Monday, March 31, 2014

ROYGBiV Tmog Contest - March's Winner

You all are having too much fun torturing me with this I think. The outfits this month were as fabulous, if not more, than last month. Again, this was a very tough decision. The representation of orange in the outfits, combined with some of the supporting colors, were soooooo well done!

My final decision came down to who "oranged me out" the most. That honor goes to:




Congratulations Dragonray! You are now the proud owner of your very own fiyakitteh!!!

Thank you to all nine of you who participated. This has been very fun to host. I look forward to seeing how you torment me next month.

Below are all of the images submitted, in no particular order, for March's contest. Also, I have posted two images that were missed from February's contest.









































Sunday, March 30, 2014

I've been Liebstered!

Oh my!

I'm not sure if I should run and hide or stand proud. Zeirah, of A is for Azeroth and Z is for Zeirah has nominated me for the Liebster Awards.

Me?!?!?

Color me confused...or, as Cal Naughton Jr. says, "My head's all tied up like a pretzel! I got a pretzel in my head!".

If you're unfamiliar with the Liebster Award, it is an award given to a blogger by other bloggers. Bloggers nominate each other and the recipients have eleven questions to answer, posed to them by the person that nominated them. Then, the nominated blogger has to nominate other bloggers and give them eleven questions to answer...and honestly, that is all I know about it.

Who picks the Liebsterian? Does the winner get a fancy little trophy? Do we get to go to an awards show? Is there a red carpet event? What day and time will the awards show be airing so I can let family and friends know?

C'mon now, these are important questions. Anyone have answers?

In the mean time, I'll answer the eleven questions Zeirah has come up with. While I'm doing this will someone please find out the answers to my above concerns? Thank you!

Zeirah's Questions

1.) What is your favourite zone in wow?

I actually have three favorites, each with their own reason as to why they are a favorite.

1. Zangarmarsh - Back when I first stepped foot into this zone it made me think of the marsh/swamp lands in Southern Florida. I've always wanted to explore them on an air boat or swamp buggy. As I would wander around Zangarmarsh questing I would always think how fun that zone would be on an air boat or swamp buggy.

2. Vashj'ir - This zone is one of my favorites based on the sheer beauty of the place. Being a water sign (Scorpio) means I am most comfortable near bodies of water. So, questing in a zone that was completely under water was heaven for me. Add to that the wonderful job Blizz did creating/decorating this zone and it instantly became one of my favorite places in game. They gave me my very own humongous fish tank to go play in without having to worry about feeding the fish and keeping them alive.

3. Grizzly Hills - This zone is one of my favorites because it always reminded me of when, as a child, my family would go camping. Every summer we would go camping up in the New England area. I used to love wandering around in the forested mountains looking for blueberry/boysenberry bushes or whatever else I could find. For me, Grizzly Hills has that New England woods feel to it and always brought back happy memories.

2.) What is your idea of a perfect day?

This one is almost impossible for me to answer. You see, I'm a pretty easy-to-please type of person. As long as I wake up breathing, have a roof over my head, food in my belly and a job to go to I am happy. When it comes to WoW, or video games in general, just having them to fiddle with makes me happy.

If you want me to exagerate, then having an "I WIN" button, or "SUPER GOD MODE" setting, in a game is perfect. I'm all for working hard to obtain the best gear and weapons and such. But, an "I WIN" button or "SUPER GOD MODE" setting is nice to have for those moods when I just want to see everything I possibly can in a game while not worrying about gear or dying.

3.) If you could be any npc, who would it be and why?

I'd like to be a murloc standing by the path at the southern edge of Lake Everstill, in the original Redridge Mountains zone, so I can scream indecipherable 4 letter words to all the noobs who come by as I chase them half way across the zone. (You know you would too!)

4.) Aside from food, water, and shelter, what one thing could you not go a day without?

I could not go a day without my desktop or laptop...or both. I think some of you can relate to that.

5.) Why do you blog?

Sadly, I do not know. I'm not very consistant with it. It's just something I putter with...and hopefully entertain a few people with.

6.) What would you tell a brand new wow player about the game?

First, and foremost, DO NOT SPEND YOUR GOLD AT THE AUCTION HOUSE! You will get gear as you quest that is more than adequate for your needs as you level. Only use the AH to sell anything you gather or cannot use until you get to a MUCH higher level, or max level.

7.) If you could pick any theme for the next expansion what would it be?

I would make the next expansion be a crafter's paradise. In a few other games I have played, crafting has been more of a mini-game then a bland and boring grind that it has become/been in WoW.

In MY expac, crafting as we know it would be erased from history and started a new. All professions would remain relavent across all past, current and future content...meaning that anyone, at any level, will have access to usefull items. Gathering would be completely revamped. I would also add a few new professions, like Woodworking for crafting furniture and/or housing and such.

Crafted gathering machines could be purchased (from Engineers of course) that we could place any where, in any zone, that would gather materials (such as herbs, wood and ore) for us. These machines would be phased so that only the owner could see them. When we placed a gathering machine somewhere we would most likely end up gathering common quality materials, but could have a chance at landing on better quality stuff. We would still be able to gather materials by hand as well.

Gathered materials would have different quality levels that would result in different qualities of wares/goods that we make. Example: copper would be rated as quality common, rare or epic (like our current gear/weapon quality levels). Common copper would allow us to craft basic quality stuff. Rare or epic copper would allow us to craft better qualities of that same basic, common copper item. So, say a common copper dagger were to give 3 agility. A rare or epic one would give say 5-10 agility.

We would be allowed to have a few NPCs of our own to station at our garrison to sell our crafted items or gathered materials. Our garrisons would have a public and private setting to allow us to let anyone just wander in or to keep everyone out. Any, and all, gold we earn by selling wares or goods would be ours to keep. We would, however, have to pay our NPCs a salary. This salary would be dependant on what level our NPC was. The higher the level, the more you have to pay out...but also, the higher the level the more wares and goods you can have listed for sale with that NPC. When we get an NPC to use to sell our wares/goods it will be level 1. We can purchase additional levels for them with our in game gold...kind of like how buying bag slots for our banks work.

We would still have auction houses in all the major cities, but those would have posting limits on them...like 25 items or so. They would be more for the new player to sell stuff until they established a crafting & self-selling set up for themselves at their own garrison.

Okay, I have to stop now. I could go on forever with this. More ideas just keep poppin' up in my head...and yes, a lot of that was based off how crafting used to work in Star Wars Galaxies Online. Man, I miss that game and it's crafting.


8.) What is your favourite mount?

Red Flying Cloud. I love how it just glides everywhere. No bouncing up and down or side to side. No sea-sickness effect either.

9.) What cheers you up?

Seeing, and chit chatting with, other bloggers in game...and watching Egbert come running back to me, after he has wandered off, and look up at me with his big ol' goofy (but cute) eyes.

10.) Glass half full or half empty?

Depends on how thirsty I am.

11.) Whats your favorite thing to do in wow?

This one really depends on my mood. Sometimes I just get a kick out of exploring. Sometimes it's dungeon running at level. Sometimes it's roflstomping old dungeons and raids for the fun of it. Sometimes it's questing. Sometimes it's doing pet battles.



Now that that is done, it's time for me to nominate some bloggers. I nominate:

1 - Godmother at ALT: ernative
2 - Dragonray at Azerothian Life
3 - Amer Priest at Amerence Love WoW
4 - PlaidElf at Plenty of Paladins
5 - The Grumpy Elf at The Grumpy Elf
6 - Daeaye at The Wyverns Tail
7 - Andrew at Typhoon Andrew's - Eye of the Storm
8 - JDKenada at Amateur Azerothian

If you have already been nominated and have answered your initial eleven questions, don't feel bad if you do not answer my eleven questions.

And my eleven questions for you are:

1.) How did you get started playing WoW?
2.) What other games were you playing when you discovered WoW?
3.) Did you create your blog because of WoW or another reason?
4.) What is your least favorite zone and why?
5.) What old raid/dungeon do you miss most and why?
6.) If you could be a dungeon/raid boss, what would your tag lines (the things you would shout at players as they beat upon you) be?
7.) Do you recall your first feelings about WoW and what were they?
8.) What aggrivates you most about WoW as it is today and why?
9.) Horde or Alliance and why?
10.) What is your favorite movie and why?
11.) What is your favorite song and why?

Saturday, March 29, 2014

I Never Said I Wasn't A Dork

Sometimes my goofie-ness gets the better of me and I just let it run. Good or bad? Don't know, don't care...too old to worry about it!

The other day, when I was putting together a new banner image for my blog, my goofie-ness came out to play.  I decided I was going to insert an image of my SIM look-a-like into random screenshots from WoW to see if you all could find her. Kind of my own version of "Where's Waldo" (TM).

I bring you "Wave at Mel" (WaM for short). Whenever the urge hits me I'm going to post an in-game screen shot for you all to see. All you have to do is find the "waving Mel" in the screenie, point out where she is located in the screenie and tell me where the screenie was taken.

Example answer would be:

"I'm waving at Mel. She is standing next to a tree in the bottom right corner. Screenshot was taken in Ashenvale"


This is what "waving Mel" looks like:




In some screenies she may be easy to spot. Others, not so much.

This is totally for fun...sorry no prizes...take part if you like.

So, without further ado, it's time to WaM!!!!!




Sunday, March 23, 2014

ROYGBiV Deadline and a few other tid-bits...

Hello, hello!

Just wanted to post a reminder that the second leg of the ROYGBiV Tmog contest is soon upon us. Two more days to go. Get your outfits ready to orange me out!

Also, since my last post, I've still been plugging away at SIMs 3 custom content. I spent a few more days downloading this and that and pulling some hair out and so on.

Then, after countless clicking of links to this page and that page and those tutorials, I found some information that made my day. You see, there is this program out there called TextureTweaker3 that has answered my prayers...well, the prayers my hair has been sending out so that I would not pull on them anymore at least.

This wonderful tool, combined with the tool S3OC (SIMs 3 Object Cloner), has made things sooooooooo much easier.

Yea, sure, I could use TSRW (The Sims Resource Workshop) tool. It makes things MUCH easier. The rub is, I don't like how TSRW saves the files of completed objects edits. Call me overly picky, but I don't like how the TSRW files show up in-game as "store bought" items that you can't share/upload from within the game.

Using TT3 and S3OC, the files are saved as basic .package files and I can do loads more with them. Also, the TSRW files can't be re-edited. So, if I were to come across an object I edited and wanted to go back and change something, I would have to start from scratch if it is a TSRW file. Not the case with TT3 and S3OC files.

Finally, I have 14 new paintings...well, technically it's one painting with 14 different images to choose from...and more to come.

I've also completed a few more homes, making my "total homes done" around 6.

I have yet to decide if I want to dabble in custom content such as furniture designs, new painting frames, new rug shapes and so on. 3D programs scare the bejeebus outta me. I don't think I want to stress myself out trying to learn how to use one.

For now, I'll just stick with the easy stuff.

Friday, March 14, 2014

My March Madness

We're almost half way through the month and I feel exhausted already. Why?

/sits and thinks...

/thinks some more...

...

Honestly, I wish I knew. It seems like I've been super busy. When I look at what I've actually done, however, I don't think it amounts to how busy I think I have been.

Sometime during the first week I decided to fire up SIMs 3 to create some custom content. One of the bloggers I read  has been playing it lately. She had written a few posts about her SIMs exploits and it made me want to dabble with it. (I'm sorry, I can't remember who...and I can't find her posts about it...if you know fill me in please!)

Although I don't enjoy actually "playing" it as much as I used to. I still enjoy building houses and color coordinating the furniture and stuff. So, I figured I'd make some custom content to upload to my ancient site I have for such stuff.

** insert shameless plug here ---> simplyjstmel.jstmel.com

First off, I decided I'd work on what I thought would be the easiest things to customize...paintings. I logged into WoW one night and went crazy flying around taking all kinds of screenshots to use...which ended up being just under 180 screenshots when all was said and done.

Then, I set off to re-learn how to incorporate those screenshots into the SIMs paintings.

Turns out making custom paintings for SIMs 3 isn't as easy as it used to be for SIMs 1 & 2. I needed 3-4 different programs to do it now.

???

So, I downloaded them all. Started to learn the ins-and-outs of them. Made one custom painting. Then said, "phew I'm tired".

That was three days later!

Ok. What's easier?

Building houses and decorating them!

Four days later I had 4 houses done and ready to share. I go to my site to look it over to see what I need to add/change to show off my shiny new homes...ugh...my site looks horrible!

Ok, maybe horrible isn't the right word. This blog is fashioned from it after all. Juvenile maybe? I don't know. But something about it just isn't right. It doesn't help that I haven't touched that site since 2006...which was when I started playing WoW and left it all behind. And there are a few features that either no longer work or are no longer active.

Now I was faced with feeling like I needed to freshen it up before adding any new content to it.

...meh...I'm not feeling it THAT much...

Then, Dharm and I got busy doing things around the house. We bought a house back in August and there were some plants and stuff we wanted to add/change out front but never got around to doing it.

Last Saturday we headed out to Home Depot to get some plants and other stuff and fiddled with that over the weekend.

Then, Monday at work I find out that the person that works the overnight shift was caught sleeping on the job over the weekend. Not good! I had to report him to the office and they ended up removing him from my post.

Around 5pm Monday night I get a call at home from the office. They tell me they found someone to work the overnight shift but he needs to be trained. The person working the evening shift was going to work until 3am (instead of his normal 11pm) and I was going to have to go in at 3am (instead of my normal 7am) to help split the shift and train the new person.

Ok, can I just tell you right now how hard it is to go to sleep at 7pm after getting home from work at 3:30pm when you're not ready for it and you normally go to bed at 10pm?????

Needless to say, Tuesday was a long day and as soon as I got home I went to bed...which really isn't anything out of the norm. Tuesdays are my nap day. I am NOT a morning person. After working the day shift on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday I am ready for some serious nap time Tuesday afternoon. On Tuesdays I get home from work, go to bed, wake up anywhere between 5:30pm and 6:30pm and then stay up until around 2am or 3am...sometimes even 4am. I work the evening shifts (3pm to 11pm) on Wednesdays and Thursdays. On Tuesdays I stay up late so that I don't get sleepy on those shifts.

Then, on Wednesday I learn about the new Hearthsteed and tell myself that I have just GOT TO HAVE THAT MOUNT!

So off I go to play Hearthstone. An hour or so later I have the three wins needed to get the mount. Do I log into WoW and take a look-see? Nah, I'm gonna continue playing Hearthstone because I'm having a lot of fun. Why didn't I try it out during Beta??? I feel so far behind now...as well as get my butt kicked often because I really have no idea what I'm doing.

Then, as of around 2:30am this morning I have acquired all the decks in Hearthstone and have leveled them each to between levels 10 and 11. Just the basic decks mind you. I've not bought any of the expert decks.

Now, I ask you, should I be as exhausted as I feel?




By the way, I logged into WoW today and the Hearthsteed mount is awesome and looks so good with Mootamir sporting his Death Knight starter gear transmog.

Saturday, March 1, 2014

ROYGBiV Tmog Contest - March

Today starts the second leg of the ROYGBiV Tmog Contest. This month's color is orange and the prize is: Cinder Kitten

Cuteness taking over Firelands!


Sheetahn got in the swing of things and donned her best orange garb for a photo-op with this months prize. You all do the same. Get ready and give me some ORANGE!!!!

As a reminder, here are the rules:

1.) All outfits must be able to be worn as if they were a true transmog. Meaning, no mixing plate and cloth items together or no Mages carrying bows and so on.

2.) You can use MogIt or WoW Model Viewer for your submissions. If you already have an outfit that coincides with this month's color, or you want to gather pieces for an outfit in-game, you are more than welcome to do so. Just send an in-game screenshot of your outfit.

3.) Each entry must be submitted (emailed to me) by the 25th of each month to allow time for voting. You can show off your outfit on your blog, if you have one. But please, still email your outfit to me.

4.) Email entries to: momar dot jstmel @ gmail dot com (in proper email address format of course) with the corresponding month's name and color in the subject title. (I.E. - Tmog Entry for March - Orange)

5.) Please, submit only one entry per month.

6.) In the body of the email list the names of the items used in each slot. Provide links to the items only if you want to. I can always look them up at Wowhead.

7.) Please use ALL gear/weapon slots available. Rings, trinkets and necklaces not necessary.

That's it. Good luck and have fun everyone!


Ooops...I forgot something. If you would like your name (WoW character name) posted with your entry on the last day of the month, please let me know in the email you submit your outfit with...otherwise I will do like I did the other day and just post the photos of the contestants with no names added.