20 Days of WoW - Day 6 - My Desk

   I assume that this is outside of WoW. My workplace is just a small desk in the bedroom where a lot of my crafting and writing happens. The table is covered in paint, glue and clay. I should wash it but I usually use it at night and at that point I can't be bothered. But, I've taken a picture of my workspace, and tidied it up for your viewing pleasure. I've got lots of little crafty bits hanging around, like a couple of fox paintings by Constance Stotzer, a friend of mine in Vegas, an amazing digital portrait of my two rats from Vicky, my friend in Edinburgh, some cute little prints from WhiteStag, and a bat plush that I made myself. He looks more like a Yorkshire Terrier, but nevermind.
   Then there's also my paper, notebooks and folder containing notes, plans and character profiles for my current book, as well as a couple more notebooks with ideas for other stories to write when I finish this one.
   My shelves have got lots of goodies on them, including some small pinatas I made (they're empty - just decorational), Naruto's frog coin purse that Koruth got me, Meryl Felstorm who I'd wanted for years and finally managed to find, and then some cuddly toys - a husky that my mum saw a year ago and was adamant to get me; the Horde Windrider, of course; a fluffy monster I made, a Clanger, and an awesome plush fossil I bought from Weird Bug Lady when she was still on Etsy. I love fossils.

20 Days of WoW - Day 5 - Favourite Items In-Game

Demon Hunter's Aspect & Mushroom Chair

There are a lot of in-game items I love, but I don't own half of them.

I love useless items, so these are all mostly novelty items.

Items I Own
Demon Hunter's Aspect
Mushroom Chair
Darkspear Pride

Lament of the Highborne . 

Chest of Tiny Glass Animals - I know it doesn't do anything, but it's the idea of it I love.


Items I Don't Own
Tuskarr Kite
Sylvanas' Music Box
Aspect Staff thingy
Ethereal Trader

20 Days of WoW - Day 4 - My Best WoW Memory

   My best WoW memory. This was actually something I submitted to Mama Needs Mana's 'favourite WoW memory' competition, so I can recall it a little clearer now.
   I have a lot of memories of WoW, but my favourites are the more noobish moments, when I didn't really know the game all that well. But my favourite is this:
   Back when I was levelling through Tirisfal Glades on my first Spinegrinder (as I mentioned before, she was created 3 times), I came up to the Bulwark. It wasn't very exciting at that point, just a couple of tents and stakes. But I was curious as to what lay beyond it - it would have been my third zone to have seen (I was still counting Deathknell as a zone). I made my way towards the pass, but a friend told me not to go through, because it was a level 50 zone.
   I scoffed. As if. A level 50 zone beside a level 10 zone. There's no way the game designers would be that stupid. I ignored their warning (they didn't press it) and continued on through. I don't remember what the Western Plaguelands looked like back then because it's change now and become greener, but what I do remember is the giant spider that suddenly began to chase me.
   Now, I must stress at this point that, being a noob and having no previous experience with MMO's, I didn't understand aggro ranges. I already knew that lower levelled mobs needed closer range to attack you. The lower they were, the closer you had to get. But that translated, logically, I believe, to me thinking that with higher level mobs, you didn't have to get so close, and the higher the level, the sooner they'd detect you. I was, in fact, convinced that if I set foot in a level 60 zone at level 10, every single monster would stop what they were doing and charge towards me. Every mob in the zone. Every one of them. I also, somehow, got it into my mind that they would chase me for longer if I ran away from them, assuming that their increased level didn't also increase their speed.
   So, as I plodded into the Western Plaguelands, a giant spider suddenly came charging out of nowhere right towards me. Somehow, I saw it quickly enough and managed to keyboard turn away and run off. I was more concerned with running than with looking behind me, but I was convinced that there would be about 50 spiders chasing me, and goodness knows what else. There was, of course, only one.
   Now, as you all know, higher level mobs will detect you sooner than a lower level mob will, but aggro zones are aggro zones, and they don't suddenly expand beyond the norm for a level 10 to the extent that they can detect you right on the other side of the zone and a whole zone's creatures will decide to attack you all at once. And you also know that they don't chase you further just because you're a lower level, or that they're any faster.
   Well, I was very unlucky at this moment. I was still under the belief that I had 50 spiders chasing me, and that they would probably chase me all the way back to Deathknell. I ran to Brill, remembering the little settlement, and I was hoping some of the players there (who were actually NPCs) would help me. That bugger followed me all the way to Brill. Clearly, my game bugged out and this one spider (there was only one) wouldn't get off of my tail, but it seriously reinforced my belief that higher level mobs would chase you further and for longer. I was so scared playing the game, and wouldn't go anywhere unless mobs had green levels. I wouldn't dream of attacking a yellow level, let alone an orange, and I was very wary of new zones, always asking people what level I had to be to get there, and I learned that, just because a zone is beside another one, doesn't mean it's the next progressive zone.

   My friends did not help me beyond their initial warning. They laughed and found it all to be very amusing. They didn't even kill the spider, the guards at Brill did that. Though I don't know what level they used to be. If the guards were only level 20 then one of my friends may have joined in, because thinking back, a couple may well have died taking on a level 50.
   I did not find this funny at the time, but looking back, it's my fondest memory. And, I'm pleased to say, my noobishness extended all the way to level 80. I miss it now.

Atherya Sunleaf Writing Competition Prizes

   I put my mind to it and figured out a prize for the competition. I may throw in one or two more things as time goes by, though.

   If I get enough entries, then there will be some honourable mentions, and they'll get a simple consumable loot card. It's nothing fancy at all, I know.

   The winner, however, will get the following:

• Their story written into Atherya's diary - the events and individuals in the winning short story (be it 1 page or 10) will be added into the diary. It may take one entry, or it may take several, depending on the amount that happens. The winner will be given credit for their ideas at the foot of each diary post that works on the story, and the story itself will be added to the diary archive, with full credit to the winner.

• A simple pet loot card - if you already have the pet, they usually go for between 15-20k on the AH, at level 1. Just redeem the card and cage the pet like you would with one of the Raiding for Leashes pets.

• A custom watercolour painting of your character. There are two ways this can be done - you can submit a high quality screenshot or use WoW Model Viewer to recreate your character in your desired gear and pose them. Backgrounds won't be painted, they are a huge weakness for me, and the pose and view point I receive is how I will paint it. You will receive the original painting, by post, as well as a large-scale scan.
• A month of advertising space on my blog sidebar. The winner will be able to advertise their own blog/website/deviantART page/other internet space as long as it is WoW- or game-related. Along with this, they get the opportunity to write a guest post for  my blog about anything WoW-related, which will be posted during their 30 days of sidebar ad time. Alternatively, this ad space can be purchased for $5/£3 etc on the sponsor page.

For restrictions and requirements of your story, and how to submit, read here!

Past WoW-based Watercolours

20 Days of WoW - Day 3 - My First Day of WoW

[Re-enactment. No living creatures were harmed in the making of this screenshot.]

   I cannot remember my first day playing WoW. Not in any detail. I can tell you that I was using a friend's account to try it out, though. I had heard of it through a schoolfriend who showed me the male Undead's dance. I immediately wanted to play it but my parents wouldn't pay for the monthly fee so I didn't get to. A year or so later a friend let me try their account and I got quite hooked. To the extent that I wouldn't really let them have it back. They got it back eventually and I played on another friend's account. It took about a year but I eventually got my own account. I wouldn't share that with anyone. I was totally hooked on the game - a real addict. I stayed up 3 days straight playing it once. Yikes.

   But, back to my first day.

   I was amazed. I had played a few games on the megadrive before hand - that was it. Sonic, Jak and Daxter, and Bubsy. That was all I had ever played. I thought that you had to save your WoW game. I had never encountered an MMO before. I didn't realise that some of the characters I was seeing were other players, and when I did realise it, I thought all NPCs were player controlled. I thought it was incredible as I made my female Undead (to this day her dance disappoints me. And yes, I remade her on the second friend's account, and then again on my own, and I still have her) and I ran around Deathknell. I thought the game was a little bit dull since it was so small, but then I was sent out of Deathknell. WHAT THE HELL WAS THIS?! My map changed. It was different, and my movement across it was so slow. It was enormous. It was bleak and dreary, but I was a zombie. What did I expect. I thought the game had to have like, another seven zones because of the other races. It was so exciting. I wanted to go and find them. I was told I wouldn't be able to get to half of them, though, or I'd be killed by other players. That frightened me. Unfortunately, I was on a PvP server because that's where my friends were. But I felt safe in Tirisfal Glades. So I stayed there.

   You can imagine my eventual surprise when I right-clicked my map by accident and was shown an island, that turned out to be the whole continent. The game was huge and I got so very, very excited. Eventually, after a week or so, I found out that not only was there another continent, but also another 'planet', so I had so much to explore that I basically forgot life outside of the game for months. Fortunately my mum's MS was pretty tame at that point - she could still walk, talk, think, drive, read, everything. So I didn't need to think of life outside of the game unless I had to go to school. I always did my homework right away, though, before playing because I knew I wouldn't do it otherwise, so I did have my priorities straight, at least!

   It was awesome. Whenever I see a lowbie player with no heirlooms, keyboard turning and running up to me and then standing very very close looking at me, I know that they're new, and I envy them incredibly. I'm never again going to have that sheer awe towards a game that I had then. I know how MMO's work, I know how most games work, and that kind of sucks, in a way.

   My first day of WoW rocked.