I put in some more work on my Tyle drawing and I feel happy enough with it to call it finished. I'm definitely happier with the skirt now that I got some more colors in it. I think I could have pushed to make it more detailed and pushed the coloring to support without the lines but I really like the more cartoon feel it has. It did what I wanted it to do. I got some experience with digital painting and I've got a cool cartoon face to put on all my stuff. I think I want to paint another one but I'm not certain I want to paint another Tyle just yet. So I'm going to have to think about what next... who to make my next guinea pig.

For comparison purposes I'm showing the older version of this drawing.

Dungeons and Achievements! Oh Boy!

Yesterday I was on Tyle trying to figure out what to do and realized I had a long way to go to cap my vp this week. I've gotten pretty used to raids and lfr making up a big chunk of my vp earnings but not this week. We'd only killed Lei Shen in our normal raid and I only ran the 2 lfr's that I needed to try and get more secrets to advance my legendary questline. I really didn't want to go back and run more lfr but it's better then daily quests. But I decided that I'd actually hit up the dungeon finder and run a dungeon. I'm really glad I did. Because in that first dungeon was a really awesome tank and healer who were chaining heroic dungeons and inviting dps along for the ride.
screenshot of the awesome warrior tank Vichaells and monk healer Saeka
I had only intended to run one heroic but since they asked I kept going with them. We did enough dungeons to take me from about 300 vp to 700 vp. And they also tried to get any of the achievements for the group whenever they could. I even picked up a few on Tyle.

I'm not really sure how this achievement is gotten other then to pull all the things in the room and go to town killing them.
I had suggested trying for cleaning up when we got the Jade temple and most of the group was willing to give it a try. The only sour face we had in all our dungeon running was found in that run. It was a mage who started in on us that if we wanted achievements we should get a guild group together to do them. He just wanted his vp and to get out of there. Most of the group was willing to give it a shot so we headed to kill the boss in the library before the other one. Right after we killed the fish boss the mage dropped group and we had to 4-man the trash and the third boss. We kept pushing and got a fifth right as we started the last boss. This was a really close achievement. I wasn't sure we were going to make it. But we killed the sha right as the last second was ticking off us and managed to snag Cleaning up! That was incredibly awesome.

Eventually the tank had to go so it was the end of some really awesome dungeon runs. I was feeling pretty inspired by the healer so I went to go level my monk to 15 so she could start using the dungeon finder.
I had reached 14 and was making my way to 15 when I got a whisper from Navi asking if I thought heroic brd could be three-manned. Particularly the omnotron boss. I had no idea but I was willing to give it a try.

I was a little worried I would be tanking but then I saw that Navi had gotten Arv to come. I knew Arv would take all the damage so that meant I could just stand around and look pretty... I mean, do lots of damage. But even more fun was that Luxy was able to come as well! So we 4-manned Heroic Omnotron. And then went to see what else we could kill.
Magmaw is really different on heroic. There were skeleton adds and I wasn't too sure what to do but to dps stuff. And try not to get myself killed.

The last boss we got was Heroic Atramedes. He didn't even have an air phase. Navi needed to afk, something about work and patients. We tried to three-man on of the other bosses but it wasn't working. Arv needed to get going because it was getting late so that was the end of the raid. It was still pretty cool.

But I wasn't done getting achievements for the night. Navi got back and we chatted for a bit and then tried to think of a place to go duo. I still had a few achievements to finish in Forge of Souls so we headed there.

We didn't get the first one. Your supposed to kite him and get 4 soul fragments up. The fragments need to be slowed but my chains of ice were throwing one of my diseases onto the fragments. I'm not sure if that's because I'm frost or if that's a talent or something else. Anyway, the most souls we had up at once was two. They would either die or get absorbed when the boss would stop to cast another fragment. This one will definitely require some more planning to get.

Now I just had to hope I didn't stuff-up the last achievement. Something about interrupting something. Anyway, I summoned up my army and began to kill. I was just starting to get into my rotation when it died. That wasn't so difficult.

I still had two achievements left to get at toc so we left the dungeon and headed north. Navi had to tell me that I was in the wrong instance. Oops... no wonder I wasn't seeing my ponies around the outside of the ring. I suppose it's kinda funny, I'm not sure who gets more lost, her or me. I think was the winner last night since she found 2 of the 3 places and I only found 1.

The first fight was a giant pain-in-the-ass. Jousting. With two people. Poor Navi got trampled. A lot. They really liked running her over. It took a long time but we managed to joust our way to victory. I would dearly love to be able to skip that part of the fight. I was worried I'd feel a little odd about killing the Alliance heros but at that point I really wanted to bring them some pain.

We got lucky with the second boss and got Eadric so we could try and get me The Faceroller achievement. I threw on a piece of my tanking set so I wouldn't be accidentally summoning troll minions who could ruin our attempt by killing him. We just stood around at first and tried to figure out how to throw the hammer back at him. We figured it out and began to slowly work his health down to 10%. I took off my main-hand weapon and was just punching him. It took awhile but I got the achievement.

Navi thought that was it but I reminded her that there was still the Black Knight who had the last achievement I would need from toc. Something about not getting hit by exploding ghouls. Navi was off yonder and I stayed back to smash him with howling blast and my own ghoul. He died really quickly 3 times. But we made it without getting hit by a single ghoul.

It was starting to get pretty late in the night even for me... Ok, it was only 12:30 so it was an earlier night for me but I was ready for bedtime.

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Leveling and Achievements in WoW

I've started to think that focusing on one class to the exclusion of all else isn't the way I really like leveling. I'm sure I'll still focus on one over another but I decided to set some smaller leveling goals to try and get some rested xp on my toons.

First up - Druid
It's druid week! And I decided to get my druid up to level 15 so that she can start enjoying the dungeon finder. It was only 3 levels but they are 3 really difficult levels for me to get. I have at least three toons sitting at level 12 because I really don't want to do the quests to reach dungeon finder. Ah well.

I've already picked my spec, which is feral, so I just needed to go head out and quest. One of the quests requires that you haul in a goblin that has been turned to stone. You can't pick one up as a kitty so I finished up the other quests in the area before picking up a goblin that was close to the exit.
I was really starting to have fun with my druid. I even took her into a battleground. It didn't end well. But it was still fun. I'm thinking I'm going to have to do what I can to deck her out and start running some more at level 16 when she gets travel form. 
I'm also debating whether I should change her to guardian and try tanking dungeons. I've seen a few troll bears and I think that the green and blue combo is one of the prettier ones. And I might decide I like guardian better if I see it from the ground up.

Second - Monk
I've been wanting to get my monk off the Wandering Isle and into Orgrimmar so that she can get a haircut. I keep thinking of that style as Awoi's hair. And I really wanted off the Wandering Isle.

She's now level 12 and has quite a few heirlooms. My death knight had to cough up the jp and gold to purchase the shoulders, helm, and pants. The shaman has the agility cloak boa equipped and I was not buying another one. No matter how much whining I could hear from the monk. I'm also trying to ignore my druid who feels that she should be the one decked out in boa glory.

Achievement!
Since Tyle shelled out so much to outfit my alts I decided to see if I could push her further though the ranks of the Brawler's guild. I needed just one fight to get to rank 8 and get a cool title. The fight was pretty easy although the first time I blew it because I thought I needed to avoid all the crap being thrown around not collect it for a dps buff. After realizing my mistake the second round went pretty well. I'm now Brawler Tyle!

A little more Final Fantasy

Since my attempt to find the other cities didn't end too well I decided I just pick up the jobs in my starter city. I quickly learned that I needed to throw my starter gear back on or my little cat lady would soon find herself standing around in her skivvies.
The two classes she had access to are archer and conjurer. A quick google search revealed what abilities these classes had and I took a look for what would be of interest to me. The conjurer has a level 8 ability called protect that's a 30 minute damage reduction! Sounds like a good leveling talent to me. So I decided to reach level 8 on my conjurer.
Since there's no quests, Tyle had to go out and kill stuff. There's a hunter's log of mobs to kill and if you kill them as a certain class you'll get xp for doing so. But even so, I still found myself having to just grind mobs. At level 5 I took her back to the city to pick up the class quest and to try and buy her some higher level gear. The robe is a nice look and I liked having a shield even if it feels wrong with a wand.
Eventually I reached level 8. I figured I better get back to leveling my lancer because I just know Zug will give me crap if my highest level is 12... So I figured 15 would be good... What? I already got 8 levels!.. 11 if you count the three I got on the archer just so I could finish that intro quest. Anyway, I saw the unicorn mount again and this time the lady was riding it properly. She will not be falling off anytime soon. But I wonder why is she sitting astride while the one from yesterday was sitting sideways?
But I've also run across another really cool mount. This one looks like a dragon bird. I think it's just armor. But then I look at the face of it... and that doesn't look like a bird.
So I hit level 15! And it's back to pick up another class quest. I've been liking how the gear has looked in the game so far. Until I got those pants... WTF... Seriously? Maybe it's just the color. The purple just doesn't work with the red and I can't imagine any shoes that could be worse unless they were sandals with black socks. Bleh. Looking forward to being able to get rid of those pants.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Ahead of the Curve! Lei Shen has been Lightening Whipped!

Lei Shen killed! Finally!

Shadow Rising wasn't able to raid on Tuesday night because several people weren't going to be able to make it. I was a tad bit late on Wednesday night. Usually I'm hanging around waiting for others but last night the group was already started up. I'm just glad that there was still a spot for me.

After a quick discussion about who was going to which color and where they were going for the second intermission it was time to pull the boss. It didn't go too well.

So it was time to run back and set up for the second pull. Things went really well. Everyone made it though the first intermission and kept things going well thought the second one as well. Entering the third phase everyone was still alive and we were on the final phase. We had one tank death but we had a rez ready for him. It was really exciting to so quickly and easily get our Lei Shen kill.

After a quick screenshot and realizing that we didn't have master looter set most of the raid took off. Seems there's some eagerness to go level in some game called Final Fantasy. Me? I did some leveling there earlier. Slowpoke that I am. Instead I hurried off to go download Hearthstone! Now if it would just hurry up so I can get started.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Alt Appreciation Week - Druid

Another week showing off my naming creativity. All 4 of my druids are named Arita. Two are spelled Arita and two are spelled Aritâ because my original spelling was already taken.

1. Aritâ of Korgath
This is my very first toon. And she was my main until I realized just how much I had messed her up while leveling around level 40. Then  I created and played several new toons before settling on a rogue as my new main. There were times I was very tempted to delete Arita. But she was still very special to me and I held onto her. It worked well when my rogue reached level 40 because I realized if I wanted to run dungeons the best way was as a healer. So I would quest on my rogue and keep an eye out for groups forming and would let them know I would come heal on my druid but I wanted to keep questing until they got the rest of the group. It was though this way that Arita managed to keep pretty close in level to Ursa, my rogue. This continued until I reached Outlands where it dawned on me that I would level much faster if I would focus on one toon. Since my rogue was actually able to hold onto gold and had managed the purchase of a mount and riding training she seemed like the best bet to focus on. Ursa hit level 70 the week before Wrath was released. There wasn't much to do as a fresh level 70 at that time so I spent a week leveling Arita. She was able to get to level 68 when the new expansion was released. So I was back on my main and leveling. Ursa quickly hit 80 and I started doing dungeons with my guild. But the guild really needed more healers rather than dps. So I volunteered to make the switch and somehow leveled poor Arita to 80. She did not have any mount training and I spent a lot of time running to cities to respec her to heals for dungeons and then feral for questing. I soon gave that up and started questing as a resto druid. I was really relieved when she managed to hit 80. When I first heard about dual-spec I was really excited. I made Arita save gold until she had the thousand gold needed to purchase it when the patch came. She still didn't have flying but she had two specs! I knew I wanted Arita to be a feral druid but quickly realized I had no idea how to play as a feral. But I had a friend who was leveling a healer and she got me to come tank the normal versions of all the Northrend dungeons. It was pretty fun. And how I got introduced to tanking. I soon became a bear/tree which worked alright for a bit. I was in a great guild with good friends but soon our main tank decided to quit the game and the guild disbanded without him. I quickly realized that not having a dps spec made me unsellable. So I changed to feral/feral and learned how to be a kitty. I really enjoyed those specs and that's what Arita was until the end of Cata. When the pre-Mists patch hit I was unimpressed with the changes to bear tanking. I liked that it was moved out of the feral spec but felt like I was left with nothing to do for quite a lot of time. So I decided to switch her spec to feral/resto. I tried boomkin for a bit but I was really awful at it. I went back to feral. But I was starting to feel pretty unsatisfied with my druid. I was just tired of playing feral. So I decided I would admit defeat and made my death knight my main. But I knew Arita would be my second 90. I wasn't feeling much like leveling again so I took her out to look for herbs and archaeology. And dungeons. This lasted until level 83 when I finally decided to start questing again. As a resto druid. It was slow but I had fun. She's still spending an awful lot of time in her resto spec. It feels both familiar and odd for her to be a resto druid. She's been pretty much retired recently. I take her out for screenshots and an occasional dungeon and she's pretty happy with that. I briefly considered moving her to my new server but throughout all the years and a server change her appearance has always been the same. So I realized she was happiest left to putter about as her night elf self then if I was to change her into a tauren or troll.

2. Arita of Aegwynn
Aritâ of Korgath started out on the server Aegwynn. When I transfered servers I made another Arita to hold my name. In case I went back or tried to contact old friends or something. I didn't really expect to level her. But I spent Cata doing a lot of leveling. I wasn't raiding and there's only so much you can do at end game if you're not raiding. So I leveled. And I decided I would level my Aegwynn Arita and level her properly. As a feral druid. I wasn't messing around with other specs and I didn't want to do dungeons. I just wanted to hide out and quest. I did a quick look and Arita has done one dungeon but she's also got a lot of quest zones complete. She's level 42. I don't feel much like leveling her now that everyone who's on my battle tag can find me. She's a toon that I used to like to hide on. Now I can't really hide. And I have Hordies to level. But she's patiently waiting for the day when she can go back to her quests.

3. Arita of Dunemaul
My tauren Arita was made so I could play with some old friends who were Horde and on the Dunemaul server. It was just before the announcement that trolls would get to become druids. I was very tempted to reroll Arita as a troll but I wanted a druid now not months later. So I kept leveling her. My friends eventually quit the game so I was left with a horde druid on a server with no one that I knew. I eventually pushed her to level 85 but neglected her until I needed a horde toon for laid-back raids. Arita has had to suffer my many attempts to try different specs. She's spent time leveling in all four specs. She's currently feral/resto and sits quietly in Orgrimmar just in case her friends come back. 

4. Aritâ of Drak'Tharon
My newest druid. She's only level 12. There's a bunch of toons that I would like to get leveled before her. She's pretty far down my list. But it is druid week so I think I'm going to push to get her to level 15. Then she'll be at just the right level for dungeon finder when it's finally her turn to be leveled.

WoWscreenshotaday - Days 26 and 27


Another few days and another race to be inspired by. This time the night elves have me in their grasp.

Day 26 - Entrance

The entryway to Teldrassil and the Night Elf capitol of Darnassus

27. 10 minutes from home
I always feel that home for my druid is Darnassus. She might not have her hearthstone set there for convenience anymore but it's always a quick teleport and free flight to return to her roots. It's not really a 10 minute trip but it can sometimes feel like one.

Monday, August 26, 2013

Slow Leveling Lancer in Final Fantasy

More Final Fantasy!

Was actually able to get on today and get some extended time in the game without servers crashing. But that didn't really make my leveling go any faster. I'm positive I shall be the last person to reach max level in our linkshell. It's been three days and I've level 12. Others are in the twenties. Oh well. Maybe I should stop worrying about leveling and just enjoy the game.

Here's some more screenshots. I looked up how to remove the ui for screenshots in the game and it says to push scroll lock. Hmm... I can't seem to find that button on my keyboard. So I googled it. Something about how it's more for old keyboards. Crud. I just bought a new keyboard and sure enough the location for the scroll lock key isn't there. I also don't have it on my laptop. Guess I'll have to make do with screenshots showing my ui for now.

As soon as I logged in I saw a bunch of people running around with these little cat pets. And I've got mail! The preorder bonuses are here!

I'm not wearing the hat. It says it'll only boost xp if  you're under level 10. Since I was already at level 10 I figured I'd keep my viking hat. But thinking about hats made me wonder if I could turn my hat off.

There we go! Much better! No more viking pot hat. At least for looks. Anyway, having figured all that out I returned to questing. I had a quest from the lancer's guild that I figured I should try and finish up. I required finding some rock called the stone of courage. I keep wanting to call it the tri-force. Anyway, I found it but apparently some jerk had already taken the stone and hid it somewhere else. It took me an embarrassing amount of time to find where he had hidden it. Anyway, made it back to the lancer's guild and I learnt that I could start learning other classes. I was told it was up to me if I really wanted to learn another but I would need specific level 30 and level 15 classes if I wanted a job. Hmm... So to be a dragoon, which is melee, I would need to be a level 30 lancer and 15 marauder. Marauder's guild is in another city. I have no idea how to get there. I did a look on google and it said something about west and that by traveling on the roads you won't be killed. So I headed west.

And I went from a forest to Northrend. I mean... I have no idea where I'm at. But I don't think I should be here. At least not according to that high level mob in the background. But since I'm already here I'm going to keep exploring areas and getting more stuff on my map.

This place looks so cool! I still have no idea where I'm at but it looks awesome!

I also found a few towns or settlements or whatever they're called. They had these bird people that I think act like flight masters. They require that you find the different ones you want to go to so they're kinda like flight masters. It costs a small fee but the coco...birds things take you pretty quickly from place to place.

I eventually found a stretch of road with really high level monsters that didn't ignore me because I was on the road. I died. And found myself rezzing back in my starting zone. No corpse walking I guess. I guess there must be a way to change the location of where you rez. Anyway, I figured since I was back where I belong I'd worry about finding another class later. I'm going to level. I reached level 12... I think I need to find a new area to quest in. I feel like I'm attacking mobs that are levels below me and there aren't many quests to do at one time. Since I was getting restless I figured it was time to stop and go do something else. But I did get one more screenshot before calling it quits.

It's a pony! Actually a unicorn but I didn't get the horn. I was pretty excited but then I saw it. She's sitting sideways! Why? She's gonna fall off! That's not how you sit on a horse! No one rides a horse sideways!

There is this invention called a sidesaddle that requires the rider to hook one leg over the saddle and have both legs hanging down the same side
Photo from Red River Station
But as you can see she is not sitting sideways! Her torso is facing forwards and is not twisted like the sideways sitting person in the screenshot.

And here's an illustration just to show you again what I mean
Image from wikipedia
The girl in the screenshot will fall off as soon as that horse takes a step! It's insane! Who in their right minds would ride a horse bareback sideways! Crud. I have a female toon. Looks like I'm not going to try to find a pony because it would drive me insane.

Final Fantasy 14

I found them! Those sneaky Final Fantasy screenshots go into a location that I wasn't really expecting. Thank goodness for the power of google. It knows all :)

First is a shot from beta
This would be Zug trying to show me around and teach me how to play. I'm a cat-person! I originally picked some caster class but for this run I made a lancer. It was fun. You go up to mobs and smack them. I understand that part. Anyway, Zug moves pretty fast but he let me on to the secret which is this ability called sprint. Which is one of my first abilities. My first attempt had me running into a tree. Why did he recruit me again? Fine, it's a new game. I know WoW really well now and I'm back to being a newb.

Saturday the early release allowed players who had preordered to get a start on playing. I made another lancer. What? Vorpal Thurst! It makes me feel like I'm going to slay a jabberwokkey! Although that was with a sword that went snicky snack or something but most definitely not a lance.

So here's my meager collection of screenshots of my cat Tyle. I'm awful with names. I called her Tyle Katze. Basically it's just Tyle cat. It just looks cooler in German. Names... I suppose it could be worse. I saw someone named Justin Bieber. Anyway, I wish the game had a random name generator. How else can I come up with one name let alone two?