Patch 5.0.4! DO ALL THE THINGS!

The much anticipated Patch 5.0.4 finally arrived and holy shit is there a lot of stuff. Thankfully my patch went though without a hitch although my Twitter feed was filled with multiple tales of friends having to completely uninstall and re-install their game.

Patches as large as this one, with so many new toys to play with can be really overwhelming for people with lots of alts. I found myself completely lost for a few minutes when I first logged in. Starting at my character selection screen with no idea where to start.

I dabbled around with auction house stuff on my Scribe, learning new glyphs, posting two of every glyph as well as a whole load of Dust of Disappearance and I pretty much walked away from it for most of the day. While I'd consider myself a 'gold maker' on patch days my priorities usually lie with poking around the new things! I cancel and reposted my undercut auctions two or three times during the day.

I logged into most of my 85's gave them a spec, glyphs and headed over to Utgarde Pinnacle. While not exactly challenging content it gave me time to try out some of the new spells and a chance at the ever elusive Blue Proto-Drake.

Although it provided me with some of the information I was looking for and I got to have a play around I was completely overwhelmed with all of the information and my brain slowly went into meltdown.

So I've devised a plan! Instead of doing what I usually do which is typically bounce from character to character in quick succession, a battleground on my Hunter, Looking for raid on my Mage, transmog farming on my Priest. I'm going to focus on one character for two to three days. Playing solely that character while I get to grips with all of their different specs properly. While I usually pick things up pretty quickly, picking up ALL THE THINGS on every character is crazy!

My Paladin is level 83 at the moment so she seems like the best option as I've been playing her quite a lot recently anyway. So far Protection doesn't feel much different, I'm loving having Sacred Shield back! Over the next few days I'm going to try out Holy as I haven't played Holy since really early in Wrath of the Lich King. I've never been very good at (or a fan of) melee DPS but I'm sure I'll check out Retribution just to see how the changes feel.  I'm hoping to hit 85 tomorrow.

I'm really enjoying AOE looting it's amazing that WoW has gone for so long without this feature. It's taking some time to get used to, my hand keeps automatically trying to loot the next corpse!

How did your patch day go? Did you make a ton of gold, loving or hating your new talent system? Leave me a comment or you can send me a tweet @SocoWow.

My WoW arch nemesis. #!@&ing Harpies.

I've leveled a lot of characters to eighty five during Cataclysm and one thing they all have in common is Marion Wormwing. 

Every single one of my characters has quested their way though Mount Hyjal and every single one of them has chosen to kill Marion Wormwing rather than letting her go.  

Die, you foul bitch.

Some of my worst memories in WoW are down to Harpies. 

The first real character I leveled was my Warrior, being a Night Elf she spent most of her earlier time in Kalimdor. Thankfully this meant that she wasn't subjected to murlocs' instead she had to face harpies! Just outside of Darnassus is a small area called The Oracle Glade which is where I first met what are now my most loathed mobs in the game. By level 10 I had encountered more of these harpies than I could ever hope to imagine. They roamed around in packs, fleeing when low on health to pull some friends. I died, I died over and over again. 

Harpies broke my armour D:

Within The Stonetalon Mountains is an area known as The Charred Vale. During Vanilla this place was the bane of my Warrior's life for what seemed like forever. I had several quests in the area and being new to the game I thought I had to do every quest I picked up. I went to the zone somewhat unprepared and a little lower than I should have been. I spent hours in this small part of Stonetalon Mountains dying repeatedly to a large packs of harpies. Among them was a rare elite who I could not kill but kept accidently pulling. They seemed to have no set path, fearing you into more and more of their allies. After having been to the zone a few times most people learned the safest way to get though was to walk around the absolute edge of the mountains as most of harpies congregated in the middle.

The Charred Vale is a very different place now from what it was. The Shattering brought with it a volcano eruption which has wiped out the resident harpies. The zone is now occupied by black dragon whelps and black drakes instead.

Good riddance! 

I'd happily eradicate all harpies from Azeroth. What about you, have a particular mob or mob type who ruined your day more than once? Leave a comment or tweet me @SocoWow

Day 3. Your first day playing WoW.

We're onto the third day of the Soulbound - 20 days of WoW blogging challenge. I'm still in Scotland with family for a few more days and then I'll be returning back home and back to Azeroth! I've been able to sneak in a few hours of play time over the past three weeks. Admittedly it took around 4 days to fully download the WoW client between being a terribly old computer and a low strength wireless connection. With no addons and a hight of around 20 frames per second in quiet area's I've done little else than chat to friends and a bit of leveling in Outland.

I think most people look back on the first days of WoW with fondness. I do also but at the time it was mostly confusion and frustration. I'd never played a game like WoW before I had no idea what anything meant or what I was supposed to be doing. I started on a ten day trial. The first character I created was an Undead but realised I couldn't play with the person who'd invited me to play as he was Alliance. I created a Human Warlock instead "they get a pet and get to cast spells? sure! Sign me up!" Oh god. Those first few hours of WoW were the most painful experience I've ever had with a game.

At the time Warlocks had to do quests to get their pets. Your first quest as a Human was to collect a book from within a camp of bandits at Milly's farm. I died over and over with no idea how I was supposed to 'collect' this stolen book. Finally when my friend came online he explained to me that I had to mouse over the item until a cog wheel appeared. After finally completing the quest I received my Imp and then he died. I don't even know how he died, but he did. I couldn't for the life of me remember how to get him back. I tried collecting the book again (dying multiple times in the process) I visited the trainer who gave me no explanation so I did was any self respecting Warlock would do. I tried to quest without him! After a while graveyard running I thought I'd see what else World of Warcraft had to offer and off I went to explore.

I ventured into Elwynn Forest only to be eaten by wolfs and spiders. I by this point, extremely frustrated din't understand all of the fuss my friend had made over the game. Although I did meet a friendly player who warmed me as a level 4 that I shouldn't cross that bridge over into Redridge. After dying to a spider somewhere close to a mine I gave up and deleted the character, vowing never to play it again. A day or so later my friend convinced me to try instead playing a Warrior because they just hit things in the face. I was hooked at that point, I loved my Night Elf and I certainly liked smacking things in the face! Don't get me wrong she died a lot but by that point I had a slightly better understanding of what I was meant to be doing. She went onto being my main raiding character for a long time to come. I still love her although she's slightly abandoned on a dead server and a Blood Elf but I visit her from time to time.

I have more horror stories of my first week or so playing WoW but I'll share those in another post!

Day two. Why you decided to start a blog.

I've always liked blogging. I'm not much of a talkytalk person I much prefer typing. I may not be the most eloquent writer but it's something I enjoy. After getting our first home computer when I was around sixteen I was introduced to the world of blogging via a site called Xanga from there I moved onto Livejournal. I still have access to some of my old Livejournal's they're always worth a laugh if nothing else. Between the ages of seventeen and twenty I didn't have very much to write about aside from the typical "No one understands me. My heart is a black hole of despair, turmoil and woe." However I enjoyed it none the less and I made a few friends throughout my Livejournal years.

I don't know when I originally discovered there were such things as World of Warcraft blogs but one of the first I came across was a little blog called Hit the cap. It was a gold making blog written by a girl on her journey to hitting the (I believe) original gold cap. From there a whole world of blogs opened upto me and I became completely hooked. I'd say even now some days I spent more time reading WoW blogs than actually playing the game!

I created a Twitter account when it first surfaced but I never fully understood the point of it, not being one to follow celebrity gossip and having no real life friends who used it I abandoned it until a year or so later. I heard Jim from Power Word Gold mention on his podcast that they had a Twitter account dedicated to the show, the site and updates. I started to follow the PWG and several other bloggers adopting the name Soco (the name of my bank character) and I was able to join in on conversations about gold making and other World of Warcraft topics. I started to get my own followers and even people I'd consider friends. I started to feel like part of something. It was a nice feeling.

During May 2012 Bio Break started the Newbie Blogger Initiative trying to get perspective bloggers to start blogging! It was something I'd always considered. Twitter was great but it's very limited as to what you can actually do with it. While I didn't join the NBI I did start at the same time thanks to a friendly push and I'm super glad I did.

As I mentioned in my introduction post I suffer from Anxiety / Panic disorder which means I struggle to get out of the house as much as I'd like. Blogging about World of Warcraft gives me something to concentrate on. It's one of the main things in my life that is pretty positive and that I still find incredibly fun. Being able to share my experiences, adventures and transmogrifications with the people who like to read about them makes me incredibly happy. It'll also be something to look over in the future. I'm not really one for statistics, don't get me wrong it's nice to have a high day but I definitely blog more from myself than others. I'd love to be the font of all Priest or gold making knowledge but I'm not. But that doesn't mean I'm not still having fun!

I'd like to give a massive thanks to everyone who not only reads but retweets my posts on Twitter + Redit/r/wow.

And a special thanks to Jim Younkin Power World Gold Farli The Overcut and Nev AH Addict who gave me that little push and confidence I needed to start my own blog. You guys are amazing! <3

I'm not gold capped irl. Day 1. Introduce yourself.

For July Ambermist from Tastes like Battle Chicken challenged everyone to write about themselves. Since I'm away from home visiting family and friends for a few weeks without real access to World of Warcraft I've chosen to incorporate both this challenge and the 20 days of WoW blogging challenge (courtesy of Saga over at Spellbound.) into one post as they're both something of an introduction to Me, not Soco nor Korla. I already have an introduction post but it's more related to the WoW side of my life.

Amazing quality picture from my
6 year old phone. 

In real life I'm not gold capped and I don't have an awesome mount collection. I can't even drive although I do have lots of dresses. I'm twenty six and I'm told I have a strong Scottish accent (I don't hear it). I'd say I'm girly girl. I adore having long, pretty painted nails. I love spending time with my friends they mean the absolute world to me.

I met my fiancée on WoW during The Burning Crusade he tanked while I healed. We've lived together for coming up on two years now. We don't have any kids or have any planned for the moment although hopefully in the future. For now we're content with our year old kitty who we only recently found out was actually a boy (after believing it to be a female since we got him!) He's an absolute nightmare sometimes but I don't think I could live without him now even though I'd still consider myself more of a dog person.

I now reside in yucky England with my Fiance far away from all of my friends and family. I'm on medication for depression / anxiety and  panic disorder which has unfortunately turned my life around in a bad way. I've been unemployed since I moved here which drives me nuts sometimes because I haven't made any new friends. Which was part of my reasoning for a trip back home for a few weeks. Just to get a bit of a breather, take a bit of time off. Verging on just never leaving the house I've started seeing a Councillor. I started having problems with anxiety several years go but it's only been in the past year that It's come to a real boiling point, rendering me afraid of the simplest of things like going to the shop on my own. When I had my first panic attack I was completely terrified, I can't begin to explain to anyone who hasn't experienced it how horrific it actually feels. The medication I'm on makes everything a little better and I'm hoping with time and taking little steps I'll be able to get my life back on track by next year. My fiancée has been an absolute rock throughout this past year in supporting me and taking care of me, he's defiantly one in a million. I'm so thankful to WoW for bringing us together.

I don't want to write too much because there are nineteen more posts in the challenge. And we don't want them all to turn into one big post but hopefully that's given you a bit of an insight into who's actually behind Soco!  I'm a pretty social person though If you haven't spoken to me before feel free to give me a poke on twitter @Socowow The next post will be "Why you started a blog".