inspired_mind

While knitting I tend to semi-watch various tv shows. One of these shows recently did a rerun of their first season, which I never saw before. Aside from being so low budget it was almost embarrassing, I was surprised how different the music was compared to later seasons. It was in fact music I heard in a different tv show before. This show used it in different contexts tho, which was so distracting that I couldn't fully focus on the episode itself. When I mentioned this to a friend, whom watches both tv shows as well, he said he didn't even notice the change! I knew I was pretty good at recognizing instrumental tunes/music, but I always assumed this was a generic ability most people had.

Aside from the music thing, I managed to finish various knitting projects. Tried out a pattern for a hat with cat ears, which I was skeptical about at first, but it turned out pretty nice. Decided to try make a baby sized version of it, speed knitting it in less than 24 hours to have it finished as a gift for aien_hime 's baby girl. It was a bit of a gamble, as there weren't any known baby sizes for this pattern but the result was great. As I feel a tad too old to wear the cat ears hat, I gave it away along with the baby sized one. Mother and daughter got matching hats now.

Tried another pattern for a hat with the same kind of yarn I used for my gran's infinity scarf. I loved the result, finally having a hat that's worth wearing. I really don't have the head for most hats so it's nice to have one now that doesn't make me look like a complete idiot.

Speaking said infinity scarf, gran asked me to remove the seam to turn it into a regular scarf. It was too bulky to stuff it under her coat in it's previous form. So I tried to remove the seam but apparently I did such an awesome job blending it with the scarf itself and I cut the wrong strand of yarn, partly ruining the scarf....argh! Mom came to the rescue and managed to mostly fix it. Gran said she barely noticed the damage and is happy with her new regular scarf, but as its creator I know the damage is there and it annoys me. At least I now know kind of creations to use this kind of yarn for.

Also sort of revived my WoW account, which I have been playing on and off again. Finishing some achievements and storylines, focusing on 2 chars max. Not having an active guild really limits the options you have. Real raiding is a nogo. LFR is an interesting alternative to experience raid content, even if it's incredibly dumbed down, but the kind of people you encounter in these PUGs are often clueless idiots whom don't even bother to read the tactics for the encounters... There is a freakin' ingame dungeon journal with a summary of all phases/boss abilities. Maybe I am getting too old to deal with al these idiots in videogames? Curious if the next expansion will improve some stuff, time will tell.

~*~Maru~*~

This is the last week at my internship. It has been a bit hectic with the deadline being June 13. I finished it on time, but I had technical issues with the handing in part. I got so stressed! In the end I had to mail it instead of using the digital drop-offbox -_- So now I am finishing up some minor stuff. Got my presentation at the company next Wednesday. The 30th is my defense, eep O_o

Revived my WoW account after 1,5 or so months of inactivity. Needed some kind of online game to play. The short break definitely helped. Even got dragged to some Heroic Nighthold guild (friends' guild, Iron Wardens is still dead). The other 2 healers were so overgeared that I was basically useless, but I didn't die, yay =P Raiding is still fun but I really can't be arsed anymore to put a lot of time in it, especially with the way Priest plays now.

Eagerly awaiting the next season of Voltron: Legendary Defender, which is still months away (August T_T). They recently released the season 3 trailer. It looks awesome. Tumblr basically exploded. Speaking of Tumblr, I love how it shows certain trends. For certain fandoms I basically use it as a news tool. If something new is released, it will definitely show up on Tumblr within 24 hours.

Been wanting to check out some old Disney/Pixar/Dreamworks animated movies. Never saw Anastacia, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Road to Eldorado and Treasure Planet for example. Most are on Netflix, but I really can't find the time to watch it on weekdays. And sadly those movies aren't available for offline Netflix :(

Anyways, back to the internship stuff. Still got that presentation to set up.

~*~Maru~*~

When I started playing MMO's years ago, the idea of meeting random people in the open world seemed awesome to me. In Phantasy Star Online, it meant you either hanged out in one of the many lobbies or you would create an open game, which 3 people could join if interested. I mostly ended up duoing zones with zeikfried999 in a password protected game or with a bunch of people from my Team (PSO version of a guild). Maybe I was just too antisocial, but I never really felt like there was much of a community. About 75% of the created games had a password on it.

Eventually I started playing WoW, mostly with with aien_hime, tho did end up in a bunch of guilds. When they realised I was a female, several would spaz out and be all amazed, what it was like to be a female gamer. I wasn't aware we played games differently. In the early years, most of those guilds had the ambition to raid, but would disband after some months due to not having enough people (40 were needed back then!) to do so.

The first expansion came out, had mostly fun with my IRL friends. Eventually joined an actual raiding guild, learned a lot from the people in there as a complete noob, which I am still grateful for, even if I ain't in that guild anymore. The server itself was at its best, it was one of the younger servers, but with quite some active guilds. Community meant something if you truly wanted to raid. If you were an asshole, it generally meant you would have a terrible time finding a guild to raid with. So you either had accept that, or get a name and race change, or transfer off the server altogether.

Two or so expansions later, I became the Guildmaster of my current guild. Seriously, someone up there really has some weird sense of humor. One day I was just the administrative cleric of the guild (note to self: do not request a promotion, wanting to help out to keep the guild site updated!), the next morning I find an ingame mail from a Game Master, telling me I was the new Guild Master of the guild. Apprantly one of the officers made a ticket to ask to demote the inactive Guild Master, whom hadn't logged for months and it turned out I was the next highest ranked person after that.

I had no intention to stay GM, but now, 2 or so years later, I am still the boss. I do what I do best, administrative stuff. I take care of the site, the guildbank funds, clear out the inactive players, I poke officers to remind them of their tasks. I can live with such responsibilities. No raidleading, no talking on Ventrilo. Just guiding the healer team, assigning some tasks midraid to them.

The guild itself went from 25man raiding during the 1st expansion and most of the 2nd to 10man raiding in the 3rd and 4th. Occasionally I miss the epicness of such a big group, but it certainly is a lot more relaxing to lead. My guildies are a friendly bunch, some of the original members are still around, tho we also had many new ones join us. Pretty much the usual circle of life when it comes to a guild. People get bored of playing a game for so long, move on to new ones. Or join a guild that has better progress in raiding. Or you know, grow up, get kids, a real job.

The guild had its ups and downs, been on the verge of collapsing several times due to no new progress, but we managed to get back up. We are no longer one of the top guilds, we actually lag a bit behind when it comes to killing the final bosses of each tier, but you know what? I can live with that. And apparantly the other guildies don't have issues with it either, else they would have left ages ago.



We only got this bosskill this week, but it feels nice to finally have killed all bosses of this tier. Back to wiping endlessly in the new raid! Not to mention the lovely trash leading to said boss, woohoo.

The community of the server went downhill however. Blizzard introduced a Dungeon Finder tool, allowing to queue up for a random dungeon, ending up with 4 random people from various servers. While it certainly helped to get a get a group even in the middle of the night, it also meant you rarely interact with anyone outside your guild. No more calling out in the general chat for a tank, healer or damage dealer. No longer having to worry about your reputation, as the people you meet in the dungeon finder, you will most likely never meet again. A year ago the Raid Finder also got introduced, allowing you to queue for a simplified 25man version of the recent raid instances. People get to see the content, get some loot. It's ideal for those whom don't have time for raiding at set times. Depending on your role, you will get into a group in 5-50min. You could even do chores while waiting for the queue to pop.

Guilds are falling apart left and right as a result tho. Not happy with your current guild? Make your own! Even tho it will likely collapse again in a couple of months. There are so many guilds around, there is no sense of community left at all. Ofcourse it's also because the game is over 6 years old, people getting bored of it. The game lost some of the magic for me as well, but it's the people in my guild that make the difference. If this guild would fall apart, I would likely just quit playing, as I don't really feel like investing in a new guild community anymore.



When I browse boss kill screenshots like this one, it still makes me proud to call these people my guildies. I may want to strangle you lot at times for going afk at the most annoying times or dying at the silliest times, it's you whom make the guild alive. I tried a more hardcore raiding guild, it felt so silent and unpersonal, I didn't even last a month in it.

I am not sure if you can truly find a community in MMO anymore. Not when there are tools like dungeon/raid finders. I tried more recent games like Rift and Guild Wars 2, but even in those games there didn't really seem to be any community outside guilds. But as long as I can find a bunch of people with the same mindset as me...I am alright with that.

Maybe I should try an RP server, people generally seem to be more involved in the community. A lot more drama at least, if the WoW realm fora post are an indication XD

~*~Maru~*~

I have been a pet collector in WoW for 5 years, ever since I got my first minipet during the Childrens Week event. Speedy the turtle was my buddy and I would take him with me everywhere, even if it meant having less bagspace (at that time your mounts and companions were carried around in your bags, not summoned from a special mount/pet menu). Now, many years later, Blizzard introduced Wild Pet Taming, allowing you to battle various pets in the wild, adding them to your collection. Sounds familiar? Yes, they pretty much copied it from Pokemon. Unlike said game tho, the pets wander around in the world, visible for all to see. You don't have to run through high grass or dark caverns to make a pet spawn. As it stands, I have collected 480 pets. Yes, I got a pet hoarding problem =P



This is Speedy. Isn't he a friendly looking fellow? Back in the day I would get many whispers about him, asking where I got him. Events weren't that well known at that time, especially a minor event like Childrens Week, which only had one NPC hidden away in Stormwind (or Orgrimmar as horde), offering a quest to show around an orphan, making you travel all over Azeroth. In the end he offered you what little belongings he had. You could either pick a pet Rat, Turtle, Piggie or take a bag of money (which had a pretty mean flavor text: "A bag of 5 gold.  For those who like telling children there's no Great Father Winter..."). I couldn't make myself pick the last reward, even tho the money was welcome at that time. So every year I would visit that orphanage in Stormwind in February (for the quest reset each year) and showed the kid around again.



In my guild I am called the Crazy Pet Lady, due to my collecting craze. Some even declared me mad for parking various alt characters on pet spawn locations, to get those rare hard to get pets. But in the end, it paid off and I own all the wild pets currently available ingame (the last one not being available till summer season in WoW starts).



So what is left to do? Pet Battles to get those pets on max level and get the higher quality versions (better battle stats) of each pet! Blizz even including many Tamer NPCs, each coming with their own pet type specialty. Once again sounds familiar eh? Yep, they are pretty much like the Gym Leaders in Pokemon. The latest patch even added 4 elite Tamers (Elite Four much? =P). Some were extremely frustrating to beat, but as of yesterday, I beat the final one.



Thankfully, the level cap in WoW isn't as high as in Pokemon, otherwise I would never would have lasted this long. I never really managed to get a max level Pokemon because of that reason. Level 25 in WoW can be gained in a couple of hours if you have a maximum level pet already to boost the lowbie pet. Blizzard even awards loyal pet Tamers with a fancy Safari Hat (after you defeat all the regular Tamer NPCs), boosting the experience gain of your pets in battle, when equipped.


My pandaren monk sure looks fancy with it eh? =P

So yeah, I may not be as active anymore on the raiding scene as I used to be, nor do I feel like leveling my remaining alts to level 90, but I sure ain't bored. I may switch to other games or even stuff to do, but as the GM of a casual raiding guild, I still feel the need to log two/three nights a week to raid. I owe it to my guildies, whom still stick around even after all the ups and downs we went through. Our progress may not be amazing, but at least we get new bosses down. Go IW!

~*~Maru~*~

So, recently been testing out the beta of Mists of Pandaria again, since there is very little to do on live atm, clearing Dragon Soul on wednesdays and thursdays already. I must say it looks very promising. Now I might be a bit biased, as I am a big fan of asian stuff, but I adore the asian theme of Mop. It's a feeling I never had when exploring Cataclysm.

Exploring
In Cataclysm you were able to fly in all the zones, meaning you could just swoop down on a quest zone, kill/loot whatever you needed, mount up and fly away again. You didn't really pay attention to the zone itself. In Mop, no flying mounts untill 90, meaning you have to do the traveling all by land mount again. I love it. It brought back the explorer in me, riding around, wondering what would be on the other side of that hill, or across that river. The amount of times I hit the top of a hill and simply stood there, watching what was ahead of me, I lost count. The only time I remotely had this feeling in Cata was in Vashj'ir, since the only mount you had there was your seahorse and it was basically all underwater. Quite some people had trouble navigating in that zone tho, something about movement suddenly being 3D. Never had that issue myself.

Storyline
I had hoped that Cata would be a nice place for me as a lore addict, with Hyjal having all the ancients returning and such, but in the end, it really wasn't that amazing. I never really felt to be that wandering hero, earning the trust of the locals, eventually their respect. Most of the time it just felt like I was doing their chores. Vashj'ir was once again the zone that sorta gave me that feeling, but the fact Blizz pretty much holds your hand the entire time, guiding you through the zones, ruined it pretty much for me. In Mop I actually did not get punished for wandering off elsewhere. I actually found quests all over the place. At some point in the 87+ zone, I actually thought I ran out of quests, only to stumble on a small quest hub, with another storyline. There ain't one ultimate bad guy such as Deathwing in Mop, instead people suffer from the effects of war, seemingly at first caused by the alliance/horde entering the zone and various local enemy tribes, only turning out to be a small aspect of a larger picture.

Artwork
I know this particular subject is a personal thing, but the artwork team did an amazing job at designing all Mop zones, races and pandaren. I love the animations of the pandaren (with the exception of the /dance emote of the female, ugh). Sadly my pc can't seem to handle the high amount of people on beta, so I had to tone down some of the graphic effects. The music is quite lovely too.


That look on her face, it's evil I tell ya!



Spend about an hour or so collecting some easy to get greenies and blues, to put together this mogset. Eyepatches look awesome on pandaren female for sure. The chest item is a Mop greenie, the detail is so lovely!

Monk class
I was originally going to try out the healer spec of the monk class, but after B-kun suggesting me to try out tanking for a change, I figured it couldn't hurt to try eh? Turns out I love it. Tanked a couple of lowbie instances with it and quested 85-90 on a premade, 3-4 mobs beating down on me, my healthbar only moving slightly. I dance all over the place to gather up some mobs, charge, roll, taunt. It's so much fun. I am actually theorycrafting in my head on how to play this class and spec in my head, occasionaly browsing the net for some interesting info, how to improve. Then I found this vid of a brewmaster monk tanking one of the new heroics, it looks awesome:



Everyone I tell about planning to make my monk a tank, seems to go all 'amg you are going to tank!?' on me tho. Guess it doesn't help I have been a healer for the past 6ish years, my DK being the only melee class I play. I tend to play ranged classes exclusively.

Maru
But what about my priest, you wonder? Well...the more I play her on beta and read up on lv90 priests healing the new raids, the sadder I get. After getting all emo after healing a Cata heroic on a premade priest, utterly faling, I vowed to never whine again. Beta is beta, after all. But really...the state Discipline priest currently is in, it not what I hoped for. My Diving Hymn, taken away. Disc has the lowest healing output of all healers on beta, goes pretty much out of mana first too. Our Holy priest brothers and sisters are doing everything better than disc. Aoe heals? Holy does better. How about single target? Again Holy does it better. Again, I know this is just beta, but if Blizz doesn't change something soon, I fear a lot of Disc priests will spec Holy or reroll altogether. 1,5 months to go, one can hope for good changes still. But yeah, if I indeed end up being useless in raids, I am not sure if I would bother speccing Holy. Might just end up playing Brewmaster Monk, as I really don't like Holy anymore...

Argh, ended up whining eh? Well, guess I had to get it out of my system. Isn't that what blogs are for anyways? =P
Anyways, my LJ update for now, sorry for slacking on updating!

~*~Maru~*~

Yay for slacking on updating my LJ! Got distracted by various stuff, plus there were a couple of events keeping me busy in WoW. Darkmoon Faire, Lunar Festival and Love is in the Air events in the same week, seriously? Thankfully I didn't need any Lunar achievements on my alts, so all I had to do was semi-afk flying around to gather 50 coins for a pet. Got 175 pets now, only 2 DMF pets to go. I also got bored of my mogsets, so the moment I got full tier 13 on my priest, I ditched most of my mogged pieces. I also found out that the Argent Warhorse matches priest tier 13 quite well.


Just realised that this mount has quite silly hooves. Silly designer team.

Anyways, this set lasted me 2-3 weeks tops, me thinks. As of a couple of days, after browsing a priest mog topic on mmochamp, I decided to go all retro again. As usual, check the LJ cut for more pics.

( There be transmog sets )

Who needs raid progress when you can dress up your chars? =P

~*~Maru~*~

My morning client got moved to Tuesday, so I got some time off till 12ish today. Might as well spend that time writing a LJ entry eh? I am awake now anyways (tho crawling back in bed is very tempting). The arm is still a mess. I honestly don't know what to do anymore. One person suggested an infection, another claims its hyperextention of a bicep. Dad claims I got RSI. Mom suggested to take painkillers for a couple of days to see if that changes anything. Tried a low dose of painkillers since Friday, it does seem to make the whole thing a lot less annoying. I'll likely end up making an appointment for the doctor later this week. Thankfully I ain't in a huge amount of pain, just during my job it limits my arm movement. I don't dare to try out Skyward Sword tho, that's asking for trouble.

Today my new phone subscription should be activated, but so far no sign of said activation. Switched out the old sim card for the new one, but when I tried to call someone, I got the 'there is no network' message, so obviously they didn't activate it yet. After some nagging by a certain person, I got myself the WhatsApp app. I don't really need it myself, considering my new sub has unlimited sms for any Dutch cell phone number, but if I can help some friends lower their phone costs, I guess it wouldn't hurt. For my foreign friends I use imo anyways. And with that app I can choose myself if I wanna be connected or not. As soon as my 1 year free use of WhatsApp runs out, I'll likely remove it tho. I got no creditcard to purchase it, so yeah...

Patch 4.3 hit on the live servers of WoW. Got my shiny new flying horse for my annual pass, got my 3 main chars a lovely outfit and made a nice ranger-ish outfit for my hunter (more about that in a future entry). It's kinda cute how everyone reacts on the outfit my priest is wearing. Some even thanked me for giving them a nostalgic moment, because I am wearing one the first tier sets ever made. Paladins and their tier 2 don't count really...everyone and their mother is wearing that set! Tier 1 on priest I have only seen on two chars so far tho, myself included. Most seem to be wearing either tier 5 or 6.

My guild is far on 6/8 progress in tier 13 content. So far the bosses seem way too easy. Heck, we even did two bosses while barely having any knowledge of the encounter and still downing it in a couple of tries. Can't speak for Ultraxion tho, as I missed that particular encounter. They seemed to have killed him in 2 hours of wiping, so I guess he ain't too hard either. So all left to kill is Deathwing himself. I cannot be there tonight tho, due to Sinterklaas celebration. Ah well. Sinterklaas is only once a year, I can do these raid encounters for at least 4 months still.

Because my dear guildies also deserve some attention, here's a pic of us posing after killing the 6th boss. I like this fight. It's hectic in a fun way.

Gunship V2, aka Warmaster Blackhorn. Actually standing in voidzones...stop confusing us Blizz! 7 years of telling us standing in voidzones is bad and now you do this? =P

Darkmoon Faire dailies or slacking in bed a bit longer...hm...

~*~Maru~*~

I am working on a fairly big WoW post about the new upcoming 4.3 feature: Transmogrification.
Being a collector of good looking gear, this new feature finally allows me to wear this gear outside town. What I am planning to post are the outfits I am plan to use for mogging on some of my chars. So yeah, it will be pic heavy and being the perfectionist I am when it comes to this LJ, it will take a while to post it. In the meantime, here is a list of anime I am planning to watch:

• Code Geass - Season 2
• Cowboy Bebop (Because Tank! is one of the best opening themes ever)
• Mai-Otome 0: S.ifr
• Nodame Cantabile
• The Twelve Kingdoms (Thank you skdarkdragon's friendslist for mentioning it in your LJ many years ago)

Yush, first a cofee, then time to edit some screenshots. Or maybe first my daily Headless Horseman on all my high level chars. Decisions, decisions...

~*~Maru~*~

Sorry for yet another WoW related entry, but there has been a lot on my mind as of late, especially after a late night discussion with a friend. A warning in advance: it may be a tad emo at the start, but it gets more positive halfway, I promise =P

Saturday I went to visit aien_hime and B-kun, to have some sort of belated Bday event (more about that in a future entry). That evening, I got an sms on my phone from a guildie, proudly announcing that the guild had downed Ragnaros. Needless to say, I was surprised, seeing as we barely hit the 2nd transition phase and all, even not surviving phase 2 the last raid. While I am really happy for the guild to have downed Ragnaros before the announced nerfs on Tuesday, I also felt a bit...left out, jealous I guess. I have been wiping on that boss for quite a bit, missing out on a first kill kinda sucks.

In fact, the last first endboss kill I that I was part of when content still mattered is Kel'Thuzad in Naxx25, not even sure if I was on the first Sartharion kill. I did have a guildfirst Algalon...but by that time we overgeared the place by 2 tiers. In TBC, I was part of the first Kael'thas kill in TK, but thanks to internet issues missed out on Archimonde. We didn't even kill Illidan during TBC. We didn't down any T11 endbosses before the nerfs, so no great moments there either. Needless to say, I missed out on pretty much all important endboss kills. Does that make me selfish person, for wanting to be part of that first kill?

Mind you, I do not regret visiting my IRL friends. I had a wonderful time. Sometimes I wish I lived more nearby so I could visit them more often, if only to have interesting conversations, while playing a random board or card game. Or just sitting on the couch, watching anime. And I know time doesn't freeze in WoW when I am away, they had the full right to continue raiding without me. But that meh feeling of missing out...blah.

Aside from that, I had a discussion about loyalty to the guild and having more than one maxed/geared lv85. Marusu has been my main since my server was 3 weeks old. In those 6 or so years, I never had another main. This was partly because I was so good at healing, that they didn't want me in a different role, but also because Marusu always has been my safety line...I know a lot about priests, moving to another character I do not have full knowledge of is somewhat frightening, I guess?

I do gear up my alts to a gearlevel that is raidworthy. My druid and lock could easily set foot in Firelands...but the thing is, as soon as I am geared the best I can for specific content and simply cannot seem to improve on dps, hitting some invisible ceiling as a result, I get frustrated. If I do not find a solution fast, I lose interest in the character and move on to a new alt to gear. I never had that feeling on Marusu, simply because I know that what I am doing. If we wipe a lot, a simple analysis of the deathlogs allows me to adjust myself and the others healers or point out what others are doing wrong, survival wise. As a dps, all I have is a damage meter with some minor details on what spells I used most. I only log the raids on my main, so I got no online logs to analyse either. Most of the specs I play are not played by any of my guildies, making it hard to ask for advice. All I got is guides and programs like Rawr to help me with gearing, enchants,  rotations, etc.

I guess I am weird for being so loyal to my very first char. A bland looking human female to most, but to me she is the representation of myself to the world of warcraft community. I can't even make myself get a racechange for a change of scenery, because it feels like betraying my poor priest. How can someone so easily change his/her name, race or just dump their main for another char like that? Is it a female thing, being emotionally attached to a bunch of pixels? Or am I just too stubborn to dump a char I spend 6 years on, collecting pets, mounts, gear, achievements? I really don't know anymore.

~*~Maru~*~

Another birthday, another year added. Normally I would get some sort of midlife-like crisis, but this year I was oddly at peace, shrugging it off as just a year added. My sis had to rub it in on her birthday card that I was reaching the 30 years, but whatever, I'll get back at her when I get the chance. Grandma, uncle and his fiance (wedding in October, what to wear!) and one of my nieces came. None of my family from my mothers' side came, due to the fact they live 1+ hours away and it's a weekday. I don't exactly got a bond with them anyways, I see them far too little for that.

Loot wise, I asked for some Warcraft related books which happened to be for sale in a Dutch online store. Mostly got money tho, which was very much welcome, as I spend 100 euros on some books and manga this week on various websites that support iDeal payment. Did some counting today and seems that I got exactly 5 euros left now from my birthday gift money, so all is well =p

( Birthday Loot )

Also, aien_hime, your Pinkie Pie birthday card was epic. I couldn't stop laughing for a while. See you on Saturday. Shabu Shabu, here we come!

~*~Maru~*~