Dragon Age Origins - Gift Giving Guide

Dear LGG Blog,
I have been playing lots of Dragon Age, as I mentioned in my previous post, and I thought I'd share this gift reference I've compiled seeing as it's saved me some time! I posted it on my NEW gamer site:

Gift Giving Guide

^^

Oh Dragon Age, How I Love You! <3

Dear Blog,

Oh it's been such a long time since I've played a game I loved this much! Nothing ropes me in like a good story with rich lore and history and a bit of romance! I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that I am in total <3 with Allistar! He's just so goofy and cute, and the rose! *heart melts* If only he was real... and you know, I was a warrior tainted by the blood of the blight destined to rid the world of the archdemon while restoring peace and order... lol.

I played this game for a week, and did absolutely nothing else! Wake up, Dragon Age, sleep, wake up, Dragon Age, sleep, and repeat! By the end of it I'd built my own little fortress of pop cans, plates and chip bags, lol so I had some serious cleaning to do to avoid creating a blight of my very own in the living room, but it was worth it!

I get so into games when you can chose what your character is like! The character customization wasn't bad, a good variety of face variables to play with, but as with most games I would have liked to see MORE HAIR STYLES! I know, I know, it's probably not something a lot of people are concerned with, but damnit why can't more games have a good variety of hair styles and colours!? It can't be that hard to create them and just throw them in there... can it?? I would have liked to maybe see a paragon vs renegade type bar that filled up during the game, like in Mass Effect, but I wasn't disappointed with my character's range of responses to questions and situations. Had Bioware made my character actually speak, like in Mass Effect, well that would have been very cool, but as it was, your character is limited to yelling out things during battle or while picking locks. The graphics were somewhat lacking, but to be honest I barely even noticed once I got into the game.

My favorite character was of course Allistar, but I also liked Zevran! That cute little bisexual elf always had interesting things to say, and I was quite glad I didn't kill him! Lelliana was cool, but also kind of annoying, and Morrigan I liked, although she always disapproved of everything. Sten was an interesting fellow, and I loved Shale, who is available in The Stone Prisoner downloadable content pack. Oghren I absolutely hated, lol I have no time for rude drunken dwarves and was sad when he wasn't killed. Wynn was handy, yaaa healer, but she was also so preachy! Lol, what can you expect from a elderly spirit healer I guess... Loghain I haven't played with in my party yet, but obviously I hate him.

As for dowloadable content, I got all three that are available so far, The Blood Dragon Armor of course came with the game, and The Stone Prisoner lets you get the party member Shale, the flamboyant golem (though I guess he should be flamboyant, since he's a she, lol). Warden's Keep sounded like a good idea, You get a chest in which to put all of the equipment you don't want to carry around, but don't want to sell, but I was under the impression that once you cleared out the keep, you would get it as a base. That isn't the case, you can just stop there in your travels and there's two vendors out front. I was somewhat disappointed about that.

The different Origin stories are fantastic, I'd have to say my favorites are either the Mage, the Human Noble or the Dwarf Noble. My first character to finish the game with was a mage, and had my boyfriend not been sitting beside me at the time, I would have actually cried when Allistar and I broke up, hahaha. I was so mad that my grand scheme to make Allistar king and myself queen was thwarted that I actually stopped playing for a couple hours and reloaded my game to redo it and make sure Allistar and I stayed together (if only real life was so simple, lol). I have recently made a human noble rogue, which I am pretty sure CAN be queen! We will see. I won't give much away about the ending in case anyone who reads this hasn't finished the game yet, but I will say that I went with Morrigan's ending, though that was hard seeing as I am in love with Allistar, lol. I believe there are 4 main endings to complete to get the achievement, but will update for sure once I finish it!

It takes a really good game to keep me playing once I finish it, I haven't even played Mass Effect through enough times to get all the achievements yet, but I intend to with Dragon Age!

As a final note, it was very enjoyable killing Dr.Frankenfurter, I had recently watched Rocky Horror Picture Show, and didn't like it, lol so I smiled lots when I fireballed his face off!

C'mon Bioware! GIVE ME MORE DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT! Maybe an expansion!? Oh I'm excited! <3

Oh WoW Guilds How You FAIL!

Dear Blog,

So I am standing around waiting for a guild raid to start… On the calendar it said 5:45pm server time, so of course I logged in at about 5:30pm just to make sure I had everything I needed and was all repaired and such… It is now 6:55pm server time, and guess what? We’re still not even close to getting started!

I hate when raid guilds operate like this! The leader is like, oh there are 11 people who want to raid? Great! Lets do a 25 man! …. Seriously, wtf? Like, did you never learn to round things to the closest number?! How can you think getting 14 more members is a more logical choice than to drop one member and GO! I liked in my old guild how we’d have a raid time and once 45 mins had passed from the scheduled time of the raid, we’d call it if we didn’t have the members and couldn’t PUG the extra spots. That way, I didn’t end up wasting hours standing around for a raid that will probably not happen.

So at this point the raid still needs 8 members… so I am wondering if I should just be like SCREW YOU GUYS IM OUT! Or like fake a DC? Or, if I should wait it out, lol. As it is I quit the guild a few days ago because they had stopped raiding, now they are basically just wasting my time that could be spent finding a new guild damnit! I only came back to this guild because the guild leader invited me like 7 times in an hour and would NOT leave me alone, so it was either come back, or put the kid on ignore… Now I am wishing I’d gone with choice # 2… lol. (seriously, invited me SO many times and I just kept declining till he wore me down, lmao, see screen shot)

So now that I am finished my blog, we are down to 11 raid members… YEP! Back down to 11… and it is 7:10pm… So I am just gonna exit WoW for now and go do something else, hehe. Why must gearing up be such a hassle!?

Idiot Raid Leaders FAIL! FAIL! FAIL!

Dear Blog,

As I have mentioned in earlier posts, I am starting to do the raiding thing a tiny bit on my new main, Sylvadora. She's not geared that great, only like a 1750 gear rating, but I just started gearing her. I usually do about 2-2.6K dmg, which isn't anything to brag about, but it's average for a ret pally at the stage I am at.

My guild's been slowly breaking up (as all guilds I join do) so I have been pugging heroics and VoA as often as I can.

I joined a VoA 25 group a couple days ago when Wintergrasp ended, and waited around for about 30 minutes for it to fill up. I even invited one of my friends to help speed up the process. Once the group was formed the leader Koyuki from Maelstrom, informed us that if we didn't have an arena team, we didn't get to roll on PvP gear. No one really seemed to mind this rule, and since I have an arena team, I didn't complain, but the way he said it was pretty douchey and I started to worry a bit.

The group started at Koralon The Flame Watcher, which I have done a few times now. I know this boss is new and not everyone knows it yet, but no one in the group said they didn't know what they were doing, and so we started. The tank stood in the same spot the whole fight! He just stood there in the fire, lol. There were so many Flaming Cinders that I kept having to back out and stand there until one of them went away so I'd have room to not burn to death while DPSing. I also was trying to help heal up myself and the tank because no one else was getting out of the fire, so the tank was dieing when the healers tried to heal the group...

Needless to say, it was a horrible attempt!

Then after we all run back in and buff up, the raid leader points out that I only managed a 1.5K dmg ON THE WIPE attempt. Two seconds later I am booted from the group. I was the last person alive who wasn't standing in the flame cinders, I helped keep the tank up, I healed myself, and tried to DPS when I could get in there, but they kicked me out!

Of course I was furious because I had been standing around for this thing to start for such a long time AND because the raid leader was such a complete idiot for judging someone's dmg on such a feeble attempt, so I whispered the raid leader. I explained that the tanks are supposed to kite the boss to avoid a flame cinder build up, and that no mele dps were doing dmg to their full potention unless they were standing in the flames getting owned. Of course... no response!

My friend stayed in the group, which wiped three more times because the tanks kept dying while standing in the flame cinders and then the group fell apart. So I was happy about that, lol.

The point of this blog is just to point out that simply making raid desicions based on a freaking DMG meter is rediculous! Koyuki you are a SUPER dumbass and I'll be sure to avoid you in any raid situation from here on out, and Koralon is easy, when the whole group doesn't stand in the flames!

Idiots! Idiots! Idiots!!!

>< I so hate pugs!

I <3 Heirlooms!

I just happened to have a few Emblems of Heroism and a couple hundred Stone Keeper's Shards sitting around, so I decided to grab myself a couple of the pieces of heirloom gear... I got myself the cloth heirloom chest with my emblems and the mantle with my stone keeper shards. I decided on cloth because I already have a 80 paladin and deathknight, so that makes plate kind of a waste, and three classes could wear cloth, so it seemed logical.

Both the chest and the shoulders give you a 10% experience bonus from killing mobs and quest turn ins, which makes it 20% if you have both! There are weapons and trinkets as well, but they don't give any experience bonus, so I wasn't as concerned about getting them. I do intend to save up the 325 stone keeper shards to get the Grand Staff of Jordan for my clothies however!

I probably should have spent my emblems on something more practical for my 80, but after hearing about Cataclysm, I am just thinking that it's probably best if I put my efforts into leveling up alts, not gearing up one single toon. All that gear is going to be useless again, just like after BC AND WotLK, and I don't know if I have the heart for it again, lol. I'm still going to raid as much as I can with Sylvadora and enjoy my days as a ret pally, but I do have like 8 level 70 toons who I still need to get to 80, plus all my new horde alts, so that will take up a lot of my time!

The point of my blog though, is to say that if you have an 80, and you aren't sure what to do with yourself, start getting yourself some heirlooms so that leveling up your alts is a breeze! All you have to do is complete the weekly Wintergrasp quests for Stone Keeper Shards and run heroics for the Emblems! The heirlooms bind to your account, so you can send them to any alt you want!

<3 LGG

Sylvadora's Got A New Guild!

Once again, I must apologize for slacking off with my posts! It's summer time, and whenever I haven't been gaming, I've been outside enjoying the sun! I haven't been slacking off on my gaming however!!!

On a recent trip to a family cottage I got in some much overdue quality Rock Band 2 time, which was a refreshing change from my diligent WoW schedule! I also have been perfecting my anime drawing skillz, which lets me draw game characters better! So worry not dear fellow gamers, you are not losing me to the real world yet! ;D

Onto my post...

So Sylvadora is my newest *main* in World of Warcraft. I rolled her on a RPPvP server after my Regular PvE server began to bore me and every guild I had joined crumbled to the ground. A few RL people I knew played on this RPPvP server, so I figured I'd give it a try. I must say the PvP aspect adds a lot of excitement to the game! I really think after leveling 2 80s on the PvP server, that leveling on my PvE server again will be somewhat boring!

So I just recently got Sylva to 80, and decided I would attempt to find her a guild. I wasn't looking for anything that was like RAID EVERY NIGHT PROGRESSING THROUGH ULDAR 25! or anything, I just wanted a group of people who might want to run heroics with me from time to time. I had only asked in general a few times over one day when a nice hunter invited me to his guild. It was cool because right away he asked me what I wanted to do, so we went and did some dailys together and chatted a bit. I logged off that day feeling positive about my guild choice, but unfortunately when I logged on the next day, THE GUILD HAD FALLEN APART! I moped around for a few hours, still in the guild with it's like 3 other members that hadn't been online in 4 months, deciding that I was WoW Guild Poison =(

A previous member of the guild messaged me later on in the day, and explained nicely that the guild master had decided to abandon their guild and join up with another guild which was having more success than they were. The previous member asked if I also would like to join, even though I had only been with them for a day, and I graciously accepted!

So now little Sylvadora has herself a guild! They run heroics with me, chat with me, do PvP with me, and even bring me to Naxx! The guild master is actually GOOD at being a guild master, which I haven't seen since my days back in Lords of Hatred (oh how I miss those ppls!), and they address any issues with their members quickly, which makes me lotsa happy! As a bonus, they are also raiding Ulda, which I am not quite geared enough for yet, but at least I know it will be open to me whenever I get there! The name of the guild is even good, which is more than I can say for like any guild I've been in this year. It's called North Storm =D which has a nice ring to it I believe!

So, for any of you WoWers who are missing your old guilds and unable to find a new one that compares... Don't give up!!! All it takes is a bit of good timing and good luck apparently =) There are still good guilds out there!

That's all from me today, I'm going to do some Wintergrasp! Hehe, I will blog more later ^^

*As an after note, I am pretty sure this guild is done for like within the month... Guild drama, lol crushes guilds even when they are full of potential...

MOUNTS! MOUNTS! MOUNTS! Changes in 3.2

I must say I am excited! With the release of patch 3.2, Call of the Crusade in game mounts are seeing a huge reduction in price and level requirements!

Apprentice riding (skill 75) which used to be available at level 30 (recently down from level 40) is now available at LEVEL 20!!! It will cost only 4g!!! Which will make leveling those early characters a BREEZE!

Journeyman Riding (skill 150), also known as the epic ground mount, is now available at level 40 and will only cost 50g which is a huge reduction in price, seeing as the training was about 500g at level 60 not long ago!

Expert Riding (skill 225) is now available at level 60 for 600g! That's not too much of a price reduction, but it's trainable 10 levels earlier now, which means you can literally fly through your Outland quests! hehe Also, it's FASTER!! Flying/running at a very nice speed of 150% up from 60%. Faction discounts DO apply to the price of this, which means 570g at Friendly, 540g at Honored, 510g at Revered and 480g at Exalted.

Artisan Riding (skill 300) is still available at level 70, and has not seen any price reduction, other than now your faction rep discounts apply to the training. It is 5000g at Neutral with Honor Hold or Valiance Expedition for Alliance and Thrallmar or Warsong Offensive for Horde. 4750g at Friendly, 4500g at Honored, 4250G at Revered and 4000g if you are Exalted.

As a nice side note, the casting time for any mount is now only 1.5 seconds, down from 3!

Yaay for WoW nerfing!

Another Funny Bug

So, I was playing a new WoW character with my friend the other day, and all of a sudden his draenei looked like this!!! I have no idea how or why, but it was hilarious, so I thought I'd share! ^^

Bored on WoW? Here's my new WotLK updated What to Do When Bored on Wow List!

So for everyone who finds themselves bored on World of Warcraft, but still unable to shut the game down, (I feel your pain!) here is my new Wrath of the Litch King edition What To Do When Bored on WoW List!

Just as an update, my pre-WotLK list included the following: Ironforge Square Jumping, Stormwind Fountain Dancing, Random Whispers, Exploring Ironforge, Hide and Seek/ Duck Duck Goose, Killing Tram Rats, Sewer Beast Hunting, Dueling, Follow People, Selling Cats... If you want to know more about any of these ideas, check out my previous post here.

#10. T-T-T TRIVIA - Start your own game of WoW (or anything) related trivia in trade chat. Then keep score of who answers the most correctly and hand out (non expensive) prizes. Not only will it be something to keep you occupied, people really like prizes! So, you might make some new friends. I believe there is even a downloadable trivia addon for the game, but, making your own questions can be more fun! Just make sure you actually know the answers so you don't look like a noob!

#9. Start A Riot - Bring up one of thoes horribly annoying topics in trade chat (ie: Chuck Norris, Yetis, Politics, etc) But do it in a way that people will actually respond to you, like OmG Chuck Norris DIED! or Canada is so much better than USA, Haz Ne1 seen Yetis on a Plane, lol. Then watch it take over trade chat, you can even take part!

#8. LF Soul Mate - Start spamming trade LF Soulmate. Be funny and creative, but also pathetic! Not only will it give you a laugh if anyone seriously responds, everyone who reads it will laugh too! Believe it or not, I got this idea from someone who was SERIOUSLY looking for their soulmate in trade chat... I mean, I know people sometimes meet on WoW and get married, a girl I knew in highschool just did! But c'mon, spamming trade for love FtL...

#7. Make A New Alt - I get bored on WoW a lot, which is why I reached the 50 characters limit across all servers ><

#6. Eyes of the Beast - So what hardcore WoWer doesn't have at least a lvl 60 hunter?? Get on your hunter, get out your pet, find some of the opposite faction players, (preferably nooby low lvl ones) and start following them around with your pet while hiding somewhere nearby. Don't do anything other than follow them, stopping when they do, looking at what they do, it's scary for them to see a animal following them around, lol which makes it funny for you!

#5. Professions - Yeah, this isn't going to cure your boredom blues, but c'mon, it's practical! Level up those professions, or if they are leveled, level them up on all your alts! It really is nice being able to provide yourself with all you need regardless of the profession required to create it! If you have ALL your alts professions leveled already (/bow) then go pick some flowers, make them into inscription ink and sell them or something!

#4. Lil Game Hunter - Go find yourself some pets!!! Even if it is just to sell, lol. There are so many farmable pets that now go for so much money because of the vanity pet achievements! My recommendation would be farming for the firefly or the disgusting oozling! On my server they sell for 4000g, and I've farmed 2 fireflies and the Oozeling. It does take a while, but if you do it every time you're bored, you are going to find one! And who wouldn't want to be 4k g richer?! Or, kill pirates around Booty Bay for the Hyasynth Macaw! That little jerk goes for like 13k! It's an impossible drop rate though, lol.

#3. Lowbie Assassination - This one is a little cruel, but bored WoWers are a dangerous thing, right?? Find somewhere that a lowbie (like lvl 12 and under) has to kill mobs that are your race. That in itself may be a difficult task, but unless you're a draenei you should be able to manage! Then you find gear that looks like the lowbie mobs, put it on, flag as PvP and wait for an unsuspecting noob to approach. When they do, start wandering around like an NPC and just wait for them to attack you! When they do, BAM, one shot them! Laughs all around every time!

#2. DESTROY Old Content - There is nothing more satisfying than ripping apart old raid dungeons with a couple of your closest 80 friends! Or, if you're running solo, kill trash mobs in like Zul Gurrub or Ahn Quiraj or something! You might even get some crappy low level epics!!! Or, go get yourself some bijous and get exalted with the Zandalar Tribe!

#1. ACHIEVEMENTS!!!! - Can I just say, hats off Blizz! As if people already didn't have a hard enough time logging off Azeroth! They took one of the things I love most about my 360, and added it to WoW! I am sure you have all noticed the achievement tab, so just scan through it, see if there are any you'd like to do! * They add more like every patch, so if you think you did everything you wanted to already, it is worth it to have another look through!!

I hope my newly updated bored on WoW list helps!!! If there's anything I didn't mention that you do, please leave a comment and let me know what it is! I am always looking for new ways to occupy myself! Thanx!
LGG <3>

Midsummer Fire Festival Guide (WoW)

Working towards getting your Violet Proto-Drake?? Me too! Here is my guide to completing all the Midsummer Fire Festival Achievements in just one sitting! (This will get you the title "Flame Warden" as well!)

Alright, so assuming you are starting with NONE of the Midsummer gear, you are going to need 400 Burning Blossoms. Seem like a lot of work and many dailies?? Well, it's not! You will only need to do the quests once!

Here's a quick breakdown:
Sandals of Summer (200 Blossoms) + Vestment of Summer (100 Blossoms) + Mantle of the Fire Festivall (100 Blossoms) = Complete Midsummer Set (400 Blossoms)

So how are you going to get all the Burning Blossoms you need for your set?? Simple! By doing the Fires of Azeroth and Desecration of the Horde/Alliance achievements. You will receive 5 Blossoms per Flame that you Honor, and 10 Blossoms per Flame that you Desecrate. For Alliance, this will get you 460 Burning Blossoms, and for Horde this will get you 470 Burning Blossoms. Also, you will get 100 Burning Blossoms for stealing your opposing faction's flames. This will leave you will more than enough for the whole Midsummer set!

See maps below for all Flame locations!

You will need the set in order to complete the Burning Hot Pole Dance Achievement. Once you have the set, just click on the ribbon pole and let your character spin around for 60 seconds. It's very easy!

For the King of the Fire Festival achievement, you will need to steal the 4 Capital City Flames from your opposing race. Each flame is an item you receive by "opening" the flame. Then the item starts a quest which will send you back to one of your Capital City Flames. Once you turn in all 4, you will get the achievement and the Midsummer helm.
(Note: Paladins can pick these up while in bubble. Also, if you are getting owned and can't get it, try rezzing right on, but behind the Flame, usually the players around won't notice you until you've had a chance to grab it!)

For the Torch Juggler achievement, you will need to acquire 15-20 Juggling Torches from the daily torch juggling quest. They are not soul bound, so if you only have one character, and don't want to make 2-3 alts to get these, you can probably just buy them in the auction house. Once you have them, make your way to Dalaran, find a nice secluded corner, set them to your action bar, target the ground right beneath you, and spam them like crazy. Also a very easy achievement!

For the Ice The Frost Lord achievement, all you have to do is get into a group and kill Ahune. He is in the Slave Pens in Zangarmarsh and is summonable once a day per character. He is a 70, so you'll want to be at least level 70, and he is two man-a-ble at 80 if you're geared/experienced enough. There's no pre-requisite to summon him.

Here are some maps that helped me Honor/Desecrate/Steal all the Flames I needed in just one sitting! (I printed them off so I didn't have to keep minimizing to look at them, and planned out where I'd travel by drawing on the print out. Of course, I ran into some nasty hordes and had to bubble-hearth a few times, so planning my path didn't really help, lol)






































































I hope all this helps you get your achievements and get them quickly!!! Also, if you have Blossoms left over, be sure to grab the pet from the midsummer festival vendor to go towards your Little Game Hunter achievement. Also, Ahune has a chance to drop a pet!!

Best of Luck!
LGG <3

The Sims 3 - My Big Disappointment of 2009

Like any true Sim fan, I have been excited about the release of the Sims 3 since last year! I was very into the original Sims and all it's expansions, and then even more into the Sims 2 and all the expansions for it! When Sims 2 came out, it was so much better than the original Sims in so many ways, that you didn't really notice that you were missing the content of all the expansions. The addition of Aspirations really made up for it, and each expansion was just like a nice bonus.

With Sims 3, I must admit that I was rather disappointed! I had all the expansions for Sims 2, and going from that to Sims 3 was like just like taking away all the expansions! Sure, there are some new things! Items are now customizable in game, which makes designing and decorating your homes more fun. They've added gardening and fishing. Your Sim can have traits which make them a little more unique than before. You can wander around town without going through loading screens, and there's no more "fears" like in Sims 2. Other than these things however, it is the same as Sims 2! I have all the system requirements, but I can still only run the game at it's minimum settings, which leaves it even looking the same as the Sims 2, lol.

I mean, once they start popping out the expansions for this game, it will be great, but you'd think they could maybe include some of the Sims 2 expansion ideas (Nightlife, University, Free Time, Open for Business) in with the first Sims 3, rather than making us wait for them, and then pay extra for them! Personally I played the game for the first three days, and then once I had done everything, completed 4 different Sim's lifetime aspirations, whoo-hooed out a few dozen babies, I got bored of it! Also, just like in Sims 2, once your Sim family makes enough money, and you build your giant mansion, it basically runs so slow you have to stop playing them (even with the system requirements!)

If you are on the fence about purchasing this game, I'd say don't! I mean, if you are a die hard Sim fan, you're definitely going to want to switch to the Sims 3, but maybe not for a few years! I'd stick with Sims 2 and all the expansions until Sims 3 gets boxed with at least two new expansions! Otherwise, you're just going to get bored and wish you hadn't uninstalled your Sims 2 to make room for Sims 3!

Sorry Sims, I love you, but you really let me down this time!

LGG <3s Boys Who Sparkle!

So Twilight, yeah, it's not a game, but I am posting about it anyways!! lol...

I don't think there has ever been a movie/novel that has come up in conversation as much as Twilight seems to! Obviously it did amazing in theaters and the novels are now selling like hot cakes, but for every one person I talk to who loves Twilight, there are always three more people who hate it. I guess that's normal for anything that gets popular, everyone has different tastes and opinions on what they watch and what they read, but I thought I'd share what I think about the whole Twilight phenomenon... because I have a blog... so I can! =P

I saw the movie before I read the books. I was playing WoW actually and EVERYONE in my guild was discussing it. I had only seen a poster for the movie, and I admit that at first my thought was "oh this is gonna be bad!". There was just so much controversy over whether or not it was a good movie, that I figured I had to see it, so I went a week or so after it came out.

Almost at once I was hooked! Something about Kristen Stewart's character Bella just caught my attention and before Edward was even introduced I was finding myself dreading the end of the movie! Two hours didn't seem long enough, lol. When Rob Pattinson (Edward) was first shown, I was like "Whoa... this is the guy everyone thinks is so hot!?" he just looked sort of weird to begin with. Of course after some of the Bella + Edward stuff happened, I started to warm up to Edward, and now posters of him hang in my room, but it definitely is the character and not the actor that I ended up finding so infatuating!

The main things I loved about the movie was how different it was from classic vampire films. The vampires in Twilight were basically the good guys, they didn't burst into flames when sunlight touched them, garlic wasn't like acid, crosses didn't burn them, and stakes didn't kill them. I know these vampire traits made some people really not like Twilight, but for me, it made it seem possible! I mean, I do have quite the imagination, but can't you picture the vampires in Twilight existing easier than you can the vampires in Buffy or Underworld?? The more classic vampires may be more interesting characters, but the Cullens just seemed more real!

I went home and downloaded all the Twilight books at once, and read them all in 4 days. I have never been so completely obsessed over what I read, like ever! I've gotten into novels before, finishing them off in a day or two, but I've never felt like I NEEDED to know what happened next. Yeah, Stephenie Meyer probably isn't the greatest writer of all time, and the Twilight novels won't likely be one of the century's greatest works, but those books definitely had something! Meyer's writing style just flowed, and I really felt more like I was watching a movie than reading a book! There weren't endless paragraphs of description, yet the novels were really visual. Also, I was delighted with how well the movie went along with the book, some of my favorite lines from the novel, were actually in the movie!

Even for the people who really hated Twilight, you have to admit that it is pretty amazing that Stephenie Meyer did what she wanted and wrote these novels and is now SO famous! I know, being an aspiring novelist, but knowing I'm not the most amazing writer out there and that most writers never come close to achieving their goals, that this whole Twilight thing is really inspiring!! So there all you Twilight haters, I am 100% PRO Twilight! Oh, and for all you people who say you hate Twilight, but have never seen the movie or read any of the books... c'mon... how can you even have an opinion!?

My...
Favorite Book: New Moon
Favorite Character: Jasper <3
Team: Edward!

How To Get a Kirin Tor Familiar (WoW Pet)

So I said I'd write a post on how to get this non-combat pet when I finished getting it myself, and I finally did it! It definitely takes a degree of commitment, but if you are trying to widen your flock of cute little companions, then you should definitely attempt to add this purple void walker to your collection!

This pet if given to you by Archmage Vargoth (remember that staff guy that you could summon all over the place and wave at!?) at the top of the Violet Citadel. Simple right? Wrong... In order to gain access to Vargoth's chamber, you must complete the achievement "Higher Learning".

For the achievement, you must read The Schools of Arcane Magic, which are a series of 8 books that spawn all over the Northrend city of Dalaran. The difficult part of this achievement is that the books all spawn randomly, and once they are read by someone, they disappear again in only 3 minutes!!! Most servers have a channel dedicated just to this achievement (usually called something along the lines of "bookclub"), so if you're going to be book hunting, definitely ask around and see if you can join the channel so that people on your server can alert you when a book spawns. I did it without the help of such a channel though, but I am sure it would make it easier.

To start, I will list all the books and their spawn locations. Each book only has one spawn point, which is one nice thing about the achievement, so if you know you've gotten one, you don't have to check that spawn point anymore! Watch out though, because most of the time when you see a book at any of the spawn points, it is going to be a "fake". There are a few different fakes such as discarded love letters, a book about how portals are not meant for garbage, a children's book, and some other things, but they are easy to recognize as fakes because they aren't called "The Schools of Arcane Magic". Do read the fakes though, because then they will disappear and make room for the actual ones to spawn eventually (and some of them are pretty funny).

The Schools of Arcane Magic - Introduction : Spawns in the Violet Gate (the room with the portal down to Crystalsong Forest) 57:61 It will be in on the floor beside one of the two bookshelves in the main room.
The Schools of Arcane Magic - Conjuration : Spawns in the Violet Citadel 31:46 It will be on the first floor on the bottom of the bookshelf to the right as you enter.

The Schools of Arcane Magic - Enchantment : Spawns in the Threads of Fate 44:47 It will be upstairs on the balcony on a box to the right of the doorway as you walk onto the balcony.

The Schools of Arcane Magic - Necromancy : Spawns in the Ledgermain Lounge 47:39 It will be upstairs in the west most room (across from the stairs) on the empty bookshelf.

The Schools of Arcane Magic - Abjuration : Spawns in the Dalaran Visitor Center 52:56 It will be to the right as you enter on the floor in front of a stool with books on it.

The Schools of Arcane Magic - Divination : Spawns in the Violet Citadel 27:52 It will be upstairs to the left (next to the sands of time portal) on the floor in front of the bookshelf.
The Schools of Arcane Magic - Illusion : Spawns in the Violet Hold 65:53 It will be to the left as you enter on a box beside the daily instance quest giver Archamage Timear.

The Schools of Arcane Magic - Transmutation : Spawns in the Ledgermain Lounge 47:40 It will be on the first floor on the western bookshelf that is near the door that exits in the direction of the trade area of Dalaran.

The way I found all of these books was by planting my character in front of one of the spawn points and leaving her there. Every time I'd have a spare moment, I'd log on, check the spawn point, circle around to all the other spawn points, then log out where I logged in. Once I'd find a book, I'd just take that spawn point out of my circle. My circle was Threads of Fate, then Visitor Center, then Violet Hold, then Violet Gate, then Ledgermain Lounge, then Violet Citadel, and then back to the Threads of Fate balcony. I left my character logged in as long as I could, and would glace back at the screen for books whenever I'd walk past my computer or if there was a break in a show I was watching. I didn't have anyone else looking for books for me and didn't join the bookclub channel on my server, and it only took me about a week to get the achievement. If you're not too serious about it, just check the spawn points whenever you find yourself in Dalaran, and eventually, you'll get it! The more patience and commitment you have, the quicker you'll get it done.

Once you complete the achievement, you will immediately receive a book called Schools of Arcane Magic - Mastery in the mail. Read it, and it will teleport you up to Vargoth's room, and he'll hand over the Kirin Tor Familiar. There's not much to see up there, so once you've got your pet, simply read the book again to teleport back down to Dalaran.

Happy book hunting!!!
LGG <3

My WoW Pet Guide to Getting Stinker and Beyond!

This guide will be a quick run down of 50 pets that are attainable to get you the achievement and Stinker the Skunk. If you've never collected pets before and are starting from scratch, no problem! If you've never sprung for a collector's edition so you have no special pets, no problem! If you've never picked up a Holiday pet, there are still 50 pets you can get!!!

Now, if you're going for the 75 pet achievement, that's a different story... but I'll get into that later!


I've organized my list into how the pets are attained, so if you prefer purchasing pets rather than farming them, or if you don't mind waiting for World Events to avoid farming and spending your gold, then you can easily pick out which pets you are going to get, and how! If you don't mind farming, have the required rep with all the factions, and don't mind putting up the gold, getting Stinker really doesn't take long!

*for pets that are only available to either Alliance or Horde, don't forget that you can most likely get them in the neutral auction house!!!

Sorry that some words are cut off, but blog just isn't wide enough to hold all this info!!! lol

#	Pet	Faction	How to Get It
	The Following Pets Can Simply Be Purchased From The Appropriate Vendors
1	Ancona Chicken	Neutral	Magus Tirth - Thousand Needles - Shimmering Flats
2	Black Kingsnake	Horde	Xan'tish - Orgimmar
3	Blue Dragonhawk Hatchling	Neutral	Dealer Rashaad - Netherstorm - Stormspire
4	Blue Moth	Alliance	Sixx - The Exodar
5	Bombay Cat	Alliance	Donni Athania (Crazy Cat Lady) Elwyn Forest
6	Brown Prairie Dog	Horde	Halpa - Thunderbluff
7	Brown Rabbit	Neutral	Dealer Rashaad - Netherstorm - Stormspire
8	Brown Kingsnake	Horde	Xan'tish - Orgimmar
9	Cockatiel	Neutral	Narkk - Stranglethorn Vale - Booty Bay
10	Cockroach	Neutral/Horde	Dealer Rashaad - Netherstorm - Stormspire or Jeremiah Payson - Undercity
11	Cornish Rex	Alliance	Donni Athania (Crazy Cat Lady) Elwyn Forest
12	Crimson Snake	Horde	Xan'tish - Orgimmar
13	Ghostly Skull	Neutral	Darahir - Dalaran - Sewers
14	Mana Wyrmling	Neutral	Dealer Rashaad - Netherstorm - Stormspire
15	Golden Dragonhawk Hatchling	Horde	Jilanne - Eversong Woods - Fairbreeze Villiage
16	Great Horned Owl	Alliance	Shylenai - Darnasas
17	Hawk Owl	Alliance	Shylenai - Darnasas
18	Orange Tabby	Alliance	Donni Athania (Crazy Cat Lady) Elwyn Forest
19	Red Dragonhawk Hatchling	Horde	Jilanne - Eversong Woods - Fairbreeze Villiage
20	Red Moth	Alliance	Sixx - The Exodar
21	Senegal	Neutral	Narkk - Stranglethorn Vale - Booty Bay or Rashaad - Netherstorm - Stormspire
22	Siamese Cat	Neutral	Dealer Rashaad - Netherstorm - Stormspire or Dropped off Cookie in Deadmines
23	Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling	Horde	Jilanne - Eversong Woods - Fairbreeze Villiage
24	Silver Tabby	Alliance	Donni Athania (Crazy Cat Lady) Elwyn Forest
25	Snowshoe Rabbit	Alliance	Yarlin Amberstill - Dun Morogh
26	White Kitten	Alliance	Little Timmy - Stormwind
27	White Moth	Alliance	Sixx - The Exodar
28	Yellow Moth	Alliance	Sixx - The Exodar
	The Following Pets Can Be Purchased Once A Level of Reputation if Gained With the Appropriate Faction
29	Nether Wray Fry	Skyguard	Exalted
30	Pengu	Kalu'ak	Exalted
31	Tiny Spore Bat	Sporegar	Exalted
32	Cobra Hatchling	Oracles	Revered
33	Tickburd Hatchling	Oracles	Revered
34	White Tickbird Hatchling	Oracles	Revered
35	Proto-Drake Welp	Oracles	Revered
	The Following Pets Can Be Crafted and Will Probably Have to be Purchased In The Auction House
36	Lifelike Toad	Neutral	Engineering
37	Mechanical Squirrel	Neutral	Engineering
38	Tranquil Mechanical Yeti	Neutral	Engineering
	The Following Pets Can Be Obtained In Instances or Through Quests
39	Green Wing Macaw	Neutral	Drops in Deadmines
40	Jubling	Neutral	Obtained from Darkmoon Faire (requires Dark Iron Ale From BRD)
41	Mechanical Chicken	Neutral	Obtained after completing the OOX escorts in Ferelas, Tanaris and Hinterlands
42	Miniwing	Neutral	Obtained after completing an Escort Quest in the Bone Wastes of Terrokar
43	Smolderweb Hatchling	Neutral	Obtained after completing a Quest in Burning Stepps to go to LBRS
44	Worg Pup	Neutral	Obtained after completing a Quest in Burning Stepps to go to LBRS
45	Sprite Darter Hatchling	Neutral	Quest Chain Starts in Feralas
46	Phoenix Hatchling	Neutral	Obtained from Kael Thas in Sunwell Plateau
47	Westfall Chicken	Alliance	Required: Special Chicken Feed (obtained in Westfall)
	The Following Pets Can be Purchased From The Darkmoon Faire
48	Tree Frog	Neutral	Flik - Darkmoon Faire
49	Wood Frog	Neutral	Flik - Darkmoon Faire
	The Following Pets Can Be Obtained With Fishing
50	Magical Crawdad	Neutral	Fishing in Skettis
51	Giant Sewer Rat	Neutral	Fishing in Dalaran Sewers
	The Following Pets Can Be Farmed
52	Azure Whelpling	Neutral	Farmed in Azshara from Blue Dragonkin
53	Black Tabby Cat	Horde	Farmed in Silvermoon from Dalaran rare Spawn - Spellscribe
54	Dark Whelpling	Neutral	Farmed in Duskwallow Marsh from Black Dragonkin
55	Green Whelpling	Neutral	Farmed in Swamp of Sorrows from Green Whelps
56	Red Whelpling	Neutral	Farmed in Wetlands from Red Whelps
57	Disgusting Oozling	Neutral	Farmed off any LVL 50+ Ooze or Slimes (in the Ooze Covered Bags they drop)
58	Firefly	Neutral	Farmed off the Stingers East of Harbourage in Zangamarsh
	The Following Pets Can Be Obtained During World Events
59	Mr Wiggles	Children's Week
60	Peanut	Children's Week
61	Peddle Feet	Love Is In The Air
62	Wolpertinger	Brewfest
63	Winter's Little Helper - Red	Wintervale
64	Winter's Little Helper - Green	Wintervale
65	Winter Reindeer	Wintervale
66	Tiny Snowman	Wintervale
67	Vampire Batling	Hallow's End
68	Sinister Squashling	Hallow's End
69	Scorchling	Summer Flame Festival
70	Spirit of Summer	Summer Flame Festival
71	Whiskers The Rat	Children's Week
72	Sleepy Willy	Children's Week
73	Egbertt	Children's Week
74	Speedy	Children's Week
	The Following Pets are Very Difficult to Obtain, or Are No Longer Available
75	Stinker	Neutral	Rewarded after Obtaining 50 Vainity Pets
76	Mojo	Neutral	Obtained in Zul'Aman from a random Hex Stick turn in
77	Baby Blizzard Bear	Neutral	Obtained for logging on during Blizz's aniversary
	Clockwork Robot	Neutral	Obtained from Wintervale 2007
	Blizzcon Pets	Neutral	Murky
	Collector's Edition Pets	Neutral	Netherwhelp, Frosty, Mini Diablo, Panda Cub, Zergling
	Card Game Pets	Neutral

You'll Notice that I have included the 75 Pets you can acquire to get the Lil Game Hunter Achievement and the Baby Fawn Pet. This will take a long time of course, because you can only get two of the Children's Week pets a year, and some pets are not available until the appropriate World Event. Other than the wait however, getting 75 vanity pets is actually possible!!! (at first I didn't believe it was)

GOOD LUCK! And feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions or e-mail me at lilgamergirl@gmail.com

** As an after note, I forgot to add a few pets to my list!!! There are 4 different crock pets you can get from the fishing daily. They are just random from the bag of fishing treasures, but I hear you can only get them from the quest that sends you to fish a crock out of the Stormwind Canals. I'm not sure about this though, so I just do all the fishing dailies I can.
The second is a Kirin Tor Familiar. This is a difficult pet to get, and I am still working away on it! Once I get it however, I will post a seperate detailed blog about how to get it! =)

I Got What I Wanted! - WotLK Art Book

HUGE THANX to Justin for reading my blog and directing me to www.atomicmall.com where I ordered and received my very own Wrath of the Litch King art book! I was SO happy to get it!

www.atomicmall.com was great! They sent out my order right away and even included a few Blizz goodies with my purchase! I was psyched about that! The book is beautiful and has joined my Art of World of Warcraft and Art of the Burning Crusade books on my coffee table!

So if anyone else out there is looking to get one, I'd check there!

Thanx to everyone who came up with ideas as to how I might find one of these babies, including everyone who offered to sell me theirs for very reasonable prices! Hehe

Now, if I could just find a way to get myself the collectors edition pet... lol

LGG<3

Help! Where Can I Find A Copy of the WotLK Art Book??

Dear Blog Readers,

I am hoping someone out there can help me with my delema! I was stupid and did not have a chance to pre-order WOTLK Collectors Edition while they were offering it, so of course I did not get one. I know they are basically unavailable now, and that is fine because I got a regular copy of the game the day it came out, but I really REALLY want a copy of the Art of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Litch King that came in the box. I have tried amazon and ebay and neither site sells the book, only the whole collectors edition box set thing, which is sold out and which I really don't need at this point.

I already have the Art of World of Warcraft book and the Art of the Burning Crusade, and I NEEEEEED the new Wrath of the Litch King one! Does anyone out there know where one would be available?! Let me know, either in a comment or e-mail me at lilgamergirl@gmail.com.

Thank you!
LGG