Curse you WoW 2.0!

I miss my add-ons:


And I miss my stable game:


Heck, right now WoW won't even load. (Do you think it knows I've been cheating on it?)

Actually WoW and I are at a bit of a stand off over the whole The-only-way-to-fix-this-is-to-reinstall-the-game thing. WoW seems to think I'll do it but visions of 2 years of patches are dancing on my head at the thought of it.

Grrrr...

There is no Love in Exodar (or Silvermoon)

Bottom Line:
The Love is in the Air event is not taking place in either of the new Burning Crusade cities.

The details:
I was all set to experience something a little different this year by seeing the decorations and "Love is in the Air" event in the new cities. But they weren't there. I should have seen the signs but I had to try anyway.

There were no decorations. And when I couldn't remember where the Inn was, I asked a guard and got this as an answer:

The Exodar Guards were Taught in Stormwind


So the Exodar guard thinks he's in Stormwind. I hoped perhaps the text was just wrong but no, there wasn't even a little pointer on my minimap to tell me where the Inn was. So I took some guesses and finally hit on it... in case you care it's here:

Inn Location:

Don't bother going, though. Because although it looks cool, they aren't selling any of the "Love is in the Air" products. Instead, I think they wanted to charge me a fee to "audit" me or something; I got out of there fast.

Inside the Inn:


I have no idea if this is intentional or not so I decide, well, she's gotta figure out how to get to the mainland sometime. So I embark on a wild goose chase to find some perfume. I followed some random trails and found one that led to a dock, "Valaar's Berth," and sure enough, there was a boat there. I caught it before it left and eventually landed in Darkshore. (I think the Night Elf Innkeeper gave me a discount because I wore my looted Blood Elf mask.)

Colossal Waste of Time:


I bought my goodies and went back to Exodar. One squirt of Eau d'Blizzard later I see that the guards were indeed feeling amorous.

Tease:


So I gave him a token of my affection, which he accepted. And he even gave me a nice one hour "Adored" buff for my trouble, thus preventing me from getting any Gifts of Adoration from anyone else.

Unfortunately, the Exodar have no manners because I got no gift from him. Twice! ('cause, you know, the first time must've been a fluke and it apparently takes two times for me to feel completely stupid for the whole affair.)

The good news (bad news?) is that it's not just me who was jilted by such an adventure. WoWInsider found the same guard bug in Silvermoon.

Burning Crusade Comics Await

Some Burning Crusade comics have been popping up lately - here are a few:

• Badasshunter has to go out of the house to buy the expansion.
• Dark Legacy Comics takes a break from leveling to notice the Exodar are Out of this World.
• GU Comics notices how hard it was for Blizzard to Date the Burning Crusade and Design the Blood Elf Model. They also commemorated 8 million served.
• PVP Online makes new Male and Female characters.
• And is it any coincidence that Foxtrot stopped doing daily comics (Press Release) right before the Burning Crusade came out? I wonder how he's spending that extra time?

The Fun of Character Design

I believe most players are racing through quests trying to level. I'm trying to soak up as much of the experience as I can. To start, I have to admit how much I enjoy the Character Creation Process. Nothing, of course, will ever beat City of Heroes for that. And WoW is at the complete other end of the spectrum with its limited choices, so I'm enjoying the fresh new hair and styles.

This is a compilation of hairstyles available for the female Draenei:


This is a compilation of hairstyles/combinations that made me think of specific types or people:

Burning Crusade Installation

Timeline -
January 14th - Ordered the Regular Edition from Amazon.com in the evening on January 14th (2 day delivery is free with Amazon Prime).

January 15th - Surprisingly receive an email that says I should get my copy tomorrow. Gotta love the new trend to compete with brick and mortar store - online retailers now ship early so we receive our products on launch day.

January 16th

• 2:30 pm - Delivered by UPS.
• 2:35 pm - I start installation. 4 discs. Read through the slim "Game Manual" and "Product Catalog."
• 2:47 pm - Completed installation of discs and account upgrade (entering the key).
• 2:48 pm - Watch the Burning Crusade Cinematic (first time for me, I hadn't seen any of them on YouTube). Lol at the sheep; I did not see that coming. Definitely worth seeing more than once to catch everything.
• 2:51 pm - Downloaded an update (159 MB) which read as 2.0.3.
• 2:55 pm - Reboot the game.
• 2:57 pm - Download another update (2.82 MB) - 2.05.
• 3:14 pm - After fighting with the firewall finally rebooted again.
• And now the fun begins - creating new characters!