Elkagorasa the Casual

It's sort of inevitable. Some Marketing guy, see's a large, active audience and decides it would be great to market on the fame of the game. That turns into book deals, comics, action figures, board games and even, eventually a movie. I believe everyone has heard that Blizzard is actively pursuing a "live-action" version of Warcraft ,(i.e. not machinima). They have tapped Sam Raimi (spiderman, darkman) to direct/ produce the movie. Raimi may be backing out due to conflicts with Spiderman 4. According to reports, they have roughly 100 pages of a script worked out. IIRC, the story line is a subplot to the over-arching game, not a lore piece from one of the books. I remember hearing that uber X-Men fans got so involved in the movie production that they helped influence the sound that Wolverine's blades made when extruding . This being one of the key elements that you'd expect from the movie. Now, what would you expect from a World of Warcraft movie? What...

4 years.. 4 years!! I have been playing WoW for 4 years and I still don't have the Headless Horseman's mount . Last year we had a group, with many alts, and ran through that fight at least a dozen times each night. This year, it seems that 1:5 people are showing off their HH mount. So far, my lousy luck has awarded me 2 4 Sinister squashlings , 3 Hallowed Helms , that horrific plate helm (which #$*@ I can't equip), , many masks , and lots and lots of justice points. I want the flying, flaming pony!! Not Elk on this is LOCK mount!

OK, I read for fun, but not a lot. On my shelf here in my den, I have 5-6 books that I've made it to about page 100. It's about the time I get bored with the story line or the real story starts. If it doesn't peek my interest MORE than everything else in my RL, it goes on that shelf. Garrosh, where's Gorehowl ? So far, The Shattering , is doing a fair job at keeping me entertained. (Note, these last 3 days I have been doing my civic duty, aka Jury Duty, and have many hours to read w/o immediate access to electronics.) The book is a lore piece that fills in the gaps between death of the Lich King in Wrath and the escape of Deathwing in Cataclysm. It weights (in the first hundred pages so far) heavly on the rise of Garrosh's rise in power to the leader of the Horde. It's interesting to see Cairn 's and Thrall 's impressions of him. It's a great reminder of the history between him and the other characters. I have been playing the Warcraft games si...

I don't know about you, but I loved the " Championing " aspect of Wrath. What better way to quickly gain rep than by simply running dungeons and raids, while sporting the colors of your latest team. Cataclysm continues the grand tradition with new groups to champion. What? you say I always wanted that ravasaur mount from the Trolls, but never bothered to get Exalted! Well now is your chance. Blizzard is introducing tabard s for all old-world (and new) races. Don't know about you, I look forward to raising my Goblin rep to exalted , so I pick up one (or all) of those cool trikes. Go see CAL!

Logged on to the Beta last night and two people were sporting their latest mounts. While, I've shown a [placeholder] version of the Horde scorpion mount, here's one with a rider. It now has a little seat and reins, similar to riding a horse. As part of it's idle animations, it whips it's tail and flexes it's claws.   The mount that I am excited about is this fossilized raptor mount.  It is picked up from working on your Archaeology profession. Check out this comment from ViceVersa on how to pick one up for yourself... Sounds like the Oracle dailies, rebuild egg/creature = chance to get mount or pet. (... thinking Night at the Museum) ViceVersa on Fossil Raptor Looking at WowHead 's break down, there are a number of interesting mounts to come. Exalted with Goblins, Archaeology to get raptor, and the Horde scorpion, I am giddy .

Last night I was reminiscing in Nagrand. You see a guildie just got the Raven Lord mount over the weekend and I was intrigued if I could solo that instance in Heroic. (yes possible, but never got to boss, lots of stuns and mind control make going very very slow). After a few deaths, I decided I'd do the cooking daily hoping for one of my last 2 recipe drops . The quest of the day was Spiritual Soup ; one of my least hated Outland's cooking dailies. Flying through Nagrand, I stopped by the Horde outpost, Garadar, to Trick or Treat. CANDY!! Who should be standing, but none other than Garrosh . Classic Garrosh, who is feeling sad and left out. Sad because he believes his father was such a failure being the first to become tied to the Legion, he had become despondent. Which starts this quest-line.. In this age of quest phasing, this zone would be great re-done. You end up doing three fairly big things. Introduce Thrall to his Great Grandmother before her death. Her ghostly ...

I just got Windows 7 here on my office PC and have gone gaga over setting up themes and gadgets. Painfully trying to replicate some of my automation from XP (goodbye beloved ActiveDesktop). On to reinstalling all my administration programs and office applications to this 'one-off' PC. One of the nifty functions of Windows 7 is the dynamic background. You define a theme pack and it will change the background every 30 minutes. To replace my WoW background , I have started investigating options for building a theme. Create a new theme by downloading all images to local hard drive and import into theme (All 2010 is 30mb), and it's NOT dynamic. Find Image RSS Feed source and tweak the Bing Dynamic Windows 7 Theme. (The .themepack file IS just a text file!) Find RSS feed on WorldofWarcraft.com wallpapers (submit to forums, when have authenticator). Find RSS feed via a Search Engine site like Bing or Google. Unfortunately none of the 'tricks' seem to work for ima...

I was reading through some of my older email and found my official upgrade letter from Trial account to full account. Today is my 4th year anniversary paying World of Warcraft.(10-day trial excluded) from billing@blizzard.com to www.elkagorasa.info date Wed, Oct 18, 2006 at 8:17 PM subject Your WoW account has been upgraded. Account Upgrade Complete! You have successfully upgraded your World of Warcraft account. This surprises me, as I hadn't realized I have been playing quite this long. Of course, if I take a peek at that /played command... /cringe Elkagorasa = 71 days Priest = 9 days  Ok, so a little maths, that's a pleasing, little over 1¼ hours played every day! Within those 525 minutes each week, there has been a number of memorable moments.  Looking through my screen shot scrapbook, I thought I'd share some of those moments with you. January 2007 remember when spellstones had a visual? Level 32 - Warlock robe acquired from Menara Voidrender...

Completionist, don't worry, this is not a concern for you, but if you are like millions of World of Warcraft players, please pay attention. For quite some time now, you've had pent up potential building. Stewing, growing, sitting, waiting for a single moment to explode. instant Org-ataclysm! So? How to use this pent-up potential in your favor. First off, it's not based on the size, but the location and number. When C-day drops, you need to be ready to let go. Ready to let it all OUT!. Now if my innuendo hasn't sparked some thoughts, let me explain. Looking forward to December 7th, you have a little less than 50 days to almost complete 24 of your remaining quests (leaving one open for the weekly raid). Quest in fairly high-level areas, so that you can get the most XP available. Think about it, I estimate, you'd have almost 2 years worth of " rested bonus ". Immediately logon empty your quest log, and then start leveling in Vash'jir! You could be...

Elk and Volham hanging out in the Inn. Cynwise laments the lose of her beloved minions in this wonderful post . Check it out and add your thoughts on the renaming of your lock companions.

With 4.01 actively being deployed to my pc at this moment, I thought I'd like to point out, you are all beta users. OK, sure, it's been tested in the PTR, but there go your addons (or here ) Time to start re-testing. Oh, and that spell rotation, forgetaboutit. Warlocks, do we even get soulburn? Guess have to check the trainers.. To reinforce this point, Blizzard has published the beta test realm patch notes as part of the loader we are all getting..  Not even the most recent patch notes (see patch version at top of page).

CataElk going Alliance? NOT! One item the devs hinted to in Cataclysm was to add some 'fun'. Fun to me, can be harmless randomness. The Underbelly Elixir in Cataclysm was fun. You would randomly turn into a wasp and could fly around the sewers, or a, um, walrus dude and have a +10% fishing buff!! :) I found fun in Cataclysm, and Alchemist, it's OURS! I would like to introduce the Potion of Illusion . This 470 level alchemy potion transforms you for 2 minutes randomly into a different form. For example, CataElk the Worgen?! Unfortunately it's not a true transformation (like that in the Battered Hilt quest), you still can't get into Alliance territory, i.e. Silver Conclave. As I leveled to 83, I've been picking Cinderbloom . With each pick, you have a chance to get other items, like Volatile Life  (think Mote of Life). Ashara's Veil, I can't remember if it came from herbs in Hyjal or was a side pick, like Swiftthistle , that always had a bunch and n...

With the 4.0 patch coming very soon, all your existing currency will be converted to the new Cataclysm Justice Points. (see MMO-Champion's very cool calculator ). Based on the vendor's in the Cataclysm Beta, I'd suggest buying what ever Tier pieces you want NOW. Your old Tier-10 Dark Coven Hood , is going to cost 400 Triumph (or Frost) badges (i.e. 1100 Justice points) after the patch. After the drop, your random dungeons will start dropping Justice Points also. This means that the 5 Triumph and 2 Frost badges will convert to: Lich King Heroic dungeon boss -- 16 Justice Points Lich King daily normal dungeon -- 12 Justice Points Lich King daily Heroic dungeon -- 23 Justice Points Lich King raid boss -- 23 Justice Points Cataclysm Heroic dungeon boss -- 75 Justice Points Cataclysm daily normal dungeon -- 75 Justice Points Cataclysm daily Heroic dungeon -- 75 Valor Points Cataclysm 10-player raid boss -- 75 Valor Points Cataclysm 25-player raid boss -- 105 ...

I heard a comment about flying to pickup some Noggenfogger before a raid. Darn jolly good idea! I thought. So I ran down there and checked in with Marin Noggenfogger . He had the quests for me, I ran and got the dew drop gland. I started off looking for a plant, then realized they meant these guys.. Long story, short, Marin is concerned. Besides you being able to ask him about his wonderful elixir, he has a "hey, see anything strange lately?" I asked him and he seems to imply that the end of the world is near.

You may have heard about the " Plants vs Zombie 's" mini game inside of Cataclysm. I haven't checked it out, but here are the basics. You follow short quest chain, starting with Brazie the Botantist ending with the zombie attack in Lawn of the Dead . As a reward, you get this cute little sunflower pet. So, you know what to expect, TotalBiscuit made this little video. I do believe the model has been changed to the above, not the old lasher plant model.

For a comparison last night, I ran into the Horde Hall of Legends and checked in with the PVP Armor vendor, Blood Guard Zar'shi . I was curious what the currency conversion is going to mean for PVP upgrades. Here's what I found: CataElk decked out in Bloodthirsty Gladiator Gear. It appears that Bloodthirsty Gladiator is going to be the next entry level PVP gear. I am equating it to the Furious Gladiator set that you can get with Honor points, or Triumph badges. For example, Helm = 54,500 honor or 75 Triumph. For doing the random battleground (at max level), you get 90 Honor Points + 25 Justice ( fka arena ) points if you win. (less for 2nd, 3rd, etc. bgs). You randomly get honor points throughout the fight. Appeared to be with each HK. I ran a pre-built priest (see HolyCowCow) last night (Warsong Gulch) and netted 155 honor points for the one instance.(i.e. 65 honor from fighting) If my Math is correct, that means you'll need to win approximately 15 battlegrounds ...

 A long, long time ago, before Wrath, before add-ons got really popular (with me), before this blog, I used to print wishlists. Gear wish-lists for working towards on my lock. Going through my documents folder here at the office, I spotted this older document. Now, realize I wasn't raiding, regularly. I was pretty much just with the occasional (guild) pug. On the other hand, I thought I was pretty slick stuff with an item that added 19DPS when I picked these up. Let's see ... Voidheart Gloves near end of BC, to Gloves of False Gestures in Wrath to ______ in Cataclysm? One can only wonder what Blizzard will throw our way..

With Cataclysm coming soon, I have been planning on playing the Worgen starting area (again). Currently a bunch of my guild has Alliance toons on another server. If I play an alliance toon, I'd probably play over there. If I play beyond the level 15 starting area levels, I'd really like to have the extra +XP bonus of BOA heirloom gear. Problem being sending this gear from my level 80 horde to a freshly minted Alliance on another server. My very simple idea, make BOA gear "purchasable" from vendors in any starting area city. Walk up to Enchanter Erodin/Isian in Orgrimmar/Stormwind and he'll hand you BOA gear you want. Maybe you'd get a token in the mail that you can turn in, providing you access to free heirloom gear. Sure, I'd miss the bonus the first 3 levels, while I finish quests in those starting areas, but really... who needs leveling bonus when doing the starting quests? They practically finish themselves. " Erodin, put it on my tab .."