A WoW-related topic:

Listen up, little noobs. I am a nice person. I am nice to a fault. When people beg me for stuff, I give it to them because I sincerely hope that they will then become better little noobs, or that they will eventually pay me back for whatever favor or amount of gold I have given them!

And I've had pretty good luck with that so far. In my two-plus years of playing, I've been lending people stuff from the very beginning (I had a blessed childhood, never holding less than ten gold in my Change Purse of Awesome*), and I've never had a real problem with people not paying me back. I like to think it was because people are just good people, but really it was probably because they were just good enough to not take advantage of a sweet little femtroll huntard.

Anywho, this all has a point!

I have a, uhm, sorta kinda friend. He is a troll hunter that I met when leveling my shammy alt Tealla. He was in need of some serious help back then (and still does need help), so I was nice and helped him pick a pet and fix his spec up. Then (and this was my big mistake) I got on Gal and I ran him through RFC so I could teach him what drops were good for him and which weren't (STR gear is a no no!). Alrighty, cool, I made a new friend.

However, this was months ago! I expected him to grow up and forget all about the chick who helped him learn not to be an idiot. But nooooo. To this day I still get whispers from him asking me to run him through stuff and just telling me random things he's done. Omg you got a mount? Great, now stop bugging me.

What's worse is that I once again agreed to run him through something, this time SM. He was way too low, so I shouldn't have taken him, but a guildie needed to go, too, so fine, why not.

Do you know how many times he died? I just stopped trying.

After that was over I thought stuff would go back to normal. I logged and went on an alt to hide from him (seriously, isn't 3/4 wings of SM enough?!).

Apparently not, because the guildie I had helped dinged 70 the next week (yeah I am serious) and told me that the hunter had been bugging him every time he logged on for runs through stuff. And now when I log on he introduces his little friends to me. He's probably told them how nice I am and how willing I am to run noobs through stuff.

You'd think I'd learn my lesson, right?

Yesterday a level eleven orc warrior whispers me and asks me really nicely if I'd mind running him through RFC. I hesitate, but then he tells me that people say he's too low to be in their groups. Granted, he is too low. He can't go into LFG yet and he can't be summoned or use the summoning stone. But I've been there, you know? I've been healing RFC on Bloofish since he was level ten. I finally agree and he invites me to a group. There's a druid in the group, too, who turns out to be a really cool guy. I get on an alt to summon the druid and we beat RFC into a pulp.

After the run, they thank me profusely, and then let me go on my way. What is great is that I don't ever expect to hear back from them again. I helped them out, they were appreciative, now they'll leave me alone. How great is that?!

So, dear nooblings, I'd love to help you, lend you money, teach you how to play, tell you what addon makes my pet talk, or run you through an instance if I have time.

But please, treat me with respect afterwards. Thanks is all I need. I never need to hear from you again. I had fun while we were together, but enough is enough. Good luck, happy questing, see you when you are 70.


*Mine is brown. It rocks.

Coming Soon

Sorry I have been absent lately. Stuff has been going slow and I'm just enjoying my summer before school starts.

I do have a lot of stuff to talk about, like Gal's first Kara (and first piece of T4)!

I've also been playing Gal a bit less in favor of her little baby alt family.

And I have to post a picture of the shammy's ding shot! Yay!

So I'll get on all of that right away....

Some Coolness Some Badness

This weekend I got to go see this! Yes, the MLG thing! Cause my friend (a Night Elf resto druid)
was competing in it. It was awesome. I went with friends and had a really good time watching, even though the druid lost to SK and some other really great teams. I got to see Nielyo and Spoh. And omgsh their computers were getting something like 300 fps.

In other news Gal is 69, Nachos is 69, and S4 comes out a couple days after my birthday.

Also Horde WSG and AB and EotS in the 60-69 bracket sucks so hard right now. What happened? It's like, as soon as I level capped for that bracket people started sucking. Shammy and I were gonna do a quick round of WSG to get the daily done yesterday, but he bailed five minutes in and I ended up leading us through over an hour and a half of stalemate. It was about an hour of 1 - 1 with me and a really awesome mage on our D vs. their entire team on D. When our D broke (mage had gone North to see what he could do, so I was left with the noobs) Alliance scored. Then magefriend scored for us. Another half hour of 2 - 2 and finally our team zerged and got pummeled by their 9 hunters and 1 druid. That was my third try at WSG yesterday and we lost horrendously each time.

Today the daily is EotS, but the queues were so long I gave up and did AB. Another loss.

Also I gotta say that being a lowbie sucks. I have this low level rogue who was my second or third character on NZ after Gal. I really thought I'd delete her by now so she had almost no gear and no weapons. I had a random urge to play her, so I decided to do some RFC. Yeah, three really really bad RFCs in a row, with really really bad hunters and attitude-whore paladins and people leaving right in the middle of it all. Really it was a free-for-all since the tanks couldn't keep aggro and I was running all over the place after the mobs chasing the mages and locks around.

And, yes. It's called autoshot. No, it's not a problem with your gun. Yes, you have control over it. Heal your own damn pet. No, hunters don't need strength more than any other stat. And no, I don't have any meat for you or ipwnnoobs.

*Pictures for this post to come.

Fiali is a Druid?

So you know what happened to Ratshag? It done happened to me, too! 'Cept I been transformed into someat that turns into the animals Gal trains instead of a mighty hunter.

Now I'm just pulling your chain.

But I did reroll.

Meet Fiali of Drenden (hi, BRK!).

I have a bunch of alts already on Drenden (an irl friend plays Alliance there), so adding one was no biggie. I had no space for a tauren on Ner'zhul anyways.

So there you have it. She just dinged 2 and is on her way to learning new spells!


And as a side note, I now have Fiali the paladin on Daggerspine, Fiali the mage on Ner'zhul, and Fiali the night elf on Drenden. Things might get confusing....

Bloo's Blues

Meh so I been only leveling Gal, which is good. Or mostly, I have been running errands on her, lol. I also started PvPing with Zocks again, which feels so good! Even at 26 with super bad gear he kicks butt! And he loves kiting warriors.

This is my PvP kill order:

Night Elf hunters first.

Then warriors.

Then paladins (I love taking them down on Gal especially).

Then other hunters and druids.

Then squishies (i.e. mages and priests).

Then warlocks.

Then rogues.

Anyways, after quite a bit of PvPing on witty Gal and agile Zocks, I decided to level Bloofish, mostly cause my guild was bemoaning the lack of healers for Kara. They want a holy priest, so I volunteered.

Anywho, logged on as a level 4, immediately made friends with a warrior. We quested from 5 to 8 and had a lot of fun. It was pretty fast, even though it actually took like three hours (at least). I am loving Bloo very much. The only thing is that he makes me feel like such a lazy geek. It's that 400 pound 45-year-old woman syndrom. Maybe cause Gal and Zocks and even my belfs are all way more active and fit, and Bloo has other folks to fight for him. Who knows. Anyways, he is a skinny weakling, and we wish he was a girl, but we loves him anyways. His face is just too pretty.

Bloofish says: [Gutterspeak] Hi!

Hello Tank, Hello Heals

So based on a couple comments I got on my last entry, some actual in-game play, and Pike's latest post over on her blog, I decided to do the same thing as Pike and list all my hunters, the reasons I like/play them, the reasons I don't play them, and then talk a bit about my temporary solution to the alt problem.

However, I'm going to do this in parts, because school work and WoW work is enough as it is, so I'll just update this post whenever I feel like it (prolly a server at a time, with pictures!)....


Statistics:
Total number of characters on Rayare's account: 50 (plus or minus a few, cause sometimes I delete when I plan to make more, and then I don't end up making more for a week or two)

Total number of hunters on Rayare's account: 18 (I really thought I had more than that, but maybe they were all subject to deletion since last time I counted, heheh)

Total number of second-most popular class: 2 level 11 priests (I love them both to death, but they are both Alliance)


Characters:
((coming soon))


Solution:
My solution to the alt problem is to create a character of each of the classes I want/should [to] play.

I already have my priestie Bloofish, whom I love to death, as well as my warlocky Solsyn (redone on Nerzhul - she used to be on Daggerspine), me shamanistic voodoo queen Fiali (she be troll, mon, o'course), and my two new alts: Fiali the paladin on Daggerspine, and Gagda the orc warrior on Nerzhul (Gagda used to be a femtaur druid named Gallie, in case anyone was interested).

Let me just say that Fiali the Pally is so much fun to play. She fast to level and good if I feel like challenging myself with how many mobs I'm pulling, etc. I like to pull three or four mobs and then wait till the last minute to heal myself. Big rush.

I just rolled Gagda after deciding I needed to embrace the Ratshag inside me, so we'll see how she goes. Hopefully I will have lots of fun being a (gasp!) melee class!

And I am hoping that playing these classes will also make me a better and happier hunter. I think I will appreciate a lot more my role in the game, as well as everone else's role.

And I will finally feel appreciated! I want to be a class that people want to group with. Tanks and healers are wanted, so that's how I figure I should go!

Plus then when I play Gal I'll realize how much hunters are wanted by other classes, too. Seeing from someone else's perspective will be good for me (and my ego).



To be continued!

Pike, and everyone else, thanks for the inspiration!

( < Bloo)

Class Conflict

Every time I ding on Gal I get the urge to go play an alt, snd I go clear a spot for yet another new member of the family. I then level said alt to 5, 6, or 7, then I sleep. Then the next day when I am done with all my work, I log on WoW and cannot stop questing or instancing on Gal until she dings again, and the cycle continues, and the alt is deleted. I have felt this since level 58.

For once I'd like to make an alt that is not a hunter that I can actually stick with. An alt that is not another DPS class. I want to be a healer or a tank. I want to feel wanted without having mana issues, being squishie, or having to run around smacking things with my sword and worrying about stances. I want to be a valid class for both PvE and PvP. I also want the option to run solo. I also want to level fast.

The last suggestion I got was to play a shammy, so I made Fiali, my level 3 troll shaman with the purple mohawk. Before that I was trying out warlocks, and I got to level 7 before deleting her and starting her over on a different server (she's now stuck at 3). I also rolled a level 4 UD priest which I love to death but just can't quite get into.

Now I think the perfect thing for me would be a druid, however, I dislike how fem taurs look, and male tauren and night elves are just so friggen' common. But druids have the options I want. The other downside is that Z is leveling his druid to come play with me in Outlands, and I don't want to cramp his style. The final downside for me is that I am used to playing a relatively simple class (no, I know hunters aren't really simple, but you understand what I mean), and I think all the shapeshifting and whatnot is gonna get on my nerves.

So what to do?

Roll another hunter while I think about it?

Solsyn and Pagtai

So to get away from my guild and my server and my whole life on Ner'zhul, I decided to go back to an old server of mine and play on an old alt, who is well on her way to level ten now as a female Blood Elf warlock.

Why a lock, you ask? Well after talking to Hawk a week or two ago about the differences between a hunter and a warlock (and the differences between a hunter's relationship with their pet vs. a warlock's relationship with his minion), I decided I really needed to experience it for myself. And I thought doing that from the beginning would be better than trying to play on Malzara.

So, meet Solsyn, my Daggerspine warlock, and her imp Pagtai.



Solsyn is young and feisty and loving her DoTs. She kills fast for a level 6. I'm very proud of her.

I'm planning on Affliction, Herbalism, and Alchemy.

Visitors to Daggerspine are welcome!

And Galileyo will be officially hitting the Dark Portal either tonight or tomorrow.

That's all.

DILLEMMA: Female troll warrior or female orc warrior?!

Zocks and Saraii

Here are two of my babies:

Zocks and his Ghost Saber, Lazura







Zocks wants to be a male model.



Saraii and Esteban!

Omg, where haz you been?!

I sorry! I been so busy! I been applying to college and dealing with friends and teaching newbs and I just been so busy!

I start out with story:

Along the lines of BRK's 'Hunter Horror in Redridge' videos, I myself found a young hunter being a complete and utter newblette. But mine was probably worse.

I was on Drenden, in fact, on a priestly alt in Loch Modan. I'm leveling her with Z to help him survive his burnout. Poor thing.

Anywho. I'm running around the Loch leveling and grinding and skinning and herbing, when I see a young hunter assaulting kobolds in a kobold village. He's level twelve, and looks a little overwhelmed. His pet has died, too. Awww....

I run over after he is done killing his little group of kobolds. I give him a Blessing of Fortitude. He thanks me. Then he keeps killing. I stand back and watch him run up to the mob, fire one shot, run closer, then start wacking at it. Huh. Curious. I help him burn down the mobs.

"Where is your pet?"

Silence.

"Hey, where's your pet?"

"I don't have one."

"Why not?"

He looks at me. "I dunno."

I give him the lecture on being a good hunter and an upstanding citizen. I tell him to go grab a cat from Dun Morogh, then to go from there. He thanks me and hearths away.

Later I found him sitting with a new bear by his side. Well, at least he took some of my advice!

Anyways, that's story number one of where I've been this week.

Numba two explanation: Financial aid forms as well as insane amounts of homework.

Numba three: Z's boredom with WoW is starting to rub off on me, but that's another post.

Numero Cuatro: Hah, I got my first rejection letter!

Five: Having shammy back makes me avoid WoW like the plague some days, hahah.

Six: War Party is still dead, so I thus have no motivation to level Zocks and Saraii, though I guess it has been officially decided that Zocks is gonna twink himself at 29, which I guess means I'm not longer going to level him once he hits the bg cap. I'm also debating upon whether I should go have him train a ravager while he still has room for more xp. The other day when I was doing AB with Solusek almost every hunter had a ghost saber. It makes me want to shoot something, hahah. Also, even though Zox has bad gear right now, he still completely dominated, but I think I already mentioned that once....

Seven: I am obsessed with rerolling Alliance. There must be something wrong with me! I'm also absolutely dying to get back into ST on Gal, and into STV on any character, I don't care which! I want to be in Booty Bay! Now. And I want a panther.

In other news, I know, I'm sorry, this post is getting long: I went to go visit Hawk from One Among Many! We had an interesting discussion, or rather, we began an interesting discussion, on hunters vs. warlocks and their different pet relationships, but we got sidetracked by our funky hair and awesome style. We rock. I have to go back soon so we can continue our chat.

And from that we decided to post pictures of our characters. She started it off with Tigershark, her little troll (<3) alt hunter.

And, uhm, I think that's all I'm gonna cram in this post. To be continued!

Hilver Sand

The other day I went to go visit Pike on her server (Silver Hand) because A. I wanted to say "hello", and B. I'd never played on an RP server before, so why not?

And I got another level ten hunter out of it.



She's a spacegoat!



I like visiting people. I have a bunch of friends on my list to visit.

To Alt, or Not To Alt, That Is the Question

Burning Out in WoW:

We all burn out. And that's okay. When I burn out it's pretty bad. My last WoW hiatus went from December of '06 to around September of '07 corresponding to the loss of my leveling partner (the shammy*).

Since then I have had multiple mini WoW burnouts. And I don't mean that like small gaps in my play (although those occurr, too, but are less burnouts than breaks due to real life complications). I mean mini burnouts as in getting tired of a specific character. I like to call it WoW ADD, which I have a severe case of. It's also called "altahol abuse" (i.e. someone can be an altaholic). It's Warcrack for a reason, people!

Anywho, why are we talking about this, you alt abuser?! you ask.

Have thou burneth out on Wow? Have thou made thy lastly alt, and thus vow to turn over a neweth leaf? Art thou leaving us?!

Stop freaking out or I'm going to smack you upside the head with my laptop.

The reason why I am talking about this is thus: a friend of mine thinks he has burned out on WoW. Again. Z and I were talking about this the other day. His guild is officially done with Kara. They do some ZA runs when they can. He claims his server is a dying one (and I can't blaim him). He has no patience for alts. At all. And he's sick of WoW. And he wants to stop.

Hmmm....

Okay, not that I really want to convince him otherwise. WoW is really an addiction, and if you burn out, then let yourself burn out. Especially for us—we're just now applying to college and finishing up high school. This is probably the best possible time for a break from the game.

But listening to him talk about how the game is ruining his last few months as a high schooler really got me thinking about my own addiction. And the addiction of other friends I have. And the addiction of all of us.

These are my WoW addictions:

• I play too much. I am a casual player and I still feel like I play too much. Hence why I blog about it now instead of spending my time actually playing. I think this is better.

• I have too many alts. Plain and simple. I know I preach that one can never have enough variety, but the emotional attachments I get to some of my >10 characters makes me crazy. Why can't I just delete them? If I want more space for alts on servers I actually play on, then why not just delete more than half of the 50 alts I have?

• Out of my alts, I think I play too many hunters. Gasp, I know, right?

• The Auction House.

• And a newer addiction: addons and user interfaces. This is a biggie.

Okay, bear with me here. I have some points I want to make and then I want discussion to follow.

Mostly I want to talk about WoW ADD. Anyone who has taken a look at my Big Page of Alts knows that I have got major WoW ADD. And that’s not even a complete list. It is missing some key alts still.

I have ADD when it comes to leveling Galileyo. On many levels, too. I tame hundreds of pets. I just haven’t found the right one for her yet. I hate her current pet—a yellow boar. And I am having a hard time leveling her at all. Quests just don’t appeal to me, and I never have enough time all in one chuck to run instances. I have goals for her, yes. She not going into Outland until sixty. She eventually is going to just be a PvP character, and not a raider. She needs her epic land mount above all else. I can get away with not having a flying one if I’m just doing bgs all the time.

The more time I am wasting with her, though, is more time I will have to put in to catch up with current seventies—gear and game play experience –wise. This is a problem.

What do I do when I don’t want to think about/solve said problem?

I roll an alt. Hence the recent birth of Khuza, the rebirth of Galileo (she’s a shammy again), and the instance I ran on Trikk.

I have WoW ADD so bad that I can’t even level Zocks at the moment. I had some real focus going on him for a while, but when things at War Party subsided I stopped playing him, too. Now, he is GM of War Party, so he’s got to stick around and do some moderating, especially with the hiatus of the other two GMs. And since we are resurrecting our dreams for War Party he will have to level to keep up with the guild.

Saraii was going to be a 19 twink until I got bored with Warsong Gulch. I’m hoping for a 39 twink from her. I’ve got gear for her and everything.

I have profession ADD, too, but that is another blog post.

And I’m having ADD with this blog post. I’m starting to lose my direction. Okay, back to the main point: burnouts.

How do you deal? How do we all deal with this? How can you help a friend deal or not deal with a burnout?

Do you roll an alt like I do? Do you join another server? Do you spend hours tinkering with your ui? Do you peruse WoW blogs and write long posts that lack direction?

Do you alt?

This is ADD at work. It’s ADDiction.


Hi, my name is Galizocksaruzaleyo, and I am addicted to alternate characters.



*The shammy post is very long and very emo, and also is only in part one of two.

Khuza @ Level 10

Need I really say more?

Khuza @ Level 9

Introducing Khuza, my new alt (she took the place of one of my favorite alt mages, sigh)....

Here you see her running through Durotar toward Razor Hill, quite drunk off of the voodoo charms she got in Sen'jin (one of my favorite villages—if there was an innkeeper there I would set my hearth regardless of the lack of flight master). And you also see she made a new friend, a nice shammy who, in the screenshot, is a frog. They did many a quest together!


Here's her closeup. She's a lovely thing, isn't she? Not many female orcs running around.

This is a better shot of her standing in the doorway of the Razor Hill inn.

Anywho, I'm going to blog a bit about her adventures every now and again. She's planning on taming one of the Durotar Tigers off in Echo Isles when she hits ten, which will be exciting. Granted she'll have to level it two to three levels depending, as they only come in seven through eight. She'll also have to run around taming other stuff to get the extra skills. The tigers in Durotar are basically a blank canvas, so take that as you will. I guess for me, since I have a lot (and I mean a lot) of experience with pets, it's kinda a nice thing to be able to start from scratch.

And I also have to decide whether I want her to just go BM like the rest of my hunters, or spec her in Survivalist (which I've tried before, but only at a high level, never starting from the beginning, I mean). I dunno, I guess it will just depend when I hit ten. I can pick then. And it never hurts to try something new, right?

Although, I have to admit, the tiger would look awfully smashing in a big, red sheen....

Rayare the Level 12 Draenei Slayer

Local Defense: Draenei Noob Zone Under Attack!
Draenei70: Omgsh!
Draenei70: Some 70 hordie is bashing up my newblings!


Rayare: lol....

The Elite

On my little dwarf alt (who is currently level seven and rising fast, I love her to death), I am in this guild of lowbies. I am one of the youngest, being still in the newb zone (I think the highest is twenty/thirty something), so I don't demand much respect from my elders, or anything, or the guy who invited me into the guild. I figured I'd probably be ignored like any other lower-than-fifteen lowbie in a lowbie guild is ignored.

But this guy joins the guild a few minutes after me and declares himself an Alliance know-nothing because he is a Hordie in disguise. He's playing a Night Elf rogue. He's never played rogue before either. I admire him for trying something new. Bravo. And my heart goes out to him because I am a hordie in disguise as well.

After I admit I'm one of him, I think that the people in the guild might be a little, well, disgusted. I mean, I am not saying that Alliance players are generally discriminatory against Horde players. Far from it. I have met some tremendously nice Alliance. I've even quested with them on Galileyo. They are some great people. However, for some reason the vibe I was getting from this guild was a little sketchy. I figured our declarations of Horde allegiance would be met with slanderous remarks and some "your orc mom" comments.

Instead we got nothing but love. It was joy and happiness for the two Hordelings that stumbled on this little guild in Dun Morough. We became their new fascination. We had an inside view on the Horde, which most of them had never experienced before. Not that we divulged any secrets or anything, but when asked which races were most popular and which race was best for each class, etc., we happily answered, glad to be welcomed rather than shunned in this strange new miniature world on the Alliance side of things.

So after some guild goodness, I have some newb funniness. The guy who invited me was playing a gnome warlock.

And I think he's probably never played WoW before, even though he says he's leveled a mage or pally or something before.

He had to ask if the warlock minions looked the same for Alliance as they did for Horde.

Among other things.

Z is a Warlock

My friend Z is an interesting person. He plays a warlock named Nemesis on a server I should probably roll Alliance on just for the heck of it. He does not like playing lowbies or alts (unless they are twinks), and he doesn't particularly care for hunters (though he has played one, to be fair).

He spends a lot of time running Kara instead of doing his homework or college applications, but he gets things done.

The only alt he will play for me is his War Party paladin, Crystal, who he promises will be healer for our guild whenever we need him, but I'm a little worried he might develop Bad Pally Syndrome (BPS). That's another story!

He likes grinding and dislikes my play style (he tells me I should play on an RP server, to which I firmly respond no!), which means that we probably will never level our alts together ever. That's okay, though. He has his thrills, I have mine. He's teaching me how to play his warlock (sometimes I'm the one banishing in Kara runs, woo!), but also likes teaching me how to play my class. Not that this is a bad thing! He very badly wanted me to respec my poor marksman hunter, but I'm not giving him the credit of winning me over (I give it all to BRK, hahah)!

He also thinks I should reroll another class, like a squishie, cause I'm a newb hunter, lol.

All in all, though, he is a good guy and really knows his WoW stuff. If you're ever on Ursin, hit him up. He loves being PST'ed during Nightbane!



This post was added because he told me to, and I promised I would. : )

Cowphin

So we're sick. Boo hoo.

Which means we got to stay home today.

However, Gal is stressing us out right now, so instead....

We played on our new alt hunter, a dwarf (OMG, Alliance!!) named Trol (hahah, trol, get it?).

And also tinkered with our addons.



And of course did college applications. Of course.

We have many due Friday.

Support would be nice.



Dude, what's up with that picture?! It's the Cattleman's Stress Test! We must be stressed if we're seeing deviations in dolphin appearance.

A Post About WoW

I started playing WoW when I was a wee....

No.

I've been playing WoW since it first came out....

No.

How I Started Playing WoW

Uhm, okay.

Our Daddy bought us a copy of WoW at the Apple store when it first came out. Yay. We loved it. We were so excited.

Anyways, Dad bought me copy. We brought copy home. He helped me instal said copy on his super nice, super fast, super tricked out computer. So three or so hours later I had WoW. But Dad and I decided we were PO'ed about the +fifteen dollars a month dealy-o. I shelved the game, thinking I would return it.

A few months later (maybe three or so) and my great grandpa passes away. We go to his funeral, then go chill with the extended family for the day. Lo and behold: my cousin/aunt (don't ask) and her husband are sitting on laptops playing WoW. She on a gnome in Elwynn (or was it an orc in....?). She decides she's gonna teach me the basics. I listen patiently, make a mental note about how incredibly boring standing there smacking buttons must be, then forget about my family's big guild of Hordies (their server name started with a 'C', I think).

Yet more months later. I had been switching around schools and friends rapidly. I met this guy. I went over to his house with all of his friends and witnessed the wonder and glory of that which we know and love. It was the birth of a WoW junkie.

(I made a Night Elf rogue on his account and smacked things around for four levels. Yay.)

It took him a few weeks to convince me to actually reinstall the game, but I did, mostly as a pleasant surprise for him. We made many NE alts and ran around for hours in the newb zone (my record time from 1-6 in Teldrassil is half an hour). At the time, I had no idea what the Horde was, I was playing on a normal server, and I pretty much only played druids because everything else confused me. It was not until he asked me to reroll on his server, Ner'zhul, that I saw the light. I saw the light, man!

Behold the fully-epic'd orc hunter.

He had a snowy owl named Hedwig and a huge wolf to ride around on. His sword was bigger than he was. His bow was the coolest thing I had ever seen. And his guild tabard had beer mugs on it.

He one-shotted me and I knew I was in love.

My first Horde-ling was a female troll shaman, who regrettably only made it to level six. So he suggested I try playing a hunter. He could take me under his wing and teach me a thing or two about what ranged DPS really meant.

So thus came Galileyo (I wanted Galileo, really I did, but it was taken at the time (and is now taken by me) and the -yo makes me sound way more ghetto anyhow). She was the first character I ever leveled past fifteen. It was such an achievement! Her first pet was a red raptor named Domino, who until very recently still sat in his stable munching on treats.

He rolled a tauren shaman to accompany me on my adventures, and we made the best duo this world has ever seen. To this day our greatness astounds me. /modesty

Soon after we were gallavanting all over Azeroth together. We'd PvP together, we'd instance together, we'd quest together. We always shared XP. If he sent money on his alt over from his main, I'd always get some, too. If I wasted that money on non-combat collectable pets, I'd buy him one as well and drop it in his mailbox for a "surprise, look what I got you for five gold!! it's a white kitty cat to go with ur cowness!!"

This is how I got spoiled. This is why I level so slow.

I forget to level my professions because we always had money. I'm still learning what gear to buy myself on the auction house because he'd always send me stuff (I've been twinked out for fifty levels in a row now). Because he already had a sixty, he let me play in a very RP-esque style: meaning less grinding, more let's-go-exploring or let's-see-how-many-hits-it-takes-for-that-elite-??-to-smush-us!! I spend a lot of my time wandering around. I spend a lot of my time rerunning instances. I get ADD about my quest log and I'd rather spend hours PvP-ing that leveling. I indulge in having alts and rare pets. I'm probably going to grind every faction so I can have every mount before I hit seventy.

But I digress....

At level 48 it changed. I was running out of steam on Galileyo, and he on his shaman. The Burning Crusade was about to come out and we each had different goals for the expansion. And he got a girlfriend. She wanted to play a blood elf rogue on a server far far away from me. Understandable.

So Galileyo and her pet shammy were abandoned, and the hunter and his trainee parted ways in the WoW world for good.

At that point I wasn't playing at all. I went four months without a drop of WoW. When I did start playing again, it was only to indulge in my need for alts. Many many alts. I went on alt-overload and since then have not been able to stop. I sucked at every class, and I was frustrated that I couldn't level Galileyo on my own....



Part II coming soon....