Hello Readers,

As you know, I have been playing a lot of RIFT lately. Yesterday while I was questing with my boyfriend in Silverwood Forest, I noticed that the mountain beside where we were questing looked like it was probably the tallest in the zone, and I remembered reading that there was an achievement for climbing the highest mountain. I suggested trying to find our way to the top, but he just wanted to keep questing. Tonight while questing alone on my warrior I got to the same questing area. I decided I would give the mountain my best shot, and after only a few minutes I actually reached the peak! Directly in front of my character I saw “An Ancient Claim”, so of course I ran up and right clicked the mound. I received a container called “A Dusty Sack” and excitedly opened it to find my mountain climbing prize.

To my surprise and joy, out popped an epic Warrior breastplate! Then up came the Shard First announcement saying I was the first one on the Shard to find it! I was pretty happy, and after taking a few steps to my left, I got the “High Point” achievement I’d been looking for.

I headed out to the same spot on my Cleric, but unfortunately she didn’t get an epic. She did get the achievement and a green quality shield though! I am wondering if only the first person to climb the mountain on each Shard gets an epic, or if I was just really really lucky, lol.

If you want to go for the achievement and possibly an epic of your own, go to Palisade and head all the way up the hill at 6090,2675. Then skirt around the hut and head down the path to your right until you get to 6258,2468. Now start climbing! It takes a few minutes to climb and jump your way to the top, but just keep heading toward 6326,2344 and eventually you’ll make it to the Ancient Claim! Best of luck, and be sure to leave a comment and let me know what you get and if you’re the first are your Shard to do so!

I haven’t decided if I should keep and use the Epic Armor, or try to sell it, but here’s a screenshot of what it looks like.

Thanks for Reading!
MM <3

I am still alive! Though I’m not sure I can say the same for my WoW subscription…

I had never even heard of RIFT until I noticed people mentioning it on Twitter. I had no intention of playing another monthly subscription MMO, and figured I’d just give it a try once they came out with a free trial, just so I could  see what all the fuss was about. Circumstances dropped a “free trial” right in my lap only a couple days after release (thanks to access to a friend’s account)

My Warrior

and after about an hour, I was fishing out my credit card for my very own copy. I went into RIFT wanting to hate it. WoW has been a big part of my life over the last 5 years and I felt like RIFT was just the shiny new toy in the sandbox that everyone fights over. I was determined to remain loyal to my dear WoW, so I was on the lookout for RIFT fails from the moment of my Ascension. That was days ago, and I still haven’t found any noteworthy disappointments.

For those of you who are as in the dark about RIFT as I was before jumping into Telara last week, it is basically WoW, only with lots of little things that I always wished Blizzard would implement but never did. Like what you ask? I prepared a list…

My Mathosian Rogue

-ARMOR DYE! PINK armor dye! (Well, light purple, but it looks pink)
-Great looking characters
-Awesome character customization
-Instant Auction House mail
-Sweet looking armor/weapons early on
-There’s so much going on all the time with RIFTS and Invasions
-Amazing class builds
-Public Groups (no more having to wait to invite someone to group while they decline and steal your quest mob!)
-You can “salvage” armor and weapons you craft for some of your crafting materials back!
-You get three professions!

These might seem like silly trivial things, but sometimes it’s the little things that count! RIFT has everything that WoW has; PVP, Quests, Professions, Achievements, Dungeons, Guilds, Auction House, Lore, Etc, but then it also has improved or corrected a lot of the things that have always bothered me about WoW. I didn’t think any game could ever get me to leave my 160,000g or 12 level 80+ characters behind, but I don’t even feel bad about it! I know I could still be in the “honeymoon” period with RIFT, so even though I’m pretty sure RIFT can hold my attention for the next few years, I’m giving myself until the end of March to play WoW again before canceling my account, just in case.

My Kelari Rogue

So far I have a level 19 High Elf Guardian Cleric (who is just adorable) and she is my “main”. I have a level 18 High Elf Warrior that I really like as well and a level 11 Mathosian (Human) Mage who has Crumbly, her stone elemental guardian to tank stuff for her, hehe. I also have a level 6 Kelari (Dark Elf) rogue with pink pigtails! You can only have 6 characters per “shard” (server), but so far that’s been okay. My Guardians are on the Millrush shard and my Defiants are on Kelpmere.

In addition to questing and fighting off Elemental invasions, I’ve been working on professions. So far I have a miner, butcher (skinner), forager (herbalist), armor smith, and an outfitter (tailor + leatherworker). I’ve also been playing the Auction House a bit! I was sad I couldn’t afford a mount right away, so I hit the Auction House to do some flipping! I’ve already made 15 platinum just buying cheap artifacts (which you collect to turn in as sets for vanity items such as funny helms, pets, and mounts) and selling them for more. Now even my baby characters get horseys! Hopefully it won’t take me too long to become RIFT rich, since I’m thinking the RIFT AH will be pretty similar to the WoW one.

My Cleric

Hopefully none of you are thinking, “I’m not reading this blog anymore if she doesn’t write about WoW stuff!”, but if you are… Go try RIFT! Honestly, I haven’t read any bad reviews on it or heard of anyone disliking it so far! Plus I still might keep WoW active, if only to log on when I’m REALLY bored and do Archaeology, lol. I do want that Troll sword, even if I’ll never use it.

What are your thoughts on RIFT vs WoW? Have you been playing RIFT? What’s your favorite race, class or faction so far? Leave a comment and let me know!

Thanks for Reading!
Now to get back to RIFT!
<3 MM

Some of you noticed my post last week about Elementalgold’s Win a Pet contest, which I entered and was actually lucky enough to win! I got my Lil’Ragnaros code in my e-mail today (though it’d been in my “junk” folder, silly gmail…) and quickly logged in to feed my new fiery buddy a pet biscuit so he could feel more like the big scary Ragnaros from MC, lol. He’s a very cool pet, and I enjoyed experiencing the contrast from fighting him in Vanilla, to using him to bake some cookies in Cataclysm, lol.

I was thinking this new pet would help me get all the new pet achievements that await us in patch 4.1, but the Petting Zoo achievement is for 100 pets and the Menagerie achievement is for 125 pets and the addition of Lil’Ragnaros to my collection brings me to 128. Oh well, saves me from having to splurge and buy some of the Cataclysm pets who I have yet to get as I’m waiting for their prices to drop.

If you’re like me and enjoy selling vanity pets, grabbing any under priced ones on the AH now (that aren’t from a vendor) might not be a bad idea! Or if you’re an engineer, you could start saving up some mats to throw a few engineering pets on the Auction House when 4.1 hits. Finally remember to keep selling those Dalaran vendor pets, as you could probably creep the price up on those a bit when the achievements come out if you don’t have too much competition.

Thanks for Reading,
MM <3

I have been playing the Auction House a bit more frequently this week, and have been making off like a bandit, flipping under priced items! I’ve found a few blue and epic pieces of vanilla gear priced under 5g and then have sold them the next day for 200g +. Because of my recent successes, I had been doing my, “/aadv getall” scans three times a day and last night I found an amazing deal on a Disgusting Oozeling! It was priced at only 400g, and since I am well aware of how rare it is, I quickly snatched it up. I couldn’t decide at what price I should post it at first, wanting it to be a quick sale, but decided I didn’t mind waiting a few days if it wouldn’t sell at it’s 4000g average price. Sure enough I logged in this morning and it had sold.

As I collected my 3800g (after AH cuts) from the mail, I was happy to see it had pushed me just over 160k. I’d looked the seller up on the armory just out of curiosity, figuring it was probably just a fellow Auctioneer who had forgotten a “0″, but found that it was actually a level 55 hunter. I began to wonder if they had perhaps just stumbled across the pet while leveling through the Plaguelands, and since there had been no others in the Auction House at the time, priced it at what seemed fair to them. I remember my boyfriend selling one back in Vanilla WoW for a whole 150g or so, which was way more money than either of us had at the time. We were ecstatic and having simply come across it while killing oozes, we had no idea just how rare it was. I should have learned it instead of letting him sell it, since I spent nearly 100 hours farming for it over the next few years.

Anyway, this all got me thinking, and feeling slightly bad for the level 55 hunter who perhaps was happy with their 400g, but unaware of how much gold they could have had. I decided, rather spontaneously, that I should send them some of the profit I’d made, and maybe let them know about the Undermine Journal, so that if it simply had been a case of not knowing how much it was worth, that would never be the case for them again. I tried to make the note sound friendly and not lecturey, hoping they wouldn’t take offense to my advice if perhaps it was accompanied with gold, lol.

I do realize this could have been a case of a forgotten “0″, as 400 is only a “0″ away from 4000, but I hope it was just that they had no idea what the rare pet was worth. Either way, even though it brought me back down below 160k, I’m happy I at least tried to help, whether it is appreciated or not, we shall see.

Have you ever returned an incorrectly priced item to the seller? Or given anyone a cut of the profits you made off them? Do you think me send the hunter some of the gold I’d made from them was nice, or a nooby Auction House move?

Thanks for Reading,
MM <3

Hello Readers,

I thought I’d quickly share this for any of you who love in game WoW pets as much as me (and because I get an extra entry for doing so, hehe). Ele-Mental from Ele-Mentalgold’s is hosting a contest and all you have to do to be entered to win a pet code is to answer the question, “What makes you such an avid collector of mounts or pets?” in a comment and then send an e-mail!

Ele-Mentalgold’s Win A Pet Contest.

Best of Luck!!
<3MM

Hello Readers,

Can you believe it? I am writing a post and it’s about WoW! Yaay!

I was playing my ret pally earlier today (who is my main) and was doing some Archaeology while listening to the Obscurecast Podcast. I listened to today’s episode but realized I had somehow missed last week’s! On last week’s episode they mentioned the Love Is In The Air events and a pink proto-drake. I thought perhaps they meant a pink proto-drake could drop from the Heart-Shaped Box you get for killing the holiday bosses. I have wanted a pink dragon mount ever since I found out there were mounts in World of Warcraft, so I quickly minimized and looked over the fight mechanics as I’d never done the Love Is In The Air boss encounter.

The fight sounded simple enough, don’t stand in the bad unless you are wearing the right colour of anti-cologne or anti-perfume stuff, but I was still hesitant to que because (a) I had never done it and was afraid of dieing and looking like a total noob and (b) because I am a ret paladin and my dps has been horrible ever since the addition of holy power. The last time I had attempted to dps anything as a pally was the Crucible of Carnage when I was managing an embarrassing 4.5k dps at level 85, which is about how much my paladin did at level 80 before the changes, lol. I haven’t gotten any new gear since then so I expected my numbers to be about the same now.

Finally I figured, what the hell, I’m always in groups with people who have no idea what is going on, can’t preform their role, and are jerks about it, so I should be able to que for what I want! So I qued and waited around for about 15 minutes until it popped up. I got in, buffed, and started looking around for the quest guy who would give me the anti-perfume and ant-cologne stuff. I couldn’t find him and the fight had started, so I just started dpsing while avoiding both colours of the bad. The bosses died, I stayed alive and no one said, “Wtf Lauriella!?” so I considered it a success on my part! I cringed a bit as I pulled up recount to see just how far behind I had been in terms of dps and to my disbelief, there I was at the top of the meter with 8k! I knew I’d reset the meter at the beginning of the fight, but thought it must be wrong, so I qued again. (Plus I wanted my dps neck, which had dropped but had been taken by the Deathknight tank).

While I was waiting in que I looked up just what the boss and Heart-Shaped Box could drop. It turns out there is no Pink Proto-drake, and that Pewter and Gazimoff had actually been talking about the Violet Proto-drake (which I already have, /doh) but I did want the pet, the Big Love Rocket and my neck, so I stayed in que anyway. The next time I got into SFK I noticed the very obvious table with the sparkly bottles on top just next to the bosses, so I picked up my anti-perfume and anti-cologne potions. Without having to worry about avoiding the bad, I managed to do 8.5k dps my second time, coming out on top once again. (Ret paladins must have gotten a buff I overlooked, hehe)

I didn’t get anything awesome from my Heart-Shaped Box, or even manage to get my dps necklace, but I did get to attempt to get them and  I will attempt it again tomorrow and the next day and the next until Love Is In The Air ends. I had been totally intending to let this holiday pass me by because I thought my main “holiday achievement” character was not up to par and that she would be an embarrassment to play in a group, but that wasn’t the case at all! I was afraid of messing up and looking like a pally noob, but instead I got to experience the only holiday boss I’d always missed in previous years, get an achievement, and hopefully at least get the pet before the holiday is over!

I just wanted to share my story in case any of you are fresh level 85 characters eying that Crown Chemical Co que, but are hesitant like I was. Just go for it! The fight is simple and I think the majority of the other players queing are likely in the same boat as us (otherwise I don’t think I could have been top dps as many times as I was, hehe).

Thanks for Reading!
MM <3

I was trying to think of a good Valentines Day post to write today, but couldn’t seem to come up with anything suitable! Instead of writing a Valentines day post, I thought I’d draw my readers a Valentines Day picture instead. Though I prefer drawing the pretty races like Blood Elves and Draenei, I thought I’d go with the new Cataclysm races as it’s the first Valentines since Deathwing showed up. I hope you all like!

Happy Valentines Day!

<3 MM

Since the majority of the comments on my first comic were positive and encouraging, I couldn’t wait until next week to post this as I had originally intended. I know this one is better than the herbalism one, but just in case this is the best I can do, I didn’t want to lead with it and then have it be all downhill from there, lol. I hope you enjoy, and if you do I’ll be sure to get busy making some more of them!

I have been thinking and I believe at least part of the reason I have been losing interest in World of Warcraft lately is because I really don’t have a focus. By the end of Wrath I had a fairly strict daily routine and quite a few goals I was working toward. I was doing certain dailies without fail and making as much gold as I possibly could, all while racing to get all of my characters to 80 before Cataclysm hit. Now that the initial shiny new toy feeling is fading from Cataclysm, I find myself logging in, standing around and then inevitably logging out to go play the Sims or watch a movie. I don’t have any kind of routine (other than making Dreamcloth once a week) and I hadn’t set any new post-Cataclysm goals for myself. A little more focus is never a bad thing, so I have compiled a new WoW -To Do- List to help me manage my play time a little more and hopefully entice me to actually log in! I do love working toward a goal!

1. Get every character on Terenas to level 85. This may seem like a large task, but I don’t think it will be. I have one of every class, 3 are already 85, 1 is 83, 4 are level 80, 1 is level 60 and 1 is level 51. It’s going to take me some time of course, but I really enjoy questing (which is probably why I have so many characters) so this will be my main focus over the next little while.

2. Make 500,000g. I haven’t been trying to make gold at all really in the last month or so, but I would like to get back into it! I currently have around 120k, but I am hoping through leveling all my characters and starting to utilize their professions more, making another 380k won’t be that hard.

3.  Level Inscription on the Alliance. I already have 2 level 450 scribes, but they are both Horde on different servers. I am thinking my new Death Knight would make a good Scribe…

4. PvP at level 85. I’m not sure who I want to be my PvP character, but I would like to try to get back into it on someone! I really liked being a level 19 Shockadin, but that doesn’t really work at level 85, so I’m thinking maybe my Death Knight.

5. Get my Armadillo Pup pet. My guild is sitting around 20k out of 50k critters killed for the achievement, but I am going to attempt to finish that up this weekend!

6. Get the Loremaster of Cataclysm achievement on my main (Alliance Paladin).

7. Experience all the new Cataclysm Dungeons. I still have yet to see about half of them.

8. Finish leveling Tailoring on my Priest. My Paladin is already a Tailor, but my Priest was also sitting around 350 Tailoring from back in BoP BC cloth epic days. I figured having another 525 Tailor wouldn’t hurt and would give me more Dreamcloth to work with every week! She’s now at 413 Tailoring, but Frostweave is scarce, so I’ll have to do some cloth farming.

9. Get a level 85 Horde character of every class. This is going to be a long term goal because I still have a fair ways to go! I have 3 level 80 Hordies and 1 level 71, but other than that the rest are still all below level 60.

10. Finish Archaeology. This will take forever and unless they change it, I’ll probably never get it done, but I still plan on trying!

Have you set goals for your characters since Cataclysm came out? How has your focus changed since Wrath? What kind of goals do you have, if you have any?

Thanks for Reading!
Miss Mediocre <3