Back To Wrath….Back To Reality?

After spending a lengthy amount of time on the private server “Monster,” I found myself in a relatively short honeymoon phase. Their Legion server was ok, but I made the switch to BfA and was excited at the opportunity for the content. Unfortunately reality set in and it was clear neither server was in good enough shape to call home for myself. I was just too excited early on to notice. As a result, I ended up in a mass hiatus once again. Recently, though, I found the strings to come back being pulled at my heart once more. It was heavily influenced, no doubt, by my acquiring the WoW Board Game in all it’s glory. Seriously, it’s vanilla to a tee. Or a vee, I suppose. But it gave me thought on what I wanted to do if I returned to Azeroth. I gave a lot of thought to vanilla because there’s so much stuff I missed out on, for better or worse. In the end, as the title would suggest, I went down a different path.

Indeed, back to the days of Northrend. Patch 3.3.5 to be specific. One of my happiest times in playing the game and the content was as rich as it would ever be. The server I ended up choosing seems to be a perfect fit. Everything works the way it’s supposed to (though I haven’t rolled a Death Knight yet, so that’s one of the few things I can’t speak to). No glitches, missing quests, npc’s, or anything to that end. In fact, there’s some bonus treats. They have a mall. As in, a developer created location that doesn’t look like anywhere else in the game. You have access to all the expected goodies such as Tier gear and legendaries if you’re lazy. But also you can transmog. By paying their vote/real money currency, you can get transmog tokens. One token lets you transmog one slot. Certain mounts can also be bought in this location. Ones that weren’t in the game yet. So again, it’s a purely cosmetic service. You’re also able to buy said currency with in-game gold, so even if you don’t give the server any money you are not missing out.

There are two things in particular the server does for starting out. For one, you’ve got Goblins and Worgen who spawn in existing start zones. The goblins join the orcs and trolls starting out, while the Worgen are in the Night Elf start zone. The other thing, which even modern WoW should do at this point, is the moment you hit level 10 you get the Riding skill and a version of your racial mount.  With most of the flight points players are accustomed to being nowhere in sight, having the riding mount at level 10 is a nice boon. It doesn’t make a huge difference, just that nice little assist as it were.

So, yes, there are some minor modifications to what we knew as Wrath of the Lich King. But that’s all they are. The game itself functions as one would expect it to. It’s 2009 all over again as far as I’m concerned. And that’s not a bad thing. Granted, it isn’t all sunshine and lollipops. There are some things that definitely changed for the better, but there are others I miss. And I will go into those at another time. For now, I’m playing the game on my time, my terms, and where I want to be in the WoW timeline.

Turns Out I’m Legendumb

The picture tells you all you need to know. Turns out they didn’t take my Legendary Weapons. Instead, when I transferred servers it was is if I had never gotten them. How did I come to this realization you ask? Oh, like all good ideas…I woke up in the middle of the night and as I was rolling over to go back to sleep it occurred to me I should see if I have my Dalaran hearth still and what happens if I used it.

Remember kids, I’m the same Azerothian who swam from Theramore Isle to Gadgetzan once just to get the flight path of the latter (this was during Burning Crusade). In short, I excel at doing things the hard way…

Legenda…whuhappen???

So here’s a fun little adventure, courtesy of playing on a private server. They launched a BfA one, and I (wisely) waited a bit for them to work on the main kinks in the system. Once done so, I took advantage of the opportunity they gave us to transfer our Legion server toons over. Imagine my surprise when I head into combat…empty handed!

Obviously they didn’t get the memo about us handing in our Legendary weapons. Instead they just walked in and picked them up, like some government suits or something. Needless to say, the first toon I made this discovery with was met with death quite quickly. It wouldn’t have been so bad if there were only a couple. I think I had six total. As you can see, our Death Knight friend here still hasn’t been helped out. He’s on the “to-do” list…right after my Druid finishes farming Draenor herbs so I can make him a staff to replace the ilevel 54 one he has…

That said, it’s mildly amusing in the interim to watch a Mage with a level 45 wand in hand. At least my Shaman’s 120 and geared appropriately. And my Paladin managed to find some stuff. Though it’s still in need of getting just a bit higher. But, c’est la vie when one lives the private life!

Revealing My Privates: Part One

Once upon a time I mentioned that I would share the members of the Private (server) Army. The problem for me and my stickler for things, is that I refused to do so until they were at a point where I was happy with them…Transmogrificantly speaking anyway. Yes, I’m choosing to make up the word Transmogrificantly. It’s gotta catch on better than “dab.” So while this is the first character I’m posting, none of the others are quite ready to make an appearance for one reason or another. But they’ll get there and I will post as they do.

When I rolled on the server I decided I wanted one of each class and no repeat races. Being as there are only 12 classes that meant one race was left out. Sorry Night Elf lovers. It came down to Trolls, Night Elf, and Humans and only Warlocks and Shaman left to assign. For today, though, we’ll focus on the Worgen, who takes up the Hunter slot.

Soundwaive and his loyal companion, Tone’loque.

Soundwaive started out Marksman. However, I was doing some questing in Sholazar Basin when I hit level 80. I decided to leave the zone, but because I was close enough I decided to check the spot I had always seen Loque’nahar before (east of the Savage Thicket, up on a hill). Sure enough, there she was and that meant a change in spec. Absolutely worth it. Despite what Mrs. Amateur says, Tone’loque is clever.

Then I got the idea to put together an outfit that complimented the pet and I think it came together really well. The only thing missing is the Mechanized Snow Goggles, because I can’t find Borean Leather for the life of me…and my Skinner isn’t high enough to go get me some.

I made this outfit pre-100, so I found it convenient that the Titanstrike artifact for Beast Mastery is pretty much a perfect fit with the look. Here’s the rest of the components you see:

Head: None, but again will be Mechanized Snow Goggles
Shoulder: Mountainscaler Chain Spaulders
Cloak: Wyrmcultist’s Cloak
Chest: Kurken Padded Chainmail
Hands: Brazen Gauntlets
Waist: Padded Chain Belt
Legs: Bramblescar Legguards
Feet: Mountainscaler Chain Sabatons

Soundwaive is the third private to arrive in New Dalaran. With 100 levels under his belt he’ll be deployed to Aszuna soon enough. But first he’s going to spend some more time in his lab, further developing his Engineering and Alchemy.