I’ve been contemplating a new project (related to this blog), and as part of my deliberations I put together this little combination of screenshot, WoWModelViewer, Photoshop (and a couple of nice little 3rd-party filters).
It’s just a proof-of-concept image (click for the full image), intended to make it look like I’ve been busy while I consider my options (and take lots of notes). It’s called “Entering Ironforge” – what can I say, I love prosaic titles.
/wave
Post soundtrack: “Moondance” by Van Morrison
I noticed something interesting while 4.0.1 was installing, and now I’ve found a working version of WoWModelViewer (the ‘DEV WORK’ version, so you should be surprised if it works) I found something veeeeeeery nice.
Isn’t Miss Goblin cute? And she has company.
Meet Mister Goblin. Some great little touches in his animations – I particularly love the way his ears sag when he cries, it’s quite touching.
Mr Worgan. Pretty much what you’d expect. And last, but not least…
And Ms Worgen. While she’s still prone to lycanthropic Chihuahua-ism when viewed from certain angles (and some of her animations have clipping issues with her armour that you wouldn’t believe), she’s not as poorly modeled as the initial screenshots of her from the char select screen would suggest.
She does seem to need a good few layers of polish, though.
Roll on 4.0.3!
/wave
Post soundtrack: “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon
I decided to do something about my unguilded state, and the easiest route was a vanity guild for myself. I purchased the guild bank slots while I was at it, so there’s a lot of space for me to fill with bits and pieces while I wait for Cata.
I’m not planning on making the guild a ‘real’ one (I’ve been a GL before, and it turns out I’m pretty dire at it), but it gives me somewhere to put my alts while I fail to get around to finding a raiding guild for Cata.
Now to go fishing for Mr Pinchy.
/wave
Post soundtrack: “Who? Where? Why?” by Jesus Jones
I’m usually not motivated enough to take part in the shared topics on Blog Azeroth, but this one caught me at a time when I’m reassessing my naming habits in preparation for adding new characters to my roster, come 4.0.1 and Cataclysm. (Warning: incoming stream of consciousness!)
I initially touched on my naming habits a looooooong time ago, but for those new here it can all be traced back to a mouse. I love the name Dinglemouse, a character from Spike Milligan’s book Badjelly the Witch (which I really need to buy a copy of). When I initially considered using the name for one of my characters, I decided to save it and try a variation first, which was Pringlerouse. Variations begat variations, and soon I had seven dwarves to play with (although Fingle has since moved servers, leaving me with an open spot in the roster, and there’s still no Snow White to keep them in line).
My current assortment on Dath’Remar, nominally my home server, is Pringlerouse (80 rogue), Kringlelouse (80 hunter), Dinglemouse (80 warrior, and star of my last few blog posts), Ringleprouse (80 rogue), Mingledouse (80 priest), Binglerouse (80 pally), Tingleflouse (35 druid and the only non-dwarf) and Ninglethouse (very disposable 58 DK and AH mule). On other servers my highest level characters are server transferee Finglethouse, an 80 dwarf priest and Pringle, an 80 gnome rogue on Argent Dawn (home of SAN-US), and Dinglemouse, a 70 troll rogue on Aman’Thul.
While Pringle, Dingle, Mingle and Ringle are pretty much guaranteed to stay around on Dath, I’m looking at re-rolling (and probably renaming) Kringle and Bingle with 4.0.1, and replacing (and definitely renaming) Tingle with a Worgen druid come Cataclysm. My quandary now is how best to name these new characters - it’s been hard to come up with names that fitted the system I’d been using yet sounded as good as the original ones (Kringlelouse never really rang true, and Binglerouse sounds more like a gnome), and I’ve been resistant to the idea of breaking tradition (at least, until now).
Incidentally, one little exercise which has helped me firm up the identities behind the names of my characters was a collection of little thumbnail descriptions I did of each of the main characters when I entered the Cataclysm Comic Contest a few weeks back on Disciplinary Action. (The winners’ prizes were really quite delightful, by the way)
Mingledouse, the pathologically pessimistic priest.
Dinglemouse, the timid tank.
Kringlelouse, the hunter who’s allergic to pets.
Binglerouse, the paladin atheist.
Ringleprouse, the clumsy yet ridiculously lucky rogue.
Pringlerouse, not a serial killer, honest.
Needless to say, while I’m definitely not a roleplayer it was fun to come up with simple hooks upon which I can hang the identities of my characters (even if they are just currently purely cosmetic hooks – although the behind-the-webcomic-scenes post on DA today has left me… a little contemplative of possibilities).
But I digress. (Like usual)
As I said above, for my dwarves my current system hasn’t really scaled beyond four of the first five, which means it’s as good a time as any to come up with something new (and probably more individual this time round), which means time to hit some online name generators to see what I can find which sounds good (probably my only criteria).
As far as other characters go, well, they’ve pretty much inherited dwarven names out of habit. My troll desperately needs a unique name of his own, and I’ll have to get creative if I roll some more horde-side characters (including a goblin, of course). As names are pretty much forever (or until you spend some cold, hard cash), they’re not something I want to come to regret. Time to cogitate.
After all, the Cataclysm is coming, so what better time to make some sweeping changes. Not just to how you play, but also to who.
/wave
Post soundtrack: “Uam Uam” by Povo
After much trials, tribulations, and many many runs of UBRS, I’ve not only completed Dingle’s D1 set, I’ve also completed the quest chains to upgrade it all to D2.
For the D2 set, WoW Insider helped out again with its mini-guide for the upgrade quest chains. But there’s several bits and pieces that they didn’t elaborate upon, which took a bit of doing on top of the ridiculous amount of travelling required for the D2 quests.
The first noticeable hurdle was Anthion’s Strange Request, the third quest in the chain to upgrade your leg, feet and shoulder pieces. This quest has you provide three Dark Iron Bars, 20 Enchanted Leather, three Mooncloth and four Cured Rugged Hides. The mooncloth was easy to find on the AH, but I had to make the Enchanted Leather and Cured Rugged Hides on my enchanter and leatherworker. The Dark Iron Bars are a little trickier, as you need to complete The Spectral Chalice in BRD before your miner is able to smelt them from ore. It was an easy solo for my level 80, and it took longer to procure the 10 truesilver bars than anything else.
Anthion’s Old Friend was the next hiccup, requiring the Crescent Key to get into the Dire Maul library. Fortunately this is just a minor speed bump, requiring a partial run through Dire Maul East to kill Pussilin for it.
The Three Kings of Flame is another speed bump, with Duke of Cynders being noticeably subject to the RNG. I stocked up with several sets of the Twilight Cultist gear (and a couple of Abyssal Signets) from the AH to use in the numerous attempts at summoning which you may (or may not) need to get him to appear – he’s a 1-in-4 chance from a Wind Stone, so good luck!
The last hold-up was getting a Flask of Supreme Power to turn-in for Final Preparations. As a vanilla flask, it wasn’t listed on the AH all that frequently, and I ended up taking one of my alchemists into Scholomance to farm Ras Frostwhisper for the recipe.
In the end, the longest hold-up to completing my D2 was actually getting the last item of my D1, the Breastplate of Valor, to drop. It was only on Dingle’s 19th run that Drakkisath finally relinquished it. And then it was back to Ironforge to turn in the final quest, and receive the last two pieces of her D2.
Accessorising is still a work in progress, but for now I’m using Dal’Rend’s Sacred Charge and the Draconian Deflector, along with the Knight’s Colors tabard. The weapon isn’t perfect, but it looks more substantial than the usual one-handed weapons, and the colours of the shield are close enough.
Next? Well, that’s a good question. Which is to say, I have no idea just yet. But with luck 4.0.1 is under a week away, and that’ll mean new toys (or at least, new abilities) to play with.
For now, I guess I’ll go on a road-tour of capitals or something suitably exhibitionist.
/wave
Post soundtrack: “I Know You’re Out There Somewhere” by The Moody Blues
Now I’m busy farming for Dingle’s pieces of D1 (as opposed to planning for it), I’ve come across some useful tips (and things that would have saved me some time, had I thought of them earlier).
First, of course, is WoW Insider, who’ve put together a list of all the Dungeon One pieces for all 9 classes who have a set. Have a look here.
Scholomance:
Guess who forgot that the place needs a key? You’ll want to make sure you’ve unlocked the quest chain by doing Clear the Way and All Along the Watchtowers, at which stage you can pick up Scholomance (and get ready to go to Gadgetzan and Un’goro Crater).
Kirtonos the Herald? Well, turns out he needs an item to be summoned, Blood of Innocents. Quest time again! You’ll want to talk to Eva Sarkhoff, who stands just outside Scholomance. After several pages of dialogue, you’re offered the first quest in her chain, Doctor Theolen Krostinov, the Butcher.
In the followup quest, Krastinov’s Bag of Horrors, you’ll be called upon to kill Janice Barov, who’s tricky to find (especially if you don’t know your way around the place, as was the case for me). Once you’ve completed and turned in this quest you’re given your first Blood, and future kills of the Blood Steward of Kirtonos (an NPC in the library), Doctor Krastinov and Jandice usually drop additional bloods.
To summon Darkmaster Gandling, who drops the Helm, you need to kill the six mini-bosses around his study, along with all the mobs in Instructor Malicia’s room. This can be tricky for a strictly physical damage class like a warrior, as the Scholomance Occultists have a nasty habit of turning into ghosts who are immune to physical damage when their health reaches around 40%. This is a good time to be an engineer for the Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket (Stratholme Holy Water is a useful alternative for a non-engineer). The best way I found was to use devastate until the occultist reached around 60% health, then Shield Slam (or Revenge, although that can cause problems if you’re specced into Improved Revenge as the damage to a second occultist can cause it to transform) to kill it before it could transform.
Blackrock Spire:
Lost much? (Well, yes actually.) I was surprised to realise that the dungeons referred to as Lower Blackrock Spire and Upper Blackrock Spire (LBRS and UBRS respectively) are actually two areas of the same instance. While you’ll likely to learn your way around after some time, expect to get lost a lot. The Atlas addon is highly recommended in here (and looking for walkthrough videos on youtube is probably a good idea as well).
For warriors I’d recommend working through UBRS first (as two bosses drop D1 pieces) and then clearing out LBRS for the small chance that your Bracers drop (and bear in mind when they say those are a rare drop, they’re not kidding).
I’ve managed to accumulate seven pieces now, with only the Breastplate eluding me (and let me say now, I really dislike Drakkisath’s conflagration attack). Time to take a break and upgrade the pieces I have into their D2 equivalents. Queue “Farming D2” post!
Which leads to the eternal question: how best to accessorise?
/wave
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