Down the rabbit hole

Wow, 9 months since my last post. You could knit a baby at the cellular level in that time!

I haven't died or given up. WoW didn't hold onto me for all that time either.

Come on guys, lets go fight the cover of every heavy metal album ever!

After making my original 'Scarlet Set' (which I still love) I got the opportunity to run her through the Icecrown Citadel raid instance. Well, actualy I got quite a few opportunities, enough that I was able to collect several pieces of the Tier 10 'Lightsworn' paladin set and upgrade them to the red/brown 25 man 'Sanctified' version which fit the theme perfectly. After a few more tweaks I re-christened the original set as the Retribution set and this new outfit for Tanking.

At the Lorderon Memorial

*** Edit ***
Apparently I'm getting a lot of traffic from people searching for Scarlet Crusade Transmogs (In fact the header from the earlier post is the top hit on the UK Google image search!) so I'll give a bit more info on those 'tweaks'
As mentioned, the Helmet, Shoulders and Chest are all part of the Sanctified Lightsworn set from ICC 25/10HC. The chest has an annoyingly low neck line for a piece of protective clothing so I added a red workman's shirt to extend it a bit.

The legs are Dawnbringer legguards which are (appropriately) a reward for clearing out the now undead Scarlet's in Tyr's Hand. Boots are Stonestep boots, which can be found in the Stormsnout brewery, I love that model and I'm glad I was able to find some with a red/black theme that were so easy to acquire (If only T10 hadn't given us goddamn slippers!).

For the gloves I originally went for the T10, but they had a bit too much brown and not enough red, then I remembered the Rare quality starter PVP set available from rep vendors back in the days of the Burning Crusade. Sure enough Crusaders Battlegear fitted well with the theme and is easy to get. Speaking of vendors, the belt is another helping hand from blizzard, taken from the wasteland set of greens sold by a vendor in Towlong.

For the shield I wanted something that memorialised Lorderon as a whole, and not just the Scarlets (even if they were the true 'living' heirs to the kingdom, rather than those filthy Forsaken!). The Royal Crest was an option, but it looked more like a piece of furniture, Shield of the Wayward Footman however simple, looks like a shield, bears the Crest of Lorderon and is Red! It's a world drop, but TBH your best bet to find it is the AH.

Finally the Tabard. It's down to personal preference and what you can get. I dropped the SC one because, while she wanted to honour those crazy bastards, she wasn't actually one of them. Argent Crusade might have fit better thematically, but it didn't look great. So It was the Argent Dawn tabard... Keep it old school!
Armory Link
***End Edit ***

As my sub wound down I managed to level both Raxiel and Truesilver to level 90 and my level 80 Deathknight to 85 but I was starting to get bored so I let my sub expire and have been working through all the other games I wanted to play.
At first I played (and beat) XCom. I was a big fan of the original back in the Amiga days, and I enjoyed the remake, although the ending was a bit disappointing and I've no desire to re-play it.
No screenshots since you can't really customise the base game so mine would look like any other.

Then, Febuary came and it was time for SKYRIM! A game I've been playing on and off for well over a year and I've still not finished it. I recreated my female Nord warrior from the previous games Morrowind and Oblivion and set about exploring with the ever faithful Lydiot, who like so many things in my game was tweaked with mods so she doesn't feel quite so burdened.

Can you guess which one is which?

I might have finished Skyrim this time, but as so often happened, my attention waned and I finally gave in to EA's Origin service and bought the third Mass Effect Game.

My once dead and resurrected Stacy Shepard finally got to battle the reapers. I won't go on about the ending, its been covered elsewhere, but it wasn't just whining the original ending really did suck.
The 'fixed' ending was a big improvement even if it was still just 'disappointing'. I loved the games though, so I still made the time to replay the entire trilogy as a renegade.

Some of April was spent back in SL (Need a new Stacy post for that), and trying out the new Revolutionary America based Assassins Creed game. To be honest, I found it boring, and rather than finish it I actually went back and replayed the whole of AC2 instead.
May was spent Replaying GTA IV or watching my other half playing The Sims 3.

Which inspired me to make a family of my own
But not just any family, a dysfunctional family.
Meet Dan Cook, a fat lazy loser with Karren his fat chavvy slag of a wife, Lee their bright but shy son and Jake, the handsome and athletic lodger they had to take in to pay the bills.

Domestic Bliss?

In The Sims you can choose a lifetime goal of a sim, and Karren's was to have 5 kids. I added my own personal goal to that, which was that each of those different kids would have a different father, and only the first would be her husbands, preferably without him wondering why one of 'his' kids was dark skinned, another was a vampire etc...
Unfortunately thanks to the broken 'reputation' system introduced in one of the expansions, people sometimes telepathically know when their other half has been cheating, even if it was behind closed doors when the act took place.

Sometimes its obvious though.

Cold

 Eventually she got a reputation as a dirt bag, meaning no one wanted to touch her (which gives far to much credit to the human race IMHO) but unfortunately her rep spread so far even people in France shot down her attempts at holiday romance.

Angry Dan must be calmed...

...With a quick makeout session...

...before sneaking off to find daddy N°3

I didn't have time to get bored of The Sims though, because a Steam sale led me to the two most recent time-sinks in my life: Civilization 5, and Saints Row 3.
I'd never played a Saints Row game before, I'd always assumed it was just a GTA knockoff, but I've been having a blast. It knows it's a game, and only obeys the rules of realism as long as they don't get in the way of fun.

So Gangsta

With the masses of character customization I originally tried to make a Stacy Clone, but couldn't do her justice. So I made Alexandria, a heavily tattooed, hard faced Russian gangster bitch. I've changed her look a few times during my play-through, and I'm sure I will many more times before the end.

WoW - A fantasy themed dressing up simulator

Back in the day, my wow catchphrase used to be

"Paladin : It doesn't matter what you do, as long as you look good doing it!"

I was joking of course, it was a game and utility came first, but that didn't mean I wouldn't strive to gain upgrades that would both improve my stats and my look.

Then I was introduced to SL a 'game' where the objective is (for me at least, SL lets you pick your own) to look good.

Now I'm back in WoW, and (yes this is another transmog post) I can have my cake and eat it.

Even though I was very happy with both the looks I gave Raxiel, I can't look at the same set for too long and so of course I've changed them both.

The two new sets share a few items.

Protection

The protection set is basically the Tier 4 Justicar Armor. It was released at the beginning of the Burning crusade and was featured in the opening cinematic, worn by a Draeni retribution paladin.This set wasn't particularly well received when the first preview was released, partly because the helmet made you look like a rhino, and partly because it was probably designed to suit the new Draeni race first and then other races second.but after a little bit of tweaking it became what I think is a really nice set. It looks like proper plate armour*

 It's paired with the matching non-set boots and a belt that is a close match (I've not had much luck getting the 'proper' one. I'm still using Honors Call and I added the Aldori Legacy Defender as a shield. Originally I had it without a tabard, but after equipping the Argent Crusade tabard for the teleport I realised it looked quite good (although I'm now considering picking up this one).

Retribution.

The new DPS set is based on Tier 5 but with a twist. Rather than the original Crystalforge Armor which is a bit too... colourful for my liking (and to be honest the pastels seem to wash out the detail too), I got my hands on some non-set pieces that share the models of tier 5 but with the colours of tier 4. I kept the remaining Justicar pieces and replaced the sword and shield with the Hammer of the Naaru, a weapon that was also featured in the TBC cinematic.

I think both sets work really well, and they've even got me a few compliments from strangers. I know I'll change them eventually but for now I'm happy.

*Some may notice I use a mix of the American and British spelling of words like armour in this blog. That's because when I'm describing it by its function, I use what I consider to be the 'proper' spelling, but when its part of an items name I use the original american.

WoW Transmog - The Scarlet Crusader



This is Truesilver, my other paladin. Since Raxiel was my first character, and I made all sorts of newbie mistakes in the early game, I created True to re-play that part of the game with the benefit of experience. It wasn't as easy to change specialisation back then, and since Raxiel was already a healer I explored other options, levelling her as retribution, and then as protection (Yes, a protection paladin in vanilla WoW and then again in the Burning Crusade expansion). In the end I just enjoy playing paladins, and I've invested a lot of time into her, so I kept her.

Truesilver's first transmog outfit was a fairly simple one, it was basically Tier 9 with Warhelm of the Bold. It was the only complete 'set' I had at the end of wrath besides her PVP armour (Which isn't eligible unfortunately). But after a while I wanted something more unique.

Truesilver the Scarlet Crusader

The Scarlet Crusade are a player-hostile faction in the World of Warcraft. They are the living Survivors of the Kingdom of Lorderon, which fell to the undead scourge in Warcraft 3. They are primarily opposed by the (Playable) Forsaken, the now free-willed undead former inhabitants of the Kingdom. The SC managed to hold back both the Forsaken and the Scourge for the whole time between the end of WC3, vanilla WoW, and the Burning Crusade. Only with Wrath of the Lich King, when attacked by a flying fortress commanded by Arthas himself.

The SC are described as crazed zealots who will attack anyone who isn't one of them, but given their circumstances you could hardly blame them (although their leadership was infiltrated by a powerful demon leading to some pretty questionable decisions that ultimately weren't questioned).

Truesilver's RP background is that she was born and raised in Stratholme, second city of Lorderon, but was living in the city of Stormwind at the time of the third war. She affiliated with the Argent Crusade in Northrend - an organisation without the crazy and with a more open recruitment policy, but she can never forgive the Forsaken for their betrayal at the Wrathgate. And so, while she doesn't agree with all their methods, a part of her heart will always be Scarlet.

The Outfit

I knew from the start that I wanted to base the outfit around two pieces. The Tabard of the Scarlet Crusade was the most obvious piece, Second were the Blessed Spaulders of Undead Slaying. These appropriately named shoulders are a red version of the hugely popular Paladin tier 2 Judgement set, but were only available for a short period during the Wrath of the Lich King starting event. They are quite a pale red, so finding armour to match proved problematic. There is a set of armour called 'Bloodscale' but unfortunately it’s a random drop (which makes it quite difficult to find) and it's a bit of a 'plate bikini' set, so pieces that come up on the auction house tend to be expensive, and it can be quite popular (not great for a unique look) - Even if bare thighs are do work as part of a scarlet look.

After trawling through model viewer and wowhead, and finding lots of suggestions for 'scarlet set's'  that didn't quite fit with the shoulders I finally settled on the blacksmith crafted 'Redsteel' set with a red/black version of the Bold helmet (Thundering Greathelm) and the tailor crafted scarlet cloak and red shirt. I'm still deciding on weapons, I started out with the Lightforged Blade before switching to the greatsword of forlorn visions. If I make her a Tank/Healer I have both the Scarlet commander's shield and the royal crest of Lorderon. The former fits the scarlet theme better, while the latter fits the 'Never Forget' mentality of this daughter of Stratholme.

I even got her the Swift Red Gryphon

It's not perfect, but overall I'm pretty happy with how this outfit came out, and I feel like I did the best job I could with the items in the database.

WoW, where did the time go? Part 2

So I returned to WoW after a 2 year break. I first got into WoW around this time 6 years ago, playing Raxiel my Human Paladin, through Vanilla, then the expansions: 'The Burning Crusade' and 'Wrath of the Litch King' and had a lot of fun in the process, I'd take the odd break for a month or three, but I always returned. By the time the third expansion 'Cataclysm' came out however I was feeling pretty burned out. I deactivated my account, and as this blog has shown, I was introduced to Second Life.

Time passed and I got to thinking about WoW again. Coinciding with the latest expansion, one of my workmates who still plays sent me a 'Scroll of Resurrection' that allowed me to re-activate my account for a 1 week trial. I had fun, and hearing all my old guildmates discussing the new content was enough to tempt me to buy the expansion and 3 months of gametime.

Transmogrification - the end of the clown suit.
I've always liked to create characters that look good. While some of the graphics in WoW are showing their age they certainly have some good artists. Unfortunately its WARcraft and if you want to survive ever increasing dangers you need your gear, and the new stuff doesn't always look as good or match as well as the old stuff (In fact it often doesn't). That means that, especially when levelling your character at the start of a new expansion, you often look like a bit of a patchwork, wearing random pieces of armour that you found or were rewarded from quests.
Although they've gotten better at providing a consistent style so you don't look like this:

Source: Penny Arcade



But while I’ve been away, they introduced a new feature - Transmogrification
Basically 'mogging as its known, allows you to replace the graphical model of an item, with that of an equivalent item. So with certain caveats (you can’t make plate armour look like cloth for example), you can look the way you want to. And I’ve been having a lot of fun going through my bank and/or gathering old items I liked the look of to make my 'Transmogrification Sets'.

Protection (Tanking) Set.
Tanking involves holding the attention of monsters and absorbing the damage they do so that squishy healers and damage dealers can do their jobs without getting killed. So when I put this set together, I wanted a look that says 'Indestructible'.



The outfit was still evolving as I took these shots. It’s mostly Lightbringer Plate - (Paladin Tier 6 set) and matching belt and boots to give an Alliance themed blue and gold look.



The T6 helmet consists of a shining gold halo, which looks nice but doesn't exactly look sturdy, Greathelm of the Bold matches the set colours and looks like a 'proper helmet' You can see his eyes too, which I like.
I’ve not got the set legs yet so I went with Turalion's Greaves (Tier 9) Originally I chose boots that match T6 (Pearl inlaid boots), but I later  decided to switch to a pair that match these legs (Sabatons of the lingering vortex)



Weapon started out as ‘The Unbreakable Will’, until I found a weapon I liked: ‘Honor's Call’, an epic reputation reward from Honor Hold. It even comes with its own glow! Given the choice I’d use my ‘Thunderfury’ but it’s a legendary weapon and, sadly, can’t be used for transmogrification.



The shield is Bulwark of Azzinoth, it’s something I got with a bit of luck while collecting the T6 pieces but is (as far as I know) the most substantial shield in the game.



Retributio​n (Damage dealing) Set.
This set is mostly Avengers Battlegear - (Paladin Tier 2.5 set). I chose this set for a couple of reasons.
First of all, to me it feels like it has a predatory vibe, the lines and spikes make it look aggressive and fast.
Secondly, it stands out. I've not seen anyone else wearing this set so far.

I've not been able to get the matching pieces yet, so I went With the Vengefull Gladiator'​s gloves (Arena season 3) and Judgement (Tier 2) belt.

Weapon is Ashkandi - Greatsword of the Brotherhoo​d. The great thing about transmogri​fication is that sword looks epic, even though it is in reality a crappy vendor bought uncommon item.

WoW, where did the time go?

So the typist got distracted.

Before Second Life there was World of Warcraft. Before Stacy there was Truesilver.

And (technicaly) Like Stacy, Truesilver was an Alt.

In both worlds, there was a Main called Raxiel

And now that wedding planning, and holiday planning, and university coursework are all behind me, and with the release of the new World of Warcraft expansion: Mists of Pandaria, The original Raxiel has been re-activated:

Appologies to those who were waiting for more skins for the SCS vehicles. I really do intend to finish the Nyan Cat skin for the Gator/Raptor, but the fact is it's just not fun for me. I enjoyed skinning the Sabre because I did it for myself and it gave me a chance to learn more about Photoshop. The UV mapping for the new vehicles is also a lot more fragmented making it significantly harder to do a proper wrap.

My other problem is, I'm not much of a multi-tasker. When I pick a project (be it creating skins for SL or gathering gear in WoW) I throw myself into it almost to the exclusion of anything else. I'm not done with SL, but it was my obsession for 2 years. I'm not leaving, my partner is still there. But for now… its WoW.

More to follow.

OMG 1 year today!

Wow, after flicking back through my post list I just realised that today marks exactly 1 year since I created this blog!

http://stacybluxome.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/begining.html

Time really has flown. I wonder where I'll be a year from now?

If I leave here tomorrow...

...would you still remember me?

This post was originally meant to be about my adventure finding other modes of transport in SL after the fun I had with the Sabre. I got my hands on a Harrier Jump Jet from Amok Dynamics and had a lot of fun with it (at first) but it's been sat as a draft for months because something LL did broke the Sim Crossings, and while they've gotten a bit better, they're still awful.

     

Someone explained to me that I should go easy on the Dev team because the magic that happens behind the scenes is pretty incredible and its a wonder they work at all. The thing is, as an end-user... I don't care! The fact is the result is an experience that's sub-par. The amount of rubber-banding over region crossings (Assuming you actually manage to cross and don't have to close the viewer and log in again - loosing the vehicle at the time) makes driving annoying and flying downright frustrating. Will it ever be fixed? Perhaps, but I've got my doubts. LL is after all the organisation that (apparently) put the Mesh Deformer on the backburner because Mesh clothing wasn't proving popular (perhaps because we still don't have a deformer yet FFS!). It's sapped all my enthusiasm for vehicle based exploration, and even to a certain extent SL as a whole.

Some good things have happened in the meantime though. Moo Spyker has expanded the range of SCS3 vehicles with The Gator command truck and Raptor APC. They are just as fun to drive as the Sabre and the gator is amphibious! (The raptor may be too, not tried it yet) If I can't fly across the Blake sea I can at least drive across it LOL. I also created a new 'Urban' Black and white cammo scheme for the sabre.

 

M'good friend Samantha Glume from SGE hooked me up with a Gator and Raptor so I could produce some skins to match the ones I've done for the sabre. So far I've only done a green Cammo for the Gator (wrapping the pattern is harder for these vehicles). The plan is to produce more, but things have been on a bit of Hiatus lately due to me getting hitched IRL! After a lovely two weeks in Italy life is getting back to normal.

Now that's out of the way posts should (Hopefully) resume some kind of frequency.