Teaching with WoW

So, I have joked about using World of Warcraft at my job, but I was never very serious. However, I got this comment from my WoW at Work post from Lytlady:

We actually use WOW in one of our classrooms. For the students that do want to play, they are learning social skills, math, etc... These are students have disabilities that effect their daily social interactions, such as Autism. They must share a toon.. So there are two students per toon. Their time is restricted... each group is allowed to play for about 1hr a week, though they are able to earn more time if available. It is really a joy to watch a 5th grader and a 12 grader, who never normally would talk to each other, discuss how to do a quest or which items they should keep, use, vendor or AH. For the advance students who play there may be math problems that include % of stats and such. It keeps them engaged and learning. This would not be possible without the amazing teacher that is in that classroom. His success record with these students is 2nd to none. And his ability to see each of their needs and how to reach these through alternative teaching tools is..... He also is a huge advocate in self-control, which is also part of these students' learning. Yes, WOW in the classroom.

I really don't think the school district I work for would buy into it, but using WoW as a teaching tool really has a lot of potential. Just think of the reading, math, and problem solving involved in the game. You could teach social skills to children with autism. And there would be some instant motivation. I only wish more admistrators (and parents) would be open minded to something like this. Its actually a very good idea. I know a lot of students that aren't motivated to practice reading, but you have to be able to read to play WoW. My nephew actually started playing before he could read and I'm sure this was a motivation for him.

Interesting idea, I've heard of it before at the college level, but never in elementary or high school. Thanks Lytlady!

Define Casual

I've been thinking about the definition of a casual gamer lately. I mean come on, I claim to be a casual gamer, I even named my blog after it.

So, what is a casual gamer then? Is this anyone who isn't in a super hardcore raiding guild? Well, that would be just about all of the people I know (or who are probably reading this blog - I imagine the word "casual" might shy some away from here to begin with). Maybe a casual gamer is someone that can only raid 2 or 3 times a week, or ... maybe not. There isn't a hard fast rule, or a magical number of hours played in a week that draws a fine line, one that separates the causals from the hardcores.

No really, what makes the difference between hardcores and casuals? I don't think its just the time spent (however that does make an impact). Hardcore doesn't equal full time player just as casual doesn't equate to part-time player. Instead, I think, its a state of mind or a player's gaming style. Using this definition I would probably consider myself a "part-time" player instead of a casual player. Why would I say this? Well, for one, I write a freakin' WoW blog. The very fact that I'm writing this probably kicks me out of the casual camp altogether and makes me a bit of a paradox, or a least a misnomer. I might not have ran Naxx yet, but I have quite a few WoW podcasts on my iPod, my Google reader is full of other WoW blogs, and I even have a WoW shirt that says "I'm not addicted to WoW, I just want to finish it."

Perhaps I should rename my blog, "The Part-Time Huntering Blog". I'll have to think about that. So, here's the question. What do you consider yourself? Hardcore? Casual? Part-time? Something else?

Almost 80

So, this whole time I've been writing this blog I've had to admit that I'm not at level 80 just yet (and I'm still not, but I'm closer now than ever before. Now I'm only 1 1/2 bubbles away after running last night with my wife Kydra, my brother Kygongyn, Stromboli, and my cousin Delu. Wow, I have a lot of family play this game with me.

You see how close I got to hitting 80 last night???!!!

I did get this drop in the Halls of Lightning, Avool's Sword of Jin BoE, market value of 2162 gold. I've still been using this Legacy that drops from the crone back in Kara. Its probably about time I start getting some new gear. Heck I'm still wearing 5 level 70 epics. And they weren't amazing epics, mostly again just stuff from Kara. My brother has been primping over me and my wife's toons like a BFF Jill over a teen age girl at the mall in need of a serious make over. Ha! Could you see Aoirselvar in Gap clothes, probably not.

So, after this my brother has a regiment of heroics that we get to do to get geared up for Naxx. I still think my wife and I will probably quest when we play together, we've enjoyed doing that the most. However, even though Kydra hates PvP, she really enjoyed AV (where she wreaked havoc with her mage of death), so maybe we'll do some BGs as well.

So, does anybody know of a mod that will take a screen shot for you when you level?

Oh I thought this was funny. She makes my helicopter look like a slightly oversized remote controled toy.

WoW Burnout

I've been hearing about a lot of people getting burned out in the game lately. I believe I'm immune to burn out because of the fact that I am so unbelievably behind y'all, but I thought it would be interesting to find out more about at any rate.

I always have something I could do with the amount of time I put into the game. At that I still stop playing for periods of time here and there. Sometimes you just want something different. Does that mean you go to another MMO or play console games, or just pull out a book.

Well, I wanted to find out what people do when they get burned out so I threw the question out in twitter.

Stompalina: I tend to read a lot more than usual, play console games, bake obsessively... the usual stuff. lol


Areant: My solution was to explore a new side of WoW by rolling a new character on an RP server. Tried a new class too. Worked for me! Switching from Hardcore raider/GM to Casual RPer and regular member makes a different game. Nice break w/out actually quitting.

Chaoticwhizz: I stop for a month or two then come back. I tend to play more faster-pace games during that time


ghostangel: I play other things mostly. Or if it is nice out, I'm outside. But I'm one of those people that can disappear. I just will randomly leave WoW and not play for sometimes months at a time without warning is all ^^; Because I effectively have a permanent account with WoW, not unless it's free :)

Arrens: Take a break from the game. Even if it's only a few days, a week or a few months. Or give a completely different class a try.


ladygypsy: When I get burned out on WoW, I walk away from the game for 2 weekends. That's usually enough for me to get recharged. #wow


Spoonwolf: when wow burns me out I play L4D or Starcraft



Would you or have you considered trying out another MMO? Which ones?


etherjammer: I've been thinking about trying EVE Online or reactivating my City of Heroes sub.


Arrens: WoW is my first and only MMO thus far. Other games I play when I'm tired of WoW are Guitar Hero/Rock Band & Grand Theft Auto. Never tried any and I'm really not a fan of paying a subscription fee unless I like it, obviously ;)

Stompalina: Right now I am probably not interested in trying out another MMO. We are broke nowadays... Lot of console games gathering dust.


SlowWolf: Actually, if I burned out with wow, I'd play DotA. =P Or lots of smash bros.



Rilgon: Only MMO I can tolerate other than WoW is Ragnarok Online.



Areant: It would have to be one my friends played.The social aspect is what keeps me playing, which is why I can't ever see quitting WoW


stoppableforce: I'd probably go back to FFXI, or CoH, or Eve.



Nightravyn: now that I'm awake and responding... yeah, I tend to go console. Not as much of a time sink. ;)


Spoonwolf: yes I would try other MMOs (eve, WAR, etc) but honestly after researching, their Ui is horrible and the gameplay is garbage


Faulsey: Last time I played an MMO when I was bored of another MMO, I quit the first for the second... Do not want to do that again...


Narayu: I used to play FFXI, I've considered going back at times, I like that you can level all classes on one character


Jezriyah: I didn't answer, but: most of my love for WoW is based in my guildies and friends. Without them, other MMOs don't interest me.


isheepthings: Only MMO that's caught my eye would be "The old republic"...other then that various PC games...not much on console for me atm.


Fimlys: not burned out, but downloading runes of magic right now.. taking 3 days to download.. just to try.. :P


Kikipewpew: As a break from WoW I have played other MMO's, like recently Runes of Magic :3 but not for very long, previously when I had the 360 set up I would play that as a break from the computer in general!

I would have thought other MMOs would have been more popular, but a lot of you seem to rather take time off of WoW by playing console games. That makes sense because its a completely different feel. You probably need a break from the MMOs in general (which WoW is included) or at least get away from the fantasy MMOs and try something different. Maybe Blizz is hoping that when you take a break from WoW, you'll play one of their other games (if they ever get around to finishing them), like Starcraft 2 or Diablo 3. Bliz better come out with some kind of Warcraft Rock Band, that would help, hmm, maybe some kind of minigame with in the game.

What do you do when you are getting burned out of playing WoW? I'll have to come up with a list of things to do when you're sick of wow. Maybe we can get @stompalina to bake us something. Hmm....

WoW free weekend - almost

Wow, no WoW all weekend. Weird. We just didn't have time to get to it all weekend.

Oh wait. I did play wow with my 7 year old nephew in West Fall. Good times. I helped him ding 16, woot. He was super excited. That's his highest level toon and he has about 30 toons. Can I tell you how much quest helper helps when you are trying to help a 7 year old quest. They don't have a clue as to where they need to go, but you can also see other people's quests stuff on the map with that addon.

My nephew was particularly impressed with our mad murloc slaying skills. Good times.

Random Ramblings

So, I've finally dinged 79 recently. Now I'm in the last stretch to 80 (fans gather in eager anticipation). My brother all ready pretty much has a schedule laid out for us once we hit 80 of heroics gearing up for Nax. I have been pretty much clueless as y'all talk about this raid and that. I honestly haven't done that much research in the matter, partly because I want it to be new (to me at least) and also because... well, because of boredom. Not that raiding is boring, but to read about raiding that you aren't able to do as of yet, yeah that's a little much.

Oh, we did AQ40 last night in a pug. I got 2 new mounts out of it (even if I can only use them for AQ, at least they count towards the achievement). I'm up to 62 mounts now, still need 38 for the Mountain of Mounts achievement. I still have a lot of huntering to do for that.

I've noticed that the google searches that make their way here are mostly about hunters. I haven't written too much on huntering as of late. I should get back to that a little more. I probably will when I'm level 80. I did get one google search that found me by searching for "casual bobs". Well, you found one, although I'm not sure sure what that entails. Maybe it could be a title for some future achievement. Casual Bob Aoirselvar the Brave. Hmm, I'll have to think on that, its kind of catchy.

My Hx with RPGs (part 2)

Okay, here is part 2 of my history of RPGs, enjoy the history lesson.

One game that we really liked was Eye of the Beholder. We thought the graphics were to die for (pretty silly of us now that I think back on that). You got to have gear, you gained experience, you have got to go in dungeons to fight mobs, find secret levers, etc, etc. Of course you could only move one block at a time. And as with other games that I played, I never beat it. I wasn't the kid who had to beat the video game, I just somehow lost interest, or got stuck/frustrated or something. But I remember this game being pretty exciting at the time.

We had an old Commodore 64 computer which had Ultima 4 (or 5, I don't remember). Wow, I loved that game. Why was I playing that at about the same time as Eye of the Beholder? Because we happen to have a that cool commodore. (later taken by bill collecters, another post right there). You could go anywhere, you had to level up, you could talk to NPCs, go through moon portals, get attacked by these scary wraith like things, etc. Good times there. That was a great game. I loved the Ultima series. I never did try Ultima online or anything, but that was before I was willing to pay a fee every month to play a game. I'm apparently way past that now.

Thus we entered the time of blizzard. No one heard of Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, but Warcraft 2 was a huge hit. It wasn't technically an RPG, but instead it was a real-time strategy game. I think most of you know how that game was played. You build up your base either being human or orc (the horde) and you build up an army to destroy the other base. One of the coolest things about this game was that you could play it against your friends. Oh the days prior to the internet when you had to connect your modem direct with your friends (with all the technical problems included). We also would have LAN parties where we connected all of our computers on a network so we could play together (or was that later on), I'm not sure. I was in high school at the time all of this was going on.

Yes, I have to admit, we were also big into the Heroes of Might and Magic games (/facepalm from the embarrassment). Looking back on it now, it seemed pretty corny. And the turn taking style to your fights was pretty silly as well. But I think the element of growing your army, improving the type of troops that you had to the point where you could own someone, that was fun. You could play this with other people but we played it hotseat style, where you take turns (yes the whole thing was turn based). There were many a times when several of us were playing this game while doing other stuff, just taking turns on the computer.

I took a two year vacation from video games altogether. When I came back there were some pretty cool games out. I remember briefly playing Diablo, but I’m not sure when. I really liked Dungeon Siege a lot (but the camera angle could never look up towards the sky, that really bothered me). One thing about Dungeon Siege was that you could specialize in a certain talent (magic, range, or melee), but you didn't have a class, it just depended on what you did. If you attacked things with your sword a lot you got better at that, the same with the magic. Sometimes I wish in WoW that we had more specializations like that. Anyway, these games were a lot of fun.

Oh, and one more game that I played before World of Warcraft, Fable. What a fun game, I don't know how long I was being called "chicken chaser" as my title. I liked the fact that as you did good or evil things it reflected how you looked and how people treated you in the world. I haven't tried Fable 2, but I've been told that it’s very addictive.

So, now I play WoW and I'm still not on a RP server (well, I have toons on there, but I'm not there in spirit). The RP aspect of the game has intrigued me. I didn't even consider it until I got into twitter, where some of my friends got the idea in my head. At any rate, now I get my fix through World of Warcraft which totally kicks the other games out of the water. I'm here to stay. Well, until something better comes along (/looks towards blizzard with raised eyebrow).

What games influenced you?

Balance

I've been playing the game for almost 3 years now and I've had my fair share of neglecting RL for the game, but I like to think that I've found a much happier balance in life at this point. The game use to be an issue of conflict between me and my spouse. I would play too often or when she needed help with the kids. She still reminds me how much she hated it when I would play all morning on Saturdays. More recently I've cut back my playing time and this has greatly decreased contentions concerning this game, and added more balance overall to my life.

In my opinion there are certain things that should always supercede playing WoW. If you have a family they should always come first, you probably shouldn't lose your job or fail a class because of the game. Your health and personal hygiene would be bad to neglect as well (lol - don't forget to eat & bathe).

The people who don't do this make the rest of us look bad. These idiots give gamers in general a bad name and are the reason people do studies that claim that WoW breaks up marriages, makes students drop out of school and increases the crime rate in the lower 48 states. Its pretty common sense if you think about it.

Yes, I understand WoW is more than a video game for those probably reading this blog. Most non-WoWers think of our game as something that should be easily set aside like a nintendo game. They don't realize that we consider this game more of a hobby. We all have hobbies, our just consists of killing demons and dragons and stuff with our guild on-line.

Now, I have kids, young kids. My oldest is 3 years old, and I have 2 others that are younger. I have come to the point where I try not to play when they are awake. So, I play in the morning before I go to work and intermittently after we've put the kiddos to bed. We got a second account so that my wife and I could play together. Now its together time instead of contention time (of course those times when our computers are being stupid we are still contentious, but not with each other). Now its much more balanced. Of course we aren't raiding (we're still level 78), but we'll get there. We'll never be hard core raiders. We'll never be doing the hardest raid. We're okay with that. We are much happier this way and we can always talk about WoW through out the day if we want.

Now, during holidays all of this balance stuff is kind of thrown out the windows for us. Its a good thing there aren't holidays all the time.

Arrrrthas

So, I was opening World of Warcraft the other day with my 3 year old daughter on my lap. She looked up and so the Lich King sitting on his icy throne (the loading screen). My daughter, looked at me and said, "A pirate, dad. A scary pirate." Well, I shared that with my twitter friends and Nightravyn decided to make Arthas the pirate a reality (with a little bit of photoshop). Here we have it. I'll have to see what my daughter says about this picture (probably just about the same, but he's a little less scary as a pirate in my opinion).

I've been Tagged

I've been tagged...

I got tagged by Brajana from Mend Pet where I get to answer questions from my main characters perspective.

So, here is goes.

What is your name and where did it come from?

My main character's name is Aoirselvar. Where did I come up with the name? Honestly I think I just used the random name button when rolling the toon. The name since then has given me quite a bit of grief from my guildies. My guild leader keeps telling me to get a name change, one guildie even said that he'd finance it. But I couldn't do it. Once I figured out a way to pronounce it that is.

("A"(as in the letter)-"Your"-"cell"-var(rhymes with car)).

I'd write it out in IPA (international Phonemic Alphabet), but I don't have access to all the symbols here. Most people find it easier to just call me bob though.

How old are you and what is your birthday?

Gosh, I've never thought about that. I don't know how old Dwarfs get. Technically he was born in August of 2006 when I rolled the toon (which means he's turning 3 this year). In terms of the game, well. He's in the equivalent of his late 20's (whatever that is in Dwarf years). And his birthday? Sad, I don't have a back story to my main (that's what happens on non-RP servers). Lets say his birthday is August 26th.

Are you in love and with whom?

This is easy, my toon fell in love with a human mage named Kydra (my wife's toon). Right now they are still dating (questing?). I guess dates in Azeroth consist of killing stuff together. So, we're currently killing stuff together.

What is your favorite mount and why?

I really like the engineering mounts, I have my flying machine and I like the gnome mechostriders (especially the yellow one). I'm currently working on making the Mechano-Hog but I still have to level my engineering, farm a million different mats, and get my rep up with Alliance Vanguard. That's still a ways off. But I also love my drakes, I have the nether drakes and the albino drake. Oh, the the red nether ray is pretty cool looking as well.

Do you prefer a certain type of Azerothian meal and where do you get it from?

Definately the ice cream from the the salt flats that you have to get your orphan during children's week. I'm a sucker for ice cream IRL as well.

You know those giant mushrooms in Zangarmarsh? What is your theory on how they came to be and why are they so huge?

Too much mositure I suppose. It happens in my front yard too (although their not quite so large).

If you saw the Lich King walking toward you, what would you do?

Depending on my mood? I would do one of two things, either run in with Mungula and go ape sh1t (and die really quickly) or play possom and leave my pet in a lurch (what a crappy pet owner - either way my pet dies, sad).


These people I'm tagging may have already been tagged, but oh well, I'm tagging them again if that's the case: Jezriyah, Faulsey, and Brigwyn. So, get to it already, lol.

Lost in WoW

I wanted to confirm that the Hatch on Lost is definitely in the Northrend. I read about this on OneAmongMany's blog when Will wrote a guest post there. This revelation answers so many questions in regards to where the stupid island is. No wonder no one can find it, the Lich King has control of it, and its stuck in an MMO on Northrend of all places.

But this also brings up some questions.

Like what time are we at in the game? Apparently the timeline for WotLK is before 2003 or so, but after the Darma Inititive landed on the island. So, Azeroth is somewhere inbetween 1970-1990 or so. You see the hatch hasn't imploded yet. Oceanic 815 hasn't crashed yet (well, maybe they have). But then we still might be able to see our friends Jack, Locke, Hurley, Kate, etc, etc, (if you watched the new episode this week).

Another question, what are our heros from Lost doing in Azeroth?

Now that gets me wondering about what class all of those characters from Lost are going to be (now that we have found out that the island is really Sholavar Basin).

Hmmm, Jack has to be a paladine. He's noble, crys a lot, and hmmm, probably would look good in plate. Oh and Jack should be able to heal, he is a doctor.

Sayid has to be a rogue with all of the assassin work that he does.

Locke, well, duh, Locke is a warlock, mostly just because of his name. I might also be a deathknight given certain events that have taken place this season.

Sawyer is a, I don't know, I want to say he's a warrior. I don't have any good reason for it. Maybe a hunter without a pet, because he's pretty good with a gun.

Faraday is some kind a mathmatical wizard, so he gets to be an Arcane Mage (what does arcane have to do with math, I don't know, go ask a mage).

Kate is a druid, a kitty druid. Doesn't she already seem like a cat? Cats like to run, Kate likes to run, right? And if you take the "e" off of her name than is spells Kat. So there you have it.

Well, what else would Juliet be? Of course she's a holy priest, because she's our healer who can't seem to get off that stupid island.

Okay, Miles will be our Deathknight, not because he's particularly scarey, but because he talks to dead people. I guess if we had a Necromancer class he would have been that.

Desmond is our awesome sorcerer or something, master of something or other. I'm going to say he's a fire mage, because hmm... he had a fire in his heart to get back with Penny. Okay, that was a stretch.

Jin has turn out to be one of my favorite characters. He has his fishing skills all the way up. What class is Jin? I'm going to say that he's our Shaman. Mostly because I see him doing Melee combat and hmmm... he...uh... well, I need one of them to be a shaman, right?

Oh, evil and coniving Ben. I wouldn't put it past him to be working right along side with Arthus himself. Ben I'd say is a warlock. He's evil, but often makes others do his work for him.

I've decided that Hurley is a hunter. Why? Well, no good reason other than that Hunters are awesome and Hurley is awesome. Dude.

Well, there are several characters that I'm missing, but I best get back to work. I obviously got a little too carried way with this post. Maybe not.

DHG - How not to Pick up Women in WoW

Here's another installment of Dave's Hunter Guide. How not to pick up women in WoW. I didn't realize how serious Dave might need this until I saw some recent comments in Facebook. So, here you go Dave...

First off, there are actually many females that play world of warcraft. You might not believe it by looking at our guild lately (besides my family members and a few others). But overall you'd be surprised. That being said, most girls that I know that play WoW (actually all of them, but maybe I'm wrong) don't play WoW to be hit on. Seriously, I don't really think they do (at least my wife doesn't). I'm guessing that hitting on someone randomly in the world of azeroth will get you on ignore lists very quickly.

But if you happen to be in Ironforge or Stormwind and you see a Night Elf or a Human female with next to nothing on dancing on top of the mailbox, if you see that then you must definately refrain. You see, those are not females playing, but rather 13 year old boys or 40 year old pervs. They might respond to you in a positive manner, but I don't think that's what you are looking for.

You might want to go hit on the female guards in StormWind though. They can't respond because their on duty, but maybe after they get off work...

Family of WoWers

So, pretty much my whole family plays this game. It started with my older brother who worked on us. I was in graduate school with dial-up internet at the time. But he let me play while I was at his house. How quickly addicted I was. I started playing on a friends account on my dial-up modem (which wasn't as bad as you might think). Later I upgraded to my neighbors fast speed internet (inevitably someone you live by will have an open wi-fi connection).

My other brothers started playing as well. My older brothers wife started playing because she thought the warlock fire horses were pretty. Later she sat down with my wife and rolled a cute human mage.

Kind of a snowball effect going on here. Now my brother-in-law plays, my brother's kids play (rolled a DK with one of them the other day). I have 3 cousins that play.

So, at family parties we frequently talk about wow. My poor mother usually is clueless and one of my sister-in-laws think we are clueless for playing (or at least very geeky, but she tried to play her self, got lost and frustrated and refuses to try again. Meh.)

So, should I work on my parents? Should we start having family raids instead of family parties? (family raids, lol, sounds like we are going to attack the next door neighbors house - they put an encryption on their Wi-fi - they must go down).

We have interacted more, but we don't always play together. Its really fun when we go do an instance together, but that doesn't happen very often. sad I know

Does your family play? Has your family given into the modern day epidemic called World of Warcraft?

Random Comments on Patch notes 3.1

Lots of new crazy interesting stuff coming out with patch 3.1. I highlighted a few of the hunter changes, but mostly stuck to the BM hunter stuff.

Highlighted Changes to Hunter Glyphs (the ones I choose to comment on anyway):

Glyph - Aimed Shot -- Reduces the cooldown of your Aimed Shot ability by 2 sec. (Old: Reduces the mana cost of your aimed shot ability by 20%)

Why?? well, I guess I didn't use this one anyway. That extra mana reduction was so nice before, especially when the reduction done with the hunter nerf.

Glyph of Snake Trap -- Snakes generated by your Snake Trap take 90% reduced damge from area of effect spells. (Old: Your Snake Trap creates 2 additional snakes)

I think mage AoE will still probably be able to take them out easily, but not as easily as before, this would be better for PvP I think (I could be wrong). Those darn pesky buggers.

Glyph of Explosive Trap *new* -- The periodic damage from your Explosive Trap can now be critical strikes.

Oooo, that's nice if you are an SV hunter.

More hunter changes (or at least those that I choose to comment on):

*New Skill* Call Stabled Pet - A pet of your choice busts out of its stable and joins you no matter where you are, replacing your current pet. Cannot be used in combat. Instant. 30 min cooldown. Requires Level 80.

Yay!!! 30 min cooldown isn't bad at all. The hinted to it being a lot worse. Boo on the level 80 requirement.

Improved Aspect of the Hawk now has a new spell effect.

What? What is it??? New spell effect, ah, too bad I don't have enough time to get on the PTR. Does anybody know what this is?

Duel Specing:

Characters level 40 and up may now use the dual-spec system.

So they decided to lower the level to be able to do this to level 40? That's cool, it'll help leveling (group vs solo) big time. So, you can level as a shadow priest, but still group holy. Not so bad I think. I'll like this for my DK, yes I will. I like unholy spec (because I like having a pet - and its been fun up to this point), but then I could switch over to frost easy enough to tank if someone needs it. That's nice

The cost to activate the ability is 1000 gold.

This was expected, a good money sink for the economy. I'm glad its not like 5000 gold or anything.

The ability no longer requires a Lexicon of Power.

This is nice for everybody, but those who thought they could make money with inscription. I don't have inscription, so good news to me, I wouldn't hold my breath though.

Switching specs has a 5-second cast time. It may not be used in combat, or in battlegrounds or arenas.

Fair enough, I still like the fact that you don't have to go to a capital city to do this.

There is no cooldown on switching specs.

Nice. That makes me happy.

New mounts:

Aquatic Riding Ray

- aquatic ray??? oh cool, now if you could make it so you don't have to breath while riding it. With something like this coming I just got my mind thinking about a whole expansion based on water. That would be soooo cool. Again, as long as they made an improved scuba helmet or gave somekind of buff or something so everybody doesn't drown. And also, if they bring Jar jar binks into the game with something like this??? /quit, I'm pretty confident that blizzard wouldn't do something so stupid.

"Mimiron's Head - Summons and dismisses a rideable mechanical gnome head. This is a very fast construction. This construction can only be summoned in Outland or Northrend."

Okay this is kind of creepy, a mechanical gnomes head??? As long as we don't make this a trend and started making other gnome body part mounts. Who came up with this idea anyway???

New Vanity Pets:

Lots of new cool pets, woot!! I know I only have 40 pets and I am not even close to being obsessed compared to some, but I'm so glad that more pets are being introduced. Woot! Here are a few of the pets that are coming out: Durotar Scorpion, Teldrassil Sproutling, Alarming Clockbot (that would be so cool if you could set this thing to remind you of something, lol), Enchanted Broom (a little reminiscent of Mickey Mouse from Fantasia if you ask me), Gorloc Orphan/Wolvar Orphan (yeah, this means they are adding northrend children's week quests - I suppose we didn't really think they weren't, right?), Sen'jin Fetish (I don't even know what the heck that's going to be), and last, but not least the Plump Turkey - don't pull him out during November.

Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting

Okay so there is a quest called Kicking Nass and something Manes (honestly don't quite remember the rest of it). In this quest you are suppose to go take an undead guy with you and whenever you are done killing a troll you kick Nass in the behind and make him get some hairs or something.

The best part about this is you get to have a /kick emote for awhile. So, we did some kung-fu fighting. Mostly Kydra was kicking my nass.





I'm still confused at how she does that in a dress. She got me right in the noggin.

Maybe the WoW killer MMO will be a martial arts one. That could be cool. Or maybe we could mix martial arts and The Oregon Trail. That'll teach us some history and have some cool kick-you-in-the-face kind of action. Something to ponder.