Other Things Not To Do While Flying

Because friends don't let friends fly their dragon while drunk (in World of Warcraft anyway).

You'd think that speaks more to the dragon's sobriety than yours - I mean, it is a fully sentient mount and all. I would think it doesn't want to die. Unless maybe it's a bronze dragon, at which point it gets to the end of the fatigue bar, dumps you off, and teleports through space and time to go home. Then it wouldn't die so much, huh?

Anyway, so I was trying to think of something else to do in between Archaeology digsites, since we've established Plants Vs. Zombies is right out, when I came across this wonderful idea. Which is to say, my computer is beastly, and I can run The Sims 3 in the background.

So I do that, and I boot up an old save I barely remember anything about because I just don't ... really ... do The Sims 3 that much anymore. I've been meaning to do a legacy challenge justice, but it just hasn't really worked for me. It's the short attention span thing, I think. This old save isn't actually that old: the Sim in it turns out to have become a moderately famous vampire, in Riverview. She's a 'retired' firefighter, since firefighters mainly work during the day, and vampires are somewhat flammable.

She's also pregnant.

So I walk her through the pregnancy, pick some fruits and vegetables and generally, things are going peachy.

Then the babies happened. Babies, as in twins. As in why on earth did I ever think the fertility treatment was a good idea? Friendly Sim babies - which one of them is friendly - are monsters. Soul-consuming monsters. My poor Sim. She's also not married yet: she decided to seduce the maid, which wasn't really especially hard, being a mind-reading vampire with the Master of Seduction reward.

So, the babies. They never really stop crying. One mood meter fills out, another drops, and it's all my Sim can do to stay conscious. They're screaming and bawling about how they're tired, and they just used their diapers, and they're hungry, and they're just. So. Lonely. For the entire three-day period that my Sim has had these babies, they have not shut up long enough for her to even get the 'nap' moodlet, and believe me when I say that my Sim started trying to stage an organized rebellion against God just to get some shut-eye. I actually felt bad for her, and she's just an amalgamation of code strung together behind a very painful-looking assortment of pixels. That poor woman.

Then they grow into toddlers and I realize why they're such unholy monsters. They've been literally draining their mother of every last drop of energy, running her ragged.

The two rather-odd looking babies?

Are also vampires.

Hibernation

Thoughts disorderly, forgive me for that.

I think I am becoming sick from being outside in the snow and cold. Some coughing, and my throat is gummy.

That said, I have things to talk about!

Firstly, I am still trying to work out something efficient to do in between being at a digsite and being at the next digsite. It turns out the in-between parts of Archaeology are very, very boring - specifically the travel time inherent in going from the topmost end of Kalimdor and the southernmost points of it. The old world is very, very large, which is something you rarely think about until you're taking a flight from Silvermoon to Booty Bay, or mounting up to do the same. Last night I was reading other peoples' blogs and comics, which is a hobby of mine. The night before that, it was Plants Vs. Zombies.

Plants Vs. Zombies is not a very efficient way to spend long travels in World of Warcraft. I say this, because it's very engaging and even intense at times. For a very simple tower defense game that even pauses when I click out of it, it's incredibly hard to tear my mind and attention away when I get in range to need to steer my drake again. This leads to me hovering somewhere out in the Veiled Sea while my fatigue bar slowly creeps down, a Giga-gigantaur lurching toward my house and having consumed all of my attention by smashing the entirety of my bottom row of plants. Crunch. Crunch. Ruuuaaaaaarrrrggghhhh.

This brings me to Peacebloom Vs. Ghouls, which is engaging in its own way, a smallish version of Plants Vs. Zombies integrated directly into World of Warcraft as a small series of quests up in Hillsbrad. It is very fun, and a reasonably solid port of the concepts, even if sometimes the zombies attack plants in their column rather than their row, and occasionally my peashooters will shoot diagonally. And there are no potato mines. I miss potato mines terribly when I don't have them.

Between the two, I have for two or three nights running not seen the morning sun at all, and with Plants Vs. Zombies, I stop even making progress with Archaeology. (After the 150 range, Archaeology also really slows down quickly.)

Having enjoyed Archaeology for a while, I am willing to say it is quite addictive and engrossing. I reached level 81 on my hunter without ever once setting foot into the new Cataclysm zones.

Why Hello There

Well hello there.

My name is Nekhs – or well, it isn’t, you might have guessed that – but we’re just not at the right point in the relationship to give out my name to you.

Let’s see – a little about me. I’m a horrible, horrible World of Warcraft nerd. One of the few female gamer nerds, at that, so one more reason to avoid the whole real name thing, yeah?

Anyway, I’m really not very good at talking about myself, so onward with what I’m going to talk about tonight, which is Archaeology in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.

Holy crap. This is actually kind of fun.

Archaeology is simple. You train it in one of your faction capital cities, and then you look for shovels on the world map. These are your dig sites.

On the zone map, your dig sites will show up as big, reddish blobs. Go to the big reddish blob and use your new ‘survey’ button. A surveying kit with a telescope and a light will appear. The telescope indicates direction, the light indicates distance. If the light is red, you’re some distance away, if the light is yellow, you’re closer, and if the light is green, you’re practically on top of the artifact.

Archaeology is ultimately a very simple game of hot and cold. It’s remarkably fun, though. At this point I barely care that I’m making things, or what I’m supposed to be making. That is my compulsive side showing, unfortunately – I simply must gather more of these little fragments, and I don’t really care how I get them.

Once you get the fragments, however, you can use them in order to craft items via the archaeology journal. The archaeology journal is rather confusing, but essentially, the bar at the top is your current archaeology level, and when you're viewing a race in your journal, the bar on the bottom is how many fragments you have / how many fragments you require. Clicking the tabs on the right will reveal the races that you have fragments for - once you gather fragments from a race you'll begin a racial project, and once you have enough fragments to complete a project, you can click 'solve' to finish the project out.

Most Archaeology projects at first are gray vendor trash items, but some of them later on yield vanity pets and even bind to account epics. I want that fossilized raptor hatchling, but I expect the hunt for it will take weeks at least, especially since I'm lazy.

Archaeology alone has brought fun back to my World of Warcraft.