Weekend (11 Jul) - Mery "Litlbotm" Owns

Weekend (11 Jul) - Mery "Litlbotm" Owns

Quick Real ID Update: New security problems with Real ID are already starting to crop up. Using Real ID, only players who have been granted permission will see that player's real first and last name in game. However, User Inferface (UI) addon authors have discovered that a very simple script can be used to collect the real names of any Real ID player without their permission. The malicious script could be buried in an addon without the player even being aware of it.

Breaking Real ID News: Blizzard announced over the weekend that they have heard the voice of their customers and WILL NOT implement the use of real names on their forums. The in game Real ID system stays but will remain a voluntary feature. All it took was about 50,000 complaints (and then they locked the forum thread on the subject).

Warning - grab a cup of coffee, a beer, or whatever your favored drink is and settle in. This is a long one.

Merylitlbotm is not sensitive about her name. She's quite proud of her derriere, thank you. And from a Tauren's point of view, the prominent feature is quite attractive. That doesn't mean that she won't rip your face off if you make fun of her. But unless you really want to risk your life and not just your face, I'd suggest not teasing her about her "sensitive" side. More on that later.

Mery is a merry cow now that she has a new gun to tote around. Her new [Precisely Calibrated Boomstick] with it's +5 damage scope carries a much bigger punch than her older gun and shoots twice as fast. Mery laid waste to much of Feralas over a couple of days, reaching level 46 - and discovering that she'd better stock up on ammo at the rate she is now going through boxes of mithril slugs.

Mery wasn't done yet, though. She took a page out of Naithipe's book and did some research on melee weapons. Her current weapons, Steelclaw Reavers, were still a fine pair of matching axes, but they were getting a little old and looked more and more out of place next to the new Boomstick.

One of the best weapon upgrades she could get at her level was the [Scout's Blade], which is a pvp dagger that can be purchased with pvp honor points. Mery still had a bag full of pvp Marks that could no longer be used for anything except to exchange them for - yep, honor points. Mery decided to convert those marks to honor and go shopping. Wow, did she hit paydirt! Not only did she have enough honor points to buy the dagger, she was able to upgrade her pvp stamina trinket, and even bought a new pair of bracers.

Mery had an idea where she could get her other weapon upgrade to go with the new dagger, too. Once she can corner Wild and get him to enchant her bag of new goodies, she'll be heading back to Feralas to try them out. And then she'll be in the hunt for some flying creatures called hippogryphs.

Later . . . Wild rendezvoused with Mery in Orgrimmar after Wild had passed along to Happy what enchanting mats he needed and Happy then sent them via in game mail to Mery. The Steeclaw Reavers had been enchanted with +15 agility, agility being one of the most important stats for hunters. The Scout's Blade was a higher level weapon, and Wild was able to use a higher level enchant on it, giving the blade +20 agi.

Mery gathered up her new toys and headed back to Feralas. Arriving at the horde town of Camp Mojache, Mery sought out the witch doctor Uzer'i. Uzer'i collects beasts, but he has a unique way of capturing them. The witch doctor fashioned what he called a "beast muisek vessel" that when cast on a subdued beast shrinks them down and stores them in the vessel. Uzer'i sent Mery off of on many quests to capture so many beasts that Mery soon lost count.

Her final task was to capture mountain giants that live in the far northern tip of Feralas. It was Mery's first trip to that region, and the level of beasts, mostly bears, gorillas and wolves, were 2-3 levels higher than Mery. Mery had her own gorilla, though, Sassy, and had no trouble navigating through the mobs and/or killing them when required.

Mery found the camp of the mountain giants. They were all level 49 elites. Elites? Oh boy. Wild had a very vague recollection of this particular task from his own boyhood days. What he recalled was that the giants could be shrunken down into normal giants and then subdued for storage in the muisek vessel. So level 46 Mery decided to try that.

Mery and Sassy approached a large, wide shouldered mountain giant, targeted it, and tried to shrink the giant down to palatable size. It didn't work. The irritated elite giant lumbered after Mery, and Sassy had to engage. We didn't see the level 50 gorilla behind the giant, but it saw us, and soon Mery had a hostile gorilla in her face even as Sassy was trying to stay alive against the giant. Mery ignored the gorilla, focusing on ensuring that Sassy had a firm grip on the elite giant and keeping her healed until Mery felt she had some measure of control over the fight. Mery then changed Sassy's target to the gorilla, and backed out of the way as Sassy charged the gorilla, the giant stomping after her.

As soon as Sassy grappled the gorilla Mery changed her pet's target back to the giant. Sassy was now tanking both mobs, and Mery was free to blast the giant with everything she had. It was close, but the giant fell and then shortly after that so did the hostile gorilla.

Mery and Sassy were more careful after that, making sure any nearby mobs were killed before tackling one of the giants. The pair of adventurers killed/subdued six more elite mountain giants, and then shrunk them down for the witch doctor. All in a days work.

The reward for all that effort was a new main hand axe called [Force of the Hippogryph], with it's very nice +12 agi stats to go along with the +20 agi enchant Wild provided. The additional benefit was that along with the new axe, the series of quests also helped get Mery to level 47.

Later still . . . Mery loves her combat pets. She had her intrepid tanking gorilla, Sassy, and her diving bombing, screeching DPS predator bird, Fleshrypper. Sassy was level 46 and got most of Mery's time. Fleshrypper kept lagging behind, though, and was at level 43. It wasn't the bird's fault; Mery only used Fleshrypper for pvp. Lao suggested that Mery do more dungeon runs where a DPSing bird like Fleshrypper would be right at home. At Mery's level, though, her choice of random dungeons was very slim - Mauradon, Zul-Farrak, and Sunken Temple. Not a lot of choice there. Mery will never let Fleshrypper go, though, since she had to brave Alliance neighorhoods to hunt her bird down, one found only on Alliance territory. She wanted her next pet to be just as special.

Her next pet?

Maybe Mery should share what her current pets look like:




Once Mery got it into her head that she wanted another pet, she put in her research to find just the right one. She wanted one that would be the polar opposite of Fleshrypper who, when you get right down to it, is a flesh eating vulture. Her next pet would show a softer side. That's a clue to start tip-toeing carefully around Mery.

Mery happened to be in Thunder Bluff thinking over this new idea, visions of a new adventure starting to take shape. She was interrupted- and I swear this really happened - by a level 13 rogue who whispered her this catchy pick up line, "i thin ku r ugly but ur myk inda cow."

That rogue's carcass, what's left of it, will never be found.

Mery had made up her mind. She parked both Fleshrypper and Sassy at the Stables and took along a level 30 combat bear cleverly named Bareon. Bareon, poor thing, became expendable when Sassy came along, and he has been languishing in the Stables since then. Bareon was insurance, should there be problems with the trip. Ultimately, Bareon would have to be adandoned back into the wild once Mery was ready to tame a new combat pet.

Mery packed a lunch and took the Thunder Bluff flight path as far north as she could go - to the small horde outpost of Zoram'gar in Ashenvale. Few go there, unless you are headed to Blackfathom Deeps. Mery would pass by the Deeps, but continued north into Darkshore, a low level Alliance zone. Mery followed the coastline from the southern tip of Darkshore almost to it's northern border, staying mounted all the way, and avoiding hostiles easily. She reached her destination - the town of Auberdine.

Auberdine is an alliance town, with numerous alliance npc guards of around level 40. Mery could kill them easily enough, but that would flag her for pvp, and leave her open to attack by every alliance player in town. Auberdine is small, though, a waterfront town with only one real attraction - a network of piers that was a major hub for the alliance fleet of boats.

Mery saw no one as she made her way to the shoreline next to the long, multi-berth pier. She splashed into the water, still on her kodo mount, and rode the swimming beast to the very end of the longest section of pier. Having reached her destination, Mery quietly submerged completely - and waited.




If you didn't check out the pics before reading onward, go back and look at them now.

What happened there? Well, Mery intentionally drowned herself.

Now dead, Mery released and her ghost appeared at the graveyard. Mery made her ghostly way back to he pier and walked to the end. Well, almost to the end. A level 32 alliance paladin was standing all by his lonesome at the end of the pier. The boat was gone, so we both waited for it to come back. Mery stood a few feet behind the paladin. I don't think the alliance could see Mery as a ghost, but he kept looking behind him almost as if he could sense her standing there. Mery was sooooo tempted to rez right there on the pier and dare the allie to flag. But that would upset her plans.



When the boat arrived, Mery and the paladin boarded. Mery moved to the front of the ship, climbed up onto the rail, and stepped to the end of the pointed prow. I was a little afraid I'd fall off as it was pretty narrow and I had to jump a bit. Mery was in range of her corpse, and would have to rez before the boat left or it would take her out of range. Mery was certain that if the alliance npcs on the boat sighted her that she could kill them, but that would flag her for pvp and complicate things at the other end of her journey.

Mery rezzed. She would be clearly visible to the alliance paladin that had also boarded. I wonder what he thought, seeing a horde hunter on his ship.



Just a few steps behind Mery, standing on the deck, was an alliance npc. Mery checked the npc's level. The npc was not level 40, as Mery had assumed. The npc was level ??, which meant the npc was at least ten levels higher than Mery. Some past patch must have upgraded the guards on these boats. If Mery got caught she was dead. The npc did nothing, though, probably because the prow of the boat was not part of his aggro radius.

The boat sailed serenely to it's destination, Mery feeling a bit like that scene in Titanic. As the ship slowed to anchor, Mery jumped into the water and swam the last few feet to the shore. Mery was now on Azuremyst Isle, the starting zone for the alliance Draenei. Here Mery made a mistake. This is a very low level zone with very little danger to Mery as long as she did not get flagged for pvp. The small island does have one major feature - the city of Exodar. Javajoo lived there, but Mery had no plans to meet with her alliance cousin. Mery circled around the city, avoiding the guards, but she came too close to the city borders.

"You are in Alliance territory!" was not what Mery wanted to hear. She was now flagged for pvp, and would stay that way until it wore off in five minutes or until someone spotted her and called for her head. Mery headed away from the city, working her way to the north side of the island. Far from prying alliance eyes, Mery waited out the flag. She then got wet again swimming across a narrow channel of water to Bloodmyst Isle.

According to the map Mery's targeted prize roamed all over Bloodmyst Isle, but in fact while they roamed far and wide, there were not really that many of them. It took Mery traversing two-thirds of the island (without seeing a single alliance) before she found what she was looking.

It was a Royal Blue Flutterer. It's a moth. Moths that can be combat pets are relatively new. There are only twelve species of moths that can be tamed, and nine of them start at level 59 or higher, far beyond Mery's ability to tame them at her level. The Royal Blue Flutterer, however, is only level 14, and can only be found on Bloodmyst Isle. They are a common enough pet for the alliance, but they are rare among the horde.

Mery released Bareon back to the wild, and tamed her moth. Mery hearthed off the Isle and back to Thunder Bluff. A new pet is automatically adjusted to within five levels of the hunter, so Mery's moth arrived at Thunder Bluff as a level 42. Mery named her BlueWitch, after a moth called a White Witch that has the largest wingspan of any moth on earth, up to 12 inches.

Mery proudly shows off BlueWitch:


Even later still . . . There is yet one more tale for Mery to tell. But perhaps that should be saved for another time. Ok, forget that. Here goes:

Mery is not really an "accessories" person, or at least we didn't think she was. So, when she asked her alliance cousin, Javajoo, to get her a Blue Moth non-combat pet so that BlueWitch would have some company, there were a few carefully hidden astonished blinks. Blue Moth eggs are only sold in the alliance city of Exodar. They don't cost much - about 50 silver - so young Java, who as mentioned before resided in Exodar, could afford to own one of his own. Hearing the no-nonsense tone in Mery's voice, one that did not brook any answer but one, Java agreed to buy her one as well.

A method to move "stuff" between horde and alliance was already in place via the neutral Auction House in Booty Bay, the seaport town in Stranglethorn Vale. Java bought a Blue Moth egg and sent it in the mail to Rakta, his sister, who was already in Booty Bay. Rakta was joined in Booty Bay by Melasahnd, her horde cousin. The two met in a small room off the main path, where a twitchy looking goblin managed the neutral Auction House. Rakta could hear water lapping outside, and the air in the room was dank and smelled of rotting wood. The whole business of making transactions between the warring factions has an unsavory aspect to it, even when it is for good cause. Rakta's combat owl and Mela's ghoul were restless and starting to size each other up. Best to get this business over with quickly.

Both Rakta and Mela opened the Auction House window and checked for moth eggs. There were yellow and white moths for sale there already for as much as 25g. Apparently that is what some horde would pay to get one. The main concern with transacting business through the neutral AH is that someone might buy your item before the transaction was complete. Rakta was a bit nervous making the transaction. When she went to put the Blue Moth egg up for sale, she accidentally caused the egg to hatch. "Don't . . . !" Mela yelled out frantically, seeing what was about to happen. But it was too late. Rakta now owned a pretty little blue moth. Mery's moth.

Rakta and Mela decided it was best not to tell Mery about that. Mery was already impatient to get her moth, and this was going to cause a delay. Java, too, swore secrecy and bought another Blue Moth egg. Once the egg had reached Rakta (again) through the mail, a successful transaction through the neutral AH was made. Mela took the egg and carefully placed it in the guild bank, and an eager Mery plucked it out of the bank minutes after Mel put it there.

Mery now has a matching pair of combat and non-combat pets. And if a cow could glow, that would be Mery.


This morning Mery said something about needing a blue dress. I'm just not going there. Nope. Not gonna.