Unearned Credits

My time spent with Aldonza and Kallixta is to explore. The plan had been that Martuska, being on my daughter's account, would continue to pursue Achievements, but the second account wouldn't drive for them in any special manner. I've been pretty good about ignoring the pursuit of Achievements just for a higher Achievement score.


The closest thing to an exception has been that Kallixta worked hard on the Molten Front, earning the Hippogryph, while Syylia didn't. She is still spending time catching up on a bunch of Cataclysm stuff.


With summer, my son has been spending much time using the account, playing with his sister. They're having a good time, but it does mean that many of Ellyiia's achievements show up on Aldonza or Kallixta's Activity log.



Luckily Equipment rewards don't show up. That would be even more confusing.


About my only activity in the past couple weeks has been Aldonza doing Tiller and Angler dailies. Just so you know what I was really doing Last Night:

The Need For Three Accounts

The family has had three accounts for years. During the school year, use of the second account has been minimal, but the summer vacation has started. And on Friday, I arrived home to find my son and daughter running around Pandaria together. My son has characters on both accounts (and so do I) so we can play in different combinations of two of us. But we can't all three play at the same time.

One time of conflict doesn't justify a third account, but it got me considering it.

Contributing to this thought experiment when I brushed off Martuska, my original main. She is a level 85, like Aldonza, but gnome instead of human. She'd also been Frost spec for a long time. By the time I'd finish spec'ing, fixing glyphs and macros, I was not ready to play with her. I wanted back on Aldonza! I didn't want to bounce between them.

The account with Martuska was the original Achievement junkie and my daughter is happy to carry on. I've tried to resist repeating and bunch of things, just to improve an achievement score on Aldonza, but...

Aldonza comes in fourth on search. They appear to be ranked by Achievement Points. If that is true, Aldonza only needs a few more to push up to third! Second is probably out of reach as both of those are way ahead.

Saturday night my kids went to what they called a LAN party. Technically, I think it was a Wi-Fi party, but nobody likes those pedantic complaints. My daughter was content to play WoW there while my younger played other games, including Starcraft with my older boy who is in South Korea. They also chatted with him on Skype and had a good time. The point was that I got to play on Aldonza, including a little time with my daughter. We finished Lorewalkers together and got our flying clouds. I did LBRS and UBRS to complete all the Classic Dungeons and attune for Blackwing Lair.

So I guess I am interested in Aldonza's Achievement Points

Pet Genders

Do you know your pet's gender? Blizzard gives all pets a gender, even if there is nothing that uses it yet. In fact, while I knew it was there, it wasn't until working with Warla's Pet Search  that I noticed the disconnect between my pet's genders and their names.

I wanted to sort my accumulated pets by things like Breed, so I downloaded my pets and start noticing how many of my pets had female names yet blue, not pink, breed ids. I hate renaming pets because my mind doesn't remember the new names.

Somethings are just hard to remember, like the name of instrumental songs.

Well, I've still got plenty of work to do, renaming pets instead of something important. It's not like I don't have plenty of items on my to do list. At least I've a few things checked off recently.

Ultimate Pets
My "Go To" pets change far more frequently than their names. These aren't the pets I use for capturing new pets or battling easy trainers. These are for the tougher battles. When fighting an Undead pet, I've an Aquatic pet, that means all their undead attacks do weak damage, and it is one that has a good critter attack, that does strong damage against them.

It's only how it goes that all three ultimates have incorrect gender names, so I'll want to do that before they'll be ready to rumble

Poor Esmi is male?

Who else remembers the name of the Sea Lion in Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? Probably showing my age.

Saint Damien was my first level 25 when I discovered that fun of webbing before leeching life. This trick is especially powerful on Humanoids. This was one of the few pets I gave a male name, and still I got the gender wrong. She's from Duskwood and I wanted to evoke something dark and threatening. The "Saint" was intended to be ironic.

Juanita was one of my most recently elevated pets, for my entry in my Guild's "Best Theme" pet team. I had three spiders, but each was from a different Pet Family. (The third member is an Undead Giant Bone Spider). It'll be no trouble renaming him to Juan. Most Elementals would have an advantage against Mechanicals, but some Mechs have powerful attacks and between Stoneskin and H/H, we'll see how Juan fares.

Do you have any Themed Pet Teams?

New Haircut

Even while showing my old Dalaran Transmog yesterday, I had been working on a new outfit. I had tried out different outfits, but nothing attracted me as much as the simple wizard robes style. And then my Guild Mistress asked for help doing some Classic Dungeons for Guild Achievements.

That's how I rediscovered Robe of the Moccasin and Anacondra's Robe, both found in Wailing Caverns and both simple recolors of my purple Lesser Wizard's Robe. That led me to the various Apothecary's Regalia  and its recolors. The Black and Purple is much too Warlocky for my tastes, but I like the teals in the blue outfit. I haven't bothered with a different belt. My current cloak works while my weapon is a fine match.

Head: Royal Headband
Chest: Anacondra's Rober
Shoulders: Twilight Mantle
Hands: Royal Gloves
Weapon: Staff of the Skymagi

The headband underscored how little I cared for long blone hair. I'm sorry, but I've never liked blonde. I have no idea how Aldonza ended up blond anyway, but I wasn't about to have a radical change. Simple greying works fine for me and a shorter style just looked better to me.

Vial of Sands

I pay for two accounts. The original account has been taken over by my kids while I got the new one. Of course, my younger son has a character or two on the new account so he and his sister can play simultaneously.

My daughter can fit many female wow-player stereotypes, delighting in pets and mounts, preferring healing, avoiding PvP and Dungeons. She has a good time, but hasn't been as active as she's wrapping up her degree and her boyfriend isn't raiding anymore.

Meanwhile my youngest has matured and has his own preferences. He will probably spend more time in Azeroth over the summer, but as he eases back in, he had some leftover goals on his old bucket list. He accomplished one last night and he gets full credit even though Aldonza and Kallixta benefit.

Aldonza is not prepared for Level 90

There are times it is hard for me to write because there's just too much to write about. After a while, it becomes embarassing because some bits are important.

Aldonza hit Level 90... before Memorial Day. Of course I was excited, but I had no chance to celebrate before we hurried off to the In Laws and the long drive from Detroit to Fargo and back, which we've since repeated, this time towing a trailer. We've finally got them settled into a new apartment, and most of the furniture and other accumulated goods of a lifetime living in a much larger space, now all sorted to one family or another.

The fact is, reaching level 90 this late in an expansion means there's a wealth of options and little guide in where to start. On recommendation of my guildmistress, I managed the Arena of Annihilation  scenario for the weapon.

I need to explain something. Aldonza went from leveling via Cooking and Fishing quests up to level 85 where upon she entered Pandaria. She then leveled mostly via Pet Battles. This is my screenshot of hitting Level 90

For whatever reason, the WoW Messaging System decided my Terrible Turnip hitting level 22 was more important than my character hitting level 90. You can see it is Aldonza that's glowing, not the turnip.

Can you guess how well equipped Aldonza was for the Arena of Annihilation? Do you know how many green and blue items you earn while doing Pet Battles?

Right, none.

Aldonneeded a trip to the Auction House. Her fiscal frugality came in handy, purchasing decent items that where mostly Disenchant fodder, but allowing her to upgrade her item level to something that wasn't too embarassing. She survived the Arena.

Her Auction House skills over the next week allowed her to find more and better gearing upgrades and she decided she was ready for the next Guild Event. Perhaps a nice Dungeon? Of course not! Aldonza jumped straight into the fire. Well, the Firelands actually!

The Guild was working on Glory of the Firelands Raider and Aldonza has now helped. We didn't manage Barrel Roll that night.

It was after these events that Aldonza realized her new gear needed mogging. I've returned to my Kirin Tor outfit. It isn't original, but you can see how much fun Aldonza has with her friends back in Dalaran.

That Arcanist Ginberg is such a jokester!

Having got this out, maybe I can write about less important things, like our Guild's weekly Pet Battles!

I was trying to write down all the things I wanted to write about, but I discovered my List Making Mojo has gone the same way as Mataoka's. We suspect Sunspots are to blame. She convinced me to put something down. If she can write three excellent posts in one weekend, I should be able to manage something.

Ti'un the Wanderer

Aldonza hurried to find a good spot on the floor, as near to Old Whitewhiskers as the crowd of young pandaren children would allow. Kallixta didn't bother with proximity. Instead she knelt in dignity at the first convenient opening. Her paladin training left her inured to discomfort from a such short time like a storytelling.

Old Whitewhiskers had taken a long swallow from his flask before looking over the collection of listeners. His gaze on the adult human mage in the middle of all those children reflected befuddlement. "Where was I?"

A chorus of voices, Aldonza's included, shouted out the answer, "More about Tiamin and Xi'a!"

"More?" The middle-aged pandaren reflected, "Have I not already told their story?"

A particularly young voice worried, "That's the end?"

A firm response came from her neighbor, in a superior know-it-all tone, "Of course not. But he is old. He may have forgotten something."

With a harrumph and indignant glare, Old Whitewhiskers turned away from this distraction and started, his deep and pleasant voice rolled with conviction and gravitas.

Hear now of a lesson Tiamin gave in the middle of the journey of Tiamin and Xi'a the Skitterer when Tiamin served the village of Longying and teacher. Hear now of how the children of Longying showed respect for elders. And Hear now of how satisfied those children where when a story reached its conclusion.

It was in the time after Tiamin had allowed the Hozen Knight to believe the monk had been tricked into service and while the knight went off to discover the burden of homelessness. But that isn't our story tonight. Instead we shall hear of the village children's favorite lesson when the Shortest Monk told the tale of Ti'un the Wanderer.

The monk's students on Longying would gather in silence and sit in patience and never deride their peers while the youngest tried to learn silence and patience. They were eager for their lesson that would start after Tiamin and Xi'a the Skitterer would have completed their circuit of walking the village border and gathered firewood, as a teacher's first duty of the day. They rejoiced in hearing his voice sing out.

Hear now of the story of how Ti'un the Wanderer would start each day. Hear now of what Ti'un would say as he started his morning. It would often be the case that when the mighty turtle awoke, other creatures would shelter near his shell, much like we might sleep near a campfire. Lesser beasts would gather respectfully at his feet, hoping to learn from his wisdom and learn from the oldest living descendent of Shen-zin Su and one that inherited his ancestor's wanderlust.

Each morning, as the sun warmed Ti'un shell, he would awaken. His words as heard by those gathered around him have been passed on. His first words would be said even before he moved, echoing their way out of his shell. These words have inspired many who have learned of them as I tell you.

As the sun warmed the earth and warmed the air and warmed the shell of Ti'un, he could be heard to say,

"Hear we go. Here we go. The day has dawned. It's always so. I may have wandered far, but I learned this well. I cannot take a step on my journey without leaving my shell."

Now children, learn your lessons. Some are short and you reach the end quick. If you are not paying attention, you might miss something important. Other lessons only come with a long journey or a long story. It may seem like you are in the middle, but you can learn something even before you reach the end as Ti'un still has not completed his journey, nor I mine, nor you yours.

And thus ends today's story of Tiamin, still in the middle of his journey and the middle of his story. Beginning, middle or end, there can be things to be learned at any time. It matters not whether you are as slow as a turtle or a quick as a water strider, listen and learn what you can, when you can.

Aldonza and several of the children sitting next to her looked at each other, uncertain if Old Whitewhiskers was done. Maybe he was just taking a break. After exchanging glances, unspoken they turned to the storytelling, faces expectant and hoping for more.

And for more great storytelling, please check out new fables from Mataoka and Navimie