Carrying on the fine tradition begun with previous awesome Hunter pets, I now ask you, gentle reader, to take on the task of helping me find the perfect name for my new best buddy and bosom pal… Arcturis, the Spirit Beast Bear!

Thanks to Mania’s Arcania, for whom my respect knows no bounds, I knew that Arcturis was making his presence known in Patch 3.3.

I laid in my plans, and following the previous guidance from the commenters on WoWHead, I parked my Hunter in Grizzly Hills, on the west side of Amberpine Lodge, at about 32, 56, hovering in the airspace over that stretch of sharply sloped hill between the Grizzly Bear happy hunting grounds of the river, and the high ground where the Lodge itself resides.

This morning, I logged in quick to do a fast check, and sure enough, Thanks to the addon SilverDragon, I saw a popup to warn me that Arcturis had been spotted!

Arcturis does have the same stats as other spirit beasts, and I know that puppies are more in fashion for DPS these days, but I’ve been hoping for this moment ever since I first saw a PTR screenshot of him. How could I not?

So help a Feral Druid out, by suggesting your idea of the perfect name for Big Bear Butts’ new Big Bear pet!

Thank you, and may the spawn go with you!

Ahh, a gratuitous Full Metal Jacket quote.

You know it’s going to be a good day.

Oh, and the quote has no relevance to the post. I just like quoting Full Metal Jacket. And I wish I had an R. Lee Ermey action figure.

I said action figure, damn it!

So, what brought me to just spontaneously mention R. Lee Ermey, John Wayne, and Full Metal Jacket?

I was reading a post by Chawa at The Wayward Initiative, where she has an idea for an Achievement Title she’d like to see added to the Pilgrim holiday event… and was soliciting ideas for what you could do to earn it. :)

I’ll give you a minute to go over there, read the post, and then bookmark the site. With posts like that, you’ll want to go visit again, right?

Okay, let’s go.

The quote Chawa chose is pretty good. It sets up the situation… “You done caused a lot of trouble today, and you dearly deserve a solid asskicking. I’m a better man, and I’m not gonna be the one to lower myself to give it to you. Wait, you know what? On second thought, screw that, I am gonna kick your ass.”

So in what situation can we identify someone that needs an asskicking, and then proceed to kick their ass?

Of course, I immediately consider ways to pwn my own faction. If there is anything that can get a person frustrated, it’s having to deal with people being asshats on your own faction, in your pugged groups, in your Trade chat, whatever, and not being able to gank the living shit out of them.

The next thing that comes to mind is, if it’s for an Achievement during a temporary holiday, with a 7 day duration… can we get have a temporary ’smackdown’ item or flag for them, that lets us affect our own faction?

Now, how to make sure the people that get nailed are those that deserve it.

That… that right there is the hard part, isn’t it?

After all, who determines who deserves a good asskicking?

Well, sure, me. Of course. You can trust me. :)

As Future Sam thought to Past Sam in Night Watch, sometimes the difference between something being right or wrong is that it’s you doing it. 

Okay, that’s facetious, but when I read that, I knew what he was saying. You know what your intent is, and if you’re gonna take the law into your own hands and be a vigilante, well, you know your own motives, right? But that other bastard… who the hell knows WHAT he was thinking? He’s probably an evil, mean, nasty sumbitch, right?

Okay, it was a lot funnier when Sam thought it.

Still needs to be said… *I* may be okay with me having the power to decide who does or does not deserve an in-game asskicking… but I bet *you* aren’t.

So, who do you trust?

In World of Warcraft, we’d have to trust Blizzard’s game designers, right?

So, for there to be a judgment set up by Blizzard game designers… it has to be able to be articulated and implemented in an automatic fashion through programming.

Is it possible to build in a method by which the game can detect a behavior, and then mark the person for elimination (or bitchslapping) by players?

In Borean Tundra, those PITA types don’t like you killing animals. If you kill an animal, you get covered in blood until you enter water to wash it off. If they see you while you’re covered in animal blood, boom. They go after you.

This shows there is a mechanism in game for detecting whether someone has fulfilled a condition, and is or is not open for attack by computer controlled NPCs. Additionally, there is a built-in marking function that can be tied to the condition, so players can see it as well. It can even be set so the condition is not set by duration, but can be persistant until logout, or by fulfilling some specific condition… like being killed, or entering a water area.

Taking an example from the distant past, if you merely walk on certain areas, even in a PvE server, you get flagged instantly for PvP whether you like it or not, and that makes you wide open to attack by the opposite faction. 

This means there is a mechanism in place for recognizing behavior, such as traveling in a zone, and becoming flagged for player PvP against your will.

So… is it possible to tie, say… typed chat into the triggering mechanism?

Can you, perhaps, have the chat system recognise spammed/repeated sentences or comments from a player, or frequency of comment from a player, and if someone spams Trade chat, say, with a repeated statement or with a big macro or saying, then they immediately get a big Skull placed over their head, and flagged for same-faction/any faction wide open PvP gankage?

Oh please… please, let it be so.

I know it’s too much to ask to be able to destroy a same-faction loot ninja on sight… but if someone that ports into Dalaran and starts to spam Trade were flagged and marked with a nice shiny Skull over their head, maybe for as long as 5 minutes, and could be killed by ANYONE… oh, what fun.

Do a /who, see what city they’re in, and then go hunting.

“There he is! The little bastard is hiding in the Dal sewers near the Poison seller! Get him, guys!”

[Boot to the head!]

/sigh

And while I’m wishing, I’d like a pony, please.

We did a nice, relaxing Ulduar run last night and had some fun. Well, we did after this weird bug that keep causing us to drop the entire raid group in the instance stopped happening. Few things are as jarring as suddenly, in mid-discussion, having everyone drop out of the raid group and get told you’re headed for the nearest graveyard.

Anyway, we did the first four, followed by Kologarn and Crazy Cat Lady.

Quite a lot of loot dropped, most of it unwanted.

Thank you, Heroic ToC, for making a lot of Ulduar 10 redundant. :)

Along the way, my Hunter picked up a few new toys.

Rifle of the Platinum Guard and Mimiron’s Repeater.

No, nobody else wanted them. And I certainly didn’t need what are arguably tanky weapons, since I’ve already got the True-aim Long Rifle.

Now, I’d like you to take a look at these two beauties.

Granted, they may not have the best stats, but damn, they look cool!

There is only one thing that comes to mind, when I see those two beauties.

In the words of Emilio Estevez in Young Guns;

“Regulators…. mount up!”

Which brings me to my next point.

Blizzard, you rocked our world when you made a change in Wrath in the Talent Trees. Perhaps over time, you’ve reduced the effectiveness of the Talent to balance it. But the fact remains, it’s cooler than watermelon pie.

You gave Fury Warriors Titan’s Grip in the Fury tree, and let them dual wield Two Handed Weapons.

This is my Call to Arms… give Marksman Hunters a new top end Talent that lets them dual wield Guns!

And call it…

“Two Gun Mojo”

Just for me? Please?

You know, there’s always something going on somewhere to talk about. Whether you folks think it’s relevant to what you expect here or not, well, that’s another story.:)

Last night, the Druid Q&A by Ghostcrawler and the Blizzard Community Team went live, and I read it, chuckled a bit, and hit Lady Jess with the high points I knew she would enjoy. Sure enough, I sent her into a Jessrage. All in good fun, of course.

Thing is, there’s a lot of nice discussion about the past, current and future overarching direction of the Druid class, but it was short on specifics I really felt needed to be discussed, at least from a Feral point of view. There was some confirmation that Feral tree split spec for either optimized Cat or Bear is working as intended, there was the surprising idea that they would consider changing things so that we would have to shift frequently, apparently because they want to see us wearing the artwork of the gear they designed (note: I stay in forms because I chose the Druid FOR it’s forms… me choosing to be in a Bear form all the time should be, in my opinion, considered a class design WIN, not a freaking problem. FWIW, anyway.).

But, there was nothing in the Q&A I was all that enthusiastic about talking about. I came up with what I thought would be a cute name for a post about it, “QQ&A”, but there wasn’t even anything I was particularly enthusiastic about crying over.

See, I already had two plans for blog posts for this week, and that’s not even counting the PBeM story post I’m still in the middle of, that is with Lauchlin, but that I scrapped because in my humble opinion it drifted into ‘teh suck’.

I’m enthusiastic about writing these other things, and not the Druid Q&A. So, I’m not gonna talk about it.

It’s not that I’m not enthusiastic about Druids. Far from it, I have literally done nothing BUT play my Druid with delight for weeks now, both Tank and Heals.

What brings me back blogging time after time? I’m still enthusisatic about what I do. There’s always something new, and I go bounce/bounce/bounce my Big Bear Butt off doing it. It ain’t never boring. If things seem quiet, well hey, bring your own fun!

Here’s a few examples of the things we’ve done lately, things that I’ve been having fun with.

I like soloing things as a Bear, but it’s too easy doing old world stuff. So, the thought occured to me, I’ve got this level 80 Hunter that is all decked out for raiding as a BM with a Spirit Kitty… why not Dual Spec my Hunter… as another Beastmaster? TWO Beastmaster specs? I can have my second spec be strictly designed to maximize pet survivability and damage, and I could take my Bear pet (named “Clawsome”), and I could go have fun soloing Attumen, a mount soloing spec-and-pet system.

Basically, I could be a Bear tank two ways. :) Maybe even see if my guild is crazy enough to let me do a Heroic with my Bear pet tanking. Sigh. It’s just… something that sounds fun, and gets my enthusiasm for new things going, ya know? So yeah, I got the Dual Spec and pet and all, haven’t had a chance to go take down Attumen. Why? Because while on the way, literally, to Karazhan, landing in Duskwood, Ratshag and his lovely and talented fiancé Shianti wanted me to come do Heroic Violet Hold.

I do so… and then have to go to bed. And later that same night, I’m told, Shianti liked my idea of doing Karazhan SO MUCH that she wanted to go try Attumen right away that night… and the damn Attumen mount dropped, and she got it.

That would have been MY instance of Karazhan… so by rights, that’s my mount drop she got. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. It was all an evil plot by Ratters, I’m sure.

Okay, another example.

I’ve been doing Argent Tournament dailies every day, to build up seals and work towards Crusader so when the 3.2 changes hit and Heirloom chestpieces are available, I can just pick one up immediately. As of last night, I’m done with Darnassus and Exodar.

Well, I’m banging around doing Threat with Jardal and Kaelynn, and Barre asks in Guild chat if anyone has the Molton Core zone drop enchant, Enchant Weapon – Spell Power.

It’s a rare drop in Molten Core, a weapon enchant that does +30 Spell Power and that can be applied to level 1 weapons… like Heirloom weapons.

Nobody does, and someone mentions Jess spent two days in Trade channel before she found someone that could do it.

Well, heck, right? I ask Jardal and Kaelynn if either has an enchanter. Jardal does, a level 62 Prot specced Paladin.

So I ask him if he’d like to bang around in Molten Core, like right after dailies, see if the enchant drops? Sure, sure.

So Jardal, Kaelynn and her 80 Rogue, my Druid tank and a few guildies all head into Molten Core on the spur of the moment of a Monday night, just for the heck of it.

We ended up doing a 100% full clear that night, just because it was so easy with level 80 tank, healer and 3 to 4 DPS to keep going.

And guess what?

Sure as hell, the Enchant Weapon – Spell Power does, in fact, drop. Thing has, according to WoWhead, a 1% drop chance on only a few bosses… and even if Blizzard upped it’s drop chance recently, it’s not BoP anymore, so it is farmable, and it’s still pretty rare. And now we have someone in guild that can do it. :)

Sometimes, it’s a good idea to remind yourself, the game is truly great, but shouldn’t be expected to always have to come up with new content, and work to keep your bored short attention span mind all engaged.

Sometimes, it’s nice to remember, you can take the initiative to look for things that sounds fun yourself, and then go out and do them

If you think about WoW, and you can literally find nothing about the game that you feel enthusiastic about, then it’s not really the game’s fault in my opinion. Maybe it’s time for you to go find something you ARE enthusiastic about and do it! Take a break, you know?

Fantasy Football Leagues are about set to kick off here in the States, Summer is here and there’s lots of stuff to do out of the house, there are great books and movies out there, concerts, whatever. Go out, go bowling, dance at a club, have fun. Get enthusiastic with life.

I still find WoW keeps me coming back, having fun and talking about it.

I guess I’m just getting pickier about what I write about, though.

Druid Q&A? I’ll let WoW.com handle the dissection if that’s all right with you folks.

I have been doing a teeny little bit of looking for a certain something-something, and I just happened to get lucky tonight.

Say hello to my leetle frien’.

Wait, what did you think I was talking about?

Never mind, I don’t think I want to know.

That’s right, I now have a wonderfully pretty purple ghost tiger Spirit Beast, and he’s very pretty. I don’t know why, but he is a he. Roll with it.

All I did was visit that marvelous website Petopia, hit her recently added pets page, move on down to that gorgeous image of Gondria the Spirit Beast that was added in the latest patch, and checked out the particulars.

Petopia told me that I could find these beauties in Zul’drak, that they were tameable, and that my normal kitty chow would do just fine.

Moving on to Wowhead’s entry on Gondria, I learned that there were 5 spawn locations Gondria was known to frequent, I found a nice /target macro Nuker had created to help search for Gondria, and Cassie (God bless her) read further and told me that Gondria is a Neutral Beast. That last bit turned out to be important.

First thing I did was add waypoints in my Cartographer map  for the five points (63.4, 42.5) (69.4, 48.7) (62, 62) (66.4, 78.4) (77, 70).

I then added the macro that Nuker wrote, which he displayed as follows;

/tar Gondria
/stopmacro [noexists]
/w [Your Name Here] You’ve FOUND >%t<

I of course modified it so it said;

/tar Gondria
/stopmacro [noexists]
/w Windstar You’ve FOUND >%t<

Now, I spent a bit of time cruising around those points looking for him, spamming the macro. No luck.

Then, after a little Obsidian Sanctum run, Cassie came downstairs for a neck rub, and told me about the Spirit Beast being Neutral instead of Hostile.

The importance of this turns out to be that all of the other beasts in the area ARE Hostile… and Hostile beasts are Red dots on your minimap when you have Track Beasts on. Neutral ones are Yellow/Gold.

So, if I turn my Track Beasts on as I cruise my route of 5 marks, Gondria should stand out as a nice pretty gold amidst the red. Neat, huh?

I said that sounded like a great idea… I logged in, put it on, and was chatting to Cassie when she said “What’s that there?”

“What’s what where who huh?”

I looked at the screen. That there was a gold dot amidst the red, sure enough. I hovered my mouse over the dot on the minimap, and the name Gondria stood out bold as brass.

I had logged out over one of the spawn points, 66.4, 78.4 to be exact, because it seemed one of the two with the most critters, and to my mind meant one of the two most likely to see a kitty spawn. Lo and behold the beastie was right there under my flying feet. If it wasn’t for Cassie, I never would have logged in, in the first place, let alone noticed the little gold dot.

A few hand shaking moments later, a dismissed gorilla (bah bye, sucka!) and I had myself a beautiful purple glowy kitty.

With the joy this brings, as you can see from the picture, I’ve still got a problem.

A kitty that pretty needs a damn fine name.

That’s where I hope you can help me out, because I used up the last of my imagination when I came up with Moonclaw for my Ghost Saber when he was only level 20.

This kitty deserves a powerful name, resonating with majesty and soul.

I sure hope you’ve got a few suggestions for me!