Shared Topic: What’s In A Name?

Be sure to check out my guest post at Pugging Pally on Tuesday, October 12th!

So, I’m a bit late to the party, but Blog Azeroth’s shared topic last week was “What’s In A Name?”, asking about our characters’ names and how we chose them. I kinda like it, so I’m going to go through and give you the names of ALL the characters I have. Yes. All of them. Starting with the most played first, of course. ;) And I will give you a brief rundown of why they’re named what they’re named. (This is really long. I’m sorry. Feel free to skip it. XD)

Actually, I’m going to start with my very first level 80’s original name:

Aislinn
I created Aislinn very shortly after having discovered Slashdance’s awesome Redshift machinimas, in which the main female character was named Aislynn. Now, both my DK and the character pronounced their name “ICE-lin”, (and woe befall the guildies who inevitably called me “ACE-lin”)but the name is actually a variant of an Irish name, Aisling, which is pronounced “ASH-ling”, and means “dream” or “vision”. I had this whole story for her, how she had been a priestess of Elune (she was a Night Elf then) and so forth. And then I got bored, race changed her to a Gnome, and renamed her Apple, because… well, it’s ME. We’ll get to THAT later, though.

Lisann
Yes, her name has technically gained an extra N, even though I rarely use it when I’m writing about her. >_> Lis is my Paladin, which I hope any of you who’ve read this blog before know already. Originally, she’d been named Lizzy, which was okay when I rolled her as a ret pally on a whim, but when I decided to respec her and start healing, “Lizzy” just didn’t fit her very well anymore. But I didn’t really want to change it too much, because I was still very attached to the name for some reason. So I looked up a bunch of nicknames for “Elizabeth”, hoping to find one I liked. And, lo and behold, there was Lisan. I didn’t change it right away, but I kept it in my head, and when my tabletop group started up and I rolled a healing battle-cleric, it was obvious I’d have to take Lisan as her name. And so I did. It fit her to a T, really, and so I shelled out the money to get Lizzy a name change (much to the dismay of Lizbet, her former levelling partner). And then one thing led to another and she ended up a dwarf, but we don’t talk about that.

(More after the jump, because I won’t inflict this epic list on anyone who doesn’t give a crap.)

Of fresh downloads and race changes

So my laptop, in the hour and a half I was away from her during my nap this afternoon, decided to implode or something. I couldn’t get her to open ANYTHING but Finder. No applications, nothing. Even after two virus scans and three reboots.

So I had to transfer all the important stuff to my external (including my WoW Interface and WTF folders, because I’ll be damned if I’m setting up my UI all over again) so I could just… do a fresh instal of my OS. And, of course, I forgot that I’d switched from Firefox to Chrome and didn’t have my bookmark synchronizer addon anymore, and lost… somewhere between 100 and 200 bookmarks, probably. *sigh* I have changed my bookmarking habits to have an online backup, after this.

And, of course, this has happened at the end of the expansion. Which means not only do I get the LOVELY over-and-hour installation time of the base Wrath game, I get to deal with downloading and installing all the patches. Every patches. I’ll be doing this well into tomorrow. *sigh* And I was planning on actually levelling Lisan, something that I haven’t really cracked down and done for a couple of weeks.

In other, unrelated news, I splurged last week and got Aislinn a race change. She is now Ápple the Gnomish Death Knight. I just… really have never felt like much of a NElf, and being a Gnome is so FUN! Not to mention I’m really looking forward to Operation Gnomeregan, and getting to do that as a Gnome, from an RPer’s perspective (even if I don’t RP on her), is just… thrilling.

I know some people (I’m looking at you, Oreo) will throw up their hands and go “AUGH, GNOMES!”, but I could care less. I have such love for those little suckers. ^_^

So now I’m going to go back to trying to re-create at least part of my bookmarks folder, and wait for WoW to instal. Have a nice night, you guys.

Focus vs. OMGSHINY

No, this is not about the Cata changes to Hunters. Though I am pleased by that – it always felt silly to me that my hunter used mana. But whatever.

I have been slacking on my “levelling Lisan” pledge. The poor thing has only reached 56. Nor can I seem to concentrate on any of the OTHER various “lesser goals” that I’d decided to set for myself – Mellie has reached 20 and not budged since, I still suck at healing on Kili and haven’t levelled him further than what two randoms could do for him, Kass has been be-heirloomed and respecced balance, but I haven’t done more than a couple dungeon runs on her since. And Aislinn, who I swore I’d rep grind and do the Tournament dailies (and a few other dailies) on for money and who I’m trying to get tabards and mounts for (for, y’know, achievements)… Aislinn did enough randoms to buy the heirloom leather caster chest-and-shoulders and the heirloom staff, and has done nine dailies (combined three-day total) and no rep grinding.

So I go “okay, clearly I just need a break from them!” and I log onto Klarah or Kaeleigh (my two “gimmick” characters – that’s a whole other post that I should really write up), or Summer, Nait, Jae, Tai, Iestyn, Bei, any of my various RP characters that could stand to be levelled/played more. And then I feel guilty that I’m not doing what I’m “supposed” to be doing, and log off entirely.

To poke at the internet and do absolutely nothing productive in other areas of my life.

/sigh

The problem with trying to focus on anything like this, for me, is that I am easily distracted by shiny things, and if I’m not running through randoms with a friend I can chat with, I can’t keep my attention and dedication going. It’s just a game, after all, so I don’t apply myself with quite the same dedication I’d give to things like… a career, or getting a degree. But I still feel, in the back of my head, like I should be able to. I managed it when I was levelling Ais to 80 – she made it from the starting zone to the level cap in a month and a half, and considering I’d been playing the game for about a year and a half at that point and never reached the level cap, that was a pretty big accomplishment.

I’m sure part of it is the fact that the people I spent so much time with levelling Ais (and getting Lis from 1 to 45) are… not really around, these days. Real life has gotten in the way, or they’ve gotten bored for the time being, and it all adds up to no Lizbet or Spooky to run things with when Andy’s busy.

The bright side of all this is Andy, my new friend that I sort of accidentally acquired through my guild. She was talking to Hano (who, as I’ve said, I’ve been friends with for nearly a decade) and he said something about me that prompted her to send me a whisper next time she saw me on. And as I’ve never actually gotten to connect with any of the girls we’ve had in the guild before, I was psyched! Since then, we’ve really bonded, and I log on almost every day even if I’m not planning to play, just so I can talk to her for a while. Her only fault is that she, like so many other WoW players, hates gnomes. She also thinks Boomkin are ugly. However, she plays with Mellie with a minimal of Gnome-punting talk, and has assured me that once Kass actually GETS Moonkin form, I will be the only pretty Boomkin in existence. We flirt a lot, if you couldn’t guess, and damn if I know if either of us are actually serious, but it’s loads of fun.

She is, truly, the best part about WoW for me right now.

So it all ends with my WoW experience being very spastic and frustrating, yet fun and relaxing. Cata cannot come too soon, imo, even if it WILL lead to me having even MORE characters to ADD on. Because really, like I’m not going to roll like, three Worgen, two Gnomes, a Tauren, and maybe another Troll.

All that said and out of my system, I am going to go log onto Lis and dedicate at least enough time for three dungeon runs. Even if I do get BRD every time. /cry

I promise I’m still here…

I’ve just gotten a bit distracted by a bunch of things:

-Lack of sleep
-Levelling Lisan (she’s 51 now!)
-Reading Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar series
-Levelling Melusine. She’s my new Gnomish Warlock
-Bonfires
-Really ridiculous crack-RP with a couple of friends.
-Less ridiculous RP with my D&D group

I’ve downloaded JumpCounter and it’s kind of crazy seeing my jumping patterns. Lisan hardly jumps at all, Ais jumps a moderate amount, Kass jumps a lot, and Melusine had over 100 jumps before she even hit lvl 5! I’ve decided that jumping as a Druid is addictive and jumping as a Gnome is the most bouncy fun you can have. And also compulsive. Is there anyone out there who seriously plays a gnome who doesn’t spam the spacebar? I find myself bouncing without realising it sometimes.

Kurn has gotten a beta key, for which I am insanely jealous, and has been having Cataclysmic Adventures ™. Very enlightening and a little amusing – if you don’t read her now, I suggest you start.

Also, newish blogger Lara over at Root and Branch has posted a Shakespearian retelling of your average Oculus PUG that is absolutely hilarious.

And now I scoot off, so as not to be late to work! I hate working the opening shift.

Loremaster and Aiming for 80

So I have two goals before Cataclysm hits. See, I know a lot of people are trying to finish off a bunch of achievements before the expansion – some because they might be gone or changed forever (Loremaster, The Explorer), and some… so they can say that they had it before Cata, I guess.

Because she’s my only level 80 character at the moment, Aislinn has been the one I’ve tried for most of my achieves on. I’m probably going to finish my “do all the old-world 5-mans” at some point on her, but that’s not really what I’m trying to do. What I’m trying to do is get her Loremaster. The problem, of course, being that she’s a Death Knight, and never actually did more than about 70 quests total in old world. She needs 1400. Plus finishing Outland and Northrend, which will be no small feat, either. On the way I’m hoping to also finish Master of Arms and Did Somebody Order a Knuckle Sandwich, as well as getting some work done on <a href=http://www.wowwiki.com/Ambassador_of_the_AllianceAmbassador.

However, all of that has been put on the backburner, because my favourite holy pally is planning on starting up her old raiding guild in Cata. And, as we were discussing on twitter yesterday, I would really be down with putting an app in. Which requires me to get Lisan to 85 (and Heroic gear) as quickly as possible once Cata hits. And the best way to do that is to get her levelled and geared in Wrath, pre-Cata. A bonus is I’m finally levelling her fishing while she’s waiting in the queue. Step 2: level herbalism. Step 3: ??? Step 4: PROFIT!

She’s sittin’ pretty halfway through 42 right now. I am fucking sick of Mauradon. I miss Uldaman. Seriously. I never thought I’d say that. She’s levelling entirely through healing instances (which sucks when the queues are 15+ minutes, even for healers), and most of her levelling is being done with a friend of mine who rolled and levelled a shadow priest specifically to run things with me. :) As he has his own guild and his own raids already, I doubt he’ll be following me to Kurn’s guild (provided I’ve got the stuff to get in *crosses fingers*), but that’s okay. :) For the time being, it’s just nice to have someone to complain with over vent when the tank’s being a dumbass. Also someone that I trust to pop a bubble on the tank if something happens and I can’t heal briefly. Like being LoS’d (happens all the time) or the tank ignoring that I declare my intentions to drink and pulling while I’m filling up my mana bar (also happens all the time).

I’m pretty excited about working on both my goals, to be honest. It’s kind of nice to be working towards things a bit more concrete than “oh, I’d like to reach 80 eventually, I guess…” which is my normal course of action.

And now I go to work obscenely early. Have a good day, my darlings!

Emblem Spending (and SM lag?)

So I earlier today, I had a dilemma.

I had 20 Emblems of Triumph and 53 Emblems of Frost on Aislinn, my only level 80. Aislinn, while only half-gemmed and un-enchanted, is geared in T9, and I’m quite pleased with that. Her DPS is generally under 2k (if I’m reading my DPS metres right), but only just, and I do my best with her. But I don’t think I’ll ever raid on her.

Lizzy is, on the other hand, slowly levelling up. She’s currently just shy of 34, and was wearing one piece of Heirloom gear – the Strengthened Stockade Pauldrons, PvP plate shoulders. They are not the best for a Healadin, but the 10% XP bonus is my favourite thing ever.

So my dilemma was this: I could convert my Frost and Triumph Emblems to get better shoulders and (after a few more randoms) an heirloom chest, or I could deal with what I have on Lizzy and wait until I had enough Triumph Emblems to leave my Frost alone. Sure, you can get 20ish Triumph with only a couple or four randoms, but I hate queueing for DPS and then sitting around for 20 minutes or more, EVERY TIME.

Thankfully, Hano was a dear and got on his Druid to tank, getting us through queues EXTREMELY quickly, and I got the emblems for the chest piece, anyway, if not the better shoulders. Cloth on a Paladin makes me laugh, but there’s no real good mail for a dedicated healer at this level. But it makes me wonder… if I HADN’T had Hano, what should I have done? What would you all have done?

In an unrelated note, I’m wondering if anyone else is having weird lag in certain instances? I have my normal 6-10 fps most of the time, and on all the Northrend heroics I’ve been running, but the minute I zone into any of the Scarlet Monastery wings, I drop to 1-2 fps, and it takes me a full 15-20 seconds to zone in. It’s weirding me out.

Apple in Azeroth

So, posting this at the same time I’m putting up a new page with the same title – same info, but this one is going to be much more ramble-licious. You know y’all love my rambles.

So despite the fact that I adore RP and am an avid RPer when I have the attention span (and brain capacity) for it, and loving the Horde more than is probably strictly healthy while thinking the Alliance is mainly run by a bunch of self-centred jerks, my level 80 (Áislinn), my main (Lisan), and two of my main alts (Kassína and Kíli) are on Ysera, a PvE server; are Alliance-side; and are in a raiding guild. (My fourth main alt, Sámhradh, is a Blood Elf hunter on an RP server who has never been in a guild and likes it that way.) I only really rolled on Ysera in order to play with the friend who got me into this game, and yet I’ve found that it’s the server I spend most my time on. I guess I just really love those toons

But even though they’re on a non-RP server, I have little bits of history and personality for all three girls, because… well, a) part of me will always think like an RPer – it’s why I actually enjoy the cutscenes in Culling of Stratholme – and b) I’m a writer, and that’s just what writers DO. These characters are not me, they’re not extensions of me into some fantasy world, they’re characters that aren’t me (which is, I’d argue, the whole point of this game – do be someone you’re not and do things you can’t do), which means that they have stories and personalities and quirks and all those little things that make a person, fictional or otherwise.

So, if you’ll follow the cut, let me introduce you to the leading ladies of Apple in Azeroth.

Level 80! Now what?

So I know what you’re supposed to do when you hit 80. You do dailies, run random Heroics until you have enough emblems for good gear (I’m working on T9), work the AH if you do that sort of thing, or maybe go Achievement hunting. Grind rep for various factions, of course, ’cause there’s that ONE item that you want/need that you need to be exalted with faction X to get.

I know what to do. Hell, I’m doing it – I run heroics when I don’t mind sitting around in a queue, I do dailies when I’m not sick to death of the repetitive grind, and I go after random achieves. I got my “Explorer” title already, and I’m slowly working on “Loremaster”, and even more slowly working towards my Argent Tournament titles. The thing is… I’m balls at the Tournament, to be quite frank, and I hate the grind of dailies. I don’t usually feel like sitting around in a queue, and when I’m working on “Loremaster”, I’m generally not in the mood to be interrupted by my random being ready.

I’ve happily and cheerfully played WoW for closing in on a year and a half, and I’ve never been so desperately bored as I am with Aislinn (my 80) right now. Now, I do love her. I’m trying to get through Loremaster before Cataclysm comes out (probably not going to happen, alas), and I love running stuff with my guildies because they’re pretty much awesome. But I played for over a year without getting any higher than 74, and after being persuaded to join this guild, I powered up to 80 on my DK in just shy of a month (which, for me, is impressive). I wanted to raid! I wanted to do heroics! I wanted to be level 80! That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Being 80 must be really fucking fun, right? Why else would it be such a big deal?

I’m just not feeling it. Maybe it’s ’cause I’m not geared for the real endgame stuff, but I’m just not getting why 80 is such a big deal beyond being the level cap. Since hitting 80 a couple weeks ago, I’ve created six alts (a warrior, a hunter, a druid, a paladin, and two mages) who are all between 10 and 15, and I levelled an older alt from 14 to 20. This is in addition to RP. In TWO WEEKS. It’s like I’m avoiding playing Aislinn anymore, because I can’t bear facing the fact that playing her bores me now.

I’m going to muddle through to being able to start raiding a little, at least – I’m not going to ever fully abandon her, and I love my guildies madly – but I think I’m going to start lavishing some love on my many many alts – and maybe I’ll get that warrior (the first toon I ever had, the one who got me to 55 and being able to play my beloved DKs) up to 80 someday – she deserves it.