Finding Farahlon

As I moved around some things in my garrison, I came across a map of Draenor. I could only assume that one of the peons moved it while cleaning and forgot to put it back where it belonged. As I walked back to the town hall with the map in hand, I noticed one corner was servery damaged. It looked like it was almost cut, but the person decided that was a bad idea and tried to erase the island on it. They didn't do a great job because I was still able to make out the name "Farahlon". Now where did I hear that name before? Oh yes, a garrison mission I previously sent followers out on.

Immediately I left the town hall and questioned a few of my followers. After a bit of interrogation, they confessed to me that they never found the island and the item they brought back was a staff that was picked up by the Laughing Skull clan. Hearing those words awoke the explorer inside of me once again. I had to do it; I had to go looking for Farahlon! I couldn't convince any of the ships I had recruited to take me out there, so I decided to go alone. It was just me, my raft, and the ocean.

I first stopped by the Laughing Skull village and listened as they told me tales of the magical island lined with large crystal formations and lush environments. There were even whispers of a treasure they called the pearl of Farahlon. A pearl!? Could this be yet another connection to the importance of pearls in Azeroth? I couldn't run out of the village fast enough, but they stopped to warn me of the seas surrounding the island. They were extremely rough and stormy; it would take a skilled ship fleet to survive. That still didn't deter me since I have survived death already.  As I paddled out further and further into the sea, I noticed my skyline change from a beautiful blue to a gloomy orange.

I kept going... and going, and going. I'm sure by now you're wondering what exactly did I find out there? Well, I found fish, magical flying fish to be exact! This group of fish would jump out of the water and fly around for a bit before plopping back into the ocean. I also found a large gron-like skull that had been in the ocean for quite some time to have so many mushrooms growing from it. Perhaps both of these items marked a hidden passage to get to Farahlon, but I sadly couldn't find it.

I pushed my raft around for a while longer before I folded up my map and took my hearth back to my garrison. I can't be the only one who had sent countless followers out there to check for something, yet they all turned up empty handed. I will definitely mark this one down in the books to "try again later". Someday I do believe we will find Farahlon, but sadly today was not that day.

If you would like to see the flying fish of Farahlon (as I like to call them), you can fly over to 90,40 in Gorgrond. If you look around under water in that area, you will also find the big skull I talked about in the post. Happy hunting!

Warlord Thoughts

I cannot believe it's coming up on almost a month since I've blogged. I've really been way too busy playing and enjoying the expansion. I've added so many new goodies to my collections lately that I can't remember them all. I know I've gotten a variety of mini pets, including Syd the Squid! That has been on my want list for a long time now. It was just a matter of getting it to drop from a bag. I've also added Drake of the South Wind to my mount collection this week. It's nice to cross one more old raid off my weekly list.

I also got some gear upgrades recently: Belt of Singing Hooves and Rotmonger Bracers. I like the pace at which I'm getting gear. I'm slowly getting upgrades, and I now have to look over each and focus more on the stats rather than item level. I'm currently 628, and with the buff to mages I'm definitely not struggling as bad as I was at the beginning of the expansion. I've also been running dungeons with my niece, nephew, a mutual friend, and Pigletoos. My goal is to have us all doing heroics which is a tremendous for all of us since some of them are extremely casual players.

Even though I'm having an overall positive experience with the expansion, there are still a few things that I'm not liking. I'm not liking fishing at all. I finally completed the Draenor Angler achievement, and I didn't think that one was too bad, but after looking at my bags, I was confused. Blizzard said that they added all these extra featured, reagent bank, toy box, ect. to get rid of clutter, but I feel like fishing has just caused more. I need to fish up bait to catch a certain amount of different versions of each fish to be able to "skin" the fish to use in other recipes... really? I wish it was back to fish up the fish you need, cook it, profit. I had to vendor so many stacks of fish meat just to clean up my bags. Now it takes up two rows in my reagent bank, but whatever.

Another thing that was just a minor annoyance was archaeology. I was working on an Arakkoa solve that needed 250 fragments. Well, I didn't know that it caps your fragments out to 200, and you have to use the Arakkoa Ciphers to complete it. This is fine for people who never use them, but for someone like me who constantly uses them to speed up discoveries, it was annoying.

The reputation grinds also seem to be pretty tedious. I understand Blizzard not wanting to add a ton of dailies, but I would love at least one or two to give 250 reputation with a faction. I will be grinding out mobs for the remainder of the expansion at this rate. I have set a goal. I'm starting with the Frostwolf Orc clan and at least trying to grind out 1000 reputation per day. This way I'm not killing myself, but I'm still making progress. I can't complain too much though, because I'm also getting drops of Iron Horde Scraps for transmog. It's all working out perfectly!

The Holidays are here and in full effect. I've been doing my Winter Veil things, and getting RL present shopping done. I've also been nominated for the Icecrown Challenge. Me and my niece will be participating in it next week, and talk more about that in a later post. For now, have a wonderful and safe holiday season, and don't forget to stop and enjoy the small things around this time of year.

Blizzcon 2013

"When past and present collide, the fate of all worlds hangs in the balance." - Prophet Velen

So now that Blizzcon is over and we know what the next expansion will be (R.I.P. Dark Below), I couldn't be more excited. I decided to touch on the things that I am extremely looking forward to for Warlords of Draenor. Note: Most pictures were taken from MMO Champion. They have an extremely good source of everything that was shown!

Shadowmoon Valley

First off, the zones that were shown off at Blizzcon looked amazing and breathtaking (Shadowmoon Valley *swoon*). I love the fact that we will get to see places such as Black Temple when it was the Temple of Karabor along with many other places that we saw as ruins in Outlands. Finally, in order to get to Draenor we will have to walk through a time twisted red Dark Portal... yes please!

A tier 3 garrison

There wasn't much mini pet news, but it didn't matter because I was extremely thrilled on the announcement of Garrisons. I love the idea of being able to build it up, chose what to place and where, and of course... gaining followers. I know a lot of people joke that Pet Battles is Pokemon for WoW, but it didn't occur to me until my boyfriend brought it up that this is almost Animal Crossing for WoW. I know Corey Stockton was playing a ton of New Leaf when it came out, so the idea may have came from there.

via Twitter

I know it may be a bit of a stretch, but I'm happy! I can only hope to be able to add a few of my favorites mounts to the stables, transmogs on some mannequins in my house, and some mini pets in a barn. However, the only thing I'm concerned with is the currency shown at the bottom. No one asked about it and it wasn't touched upon. Any ideas? I'm almost thinking maybe resources to allow followers to do things, but I'm not entirely sure.

Undead male update. Love the look of the bones sticking out!

This next one confused me when I saw quite a few people were upset with it - new character models. I don't think most people are upset because they are getting redone, I think they were mad at the fact that Blizzard put resources into this instead of offering us a new race/class for WoD. I personally don't think they really ever need a new class or race. People still can't figure out how to play the available classes that we have nor can Blizzard ever really balance them out evenly. Regardless, I'm glad the decision was to work on player models because it's something that is definitely showing its age in a place like Pandaria. There was a sneak peek at the male undead, and I can only hope the females look just as good!

This announcement was wonderful... a hoarder's dream! Heirlooms, toys, and possibly tabards will be getting their own collections! I don't have many heirlooms, but I do have a ton of goodies from holidays, archaeology, and questing. I'm hoping this tab will be account bound also since I had no choice but to get rid of some things on my main. As far as the tabards, I'm hoping this too will be implemented. My entire main bank is just tabards that are rare, no longer obtainable, or I just don't want to regrind the currency for them. Please, please, please make it happen!

I love the look of this female Orc!

I would love to talk about the gear changes and how I can't wait for D3: Reaper of Souls, but that would be a bit boring, so I will quickly touch on the final thing I found really exciting - the ability to level a character to 90 instantly! This upset a ton of people also, but I'm not sure if people understand ONE CHARACTER. Not two, not five, one. This is wonderful for someone who either hasn't played in a long time and wants to get back into the game, someone who wants to make an entirely new character, or even someone (like me) who left an alt to rot in old content. While I am going to be working on leveling up that alts in the next few months, I think I will go with the second option. I always wanted to level up a Shaman and this makes for the perfect opportunity. Now the real questions... Orc or Dwarf?

Old annual pass from 2011 Blizzcon.

One thing I am shocked that they didn't announce was a new Annual Pass. I thought for sure they would offer one with the Hearthsteed as the mount, free D3:Reaper of Souls, and WoD Beta access. I would have signed up for that in an instant since I did it last time and really enjoyed it.

Rise of the Horde by Christie Golden. Buy it HERE!

With that being said, I really don't know much of the lore of this time period. I of course recognized Grommash from the teaser trailer and the only other clan I could name was Frostwolf. I was excited to see that my boyfriend has Rise of the Horde on his bookshelf. This will be my nightly reading material. I'm hoping to learn more about this savage time in Warcraft history.