Of Archaeology, Beautiful Art, and the Guildiest Guild

I finally got my shaman through Tanaan and started on her garrison. She's at 91 now. I really don't know how people can rush through content the way they do, and I think it's probably a lot of the reason so many people are complaining about the lack of content in WoD...they rush through as fast as they can so they can level all their alts and, frankly, I think they get burnt out. Which isn't really Blizzard's fault...

I spend most of my time on my main (Mystrinixx, the hunter). She's the one I get most of the achievements on; she's the first one to get to level cap, etc. She's the one I do all the archaeology on, and I've been spending a lot of time on that lately. The problem I have with archaeology is that I sometimes get distracted ("Ooo! Shiny!") while I'm surveying digsites. Take last night, for instance: one of the digsites in Shadowmoon Valley (in Draenor) is in Shimmer Moor, which is a super super super beautiful place! So beautiful, in fact, that I find myself getting lost in all that gorgeous goodness and snapping screenshots and forgetting about my archaeology. Here are just a few of the glorious shots I got last night... [click them for a larger view]

The music is peaceful, the scenery is amazing. I just can't help myself, and I get lost in it. I zone out and find myself wishing I could stay there forever LOL! 

The same thing happened when I was in Outlands. It brought back memories of the leveling I did there - in old Nagrand, Zangarmarsh. And in Northrend, especially in Storm Peaks.

Nagrand, Outlands

Nagrand, Outlands

Storm Peaks, Northrend

You can see more images on my Flickr page.

The Blizzard forums are full of people complaining about the fact that there's no flying in Draenor, but to be honest, I haven't found it all that bad. The only time I find it frustrating is in Spires of Arak because that place is literally like a damn maze! Other than that, it's been nice to be "grounded" and take my time running around and exploring. When I feel the urge to soar, I hearth to Shrine of the Seven Stars in Pandaria and either do some questing/archaeology/etc. there or take a portal to Azeroth. 

Now that my shaman is through the WoD starter quests, I've started building her garrison and spend a little bit of time on her working on getting her closer to 100. The other night, while I was questing, Pathrunner spawned. Pathrunner is one of several rare spawns that drops a mount. I've spent a lot of time on my main looking for Pathrunner, and BOOM, there he was! I immediately logged to my hunter and ran like hell to get over to where he was, hoping that nobody else had already taken him down. I put a call out in General chat that Pathrunner was up and asked if anyone wanted to join me (he drops a mount for everyone who participates in taking him down, grouped or not). There were no takers, which was unusual, but it was a weeknight... When I got to where he was, the only one there was a Level 93 dwarf, don't remember what class. I told him nobody else had replied to me and said, "Ok, let's do this!" I don't know how hard Pathrunner is at 93 (which is why I switched to my 100), but he gave me a big THANK YOU!!!! afterwards as he rode off on his new mount:) That felt pretty good:)

Things are awesome with the new guild. It's the guildiest guild I've ever been in, and I'm getting more comfortable with joining them for events. I was disappointed that I missed their FLEX raid last night because we'd gone out to dinner and got home after they'd already started. Next time!!! Things are very laid back, a few of the members are "used-to-be-hardcore" players who wanted a more relaxed atmosphere in WoW, so at least there are people who know how to run the groups, but nobody gets pissy if things go wrong. There's no pressure at all to top charts or be geared "just right," etc. I've done some dungeons and gotten some good feedback, so I'm feeling more confident:) Of course, it helps that BM hunters are OP right now, or at least it doesn't hurt LOL! Sooo different from when I left. And it's good that I know how to play my class anyway. I was so proud of myself that I didn't stand in bad shit at least LOL! Though I did forget to turn off growl on one dungeon (oops!). 

Anyway, so that's that. In the real world, the weather if FINALLY starting to improve. It's up and down right now - 30's this morning when I got up, should be in the high 60s/low 70s later this week. We had a dusting of snow one night last week. I'll be glad when it's at least in the high 60s. I'm done with winter, and my sinuses and achey knees are done with the fluctuating barometric pressure!