New friends

Last weekend, I was on twitter when I saw that the guild Stands in Bad (SiB) was recruiting. Now you may not know this, but I'm a huge fan of a lot of bloggers from that guild. People like Kialesse, Achloryn, Dhevon, Kat and Pixelated Executioner. I had been talking to some of them from time to time on twitter, but when the occasion presented itself, I decided it would be fun to actually join their guild. I haven't been in there for very long, but it's been very fun so far! Everyone is nice and welcoming, and also very funny.

But that's not all!

Not long after I hit publish on my post Wednesday night, I was whispered by Navimie who wanted to take a picture with me!

I was nervous, though I can't explain exactly why. I'm pretty shy, and meeting new people is always a bit stressful for me. Even though Navimie insisted she wasn't new, since she often commented on my blog. And it's true. But I have to admit I was pretty starstruck! However, Navi was so sweet and adorable that soon I felt completely at ease! 

The fun part is, she was actually trying to find Kialesse, Achloryn, and Pixelated Executioner! I just happened to be on the server at the time, leveling an alt also named Lyrestra! What a lovely coincidence!

Navimie and Lyrestra =D

So Kia, Achloryn and Pix came to meet us in the Exodar where we took a couple pictures and chatted a bit, but Navi was lagging a lot, so we took a portal to Darnassus to see if it would be better. And it was!

Kialesse, Achloryn, Lyrestra, Navimie and Pixelated Executioner

It was pretty fun to all be there together chatting with Navimie. Thank you for your visit Navi! <3

And thank you people from Stands in Bad, you guys are awesome!

Quick Post : And then started the Twitter madness

I've had a twitter account for some time now, but never used it. Why? Because new things scare me sometimes, especially a "complicated" thing like twitter. To a noob, it can be pretty intimidating. But yesterday, I received a notification that someone was following me on Twitter. It was Asherrylie from Priest all the things. So I went and followed her, too. Then I added stuff to my profile. And then started the madness.

See I'm super shy, and usually keeps to myself, so going and following all those people (other bloggers) was a bit of an adventure for me. I've got eight followers now and I'm happy. Ya, I get excited easily. I'm weird like that.

Being social doesn't always come naturally for me. Guess this will help me work on that. Be nice with the twitter noob, people. =P

I'm the biggest idiot ever

I just now went to Darkmoon Faire Island to check it out.

Oh. My. God.

I haven't had that much fun in, well, quite some time. Why the fuck didn't I pay attention to people saying how cool the DMF Island is? How can anyone resist a fun evening at the Faire?

Jori started by visiting the animals. She particularly liked to see Mabaka the giraffe, Violet the tallstrider and Gargantua the gorilla.

Jori then played some mini games, scored some achievements, rode a pony, got a cute little sea pony companion pet, drank beer and ate Corn-Breaded Sausages until she couldn't eat any more.

Cassie and Jessie went to the Faire as well, but they only did their professions quests for some bonus points. Cassie wants to try and get enough Darkmoon Prize tickets to buy a Darkmoon cub. Naesa might try to get one as well. She heard how much fun Jori had tonight and decided to go and check it out for herself. As for Jori, she wants to adopt an adorable Darkmoon turtle. They're all looking forward to next month! (And I sorta wish I had started this sooner. At least I'm not looking to buy any of the more expensive mounts.)

Edit:

When Cassie went back to the Faire to try out the mini-games, she came across a dancing bear that was just sitting there.

She started dancing, and he soon joined her!

And she also saw the Strongest Woman Alive!

And later, Naesa got her very own Sea Pony!

Lastly, Naesa went to the L90ETC concert and had a blast! The music was amazing, and she danced her little heart out!

 She may or may not have left with Sig Nicious after the show. Rock stars are hawt, trufax.

One man army and twenty four others

I love the Raid Finder. I love it a lot.

Why? Simply because… I love free epics. I enjoy being with 24 people that I don’t know, one shotting raid bosses and getting loot. The raid finder is like the friday night T11 alt run that my old guild used to do. You can make a drinking game of it and still win. (ie: you drink everytime someone does something stupid, or dies, or aggroes random stuff. Trust me, you drink a lot.)

I do miss being with people that I know, sometimes. I miss the friendly atmosphere. Most pugs hate your guts, just for being a random stranger. And I get it. I don't particularly like most random strangers, too.

I love doing my thing on my own. But raiding has always been a social activity. You usually have to use Vent or the equivalent, and sometimes people are funny, or plain stupid, and then I mute vent… but that’s besides the point.

In the Raid Finder, you can listen to music and not even pay attention to chat and still win, if you have even just the faintest idea of what you’re doing. Even on spine, if you know what to attack and when, you can pretty much wing it. Most of the time, I like that. It’s like a one person raid. The other 24 people could be NPC’s for all I care. NPCs that steal my loot, mind you.

Sure it can be painful at times. Some groups can't figure out what to do, or just don't care, and we end up wiping to Spine or Madness. I can't tell you how many times I've had the urge to strangle strangers through their monitor. I often fantasize about being able to physically inflict pain on pugs douchebags.

But sometimes, you're lucky, and the pugs will be quiet, or even won't say a word at all, they won't die stupidly and you will kill the bosses in a relatively smooth manner. Just sometimes, things die fast, and you don't have time to actually feel the pain that is pugging. Some people love pugs that talk and are friendly. Me, I prefer the silent ones. It makes it so much easier for me to pretend they aren't people. Now, that doesn't mean I'm a jerk and roll on stuff I don't need or make their lives miserable by standing in bad and hitting the mob the tank had no aggro on. No. I'm considerate towards those "not real people." But I don't feel like I have to be especially nice or friendly to them. It's not that I don't like people. It's just that sometimes, I just don't feel like being social.

I haven't raided in months, other than the Raid Finder, and I like it that way. I got tired of the commitment that is raiding. I find that I don't always feel like raiding three hours a night, three nights a week. I enjoy being able to raid whenever I feel like it. Maybe that will change in MoP. I'll probably try and find a raiding guild at some point. But for now, I'm just enjoying being on my own.

Newbie Blogger Initiative

Two bloggers from my blogroll were talking about this NBI thing this morning, and as I am fairly new to the blogging thing, I decided to check it out. You should too, whether you're a blogger or not. It's there to help new bloggers get some visibility, some advices from more experienced bloggers, and also, to encourage you to start your own blog if you want to. I think it's the best thing ever. Because blogging is awesomely fun, but not everyone knows exactly how the hell to get people to read what you have to say.

When I was still blogging about Swtor, I found it easier to just go and comment on other people's blogs telling them : hey! love your blog, btw I'm new here, you should check my blog!" because the Swtor blog community was fairly smaller than WoW's. And also, everyone was rather new to it. Since Swtor is four months old, not counting the beta.

Maybe it's just me, but I find it intimidating to try and make my way in the WoW blogosphere. There's so many other bloggers out there! Amazing bloggers. Some of them have been blogging for years. I feel like a little ant in the world of the giants, trying to get one of them to pay attention to me and my ramblings. But maybe that's just my low self-esteem talking. XD 

So thank you NBI, and thank you to the people that make it happen.

May will be the month of write ALL THE THINGS, make ALL THE FRIENDS, and have ALL THE FUN. =D 

My pain, let me show you it

Today was the beginning of the Children's Week, and I've been worrying about this particular achivevement for days. You know. That 'chieve that everyone hates. Except maybe a couple masochistic and profoundly disturbed individuals. (But then again, some people do this daily, without the promise of getting a shiny dragon for it. That is just beyond me.)

School of Hard Knocks. How I hate you so very, very hard.

I still needed to do five dailies with my orphan out, so I went and did that, in order to delay the inevitable just a little while longer. I saw a post from Kia over at Sisterhood of Kia which gave me hope. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all. Maybe I would even have some fun in the process!

I was wrong. So very very wrong. But that's not Kia's fault. Her post just gave me the encouragement I needed to actually try and do it. 

I won't lie to you. SoHK was physically painful for me to do. At some point, I just /afk'd out of Eye of the Storm, thinking "Screw this. I hate Blizz. I hope they all choke and die." I may or may not have thought about ending my life right here and then. Just so I could go and haunt all the motherfuckers doing BGs during Children's Week and verbally abusing poor little noobs like me who just want their motherfucking achivement.

A couple hours later, after I had calmed down, I tried again.

My heart was beating pretty hard when I was finally able to grab the motherfucking flag and run to one of our bases. It took me one Arathi Basin, two Alterac Valley, three Eye of the Storm and one Warsong Gulch. I was pretty lucky. There were absolutely no skill involved, not on my part anyway. It might not look at much to you. I did do this in one evening. But for me, a girl who hates PvP, it felt like an eternity and then some.

There were some nice Alliance people in the second AV I joined that were re-capping towers so that we could take turns assaulting them. In AB, I let an alliance hunter assault a flag. Like, I just stood there, with my orphan out, and let him take it so that I could do mine after. But that ungrateful hoe sent his pet on me and left. 

That's what I get for being nice.

So after I died, I came back, fought those dirty, dirty Alliance bitches (no offence to Alliance readers. If you're not in my BG, making my life miserable, I heart ya.) and was able to assault a flag. 

EotS was the most crappiest, fun-sucking, unbearably painful part for me. We were all just fighting in mid, losing all our bases in some cases, just getting our asses kicked and watching others grab the flag while we were fleeing in terror, or falling to our deaths. Gotta love fear. And typhoon. And thunderfuck. Not.

Anyway. It was by shear luck that at some point I grabbed the flag AND RAN FOR MY LIFE! All the way there I was praying to anyone who could hear me to just LET ME GET THERE OMG!!1!!!1!!

Then there was only WSG left. It was the one I was most scared of. All for nothing. It took all of five minutes and I was done. Some dude came to grab our flag - in our base - alone. No backup whatsoever. Me and a warrior - who was also after the flag - beat the shit out of him, and I started spam-clicking the flag. By that time, I had stopped being helpful. Fuck him, he can get his 'chieve after I'm done. 

My heart stopped when I saw the achievement pop.

I'm so terribly glad to be done with this. I hate PvP'ing. With a passion. And being forced to PvP for a year-long meta achievement like What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been is pure torture. I don't know who had the idea, but the guy is a MORON. 

After I was done with that, I went and took my orphans for a ride, and got me two new pets. I (finally) got my third pet for Veteran Nanny. I was pretty pleased.

I'm just glad this is past me and that I won't have to redo this ever again. Hang in there if you're having a hard time completing this. It's hard. It's no fun. But if I can do this, so can you. 

Adventures in Tankingland

Be vewy quiet, I'm hunting dwagons.

I’m having a total blast tanking with my paladin. Avenger's shield is just so amazingly good. But as I level and get more tanking experience, I’ve come to realize certain things.

- I loooooove tanking. Like I never thought I would.

- Avenger's shield is one of my favourite abilities in game.

- I hate boomkins. With a fucking passion. Typhoon my mobs one more time and I swear I’m letting you tank them all. One of them was pulling everything in sight by typhooning half dead mobs into packs of mobs. The healer was frantically filling green bars while I was taunting all the mobs to me. Let’s do this again never, mkay?

- Same thing applies to elemental shaman and their thunderfuck of doom.

- I also hate frost mages that frost nova mobs before they can reach me, which makes it hard to keep aggro on all of them.

- I hate warriors that taunt off me. When they are dps.

- I hate mage and hunters (or any ranged class, really) pulling shit at random just because they can.

- I hate most people, period. The healer that tells me to pull half the fucking instance cuz he’s bored, the dps that pull ahead of me and bitch when they die (cuz I don’t taunt off you if you pull on purpose.), and I hate every single person rolling on gear they don’t fucking need just because they can.

And I’ve just realized that soon I’ll have to deal with noob Death Knights too, with their death grip and their DnD of doom. /shudder

Madly

Today's Breakfast Topic over on WoW Insider asks us : Do you play with your significant other?

Yes, yes I do.

When I met Mad, he had just started playing the WoW beta. I knew nothing about gaming. The only games I had played were final fantasy 7, 8 and 9. Mad talked non-stop about raids, and instances, and dps, and all sorts of things I didn't understand. He seemed to be having a lot of fun, and every friday night he would be raiding with his guild. He often told me about Onyxia and UBRS and I honestly wasn't interested in hearing about it.

For a long time, WoW was for me something that prevented me from spending time with my boyfriend.

And someday, I can't remember whose idea it was, but there was a human mage that was created. Her name was Joriany. I ran around the Northshire Abbey and I got lost! (For something like a year I got lost a lot in Azeroth. Everywhere. Anywhere. If there were more than one way to go, you'd know I would take the wrong one.) But then I killed some wolf by throwing fire at them. And I ran accross Elwynn Forest, killing things and collecting items and got clothes to put on my lady mage. And then I went to Stormwind. 

Oh. My. GOD!

Yeah, and just like that, I was hooked. Haven't stopped ever since.

By the time I started playing, Mad had stopped and restarted playing. Burning Crusade was in full swing. Mad had picked some new server for us to start creating new characters (because in a fit of "I'm not playing this game ever again", Mad had deleted all his geared level 60 toons, along with all the money he had. Fat lot of good that did.) Mad has stopped playing many times over the years (we lost count), but he always came back. Probably because of me shoving it in his face all the time. And I have to admit, it's a lot more fun with him around.

If I had to pick someone that I admire the most as a player, it would be Mad. He patiently taught me everything about the game, helped me find my way when I got lost. Crafted me gear, gave me gold to buy shiny things I wanted. Created guilds for me, just because I liked a name. Got me into Naxx runs and taught me how to raid. 

He is good at everything he does. Healing, tanking, dpsing, he does it all the best he can. And that's usually a lot better than me. I'm an average player, all things considered, but Mad has that little something more that makes him a great player (maybe even an exceptional one but I might be biased). He puts a lot of effort into what he's doing, simply because he wants to be the best.

I'd follow him to a hardcore progression guild if that's where he wanted to go. I wouldn't - obviously - raid with said guild, but I'd stick with him and support him anyway I can. And I know he'd do the same for me, because he did. He followed me to a new server to raid with new people, and he'd do it again. Because WoW is something that we share and enjoy together. 

So yeah, I play with my SO, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Where it all starts

Yay, first post!

I’m Lyrestra, and I’m an altoholic.

I’m french-canadian.

I love to write, I enjoy playing World of Warcraft, and I’ve decided to get my own corner of the internet and share my experience in Azeroth.

I also love most classes, and I switch from one to another depending on my mood.

I love being a ranged, a melee, a healer and a tank. Just not equally.

I love to run old school raids for transmog gear, achievements and giggles.

I love to collect non-combat pets.

I love the winterspring mount and Talbuks.

I love taming spirit beasts.

I’m nostalgic about the WotLK era.

I could never level a warlock past level 40.

I’m currently horde and miss being a Night Elf/Draenei.

For a long time I was a dedicated raider, but now, while I eagerly wait for an invite in the Mists of Pandaria Beta, I just do whatever I feel like doing.

I level alts, I do random dungeons and I suffer through weekly LFRs (Looking For Retards).

I play Star Wars : the Old Republic on the side.

I can’t wait to roll a cutie panda lady because they are adorable!

I don’t know if I’ll level a monk to 90, but I’ll try it out for sure.

No matter how hard I try, I just can’t leave this game.

So yeah, I’m Lyrestra and this is my blog about World of Warcraft.