Well, i was never in a hurry.

Last night i decided i had to try and push for lvl 85 on my main, who was lvl 84, i was about half way through to 85 anyway. I had managed to get about half a level just by doing a ton of archaeology.
So i went out to Deepholm (again) and just continued questing and it took me about 3 hours of playing when i finally dinged.
For Deepholm i am currently at 102 out of 125 quests, so "only" 13 quests to go before unlocking the achievement :)

I have to say i am not as impressed yet with Deepholm as i was with Vashj'ir or Hyjal, there's still some pretty funny quests to be found (I loved "Pebbles", too bad i didn't get to keep him), but overall i am not liking it as much. But then again i haven't reached the end of the storyline there, so who knows..

After that it's probably off to Uldum, which i allready heard a lot about, most people say it's a lot of fun, so i can't wait. I could have allready gone there, as i have the quests leading me there, but i really wanted to finish Deepholm first.

And there is a certain ghostly crawling crab that i definatly wanna tame, back in Vashj'ir :)

Not sure if i am that happy about reaching the "end level" allready, on purpose, i never rushed for lvl 85 as i never felt it would take that long anyway. For now there is still plenty to do, i haven't even touched any of the new dungeons yet and then there is all of the revamped stuff in all of the old zones, so i am not that worried about running out of things to do.

It's the monster of Loch...... Modan.

Blizzard is always good for some "little" ingame surprises, now i don't know if it was there before, i sure haven't seen it before, but on one of my archaeology trips i flew over Loch Modan and suddenly saw the Modan Monster, obviously a take on the Loch Ness monster, i just love this stuff :)

it's some kind of huge crab and of course i had to kill it, it was only a lvl 15 elite so no problems :)

From the sea to the mountains

Soaring high

After going through both Vashj'ir and Hyjal i still think Vashj'ir is the coolest zone. The quests and stories had a big fun factor and i really enjoyed the movement or 3d aspect of the world. And as a bonus no annoying dragons blocking questgivers.
I did have two major problems with the phasing here, the first one occured in the questline of the battlemaiden, i had to talk to three NPC's and only two spawned, no amount of rezoning, dropping the quest and retaking it or logging out helped, i gave up and logged out, three hours later i logged back in and luckily he was there, so i could finally continue the quest.

Another (very annoying) phasing issue i got was once i had to board the Vern, the Vern would dock properly and i could see it, but the moment i tried boarding the ship it completely dissapeared, if i'd try to still board it i would end up in the water, the ship was simply gone. I tried all the same thing logging out and back in, dropping the quest and retaking it, but nothing would fix it., after trying for an hour or so i though of another way, i tried to board the Alliance version of the Vern, i flew over there, luckily got no aggro and managed to board the Alliance Vern without a problem and was able to complete the story (although i did get aggro and killed once i spawned inside the Alliance cave).
Although i was happy to complete it, it still doesn't feel right with me being a Horde player to have boarded the Alliance ship to finish the story this way..

But after finishing Vashj'ir i was still on 138/150 quests, but eventually i managed to find a little quest chain that i had missed the first time around, i really don't remember if this were 12 quests (don't think it was) but after doing a few quests for this questgiver i got the achievement for it.


Hyjal was a whole different story, i kinda compare the two with the Goblin and Worgen starterzones, the first being all fun and jokes (well mostly) and the second being more serious and darker.
Well Hyjal was definatly a lot more serious, the storyline was awesome, but the first downside, people were able to use flying mounts and even now people still deem it neccessary to block questgivers, and i found on my server that especially Alliance players were very good at that...
But the story itself was definatly full of lore and i enjoyed doing it, but to me i still liked Vashj'ir a lot more, i guess i am more into the fun factor :)
I did not encounter any problems in Hyjal with the phasing, all went very smooth, the only bug i currently have is with the trampoline, for an achievement to have to bounce 20 times, but no matter what i try the counter stops at 1. I did some searching and it appears that many people have the same issue, the trampoline works fine if you do it before completing the end quest, but once you are done with the end quest the trampoline bugs.

So if you're going for that achievement, make sure you do it while there for the bearcub quest (fun quest btw) or at least before finishing that last quest or it will bug out.

I really enjoyed that last fight.

Hyjal definatly had some fun quests, like the jousting where you get a new pet, but overall i have to say that Blizzard did an awesome job on Vashj'ir, i remember the Oculus, which you could say had also a 3d aspect to it, but i really hated that, this underwater enviroment was really a pleasure to go through and i am almost sad there isn't more stuff like this.
Don't get me wrong i am still enjoying every part of the Cataclysm, Blizzard has really set the standard when it comes to gameplay and fun, especially considering they are doing this on a very old game engine, it is awesome to see that and old game doesn't mean a dead game and that you can't be innovative. I think this really is a great example to some of the developers out there, they should really be taking notes, *cough SWG, *cough, ahum.

Anyway, if you haven't done Vashj'ir yet, go, go what are you waiting for :)

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim it is.

So we finally know the next Elder Scrolls is coming.
Can't wait to learn more about this game, considering how much i have played Oblivion, i am pretty sure i'll be getting this :)

Do i have a deal for you.

I have really been enjoying Cataclysm so far, i especially like the new Goblin race, so much in fact that i race changed my main from Blood Elf to Goblin, so behold of the new and improved Hauntshade :)

My "new" main with her new pet an awesome looking crab.



The change took just seconds, after clicking finish transaction, i almost instantly recieved an email saying i could log into the game and continue the race change. I kinda expected it to take a few hours, so once again an awesome service by Blizzard.
The only downside was that my questlog got cleared of all quests, although it is also nice to start fresh, i think i had an almost full questlog with quests allover the world, so cleaning this up is not all that bad :)

The new content has been a lot of fun and i would have to say that Blizzard has once again done it, especially when it comes to starter areas, the Goblin and Worgen startingzones are simply stunning and a lot of fun, i definatly had a lot more fun levelling through those than levelling my main through the new content, at least there are no flying mounts (and annoying people) to block the questgivers, i just can't believe how many annoying people are there, it's like they're doing it on purpose. You would think they would find it annoying enough for themself to be blocked, but since hardly anyone gets of their mounts (i think i have seen 2 people today who got off their mount to turn in a quest), they probably enjoy doing it.

I guess it's a "good" thing to hear that other realms have the same issues or i would be very tempted to do a server move, just to get away from that annoying behavior.
But really, apart from other players the new expansion is a lot of fun.

Hauntshade's Fishing Adventures

On my travels through the old Azaroth i passed Stormwind and suddenly remembered i did not have the achievement for fishing in Orgrimmar and Stormwind both and with flying now added to the old world i figured it would be a lot easier to get into Stormwind (my main is Horde), i wouldn't have to fight my way into Stormwind through the gate, so i decided to give it a go. As a precaution i took off most of my gear since i was expecting to get killed a few times.

I flew in slightly to the left of the gate and basicly dropped myself off my mount into the water and started swimming towards a spot where i could stand out of sight and start fishing.

All to easy, first fish you get gives the achievement.

One achievement down :)

Next i decided i wanted to fish up Old Ironjaw in Ironforge.
Now this one was going to be a lot more difficult, since i couldn't just fly over the city and drop myself down, instead i decided to try and take the metro from Stormwind to Ironforge, i figured that was gonna be easier than just fly into Ironforge through the front door, so i started flying towards the metro entrance, carefully trying to avoid the guards, of course failing once i reached the entrance as there are two guards standing there, but i just made a run for it trying to get as far in as i could. Got killed but the corpse was far enough in to release without getting noticed.
The metro itself was no problem at all, no guards.
Ironforge on the other hand was a different story, i could fly there but every time i had to fly through narrow corridors the guards would spot me and almost one shot me, but with a couple of corpseruns i made it to the spot i would learn to hate... the Forlorn Cavern.
I pushed myself up against the wall all the way in the back, hoping to not get noticed (you are flagged for PvP), of couse that is kinda hard with a big red nametag over your head :)

Anyway i started fishing. Luckily many of the Alliance players were good sports and basicly left me alone, a few did attack and kill me, but i think they were quickly bored with it and left me alone. I decided to simply not fight them when they would attack so the realised i was only there for the fishing, afterall is it really fun to kill another player who doesn't fight back :)
One perfect example was a Dwarf, as soon as he saw me, he attacked and killed me, but as soon as i was dead i saw him pulling out his fishing rod and started to fish, now a corpserun would take me 2 minutes so i would be back quickly and he would have to make a choice to either fish or kill, so i released, started fishing and ... bummer he started attacking me again, got me down to about 100 HP, when he stopped attacking and started to fish again, so i did the same, he never attacked me again, he did walk over to me a couple of times but never attacked, so either he got bored attacking me or he realised i wasn't going away no matter how many times he killed me :)

Now the fishing itself proved to be quite a long story, it took me many hours before i finally caught Old Ironjaw, i remember i got Old Crafty in Orgrimmar pretty quick and i figured this was going to be a quick one to, but boy was i wrong. In the end i had caught close to 2000 fish, a few potions and some gear.
So you can imagine how happy i was when i finally hooked Old Ironjaw :)

Boy was i glad to hearth out of that cave...

So on to the next one, i was flying over the Wetlands when i noticed some junk in the water and since i had been checking my achievements i knew i was still on short on another achievement and lucky me.. this was the one missing :)

Another achievement in the bag :)

I noticed another achievement, The Lurker Above, now i had no idea how to get him but quickly realised this achievement could only be gotten in a 25 man lvl70 dungeon, now how was i gonna get that ??
So a little Google search led me to Els Anglin and their little guide on how to get the achievement.

I basicly followed their advice and got the achievement, no sence writing it down here when there's a great guide basicly telling the same.
The only thing that didn't work for me was taking the invisiblity potion and as soon as i was in the water take the water walking potion, cause as soon as i took the water walking potion the invisibilty potion would stop working and i would get attacked and the potion would be gone resulting in almost instant death.
Instead i tried walking down the ramps, past the mobs, who luckily didn't agro. Got to a platform close to a spot were you can see a pipe coming out of the water on the other side, i took the invi potion jumped in the water, swam across within 15 secs (the potion only lasts 15 secs), got out of the water, took the water walking potion and walked onto the water to the spot where the lurker hides and started fishing.
The first catch got me the achievement and killed :)


In the end i guess the 3 "easy" achievements make up for the Old Ironjaw achievement, i would say that that was one of the hardest or most frustrating achievements i have earned so far.

And with this i end this episode of Hauntshade's Fishing Adventures :)

Leveling to 85 ?.... nah, not right now.

So after experiencing the leveling and going through the starting zones of the 2 new races i decided it was time to try level my main to level 85.
Well it didn't take long to start pulling my hair out, grinding my teeth and slamming my fist on the desk.
It's just unbelievable how many jerks are there to be found....

If it wasn't difficult enough to try get kills you need for a quest when there's a lot of people there, it is even more difficult trying to turn in your quest, simply because of a lot of assholes that are to lazy to get off their mounts and block (swarm) the questgiver so it becomes almost impossible to target the questgiver to turn in your quest.


Yes, there is a questgiver in there... somewhere.

You'd think after 5 minutes people would get it and get off their mounts to not obstruct other players from turning in/getting their quests and in turn make it easier on themself...

Personally i wish Blizzard would implement the same thing they do for the flightpaths, as soon as you click them you are dismounted. Although that would probably get a shitstorm of protest from those that are to lazy to click a button for mount/dismount.
I mean there are so many easy ways to mount/dismount, personally i have it set up so my scrollwheel click button is mount/dismount..

So for me, right now i am done with the leveling, i am going back to the old content or go level my Worgen and Goblin, at least there aren't as many people there and those that are there are a lot nicer.

I met Deathwing and survived.

erm.. I mean i met Deathwing and ran like hell


Oh, hi Deathwing and bye..

The Cataclysm is upon us.

The launch of Cataclysm didn't go as smoothly as i had hoped. I was logged in and awaiting the Cataclysm on my main in Orgrimmar, when suddenly a message popped up telling everyone that the Cataclysm was live but you had to log out and restart your client for the Cata features to be available.
Now obviously having a "few" Europeans logging out and all trying to log in at the same time didn't go over very well, the login servers were almost fried. It took me over an hour to get back into the game...
So much for playing the minute it goes live (i bought the digital version alongside pre-ordering the collectors edition), so i was a bit pissed for not playing, after all that was why i bought it, however i think it wasn't a complete waste of money as my collectors edition hasn't arrived yet..

Anyway on to the good stuff :)

Say hi to my latest alts:

First one i created was my Goblin Hunter, named Coppernut who is currently at lvl 16.


The second character i created was my Worgen Hunter, named Moonfur who is currently at lvl 11.

So far i have to say i enjoyed the Goblin starting area the most, lots of humor while questing and talking to NPC's, while the Worgen area is a bit more dark and "serious" fell about it, funny thing though when you create your Worgen you create both the human and the worgen form, but only play as a human for a little while before turning into a worgen.

We didn't start the Cataclysm

Simply awesome!!
That is all.

The new armory

I have to say, the new WoW armory/Battle.net looks awesome.
Looks like they're still working on some stuff, but i am definatly liking the new armory layout.

The only downside, i don't seem to be able to find any RSS feeds for my profiles, like in the old armory, there is an activity feed but it's not readable as an RSS (yet).
The old ones still seem to work (who knows for how long, they have taken the old armory offline), but it would be nice to see them added to the new armory.

The uber buff

While working on the "Fiona's Caravan" quest in WoW, i found one of the most awesome buffs i have ever seen.
You can get it from Fiona's Caravan (obviously) and it's called "Pamela's Doll".

The desciption for it says "is somebody following you?" and what it basicly does is, have Pamela show up every now and then, she's just following you around for a while and then dissapears again only to show up a while later, i don't know if it actually does anything else, but i just thought this was awesome.



Hidden gems like this make me really like WoW more and more!