Silverwing in the Mogolympics Pt.1

With the Mogolympics well on their way, we’ve seen our share of entries for the Opening Ceremony, Cycling, Hammer Throw, Discus, Wrestling, and Archery. Not only has it been truly incredible to see all the neat outfits submitted by everyone via slideshows, videos, and galleries, but the commentary from JD, Tome, Matty, and Khizzara has just been superb and incredibly fun!

Like many fellow contestants, I just wanted to go ahead and make a compilation post of my outfits that’ve competed so far. Maybe I’ll have to make a blog page of it all at the end of the whole event just for memories. Especially since this was my first time joining in such a huge transmog challenge, and I still feel like a newbie to putting together outfits! :P

For Silverwing!

Shoulders: Burden of Mortality // Chest: Breastplate of Many Graces // Hands: Reaver Gloves // Waist: Guardian’s Ornamented Belt // Legs: Doomplate Legguards // Feet: Heavy Mithril Boots

For the Opening Ceremony, I was representing the Silverwing Sentinels! Poor old Ninevi was still a Night Elf back when I had her model the plate gear in MogIt for this outfit! Kind of eerie looking back on this picture, really!

Vroooooooooom!

Helm: Rohan’s Mask // Shoulders: Gahrron’s Shoulderguard // Back: Blackmetal Cape // Chest: Wicked Leather Armor // Wrist: Cuffs of the Decapitator // Hands: Inscribed Leather Gloves // Waist: Taut Dragonhide Belt // Legs: Cadaverous Leggings // Feet: Chop Chop Boots

Next up is one of my silly blood elves sporting her rugged gear for the Cycling event. And here I kind of failed with Photoshop and forgot to add a shadow for the chopper, but shhh! Pretend like I didn’t mention that! Hoping to actually use this leather mog for my rogue so she’s not stuck with the Slayer’s T6 set forever, but I dunno how the sleek biker look would appear on her more muscular worgen frame…

Dwarf ladies are cool!

Helm: Justicebringer 3000 Specs // Shoulders: Pauldrons of Abyssal Fury // Chest: Valorous Aegis Tunic // Hands: Gauntlets of the Iron Tower // Waist: Girdle of Valorous Deeds // Legs: Legguards of the Peaceful Covenant // Feet: Exalted Sabatons // 2H Mace: Stormwind Maul

For the Hammer Throw event, I knew right off the bat that I wanted a lovely Dwarf lady as my model! :D I was attempting a steampunk-ish look, but I’m not really sure if it really came out at all. But going through the pieces in this set reminded me how much I love the designs of gear from Ulduar.

Mooooooo…I mean, boo!

Helm: Formidable Circlet // Shoulders: Skeletal Shoulders // Back: Blackmetal Cape // Chest: Black Dragonscale Breastplate // Hands: Impenetrable Gauntlets // Waist: Nerubian Belt // Legs: Black Dragonscale Leggings // Feet: Black Dragonscale Boots // Main-Hand: Blood Weeper // Shield: Husk of Nerub’enkan

Yay, a female Tauren model for the Discus event. :D Not much to say about this one because couple of the main pieces went together, but I was surprised there was mail stuff that looked a lot like plate! Maybe I should get on finally leveling my shaman so she can have neat looking gear…

Lok’tar ogar! For the Horde!

Shoulders: Consortium Mantle // Chest: Red Linen Vest // Wrist: Crystalline Cuffs // Hands: Imperial Red Gloves // Waist: Belt of Biting Cold // Legs: Aboriginal Loincloth // Feet: Aboriginal Footwraps

Oh gosh, the Wrestling event! Well, I really don’t know much about wrestling at all, but I figured a strong lady Orc might do the trick…even if she might be a bit revealing in a form-fitting fighting suit! But I knew for sure I wanted a big faction pride belt!

I would love to have Arcturis as a pet! :D

Shoulders: Shoulders of Lightning Reflexes // Back: Sentinel’s Winter Cloak // Chest: Conqueror’s Scourgestalker Tunic // Hands: Runeshaper’s Gloves // Waist: Naturalist’s Preserving Cinch // Legs: Leggings of Dubious Charms // Feet: Boots of the Forgotten Depths // Bow: Avalanche

Hunter is the only class I don’t have an alt of right now, so it was super fun to look through all the different bow models for the Archery event! So many of the contest entries really made me want to level a hunter. I may just have to abandon the Ironman Challenge idea on my hunter and just level her like normal to get to transmog fun!

– – – –

We still have yet to see the contestants for the following events: Javelin, Equestrian, Fencing, and Freestyle. I’m sure they will all be just as amazing as the entries from the first two weeks! :D And looks like JD will be hosting a Closing Ceremony too, woot! Looking forward to what kind of fun stuff is in store for us!!

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Shared Topic: How WoW Has Changed My Life

This week’s Blog Azeroth Shared Topic is by Effy from Effraeti’s RP: How has WoW changed your life?

Such a simple question, but there’s so, so much to it. I think during the six years I’ve played, the game’s done a lot of growing up and changing…and so have I! And of course, WoW has played a very large part in how I think and feel about many different things.

More than anything, WoW has definitely changed my perspective and attitude towards people and life as a whole. In last month’s Battlechicken Monthly Challenge, I posted about entering the field of teaching. When looking at what I’ve learned from WoW, all of my experiences from the game and interacting with the community have really built on important characteristics that I think I’ll need and highly value as an upcoming school teacher. From my WoW experiences, my views and perceptions of many things have adapted and changed…which I think are good, as I start working more with students! So here are some of the key qualities that WoW has made me value highly and aspire to get better at myself:

“You’ll never believe what crazies I ran into in that last dungeon, Cubby! They were all cursing like sailors!”

Believe it or not, I think WoW was a great avenue for me to be more outgoing (which I didn’t use to be), even if it was with strangers online. In doing so, I definitely learned to have thicker skin — whether it was through dealing with asshats in the dungeon finder, or being able to take constructive criticism as a part of a core raid member. Through watching the in-game community change dynamically through expansions, I’ve noticed how easily derogatory slurs and insults are thrown everywhere. It’s commonplace!But also because I can always expect to see that kind of behavior everywhere I go (sad reality that may be), I’ve learned to stop taking things too personally, and to keep in mind that it is just a game in the end. Even if it’s become a very consistent form of stress-relief for the past few years and what some may call a lifestyle! ;) And hey, sometimes you just can’t help but bite back a little, too.

What is this, I don’t even…

Being able to step up and take the lead is something that after having played WoW, I’m a lot less scared and tentative about doing. This has to do with my feeling comfortable and familiar enough with the game now, as I sure wouldn’t have the guts to even suggest ideas to people if this were back in TBC! In the above picture, I’d zoned into an LFR on my warlock alt and saw the entire platform covered in purple flames. I’d died even before I finished the loading screen! Then Ultraxion landed and snuffed out the handful of people still alive. Everyone jumped right in and started pointing fingers and calling names — but what good is that? I didn’t want to wait in another 30 minute DPS queue again. I went ahead and asked the two tanks if they knew what they were doing, and they had never even been there. After a few other group members chimed in to explain the fight, the boss was down in the next try. And all it took was someone to push the group towards the correct strategy and working together!

Children from the Stormwind Orphanage

We run into so many interesting (and sometimes just downright terrible) people in the game, but I think WoW has taught me to be so much more tolerant and patient. Maybe these people have a hard life outside of the game and use the pixels as a vehicle to steam off their stress. Maybe they in fact really just are immature, rude, or arrogant as a person, and it’s hard to completely change an individual’s personality. While these definitely aren’t excuses for offensive behavior, I’m more understanding that there might be some outlying issue making that person the way they are. That’s the way they will be. They’ll crave for attention, be annoying, whine a lot, and point fingers everywhere, but in the end, they’re just children. And sometimes you have to point them in the right direction and give them a talking to, and sometimes you just have to let them be themselves and leave them alone…

One, two, three, eleventy wooly mammoths!

Finally, I think the biggest changes and things I’ve learned from WoW have to do with time management. Nobody teaches you how to manage a schedule or keep up with tasks or prioritize in life. Hardly do you ever see anyone learn that from a class. Having played WoW from both semi-hardcore raider as well as very casual perspectives, I’ve noticed my priorities (both in-game and IRL) changing more and more with each expansion. In TBC/WotLK, I regularly raided as a holy paladin and was extremely active as an officer of my guild. Now in Cata (and I expect the same for Mists), I’m incredibly casual but have an embarrassingly large army of alts. Back then, my paladin was my “main” and I did absolutely everything on her — achievements, pets, mounts, you name it! Now, I’m incredibly attached to all of my alts, and don’t really have a main. And even though I don’t raid anymore, I still make sure to gear up all of my characters as best I can through non-“raiding” means (LFR/Valor).

I think much of the time management portion goes hand in hand with “growing up” and just taking on so many more responsibilities, especially now that I’m going into teaching. Instead of the long-houred sessions of play time I had during college, I sometimes even have nights where I hardly log in but to check mail/AH…and even nights where I won’t log in at all. (/gasp!) And while I do sometimes terribly miss what I consider “real” raiding and being on a core raid group, I’ve learned to really enjoy the small and fun stuff that I can enjoy without devoting all of my time to a guild and raid team. I’m always still on the lookout for silly things like giant mammoth parades in Dalaran… :)

Swimming on a Sunday

Pretty, pretty seahorses!

This past week in WoW, I’ve been keeping busy by working some on my pre-MoP bucket list. I’ve finally gotten around to cleaning out banks for a couple characters, but I still have yet to sort through either of my bank guilds (I have one on each faction and they’re both so messy! *hangs head in shame*) Going right along on my bucket list, I’ve made some nice progress in leveling my priest and she finally made it out to the Cata zones! :D

The first time I went through Vashj’ir, I remember hating it all because it rudely reminded me that one of my least liked things in any video games is being underwater! I did most of the quests including going through the Visions of Vashj’ir Past and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea achievements on my main, but for my other three level-capped characters, I definitely made it out to skip Vashj’ir and go right ahead to Mount Hyjal and avoid sea-sickness again! But this time with my priest, I decided I should give Vashj’ir a try again and maybe slow down and enjoy the scenery. It’s been actually pretty fun, and my priest even ran into a certain special rare elite while questing! Here are some silly screenshots of her underwater adventures thus far…

Priests are friends, not food!

I guess after blowing out his teeth with dynamite, this giant shark’s bite was a little…gummy? This wasn’t part of the plan!

Hah, take that!

Ewww…the dead orca rotting behind him! Gross! I wanted to take a picture of all the live orcas swimming around, but they were all unfriendly! :(

First you were all like “whoa”, and we were like “whoa”, and you were like “whoa…”

The sea turtles are probably my favorite of all the creatures there! :D Well, and also maybe the silly puffer fish…

Whale, whale, whale…what have we got here…?

Giant whale shark! :D He had kind of a cute face! I was scared to get too close before he’d eat me in one gulp!

Why trust a shark, right?

Oh my…just look at his grin! Is he happy to see me? Or does he have some other evil plan?!

Caught in a Briny Romance

My NPC Scan went off while questing, and it took me forever to find Lady La-La because I didn’t know she spawned in her little gazebo area! And then my priest was a little too starstruck and dazzled by Lady La-La’s performance of Briny Romance that she stood there painfully in awe…

Summertime, summertime…

And finally, I snapped this picturesque view on Erunak Stonespeaker’s vision trip quest! Almost like a lovely tropical postcard, as we near the end of the summer season… :)