In only a few short weeks, we will begin the charge to Pandaria and to level 90, but before September 25 arrives, we even begin preparations for the big day.

We need to consider many things for our characters and our computing hardware. Many of these tasks are quick and simple housekeeping type of things that if we weren't so busy we would keep on top of all the time but always find some excuse to put them off. But now there is precious little time remaining, we can procrastinate no more, the time for action is upon us!

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Primary role: Tank
Birth Date: January 2008

Mugruith, was named after a druid from Irish mythology after I did some research on Wikipedia, who said

Mug Ruith (or Mogh Roith, "slave of the wheel") is a figure in Irish mythology, a powerful blind druid of Munster who lived on Valentia Island, County Kerry. He could grow to enormous size, and his breath caused storms and turned men to stone. He wore a hornless bull-hide and a bird mask, and flew in a machine called the roth rámach, the "oared wheel". He had an ox-driven chariot in which night was as bright as day, a star-speckled black shield with a silver rim, and a stone which could turn into a poisonous eel when thrown in water.

While I thought I was being clever and selecting a unique and meaningful name I wasn't and had I checked the armory I would not have selected the name but I'm happy with the name.

Mugruith has always been a bit of the black sheep of my team although in cataclysm I have used him a lot more than before and enjoyed it too. He wasn't my first druid, that was Wildthorn who I deleted at a low level and then Morphyxx who I deleted at level 25. I found druids incredibly dull to level and after trying balance and kitty for levelling stopped playing him at level 40 and mothballed him. Then after dabbling with recruit-a-friend I had some free levels to grant and boosted him to 3xp short of 61 by some clever use of the level grant system. I levelled him to 62 but once more got bored with being a kitty and disliked resto so again mothballed him until Feb 2009. 

I picked him up again and started playing him as balance and loved it. Don't know what changed but hey I didn't care! I eventually maxed him out in Wrath and after Deadwood started to fail I decided to go see Shadowsong on the Hordeside and was not impressed so my time as a cowman was brief. However, it did reinvigorate my desire for the class and I ended Wrath raiding as a moonkin and a tree in ICC with the guys from Saturday Knight Fever. 

At the beginning of Cataclysm he was the first character I levelled as he went herbing and mining on the first day and gained almost 2 levels. Over the coming weeks and months I levelled him purely through gathering and that made him very vulnerable by the time I was questing in Twilight Highlands in ICC 10 man gear. I switched him to feral soon after dinging 85 and have thoroughly enjoyed it so much I went a trialled him with another raiding guild shortly before switching Evlyxx and the rest of the army to Exhumed, where once more Mugruith has gone into a semi retirement. I'm hoping for bigger and better things for my druid love in Mists though so watch this space...

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Our first raid will be Mogu'shan Vaults

Blizzard have announced that the raid content in Mists of Pandaria will be drip fed to us in the first couple of weeks of the new expansion. The schedule was a shock to many and sees the return of "gated" content and to be honest I was shocked to see that it will be impossible to raid in week 1 and that it will be a full month before Raid Finder opens. I can understand why this has been done and also some of the frustration by the raiding community. I have mixed feelings on the schedule but overall I'm not unhappy with it.

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The past few weeks the folks at Exhumed and I have been going back and doing the meta, Glory of the Firelands Raider. We had all the required heroic kills and lacked only the Do a Barrel Roll achievement because we had always managed to hit a tornado. So our mission was simple get in there and kill her without getting hit by tornados. Easy!

Well it would have been had we not been plagued by a series of random DCs, people getting hit by brushfire (one of our group had that to get as well) and after 2 hours of wiping we decided to not calling a wipe for the brushfire, and then promptly went ahead and avoided ALL 4 obstacles at once, go figure.

A few of the team (aka the slackers) still need a few achievements and I'm sure we can go get them soon as the hardest ones are all done anyway.

I’d like to thank Sophina for being the pain in the ass wanting to start this achievement, Baniza for making it happen and all the other players that came along at various points to join the core of 8 that got the meta last night.

Top work folks, you made an old man very happy,

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Back at the beginning of the year I announced a set of personal goals in WoW and I'm happy to announce I've hitting a few of them and have been slowly working my way towards some of the others. Today I have hit one of the major ones as I got the last five characters to 525 fishing skill. All at once, with the help of some planning and the Darkmoon Faire profession quest.

Now I need to work a bit more on the old archaeology step... more »

The Blog Azeroth shared topic for August 6 to August 12 was suggested by Frinka from Warcraft Street:

Are you playing the MoP Beta? Why or why not? How much time are you spending there vs. the "live" servers?

2 years ago I made a few posts about the incoming expansion and did play a lot in beta, not the 80-85 content but was investigating the scenery changes and was avidly exploring the old world and trying to find bugs by exploiting landscape and doing the weird things people do.

This time things have been very different as apart from a few hours levelling a panda in the starting zone and a morning in the Jade Forest I have done nothing. The simple reason for this is that all the content to test and explore is the content I will experience when the expansion goes live.

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Coming back soon!

Seems I late to the party on this but it seems that the Warcraft monster has battered SWTOR into going free-to-play.

What this means for me is that I'll be ready to pick up my old Light Sabre again and give the game another shot. I really enjoyed SWTOR but couldn't justify the 2nd subscription.

For full information I have included the full announcement from the SWTOR team:

I want to reach out today to share my thoughts on our recent announcement to expand our game to offer a Free-To-Play option this fall. I’d like to give you some insights into why we made this decision, how it benefits you and how enthusiastic our team is about this new direction.

Since launch, our team has spent a lot of time trying to find new ways to be able to bring the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ experience to as many potential players as possible. We quickly became aware that our subscription only model was a major barrier for a lot people who wanted to become part of The Old Republic universe. In fact, many players who have left the game said they would happily come back if they could play without the commitment of a monthly fee.

We feel that flexibility and choice in playing our game is important for all current and future players. For that reason, we began the exploration of expanding the game to include a Free-to-Play option.

Starting this Fall, there will be two ways to enjoy the game. First, you can continue as a subscriber, which gives you unlimited access to all game features and future Game Updates at no additional charge. Second, you have the option to play free to Level 50, with game play restrictions that limit game options and access to certain game content. Our goal is to ensure that our current players continue to receive the AAA content they are used to and enjoy the new rewards. To that end, I am proud to say that we have a lot of great new content coming your way, and that it will be coming more frequently. We have a great lineup in development including: a new Operation, Terror From Beyond, a new heroic mission series on the planet of Belsavis; a set of level 50 space combat missions for those looking for the ultimate challenge mode; introduction of a dangerous new Companion to accompany you; and for our PvP fans, a new warzone, Ancient Hypergate!

Starting today, you’ll be earning rewards as part of our new rewards program, making your current subscription more valuable than ever. Current and lapsed subscribers will earn 150 Cartel Coins for every paid month prior to today (July 31, 2012) and then 200 Cartel points from August 1st until the Free-to-Play option launches. For those who purchased the Collector’s Edition, we have an additional bonus reward of 1000 Cartel Coins for you. With Cartel Coins you can purchase convenience items, boosts, visually unique gear, collectibles, and more. The new Cartel Market gives you the option to add to your game play experience with items that fit your play style and allow you to customize your character.

Our team is extremely excited about this new plan. We are working hard and having a lot of fun preparing new content and items for the game. We believe that this is the right direction for our game – more choices, more options and more ways to customize your play experience to suit your play-style. We want to be able to keep our fans excited, engaged and having fun every time you login. We look forward to hearing your thoughts, suggestions and feedback.

Thanks for your support over the last seven months. We have the best fans in the business!

May the Force be With You.

Jeff Hickman, Executive Producer – Star Wars™: The Old Republic™

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After our defeat of Yor'sahj last week we added Zon'ozz to the agenda for this week and well he died after only 5 pulls and one of them wasn't really worthy of being called a pull because we forgot how to bounce the ball.

Annoyingly after we distributed the loot the corpse despawned so the boss is actually AWOL in the screen shot but still a great effort guys, gals and Jim. For the naysayers out there that may disbelieve that we killed him I provide a link to my achievement.

Next week we'll add the wicked witch Hagara to the Dragon Soul tour! more »

The Blog Azeroth shared topic for July 30 - August 5 was suggested by Effraeti from Effraeti's RP:

Some of us have farming professions. Some of us have crafting professions. Some of us have a little bit of everything! Professions are leveled because they fit our style of play, help us in raiding, allow us to outfit our alts, and make us money.

What professions do you have on your main? Do his/her professions fit their personality? Why did you choose them? If you chose professions based on your character and not on gaming needs, would that change some of their professions they use?

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Yes I know I should have posted earlier but with work and raiding I sort of forgot! But finally it is coming!

The official date is 25 September 2012 and that is just perfect for me and my previous prediction of 18 September wasn’t too far out at all. Seems my logic was right at least.

My pre-order for the CE box is in thanks to shopto.net who after fantastic service with my Cata delivery, a day early despite the snow induced traffic problems across the UK compared to Amazon’s 4 weeks later delivery (yes seriously!) were my preferred choice despite a £5 saving. I did consider play.com too but they wanted the money upfront.

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The Blog Azeroth shared topic for July 23 – July 29 was suggested by Frinka from Warcraft Street:

Have you ever tried to introduce real life friends to WoW? If yes, how did it go? If you never have, why not?

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Tired of an empty guild, an empty, a very expensive Auction House, a newly dinged level 85 with no gold and a desire to try to get into some Horde side raiding I finally realised that keeping my Horde priest on a low pop realm and on a minority faction was a pointless exercise. I had considered a realm transfer a week ago but struggled on, the Blizzard hit me with an advert on the loading screen.

The timing was impeccable and I decided that with all the problems and the offer it was like a sign from the gods. My dear old friend, Gricey, happened to be online and on his Horde alt on Draenor EU and a few questions to him suggested it sounded like a suitable candidate for my new home. Then a trip to Warcraft Realms stats page confirmed that it could be a good realm but a couple of other realms also looked appealing so I rolled a couple of level 1 toons and set of for 30 minutes “spying” in Orgrimmar.

I was looking for signs of an active community, a active but not stupidly priced mats market on the Auction House what I was also looking for the treatment of the trade trolls a section of the wow community I have no respect for and will avoid at all costs. Draenor as a recommendation was my first visit it looked good financially as the AH was full and prices not to far off the prices I’m used to on Shadowsong EU. The one thing that I was worried about though was the spam in trade and lack of pug activity.

I also gave Kazzak EU a look and that ticked all the boxes and had a over stocked AH with rather low prices on mats and good prices on finished products meaning my tailoring and enchanting could be levelled up and then return an income, which is high priority as I have 200g left of my 7000g from last week after levelling enchanting to 350 (and getting ass raped for the price of the rods needed to do the enchants) and HATE farming for gold. Other realms that looked good were Defias Brotherhood and Stormscale but visits there didn’t give the same warm fuzzy feeling I got from the other 2 realms. It was hard to split Kazzak EU and Draenor EU so I decided to visit the realm forums and there was nothing to split the 2. In the end it came down to the AH prices and the sheer volume of pugs being advertised on Kazzak EU that sent me there. 

I was mad at myself for not doing this last week when I could have played the markets a bit with my 7000 gold and transferred some profitable items over to Kazzak EU, but with a measly 200g it simply wasn’t worth the effort of looking for items I could drag over with me. Mistakes, we all make them this one is recoverable. 

Next on my to do list is finding a full time guild there, but as I got invited to a level 25 "super guild" within a few minutes of logging on the immediate rush to do so has been removed as I can get the benefits of the guild perks already, but I have a good feeling that my Hordeside adventures will be much better after the move. 

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Diablo 3, summer, end of expansion blues and more are affecting the WoW community right now. Many guilds are struggling to keep their members active in the game but here on Shadowsong EU, my guild, Exhumed, are thriving. All because of Firelands, yes I kid you not!

For the past few weeks we have been scheduling Firelands raids once per week to go and grab some achievements, heroic kills and a bit of fun to break up the monotony of nothing to do except maybe another alt run through Dragon Soul. A few people claimed they had been there, done that and got the T-shirt and weren’t interested. A few had never been and wanted to go get some easy HC kills via ye olde zerg method of beating old content. Warnings were given to say it wouldn’t be that way, the warnings were laughed at and we set off for doing normal kills with achievements.

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This week saw the Power of the Aspects increase another 5% so now bosses are hitting 30% lighter and only have 30% of their original hit points. While it has made some normal modes far too easy (I’m sure even the most casual of raiding guilds could 5 man Morchok and therefore should be able to kill him on heroic mode) it is allowing my guild to make more progress into heroic modes so I’m not complaining too loudly. However I am a bit concerned that there is a Wowhead entry for the spell to be increased to 35% as this is just plain silly as we’ve reverted back to 3 healers on Deathwing purely because it is far too easy to do too MUCH DPS on the toe nails and spawn the Blistering Tentacles soon after the Mutated Corruption has spawned even when starting on the blue platform!

Anyway I digress, nerf or no nerf the guys and gals of Exhumed downed Yor’sahj on heroic mode this week which puts us at a not too shabby 3 of 8 on heroic mode. We’re not the first by a long way but all the same we’re proud to have done it and that is all that matters. We’d spent an hour or so wiping and hit the enrage timer at least once and in the end we decided that we could 2 heal and 1 tank so myself and Brimar donned our off spec guises and went and hit things. My off spec gear is still crap due to running with 4 or more paladins each week and having 3 warlocks occasionally raiding and stealing my OS tier loot. But I was pleased to do well enough on our first try with me DPSing to actually kill him.

In other news, I’ve now finally got my 1st 85 Horde, my “other” priest, Wilkini who I have levelled as Shadow and am in the process of gearing up to get him some healing action and  into some Raid Finder. I’m in a 900 strong guild and so far this past few weeks have seen no more than 4 people online! So needless to say I’m looking for a more active guild in terms of numbers online, if they raid at any level its a bonus so if you’re Hordside on Ahn’Qiraj EU send me a message and I’ll gladly come join your guild! 
EDIT: I have just taken advantage of the Blizzard Summer Sale on 25% off realm transfers and moved him to Kazzak EU! Now I need to find a guild there ;p

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