Weekend SummaryFollow

Wow: I did a couple of heroics Twilight and LFR, killed Deathwing. Now I’m fully geared with epics (378-384-390) and I just hit 85 last Thursday….

RL: Purchased a foreclosure and my son will move in the house in June with 2 friends from college. I will let them repaint and do the clean up, they are really excited.

I played golf with my wife, golfing is not the same without whiskey and cigar.

*Does happy dance* I did it - got 50 coins!!! Woot!!!

As a new WoW player still learning the ropes, a soloer and, as noted above, no flying mount nor the Cata expac which would open additional Elders, this is my first exciting "accomplishment" in game. I forgot I still had 9 coins to get as of last Friday! Right now everything is a blur of Elders standing in light beacons; research online to find out how to get to various Elders, then reading various strategies; trying to sneak around Horde guards, being chased by Horde guards, being killed by Horde guards and, in a couple of instances, Horde players - hrumph! If they could "hear" me I just wanted to say, "Look guys, sorry I'm in your city...I mean no harm...I JUST want to get that coin and I'll never return." There were two players in Undercity that hung around the Elder just waiting to kill Alliance coin-seekers. I ran into the ghost of another Alliance player on one of my several "ghost runs" there...lol.

I gained coins from:

*All the Kalimador Elders
*All the Eastern Kingdom Elders
*All the Alliance Elders
*Two Elders in Northrend (Would have been a third there if I could have located Elder Pamuya. In ghost form I stood right on the coords given for him and never saw him. Another place where a flying mount would have been invaluable. I'm a lot more familiar with the Borean Tundra, though. )

What surprised me the most was the coins I was able to get from dungeon Elders. The word "dungeon" used to strike fear in me, first as a young druid in EQ where I couldn't run in open spaces, use SoW, generally got lost and created epic trains while frantically trying to gate out. Although that same "fear" of dungeons doesn't exist anymore, they still never held much interest to me since I don't enjoy raiding. Thus, to discover that some of my most enjoyable time was obtaining the dungeon coins was one of the highlights of the Lunar Festival for me. I managed to obtain the ones from:

*Stratholme
*Blackrock Depths
*Blackrock Spire/Hordemar (took me the longest time of all to locate, and then only with the amazing help of someone from the Horde who saw I was in the dungeon a long time (I was afraid he was going to kill me...lol), sent a whisper to me from his Alliance character, then came back with his Horde character to lead me to the entrance of the instance. It was a joy to meet a player like that!
*Mauradon
*Zul'Farrak

One of the most memorable moments of this quest was reading the RL story behind Elder Ezra Wheathoof in Thunder Bluff. That so touched my heart. I was unable to gain that coin for my Alliance character, but my little Horde Pally went there to pay tribute to him. Last night I took her to Bloodhoof Village and did the "Kyle's Gone Missing" quest. It tore at my heart to hear the voice of this brave little boy but I wanted to honor his memory. Bravo, Blizzard, on helping this child's wish come true. It's situations like this that yank me back to realize what is truly important in life.

The 2012 Lunar Festival was very meaningful to me...in many ways.

Edited, Feb 13th 2012 12:04pm by Azalysa

WOW: Bad -- my hard drive went psycho and I didn't get to play.
Good -- I'm trying to figure out Skyrim while I wait for the patience cool down to refresh.

RL: An old fluffy reappeared. A new fluffy wants to play. This is more complicated than it might seem.

Accomplished.


I got my lovebird mount on my main. I've decided to just work towards the lovebird on three alts so if I keep doing the dailies then I will have it. Grinding out the charms has gotten my lowbie Warrior through Feralas and Dustwallow and have started him in on Western Plaguelands. I will probably turn his experience back on right before ending that zone or I might wait until he finishes and then get him some experience in a dungeon run or two. I'm enjoying doing slow Loremaster on him while doing all the quests at a relatively appropriate level.


They failed on the Blood Princes achievement and it took several tries to get people to quit being stupid so we could get the one girl her Shadowmourne infusions from the Blood Queen fight. We managed Portal Jockey on our first try which kind of surprised me and we managed the "All you can eat" one on Sindy without even trying to because we were mainly focused on the Shadowmourne stuff and figured that this group couldn't focus on more than one task at a time. We then did a quick and relatively problem free LK kill without trying for achievements so that the people new to ICC could get a feel for the fight. Personally, I am two achievements shy of the 25 man drake (the two LK ones).


I did put two levels on my Troll Druid while questing on him to accumulate charms. I don't really like grinding charms but questing to acquire them isn't hard at all.

Check! Sitting at 373 iLvL, have cleared all the LFR content, and should get into a guild raid this next week :D

I still don't have Cata; thanks to your advice I have been flying in the Outlands. Do you mean that, without Cata but with cold weather flying I can fly in Northrend? I'm still not able to train the regular flying license I'm assuming due to not having Cata.

If I could have been flying in Northrend without the Cata flying license...arrrggghhh!!!!

So, that's the reason I only did two of the Northrend Elders: Arp in the Borean Tundra and Sardis in Valiance. I was trying for Elder Pamuya but that was the one apparently on some high ledge near Warsong Hold. The mobs there killed me quickly so, since I couldn't find that Elder while ghosted, I just packed it in on that one. I took the flight paths available to me farther out in Northrend but the mobs were a lot higher and, not knowing the area at all, didn't feel comfortable trying for any of those Elders. Next year.

Lady A - you have to be at least level 68 to buy Cold Weather Flying. If I remember correctly, your highest character isn't quite that high yet so you couldn't have bought it to help yourself with the elders anyways. I had to pass up on doing Northrend elders on my level 60-67 alts too.

There are 3 separate "Ways" to get flying, I called them all licenses before but it's not...

the first one you get is .... some... expert? riding skill that lets you buy a flying mount, and fly in any outlands zone

then northrend has it's "own license" for flying you have to learn how to fly your mount in cold-weather... hence the cold weather flying... and using that you can fly... in any northrend zone.

then cataclysm... unlocks 'old world' flying... flight in EK, Kalimdor and the cata zones that aren't on either... deepholme and vash'jir which.... I guess MIGHT be in EK because it has flight points connecting it to the rest....

Once you've bought all 3 of them... you STILL at this point can not fly in bloodmyst isle, azuremyst isle or the blood-elf starting area.... but once you have bought the 3 licenses you can fly in all the major zones of the game.


It's counter-intuitive because you "Start" in EK / Kalimdor that you can't fly there until you get cataclysm...

This chart is found here
http://www.wowhead.com/skill=762
Apprentice Riding 75 skill Ground 60% 4 20 1
Journeyman Riding 150 skill Ground 100% 50 40 10
Expert Riding 225 skill Flying 150% 250 60 50
Artisan Riding 300 skill Flying 280% 5,000 70 100
Master Riding 375 skill Flying 310% 5,000 80 n/a
The following passive skill is required to use a flying mount in Northrend. This skill is available at level 68.
Cold Weather Flying 225 skill n/a n/a 500 68 n/a
The following passive skill is required to use a flying mount in Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor, and Deepholm. This skill is available at level 60. (AND you MUST own Cataclysm expansion to buy this)
Flight Master's License 225 skill n/a n/a 250 60

Bold part I added


Edited, Feb 14th 2012 1:06pm by Gwenorgan

Cold Weather flying requires the Lich King expansion, which you already have since you can get to Northrend. So, as soon as you hit 68, you should be able to go buy it from the riding trainer. I think you still have to be level 70 to train faster flying but it doesn't require Cataclysm either.