Sunday, December 30, 2007

Tawyn's a Happy Hunter

To start out with an update on my custom avatars; basically I've looked into it and I've run into some problems involving the legality of selling them because they're renditions of Blizzard's property. Yes, you could argue that I'm just a small little bug compared to their big corporation, but I dunno, I've been big Blizz fans since my StarCraft obsession phase almost ten years ago so I'd like to play it safe when it comes to my relationship with them. =P

I did get a lot of interest in my avatars though and I'm still sort of trying to come up with a way to offer them without making them entirely free, simply because while I'd love to give them away for free, the fact of the matter is that it takes a few hours to make each one and it'd be difficult to squeeze them into my time. One of my ideas is maybe setting up a little charitable drive, sort of like The Bronze Kettle did, only not on as big a scale. But I'll keep brainstorming and keep you guys updated. If you were interested in an avatar I apologize for keeping you waiting on any final decisions.

Anyways, let's discuss WoW.

Yesterday, I ran both Steamvaults and Shadow Labs.

Steamvaults dropped a very nice [Beast Lord Mantle] for me, which I promptly gem'd up and threw a Scryer inscription on.

Shadow Labs... well, I was praying to the hunter gods for Sonic Spear, especially because our motley crew had to endure several hours of pain in this particular instance (we went through three different tanks, one of which decided to leave the party without saying a word... and Grandmaster Vorpil... oh Grandmaster Vorpil... *shudders* ... we wiped on this guy no less than five times)... so yeah, Sonic Spear would've been an awesome consolation prize but it appears that the hunter gods have more Shadow Labs runs for me in the future. I did, however, get the first fragment of the Kara key.

So! Not content with that outcome, I headed to the Auction House and bought myself both [Breastplate of Rapid Striking] and [Crystalforged War Axe]. Then I bought all the mats for Savagery and got the latter enchanted with that. My wallet is getting pretty thin and I've got some farming ahead of me but mmm. My un-buffed agility is now 434 and my crit is 18.85%. You should see me with Mark of the Wild and Blessing of Kings. Mmmmm. *eyes glaze over*

Ahem, sorry.

I think I'm doing okay for a pre-Kara hunter. I'm slowly replacing my greens with blues and getting enchants for them. Expensive? Yeah. Worth it when I open up my character sheet and see my stats? Oh yeah.

I've got more Steamvaults and Shadow Labs runs ahead of me, because I'd like the other piece of Beast Lord that you can get in SV (decreased trap cooldown... mmm hunter gear is yummy, no?), and because I'd still like Sonic Spear if I can nab it.

Oh, and /wave at Mirshalak and Pelides, both of whom have now made characters on Silver Hand to say hello! I owe you both a visit on your servers now. =P

Since I'm getting more visitors that way, I figured it'd be good to mention a few things. Firstly you are more than welcome to say hi to me and chat it up with me, so long as I'm not in battlegrounds or an instance. =D If I'm bored or not doing much I'll even come find you "in person" and we can have a little visit.

If you would like to make a more dedicated alt on Silver Hand, to try out RPing or whatever, I should mention that while our guild Entelechy is usually open to anyone interested in having a good time with some fun (and just a bit weird) people, doing some instances, and casual roleplaying, our recruitment is sort of semi-closed at the moment due largely to rapid growth and wanting to concentrate on our current members, so I can't guarantee you a spot in the guild if you're interested in one. Besides, very, very few people in my guild know I have this blog anyway. Partially 'cause I've never really had a reason to bring it up, and partially because there are a lot of very good players in my guild, both hunters and non-hunters, and I wouldn't want to steal anybody's limelight by being "the one with the blog". Heehee =P

Oh, and you are also more than welcome to try and catch me horde-side on The Venture Co. as well. My main character there is Lunapike, and I play her a few times a week, usually in the mornings. The Venture Co. seems to have more RP going on than Silver Hand (admittedly, Silver Hand isn't exactly known as a mecca for RP), so you might want to try that out if you're curious.

Today's question that I pose to you: where do you do your farming? ...and no, you don't have to give away your super-secret location to me, if you don't want to. =P

8 comments:

Faeldray said...

Thinking about the whole avatar thing, what you're making is fan art as I see it (and the way Blizzard would probably see it).

In their legal stuff, they say that it's okay for non-commercial and personal use so it would be a no-no to accept money for it. I can see that you work hard on these and deserve money for them so the only thing I can think of is to make the avatars and then accept donations on your site. You'll have to hope that people will "donate" because they appreciate your work.

I don't know...it's just an idea.

Eldron said...

Best of luck with the Beast Lord set. I had the leggings drop on my very first lvl 70 instance run over 4 months ago, and have never seen another item drop since, despite being exalted with Cenarion and Sha'tar. Wowwiki reckons that they have the worst drop rate out of all of the D3 sets.

Might I suggest going for the Desolation gear instead? It's really good for a strong DPS hunter, the +35 hit rating from getting 2 of the set is invaluable, and 3 out of the 5 drop in non-heroic instances (Shattered Halls, Sethekk Halls, and Black Morass)

Anonymous said...

The +35 hit rating set bonus from Desolation does not work for ranged.

As far as your graphics go, I'm not sure whether it falls under fair use. But speaking anecdotally, I've seen tons of shirts and stickers that use the WoW font and some images all over the place. In your case, your work is original renditions of in-game characters. I'd look into fair use laws if I were you. :)

Anonymous said...

The only time I farm is for mithril/thorium/etc...for mithril, badlands is THE place to be. There is also a great deal of iron there. A few loops in that zone on an epic mount and you've got 66 ore to smelt in no time at all.

Other than that, i try to avoid farming...its not fun for me at all and I get quite...unhappy. So this is the reason I'm mostly broke

Broke but happy :)

Eldron said...

Angry Raider said...

"The +35 hit rating set bonus from Desolation does not work for ranged."

Ooh, close, but not quite.

WoWwiki's entry on the Desolation Battlegear reads:

"3/1/07 The 4-piece bonus on this set does not proc off ranged attacks, so this looks to be a Shaman set for the time being."

The +hit bonus is the 2-piece bonus, the 4-piece bonus is the attacks granting 160AP/15 second bonus, which would appear not to proc off of ranged attacks.

The obvious solution? Get the Desolation gear, then fight melee constantly.

What's that? NO! BRK, get ur pet off of me! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!




:P

Khadar said...

I was on the road to getting my full Dungeon 3 Set up until I realized PvP gear was better and will do fine for Karazhan or any other raids to up your gear. Good luck with it though!

Rayare said...

Pike, this is a little off-topic, but anywho.

So I've been told I should reroll on an RP server because of my play style a number of times.

And I also wanted to swing by Silver Hand to say hello!

So I made yet another alt (I know, we were talking about this earlier on my blog, hahah) hunter on SH! Unfortunately you weren't online, so I couldn't say hi or ask you how in the world the whole RP thing works, heehee! I will have to catch you another time, so anticipate a visit from me soon while I try and level my little ally hunter.

Kibbler's Bits and Love,
Troll (aka Pangea on Silver Hand)

Mirshalak said...

From what I've been seeing, SH really isn't such a great place for RP.

Pike, I was thinking of maybe actually making an alt over on Venture Co., since I'll admit I am a lot more comfortable playing a Horde toon, and with you only playing a few times a week, there's possibly more of a chance conceivably that I'll catch up to you!