Concerning flight points, part 5

Just a short PS to part 4. Elsie's currently sitting in the inn at Cenarion Hold, Silithus, that being the last flight point she got on her tour - she hit level 19 just before she got there. I think I covered most of the new points in part 4, but there are a couple more.

Not in any particular order.... let's see. Morgan's Vigil to Thorium Point is very definitely easier than Loch Modan/Badlands to Thorium Point. However, I've decided that using the spirit healer at Flame Crest actually slows things down a lot - it's better to just run along the road. There are ogres and orcs that will kill you, but you'll get to Blackrock Mountain in only a few deaths. Having run through there, you do have to run a bit to the north before your death brings you to Thorium Point graveyard - if you die earlier, you go to the new graveyard on the south edge of the Cauldron. Much less helpful. But again it's only a few deaths before you're at Thorium Point.

Light's Hope Chapel to Zul'Aman: I said I was going to experiment with going the long way round rather than past Browman's Mill. This did work better, but there is one thing to watch out for... falling into the Pestilent Scar is a Very Bad Thing which will cause you to die a lot. The problem is that if you got to Light's Hope Chapel the way I usually do - i.e. by dying in that half of the zone and rezzing in the graveyard there - you won't have the Pestilent Scar on your map until you discover it by falling in :p

Gadgetzan to Marshal's Refuge: I wondered if it might be any less horrible if I ran more or less west from Gadgetzan and tried to find a way through the mountains. Answer: it's slightly better, but not much, but you CAN jump down the mountainside into the crater. True, you do die at the bottom, but by that stage you've died every few seconds for the last half hour, so it's not a big deal!

More annoying, and something I forgot to mention in part 4, is that when you do wake up in Marshal's Refuge graveyard, Larion will kill you immediately if you use the spirit healer. Mean! It's still worth it though, because you can rez further up the slop and avoid him on your next death.

No more flight point obsession until Katisha etc. get to Outland, so I'll finish by sharing something that happened the other day that really amused me... I got a whisper in-game.

[22:04:06] [Jamock] whispers: hey
[22:04:11] To [Jamock]: ?
[22:04:24] [Jamock] whispers: can i aks ur age
[22:04:47] To [Jamock]: About 40 years older than you, judging by your spelling
[22:05:32] [Jamock] whispers: got keyboard probs

Hee!

Concerning flight points, part 4

(The first three parts are here, here and here)

Well, I've been working on my flight points again in the last few days. Patience now has all the flight points, and I'm partway through Elsie's tour. I haven't been going out of my way to collect coins at the same time, but I've got quite a few. When I've completed the flight points, I plan to try and clear as many coins as possible on all my characters. (I ran out of time last year, so only Iolanthe has most of them - but I do have lists to tell me which ones the others haven't got. Sad or what?) Oh, and I realised that Gianetta and Hebe didn't have the new Zul'Aman flight point, so I took them both on an excursion.

Anyway, I promised an update to explain what effect the new graveyards etc. have had on insane flight point runs. The answer is: not as much as I'd thought, mainly because the new graveyards are not in the most useful of places, in my opinion (although it's possible that Blizzard didn't have players like me in mind when deciding where to put them!) Felwood is still the biggest nightmare, and there is no new graveyard there. I mean, come on - how hard would it have been to put a graveyard at Jaedenar?!? That zone is HUGE! Also, I made a big mistake - I came down from Moonglade instead of up from Ashenvale (because I'd got to Moonglade through the moonlight) and this turns out to be far, far worse. My advice to you: don't do that.

The first place I noticed changes was Tanaris (and Un'Goro). The run from Gadgetzan to Marshal's Refuge is now a bit easier. The Tanaris bit isn't that different, despite the addition of a new graveyard, because it's not in a helpful place - it's down in the south central part of the zone, so the only effect is that halfway through your slow death-every-step run, you start resurrecting in the new graveyard. It's just as far to run back to your corpse from there as it was when the only graveyard was Gadgetzan. However, once you're in Un'Goro, things are a bit improved. I knew there was a new graveyard over near the centre of the zone, but I never saw it while doing my usual run round the edge. Nothing was different until I died up near Fungal Rock, and woke up in another new graveyard... at Marshal's Refuge \o/

I tried a new method of getting to the Thorium Point flight point, because I knew there was at least one new graveyard in Searing Gorge (near the Cauldron) and that could only make things worse if I'd used my usual run-through-Badlands method. (You'll recall that this method had already become more painful thanks to the addition of a new graveyard in the Badlands - the only thing that made it bearable was the fact that as soon as you set foot anywhere in Searing Gorge, your next death took you to Thorium Point.) I'd just got the Morgan's Vigil flight point, and I decided to go to Flame Crest to get the coin. (This is easy because there's a graveyard there.) While waiting for the rez sickness to wear off, it occurred to me that it was probably worth a try going through Blackrock Mountain. Which I did, and it wasn't that bad - certainly nowhere near as the Badlands route. I did die a few times, obviously, but it wasn't too bad - and when I died in Searing Gorge, thankfully it *was* Thorium Point where I ended up, rather than any of the new graveyards. So I'll be using this route again.

There's also a very slight change to the Light's Hope Chapel run, because the graveyard at Darrowshire seems to have moved to Crown Guard Tower. This doesn't make a huge difference to the method listed in my previous post though, and in fact it's a good thing in terms of the Lunar Festival, because there's an Elder at Crown Guard Tower, and I doubt I would have bothered going out of my way to see him if I'd gone via Darrowshire.

And, finally, the new Zul'Aman flight point. Unsurprisingly the worst bit about the run to this one is getting away from Light's Hope Chapel. There's probably no way of doing this without dying several times (although next time I might experiment with running the long way round - it's Browman Mill that's the most dangerous). But once you're on the road you can go most of the way without being attacked, and then once you're in the Ghostlands it's easy. The only thing that puzzles me is this: if they can connect Ghostlands to the rest of the flight network (you fly through the portal) why can't they do the same for the Exodar? It's REALLY annoying!

Must sleep now. And try not to be haunted by a chilling line in the next patch notes: "Monstrous Kaliri have learned how to chase players going straight up." Argh!

Lunar Festival time again!

Well, it seems to be months since I last wrote anything here, which was not my intention, but there you go. A brief update is in order - maybe I'll find time to go into more detail sometime soon!

I have two L70 characters now - Mabel got there a while ago. She's still got lots of quests to do - she's just gone into Netherstorm - so she is steadily earning money towards her epic flying mount. Iolanthe is still stuck on everything but has made a bit of progress - she's up to Black Morass in the instance list. She's still trying to make enough money to start the epic flight form quest, but has been slowed down by having to send money to her sisters. I'm hoping that soon she might get to finish the Ogri'la prequest chain (she has one step left), because that will open up some money-making daily quests. The Netherwing ones aren't an option because you can't start them until you have the epic flying skill (whatever it's called). But she's loving the daily cooking quests. The Skettis one is harder than all the others combined, so of course it seems to come up more often than all the others combined too. But the bonus is that while you're there you may as well do the daily bombing quest while you're there (I can never be bothered to fly there to do that one unless I'm doing the cooking quest too, but it's fun if you're there anyway). Mabel is doing the cooking quests too, but she finds the bombing much harder than Iolanthe because she has a flying mount rather than flight form, and the wings are much bigger - it's hard to see the eggs!

Katisha is L60 and is working her way through the higher Azeroth zones (yes, I know I could be in Outland, but it's me). She's currently in EPL. When she finally makes it to Outland I'll take her on the flight point tour - I haven't written about the Outland ones yet. Gianetta has been a bit neglected recently, but I plan to make it up to her soon - she's L32 and is in the Southshore inn. I did spend a bit of time with Hebe in Ashenvale - she still can't do the Absent Minded Prospector, even at L27 - but I was finding everything really difficult so I left her for a while too.

Patience is now L22 and is just finishing the Bloodmyst Isle quests. And since I last wrote, I finally got the urge to try the last class I hadn't done - a hunter. Elsie is now L18 - with a pet owl called Tevez (because when I got him, Man Utd were playing Liverpool, and Tevez had just scored) - and is killing stuff in Darkshore. I don't know why I wasn't inspired to try a hunter earlier, because it's great fun!

I haven't really played on the other servers much in the last few months. Santuzza and Eponine are exactly where they were - they kind of lost their reason for living when the person that they went to play with quit the game - and Madmargaret hasn't got very far. I've actually played her quite a bit, but I'm just really, really bad at it! It's many months since anyone else in the guild has been on Hellscream at the same time as her, so it's a bit demoralising.

Anyway, it was the Lunar Festival that inspired me to post. It reminded me that Patience and Elsie haven't yet done the flight point tour, so they may as well do that while collecting coins of ancestry. (It's the perfect time to collect flight points, because everyone can get the Moonglade one for free while the festival is on, and then use the moonlight to facilitate movement elsewhere.) All my other Dragonblight characters have all the flight points now, so they can all try to get the coins they didn't get last year. (I have decided to be restrained and not make Iolanthe go and get them all again...) This in turn reminded me that I need to edit my flight point guide, because several new graveyards have been added to the game since I wrote it, and they will affect things. However, I did the first part of the run tonight with Patience, and so far there are no changes - no new graveyard in Felwood, in particular, where it would really help. (I had to abandon Patience as a ghost in Irontree Woods, because the server went down for regular maintenance while I was still trying to get to the Emerald Sanctuary, and if I'd hearthed, it would have wasted probably two hours' effort.)

More when I've finished the tour - maybe at the weekend. I bet you can't wait :p

Gizelton Caravan Kodo fan club

Recently I realised, to my horror, that my 6 Dragonblight characters were not all as up to date with their professions as they might be. Iolanthe has been at 375/375/375/375/375 for ages, but the others are all behind to various degrees. Mabel and Katisha *did* have almost all the cooking recipes they could reasonably get, because I made sure of that a while ago, but since then they've both lagged a bit, because TBC came out and added a load of new recipes, not all in Outland. And Gianetta, Hebe and Patience have all just been grabbing recipes as they've found them (as, I assume, most normal people do!).

What brought this to my attention? A whole chain of obsessive-type events, which it's just amused me to recall :p Let's see...

1. A guildie said she was bored and asked if I wanted any help with anything low level (she had a headache and couldn't cope with anything that involved thought). And Gianetta and Hebe both needed Deadmines, so I took Gianetta because the quests were already grey for her.

2. When we asked if anyone else wanted to join in, another guildie said he didn't need Deadmines but would be keen to do the Stockade, so we ran that afterwards (Gianetta already had the quests).

3. There was a vague plan to do Deadmines again soon after (this hasn't happened yet, but never mind), so I concentrated on levelling Hebe a bit so that she could collect the Stockade quests too, and do both together (you need to be level 22 to pick up most of them). When she went to Lakeshire to pick up the quest there, she also grabbed the Selling Fish quest. She's not doing Redridge quests in general - I really hate that area, and have only done it once or twice; I avoid it when I can, and I usually can! But I grabbed the fish quest because you can level fishing while doing it, and I do get obsessive about my professions so this has to be done :-)

4. She tried to do the quest there and then by fishing Lake Everstill, but her fishing skill wasn't high enough, even with bait. So she ran off to Elwynn to fish, where the rivers are easier. By the time she'd levelled enough to be able to do the quest, I'd spent long enough fishing that I decided I was going to make it a priority to get all my characters caught up on their fishing. This was helped by the fact that the (UK) football season has just started, and I find that fishing is a good calming thing to do while watching a live game :p

So, that's what started the current profession obsession. Here's what I've done on it since....

Firstly, I realised (while doing the Lakeshire quest) that Hebe didn't even have the Blump family fishing pole, so afterwards I took her to Auberdine to do the three fishing quests (that one plus the two upstairs in the inn). This got her skill level quite high easily, but while I was fishing, I realised that it would be stupid not to level cooking at the same time, and I knew I needed to send Iolanthe shopping as a matter of urgency. I'd done this on Mabel and Katisha's behalf when they were too little to have a mount - it's much quicker for Iolanthe to race round on her epic mount collecting cooking recipes from all the vendors. But at that time, my three youngest characters didn't exist, so another shopping trip was called for.

Before I could do this, I needed to log onto all my characters to double check their cooking lists and compare them to the master list in order to be able to compile the shopping list, so I figured I may as well do a bit of fishing with each one in the process. I started with Patience (my little draenei paladin that I only started a few weeks ago) because I knew her fishing was still at level 1 and she had very few cooking recipes. While I was on Azuremyst I thought I may as well do a few quests - because she runs out of rest XP very quickly, I tend to only do a few at a time. But before long I realised I'd done all the Azuremyst quests, except one - the one with the Draenei Youngling. Well, I spent ages running round looking for this damn mob, but to no avail, so it looks as if I might be there for a while yet.

While Patience was fishing, she caught lots of stuff that she couldn't cook but I knew she should be able to, so I sent her on a brief tour of Auberdine, Darnassus and Dolanaar to collect some low-level recipes (and do the Auberdine fishing quests while she was there). Just by cooking the fish she'd already caught, she levelled her cooking skill to 150 to match the fishing. She couldn't go any further with either until she had the expert books, which I added to Iolanthe's shopping list. (And, before you ask, although you have to be level 20 to use the expert fishing book, there is no level restriction on the expert cookbook (or the expert first aid book either, for that matter).)

While Hebe was in Auberdine, she collected a couple of quests. She went to Ashenvale after Westfall, you see - Redridge would have made more sense, but I hate it there, and Katisha and Gianetta (and possibly Mabel, I'm not sure) had both missed out Ashenvale, so I felt like giving it a go. But Hebe was just slightly too low level, so most of the quests were orange and red, so when she saw some yellow and green quests in Darkshore and remembered that some of them led to Ashenvale anyway, it seemed like a good plan to pick up a couple.

Three hours later, the plan didn't seem so attractive. I'd spent most of that time trying to escort the damn Absent Minded Prospector. I lost count of how many times I tried, but I do know I gained two whole levels in the process (yes, really!) I still haven't done it, and Hebe is now 25 - the quest is labelled 20G2. No way. I can get *almost* all the way through, and then two trolls spawn right at the end (one of them a caster) and they kill him whatever I do. Argh.

Gianetta is in Southshore at the moment, so after fishing for a while off the Eastern Strand, she killed a lot of murlocs, most of whom didn't seem to have heads - typical. She also spent quite a while being killed by Syndicate thugs, before managing to kill enough of them in return to be able to hand in the quest. Such a very long, annoying corpse run!

Katisha went to Zul'Farrak the other day, so she did a bit of fishing off the coast of Tanaris while she was there. She's done all the Tanaris quests, though - she's just starting Searing Gorge, but went on a bit of a detour after the ZF trip, because there are several followup quests (e.g. Saving Sharpbeak and The Ancient Egg). She couldn't do Sharpbeak solo, but the Ancient Egg is fairly easy if you're willing to die a few times (especially if you do it at peak hours when someone else has just killed all the mobs!), and since that leads on to Sunken Temple, it seemed a good plan to collect the other ST quests in case someone wanted to do that soon. The priest class quest meant going to Azshara, so she did the Arcane Runes quest (a.k.a. The One With The Helipad) while she was there. Whee!





That's actually Mabel saving Sharpbeak above - she did ZF and ST a week or two ago, but hadn't been able to do Sharpbeak, so when a guildie offered to do it after Katisha's ZF run, I took Mabel because she'd needed it for longer. Mabel is sitting in Honor Hold at the moment, but she hasn't done anything there yet because I've been concentrating on lower level characters. Her fishing is already quite high, but knowing how long it took Iolanthe to get from 300 to 375 is putting me off doing it again! I'll get to it soon, though.

And, finally, Iolanthe. Poor Iolanthe. She's been stuck on everything on her quest log for months now - she's done all the quests there ARE... at least, all the ones that are soloable. Everything she has left either needs a group of 5 70s - impossible when so many of the guild are on a break at the moment - or could probably be done with just one person to help, but those quests are all in Azeroth and no-one wants to do high-level stuff there. So poor Iolanthe is reduced to being used just to get stuff for my other characters. The highlight of her week last week was being asked to make some swiftness potions so that Gianetta could try to jump onto Thandol Span (she couldn't do it, even with the potion - I decided to leave it till she has a mount). But she had a good run out last night, when she spent several hours riding and flying all over the place collecting recipes and books. The last couple of hours were spent mostly in Desolace, with interruptions while she popped over to Tanaris and back. That's because there are three recipes that are only, as far as I know, available from the Gizelton Caravan Kodo (the caravan has lots of recipes, but several of them are available elsewhere too). Even more helpfully, they're all limited supply, so that you can only buy one, and you then have to wait an hour to buy another... because the caravan, in case you didn't know, only stops to sell stuff at the two ends of its route, and it sells different stuff at each end - and of the three exclusive recipes, one is only available at the southern end and the other two at the northern end. And it takes almost an hour for the caravan to return to the same end (the time varies slightly, presumably depending on whether or not someone starts either of the escort quests en route). And I needed 3 of each recipe!

Why did I have to keep popping to Steamwheedle Port while waiting for the caravan? Because the recipe for Undermine Clam Chowder is only available there, and it's also on limited supply, but at least it respawns every 15 minutes or so. It's just as well I know the route and timing of the Gizelton Caravan Kodo like the back of my hand (how sad is that?!?), so that I was able to ride back to exactly the correct point on the route each time.

Earlier on, Iolanthe had been to Blood Watch to buy several copies of the Crunchy Spider Surprise recipe, and while she was there she did the quest for the Roasted Moongraze Tenderloin recipe. This took about 30 seconds to complete, so in the last hour of her shopping trip, when she'd got all the copies of the Undermine recipe and was just waiting for the caravan to get back to Kormek's Hut, she logged off so that Mabel and Katisha could each go to Azuremyst and do the moongraze quest. Gianetta and Patience both did it while growing up there, obviously, so there's only Hebe to go, but I didn't quite have time to take her last night. That's first on my list for tonight, followed by taking several of them to Auberdine to do the Strider Stew quest. Then I might send Mabel into Razorfen Downs to see how feasible it is for her (and, later, the others) to get to the NPC that teaches the Goldthorn Tea recipe - Iolanthe does have that one, but she got it while actually running the instance with a group, ages ago when groups could still be found to do that one! Other than that, the only recipe Mabel doesn't have (other than Outland ones, but I'll worry about those when everyone's got all the Azeroth ones) is the one for Savory Deviate Delight, but I'm not sure I can face grinding for it in the Barrens, so I'll just keep an eye out on the AH - every so often someone puts it up without realising how much it's worth (that's how Iolanthe got it!)

Right, now you're up to date with all my Dragonblight characters, and I must get back to them in a minute. But in case you're wondering about the others... Madmargaret is at Tarren Mill, dying very frequently and struggling due to lack of funds. Santuzza is at Honor Hold, but her ultimate aim in life is to finish BRD, which she started 18 months ago but never finished because everyone moved servers. Since then she's moved to a different server to play with a friend, who quit the game a few weeks later. She's a bit cursed! Eponine is the character I started at the same time as the aforementioned friend, and she's in Auberdine, but has been sadly neglected due to his absence.

Next post... probably more on professions :-)

Alone in Silithus

Mabel's halfway between 61 and 62 now, and she's finally moved to Outland. Yes, yes, I know she could have gone at 58, but anyone who knows me will understand why she didn't - she hadn't finished Azeroth! I realise I'm in a tiny minority who plays like this, but it makes perfect sense to me. I don't play for gear or loot or gold - I play for the experience of playing. I love questing, and I particularly like visiting areas that I've either never been, or not been for ages. This is quite apart from the fact that I don't like to leave zones with quests undone or unfinished. (I'm OK about missing out whole zones, though - at least the early ones. For example, Gianetta has just finished the Bloodmyst quests, and she's moved straight to Duskwood, omitting places like Darkshore, Ashenvale, Westfall and Redridge. But she'll do all the zones from Duskwood onwards.)

All of the above should help to explain why I spent the whole of last night alone in Silithus, the last of the Azeroth zones (yes, I do have a specific order I have to do them in!) And I do mean "alone" - I kept doing a "/who" to see if anyone else had joined me, and they hadn't. A Horde guy did turn up just as I was about to leave, but that was the first player I'd seen in 12 hours. I felt kind of sad for the mobs, actually! I saw Setis - a rare elite that I've never seen before - and he was just wandering around aimlessly. I suppose you could argue that he (and other mobs) might prefer NOT to be killed, but it seemed so sad that they were just being totally ignored!

I did all the stuff I could do solo. I'm realistic enough to know that the chance of getting even a friend to help me do the other stuff is slim to zero - I can't even persuade any of them to do Plaguelands stuff, let alone Silithus! So I abandoned stuff like Glyph Chasing and Into the Maw of Madness... but I made a note, as I always do, of which quests I haven't done, so that I can go back later when I can solo them. (Iolanthe recently went back at L70 to do Into the Maw of Madness - not easy even then! But although she did die a couple of times, she finished it. Very satisfying!)

Mabel also spent quite a few hours (and gold) doing the Tier 0.5 armour chain. I doubt that many people have done that since the expansion came out, because (as everyone knows) you can get better gear from an hour or two killing trash in Outland. But as I said earlier, I don't play for gear, and that chain is not only great fun, it also has loads of XP! Mabel and Iolanthe are now both stuck on the 45-minute Baron step of it, but I hold out hope that someone else in the guild will want to try that sometime - although, knowing my luck, they'll do it on the spur of the moment on a day when I'm not online!

An alternative to counting sheep

I've been an insomniac all my life, albeit to varying degrees. It's not too bad at the moment, but there was a time, six months ago or so, when I was lying awake for ages every night. That was until I discovered a way which so far has succeeded in getting me to sleep every time...

It has a few variations, but the one I use most often is to try to think of WoW locations starting with each letter of the alphabet in turn. e.g. Auberdine, Booty Bay, Chillwind Camp, Darnassus... This would be much too easy if unmodified, so I usually restrict it to places I've visited that day, or in the last few days (depending on how much I've played). The idea is, you see, for me not to actually get to Z - I need to get stuck on one, because that's when I generally fall asleep. If I made it to Z I'd have to think of something else to try!

Now of course most letters are easy and have many options. But there are a few that aren't. P has been a frequent problem, unless it's one of the days when I've been through the Plaguewood in EPL. I can hardly ever think of anywhere else that starts with a P. J is OK if I've been in STV (Jaguero Isle, Janeiro's Point), Felwood (Jaedenar, Jadefire Run) or the Hinterlands (Jintha'Alor). I can always remember that there's Jerod's Landing in Elwynn Forest, but since I never go there, that's not much use. But there aren't many others. X is only Xavian (NE Ashenvale) as far as I know, but I'm usually asleep before I get to X. Which is just as well, because for Y I can only think of the Yorgen Farmstead and Yojamba Isle, and although there are quite a few for Z, I can only usually remember Zoram Strand (possibly because if I've got to Z, my mind is in Ashenvale anyway after Xavian).

Most of the others are easy enough, although when I spent a few days playing only Madmargaret (my only Horde character) I discovered that the only place I can think of starting with an I is Ironforge, so I got stuck earlier than usual! I did find O and U easier than on Alliance days though, because of Orgrimmar and the Undercity.

(I have spent quite a while searching for a complete listing of WoW locations, but so far I've been unsuccessful - this one is the best I've found, and it has quite a few omissions.)

Variations on this theme... sometimes I am strict with myself and only allow settlement names and not zone names, but then I end up relaxing this when I can't think of an H other than Hinterlands :p (I know there's Honor Hold and Hellfire Citadel, but since Iolanthe's been stuck on everything for ages now, I've hardly spent any time in Outland, so I can't use them.) Sometimes I try to think of NPC or quest names, but that's much too hard. I got quite a long way with herbs once, but I don't think I've tried that since, although I did try the more general version: items I might have in my backpack.

Hopefull all this will help to explain to my guildmates why I sometimes get giddily excited when visiting places like the Jagged Ridge :-)

Niggles

Each of the posts I've made on this blog so far have turned out much longer than intended - this happens to me a lot :p But this will be short, I promise.

There are several things in the game that make me grind my teeth in irritation every time they come up. I know that just about everyone has this reaction to the misspelling of "rogue" as "rouge", but there are others! (And I'm not really counting other examples of misspelling, much as it irritates me, because I realise that some people find spelling really difficult.) For me the two biggest ones are "draenei" and "Outland". With "draenei" it's the pronunciation - it's very clear from the opening voiceover when you CREATE a draenei that it's pronounced DRANN-eye rather than DRAIN-eye. Yet just about everyone gets it wrong. I hadn't realised how much this annoyed me until I started listening to WoW podcasts (I only listen to two, and they're great, but this one thing drives me mad. Although they can't pronounce "shaman" either, most of the time, which is almost as annoying (to be fair, I think it CAN be pronounced either way, but I think SHAR-man is more correct), and one of the presenters on one of the shows can't pronounce - well, anything!)

With "Outland" it's the fact that it's NOT "OUTLANDS". Yet many, many people refer to it in the plural form. I never dare say anything, but it annoys me every single time. Other similar niggles: let's see... Use of "shadow labs" annoys me. I'm fine with "shadow LAB" or "SL" but it's short for LABYRINTH, not labyrinths, as far as I know. Also, Mana-Tombs without the hyphen. This didn't annoy me at all until I read on WoW Wiki that "although the instance itself is called Mana-Tombs, the entrance area outside the portal is called Mana Tombs without the dash". I know it's quite unreasonable of me to get annoyed by this, because the chances of other people having noticed this fact are minimal. So I'd never mention it - but it annoys me!

There are a few abbreviations that annoy me too. DM always annoys me, because it always meant Deadmines to me, until suddenly everyone else started using it for Dire Maul. (If I'd ever DONE the whole of Dire Maul I might have got the hang of this, but as it is I think of Deadmines first if someone says "DM".) SV is a recent one, because although it's obviously "steamvault" (note to those who aren't sure: that's not plural either, plus it's ONE WORD and has a "the"....) my mind always insists on interpreting it as "Shadowmoon Valley". And - this is a silly one - OMW. I *know* it's "on my way", but my mind ALWAYS reads it as "oh my word!" I hate my mind :p

Oh, and while I'm doing niggles, I may as well confess that I also really, really hate: the word "gratz"; people who announce EVERY SINGLE DING; people who use game-specific slang (e.g. "imba") at every possibile opportunity; people who use any of the following: m8, l8r, pls, thx....

If you're a friend of mine and you do any of these things (I mention this because lots of them do!), I can forgive you because I love you, and I know *I'm* far more annoying than any of you, if we're keeping score. But if you're a stranger - PARTICULARLY one who calls me "m8" - you are *not* going to endear yourself to me this way.

This is already longer than I'd intended, but there is one more that's a perennial niggle but is in a different category to the others. It's the rested XP. It says, if you hover over the XP bar, something like "you are rested - 200% of experience gained from killing monsters". Yet every time I kill a monster, I only get 150%! And this is the case even if I've got WEEKS of rest. It does go correctly back to only 100% when I'm NOT rested, but as soon as I am - 150% again. Is this just me? I'm amazed no-one else has made a fuss about this, if not. (To be specific, it's things like "spider dies, you gain 500 XP (+ 250 XP rested bonus)". That's not 200%, it's 150%.)

Next time - I complain about the alphabet :p