Going To Hell...Who's Coming With Me?

But Pinterest informed me that I had already pinned all but one of the images of Varian Wrynn I was browsing today.

"It's not that I can quit anytime, it's just that I'm being cockblocked" is too long for a tag, alas.

Then last expac I installed Deadly Boss Mods because raiding is a pita without it.

Now, somehow, in an expansion where I've raided TWICE, I have wound up installing an add-on to modify the mob nameplates from Blizzard's current "late 80s unadorned healthbar" aesthetic back to the actually informative nameplates WoW used to have. I still have DBM, of course. I have an add-on that's supposed to make tab targeting work (but tab targeting is still really fucking broken). I, gods help me, have done what I thought I would never do and installed a custom UI add-on (I will never be able to go back to the default UI).

And since I started maining my tank, I have installed an add-on to make my stagger % easily visible at a glance, and WeakAuras so I can track the duration of my Ironskin Brew, which Blizzard hides up in the corner with the other buffs.

Did I mention I'm NOT EVEN FUCKING RAIDING? *facepalm*

(I mean, yes, I do hope to start tagging along in raids with queenoftheskies's guild, but even if I do that regularly, it won't be as a tank. I don't know what I'm doing.)

Oh, and on my hunter I have an add-on to shriek an alarm at me when my pet's health gets too low, though 9 times out of 10 the correct answer to that is "fuck Mend Pet, I'mma let it die and use Heart of the Phoenix to re-summon it at full health."

...that darthneko had never seen Charlie the Unicorn. This had to be rectified, to explain why I started laughing over an Easter egg in WoW. (In Azsuna there's a cliff with a Devious Sunrunner and a Sinister Leyrunner, who are standing over the body of a dead Sunrunner. Hover over the corpse and you see its name is Charlie. You can loot the Enchanted Sunrunner Kidney from a chest at Charlie's feet once the other unicorns sunrunners are dead.)

Because Warlords of Draenor has been a crap expansion that broke several core elements of the game that I enjoyed (crafting, you fuckers) in the name of "level cap as fast as humanly possibly and go raid and don't you dare do anything else". *ahem* But they didn't ruin Brewfest, and so darthneko and I resubbed for a month so that we could race rams and throw beer steins at dwarves and get Brewfest clothes for all our low level characters.

And then, yesterday, we successfully got our last few characters their clothes, and took them, one by one, to a quiet spot by the path up to Ironforge.

Screencaps followed. So many, many screencaps.

And then my lovely wife spent tonight doing this:( cut for image )

You can also go see the image on Deviant Art here. For the record, I had to feed Hardwire something like 30 Alterac brandies from my Alterac brewpup before we finally got him to puke.

I am gradually replacing the TF blogs I was following on Tumblr with Warcraft blogs, and my dash is a much happier place. Also prettier.

...I find another to play in.

By which I mean, there is still a WOEFUL LACK of perfumes based on Pandaria, which makes me SAD.

But there is also Adagio teas, which will let me (and my partner in crime, darthneko) make PANDAREN TEA BLENDS, which mollifies me somewhat. Because tea.

Neko, obviously, is responsible for the beautiful labels and the descriptions. We are equally to blame for the blends, except Wandering Isle, which is all her fault, (I quote, "shen zin su is going to BURN with spices - explorers are crazy.") There may possibly be a spreadsheet with 14 blends already created, just waiting for art and descriptions.

So, if you are a fan of Adagio teas, watch this space, because I expect Beyond the Mists to grow quite a bit once Neko has a chance to finish making labels. When we're done, we intend to have eight locations and eight factions, and yes, as much as possible we will be shipping the factions with their locations ("as much as possible" because the Celestials are all over and the Golden Lotus got nuked out of the Vale).

Why, YES, we are the geekiest Pandaren-loving gamers in the world, why do you ask?

I bring you screencaps of the Warlords of Draenor beta!

( Spoilers for stepping through the portal and the first couple of quests. And a ton of images. )

And that was my first night of Warlords of Draenor (because look, I have a guild, I have responsibilities; that means crops to harvest and put on auction, dailies to finish, that sort of thing. I can't spend all my time running around after strapping young orcs.) There will undoubtedly be more tomorrow, if the server doesn't fall down sobbing again.

You have been warned.

And her awesome Pandaren tailor isn't getting nearly enough love, so go give him some.

Seriously, after playing hunters for years, and not touching my level 25 druid in...four months? five?...I was very nearly in tears of frustration trying to drag my druid through one of the holiday quests last night. (It did not help that my computer had been choking on WoW all day, forcing me to abandon Pandaria for lower resolution zones.) Just, argh, how the HELL do you druid? Will it get better in a few levels when I actually have AoE attacks? Because the Crown Dusters in Darkshire were owning my ass. I WANT TO GROW UP TO BE ONE OF THE LEVEL 90 DRUID BEARS WHO EFFORTLESSLY TAKE OUT ENTIRE HERDS OF GOATS IN FOUR WINDS*, AND I DON'T KNOW HOOOOWWWWW.

(Cat form: higher DPS but more damage. Bear form: lower damage but less DPS. Either way, I was killing one mob and then running frantically from the other three bastards shooting me in the back while Low Health flashed up on the screen. And I only seem to have Maul and one other really useful attack. It would have been nice to pick the mobs off from the edges, but the damn Darkshire guards kept sniping my kills out from under me.)

*As a freshly minted level 90, my hunter stood and watched in awe as a druid bear slaughtered goats by the herd, and then very sadly went back to carefully pulling one. goat. at. a. time. (And still getting the crap kicked out of her, and frequently reviving her pet.) Granted, in the months since my hunter has gotten geared to the point where she, too, can take out a herd of goats with little effort. However, the impression made by the druid bear has never faded, and I really really want one of those.

(Cut for large photos)

One of the ways darthneko and I amuse ourselves in WoW is by taking our pandas to places where they are ridiculously over-leveled and letting them kill things in their underwear. I have dubbed this the Naked Panda World Tour, though by "world" I mean "everywhere but Northrend and the parts of Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms where things are high level enough to hit us".

( But that still leaves a lot of the world! Yesterday we toured southern Kalimdor. )

And THAT is how I spent my very productive Saturday.