So the holiday lull is over and the new year begins. My real life resolutions for 2010 aren’t anything impressive, and I’ve been cheating on WoW with consoles so I could really use some goal setting… so let’s take a look at what I intend to get done in WoW this year.

• Finish Insane in the Membrane before Cataclysm – or at least the goblin and Shen’drelar portions. Ideally I’d like to have all of this done by the expansion, so I can march into Deepholm and prove that I really am insane – see, it says so right above my head… Barring that, I’d like to at least finish the Steamwheedle Cartel and Shen’drelar reputations. Feralas is marked for some pretty heavy changes, and as it’s the easiest source for both of those (or at least the best for this title), I’d like to get done with that place while I can. Goblin I can do – Shen’drelar will be hell on the pocketbook… I suck at making money. This also has a sub-resolution:
• Get my rogue to 60+. This is the only way I’m going to be able to pickpocket all those Heavy Junkboxes unless a miracle occurs. The problem is, I really don’t like playing my rogue, so I need to use my remaining month of recruit-a-friend time and power-level her.
• Finish The Loremaster on my warlock. This is the title I originally wanted for him back when he was a little Forsaken warlock. Then he was a gnome warlock on Kael’thas and I’m sorry, I just can’t play gnomes. Now he’s an orc warlock back on Feathermoon and is only a few levels higher than he was at the end of Wrath. He’s halfway done with basically all of Loremaster, barring Northrend, so I guess I should also add:
• Finally (FINALLY) finish Higher Learning. Do you know how close I am to this? I need one book. One. It is never there. I have seen its joke replacements for the last four months. I WILL FINISH THIS ACHIEVEMENT THIS YEAR. Finished on January 18, 2010.
• Get my warlock to 80 before Cataclysm. That way I can ignore him until it’s almost time for the expansion after that. Ha ha, I kid.
• Get my Violet Proto-Drake. As it stands, I’ll get this during the Midsummer Fire Festival – assuming I don’t get boned by the RNG again during Valentine’s Day. The Midsummer Fire Festival is the only event I’m not at least 33-50% done with, because it was the only holiday that passed during the time that I quit playing WoW. I’ve been cleaning up so far, and I’ve got no reason to stop. Hot Pink Drake of Speed, here I come!
• Level a druid, paladin, or shaman to 80. Really, just level anything to 80. I’m pretty sure I’m the last remaining person in World of Warcraft with one level 80 character. And I’ve really had the urge to level a kitty druid lately… and I do have the leather heirlooms for it… I’ve just been trying to hold off on it until I finish leveling my rogue, and I was also kind of waiting until troll and worgen druids were available. However, I’m bad at not giving in to temptation.

So yeah, that’s it. There’s my list. It’s a short list of resolutions (spoiler: I typed "reoslutions" again), but it should be enough to keep me occupied.

Especially Insane in the Membrane, which some days feels so overwhelming that I start to think maybe Battlemaster would’ve been a better idea.

Oh wait! I forgot one!

• Post informative stuff about Death Knights again. The death knight blogosphere shrank about as fast as it grew, didn’t it? And my old guides could really use a good revamp. So yeah, I figure 2010 is a good time for me to get back into posting about the art of death knighting again.

So what are your goals for the year?

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Shaking off the dust; WoW resolutions

Ah, December – that time of the year where I typically let my blog posts trickle to a minimum. Not out of neglect for you, O dear reader, all 3 of you. No no – I simply find a lot of other things to do that happen to coincide with the holiday season, plus I spend a good deal of time out of town and not playing WoW.

I’ve been running PUGs, like everyone else, but to be honest I don’t even have a good story about those. Oh, there’s the one where our tank ninja-quit during the fourth wave in the Tribunal of Ages in Halls of Stone, and me and the fury warrior ran around like chickens with our heads cut off, keeping the billion dwarves off of our druid (who kept us all up!) and our elemental shaman (who knocked them all down). And then we went and punched Sjonnir in his ugly face to round out the night.

And yes, I’ll be finishing up Winter Veil. I only have 4 achievements until the title that I couldn’t finish last year, so this year, Merrymaker is mine!

However, I’ve also been playing other games. Gasp, shock! Blame the Polygamerous podcast (episode 3 just came out! Check it out here, it’s a good listen), but I periodically play other games now. Finally beat Persona 4, for instance, and a little Modern Warfare 2 and Zeno Clash (which wins hands-down for weirdest friggin’ game of the year). However, the game I can already tell is going to eat a lot of time now that I have it again is Mass Effect.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again – the only people who can match and, in my opinion, far exceed Blizzard’s ability to create a fictional universe down to the niggling details that don’t affect gameplay are the fine folks at Bioware. I’d love to know how many of them are frustrated ex-tabletop GMs.   Mass Effect was one of my favorite Xbox 360 games, if not the favorite, back when I had a working Xbox 360. However, due to complications with the 360 itself, I never quite got to finish it… and so when I saw it was only $20 on Steam….

Well, Merry Christmas to me.

(Incidentally, if you’d like to be friends with me on Steam, here’s my profile.)

So that’s why you may not hear much here in December. Now you know!

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Letting it languish

I haven’t been writing because I was on vacation, so if you were in or around Greensboro NC or Greenville SC, you may have seen me! However, you probably wouldn’t have known me from Adam. Such is life.

Anyway, here’s a smattering of things I felt were worth mentioning, and I’ll try to post something slightly more substantial soon.

• Two more down: Eye for an Eye and Skeleton Jack are closing their blogs. So long, gentlemen. E4AE always made ret paladinning sound fun, and SJ – well, what can I say? You made me like Unholy-spec DPS, despite all my best efforts to the contrary. Adios to both of you.
• Your stupid food trick of the day: you can eat a Magic Eater, be transformed, and still ride Argent Tournament jousting mounts (you’ll hover somewhere above it, except the basilisk, who rides on its back). If you’re in whelp form, you’ll also have a tiny whelp-sized lance in your paw attached to your wing.
• Thanks for saving me a month or two: The Argent Hippogryph is being lowered in price from 250 to 150 seals as of, well, today (even if it displays wrong – reportedly it may cost 150 but still display 250). I am pleased, as thus far I haven’t spent a single seal because I’m aiming to get the ‘gryph. It’ll actually be my 25th mount.
• Personal accomplishments: Freya down, Hodir down more smoothly than last week, Thorim…well, still working on that one. We essentially have The Siege and The Antechamber on farm, so I’m hoping I can see a Worldcarver soon. Or a Rune Edge. Either would be a nice upgrade. Unfortunately, the theme for Ulduar this week was “holy caster drops, Batman!” We did see two of the Rogue/Death Knight/Mage/Druid tier pants tokens this week, and I snagged mine, so hello best-in-slot-for-now pants.

And to finish this off, here’s a couple screenshots of the Magic Eater/Argent mount combo. Click to embiggen:

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Still alive

If you’re on Kael’thas, say hi to Voltarus. Trust me, I’m just as surprised as you are that they accidentally let me name myself after Drakuru’s personal necropolis.

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Coming soon to a server near you

Sadly, there were not enough cows to merit an achievement.

I’d like to give a hearty shout-out and a hello to Kel from Awakening in Progress, a fairly new blog. Kel’s got a holy priest and a death knight, and a pretty good storytelling style. Oh, and she’s further proof that there are girls on the internet! I particularly liked her post on the reputation of a Death Knight – how we have to prove ourselves more than other classes for a raid spot due to a massive influx of idiots (my words, not hers); Kel goes on to include some tips for DKs looking for raid spots on how to Stop Doing It Wrong.

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Rise from your grave

Then, new recruit-a-friend warrior Joratox (leveling with Vandersloot’s new warlock, Vandorah; I told him she needed to finish World Explorer so she could be Vandorah the Explorer):

And back to Zulfon for the late-Sunday-night finish:

Not pictured because apparently three achievements won’t show up simultaneously: finishing The Argent Crusade and The Argent Champion (yes, my death knight is now Zulfon the Argent Champion) also earned me 5 Exalted Reputations.

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An excuse to post achievement screenshots

I kid, of course: I write for me, but I also write for you. And apparently that earned me some recognition in the form of the above award, disguised as a meme, and handed out by Lady Jess herself. Thank you, thank you. I couldn’t do it without you, the little people (and I don’t mean the gnomes)!

“This award is bestowed upon a fellow blogger whose blog content or design is, in the giver’s opinion, brilliant.”

I can only assume it’s the content, because the design’s stock-standard. I should work on that. Anyway, like many awards, which come with rules like “don’t pose for Penthouse after being crowned” and “don’t use performance-enhancing drugs,” this one comes with rules too. Here we go.

1. When accepting this auspicious award, you must write a post bragging about it, including the name of the misguided soul who thinks you deserve such acclaim, and link back to the said person so everyone knows she/he is real.
2. Choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or improvise by including bloggers who have no idea who you are because you don’t have seven friends. Show the seven random victims’ names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog. Well, there’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon.
3. List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself. Then pass it on!

Honesty is the best policy, I suppose. Here’s ten things about yours truly.

1. I have an addiction to shiny pretty brand-new gadgets, limited only by my budget and common sense, and moreso the former than the latter.
2. Matt says I’M THE BEST! AROUND! NOTHING’S EVER GONNA KEEP ME DOWN~!
3. I have alt-itis, but at the same time I have alt-paralysis. I have a bunch of alts, ranging in level from 35 to 70, most of whom I only log on in fits and spurts. My druid has been getting a lot of love, though. To be honest, my first character was an undead rogue, but my first character after I learned how to play was a tauren druid, and I think it’s some of that nostalgia coming back to me. (That and the fact that blowing stuff up is fun.)
4. I’m on an RP server, but I really don’t RP. Funny thing, eh? I do write little RP journals on Path of a Hero for Whitebough when inspiration strikes, but I’m horribly out of practice.
5. My Halloween costumes have gotten progressively nerdier over the past four years, and I largely blame my roommate(s). In ‘05, the four of us went as the Fantastic Four (I was Reed Richards). In ‘06, the three of us went as Mario, Luigi, and Link (I was Mario, and I talked my girlfriend into going as Princess Peach). I can’t remember what was in ‘07. In ‘08, my roommate and I went as Mega Man and Dr. Wily (I was Dr. Wily). This year? Who’s to say? If he played WoW, we’d probably go as Varian and Thrall or something, and maybe I could talk my girlfriend into a Jaina costume.
6. I am really, really bad at PvP. I can’t believe I managed to rope Llanion and Siha into an arena team with me. THE FOOLS, MUAHAHAHAHA*cough*.
7. I have a lot of trouble coming up with things about myself. You wouldn’t believe how long I’ve been sitting here thinking about this (hint: most of the day).
8. I once managed to break both of my big toes at once by falling over onto them on a concrete floor because I was inside a sleeping bag and hopping from one spot to the other instead of getting out because it was cold, damn it.
9. I used to play FFXI, and I still have an account, but recently my linkshell (WoW players: read that as “guild”) broke up and everyone scattered to parts unknown and so now I really don’t have a reason to go back there. A hello to Wendell and Skaphia from Midgardsormr, if they happen to run across this; Socrates misses you guys
10. I used to be a complete Mac addict; now it’s toned down to more of a strong like. I actually have articles published in O’Reilly Media’s Mac OS X Hacks, which is now out-of-print (and the tips I wrote therein are obsolete). Still, it’s nice to know I’m in print somewhere.

Okay, there we go. Now let’s see what we can do about tagging some other folks. 7 bloggers, eh?

• Bellbell at 4haelz, my current druid mentor!
• Everyone at World of Matticus. Yes, all of you. Individually. Is that cheating? Screw you, it’s my blog and my award!
• Trustyn at Zap!
• The recently relocated Llanion, at Mad Cow Chronicles, without whom Banana Force M would be less Banana Force M-pressive. (Grooooan.)
• On that note, also Siha!
• Ms. Nibuca, over at Mystic Chicanery!
• And, a guy more of you should be reading, Linedan at Achtung Panzercow!

You all rock! Now get to writin’.

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I’m only surprised it didn’t happen sooner

In conclusion, bwaaaaaahahahahahahahahaha!

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Truck Fains

1. What is your name and where did it come from?
• Zulfon’s name is fairly adequately explained in this earlier post.
• Queklain’s name… well, there you go.
• I’m feeling generous, so here’s some more alt names. Valmafra, my blood elf hunter, is from the same source material. She used to be called Eladhon, which was generated by the random name generator in WoW and had the unfortunate side effect of my guildmates referring to him as ‘Aladdin.’
• Xajek, my troll priest, is another random name. In this case the generator generated ‘Xaj’ and I added ‘ek’ pretty much by tapping a random vowel and a random consonant.
• Galehorn and Whitebough, tauren shaman and tauren druid respectively, got their names by being modeled vaguely after existing tauren names.
2. How old are you and what is your birthday?
• Queklain: “Time is meaningless to the dead. My birthday is every day, as far as I’m concerned, since I’m still alive. Undead. Whatever. Flee, mortal, you’re beginning to bother me…”
• Zulfon: “I was mebbe 20, 21 years old. Jus’ a few years as an adult. Now dat I’m like dis, though… I’m as ageless as he is.” She jerks a thumb to indicate Queklain, who is nodding off in a chair. “Birthday, though, is August sevent’. And don’ you forget!” She grins a little bit, exposing her small tusks.
3. Are you in love and with whom?
• Queklain and Zulfon (in unison): “Hah!”
4. What is your favorite mount and why?
• Queklain: “My Frostwolf Howler. It was truly an honor,” he says, his voice dry, “to help our Horde brethren in Alterac Valley, for which they bestowed upon me this wolf.” Under his breath, he mutters, “They sure as hell wouldn’t have made it on their own.”
• Zulfon: “Malfas, mah purple nethawing drake. ‘S a sign of my pact with de Nether Flight, and mah work underminin’ Illidan. And a far deal comfier than dem bony birds mah brethren ride.”
5. Do you prefer a certain type of Azerothian meal and where do you get it from?
• Queklain: “Gnome.”
• Zulfon: “Dat’s disgustin’.”
• Queklain: “Don’t knock it till you’ve feasted upon its freshly-slain corpse.”
• Zulfon gags a little. “Food don’ quite taste like it used ta, so I go for de more exotic flavahs. Spiced wyrm burgers, that kin’ of ting.”
• Queklain: “Gnome’s kind of exotic.”
6. You know those giant mushrooms in Zangarmarsh? What is your theory on how they came to be and why are they so huge?
• Queklain: “You know how mushrooms grow on dead things, right? Well, look at Draenor. I rest my case.”
• Zulfon: “Ain’t nothin’ right about Outland. I worry less ‘bout de giant mushrooms and more ‘bout de ones walkin’ about.”
7. If you saw the Lich King walking towards you, what would you do?
• Queklain: “Oh, doubtlessly flee in abject terror. I’m surely no match for a man who – oh, wait, who can be wounded by a single apothecary with a batch of blight. Bah.” Queklain waves his hand dismissively. “Lich King, Bitch King.”
• Zulfon: “Well, it’s not like it’d be de first time, now is it?” She grins again, this one a bit more predatory. “Dere’s always a price to pay for betrayal, and we bot’ done betrayed each otha, so dere’d be hell to pay all around.”

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Fine, fine, since you asked

I saw a thread over on my realm forum which I really enjoyed, thought I’d mention the same over here.

High level fishermen (or fisherorcs, fisherbulls, etc) can fish in the Dalaran Eventide fountain and catch, occasionally, coins that figures from WoW history have thrown in, complete with the wish they made when they did so etched on the coin. My favorite is Landro Longshot, who wished "I wish i still had that coin." Amusing from the purveyor of TCG loot items.

With that in mind, if someone caught your coin from the fountain in Dalaran, what would it say on it? I’ll start.

Palehoof Geargrinder’s Shiny Silver Coin:

"I wish I knew how to make a Mechanostrider!"

http://usera.imagecave.com/Palehoof/Portraits/Pinktoque%20Palehoof.jpg

Bornakk later chimes in:

Bornakk’s copper coin: There are so many cool coins and you got mine, poor you!

As for me… hmmmm. We could go serious:

Zulfon’s Gold Coin: I wish to hear the spirits again… and for them to hear me too.

Or silly:

Queklain’s Shiny Copper Coin: They keep telling me not to stand in stuff. I wish the ground wasn’t so dangerous.

Or both:

Whitebough’s Silver Coin: I wish I could muster up the energy to wander out of town!

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What would your fountain coin say?