Wednesday, June 20, 2012

1st Blogiversary Contest Submissions


I am no longer taking submissions for my 1st Blogiversary Contest, which was to tell me what your favorite rare is and why, and I would like to thank everyone who submitted an entry. I received entries in several different forms including blog posts, replies to my original contest post and by email.

I think everyone should get a chance to read all of the entries before a winner is picked, so I would like to share them with you. I have quoted the entries received via email and as a response to the contest post below so that they can easily be read in one place. For entries received via blog posts I have included links directly to the posts. Definitely check them out if you haven't yet - they have some very nice visuals to go along with their responses (images will carry no weight when the entries are being judged as not everyone was able to submit them).

(Entries are listed in the order they were received.)

Entries Submitted via another blog (with links to posts):

From Cymre of Bubbles of Mischief ~  http://www.bubblesofmischief.com/2012/06/07/my-favourite-rare/






Email Entries:

From Caden Reigns ~

"My greatest rare moments come down to two that are probably unoriginal, but how similar to one another my experience finding them was sets them at the forefront of my mind. The two rares in question were the Time-Lost Proto drake and Aeonaxx. When Wrath was in beta and the Violet Proto Drake was datamined I immediately knew I wanted it and started doing holidays at max speed. But when I learned that there was another version of the proto 'just flying around' Storm Peaks I thought it would 'easier' to camp that instead. Two weeks of semi-constant camping later I was fed up with it, I had slain Vyragosa too many times and was sure every time I had to log off that my mount had been snagged by some gnome or undead that I saw in the seconds before I logged off. So I gave up camping, and only passed through Storm Peaks on the way to dailies and eventually Ulduar. It was just after the first phase of the argent tourney was implimented, before the raid/dungeon was there, that I was flying between there and the Hodir to do dailies when suddenly, as a I was flying through the small canyon with all the harpies, and NPCScan started blaring. I thought it was just Vyra again but when I looked at the box there was a bronze dragon in the picture instead of a blue one. I flew at TLPD so fast and jumped off my mount so quickly without thinking that I nearly died from fall damage after tapping the drake. Bit one enraged regen and a bunch of other cd's later I had an awesome new mount.

The reason Aeonaxx is so similar for me is because after like-wise camping for quite some time at the beginning of the xpac, one day I get on my shaman to do the Therazane dailies and as I'm flying there I'm once again surprised to find an actual rare I want in the npcscan box. Luckily for me Aeoanaxx catches you when you jump off your mount cause that's a fall I wouldn't have survived
."

From Rob George ~

"What follows: A story about my encounter with Rekk'tilac after a Molten Core wipe six years ago. And a condensed version detailing what happened.

“BY FIRE BE PURGED!” roared the elemental embodiment of molten fury, hurling a roiling sphere of blistering heat in my direction. Before my rotten flesh went up like the kindling it was, I managed two things. I hurled the Shadowbolt I had been conjuring up, the fel energy coursing towards Ragnaros’ molten core, neatly paralleling the own fiery ball heading my way. And I also uttered an “Oh”, as though the outcome of our particular battle was in anyway destined to end in my victory. As though, in this spar, my teammates and I had any chance. And so I died. Again.

Rotten luck, that. Though I can’t say the sadistic part of me didn’t enjoy watching my compatriots go up in flame. And oh, what a dramatic character Ragnaros was, practically chewing up the scenery in between swings, each outburst rife with passion and flare for the dramatic. To be fair, fire is a passionate element.

So here I sit. I had long since settled with the notion that death, or redeath, for me, was part and parcel to this world. I even had some vague form of consciousness as a corpse, being able to watch the world turn, or my allies burn. But the leader of my ragtag band of mobs did not seem to enjoy my candor, or our lack of results, and called our soirée after we had only failed three times!

Madness. I called him on it, and he made sure no one took the time to resurrect me. Well, fine! Two can play the Laziness Card. With effort, I willed my soul depart from its mortal coil, appearing in a grey-washed land of the Searing Gorge, positioned precariously on the lip of Thorium Point. Watching my allies depart around me, I sighed looked out across the bleak landscape, out towards the mountain where my corpse lay.

Excuse me, while I wax philosophical, for just a moment. How dead am I, right now? A Forsaken, who has died, and is now a ghost. Using the laws of convoluted playground grammar, I should be alive. I’m un-undead. If only such childhood games were true! Alas.

Where was I? Oh, yes. Laziness. It would be fair to call me lazy. Sedentary. Lethargic. But I can explain my lack of effort by saying that my body is rotting and I don’t have the muscle for it. Or the nerve. Or the mind. I don’t have much, is what I’m getting at. I did have a lot of cash, though. That always helped. So it was with a heavy coinpurse that I turned to the ephemeral image of a woman, knowing full well the weakness that would overtake me and my physical belongings. Oh, the repair bills!

With a snap of my fingers and a nod, I felt my soul wrenched out of the world of bleak greys and instead a land of vibrant, soot colored wastes. What a positive change.

Accompanying this shift in venues was the angriest, most bloodthirsty spider I had ever seen. Something I could have easily taken had the floating ghostly tart not left me weak and frail. I threw a weakened curse at it, followed by some flesh decaying afflictions, but it was all for naught. It hurt me far more than I hurt it. I cast it back with some harrowing magic, watching it flee in terror.

Knowing that I was on a mountain, I had nowhere left to turn. So with gestures arcane, I summed my faithful hound, Gzaanom. He was weak, sure. I wouldn’t tell him this, but I usually used my imp more, just because my allies demanded it. So I ordered my felhound forward, and it obeyed, as it was summoned to do.

What follows is a condensed version of the most boring fight of my entire unlife, life, and various states of death and undeath. I hurled bolts of eldritch wrath from a wand, and occasionally used my own life force to heal my hound. For ten minutes.

Sighing, I knelt down to look at the corpse of the red-furred embersilk spider, carefully poking around it with a boney toe. Heaving a sigh, I dug my hands around it for awhile and pulled forth my spoils. A fang, and a magical battleaxe that I had not seen on the spider’s personage until that time.

Sometimes life is stranger than fiction.

I had just wiped, miserably, in Molten Core. It wasn't much of a surprise. Molten Core was still "new" and Ragnaros has only just been slain for the first time a couple months prior. But wipe we did.

And when I got to the graveyard, I immediately remembered that I was lazy and running back was boring. So I used to the spirit healer. Looking around, I saw a rare spawn! And attacked it. It kicked my ass, and I had to fear it. I remember I dealt no damage with rez sickness. But my pets did the same damage either way.

Gzaanom, halp!

Ten minutes might be an exaggeration, but it took a long damn time to kill that spider with a wand and Felhound's piss poor melee damage!
Anyhow, that's my story. Rekk'tilaaaaac! The fire tarantula thing in Searing Gorge.



This rare spawn means a lot to me because of nostalgia, plain and simple. I enjoyed this game the most in Vanilla, when my dial up connection could raid Molten Core and Blackwing Lair and I was an asset to my team. Now dial up just allows me to faff about, collecting mounts and pets(117 mounts, 129 pets, respectively). And the sheer length of time it took to kill Rekk'tilac made him stand out."

From Silvia Castañeda ~

"I'll have to say that there are THREE rares in the history of my hunter that are truly, truly meaningful for her, but the most important has to be her first pet.

Dishu: Her first pet and rare. Was tamed back at 2006, leveled all the way to 15 before trying to tame her (because the cub adds that spawn)... Ran all the way from Darkshore to the barrens and kept looking for her under the trees she spawns, after several ganks, finally found her on the northernmost spawn point, and proceeded to clear the other lion adds. Thanks to her cubs I ended dying a lot and running away too much, however, in the end I managed to tame her. I really felt like the most accomplished hunter at that moment, since on the alliance side nightsabers and snow leopards where the most common cats for hunter, I kept getting whispers from other similar level hunters ''where did you got that pet?!''.

To this day, Dishu it's still on my hunters stable. She may no longer be her principal active pet (Deth'tilac being now) or the rarest of all (stable is full of them), but she is definitely the one with the most sentimental value of all other pets
."

From Nicole Emerson ~

"After doing some PVP and seeing many hunter's with a green spider which I fell in love with, I went on a hunt to find where to get it from. After a little snooping around on the net I found out it was a rare spider called Kirix which was a rare in Molten Front. I'm the type of person that likes to figure things out so I tried Ice traps, Frost traps, silencing shot and deterrence, after all of that not working I turned to other things like Elixir of Mighty Speed, Blood lust and time warp.

I was killed many time's and on a graveyard run just as I rezed there where three alliance players killing him. I was guttered but he was soon out again only 4 days after and at a better time for me to get my wow friends in to give me buffs and heal, which may I add did not work. :/ After trying many times a hunter sent me a whisper saying I should get on the floating rocks and this was how he had tamed Kirix, so I took his advice and off I went. I went back to pots, buffs, traps and help from friends and it all failed yet again so I was reluctant to go on the net to see how other hunters had tamed him.


One hunter had been getting on the floating rocks which I had tried, the other was a little rotation of Frost traps, Disengage, Deterrence and Tame Beast. After many trys and with many fails I come to the conclusion that the little rotation was not work for me. So I went back on the net to snoop some more, I found nothing of use to me. But when I tabbed back into game a hunter was taming him and succeeded! Which I cant say I was not upset about. I sent a whisper to the hunter asked how he had tamed Kirix which he would not tell me ;( which I thought was a little evil on his part. Not long after I was told by my friend that her hunter had tamed Kirix only the other day! Which I have to say I got mad at myself for not being able to tame him. I was lucky one early morning about 3am he was out! And I was determined to get him this time! After failing for over an hour my friend who had tamed him only days ago came online.


I asked how she had done it her reply was I have two words for you "core hound!" and so I went off to search for a tameable core hound. After having to do quests to get into molten core and tamed me a core hound I did not expect Kirix to still be there but he was! So with my Elixir of Mighty Speed and my pocket healer and the buff from the core hound and the little tip off getting on the floating rocks I got him first time!! I was a very happy bunny, and now every time I see Kirix or even see someone with him it makes me smile as I think back on how long and hard it was for me to get him as my pet.


I also went on to have a really good day that day, as I was doing my dailies in Deepholm when my NPC went off telling me Jadefang was out! Which I killed to get the little spider pet. So Kirix is my favourite rare and a very long a waited rare for me. ^^"

Replies from Original Contest Post:

From Kamalia of Kamalia et alia ~

"My favorite rares are Olm the Wise, Aotona, and Arcturis. 

Olm the Wise has always made me think of Hedwig. I think it's somehow appropriate that Olm is now a ghost owl, because of how Hedwig took an Avada Kedavra for Harry at the beginning of Deathly Hallows. I didn't manage to get the original white version of Olm tamed, but I do have the new spectral version in my stable -- I named it "Minerva".

I love the parrots, so I'd been planning to tame Aotona as soon as my Hunter got to level 76. I thought I might have to camp for awhile, but to my great delight, my Hunter saw Aotona flying around as she was coming down on the parachute from Archmage Pentarus's plane! She hurried to dismiss her regular pet and get in range to tame Aotona. I was so nervous that another player would come along and disrupt my tame, but thankfully no one did!

Even though my Hunter leveled as Beast Mastery, I wasn't particularly interested in most of the Exotic pet families. I felt like she should have at least *one* Exotic pet to use while in her Beast Mastery spec, though, so after a great deal of deliberation, I decided to tame Arcturis and name it with an anagram of the name of my husband's Bear Tank. I was busy with the Argent Tournament at the time, so every day after doing the sword quest, I would fly by Arcturis's spawn point on my way back to the Tournament, instead of just hearthing or taking a flight path. For days and days, I never saw Arcturis. One day, I saw a Night Elf Hunter at the same spot -- so I gave him a wide berth and hoped he wouldn't be there again the next day! After two or three weeks, I finally saw Arcturis. No other players were around, so I was able to tame him without interference. Whatever other pets come and go in my stable, Arcturis will stay."

From Trinity ~

"I am an 85 Troll hunter on Uldum US but when I was working for my favorite rare the beautiful loque'nahak spirit beast I was at level 80 about a year ago. What made this such a memorable rare was this was the first pet or rare in that matter that I ever camped for Loque took me about a week to get with 6+ hours each day I saw him dead about 4 times in that week and that really got me mad. Eachtime my NPC scan went off I would nearly have a heart attack seeing the majestic beast just suddenly pop on my screen. I would scramble to click on it just to find it dead. FOUR TIMES. But on that last day I was getting ready to start my typical route to camp so I log in and suddenly he is right there in front of me I lay down my frost trap hit tame beast and caught my first spirit beast this sparked the journey to camping and I have caught every spirit beast since that besides Karoma but I'm working on that right now."

From Akabeko aka the red cow of red cow rise ~

"My favorite rare spawn is Jadefang. I'm not much of a camper in WoW, because even when I have the time for it, I'm too impatient! But one day shortly after Cata I was home sick and thought well, since I'm just streaming TV anyway, why not park myself in Deepholm and see if that spider that drops the pet shows up? (I'm not a hunter, so I was planning to kill Jadefang for the cute spider pet) I had saved the bomb quest that you need to blast yourself into her lair, so I ran into the cave and parked myself, in kitty form and stealthed, right by her spawn point. Then I went back to poking around online and rolling around on the floor in a fever-induced delirium.

I realized that a human DK was hanging out halfway towards the entrance of Jadefang's lair. I assumed they were camping as well - of course, right, why else would you be up in that cave? But they kept jumping. The movement was really annoying me for some reason. I would see the motion out of the corner of my eye and nerdrage! YOU THERE. WITH THE JUMPING. CUT IT OUT. I didn't know if they could see me hiding in the back of the cave, so I didn't interact with them. The whole time I was afraid they would steal my mob (not that I expected it to spawn).

Then suddenly...Jadefang spawned! I screamed and spammed Swipe in a frantic attempt to tag it. Seconds later, I had my very own tiny shale spider! Then, guiltily, I looked at the human DK. THEY HAD GONE AFK. I laughed about my luck all the way to my hearth
."

I can tell a lot of time and thought were put into these, and I enjoyed reading each one of the entries as they came in. I plan on reading all of them again before I pick a winner. As stated in my original contest post I will announce a winner some time before June 23rd. The winner will receive a companion pet of their choice from the Blizzard Store.


4 comments:

  1. Wow I'm glad you shared those email entries! Those stories are fantastic!

    ReplyDelete
  2. A lot of really great entires there :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for posting them all! Great stories!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yeah, there were some really good ones, and they definitely deserved to be read by more than just myself. =)

    ReplyDelete