Well it is almost the big day!  Expansion release days are always exciting but I’m also prepared for the servers to be unavailable.  However they might be getting better at it because I don’t recall WOTLK being to disruptive.  I think we got the major issues out of the way now thanks to the early shattering anyways.

I’ve continued to really enjoy Cosain.  You might notice I added him to my side bar so people can watch my progress.  I plan to alternate with Laneer, Cosain and Seun once the expansion starts.  I think I’m going to stick with Seun for my DPS fun because I find Arcane so enjoyable.  I never got that kind of satisfaction from DPS with Laneer though I didn’t do too bad it just isn’t as fun.  I’m going to stick to healing of course, I have no idea what I’ll do with my second spec, maybe I’ll change my mind later   I don’t believe I will have any issues leveling in my current Disc spec.

I’ve gone prot with Cosain because I want to learn to tank.  I think that would be an interesting part of the game I haven’t really done.  I did it occasionally when Inien and I played Horde on Akama with my Druid but not enough to really get a feel for it.  With Cosain’s gear it isn’t like leveling is harder thanks to his inheritance from Laneer

I’m also looking forward to leveling Laneer again. I always enjoyed the process of leveling.  I’m looking forward to Archaeology too!  More pets and all sorts of neat things, very Dwarf like too   New 5 mans are going to be great too as I’ve mentioned those are always my favorite.

I also got good news yesterday Amazon told me that my Cataclysm CE was upgraded to release day delivery so I should be logging in to Cataclysm officially on launch day after all

Sat down to upgrade the site to WordPress 3.01 this morning.  I was totally avoiding it because I expected all sorts of problems in doing so.  Backed everything up, prepared for the worse and what happens?  Nothing!  I am astounded the past major version changes caused me all sorts of fun with plug-ins and templates.   Maybe there is an issue I haven’t discovered yet.  I notice my theme has an update but I have modified it so I might wait till later before updating that one after I make sure there are no other hidden issues

Also added the plug-in WPTouch which will improve the viewing of the site on mobile devices like the iphone and such   It is really neat I was quite impressed with the plug-in when I saw my site on my phone for the first time with it.

Did a fast run this evening of H-VH just for the badges of course.  I notice this week we have the easy razorscale I’ll have to try and get that done this weekend.  I just did another quick shot so I could go try and play some SC2 again   The single player campaign really drives you to move forward, the story is really good and the missions are quite unique and fun

The other thing I really need to get done is get the site on WordPress 3.  I have a customized template and such so I haven’t been looking forward to trying to do this upgrade but 3.0.1 just came out so I guess I better get with it.   So expect that to happen this weekend too.

I also received word my new computer is being built, hopefully I will have it some time next week!  This would be good because SC2 doesn’t run so hot on my Mac   Based on the screenshots of Cataclysm I have a sneaky suspicion that neither would it.

Took a quick break to check out MMO-champion to see what was up and saw Blizzard upgraded the Armory.  They added some neat features, including a 3D view of your character modeled with all your gear along with a RSS feed of your recent activity.  It shows stuff like Achievements, or Achievement Criteria, Boss Kills, and when you aquire an item.  This seemed like a pretty neat thing to put on the site so I added it under my armory profile.

It is nice to see Blizzard continuing to develop the armory and is surpassing anything any of the other MMOs were doing, and used to charge you for even!

It is probably asking for too much but it would be nice if it showed things like when you aquired a pet, or mounts since these are things people collect and are proud of as well.

Went through my web stats and found all the WoW blogs currently linking to my site and returned the favor in the Blog Roll

Here is another blast from the past!

My first Nef kill when I was with FEST on Jan 26, 2006.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY WoWPriests.info!

This is the 4th Anniversary of the site.  I believe this is the longest I’ve ever run a web project and stuck with it   We have had quite a few transitions in the last 4 years.  Technically the Anniversary was November 1st, but with all the extra hours at work I’ve been doing I missed it and decided to celebrate on December 1st

I purchased this domain in September 2004 and put up a Priest fan site.  This was after I bought my way into the fileplanet sponsored stress test of WoW.  I got to be involved in both Stress Test 1 and 2, plus Open Beta.  Originally when I started getting interested in WoW I was dead set on playing a Druid.  So when I got in the stress test I didn’t want to spoil anything so I decided to choose the one class I would probably never play, the Priest.  Even though I always played a Cleric in MUDS, all the MMO’s Priest/Cleric classes were always terrible.  It turns out though I fell in love with the Priest and I started a fan site for it.  The site just never took off though and I decided to take a different approach.

So on November 1st 2005 I started a blog called Adventures of a Dwarf Priest.  At the time Dwarves were sought after because of fear ward and such.  The blog was originally run on google’s blogger site.  Eventually I transitioned it to my own hosting and began using wordpress.  The site has undergone several faces in that time period and I am quite happy with the evolution of the site now.

I’ve had a lot of ideas I have wanted to do and not had the time to complete.  I am hoping that some of things I have planned I will be able to get done this coming year.  I am also pretty excited about the new expansion and changes to the world.  There will be all new set of exciting adventures.  My recent entry into Texas Mercenaries brings forth a new set of raiding adventures, and we have the climax to the Lich King saga coming up here soon!  I’ve also picked up Shadow again and there will be many more adventures in my attempts to become a useful and proficient DPS to go along with my amazing Disc healing abilities

Thanks to everyone who reads and enjoys the site!  This has continued to be a very interesting experience for me.

Was going to post some links to some interesting moments in the past over the next few days.  I’d like to start out with the second entry posted to this blog.  This was back on Deathwing after my original guild Witch Hunters dissolved and I was looking for a new guild.   I applied a guild called FEST that turned out to lead to many many interesting adventures   Check out this post.  It gives you an idea of what my UI used to look like, and the old site

Happy Thanks Giving to Everyone!  I hope the Turkey is roasting and everyone has a pleasant day.

I haven’t had any time to really get on this week.  It has been crazy at work and by the time I get home I don’t even want to look at a computer.  I have been keeping up reading the Cataclysm forums on my blackberry when I have a moment.  I have all but stopped reading the other forums, they just bug me.  Too much whining and crying about silly things.  Not that the Cataclysm forum doesn’t have its share of trolls, but there is a lot of interesting discussion going on all the time.  I like this phase of the expansion with all the speculation and wish lists, and the like

I’m pretty excited about Cataclysm for quite a few reasons.  A very significant amount of the game is going to be changing and that is exciting.  We got revamps of existing systems, additions of new systems, new graphics, and new races!  I’ve mentioned it before I think but I do plan to make a Worgen.  I am going to go with a Warrior which will mean I’ll have the 3 basic archetypes covered now with a Priest, a Mage and a Warrior   I am purchasing all the heirlooms I can for him so he’ll have a bit of an advantage in the field anyways I dunno I might even have enough time to make him a set of 22 slot bags if I remember to go make cloth every time

Since I had been thinking about alts I decided it was time for that page to make a come back.  So I’ve added the Alts Page back into the system with a list of my current alts.  In other site news stay tuned for an update to My UI section still.  Also I have a write-up in the works for my thoughts on Disc Priests in Cataclysm.

My wife was out of town this weekend so my son absorbed all my time this weekend.  I snuck on a few times while he was napping though.  I have started work on my next great achievement, Loremaster.  This is one I wanted to complete before BC but never got through it before wrath ended up coming out.  I think this time I will have time to complete it though, I’m getting very close!  I started off the latest round of old world quests though by finally going to get my Sprite Darter pet.  I knew this pet quest chain was out there but had never taken the time to add him to my family.  Now this colorful little guy joins my growing army of pets

Just before my son woke up I joined Inien in a Heroic Violet Hold group.  It was the daily heroic and I thought it would be quick enough.  Just as I was getting there my son wakes up.  Usually he is groggy and doesn’t want to do much after he wakes up for a little bit so rather than disappoint I try to continue.  Well he had me running out after every boss to do something for him, but we managed to complete the instance.  We had a very strange Pally tank that made things difficult.  I almost wonder if he was being played by not the original owner.  He was extremely well geared, he had like 42k HP.  However the two main DPS Inien, and another Arcane Mage, who Inien pointed out have 40% less threat on arcane kept pulling aggro!  This happened through out the run which seemed awfully strange.

I got back on for a little bit just before bed after my wife got home.  I did a few more quests in Aerie peak I had, including the robot chicken one I picked up.  This is another quested pet I’m missing!  I need to do the Feralas chicken as well I believe.  While I happened to be passing through Ironforge I checked the pets and found the Tauren baby plainstrider was up for 1500g.  There was only one and from that guy I mentioned a few days ago put up like 6.  He must have lowered the prices to sell them.  I went ahead and bought it as it was my last Horde pet I needed   Of course I had not replenished gold supplies from the last purchase so I’m as low as I’ve been in a long time at just under 3K in reserves.  I still have plenty of time to rebuild capital before Cataclysm gets here though.  Though there are still a few little raptor pets I need to buy >:)

In some wowpriests.info news you may have noticed my site is running faster now.  I’ve actually switched from using wordpress stats to google analytics. At first I thought it was my imagination, but it really is faster.  Plus analytics is really neat, I wish I had done it sooner!