We’re a few days in to the Pilgrim’s Bounty world event, and I’m pleased that the achievements don’t seem to be as difficult as I feared they might be from reading the descriptions.
I’ve managed to get all the easy achievements done so far, and even a couple of the more difficult ones.
Last night I took a little tour of the horde celebrations, and sat to partake at each table. This is where being a druid who can sneak comes in very useful! The picture above shows Tiniane sat enjoying the feast in the Undercity.
This morning I woke up early, determined to kill some turkeys whilst it was quiet. A guildie had given me some Tracker Snacks, so I chomped one down, and took a little run around Elwynn Forest. The first run through I got up to about 20 turkeys killed before running in to somebosy else coming the other way, and the turkeys all dried up. Undeterred I set off again, and I found a nice quiet spot around teh Eastvale Logging Camp where I was able to finally have this happen:
So now I just need to round up a few more rogues, and defeat the Talon King, and then I’ll have my cute little turkey pet!
It’s the Pilgrim’s Bounty world event this week, and the word very quickly went through my Guild that this provided a new opportunity to level your cooking skill quickly and easily. So I thought I’d try it out with my level 62 Mage, who has never done any cooking before in her life.
Here’s a quick guide on how to level your cooking using this world event. It’s written from an Alliance point of view, but works for Horde too, the locations will just need to be adjusted to the Horde equivalent. Please note, as you skill your cooking up, keep everything you make, as it’ll be useful for future Daily quests. Also pick up and complete as you are able all quests in all the places you go to.
This guide should work for all levels – we tested it out on a level 9 character last night, and were able to get her all the way from zero skill to 300 in a very short time
1. Head over to the event hub (Stormwind). Buy the set of cookery recipes from the vendor, and talk to the cooking trainer to get the cooking skill if you don’t already have it. Also learn the Spice Bread recipe from the trainer.
2. Skill level 1 – 35 (ish – you might get more if you’re lucky). Buy Simple Flour and Mild Spices from the Pilgrim’s Bounty cooking vendor and make Spice Bread. You’ll need at least 60 Spice Bread, so get as many skillups as you can out of this stage.
3. Skill level 35 – 100. Learn the Spice Bread Stuffing recipe from your seasonal recipe pack. Buy Autumnul Herbs from the vendor and make Spice Bread Stuffing. Note this recipe doesn’t go yellow until you reach a skill of 90, so you should mostly get one skillup every combine. Don’t forget to revisit the cooking trainer any time between skill level 50 and 75 to train to Journeyman Cook.
4. Skill level 100 – 160. Learn the Pumpkin Pie recipe from your seasonal recipe pack. Buy 60 Elwynn Pumpkins and 60 Honey from the seasonal vendor, and make at least 60 Pumpkin Pies. Note this recipe doesn’t go yellow until you reach a skill of 150, so as before you should get one skillup per combine until right near the end, but you may need to buy another few components for the last couple of points at the end. Don’t forget to revisit the cooking trainer any time between skill level 125 and 150 to train to Expert Cook.
5. Head over to Ironforge and find the seasonal hub just outside the gates
6. Skill level 160 – 220. Learn the Cranberry Chutney recipe from your seasonal recipe pack. Buy 60 Tangy Wetlands Cranberries and 60 Honey from the seasonal vendor, and make at least 60 Cranberry Chutney. Note this recipe doesn’t go yellow until you reach a skill of 210, so as before you should get one skillup per combine until right near the end, but you may need to buy another few components for the last couple of points at the end.
7. At this point you’ll need to visit a cooking trainer to train to Artisan Cook skill level. I did this by returning to Stormwind to hand in the next step of the quest chain, but if you’re purely focussed on levelling your cooking, and travel is more difficult for you, you might want to head on over to Darnassus, and train there.
8. Head over to Darnassus, and find the seasonal hub between the Warrior’s Terrace and the exit to Teldrassil.
9. Skill level 220 – 280. Learn the Candied Sweet Potato recipe from your seasonal recipe pack. Buy 60 Teldrassil Sweet potato, 60 Autumnal Herbs and and 60 Honey from the seasonal vendor, and make at least 60 Teldrassil Sweet Potato. Note this recipe doesn’t go yellow until you reach a skill of 270, so as before you should get one skillup per combine until right near the end, but you may need to buy another few components for the last couple of points at the end.
10. Head back over to Stormwind, and start hunting those Wild Turkeys. They can be found all over Elwynn Forest, so just keep running around. If you manage to kill 40 with no more than 30 seconds between each kill you’ll get The Turkinator achievement, but this is difficult to do if you’re also looting the corpses, which you’ll need to do, as you want to collect the Wild Turkey meat from each kill. Collect at least 20 Wild Turkeys (which will get you to cooking skill 300, which is the highest you can go if you are less than level 58), more if you want to gain more skill.
11. Head back to the Stormwind seasonal hub.
12. Skill level 280 – 300. Learn the Slow Roasted Turkey recipe from your seasonal recipe pack. Buy at least 20 Autumnal Herbs and and 40 Honey from the seasonal vendor, and make at least 20 Slow-Roasted Turkeys.
13. If you are level 58 or above, when you reach 300 cooking skill you will need to head over to Outland and find the cooking trainer in Honor Hold to learn the Master Cook skill, and with it the ability to level your cooking skill above 300. You should then return to Stormwind and continue to make Slow-Roasted Turkeys to skill level 340 (the recipe goes yellow at 330 and green at 342).
Apart from a brief dalliance with City of Heroes, my choice of MMORPG has always been those set in the fantasy genre. I played Everquest for many years before switching to World of Warcraft. Along the way I dabbled with Dark Age of Camelot, Dungeons and Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online.
I have a friend who’s in the early stages of writing his own MMORPG. I don’t know if it’ll ever come to anything, but there’s one thing I’ve been quite forceful in telling him, as he works on his design.
There must be dragons.
For me, there is something magical about battling those huge, mythical creatures. In Everquest one of the first raids I ever went on was one to kill Lady Vox. The feeling when our Guild bested her for the first time was wonderful. Raiding was very different in those days. We had to co-ordinate buffing by bringing several higher-level characters along. Once each group was buffed, they’d log out, and connect to the chat server, then when everyone was buffed the call would go out in chat to relog, and we’d be on a strict timer to kill the dragon. And if you were above level 52 you would get ported out of her lair as soon as she was engaged, and yes, we did kill the foolish Wizard who had levelled to 53 back down to level 52 so he could join in!
In World of Warcraft the first dragon I encountered was Onyxia. Again, this was one of the first raid encounters I ever experienced in WoW, and it really convinced me that WoW was going to be a long-term game for me. First of all, the quest to gain access to her lair was long and complex, and thoroughly enjoyable. Then the actual encounter – the mechanics, the different stages, the joy of working with a large group of friends to learn the encounter and finally to beat it was something I really enjoyed.
So when Blizzard updated the Onyxia encounter, and the Officers of my Guild set a date for an encounter, I dusted off my raiding head, and signed up. We got enough raiders signed up to attempt the 25-man version of the encounter, which, whilst not as large as the 40-man original, still felt large And it took us a few tries to learn the encounter, especially as most of my guildies had not seen the original version, but by the end of the evening we had a dead dragon on our hands
And I’m happy to report that the Onyxia encounter is still my favourite encounter in WoW. It’s been updated for level 80s, with some added complexity, but the fundamental mechanics remain the same. And standing in the huge cavern, watching Onyxia take a Deep Breath and fly from one side to the other, breathing fire, made me feel small and vulnerable. And it was magical.
It seems there are a lot of bloggers stopping blogging, and even quitting WoW. In my own guild I see a lot of people taking their summer breaks, and other people getting bored with the game and playing less or taking a break.
Personally, I’m still here, and I’m still enjoying World of Warcraft. I’ve levelled my little baby Mage to 55, and I’m still enjoying blasting stuff, although she is still very squishy if anything gets close enough to hit her! I’m also still enjoying running Heroics with my Druid, who is pretty much permanently Boomkin these days, despite my initial misgivings. She’s still predominately in Resto gear, and her +hit leaves a lot to be desired, but it’s a fun way to spend the evenings Thankfully my group of friends in game are still enjoying running Heroics, and I’m hoping that enthusiasm only gets more intense with the arrival of 3.2 this week
I’m not getting as much playtime as I’d like, and that’s probably the main reason this blog hasn’t been updated recently. Work is crazy busy at the moment – we’re in the middle of a major restructure and I’m having to fill out a nightmare application form to attempt to remain employed. This is seriously eating into my WoW time, but at the end of the day, it’s a short-term thing to ensure I can continue to pay the subscription, so it’s well worth the investment of time.
The deadline for submitting my form is tomorrow, so I intend to celebrate with a lot of WoW 3.2 is arriving at just the right time
It just kind of happened. I’d been enjoying the raiding, and had started taking a bit more responsibility in terms of running the healing assignments. My guild were regularly clearing Naxx10, and could pretty much clear Naxx25. With the 3.1 patch we headed in to Ulduar10, and started making good progress.
And then it just stopped being fun. And I can’t work out if it’s me, or if it’s Ulduar. But at the moment I don’t feel any motivation to raid at all.
I’ve been enjoying the Argent Tournament, and have managed to gain my “Crusader” title. And I’ve been running a lot of Heroics with a group of friends, which is a blast. Scarily I’m now predominantly a Moonkin, and starting to feel like I’m making a useful dps contribution. In fact, I thought I might be needed to heal the group on one occaision recently, and felt quite disappointed. What a turnaround!
I’m also dabbling around with a small troop of alts, but haven’t really set my heart on any perticular one to take to 80. I’ve got a Rogue, Mage and Warlock all sitting at 44 (thank you, Recruit-a-Friend), a 61 DK, and a very low level Priest and Shaman. The Big Red Kitty baby hunter guide videos on ProjectLore inspired me to start a Hunter, and she’s really fun.
I’m certainly still finding plenty of things to keep me busy. And I’m not missing the raiding at all. At the moment. I don’t know if it’s me, or if it’s Ulduar. And it’s not bad. It’s just different
Over in the US, Mountain Dew have launched a new WoW-themed drink. Mountain Dew Gamer Fuel is now available in Horde and Alliance flavours, and alongside it is a website with things to do to earn tokens with which to buy prizes.
Although not yet confirmed, it’s highly likely that one of the prizes you can get from this is an in-game pet. It looks like the 3.1.2 patch will introduce two new pets – a little robot available in both red and blue. It looks suspiciously like you’ll be able to get yourself one of these pets by participating in the Mountain Dew promotion…
… as long as you live in the US. I just tried to register for the Gamer Fuel website to see what it was all about, and as part of the registration you have to enter your address. When I tried to log on to the website I was told I was not able to participate, as the promotion is only available to “legal US residents”.
*sigh*
This disappoints me. It seems unfair, when World of Warcraft is a global game, for this kind of thing to only be available in the US.
I’ve not blogged much recently, which is partially due to the fact I’ve been getting very frustrated in game. This is mostly to do with the terrible performance I’ve been getting out of my PC and Internet connection in the last few weeks. I’ve experienced times in game where I’ve been getting only 1 or 2 frames per second, whilst my hard drive thrashed and thrashed.
It was most frustrating when trying to do the Argent Tournament dailies – to be getting the better of a Champion, only to have my machine lock up for long enough for him to shield-break and charge me into oblivion was making me very cross.
I’ve got a savings scheme maturing in June, and so I resolved to use some of the money to buy myself a new PC. But when my husband and I started investigating what was available I discovered that I actually have a pretty good spec PC. It’s only a couple of years old, and is a Core2 Duo processor, plus I got a brand new Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 graphics card at Christmas. So I’d be spending a lot of money for not much of an upgrade. It didn’t seem a sensible thing to do…
So we bought me a new hard drive, and I used that to install Vista from scratch, keeping my old hard drive as a data drive so that I didn’t lose anything. I hate reinstalling PCs. There are always so many little “tweaks” that I make and forget how I did, and I have to dig around and find everything out again. Moving the iTunes library around is fiddly (but thankfully not impossible), and it was only after several days that I realised that I needed to dig out my password manager data file. Times like those I’m glad I kept the old hard drive intact!
Once the reinstall was complete everything started off well, and WoW was much better, but after only a couple of days I had some more problems with WoW. I exited the game one night, and my computer locked up completely. I wasn’t happy with this with a clean fresh install, so the only thing left to do was reinstall WoW. So I downloaded the client from the Blizzard website, and for the first time since I rolled on the EU servers a year and a half ago, I installed WoW cleanly from scratch. I removed all my addons, and logged in to see if it made much of a difference.
It has made a HUGE difference! My loading times are much improved, and even though most of my addons have snuck their way back in, I’m still getting great performance. Most importantly smooth loading with no grinding to a halt to hammer at the hard drive. So I can now best the Champions once more (usually), and my enjoyment of the game has come back
Things have been quiet on this blog recently, which is due to the amount of fun I am having with Patch 3.1, and in particular the Argent Tournament. As soon as I saw the list of non-combat pets available I wanted them, and of course the first one I wanted was my own little pet tree.
Isn’t he cute? He dances and sleeps, just like me!
