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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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… :)

Shared Topic: Introducing RL Friends

Just two bear buddies on a zeppelin :D

This week’s Blog Azeroth Shared Topic brings back some very happy memories for me! Frinka from Warcraft Street asks:

Have you ever tried to introduce real life friends to WoW? If yes, how did it go? If you never have, why not?

There’s been a couple of times where I’ve introduced WoW to real life friends. The best memory of introducing people from outside of Azeroth was when I recruited my younger sister to play. At first, I let her try out a couple of characters on my own account, but then she enjoyed it so much that I just bought her an account of her own along with Burning Crusade so we could level together quickly and enjoy the fun of Recruit-A-Friend! We tried out a couple of cute Tauren druids at first and had fun rolling around the Barrens as two silly bears, but she decided on being a Tauren hunter in the end because she enjoyed the pets and Tauren lore/story.

It was really nice bringing her to share adventures in Azeroth with me. In real-life, she’s like a best friend to me (even though we have a seven-year age difference!) and it was interesting getting to talk to her about the game and having someone to talk to about the game even out of game. When she started playing, I was at a small break in between raiding guilds and was pretty close to burning out due to the end-of-expansion humdrum. It was very relieving to have someone familiar (outside of the game) to come into a world I knew well and for the two of us to spend time exploring, finding amusement in the smallest things in-game, and overall just being carefree and having fun.

Here’s just a couple more screenshots of some of the fun times!

Halloween silliness!

Just some silly mask and floating time with my sister and another close Tauren friend! :)

“What’s that thing floating in the moats?” “Boats!!? Cool!!!”

My sister’s been on WoW-hiatus for a very long time now, since she’s been busy with school. Even though I don’t have as much play time nowadays, I hope that we might have time to mess around in-game again in the future. She always had her eye out for the small, interesting things in-game that I would otherwise miss and always reminded me that “it’s just a game!!” and kept me sane if I were to stress out about something. :P

Fun times, fun times. Maybe again someday…

Representing Silverwing in the Transmogolympics

For Silverwing!

As many of you already know, the 2012 Transmogolympics are well on their way, hosted by JD Kenada and judged by himself, Tome, Matty, and Khizzara. There are currently 75 confirmed participants — whoa, that’s a lot!! (And there very well may be even more after I’ve written this post.) When I first signed up, I wasn’t quite sure what I’d gotten myself into. I’m still quite a newbie to transmogrification and costumes, and it’s a little intimidating to see many fellow competitors that are quite well known for their transmog posts and outfits! But I figured, what better contest to practice in, right??

After all, there are nine “medal categories” and one flagbearer (tabard/sigil representation of each faction): Archery, Cycling, Discus, Equestrian, Fencing, Javelin, Hammer Throw, Wrestling, & Freestyle. For more detailed information on each category, see the rules & criteria here, as well as some clarifications.

It’s a bit of a daunting task, when I first looked at it! Nine outfits, and each has to be on a separate race/gender combination (no repetitions). After I signed up, the first thing I did was make a schedule for when to make which outfits by (don’t judge) because I knew if I did otherwise, I might not make the deadline of July 31st. As of tonight, I’ve got archery and cycling down…seven more to go! I’ve got a pretty fun idea brewed up for the freestyle, but we’ll see how hard it is for me to actually execute. It’s been pretty fun so far, but as I don’t have access to WoW Model Viewer (the Mac release is super outdated), I’m stuck with just fiddling with MogIt and the viewer on Wowhead for now!

Silverwing Grove in Ashenvale

About the Silverwing Sentinels

Being randomly assigned to represent the Silverwing Sentinels is a little bittersweet for me. I’m at a point where I’ve been seriously debating with myself on race changing my druid because she no longer really feels at home with her Night Elf roots. Exploring Silverwing Grove and doing a bit of research on the Silverwing Sentinels sure made Ninevi a bit wistful! Regardless, I’m proud to represent Silverwing, as I do love me some WSG action and hope to do the Alliance proud!

For those who may not know, the Silverwing Sentinels are the Alliance faction for the Warsong Gulch battleground. They comprise of Night Elves attempting to reclaim Ashenvale from an Orcish clan named the Warsong Outriders (the Horde WSG faction), who have been logging the forests and established a huge logging outpost in Warsong Gulch.

A related flag/sigil…?

While browsing for ideas for the flagbearer, I decided I wanted to base my Silverwing outfit on General Lylandris, one of the Warsong Gulch battlemasters who appears in Ironforge during the WSG holiday. Sadly, I wasn’t able to find any weapon models like the large throwing blades the Sentinels use, so I wanted to focus on the purple, gold, and silver of the tabard (see first picture, above!) I’m pretty happy with it for now, and I’m tempted to farm it on my paladin, despite her being a Blood Elf and having nobody to run Heroic BWD with for the shoulders. *pokes Chimaeron with a stick and runs away*

With that, I wish good luck to all fellow competitors! Can’t wait to see all the entries/winners when they are all submitted at the end of the month! And as for those of you who haven’t signed up yet, there’s still plenty of time and no deadline for signing up. Come join the fun! :)

Of Flame Keepers and Fireworks

Midsummer Fire Festival Bonfire in the Wetlands

With the Midsummer Fire Festival coming to a close, I’m a bit sad because the holiday is done for the year and we’ll have to wait until next summer to see all the decorations and play all the games again. Yes, even the torch tossing one! I’m a sucker for in-game mini games…

Midsummer has always been dear to me because it was the first world event and holiday that I experienced after having started playing WoW. I definitely remember putting those Ribbon Poles to good use and getting a kick out of hitting various beasts with zaps from the Bonfire’s Blessing buffs! The Wetlands bonfire near Menethil Harbor particularly stuck in my mind, because my druid was in her late-20s, early 30s and all-too-eagerly dancing on the ribbon pole when a high level blood elf paladin strolled up and put out the flame and ganked me! (Yay, for rolling on pvp servers back then! /groan) I was pretty oblivious back then and didn’t notice till I’d died and saw her running off on her charger.

But anyhow, that was about four or five years ago! The Fire Festival has come and gone again, and with the end of this year’s, my rogue (currently my main achievement hunter) has finally wrapped up the second to last holiday needed to finish What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been. Hooray! Now to start planning for Brewfest so I enough time to farm enough of the many needed tokens for the achieves AND join the Brew of the Month Club…

In the meantime, here are my favorite highlights from this year’s holiday!

Summer Scorchling

There weren’t any new changes to this summer’s Fire Festival, but watching the Summer Scorchling quest event always makes me smile. Silly little scorchling! He turns into a mini-Ragnaros in the process and says the dialogue below:

Summer Scorchling says: Thank you again, (player), for this delectable incense.
Summer Scorchling devours the incense. It’s ravenous!
(He grows into the mini-Rag form)
Summer Scorchling says: So good! So packed with energy!
Summer Scorchling says: It has everything a growing scorchling needs!
Summer Scorchling says: I can feel the power SURGING within me!
Summer Scorchling bellows with laughter!
Summer Scorchling says: Now! Finally! Our plans can take effect!
Summer Scorchling says: KNEEL, LITTLE MORTAL! KNEEL BEFORE THE MIGHT OF THE HERALD OF RAGNAROS!
Summer Scorchling says: YOU WILL ALL PERISH IN FLAMES!
(He shrinks and turns back into his small elemental form)
Summer Scorchling blinks…
Summer Scorchling says: Ah. I was merely jesting…

Things are getting a little hazy…

Even after buying the Festival clothes for the achievement, I only ended up having enough Burning Blossoms to redeem 1 of the 2 vendor “pets,” and I’m not sure the blossoms remain in inventory for next year. I ended up getting the Captured Flame (a reddish wisp model) and suppose I will work on the Brazier of Dancing Flames next year. I didn’t even spend my tokens on miscellaneous vendor things because I got them already from the questlines, but they were all limited durations anyway. Sadly, the Fire Festival Brew only gave a fiery breath after the first sip, but it sure did make Caprice nice and drunk real fast! The Handful of Summer Petals were very pretty, too!

Brr…if only summers were always so chilly!

So I guess here things get a bit sketchy! I often joke about my rogue (Caprice) being my luckiest of characters when it comes to playing the RNG. Examples: The White Hawkstrider dropped on her first H-MGT run, the Phoenix Hatchling on her second, had Reins of the Raven Lord drop around her 55th run, whereas my paladin (old main) never saw it drop, despite running 100+ times. But surely Caprice is not always so lucky. Or is she? Perhaps it’s because her character is barely a year old and hasn’t run out of her luck yet, unlike my others? Whenever an RNG event is to happen, I still get extremely skeptical and brace myself for a long and frustrating grind, mostly because I expect that by default from my other characters who are much in favor of Lady Luck.

Oh, hi!

And such was the anticipation I held in the back in my mind as I queued for my first Slave Pens/Ahune the Frost Lord holiday dungeon run for this year’s holiday. The first run was kind of funny because I’d fogotten the fight completely since it’s been almost two years since I did it. (I was still on hiatus last summer.) But it didn’t take long to figure out, and the first run rewarded just Burning Blossoms. From there, I set my mind to run the dungeon on my four 85s each day until at least one of them got the Ice Chip (Frigid Frostling minipet). After all, all of my characters would share the pet account-wide in MoP, right? So I went ahead and ran it on all the characters I could, but none of them got it the first day, which I didn’t expect to happen anyway.

The second day, my holiday dungeon queue popped while I was mid-flight on a long flight path from Dalaran to Sholazar Basin to get the Northrend bonfire achievements on my rogue. The group was decent and finished pretty quickly, and soon enough I was put back on the flight path again. Since I wasn’t able to open the satchel while on the FP, I just joked to myself that I’d have to wait until the 6-minute long ride was done till I found out or not if it were just full of Burning Blossoms! Well…oh, the irony! I landed in River’s Heart and opened the bag and was confused for a second to see a shiny little blue thing underneath the blossoms, but it eventually dawned on me and I breathed a sigh of relief that I wouldn’t have to farm for it this year. But really, RNG loot gods?? On the second day, on what’s actually an alt? After having done it loads on my old main and never seeing it drop?! Well, I suppose I shouldn’t complain now that I’ve gotten it (/knocks on wood), but it depresses me to read fellow blogger’s posts about farming in vain for consecutive years because RNG is completely messed up. I think they should at least have had the option for buying the pet for a hefty amount of blossoms or something at least guaranteeable… :\

Caprice: This is the last time you’ll see me in a dress… *glare*

But I guess that’s all of the festival for this year! Hope everybody got their festival stuff finished, and don’t forget that there are fireworks and festivities to wrap up the festival with a bang at 6PM PDT! I don’t think I’ve ever watched them before, so I may check it out…after watching some fireworks in real life first in celebration of July 4th, though, of course! :)