Expansion Memories

The end of the month is nearing. This has been a wonderful celebration, and I loved sitting down and thinking back on all the great memories this game has brought to me over the past 10 years! Before we bring this celebration to a close, I have one more post dedicated to my favorite memories from each expansion. Though not all of the expansions were as good as I would have liked them to be, I always try to make the best of things. I still continue to play this way to this day.

Burning Crusade

It's hard for me to say this is my all time favorite expansion, but it is a definite favorite because it was when I started playing the game. I raided in a top guild on my server, and I have great and frustrating memories of raid progression. The one kill that meant the most to me was Leotheras the Blind in SSC because it felt like we were stuck on him forever! On the night we were finally able to down him, I got an amazing sword that I kept with my up until the wardrobe was released! I also have really fond memories of doing dailies on the Isle of Quel'Danas when Sunwell was released. Me and Pigletoos felt like badasses once we became exalted and were able to afford those expensive (for the time) titles!

Wrath of the Lich King

I hear so many great things about this expansion, but to be honest, I took a long break during this one. I don't have as many memories during this time, but the ones I do have are pretty fun. I think this expansion event was one of my all time favorites. I loved seeing the necropolis popping up outside each major city and having the plague spread. I'm pretty sure I was one of the first to be infected on my server. I was in Undercity at the time I turned into a zombie. I managed to escape through the sewers and made it to Brill where I was sadly killed. After that, I spent most of my time in Shattrath City so I wouldn't be infected in the faction cities. The only other memory I have is spending way too much time in the Dalaran Sewers trying to fish up that ugly Giant Sewer Rat!

Cataclysm

During this expansion, my play style changed as I began to focus more on solo content and collecting. The addition of LFR definitely helped me become super casual. I have no regrets about that at all. This is the expansion where I got lucky in getting quite a few rare mount drops (Alar, TLPD, Aeonaxx) and this kick started a new obsession with mount collecting. Other than that, the only other memorable thing was being out in the world and coming back to a burning corpse because Deathwing passed over the zone. *sigh* This is also the expansion where most of my guild started playing. They definitely picked a perfect time as I think Cataclysm definitely turned the game to something newer players could easily set foot into.

Mists of Pandaria

I know a lot of people hated this expansion because LOLPANDAS, but sitting back and looking over everything, this is my all time favorite expansion. Everything was unique, looked so different, and the lore for the zones was really awesome. It seemed everywhere I turned I was either stopping to take a screenshot or to appreciate all the little details that was put into areas. During this time, my guild also began running things with me and Pigletoos. I also have really fond memories of us on the Timeless Isle. The day that it was released, I spent 12 hours online! Many other nights there I spent with my friends chatting and waiting for rare spawns to pop up (Huolon up!). The entire expansion was just wonderful in my eyes, and I often go back to those zones to relax and listen to the music.

Warlords of Draenor

As I said in my opening, despite an expansion not being so fun, I still try to make the best of it. While Warlords was probably my least favorite, I give props to Blizzard for telling a very good story through the questing in each zone. Sadly the end game suffered. I took advantage of garrisons and turned them into "gold farms". This expansion also gave me a chance to branch out with alts and focus on starting to roleplay with my worgen warlock. If I was too busy at the time, I don't think things would have worked out as well as they did. Once Tanaan Jungle came out, I do have fun memories of me and my guild doing our dailies late at night and pulling so much stuff! I can hear Rey screaming "RUN RUN!" over voice chat and us falling into the fel only to die a few seconds later. I live for silly moments like that.

I'm not going to put Legion on here since we're still in this expansion and there are still more things to experience. Of course there will be a post for that later on! Again, I want to thank you all for sticking with me during this month. I hope whether you're an older follower or a new one, I made you stop and think back on some memories you may have. Once again another successful celebration has happened, and I look forward to doing something again next year!

Patch 7.0

The new patch is here, and as with all patches, things have changed. That overwhelming sense of having to get everything done right now is racing through many people's minds - as well as mine. As I was sorting through the banks/void storage of one of my alts, it hit me; I don't have to stress over any of this. I have more than enough time to sort out transmog, gather up some of the new items, and learn my new rotations well before the Legion invasions hit the servers. So day one was basically cleaning out banks and void storage, and boy am I happy with all of my new found bag space. Of course there were still some special items I kept on certain characters, but most stuff went out the door. I was sad to realize that the Scarlet set wasn't all changed to plate like I was previously led to believe. So that put a little damper into my paladin plans. I guess I will have to wait and see if it's a bug or until the ensemble is actually available at the Darkmoon Faire. I also realized I have a cloak collecting problem as my 16 pages of them shows. Day two was re-doing talents on all my characters and reading up on their new class rotations and changes. Thank goodness for Icy Veins because I would be a lost mess! The next few days were spent leveling alts and running old raids (these weapon illusions are calling!).

What else? Ah yes, the doomsayers in the cities. These people always like to pop up when times are about to get tough. This time they give out pamphlets, and collecting all twelve will give the user the achievement "It All Makes Sense Now". I decided to casually talk to them every time I was in the city, which has been a lot more than usual these past few days. However, waiting the twenty minutes to get another pamphlet wasn't fast enough for some people. It was funny, and a bit horrifying considering the content of these pamphlets, that people were dropping their characters to their death to get rid of the twenty minute de-buff. I managed to get my achievement this weekend without repeatedly harming my character.

I also can't decide if I want to jump on the gnome hunter bandwagon or just make another mage. I have an alt gnome saved on Scarlet Crusade (US) for Running of the Gnomes, but I never got a chance to participate yet. The gnome itch is strong right now, and I think an engineer hunter with all the mechanical pets would be a good addition to my alt family. However, I also think having a fire mage in the Time Lord's Regalia would also be awesome. The good thing is nothing is set in stone yet so I still have time to decide what I want to do.

After all of that, and a very long Warlords expansion, I guess it's safe to say that this blog has now crossed over into the Legion expansion. As boring as Warlords actually was, I prefer to look back on the better things about it: The questing experience was amazing, and I liked how they gave you faster options such as potions, objectives, and treasures when leveling up alts. The cut scenes between zones were amazing, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of them in Legion. Let's not forget our "gold farms"... I mean garrisons. Seriously, I will miss logging in to get thousands of gold for virtually doing nothing. Ah, good times. For now, let us leave Warlords behind and wash out that sour taste it left. Bring on Legion!

All I Got Was This Shirt!

I took a look at my banks; what a mess. I've pretty much given up any hope on organizing to see what gear and weapons I have until the Legion transmog system is released. Thank goodness I have a guild because I do store a lot of non soulbound items in there (Twilight Cultist set, starting items, Dalaran Wizard's Robe, etc.) My eyes immediately look over to my shirt collection. Not only does that take up the second largest percent of my inventory, but it also takes up a good bit of space in my guild bank. I know what I'll do, let me a list of what I have and then see what I'm missing! Something that I thought would take me about an hour or so ended up consuming most of my WoW playtime that day. You know what though, I didn't mind one bit!

I was shocked to see what I actually had. Some of my characters even had their original starter shirts - eww. I had no idea some of these had been removed from the game. Velgana was also only missing two patterns; Bright Yellow Shirt and Rich Purple Silk Shirt. I think it will be a while before I get the second pattern, but that didn't stop me from trying to farm it while I gathered up cloth to make other shirts. Let's just say that I'm well stocked up, and can make shirts for many. My guildies will probably get a t-shirt care package when Legion drops whether they like it or not!

So with my list looking a lot shorter, I decided to call it quits. Most of the remaining shirt on my list are purchased from vendors. All things easily picked up once the patch drops. I'm looking forward to Legion and all the new bag space it will bring. My guild bank will thank me as well. This will also probably help me feel less paranoid about losing certain items that are no longer available in game as well. If you're bored and have nothing to do, but still want to be in Azeroth, I definitely suggest having a look through your banks and attempt to get organized. You never know what treasures you're going to find in there. *cough*

Love is Not in the Air

Hello again! It feels like life is swirling around me right now, and I'm trying to get back into my normal routine. My WoW subscription ran out this past weekend, but it fell in the middle of Valentine's Day and my birthday. By the way, both of those were absolutely lovely and served as a reminder that I have lovely friends I've made through the WoW community on Facebook, Twitter, and more recently, Tumblr. So with all of that, I didn't worry about renewing my subscription until last night. Like before, I'm still using tokens. I was keeping an eye on them and hoping that the steep 38k was going to drop a bit lower once Love is in the Air started. At about a -2k difference, I bought one for a little over 36k last night. Ouch.

... and they don't even light the candles!

To be honest, I'm not even sure why I bought one. I had plans to try again this year for the Big Love Rocket, but then I hit a sudden realization this morning while doing my garrison chores - I don't care. This is the year that I have the most max level characters to kill the bosses. This would give me a very good chance, but I somehow can't be bothered. As a collector, this is out of the ordinary for me, and I'm not sure if it's just the burnout of WoD or the fact that I'd never use the mount. I think since we still have months left to this expansion I'm stressing myself out with alts. I'll get it done though. Only three left to go!

So what did I do with my time instead of farming love charms and the mount? I brought my tauren druid to Dalaran! I do this with a few of my alts for different holidays since I have some of the stranger combinations. I parked Steaknfries right in front of the bank by the Sunreaver's Sanctuary and stayed for about two hours. I had various lovely people give me thanks after getting their achievement, some silly flirtations regarding my funny name, and I even made a dwarf buddy who danced and chatted with me. Having little moments like that makes me realize why I love this game and that there is still good out there in the community. I'll be doing this everyday while the event goes on. If you see me, give a /wave!

And as if I already didn't feel like time is flying by, Facebook decided to dish out a lovely reminder that it's the three year anniversary of me receiving my Mini Tyrael! Seriously, it feels like I just won that thing from Warcraft Pets. It's funny that I'm complaining about time passing by too fast, and I want it to slow down; on the other hand I want Legion to hurry up and be here. Where is a bronze dragon when you need them? Maybe I can just cast ice block and hope that I remain in a stasis for a few more months, then time can resume normally!

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!

About A Moose

Just in case you've been away from Azeroth for a while, the trendy and cool thing is currently the Grove Warden mount. This thing has been causing a stir since it's unofficial announcement at Gamescom many months back. With the release of patch 6.2.3 this Tuesday, many people have already completed the task of getting this mount. I know that Legion is still many months away, but I know how people can be - they want everything as fast as possible! I know as more and more people get their mount, others who are slacking behind may become more in a panic that they are running out of time - I would fall into this category since I worry about everything! Thinking about all of this brings me back to Seige of Orgrimmar and the Reins of the Kor'kron War Wolf.

The Seige of Orgrimmar era was a big blur for me since it lasted so long, but I clearly remember some of my friend's scrambling to get the War Wolf at the end. I remember the day before patch 6.0 hit, I had a friend that was in a pug that wiped all day on Garrosh. I couldn't imagine sitting at my computer and playing WoW for that long, especially just for a mount! In the end, they didn't make it. I told them not to worry because there would be plenty of wolves to collect in Warlords, and boy was I right.

Image From Warcraft Mounts

For me, Warlords had some of the most generic mounts. Now that I'm looking at a list of all of the mounts, there were ten wolf mounts that were available to players. Out of all of these, seven of them are available to both factions. That's a lot of wolves! I imagine the same options will be available in Legion. They've even data-mined at least one moose model and a cute model of something that will probably be a little moose mini pet. I think these may be tied into Highmountain, perhaps via reputation or maybe even through a rare spawn drop.

While I know these other mounts don't look as fancy as their raid counterparts, there are still an option for people who missed out. Lately there have been countless of amazing people who have stepped forward to help people in acquiring the Grove Warden. It has been dubbed project Friendship Moose on Twitter, and has proven to be a great success as many people have already acquired their mount. If you'd like to see more information about getting into a group for this, you can check out the official site: http://friendshipmoose.com or use #FriendshipMoose to search on Twitter.

If that's not an option for you, I'm sure you can also use places like Open Raid, and keep an eye on on your server's trade channel and forums for guilds selling runs. There's plenty of time for everyone who wants a Grove Warden to get one, but I just wanted to make a post for those who are last minute and stress about things like this. Don't worry, this won't be the last moose you will see. Good luck to everyone!

Terky Time

It is commonly known that Blizzard usually reserves their murloc mini pets for special promotions and Blizzcon. Previously the White Murloc Egg, which produced Terky, was only available through an iCoke promotion in Taiwan. You may have even gotten the quest shared to you once or twice in battlegrounds. Of course there was no way to turn it in and sadly many patches later it was completely removed from everyone's quest logs. Thanks to some lovely world explorers (you can see their names on Terky's page of WoWhead), they cracked the case on where to find Terky.

First thing is first, get to Dalaran and fly to Borean Tundra. The closest place for Horde is Warsong Hold and for the Alliance it is Valiance Keep. Next you want to fly or swim (if you prefer to make things difficult) to the Riplash Ruins. You will want to be at about 55,88 before you take a dive.

The entrance isn't all that easy to find without a group of people hanging out around the area, but this is what you're looking for. Between all that seaweed is a little cave you can swim down. Sure it will feel like you're swimming into a dead end, but trust me, it isn't!

 

Once at the end of the cave, swim up. You will now be in a little cavern. Follow the cavern to the back where you will see an altar. Behind the altar is a pile of bones with the White Murloc Egg nestled safety inside. Loot it and add it to your collection as normal.

Ohhh, another pearl altar to add to the mystery!

Congratulations, you are now the proud owner of your own little Terky! What did you think of this hidden mini pet? I personally loved it, and I'd love to see Blizzard add more hidden things like this in the future. Who knows what's already in there that we haven't discovered yet! Only time will tell what adventurers may stumble onto.

This is Hallow's End

I'm back! I took almost a month's break from WoW to spend time focusing on a few other games that came out or became free to play. It was actually a very nice and peaceful break. Thank goodness I bought a game time token before I left, because they are a lot more than I'd like to pay for one. At the time of writing this post, they are over 34k! That's about 6k more than what I paid. Ouch.

Honestly, I'm only back for one reason - Hallow's End! It's my absolute favorite holiday in Warcraft. I am once again going up against the Headless Horseman for his mount. I'm sure I've talked about this several times before, and the fact that I still have to complain about it is ridiculous! This year I have only three characters that can run it since I cannot fond the willpower to level up the remainder of my alts through Draenor yet. I have a good feeling about this year though. I think the Horseman's Reins will be mine! (I think I say that every year... oops.)

Onto better news, I never got to talk about yet another dream mount I've recently added to my collection. I have been on the hunt for a Feldrake for quite some time now. I had an average price I was willing to pay, and I checked Undermine Journal a few times daily to see if one went up. Eventually one was put up, and I bought it up faster than I could take a breath. I have no regrets! I wanted one really bad for Legion because I couldn't possibly imagine my demon hunter riding around on anything else. (It also looks really good with my warlock)

That about wraps things up. Me and Terky also have a bit of work as I want to write a guide on how to get him for those who are curious. I know there are a ton of guides already out there, but who cares right? As long as information helps someone, that's all that matters. Keep an eye here for that post sometime next week. To all my fellow Azerothians, thanks for reading and see you next time!

6.2, I Welcome You!

I honestly cannot believe it's been months since I've posted here. I'll be honest though, my WoW playtime has drastically decreased, but when I am playing, I am having fun. Since 6.2 came out this week, I figured it would be good if I caught everyone up on what I've been doing! First I want to thank Blizzard for introducing the game token. Because of this I haven't had to purchase WoW time with real money in two months. I'd complain that I'm spending all my gold, but I can usually make the cost of a token back in one week.

I've also been writing, just not here. I've been active with role playing on Twitter and Tumblr. This always makes for fun stories, and I'm always getting new ideas for characters. This isn't always a good thing, but oh well! You can see a list of most of my babies here. I also joined my friend's Tauren guild on Ravenholdt called Horns of Shu'halo. It's a new experience leveling up on a RP/PvP server, but all the times we've played, I've had lots of fun!

Now what was next... yes, Tanaan Jungle! I had planned to spend opening night with my niece, nephew, and our mutual friend. This is my little guild, and we usually try to do all new content together. Needless to say this resulted in a lot of laughs, funny bugs, and silly screenshots. We won't talk about how many times "Oh, look at that cave!" or "I'm pulling this!" was said, but it's moments like those that make great memories.

That being said, I do find it difficult to kill things there on my mage if I'm alone. I'm sure as time progresses and I get gear upgrades, it will be a bit easier. Also, I'm enjoying shipyards. I think my favorite part about them (aside from renaming my ships) is that I don't feel like I constantly need to log on to check up on them. This is how I wish garrisons were all along.

I honestly wish I had more to talk about, but the truth is, I don't. I won't say that I hated this expansion, but this has been the most disappointing one. I'm still having fun playing with friends, and as long as the 6.2 content keeps me entertained for a while, then I guess it's doing a good job. Until next time, see ya!

Voidtalon of the Darkstar

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was looking into getting the Voidtalon of the Darkstar mount. I had honestly forgotten it even existed, but someone on Twitter mentioned it, and I became obsessed with it. At the time there were so many rumors going around about how to get it, but most of it was speculation. On February 27th, there was finally confirmation. Someone on Twitter posted a screenshot with the mount. To my knowledge, she was the first one with it, and she was kind enough to provide details on how she got it. Not long after, other accounts of people getting the mount started pouring in. I thought I would give my experience on getting the mount, and some tips to help you get it for your collection.

First off what you're looking for is a portal called Edge of Reality. Now I know the first image of a portal that comes to mind is probably a mage one, but it doesn't look like that. It looks more like a wispy purple-ish portal. I honestly think they are smaller versions of the wispy demon portals outside of Black Temple.

If no one is around to click the portal, it will eventually despawn and move to another location. I'm not sure how long the portals stay up in each area or how long it takes them to reappear in a new area. I'm also not sure on how long it takes for another portal to respawn after a player clicks on it. I'm seeing reports that range from 13 hours up to 48+ hours. Another wonderful thing is that once a player has the mount, they can never see the portals again. This is great and definitely cuts down on people trying to grief others trying to get it.

Edge of Reality portal

Next is location. There are several spawn points where these portals can pop up at. Someone over at Wowhead was kind enough to make a map of some approximate spawn locations. If you mouse-over the points, you will get a direct coordinate for each spawn. The portal I found (which isn't on that map) spawned in Gorgrond at 51,38. They are usually always around Apexis daily areas and almost never inside them. I think there is one or two that is an exception. I recommend downloading the Handy Notes addon so you can add each portal spawn to your map.

Once you click on the portal, you are queued up for a scenario called Edge of Reality; fitting enough, right? I don't think I've ever clicked on something so fast in my life, even though I was the only one around. Anyway, this is pretty cool since it's a sub-zone of the Shadowmoon Burial Grounds, and the same place you fight Ner'zhul.

Yes... step into the Void. (RIP little Raptor)

Once inside, there is a dead Void Talon and an egg. You click on the egg and you loot the mount. That's it! It's a little lackluster, but I think the pretty mount makes up for that.

If you do plan on camping this mount, my tips would be to look for the portals right after a server reset. I ended up parking my characters by a few of the areas. Gorgrond was where Vel was parked at, and she was the last character I checked. The portal happened to be up by The Pit area next to a little raptor (see above image for dead raptor). It was around 12:05 AM. I also recommend going to a place that has spawns close together that way you're not running around too far between each spawn location. Before you know it, this one will be added to your collection too! Good luck and happy hunting!

Post 6.1 - What Am I Doing?

So me and Pigletoos are sitting around last night and chatting about a few things when he asks "how long has it been since you've written a blog post?" I check... it's been over a month! Quite frankly, I have nothing of any interest to talk about, so I guess I will catch everyone up on what's going in in Velgana's world.

Since 6.1 my gameplay has decreased dramatically. Usually I'm really excited to level up alts through the content again, and it's just not the case this time. I have other alts I've been leveling through older content, but by the time they hit level 90, I move on to the next one. This past weekend I finally did the Tanaan starting zone on my troll priest, so I'm slowly making progress with her... slowly. Sadly, Pigletoos didn't stick around, and he temporarily deactivated his subscription. He said he will come back before the end of the expansion. Sometimes a break is a great thing!

The good things to come out of 6.1... more junk to collect! One of the first things I did after the patch launched was fish my little heart out until I caught enough lunkers to buy the sea calf. I couldn't be happier with it, and it's currently always following me around! I wasn't one of the lucky ones to get the S.E.L.F.I.E. Camera right away, but the mission for it finally did pop up. I just got the extra lens for it that made it a toy, so now I can take advantage over making all my alts looks silly!

I've also been on the hunt for the Void Talon mount. I was pretty obsessed with it after someone on twitter mentioned it. I haven't been "camping" it like some people though. I'll have to dedicate some time to doing that soon. I've have been running old raids for mount. Still no Invincible yet, but I got Experiment 12-B. It's such a funky colored mount. I think it looks pretty decent with my tier 3, don't you think?

Now, the next thing I want to talk about involves the 6.1 legendary quest line. I will be talking about spoilers under the cut, so if you don't want to be spoiled, thank you for reading, and I'll see you again soon! If you've seen the spoiler cinematic and wish to continue, follow me this way.

Hooked on Mini Pets

I can't believe I've had this blog for almost the entire time I've been playing WoW and haven't went into detail about what got me hooked on my favorite things to collect in game - mini pets! This post came to mind as I was preparing to clean up my WarcraftPet's profile. I figured it would be better to put this here since I have more room to talk about it.

I often like to ask people, what was the first mini pet you remember getting? I'm pretty positive mine were the Senegal and Cockatiel off of Narkk in Booty Bay. I clearly remember keeping one on me and placing the other in my bank. Not long after that I remember running Deadmines and getting the Green Wing Macaw to drop from there. I felt like a pirate!

I went on with my WoW life, still not completely hooked on collecting. I remember when the Azure Whelpling was released in patch 2.3 (The Zul'Aman patch). It was pretty highly sought after on my server at least. I had a friend who wanted it really bad. I used to fish in Azshara probably more than I'd like to admit, so I passed the blue dragonkins that dropped it quite often. Well one day when I was passing, I killed one, and it dropped. I was shocked and quite excited. This began my unhealthy obsession with collecting mini pets!

It's around this time that I made friends with another collector. He's now my oldest Warcraft friend, and we still talk to this day. I'm not sure what got him to start collecting, but we were always talking about who got what pet most recently, and what pet we were going for next. I clearly remember us both hunting for the Black Tabby off of the Ambermill Spellscribe. I'm not sure who got their's first, but I remember we both eventually got it. I also remember by the end of Burning Crusade we both had no more room in our banks/bags for anymore pets since they weren't a learned spell yet!

I also remember some of my more frustrating times. I used to kill so many pirates for the Hyacinth Macaw, but I never was lucky enough to get it to drop. I also used to spend hours upon hours in the Swamp of Sorrows farming for the Emerald Whelp. It was so bad that I remember a guildie asking me why in the world was I always there, hah. I have no regrets on any of this or the amount of gold I've probably spent on getting some of the rarer ones. The only regret I have is that I didn't start playing the game early enough to get a vanilla collectors edition!

I've also met so many wonderful people through the WarcraftPets community, and just in general from collecting pets. They start conversations, and I love it when I can gift unsuspecting people with a pet they don't have. I can't wait to see what's in store for mini pets, and as always, I'm looking forward to expanding my collection!

Mysterious Talador Flower

I haven't done any exploration recently, and I'm pretty ashamed of myself for not doing it. This was how my blog got started after all! Have no fear, I will be attempting to explore every area of Draenor that I can in the upcoming months. I want to carefully comb over each zone at a time, but I stumbled across this while treasure hunting in Talador, and I couldn't wait to talk about it. I love to fully explore a zone, and after finding a cute little Draenei couple having a picnic, I realized I didn't check what was on the uphill slope across from them. I'm also the type of person who is "click all the things!" so when I initially found this flower, I did just that. (Coordinates 37,91)

A small event played out before me, but I have no idea what really happened. An orc came out of the ground and gave a Burning Blademaster a flower. The Blademaster smells it, freaks out screaming "Please... no flowers...", and then gets assassinated. I was pretty sad I didn't take any screenshots since I was watching the events play out before my eyes, so when I quested there on my alt, it was one of the first places I went to.

I was shocked to see that this wasn't a treasure, and I received no item from looting it. I decided to do a little research. Supposedly it was a toy item in beta, but never made it to the live version of the game. It was called Mysterious Flower. Doing a bit more research on WoWpedia netted a few broken pages, but a little more information. It seems as though each zone was going to have a flower. My guess is that once the player found every flower in each zone, the toy would be rewarded to them. Regardless of everyone saying that the other flowers were not available in the other zones, I had to check for myself. Of course, everyone was right, but that still doesn't stop me from checking every once in a while!

Many have speculated this is a tribute to the Flowerpicker Clan, an easter egg from Warcraft II. The Orc assassin definitely fits by being dressed in blue. Here is a picture of the female counterpart.

Mysterious Orc

I'm guessing when the toy item was removed in live, they forgot to take out this flower. Things like this always bother the collector and adventurer in me. I always want it to be more - maybe it's a hidden item that no one has discovered. Sadly it's just usually something that's been overlooked. Hopefully one day this item makes it into the game for all of the toy collectors out there.

Update: While leveling an alt through Talador recently, I noticed the flower is no longer there. It was probably removed during one of the recent patches. I will be leaving this post up for reference and in hopes that this flower will make an appearance elsewhere someday.