Arrangement of Pixels: Rank and File

While it has been quite some time since I’ve written, I wish to report that rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.

Sadly, rumors of an extremely busy life outside of the pixilated world of fashion and monsters known as World of Warcraft are not as exaggerated. Dwindling time and dwindling bag space have left me with not much to show of late, but it occurred to me I should do something and make an attempt. I keep promising myself to write of the many raiding and guild changes that have been going on, but time is not favoring that likelihood anytime soon.

Arrangement of Pixels: Darkness and Light

So from darkness there was brought light, and where the light burned brightest, the shadows did grow the darkest.

Opposites attract they say, and the opposing dynamic of my character with my husbands is one I am fond of.

Arrangement of… Yeah I fail this week

Totally getting killed this week. Work, life, WoW, everything. Especially my guild. Want to strangle my guild. So.. very much. AND that evil NPC who has my dress is back to taunt me in Dalaran. Someday, Formal Dangui, you will be mine, and I can cease to hate children’s week.

Who am I kidding? Oh well. My DK is camped in Moonglade waiting, so here’s to vain hope!

I had time for one entry this weekend and I really needed a brain dump, and so you get what came previously. Here in the meantime, a cute Troll Priest!

Sporting her newly rewarded Juju Hex Robes, BOA Tattered Dreadmist Mantle, and… some lowbie bracers I’m too lazy to look up.

Augh curse you OCD. They are the Barbaric Cloth Bracers. Oh and the Devout Aurastone Hammer. AND the Ceremonial Cloak. Somehow it all matches.

I confess Orgrimmar is not nearly as hard to navigate as I used to complain about. As long as you don’t have to leave the Valley of Strength. All bets are off on winding paths that go behind stupid stores and weird stairs and bridges. Why oh why must Silvermoon be so out of the way? Heck even Undercity I can navigate, if the locations are inconvenient.

Anyway. Here she is, and she is cute. I was going to go with long green swept back braids, but the crazy pixie haircut wouldn’t stop niggling at my brain. Pink punk rocker troll? Yes please. And I’m usually so not a pink type of person.

Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi!

It appears to have been quite the busy week, in game and out. Work has been quite busy, and the precarious weekday balance of raiding + family raising in between is not one I wish to risk tipping with added time spent writing, no matter how much I enjoy doing it.

As a result of this, I have composed the better part of three or four blog posts and one, maybe one and a half short story vignettes in my head during the lengthy ‘thinking’ time that is my commute. Given the lack of express train routes between Podunkton and Wanna Be Chic Urban Centre of DC Suburbia as well as the lack of portable speech recognition word processing software and hardware in my possession, they are all sadly locked in my head fading word by word as inspiration flits elsewhere.

So let this be a warning, this may be a conglomerate ramble of all those things with most of the important bits missing! I bear no responsibility for the comprehensibility of my writing from this point forward, or even this point backward.

On the Arrangement of Pixels: Rags to Riches

After a week of soaring highs and hair-tearing lows, I considered deeply the thought of blowing this off again. But on my journeys from store to store in the plane known as “IRL”, an idea occurred to me that I had to laugh at.

Financial difficulties being at the forefront of some of these frustrations, I thought I would do a quick and easy showing of bank alt sets.

Game Over!

So I finally beat the game. Saved the princess (or just Azeroth), won the day and saw the final epic cinematic as Arthas’ last breath as Lich King expired.

I could quit WoW and never be really hard pressed to go back (at least until Cataclysm). I probably won’t, because there are still things to do. There are 3 more difficulty settings to kill him on, and I’m psyched about that, but the real moment was that first epic ending scene I had been waiting for so long.

My guild and husband are still amazed at my ability to avoid all spoilers until that point. So as a courtesy to anyone else who has steadfastly avoided them and not yet seen the end of the game, there will be spoilers after the jump! To skip past, click here.

On the Arrangement of Pixels: Expanding Horizons

This weekend has proven to be a very busy weekend. Signs of this may include, but are not limited to, my still referring to it as ‘this weekend’ though Monday has already reared its ugly head as well as my working through the list of things to do ‘this weekend’ well into Monday.

I spent most of my time-wasting this weekend fretting over what to wear! My newly level 80 hunter occupied the bulk of my WoW time finding her things to look cute (and shoot good) in, and the remainder was taken in upgrading my pony. With recent affirmations that someone actually might be reading and looking forward to this, panic set in.

Now with 30% more sparkles!

I have a sparklepony.

I will not apologize or justify the investment. It is a pony. It sparkles and spits out magical stars that trail behind you. Magical sparkle ponies need no justifications.

For those in support of the pony, squee with me! Squeee!!! PONY!

As luck would have it, this same weekend I finally managed to tag along with a group hitting the hardmodes in Ulduar 10. An achievement 8 months overdue (grrrrr but never mind that) finally completed, One Light in the Darkness. The drake is pretty cool looking, better than I had thought. But now, I have a 30% faster pony, and that’s the coolest thing ever.

Side note, it was a busy weekend but Pixels are coming I promise! Teaser: I even convinced my husband to dress up for this one. Well worth the wait!

Fangirl Moment

I love World of Warcraft fan art. I adore well drawn in game characters and NPCs especially, either portraits or action scenes. Many, many times I have considered getting my own commission done for me and my husband’s characters. Today, I got lucky enough to get a free doodle from one of my favorite WoW artists, @Baenhoof, whose amazing work you can find at Deviant Art. I’ve been a huge fan for a while and only recently found out. The author of Duct Tape and a Prayer remodeled his blog and gave full credits to her for the art, and in browsing through her DA gallery I found pictures I had already considered favorites.

So this is me showing off:

And this is me running off to convince my husband that artwork is a worthwhile investment.

On the Arrangement of Pixels: Mixing It Up

Last week was a busy one with the holidays both real and digital, so sadly I didn’t have time to play dress up. I considered blowing it off this week and saving it for later, because really who’s reading? But sticking to deadlines is good for me and I still have some of my favorite sets to go.

This week I’d like to look at a couple of collections and explore the versatility of random single items. My favorite skirt, pants, and tunic are in this one – favored because they look good, and also because you can do so much with them. Also for the clothies out there, a reminder: even if you are always wearing a dress, it never hurts to check your pants just in case!

These sets are fun, all-purpose looks that can be used for a wide range of occasions, formal to casual. For this week’s images, I took a little pub crawl through Dalaran.

Cataclysm’s Leap of Faith

No, I’m not talking about the proposed priest ability in the new expansion. I’m talking about expansion previews and releases that come out before the game can be played. Everyone who cares has seen the priest preview already, right?

From our current point of view, many of these things can look wonderful and some can look downright awful. But our current point of view doesn’t give us the correct game reference to actually make valid conclusions because we can’t possibly know the game mechanics these abilities will reside in.

We’ve been given hints and ideas on how the new face of World of Warcraft will look as it dons the reinvented regalia of Cataclysm. But we don’t know the intricacies of the final mechanics and we won’t until beta comes out. Even then, the mechanics will be in a rough draft state. Nothing is final until things are live.

But what fun are tidbits of information without rampant speculation? Pure opinion and wild conclusions BEGIN!

Moving Forward

It feels like a lot of things are finally moving forward, and it’s definitely exciting. The guild is progressing, news for the expansion is progressing, and the stuck-in-a-rut feeling is abated for now.

Last night’s raid was great. We’re finally pushing a little bit of progress and working on a few hard modes. It’s fun and challenging and progression is where I really enjoy being. Not to mention, hard modes get people to show up.

Long Week

So it appears that recruiting has been working out. Yesterday the attendance was down, but we had a full raid + standby on Wednesday. I wasn’t even there yesterday due to family stuff and I expect a lot of folks are doing spring break/easterthings this week, so I’ll grant leeway.

New people took some learning on Sindragosa, and we didn’t get as far on Lich King as we did the first night we had made attempts, but at least the recruits seem to be solidly geared and fully competent if not fully experienced. Learning another guild’s strategies always has a learning curve, small or large.

What a Rush

Updated today, the ICC buff has been increased from 5% to 10%. I know it’s meant to give more casual players a chance to see the latest content for the expansion, but at the same time it feels like anyone not on the bleeding edge is in a race against the clock. The race between guilds for rankings and first time kills is one thing, pitting skill vs. skill, but now it seems like there’s a countdown timer in-game to do the content while it still presents a challenge.

Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely worse things that can happen, especially considering you can turn it off if it’s really such a point of pride. But the fact that you have to pick between going E-Z mode and rejecting help when available for the sake of pride gives a sense of urgency I’m not overly thrilled with. The higher the buff gets, the more you lose the sense of good old fashioned accomplishment, and turning it off just has this sense of vanity that doesn’t go away.

On the Arrangement of Pixels: Holier Than Thou

Since last week, I’ve made great discoveries in the world of WoW costuming and fashion. The greatest of these is sure to be Kirina’s Closet, an extensive resource on WoW fashion and costuming for every occasion. Can’t find what you’re looking for in the regular blog? Click the Fashion tab at the top for an index of outfits she’s collected. Want more? Check out the Forum where other like minded fashionistas and costumers have contributed their ideas and browse through the various ‘catalog’ sticky posts with photographed listings of most every dress, top, and leg item you could be in search of.

So now that I’ve endorsed this amazing resource, on to my own designs. This next set are some of my very favorite outfits because they’re particularly special for my character. I have played and loved the priest class for years now, and I take pride in dressing my priestess as well as any priest you can find in game.  So this week I present to you some of my favorite priestly outfits.

Showing Up: How hard is it?

I’m more than a little peeved at some of my guildies of late. I should actually say I’m peeved at guildies and several former guildies, since last night we only had enough tanks for one ten man group. This provided our GM with a leisurely evening of trimming the roster of anybody who hadn’t raided in the past couple weeks. But really, it’s ridiculous. For two weeks in a row, we’ve farmed out the easy content, and nobody shows for anything even remotely progression oriented. I’m desperately in need of some ideas.

Astral Walker

So, we didn’t have enough to do progression. Still seething mad at folks who will show up, grab loot from the easy stuff, but then bail when it gets to actually working on content.

I am momentarily appeased and something less than murderous for now because at least we scrounged up enough to trounce Algalon. It was fun. Aside from somebody who came in with the key, nobody had done it on 25, some hadn’t even seen it on 10. We came, we learned, we stomped old content and got fancy titles. As well we should have, overgeared as we are.

Anyway, raid ended early so I made a fancy outfit to go with the fancy title. Astral Walker needs shiny things, flowing white dresses, and space and cosmos type backgrounds, so! BEHOLD! Ceralyn the Astral Walker!

After-patch Hangovers

Drunk with the power of the new ICC buff finally applying to my bubbles, the high of a smooth raid clearing up to Sindragosa with minimal mishaps, and the realization I had 5 emblems left to go, I scrounged up a 2am pug Ulduar and booked it straight to Threads of Fate to purchase the last 2 pieces of my 4 set.

Biggest regret thus far: 2 am pug raid on a work night. Not my brightest idea. But c’est la vie. It was quick, I was tired, and I get to test out how the additional shield buff measures up. But now that I am (semi-)rested, time to actually take a look at what I’ve invested in.

Patch Day!

Ah the joys of patch day!

Tons of lag, sorting your addons, not to mention hoping that the encounters still spawn correctly...

Okay okay so I'm having a serious negative day. Time to cheer up! After all, I got buffed! Or, well. Un-gimped, but hey that's a buff!

I also am having some success in camping for dresses in Moonglade. Two Red Traditional Hanboks and the bright springtime-y Green Wedding Hanbok (different than the dark green). Still no Formal Dangui. Someday it will be mine!! I've demanded Varimir check the vendor when the servers come up. Fingers crossed!

In the meantime, for more funtimecheerylike patch info, I found this most excellent summary of patchnotethings from another priesty-blog: Patch notes from I Like Bubbles

On the Arrangement of Pixels: Styles of the Sea

Having spent considerable time researching the subject, I find myself saddened at the lack of resources on my favorite niche of World of Warcraft – Costuming.

Everyone loves gear of course. You’d be hard pressed to find a player who hasn’t drooled over the ilvl of the leet purps coming from the latest content. Do you have a wishlist? Are you planning the perfect stat balance for your ideal gear set? I certainly am.

But really, when it comes down to it, we all want the same thing. To look awesome.

Gear is more than the dataset its attached to. The arrangement of pixels is what makes the difference between “Optimal/BiS” and truly “Epic”.  So let’s get superficial here, throw away all the stats, and see what we can take down the catwalk, or in this case, the plank.

No Progress

So no Lich King this week. Last night was worse than Wednesday even, so we ended up doing TOC. Regular. I was sick and feeling lazy/sneaky so I gave up my healing spot for Varimir's paladin alt. I guess it went alright, though only ret gear seemed to be dropping. He utterly despises his Aegis of Damnation and can't seem to replace it.

I was off negotiating terms of surrender and/or fruit snacks with a 4 year old when they finished. Got back to the room and apparently they had been waiting for me to start TOGC, with threat of -100 DKP for anyone not teabagging/jumping up and down on my avatar where Varimir had parked it in the instance. Well then. I had no idea, so hopefully they weren't waiting long.

The Means to Kill the Lich King

I got to play with the Lich King in 25 man last week.

Oh. My. Gosh.

I think the encounter is sufficiently epic for what Blizzard has built him up to be through the expansion. I wasn't far enough in to see the end of the Sunwell when it was current content, so I can't accurately compare the two, but I am having so. much. fun.

The Would-Be Blogger

I've toyed with the idea of a WoW blog several times in the much-too-long span I've played the game. It was a fairly novel idea at the time (I knew very few of note) and now suddenly everyone is doing it.

I think that may be why I'm doing it now. There's less pressure to be exceptional unless I'm seeking gamer-fame and I find security in the idea that even if my little blog goes entirely unread, it won't be alone in the sea of little fish floating through the internet at present.

So without further ado, here goes nothing!