Day 20 – If This Were My Last Day

First and foremost I would hand over my guild and say goodbye to all my guildies, that would take up a large portion of my time.

Next I’d fly up to the Ironforge Airport.  I never got the chance to make the trek before although I flew over it enough times to really really want to.

I’d kill that stupid drake you fly over when you fly from Ironforge to Stormwind in _TK_.  For the longest time his level was “??” to me, and I always vowed to go over there and kill him.  I’m sure he lasted through the Cataclysm, and I would find him and kill him.

I’d want one last shot at Arthas since that has been the pinnacle of my raiding experience thus far and it would be great to relive it.

I’d talk in Trade chat, it’s largely a waste of time so we all avoid it, but it would be fun to fee the trolls that have in large part defined such a big piece of the WoW experience like it or not.

I’d give PvP one more shot, and organize a For The Alliance achievement run.

I wouldn’t log off.  I’d sit down in the Deeprun Tram and wait for the game to auto log me off.

Day 19 – In my Bags/Bank

I try to keep these things as sparse as possible.

In my bags I prefer to keep only raiding consumables like flasks, potions, buff food, and drinks of some sort.  I also carry around my “tools” which consists of my Gnomish Utility Knife and my enchanting rod. I carry Jeeves and MOLL-E as well as my Mote Extractor for the occasions when I need to use them as well.  Also my fishing pole!  I try to keep all gear and enchanting materials out of my bag because I frequently disenchant for people and don’t want to get them confused, and I’m the loot distributor in the raid so I disenchant on those occasions too.

In my bag I have the occasional items I’ve come across that are worth keeping like tabards or rewards for achievements or other collector type items.  I have a store of enchanting materials and some materials for engineering as well.  I also keep any gear I might use but don’t have equipped in here just in case.  Generally speaking when a new iLvl comes up out this gets disenchanted.

All of the rest of the materials I come across I ship to my banker who either stores it or sells it on the auction house.

Day 18 – Your Favorite Outfit

Unfortunately for this 20 day challenge, this one is going to be boring.  I am not a gear collector.  I generally keep my best gear equppied and my top iLvl gear banked just in case and get rid of all else.  The transformation gadgets that change you into a pirate or skeleton or ninja are not in my repertoire.

I will say this.  My tier 10 gear was a trip because it was my first full set, and my end of WotLK gear was great because it was the first gear I had equipped with the “Heroic” tag attached.

One more thing, can someone explain to me why everyone is so in love with the spiky warlock battleground PvP shoulders?  Admittedly they looked pretty awesome, but  that sort of went out the window when every single picture of any warlock outside of the game had them on.

Also as far as hated gear goes, curse the Hat of Wintry Doom, I wore it way too long in the last expansion.

Day 17 – My Favorite Spot

Without a doubt, my favorite spot in game would have to be the Deeprun Tram.  I remember, on my first toon, a gnome, when I was sent to Stormwind and I rode the Tram.  It was by far the coolest thing I’d seen up to that point, and that childlike amazement has stuck with me.

I still ride it today on the odd occasions I have to travel between Stormwind and Ironforge.

Part of this totally has to do with my love for engineering in game.  It’s an awesome concept if you think about it.

What are your favorite spots in game?

Day 16 – Post-Cataclysm Things I Miss

I really miss feeling overpowered.  At the end of WotLK I felt like I was on top of the world, and somewhere in Vashj’ir I felt very very squishy!  That was not fun.

I miss walking in Stormwind.  I use to know it like the back of my hand.  I use to be able to get around.  Now I feel compelled to fly, and when I do I feel disoriented.  I feel stupid when I catch myself walking, when I really shouldn’t.

I miss how connected Northrend was.  Now with Uldum on the Kalimdor server, Vash barely a part of Eastern Kingdoms, Twilight Highlands being way up to the north, Deepholm being on a whole other plane only accesible from the middle of the ocean, moving from zone to zone isn’t really possible, and I liked that about WotLK.  Flying from Dal to ICC was a nice trip.

I miss the slow pace.  At the end of WotLK I had my professions maxed, all my reputations were exalted, my gear was nice and tidy, and all I had to do was some dailies for a little cash flow and consumables.  Now I’m running around like a mad man trying to get to the things I need to get done without any time to do them.  Although, that’s a more fun problem to have than the rest.

Day 15 – Desktop Background

This is my desktop background.  I had a Cataclysm background for a long time, but I thought I wanted to get into the game of desktop customization, much like I customize my UI in WoW and I thought this background worked perfectly for that.

I thought I could use the black edges to provide the contrast I wanted to make the things easily readable, and the tree with the backlight in the middle gives me a stage to construct things around.

I still haven’t done it yet, but when I do, perhaps it will be awesome.

I love customized desktops and if you have one I’d love to see it!

Day 14 – Things That Upset Me

The first thing that upsets me is a person with a total lack of desire to learn.  Learning new things, and I mean this outside the context of WoW too, is the most exciting thing in the world for me.  While being set in your ways is hardly a massive transgression, especially when it comes to menial things like a video game, it’s so opposite of  the way my brain works it drives me nuts.

Secondly I get bothered when people take things in WoW too seriously.  I really use the game as an escape and a fun diverson.  Perhaps to some it can be an insight into a cross-section of the digitized world and the issues matter, but to me, most of the “issues” that happen in this game are either no big deal, or interesting puzzles.

The typical PuG aggravates the hell out of me.  I mean that in the most stereotypical way possible.  If you’re the guy that every other blogger spent the last year blogging about since LFD came about, I just plain don’t want to run with you.  When I tried my tank out this came to a real head, and I don’t want to play a tank ever again.

That’s generally the worst offenses for things that upset me.  What about you?  What upsets you the most?

Day 13 – Players/Bloggers I Admire

This is a tough one.  Again I’m going to have to point you to my blog roll.  I read all of their work and really is all worth the read.

As far as players that I admire go, I first have to start with each one of my officers in my guild.  I won’t call them out by name because that just seems weird, but each one of you make the guild worth being in, and I couldn’t do it without you.

Beyond them I have a deep respect for our world first types.  The leaders of Paragon and Method, and the rest of the bleeding edge progression guilds are amazing at what they do and I’ve always felt like I could learn a lot from them.

There are some of the standard personalities on my server that are really great too.  Some great guild leaders who understand what its like to run a guild on our server and they’re all extremely nice and helpful.

Day 12 – My Typical WoW Day

Right now I’m still gearing so that’s going to affect things.  Also, I’m a guild leader so that will change things up a little bit as well.

Before I’m in game, I login to my guild’s forums to check on what’s going on there and if there’s anything I should respond to.

Generally speaking from the moment I login to the moment I log off I’m getting whispers.  Usually from guildies just chatting around.  It’s funny but it’s worth mentioning because PSTs are what takes up the largest part of my time online.

If any guild maintenance work needs to be done I generally try to do that first or else I forget.  I typically have this on my mind from my trip to the guild forums anyway.

I generally get started on any quests or dailies I have to do right away.  Typically speaking I only focus on one faction’s dailies at a time.  As a person with a family and job, I have limited time.  Once these are complete, if I have time I try to run a random with some guildies.  If I’m not raiding this is largely what I do all night long.  If I’m raiding I spent a few minutes to make sure I’m repaired and have all my consumables.

If I’m raiding I start the raid invites 15 minutes out.  Then the raid takes up the large portion of my time online.

After raid time, I’m generally not on long.  If I have the energy I’ll get some other dailies done, or do some profession work.

After logging off, I upload the log from the raid that night.  I post anything I need to post to the guild forums.  I write any e-mails I think I should write to my officers.  Then it’s off to bed.

Day 11 – Bad Habits and Flaws

My worst habit by far, is casting Soul Fire when I switch targets.  I have it so ingrained that I lead off with that for the buff that I don’t consider I already have the buff and it’s a wasted cast.

Next I don’t clip my dot’s correctly in the Cataclysm way.  Technically speaking we can and likely should cast before the last dot because that leads to higher uptimes and doesn’t affect the DPCT of the spell thanks to the new mechanics.  I still let mine fall off and recast right after dropping.

I’m terrible at cooldown management which is now a big problem for warlocks.  Between Soul Burn, our Infernal, and Demon Soul I’m left at the end of a boss fight wondering why I didn’t use any/all of them.

I need an addon to help me remember the 25% change my priorities rule.  I get tunnel vision and don’t realize it until the boss is at 10%.

When I flub my spell priority I have a horrible time recovering.  Generally it’s six miscasts before I figure out what the hell I’m doing and get back on track.

When we had the spellstones, I was awful at remembering to keep mine on my weapon.  There’s one mechanic I’m glad is gone!

What about you?