Ha! We all see how well that’s been working for me.

Part of the problem, I think, was that I set two rules for myself when I started the blog that I tried very hard to follow.

1. No bitching. My loot didn’t drop! Nerf rogues! I hate the game! Nobody likes to read other people’s complaints, and I’m not gonna use the blog for just venting about WoW.

2. Original content. This one has really been the tough one. There’s a TON of fantastic bloggers out there that do a far better job with what they write about than I ever could, and parroting them isn’t something I’m keen on. I would like people to read this site because there’s information here that’s of service to them, not because I have the ability to paraphrase what other people have said.

Unfortunately my rules have put me into a rather tight bind. Feral druid, resto druid, healing… pretty much everything that can be written about is already being thorughly covered by other bloggers.

… except Elemental Shaman, I’ve noticed. A possible opening!

I also have a few other ideas that I’ve started on that don’t necessarily relate to gameplay (specs/raiding/gears/etc), but are hopefully still topics that people will find interesting and relevant.

Something else that I didn’t really plan on when I set this all up was the time investment that would be involved, and how that would be affected by my… undisciplined nature, shall we say? It’s really tough for me to force myself to sit down and do this, especially since creativity tends to strike when I’m nowhere near the computer, or not necessarily in a situation where I can immediately write something down (lolraid).

But like I said above – I’ve got some ideas, a few drafts started. We’ll see where this thing goes, huh?

I’m still here, and I’m not giving in!

• Equipping x pieces of superior quality armor
• Killing a raid boss.
• Getting all the Brewfest Regalia

… and so forth. Pretty much anything you can conceivably DO in the game has an achievement attached to it.

As I was browsing the PTR forums earlier today, I noticed Maaven has set up a new theme in his/her signature.

Fake Achievements Pt. 2:
The One: Dodge 100 Projectiles.
Banhammah’d: Earn the ire of Maaven.
My Milkshake: Buff 500 different characters without moving.

This reminded me of a conversation I had with some friends of mine when the achievements system was first announced about some additions we thought they should make. Our list included a ton of stupid stuff like…

“Achievement earned: You’ve cast your first spell!”
“Achievement earned: This is your first spirit run!”
“Achievement earned: You fell to your death!”

Our list eventually would up ending with “Achievement earned: You took a joke too far!” >.>

What silly, stupid, and awesome additions would you make to the achievement system?

She’s a shy, stuttering young lady who grew up on a farm in the outer areas of Elwynn Forest. She doesn’t really interact with others that much, mostly preferring to stay quiet and unnoticed.

Then she went to Outland, and started getting quest rewards.

So much for the innocence of youth, huh?

Seriously though, I would love to meet the person who designed those pants and ask them what they were smoking.

Well, the other day I logged on to Etsi and noticed that she had mail from an alt that I never play. Now when I say never, I mean never. Never as in my last time logging into this alt was prior to the launch of the Burning Crusade. Never as in I can’t even remember his guild, spec, or professions. I think you get the idea that it’s been a while.

I was understandably concerned that I’d been keylogged again.

I quickly hoofed Etsi over to a mailbox, not really having any idea what to expect, and opened it to discover a full page of mail from this alt. Things like a crapload of engineering materials, about 40 repair bots… sound familiar? It’s all the stuff that was removed from Etsi. Apparently the keylogger was in the process of mailing everything of hers to the first character on the character select screen (the unplayed alt) when I interrupted them and reset the password.

It also explains why Blizzard didn’t restore a lot of my stuff – it wasn’t really gone. The only thing that I didn’t get back are my Badges of Justice (obviously, since they’re soulbound), instead I have 9 nice shiny Nether Vortices.

So, lesson to be learned – make sure you check ALL of your characters periodically, especially if you suspect your account has been broken into.

It does raise an interesting question though – I thought mail ingame bounced after 30 days. Why am I getting the stuff back after 60?

Notice how well Kael’thas rhymes with chaos? I’m sure that’s intentional. *grin*

We’ve mastered phase 1, and we’re doing pretty awesome at getting the weapons killed quickly in phase two. It’s just phase three when everything goes to pieces.

We’ll get him, though. It’s just a matter of time.

I’m sure you get the idea.

So! Someone in a channel that I lurk in was looking for some people to help with RFD. I was bored, and I had time, so away I went! Turns out that it was two parents and their 10-year-old with myself and one other to round out the group. I completely approve of parents playing games with their children, and their kid did a fine job on their DPS warrior. In fact, the entire group did pretty well for being a pickup – we had close calls, sure, but we always managed to pull through. I think we only had one true wipe. The pally healer good, and I had great fun tossing shields on people when needed.

Things I learned from my first instance!
-Even at level 40, threat reduction talents, or rather the lack thereof, make a noticable difference.
-Power Word: Shield is love.
-Buffing as a priest sucks. SUUUCKS.
-When you shackle something… keep an eye on it to make sure it stays shackled. (Gimme a break on this one, my first time playing CC in an instance.)
-Mind flay is superb for running mobs.

I went into the instance about 5 bubbles away from level 40, but I didn’t have any rest experience so I wasn’t really expecting to level. We were on the last pull before the final boss (a six-pull), trying desperately to wrap up before people had to leave. I was out of mana, low on health, and had already used desperate prayer. The warlock was down, the DPS warrior was down, and the situation looked pretty bad. Just as my health was nearing zero, one of the warlock’s curses finished ticking on a mob, and *FWOOSH* – I hit level 40! Full health and mana, WOOHOO! I quickly tossed a shield on myself and the healer, faded, did a little in-combat talent spending to pick up shadowform, and we killed off the rest of those mobs!

I love opportune levelling, I really do.

That’s right, your loveable favorite nekkid cow has been (in addition to lazy, busy, moving, un-creative, etc) in Boston for the Red Hat Summit! ZOMG!

The cool part of this is… well, Botson! The bad part is that my hotel’s internet connection has the latency of a gummy worm, and I can just barely browse the web and chat, let alone play WoW. So I’ve been off doing other things.

I return Sunday! Look for me to get back into regular posting then!

Before I go, though, I’d like to take a moment and answer my first reader question!

Rod says…

Hey I was wondering where you got your Realm Status gizmo on your front page?

We’d love to have one like that on our web page.

Rod, that’s a teeny little PHP script I found here. It’s fairly easy to configure, and pretty damn nifty if I do say so myself.

“Unfortunately, the Account Investigator has recovered all the items and money that they were able to in the course of the investigation.”

/crytime

Oh well. At least they didn’t unlearn my professions or anything crappy like that.

Guess it’s time to go farm more repair bot materials.

Thanks in advance!

Edit: Jezrael hooked me up. Thanks a ton!

Last Wednesday I get home and happen to spy an email in my mailbox titled “World of Warcraft Account NEKKIDCOW* – Account Change Notice”. Hmm, I say to myself, that can’t be good. Opening the email shows that my password had been changed. Double ungood!

Quickly I do the “Halp I forgot my password” option on the WoW website, get my temporary password, and quickly run through my characters. Max, looks okay. Mal, looks okay. Etsi… well, crap. Etsi had nothing on her except her hearthstone and whatever gear couldn’t be vendored. Not cool! I made a quick check of the rest of my characters to make sure everything was okay (in true keylogger fashion they went straight for the 70 – they probably would have gotten more money from Max, but whatever), and opened a ticket, and was talking with a GM not five minutes later.

I think that’s probably the single fastest response time I’ve ever gotten. I was shocked.

Not long after my conversation with the GM, I received a ton of items as part of something they called a preliminary restoration, the intent being that my character would at least be playable while waiting for the rest of the equipment to be restore. All my DPS gear, resto gear, and whatever misc. bank stuff they were able to quickly put back. Pretty nifty, no?

Anywho, I changed my passwords from the laptop, cleaned the stupid virus off of my computer, and went to that evening’s raid.

The following evening I get another email from Blizzard in my inbox. Opening it reveals the text “After a thorough investigation, we have found this account to be eligible for restoration.”.

Woohoo! I’m getting my stuff back!

Continuing down the email, I read this:

Account: NEKKIDCOW*
Character: Etsi
Realm: Feathermoon
Money Restored: 207g 27s 73c
Item(s) Restored:

… wtf? Sure enough I get ~200 gold ingame, and no items.

No 70+ Field Repair Bot 110G‘s. No 130 Badges of Justice. No engineering materials, no ores, no potions/elixirs/water… nothing. A quick chat with a GM only gets me the instruction to reply to the email I originally received (which I had already done), and other than that I’ve gotten no other information from Blizz.

I’m hearing from other people that have had their accounts hijacked that none of their Badges of Justice were able to be restored, so I’m not holding my breath. I guess it’s a small blessing that it was only one character, and that they didn’t make it to the guild bank before I changed the passwords.

*NEKKIDCOW is not my real account name, sillies.