Lunar Festival 2015 - Achievements, new WoW Friend, ditching Red Bear

TL;DR - logged into WoW - Stuff happened.

Saturday, 2015 Feb 28

So, it's Lunar Festival time again.  Last year Vier flew me all over the place and I put 49 Coins of Ancestry in the Bank.  This year, I get to fly myself!  So, let's start with the Elders of Kalimdor.

Begin this year's Lunar Festival with 50 Coins of Ancestry at 3:26pm.

Knock off the Firecracker Achievement.

Off to get the Elders of Kalimdor.  Of course, dead in Thunder Bluff again!

Over seven hours later --- Achieved!

AND - Elders of the Alliance!

No wonder I didn't get the Rocket Cluster Achievement before - it has to be the RED ones! grrr!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, 2015 Mar 01

Afternoon: After a long day doing Elders of Kalimdor, I slept in on Sunday, but I was bound and determined to knock off Brill and get the Elders of Eastern Kingdoms done during this year's Lunar Festival.

Red Bear and I had a bit of a mis-communication over our weekly Skype Craft and by the time we touched base I was so anxious to finish Brill that I ditched my friend for WoW.

I am a terrible person.

I told Red Bear that it would probably take me an hour and a half to do Brill, knowing there was no way I could log in and ignore my garrison chores. Then, get to Stormwind, fly up north to Brill and get 'er done.

She had exactly and hour and a half before she had to go play hockey, so it looked like any visiting/crafting we were to do this weekend was doomed.

Now, ... take a minute and just ponder this.  

Here we are, two "old ladies" with grey hair, empty nesters, her husband recently retired, mine just about to retire, and we are running into scheduling conflicts with playing WoW and playing hockey.  How many young adults can say their mothers are too busy playing WoW and playing hockey to be sitting around knitting, waiting for their kids to call?  Are we too cool for school or what?

Even with a few minor distractions, I managed to do my garrison chores, knock off Elder Graveborn in Brill, with thirty minutes to spare!

So a quick hour in Wow went something like this:

Clear completed follower missions.

I do like the animations that come with the follower missions!

Send my followers off on new missions. I need to learn more about these. More reading to do!

Which to choose?  or Just go from the bottom up?

Look at my pretty garrison!

My Fort!

Pick up completed mine work orders.

Good thing they're highlighted so I don't forget to grab 'em!

Quaff some Miner's Coffee and clear my mine. Red Bear - note on the bottom-right tool tip "Miner's Coffee - Use: Increases run speed for a few minutes.  Only works in your garrison mine."  So I can move a little quicker to travel to all the gold dots you see on the mini-map up in the right corner.  It's a bit sneaky though, the miner's carts that hold extra goodies are not marked on the mini-map.  If I just look at the mini-map and navigate to the dots, I'd miss the carts, so I have to pay attention!

Then there's the rats.  None of them have pet battler green paw designations, so I don't know why they're in here.  Just on principle, I kill every one that I see.  Maybe there's a hidden achievement?  Or maybe, you know, just to keep my miners safe, kill the rats.  Rats are not badder than bears, but, they're pretty bad.

Dead Rat

Here's what an ore node looks like.  And the "sneaky carts".  Next time I log in I'll have to pay attention to what comes out of the carts.

Ore veins and Carts of Stuff

Then there's this banner and half built something at the far end of the mine.  I wonder what this will be when I get my garrison to level three?

Mystery Banner Place

After clearing the mine, I get to start new mine work orders.  I guess I'm lucky.  Because I have Mining as one of my professions, I can gather more Draenic Stone while I'm out and about in Draenor levelling and generate extra mine work orders.  As opposed to all the people who don't have mining and can only generate work orders from the stone they collect in their mines.  YaY.  Unless, the stone drops from mobs too?

Generate Work Orders.

Now it's over to my fishing shack to collect today's fishing daily quest.

Path from my Garrison Mine to my Garrison Fishing Shack.

Scrap Sparkfuse.  I keep running into this guy.  What the heck is he talking about?  I should look him up on wowhead and find out what this is all about.  But, no time for that now, keep focused.  We're on a schedule.

Scrap Sparkfuse

YaY! Today's fishing daily is in Nagrand!  w00t!  Vier took me on a Nagrand tour one night and helped me grab some flight paths over there!  This will be an easy fishing daily.  Not like the first one that had me trying to find a way into Frostfire Ridge and fish out of lava!

My Nagrand Elekk I got when Vier and I were playing over there! We have matching Mother-Daughter Mounts! I don't know if it's because it is a Draenor mount or what, but it feels like it moves faster than my other mounts.  I don't normally like riding big, bulky Elekks but it feels faster!

Pick up my completed Forge work orders.

Visit my banker to offload the ore, primal spirits and other loot collected in the mine. I'm so glad Vier told me which building to build to have a banker handy in my garrison.  It was such a pain taking a flight path over to Ashran a couple of times a day just to do my banking, not to mention the gold required to pay for the rides!

Using my spiffy new transportation cape to go to Stormwind.  I figure it's worth the gold to buy the cape instead of, again, paying the Flight Master for a ride to Ashran to stumble around for an hour to find the portal to Stormwind.  Now I just put on my special cape [Cape of Coordination maybe?  I forget the name], and poof!, I'm there!  Yippee!

Super Cape - love how it flaps in the wind while the cast is performing!

Get to Stormwind. Load up my Ebon Gryphon.  Gawd, I love being able to fly!  and ...Off to Brill.  [Red Bear - in the following screenshot the Larger Red Circle in the south around silver arrowhead - is me leaving Stormwind, Smaller Red Circle up north in Tirisfal Glades - that's where Brill is.] Seems to me I had some fatigue problems before going straight over the ocean in a direct line.  So I'll have to angle to the northeast and then turn to the northwest to get to Brill without dying.

Up, up and Away!

Oh!  While I'm here, I may as well stop in Twilight Highlands and pick up two more Cata Elders!  Elder Firebeard in the Dunwald Ruins, check.  I didn't spend a lot of time questing here, but I seem to recall enjoying it.  I should come back one day and spend some more time here.

Elder Firebeard - check

OK, Elder Darkfeather in the Thundermar Ruins ... where is he?

It seemed to take forever to find Elder Darkfeather, but according to the clock in the screenshots - less than 4 minutes.

Elder Darkfeather - check!

OK - Now on to Brill.

The flashing Garrison Crossed Swords can be irritating.  May as well check in on what's happening there while I'm flying along.

Do I really need to know when each mission is done?

OMG! I almost flew into a Horde Zeppelin while I was looking at other stuff!  Crap!  I start to feel anxious but remind myself that I did the Elder in Orgrimmar yesterday, so how hard can Brill be?

OK, here we are.  He's down there somewhere.  Beside a building ... oh I don't like this!

W00t!

Done!  Elders of the Eastern Kingdoms - complete!

woo hoo!

And look at the time, I can catch Red Bear before she has leave for hockey!

Land on a hill.  Use my Garrison Hearthstone.  Log out.  Done like dinner!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, 2015 Mar 01

Evening: After a chat with Red Bear and a snack I decided maybe I can finish off the Cata Elders this year as well, I only have two in Deepholm and one in the Shimmering Depths to finish.  Ugh.  I hated, hated, hated questing underwater, but if I get them done this year I won't have to worry about them next year.  I can do it!

First though, I'll have to clear and start the follower missions.  No wonder Vier is spending so much time in her garrison!  Wowhead even developed an app for smart phones to keep track of missions.  You could spend all your time bopping in and out of your garrison four times a day just to keep on top of them all.

Here we go.

Huh. I hadn't noticed before ... even though a mission fails, the follower still gets the experience.  That's not so bad.  It just cost me the garrison resources to send her on the mission in the first place.  I'm probably doing these all wrong.  I really should read up on them some more.

Fail

Crap!  Not doing so good this time 'round.  I wonder if the missions get recycled when they fail or if they're gone for good?

Fail

Great. 100% chance of success!  I like those odds lol.

Wow.  This hasn't happened before!  I'm all caught up on missions!

Now there's a time lapse in my screenshots. I don't know what I was doing, maybe eating?  Maybe researching the Deepholm Elders? Definitely doing some procrastinating, ... 'cause this happened ...

Vier is gonna freak!

Vier is going to be DISGUSTED that I reached level 96 while doing a Stormwind Fishing Daily!  Specially since I've already received the achievement for doing all five Stormwind fishing dailies.  Vier might roll her eyes so hard they get stuck backwards or pop out of her head!

Eventually I took the portal to Deepholm.

Finished the CATACLYSM Elders!

Well, looking at the Lunar Festival Achievements, I see I only need one more Elder to get the Horde Elder Achievements.  Of course, it's the one in Undercity.  The one Horde Leader our group couldn't kill the night we were working on that armored bear mount that Vier won.  The one Horde Leader I have left to get my armored bear.  All the more reason to be brave and practice getting in and out of Undercity.  I think this time I'll just take a flight path up north, then I can go get a drink and do some other little chores away from the computer while I'm being flown up there.

Oh, wait a minute, [ I clicked on the wrong NPC] I thought I already had my Master Riding skill!  I knew I had a goal of saving 5,000 gold for something.  Might as well do this.  Yay!  Now I can fly super fast!

5,000 Gold for Master Riding

OMG!  I DID IT!

Elders of the Horde - check!

I am on a roll tonight.  May as well head over to the mushroom ring in the Whispering Forest and see if the Fey-Drunk Darters are up!

What are the odds?  There's two here already!

Now there's five!

Everyone is here and we're about to begin.  [How is it that some Guild Members don't know about the Whispering Forest?]

The Fey-Drunk Darters shoot out their golden beams and the music starts.

The Forest Critters start to arrive.

So peaceful.

So pretty.

All done.  The critters leave.  Time to go back to my garrison!

Hey! My Herb Garden is activated!

Exploring Shadowmoon Valley.  It's so pretty!

Shadowmoon Valley

My new buddy Kitty came online.  [Vier set me up with one of her friends that also likes to do achievements.  We think she's just trying to get out of doing stuff with us!]  So, we're chatting away, while I'm wandering around and poof!  There I am.  DEAD!

Type in chat while fighting an Elite Mob?  Nope!

So, Mr. Kitty and I goofed around for a couple of hours.  Mostly killing the big fat frogs that jump on you out of nowhere, scare the crap out of you, and sometimes kill you.  Also, me mining ore, Mr. Kitty skinning stuff we kill.  We had a lot of fun and there are no screenshots!

Between concentrating to keep up, and typing in chat, there is no time to think about collecting screenshots!  Once we both had our Grisly Trophies done for the month for the Faire, we called it a night.

Just as I was going to the garrison, who should pop on line but Vier!  She came to visit my garrison and coached me through the motions to get Pepe on my head.  " W - Space Bar - Backspace"

She had me practice jumping from the bricks lining the path in the garrison, from one side to the other, then sent me back up onto the rock and YaY!  Pepe on my head!

PePe!

Then Vier switched toons to Halirran to take some Selfies with her new S.E.L.F.I.E. camera and, having her Twitter account connected in game, tweeted our pic!

meet Halirran

Twit Pic 1  Twit Pic 2 I don't know if those links will work.  If not, we'll have to get Vier to re-post the pics for us.

Then I went to visit Vier's Garrison and wandered around her stable admiring all of her mounts!

Wow!

Aw!  Here's her mount that matches mine!

Nagrand Mother-Daughter Mounts

These poor guys don't even get unsaddled while they're waiting to be called up for duty!

Yikes!  This guy doesn't look too friendly.  I petted him anyway!

oh!  She even has a baby gryphon!

Sky'reen

Something else to look up on wowhead, who or what is a Sky'reen?

Well, it's been a long, but highly satisfying weekend in WoW!  Now we're only four short levels away from 100!

'til next time ... G'Night All.

Nor.

p.s. why I don't post so often ... I started writing this post 13 hours ago ... between sorting the screenshots and editing my writing ... y'know, the name of the blog is "My Mom Plays WoW", shouldn't it be Vier doing the majority of the posts?  I believe she started this 'cause my foibles were too funny to keep to herself.  that the greater WoW community had to know just how much of a n00b I was.  hmmm...