Still alive and kickin’!
I didn’t fall off the edge of the world, but I was busy juggling real life and the exciting new world of Pandaria. Time for a little update of my impressions and what I’ve been up to so far.
Thankfully, I was able to take time off work for the Release of Mists of Pandaria. I was one of those people who was online at Midnight and got in a frenzy to go explore the new World. The Mister and I were up for a 24 hours gaming marathon before we went to bed and caught a couple of hours sleep.
Eventhough it might sound that way, my intention wasn’t to be the first Hunter to hit Level 90. My thrill was to do every single quest on the way, I fished in pools of fish I didn’t know and dug up archaeology bits and pieces on the way. I just love to discover new areas. And I found the Yaks pretty soon. The Mister and I both had our gold saved up for these and went and bought them immediately. They are simply awesome!!!
I’m still here! *waves*
Sorry for the lack in posting, but work was really crazy those past two weeks. Then there was of course the MoP Pre-Patch that kept me busy and blogging was kind of forgotten for a while. 🙂
Lots of people are talking about Mists of Pandaria right now, but I won’t go into detail myself. Let’s just say I’m thrilled! I was really looking forward to the Pre-Patch and you know what the best thing is in my opinion? Not the account wide achievements, though they are cool. Not the the sharing of mounts and pets across all characters, though this is nifty, too. But what really thrilled me was the AoE looting. I LOVE it! I sometimes go on this farming sprees where I just like to bomb stuff away and the AoE looting is simply AWESOME! And yeah, that way I ended up getting the Black Tabby in about 20.000 kills…. teehee…
I was also lucky enough to kill the Darkmoon Rabbit last week (this screenshot was made with the add-on Multishot. Isn’t that nifty? It even gives a timestamp!):
It was really tough but lots of fun also. Basically it’s a DPS race and running a lot from the Ghosthealer to the battle site and keep on fighting. As a hunter, it’s a bit easier. I love my feign death button… teehee. I didn’t get the bunny pet, but that’s ok. It was all about the experience and the fun of it.
After there was a tiny bit of guild drama a couple of weeks ago, all is well now. We’re doing a lot of achievement runs together and we’re wiping lots trying our hands on Heroic modes in Bastion of Twilight or Blackwing Descent. But it’s ok and we have lots of fun doing so.
I’m very giddy for Mists of Pandaria to finally hit. A couple of years ago Buffed , which is like WoWhead, but in German, did a special about gaming and food and that there are other alternatives than just pizza and coke.
This blog ain’t called Panem et Circenses for nothing. 🙂 I plan to share our Mists of Pandaria foods during the next couple of days. I won’t kid you, the MoP release week won’t be the healthiest food-wise; but we can throw in some veggies and even remotely healthy choices.
So stay tuned! 🙂
Battlechickens‘ August challenge: I’m a Collector
seen on the facebook fanpage of Razer
It was only recently that I came across Battlechickens Blog. I saw her July challenge “Something About You” at Arsenic and Old Mooncloth my old guildmate Moraith’ Blog. I’ve just written my little “Tale of Anka and Aidan” at the time and decided to leave a note about it. I didn’t properly link to Battlechicken then and still I got quite a few new readers.
*wave* Hi! So nice of you all to drop by!
This time I do it the proper way. Title, links and all.
Ducks and Achievements
Yesterday one of my guildies told me that Anka means “Duck” in Swedish. And when googling it, I found out that Donald Duck is called Kalle Anka in Sweden or Aku Ankka in Finland. What does that make me? A Duck Hunter? (are there even Ducks in World of Warcraft? I think I never saw any… *contemplates*… ) Oh well.
These days everyone is talking about the achievements and the seasonal events. There was the Lunar Festival, then we had the monthly Darkmoon Faire and now we’re in the last throes of the Love is in the Air event. There are guides to the achievements and the quests everywhere.
BUT
What about those people who already got them?
I admit it – I’m an achievement nut. I LOVE farming achievements. I’m always looking forward to the seasonal events in the hopes that there will be new achievements added. For the Lunar Festival, I completed the Elders of Cataclysm and farmed enough tokens to buy the new pet. During the Darkmoon Faire I did my Daily Quests religiously, so I may buy all the mounts and pets eventually. For the Love is in the Air Event I also did all the Dailies the first week and then farmed the rest of the tokens so I may buy the Pink Strider Mount. And I continue doing the Daily Dungeon for the Heartshaped Box in the hopes for the Pink Love Rocket or the Oozling. (you might have guessed – I’m a Mount and Pet collector…)
When the concept of Achievements was first introduces in WoW I was all excited about it. I would tireless farm for the most unusual achievements. I got all my reputations to exalted. I farmed. I grinded. I even got the “Insane in the Membrane” achievement when it was still hard to get and included the Exalted Rep for the Shendralar. I was farming mounts and pets. I did the Loremaster on both Horde and later Alliance side when it was still hard and the quests not tidily sorted by country. I adored to discover the most hidden quests, those secret places…
I would say I completed the majority of achievements that can be done alone. Except the PVP stuff. Because let’s face it – I suck at PVP. Every now and then I would try my hand at it again and depending on my form of the day, I would get so impatient and angry, that my Sweetheart is telling me to go play something else before I break the keyboard.
But now I’m running out of Achievements to accomplish. There are of course some raid achievements, but those I can’t do by myself and it’s tough to get enoug people together. I think I might try and start a regular achievement hunting night again once the situation in my RL has settled down.
Of course there’s the possibility to do all those achievements with an Alt. Yes, I have alts. I even have another hunter. (In fact, I have three hunters. But that’s a story for some other time). But Tanyanka has always been – and will always be – my Main and the girl who gets all the Cheesemints. (Note: The term “Cheesemint” was created by some people in my guild, because it sounds similar to “Achievement”, but is loads funnier) Therefore, farming Cheesemints with my other Alts just ain’t that fun!
Maybe I’ll stick to picking flowers for the time being. 😉
All the cool kids have a WordPress Blog…
Well, hello there Blogging world! Here I am, yet another World of Warcraft girl gamer deciding she needs to have her space on the internet to babble about stuff. So let me introduce myself to you – Hi, I’m Tanyanka, also know as Anka, the Huntress. I got the name Anka thanks to my guildmates. Everyone has a nickname and so they decided mine was Anka. I liked it and here I am, Anka.
I began playing WoW at the end of 2006, shortly before the launch of The Burning Crusade. At first I didn’t have a clue about anything and was simply hopping around Azeroth happily and picking flowers. My favourite memory is when I was questing for the first time in Darkshore. I had a quest where I had to dive in the sea – and it just wouldn’t work! I was so desperate I opened a ticket asking a GM for help. Who then patiently helped me and explained how to dive. Note – I downloaded the whole game from the website and created a Nightelf Warrior on an Oceanic server. I didn’t have a clue at the time what that meant and thought it sounded pretty…
Eventually my cousin, who was playing an Orc Warrior took me by the hand and led me through Azeroth. So I actually bought the game and created a Troll Huntress with pink hair named Tanyanka. I was only level two and in the starting area, when some Alliance player was riding through it. I was on a PVP server at the time and again – had no clue. All I saw was a player with a red bar and he was so not supposed to be there! So I hit him. With my staff. And was introduced to the Ghosthealer… But hey, what did the alliance dude think he was doing there, riding through troll territory! I had to defend it, right?
Eventually, my cousin and his friends taught me with lots and lots of patience how to play a hunter. They introduced me to guides on the web and where I could look up stuff. They also ran dungeons with me and explained what raiding was. What can I say – they were really great in teaching an enthusiastic newbie with no clue at all. Well – I brought it to level 70 before someone explained to me that I can’t pull a mob into a trap with serpent sting… because, well, you know – serpent sting is a dot and gets the bad guy out again…
My first attempts at raiding were in Karazhan. And it was amazing. I came a long way since then – learned a lot, met many awesome people, made friends and lost them again but WoW was always a great experience for me. Hey, I even met the love of my life through it!
Eventually my Tanyanka went through a race change and is now a Nightelf Huntress. But she still got some Troll Blood in her and is a Vol’Jin fangirl deep in her heart… I found a faboulous home at the guild Enthusiasm on Darkmoon Faire – EU. Unfortunately, raiding is on a backburner for me at the moment due to RL. But hey, I can still write about my favourite hobby and my thoughts about it and tell you about my memories.
Also, since I love to cook and bake, I will post about that, too. Most of my recipes are fit to be eaten while raiding. Or are prepared quickly while still being tasty and healthy.
Tanyanka posing in Stormwind, something she seldom does.
Anka Huntress 