Honor de Ancestors

So, I saw this today:

HOW AWESOME IS THAT.

Gnomes got their posters, we finally get ours.  I’m psyched.  I actually listened to this track that I found a while ago and it really helps me channel my inner Troll.  Then I listened to the voice dialogue (that’s a spoiler, obv.) that goes along with the event that I stumbled upon while clicking more links.  And WOW it was awesome.

Taz’dingo!

Because of a slightly busy work schedule, I haven’t been able to play my shaman as much as I’d like, but when I DO play her, she’s getting leveled quite well.  I had done five levels a day two days in a row so I arbitrarily made that my quota for when I play.  So it’s been ALL TROLL NO QUIT around here lately.  She is currently (as of five minutes before this writing) sitting at 51.  I am hoping to have her in Outlands tomorrow.

Outlands.

Tomorrow.

It would totally feasibly happen and that makes me so excited.  Not only because it’s Outland and a change of scenery and dungeons, but because she is that much closer to 80.  Because 80 means that I can go back and start working on quests, because I have a holy terror in me that Cataclysm is going to drop like, tomorrow, and I won’t have my Loremaster amg amg amg.  (I only JUST got 250 quests completed today and it makes me rather sad that it’s “only” 250 after all this time.  Daunting?  Yes.)

So, things have been Trollish around here.  How about you all?

In which I ramble on (as per usual)

So.

I totally lied about getting back in the swing of things, apparently.  I promised that I would sort things out with scheduling time properly for blogging, commenting and playing.  It’s all gone to playing.

I’m telling myself that it’s ok, you all understand since you all play too.  I’ll let myself be deluded and believe it to be true.

Honestly though, I think we’ve all been there.  Way wrapped up in a character and all you want to do is work on them, whether leveling, professions, PvP or achievements.  Honestly, I think that if we’re all passionate enough about the game to blog about it or read other people’s blogs about the game, we’ve all been there.

The last three weeks has been an interesting turn of events, not only with the whole hacking thing either.  Back on the 10th of May was when I got the last achievements for my Troll shaman and started playing a Gnome warrior, since Lus didn’t want to play his Horde rogue.  Instead he wanted to play his Gnome warlock.

It was with sadness I bid my shaman adieu, since I knew I’d never see her again.  I had made the decision to leave the shaman as is, since she was supposed to be paired with Lus’ rogue.  I would instead play Alliance-side on the warrior, so that at least we were playing “together” if not together, since there was a more than considerable level gap.

And I poured myself into that warrior.  She got all the heirlooms, she did leveling correctly, professions were chosen (jewelcrafting, naturally), all possible flight paths gotten, books were searched out and all her secondary professions were leveled apace, if not ahead of whatever she might need.  I did all this, since it is my wont.  It’s how I roll.

She made it to 44 four days ago.  She hearthed to Dalaran and I saw some female Trolls walking around and all of a sudden I didn’t want to play a Gnome whatsoever.  I wanted my Troll.  Posthaste.

I hesitantly asked Lus, “Would you care if I played my shaman?” and I poked him for emphasis, since he was immersed in a battleground.  “Sure, play what you want,” he replied to his screen.

I was practically already logged in by the time he finished talking.

So, while I did a total 180 in my playing from Gnome warrior (Arms) to Troll shaman (Resto) I realized that while my character and role my change, my style of playing doesn’t.  I throw myself into developing the character, all go no quit.  It’s that way with every character.  It’s sometimes exhausting to play and also why I hang on to characters longer than is probably wise in regards to interest.  Not sure if this style of mine is good or not, but dammit, at least my characters are well rounded.

To segue back to what I mentioned before, battlegrounds.  Lus is doing them.  While his interest in PvP isn’t new, the active PvPing is very new.  Like, considering speccing his warlock for PvP new.  Buying mats for a starter PvP set new.  I’m not sure what to think of it (and glad that I am safely Hordeside right now so that I can’t be lured into running them with him.)

OH ALSO?

His warlock is 80.  I thought I’d never see the day.  YAY LUS!

Now, back to the PvP.  He actually got his last five levels or so with a good solid mix of instancing and battlegrounds.  And in only a few days too!  Surprises around every corner, I tell you.  As you may already know if you’ve read me for a bit of time, I dislike PvP.  A lot.  I never ever do it.  I avoid it.  I won’t even duel.  However, seeing him PvP so much has rather encouraged me to go try out a few battlegrounds here and there, which is a change of pace, if a stressful one.  (I only do it for the achievements!)

Random: PuGs are making me lose faith in humanity.  Srsly.  It also makes me say, “I hate people” more often than one person should in such a small timeframe.

To continue: since I have no form to the post whatsoever, let’s talk about the fact that I am so enamoured of my shaman that I have made her her own wowhead profile.  Yes.  Also that I have made her an RP name though she isn’t going to be RP’d and also that I have the unattainable goal of making her “the Seeker” because “it fits” but would most likely kill me if I ever tried to get it.  True story.

She also has hot pink hair.  Also true.

(Which makes me wonder if it’s disconcerting to see that your healer has hot pink hair in a crest/mohawk.  IYO?)

Re: blogroll – I have been neglecting the blogroll too much lately.  Rest assured that I am reading you and that you’ll be rightfully placed on Anea’s Blogroll of Reading once things get moved to the new WP version of the blog.

Disclaimer: I may lose patience with this blogging service and switch to the new blog by the end of the week.  Start your “switch link/feed” engines.

Get an authenticator

Lus’ account got hacked last night.

We woke up this morning as my alarm went off for me to get ready for work and Lus turned on his computer and tried to log in.  “It’s asking me for an authenticator code.”

“It shouldn’t, try again.”

It still asked for one.  I was still waking up, so I said, “Well, either Blizzard activated mandatory authenticators overnight or you got hacked.”

It was cold, I know.  I’m not a morning person.  >.>

I think that it was partly ’cause I didn’t think it could’ve happened, but really, there’s no other reason for that window to be there unless there’s an authenticator attached to your account.

After I fully woke up and realized what happened, I recommended several things that I’ve gleaned from reading what other people have written about their accounts and/or their guildie’s accounts getting hacked.  Call Blizzard.  Try to log in on battle.net to change your password.  Check your armory.  Run a virus scan.  CALL BLIZZARD.  (I had to say that one several times, as he sat morosely looking at his naked gnome.)

They emptied our guild bank of anything of value (and our gold) of course, but what I thought was interesting was that his pally, that had the best gear (epics, anyway) still had about half his gear on, but the warlock, who was only 75 and leveling, had just about everything gone.  His old BE rogue had all his gear gone except arena gear.  Those were characters of note.

Unfortunately, I had to leave for work pretty much right then, so I could only issue instructions for him to stop pouting about his warlock and CALL and get the ball rolling.  (I’m such an ass.)

I drove to work very concerned about the whole thing, whether or not he was going to get the ticket submitted, how long it would take them to respond, whether or not it would take months to get things back… selfishly, I even wondered whether or not this was going to scare him away from WoW.

I know, how horrible of me.  Lus’ account is hacked, his characters stripped, his stuff gone… and I’m worried about losing a playing buddy.  Classy, huh?

And really though, it just infuriated me that some scumbag mouthbreather was profiting from the armor, the gold, the mats, that Lus had earned, saved and had access to.  And THEN some other scumbag mouthbreather is buying the gold and not feeling the slightest bit guilty for it.

Before I had to run out the door to work, I told him, “I’m very sorry that this happened.  We’ll get it figured out.”

And since we’re an honest blog here, I’ll continue being honest – as I was driving to work, I also wondered why he didn’t apologize to me.

AND just to let you know that I’m not really an unfeeling horrible person, I didn’t EXPECT him to.  I know that if I were in his position, I would be pretty devastated, seeing my characters stripped and used in that manner.  I’d be worried about getting control of my account back.  I think I would also feel guilty about what happened to the guild bank too.  It’s kind of a “it’s the thought that counts” type thing, you know?

Part of that is also a “you should have had an authenticator” thing.  Getting an authenticator is such an easy thing to do now.  Part of why this is such a ridiculous thing to have happened is that Lus has an iPhone.  It’s free for iPhone users!  You just need to download the app and take a few more seconds logging in.  I’ve had mine for months and months now, I’ve told Lus that he ought to get one, but he didn’t want to bother with it.

’cause everyone thinks it won’t happen to them, right?

That’s what I thought too, I’ll be honest with you.  That’s why I didn’t get one the second that they came out.  But I still got one – the very day before the corehound pups came out, actually.  I tried to entice Lus into getting one with promises of a puppy that will dig holes in the ground and be fiery and cute and stuff.  But nothing doing.

But who would actually come out and say “I’m sorry that I didn’t have the sense to get a free security device that would protect my account”?  No one.

Before I even got this post past “naked gnome” he had someone on the phone from Blizz to unattach the bad authenticator from his account and to get the password changed so he could login and further assess the damage.  The woman he talked to said that they would try to restore as much that was taken as possible and it might take about a week.  We’re choosing to be optimistic and hope for it actually being about a week, since he really wants to play his warlock.  The plan we have is to look at quests that will give useful rewards to replace what was taken, that way he has at least some gear, even if it’s not as nice as what he had on before – then he’ll be able to run dungeons to get his gear back.

Also luckily, one of the managers at work also plays WoW, so she understood why I was 10 minutes late to work and also why I wanted to go home.  Third luckily, she had made a mistake in scheduling so we had too many people this morning but no one to close tonight, so I got sent home so that I could feel in the loop and as if I was helping, even though there was nothing I could do.  There’s nothing worse than being away from someone that you care about when they’re upset, even if it’s something like this.

“Even if it’s something like this.”

That’s another thing I thought about on the way to work – how was I going to explain why I was late?  There are two managers at work who play and a third who used to play but quit.  (I was amazed that anyone at all played, but that’s neither here nor there.)  I was hoping against hope that one of the managers who played was there so that I could explain that there was a crisis that needed dealt with and that I wasn’t some slacker who shows up late to work.  If it wasn’t a manager who would understand WHY it was a problem, nay a mini crisis, that Lus’ account had been hacked, could I have explained it well enough?  Probably not.  It seems like unless you play the game, it’s just a waste of time and a stupid one at that.  It’s not as if your real life possessions were stolen, your car broken into, your bank accounts emptied, right?  But these characters and accounts are very valuable to us, even if they’re not something that are “real life” possessions, something tangible that anyone can relate to.  We spend time on these characters and in this online world and of course we become attached to them.  It takes time, determination, skill and effort to get characters where they are.  Dedication.  It’s perfectly plausible that we assign value to what we play in the game.

But, luckily I didn’t have to explain to a non-playing manager.  So, I can be thankful that she was there and she understood what we were going through.  She gave some helpful tips that, even if they turned out to be unnecessary to do, it felt like I could contribute advice to help Lus’ cause, and she was a soundingboard for me.

See, even I can find a silver lining in all this.  It may be a little one, but I found it.  So there.

Now, I guess the plan is wait and see how long it takes for Lus to get his stuff back.  Get the Gnome warlock some quest gear.  And FARM SOME HERBS AND ORE.  That will probably be the majority of my playtime for the foreseeable future.  Plans are helpful for rebuilding.  We have one.

If you don’t have one already, GET AN AUTHENTICATOR.  Whatever reason you have for not getting one will seem stupid and insignificant if you do happen to get hacked, so just save yourself the time, worry and trouble and get one now.  Do it.

Get an authenticator

Lus’ account got hacked last night.

We woke up this morning as my alarm went off for me to get ready for work and Lus turned on his computer and tried to log in.  “It’s asking me for an authenticator code.”

“It shouldn’t, try again.”

It still asked for one.  I was still waking up, so I said, “Well, either Blizzard activated mandatory authenticators overnight or you got hacked.”

It was cold, I know.  I’m not a morning person.  >.>

I think that it was partly ’cause I didn’t think it could’ve happened, but really, there’s no other reason for that window to be there unless there’s an authenticator attached to your account.

After I fully woke up and realized what happened, I recommended several things that I’ve gleaned from reading what other people have written about their accounts and/or their guildie’s accounts getting hacked.  Call Blizzard.  Try to log in on battle.net to change your password.  Check your armory.  Run a virus scan.  CALL BLIZZARD.  (I had to say that one several times, as he sat morosely looking at his naked gnome.)

They emptied our guild bank of anything of value (and our gold) of course, but what I thought was interesting was that his pally, that had the best gear (epics, anyway) still had about half his gear on, but the warlock, who was only 75 and leveling, had just about everything gone.  His old BE rogue had all his gear gone except arena gear.  Those were characters of note.

Unfortunately, I had to leave for work pretty much right then, so I could only issue instructions for him to stop pouting about his warlock and CALL and get the ball rolling.  (I’m such an ass.)

I drove to work very concerned about the whole thing, whether or not he was going to get the ticket submitted, how long it would take them to respond, whether or not it would take months to get things back… selfishly, I even wondered whether or not this was going to scare him away from WoW.

I know, how horrible of me.  Lus’ account is hacked, his characters stripped, his stuff gone… and I’m worried about losing a playing buddy.  Classy, huh?

And really though, it just infuriated me that some scumbag mouthbreather was profiting from the armor, the gold, the mats, that Lus had earned, saved and had access to.  And THEN some other scumbag mouthbreather is buying the gold and not feeling the slightest bit guilty for it.

Before I had to run out the door to work, I told him, “I’m very sorry that this happened.  We’ll get it figured out.”

And since we’re an honest blog here, I’ll continue being honest – as I was driving to work, I also wondered why he didn’t apologize to me.

AND just to let you know that I’m not really an unfeeling horrible person, I didn’t EXPECT him to.  I know that if I were in his position, I would be pretty devastated, seeing my characters stripped and used in that manner.  I’d be worried about getting control of my account back.  I think I would also feel guilty about what happened to the guild bank too.  It’s kind of a “it’s the thought that counts” type thing, you know?

Part of that is also a “you should have had an authenticator” thing.  Getting an authenticator is such an easy thing to do now.  Part of why this is such a ridiculous thing to have happened is that Lus has an iPhone.  It’s free for iPhone users!  You just need to download the app and take a few more seconds logging in.  I’ve had mine for months and months now, I’ve told Lus that he ought to get one, but he didn’t want to bother with it.

’cause everyone thinks it won’t happen to them, right?

That’s what I thought too, I’ll be honest with you.  That’s why I didn’t get one the second that they came out.  But I still got one – the very day before the corehound pups came out, actually.  I tried to entice Lus into getting one with promises of a puppy that will dig holes in the ground and be fiery and cute and stuff.  But nothing doing.

But who would actually come out and say “I’m sorry that I didn’t have the sense to get a free security device that would protect my account”?  No one.

Before I even got this post past “naked gnome” he had someone on the phone from Blizz to unattach the bad authenticator from his account and to get the password changed so he could login and further assess the damage.  The woman he talked to said that they would try to restore as much that was taken as possible and it might take about a week.  We’re choosing to be optimistic and hope for it actually being about a week, since he really wants to play his warlock.  The plan we have is to look at quests that will give useful rewards to replace what was taken, that way he has at least some gear, even if it’s not as nice as what he had on before – then he’ll be able to run dungeons to get his gear back.

Also luckily, one of the managers at work also plays WoW, so she understood why I was 10 minutes late to work and also why I wanted to go home.  Third luckily, she had made a mistake in scheduling so we had too many people this morning but no one to close tonight, so I got sent home so that I could feel in the loop and as if I was helping, even though there was nothing I could do.  There’s nothing worse than being away from someone that you care about when they’re upset, even if it’s something like this.

“Even if it’s something like this.”

That’s another thing I thought about on the way to work – how was I going to explain why I was late?  There are two managers at work who play and a third who used to play but quit.  (I was amazed that anyone at all played, but that’s neither here nor there.)  I was hoping against hope that one of the managers who played was there so that I could explain that there was a crisis that needed dealt with and that I wasn’t some slacker who shows up late to work.  If it wasn’t a manager who would understand WHY it was a problem, nay a mini crisis, that Lus’ account had been hacked, could I have explained it well enough?  Probably not.  It seems like unless you play the game, it’s just a waste of time and a stupid one at that.  It’s not as if your real life possessions were stolen, your car broken into, your bank accounts emptied, right?  But these characters and accounts are very valuable to us, even if they’re not something that are “real life” possessions, something tangible that anyone can relate to.  We spend time on these characters and in this online world and of course we become attached to them.  It takes time, determination, skill and effort to get characters where they are.  Dedication.  It’s perfectly plausible that we assign value to what we play in the game.

But, luckily I didn’t have to explain to a non-playing manager.  So, I can be thankful that she was there and she understood what we were going through.  She gave some helpful tips that, even if they turned out to be unnecessary to do, it felt like I could contribute advice to help Lus’ cause, and she was a soundingboard for me.

See, even I can find a silver lining in all this.  It may be a little one, but I found it.  So there.

Now, I guess the plan is wait and see how long it takes for Lus to get his stuff back.  Get the Gnome warlock some quest gear.  And FARM SOME HERBS AND ORE.  That will probably be the majority of my playtime for the foreseeable future.  Plans are helpful for rebuilding.  We have one.

If you don’t have one already, GET AN AUTHENTICATOR.  Whatever reason you have for not getting one will seem stupid and insignificant if you do happen to get hacked, so just save yourself the time, worry and trouble and get one now.  Do it.

Get an authenticator

Lus’ account got hacked last night.

We woke up this morning as my alarm went off for me to get ready for work and Lus turned on his computer and tried to log in.  “It’s asking me for an authenticator code.”

“It shouldn’t, try again.”

It still asked for one.  I was still waking up, so I said, “Well, either Blizzard activated mandatory authenticators overnight or you got hacked.”

It was cold, I know.  I’m not a morning person.  >.>

I think that it was partly ’cause I didn’t think it could’ve happened, but really, there’s no other reason for that window to be there unless there’s an authenticator attached to your account.

After I fully woke up and realized what happened, I recommended several things that I’ve gleaned from reading what other people have written about their accounts and/or their guildie’s accounts getting hacked.  Call Blizzard.  Try to log in on battle.net to change your password.  Check your armory.  Run a virus scan.  CALL BLIZZARD.  (I had to say that one several times, as he sat morosely looking at his naked gnome.)

They emptied our guild bank of anything of value (and our gold) of course, but what I thought was interesting was that his pally, that had the best gear (epics, anyway) still had about half his gear on, but the warlock, who was only 75 and leveling, had just about everything gone.  His old BE rogue had all his gear gone except arena gear.  Those were characters of note.

Unfortunately, I had to leave for work pretty much right then, so I could only issue instructions for him to stop pouting about his warlock and CALL and get the ball rolling.  (I’m such an ass.)

I drove to work very concerned about the whole thing, whether or not he was going to get the ticket submitted, how long it would take them to respond, whether or not it would take months to get things back… selfishly, I even wondered whether or not this was going to scare him away from WoW.

I know, how horrible of me.  Lus’ account is hacked, his characters stripped, his stuff gone… and I’m worried about losing a playing buddy.  Classy, huh?

And really though, it just infuriated me that some scumbag mouthbreather was profiting from the armor, the gold, the mats, that Lus had earned, saved and had access to.  And THEN some other scumbag mouthbreather is buying the gold and not feeling the slightest bit guilty for it.

Before I had to run out the door to work, I told him, “I’m very sorry that this happened.  We’ll get it figured out.”

And since we’re an honest blog here, I’ll continue being honest – as I was driving to work, I also wondered why he didn’t apologize to me.

AND just to let you know that I’m not really an unfeeling horrible person, I didn’t EXPECT him to.  I know that if I were in his position, I would be pretty devastated, seeing my characters stripped and used in that manner.  I’d be worried about getting control of my account back.  I think I would also feel guilty about what happened to the guild bank too.  It’s kind of a “it’s the thought that counts” type thing, you know?

Part of that is also a “you should have had an authenticator” thing.  Getting an authenticator is such an easy thing to do now.  Part of why this is such a ridiculous thing to have happened is that Lus has an iPhone.  It’s free for iPhone users!  You just need to download the app and take a few more seconds logging in.  I’ve had mine for months and months now, I’ve told Lus that he ought to get one, but he didn’t want to bother with it.

’cause everyone thinks it won’t happen to them, right?

That’s what I thought too, I’ll be honest with you.  That’s why I didn’t get one the second that they came out.  But I still got one – the very day before the corehound pups came out, actually.  I tried to entice Lus into getting one with promises of a puppy that will dig holes in the ground and be fiery and cute and stuff.  But nothing doing.

But who would actually come out and say “I’m sorry that I didn’t have the sense to get a free security device that would protect my account”?  No one.

Before I even got this post past “naked gnome” he had someone on the phone from Blizz to unattach the bad authenticator from his account and to get the password changed so he could login and further assess the damage.  The woman he talked to said that they would try to restore as much that was taken as possible and it might take about a week.  We’re choosing to be optimistic and hope for it actually being about a week, since he really wants to play his warlock.  The plan we have is to look at quests that will give useful rewards to replace what was taken, that way he has at least some gear, even if it’s not as nice as what he had on before – then he’ll be able to run dungeons to get his gear back.

Also luckily, one of the managers at work also plays WoW, so she understood why I was 10 minutes late to work and also why I wanted to go home.  Third luckily, she had made a mistake in scheduling so we had too many people this morning but no one to close tonight, so I got sent home so that I could feel in the loop and as if I was helping, even though there was nothing I could do.  There’s nothing worse than being away from someone that you care about when they’re upset, even if it’s something like this.

“Even if it’s something like this.”

That’s another thing I thought about on the way to work – how was I going to explain why I was late?  There are two managers at work who play and a third who used to play but quit.  (I was amazed that anyone at all played, but that’s neither here nor there.)  I was hoping against hope that one of the managers who played was there so that I could explain that there was a crisis that needed dealt with and that I wasn’t some slacker who shows up late to work.  If it wasn’t a manager who would understand WHY it was a problem, nay a mini crisis, that Lus’ account had been hacked, could I have explained it well enough?  Probably not.  It seems like unless you play the game, it’s just a waste of time and a stupid one at that.  It’s not as if your real life possessions were stolen, your car broken into, your bank accounts emptied, right?  But these characters and accounts are very valuable to us, even if they’re not something that are “real life” possessions, something tangible that anyone can relate to.  We spend time on these characters and in this online world and of course we become attached to them.  It takes time, determination, skill and effort to get characters where they are.  Dedication.  It’s perfectly plausible that we assign value to what we play in the game.

But, luckily I didn’t have to explain to a non-playing manager.  So, I can be thankful that she was there and she understood what we were going through.  She gave some helpful tips that, even if they turned out to be unnecessary to do, it felt like I could contribute advice to help Lus’ cause, and she was a soundingboard for me.

See, even I can find a silver lining in all this.  It may be a little one, but I found it.  So there.

Now, I guess the plan is wait and see how long it takes for Lus to get his stuff back.  Get the Gnome warlock some quest gear.  And FARM SOME HERBS AND ORE.  That will probably be the majority of my playtime for the foreseeable future.  Plans are helpful for rebuilding.  We have one.

If you don’t have one already, GET AN AUTHENTICATOR.  Whatever reason you have for not getting one will seem stupid and insignificant if you do happen to get hacked, so just save yourself the time, worry and trouble and get one now.  Do it.

Listening to nothing

For some reason, at some point I turned off the music for when I’m playing a game.  I probably had some TV show I wanted to watch at the same time and I didn’t need the extra noise while trying to follow the plot.

For some other reason, I never turned the music back on.

And it’s awesome.

I am hearing stuff I never heard before in the game.  Sure, I’ve heard combat sounds before, but when you’re NOT fighting stuff, you can hear all the noises that would happen in the background and that are usually covered up by the music.  This is what is called the “ambient noise” in your sounds panel.

Turn that baby all the way up, shut the music off and turn up the sound.  You get to hear all sorts of things that really would happen if we were to step into the zone we’re in, but we’d never know it ’cause the music is forever on loop, blasting away.  (I am saying nothing against the music in the game – I love it, I find it beautiful.)

Really, I think you should try it out one night and go check out some zones and see what they sound like.  At first in whatever zone I was in on my alt, there were the crickets in the background.  Nothing interesting, right?  But then I hearthed to Dalaran – my hearth is set in the back of the (Alliance) inn overlooking the Beer Garden.  I have to run through the inn to get outside.  There was this weird clinking noise.  I stopped for a second and realized that it was the clinking of plates that you might hear if you really were in a functioning inn and there were people eating.

You’ll hear footsteps as you run.  (You might think “duh” to that, but the footstep sound varies depending on what sort of surface you’re running on – dirt, stone, wood, metal – and will also change depending on your armor type – clinky if you’re in mail, softer noises if you’re in cloth, etc.)

The baby alt went to Wailing Caverns and sure enough, there was the wind, wailing and swooshing through the caverns.  Not in a “wind” type of way, but in the way that wind really would go through caverns.  I haven’t heard that type of wind again in the game yet, either.

Going to the shore for a few quests?  You’ll hear water lapping up on the beach.  You’ll hear a few fish jumping in the water.  If you’re by a lake, you may even hear frogs.

That whole bit I wrote about footsteps?  It’s the same for your mount, too.

If you have to go under the water for any reason, it was that weird echo-y “I’m underwater and there’s no other way to describe it unless you’ve also been underwater!” sound.  I really like it.

I had to go to Desolace last night.  *shudder*  There was wind there too.  But it was the sweeping, unrelenting “wind sweeping over nothing” wind that is appropriate for the area.  Makes you feel small and insignificant.

Luckily, I also spend some time in Stranglethorn Vale last night too.  If you’ve ever been lucky enough to visit a tropical jungle in your real life, on a vacation or somesuch, or even just seen one on TV, you know that there is lots of talking between birds, insects are talking, frogs are talking… maybe if you’re close enough to a croc while fishing you can hear them hiss… it’s all in STV.  Lends quite a bit of realism to the zone.  If you head over to the coast, all the “shore” noises apply too.

And there are more and will be more that I’ll take note of, I’m sure, as I quest more.  These are all in Old Azeroth since my alt is still small, so I’m actually anticipating what the zones in the Outlands and Northrend will sound like!

Do you run with your music off and the ambient sounds up?  What have you noticed?  If you don’t, will you try it out one night to see what the music is covering up?

Commence random segues

It’s been seven days since I posted.  Again.  I’m really pretty disappointed with myself.  It isn’t for lack of playing, really – less than I’ve been playing in the past, to be sure, but I have been playing.  On a GNOME!

*hushed silence*

omgiknow

But she’s so fun!  I’ve been queueing through the dungeon finder a lot and this time queueing as DPS has been… long.  And she’s not even 30!  Which leaves plenty of room for questing, so I guess I shouldn’t complain overly much.

Random reference to the Lus Playing issue: So, I asked you all about what to do with my shaman and Lus playing?  Well.  He got all the emblems he wanted for his stuff, bought it, we played one night on the characters and haven’t played since.

I know.

He’s been playing his warlock who got left by the wayside.  (The same warlock who stepped through the Dark Portal last July.)  He quit playing Smàllpox at 70 (around the time when he quit playing everything) and now, for what reason I don’t know, he’s playing him again.

And I am totally ok with this.  A little part of me mourns my Troll that will not be played but I am having a blast on my Gnome.  And I’m glad that he’s having a good time too.  (He’s quite put out about the long queue times as DPS, but that’s what happens to us when we’re spoiled with short queues as tank/healer.)

Random seque to stuff not related to stuff above this bold text: I feel as if I should address the “not posting more than twice in 14 days” issue – I’ve recently gotten a job after quite a long time of not being employed and I am still getting back into the groove and balancing everything to accomodate time for all the stuff I used to do (like play WoW for obscenely long periods of time and reading my massive list of wowblogs in the feedreader).  So, I will still write, I will still read and comment on your blogs – I just need to settle in, that’s all.

More random stuff segue etc.: There will be changes coming to the blog.  It was so tempting to leave the message cryptic with just that one line, but I will say this:  I’ve tried out selfhosting.  I have to say that I’m not as impressed as I wanted to be and I’m not getting enough out of it to justify paying for it, so I will be moving back to a blog hosting service.  (WordPress, naturally, as per my recommendation to you all.)  This won’t happen immediately but in the near-ish future.  Yes, I will ask you all to change your links again if you link to me.  I am apologizing in advance but I’m actually tired of bullying myself into keeping this site because you all will groan collectively when you find out I’m switching.  Again.  However, this is my blog and if I want to switch (again) and save some money, I’m sure that you won’t hold it against me.  Thank you for your patience, hugs and kisses.

A cute picture to end the post on a high note:

After seeing this cuteness in my feedreader, I asked if I could get something quick done of my Gnome and after telling the artist that my Gnome liked to fish, this is what I got!  IS THIS CUTE I THINK SO.