Pre-Midnight Blues

 

 I've been looking at the previews of the new Midnight areas, and, while I am excited for a fully fleshed out housing system, the expansion, the quest areas, the stories, and the new main characters such as Arator (a badly done Anduin wannabe) and Liadrin Pfft.  

Last time around, buying the Epic edition of the expansion gave players a few days head start, and it bugged me somewhat, because I was looking forward to The War Within.  Now I'm dreading Midnight, and I don't mind those poor suckers going in first at all.

My mood is tempered also, not in a good way, by several days where the warband bank was inexplicably unavailable.  I don't have much money set there, but all the shared resources my characters now depend on being to use anytime anywhere were just gone.  I noticed on the forums people fearing it would be like the guild bank fiasco where people just lost everything, and that was it.  Eep.

It's back, but I don't trust them now, and I will have individual characters hang onto things until needed, then they can swap things in.  

Since nobody in my family group has been playing much on the guild servers, I've neglected the guild banks this expansion, but, I'd best do what I've been meaning to do anyway and stock them with all the essentials, particularly for whatever the current expansion requires, potions and armor wise.

In another pre-expansion bummer, since the reset this week, the remaining characters I was sending to the Twilight Highlands aren't going to go, as they aren't earning coins to buy armor.  There is in fact in their Currency tab no spot for this currency.   Here are two of my characters, one who had done all she needed in the Highlands, and she still has a whopping 8 Twilight's Blade Insignia, which the next character could use, as it is shared.  However, when I sent that next character in and did the beginning quest sequence (which awards at least 40 Insignia), she had no Insignia rewarded, and in her Currency tab, not even a spot for the Twilight sequence.

Warlock one with Currency

  

Warlock 2 with No Currency

 

I might as well toss in the ability pruning for classes as a sad panda item.  My Mage and Warlock each lost several skills, they're just gone.  It's as if they want your character to go into the expansion as weak as possible to create an illusion of challenge, whereas with the Stat Squish and the tuning and pruning, you're just going to enjoy getting pounded for awhile.   Probably not how it works but it's how I feel as I write this.

 

Screenshot Saturday February 7, 2026

Welcome to another edition of Screenshot Saturday.  I've been trying to get more screenies but, some of my play time is spent on a shiny new laptop that won't play nice with screenshots, and it's a bit cumbersome to get them.  Even so!

 

Endeavors

Imagine my surprise when my Horde BE got a series of weekly Endeavor quests in her neighborhood!  I've only ever seen the Architect Riddles in the Alliance neighborhood.  I can find only the smallest mention of these, saying that they go with having the Valdrakken Accord as your monthly assigned Endeavor theme.   In case they make these available more widely (as they should), here are the Weeklies in Razorwind.

 

Alternative Skinning 

 

Farm To Table

 

Reverse Herb Farming

 

Magical Touch

 

Smelting For Two 

 

On the Alliance side, I filled my Endeavor bar for the month completely.  This is supposed to open up more options from the vendor.  I didn't see anything new.  I do believe on the right you should be able to see who contributed to the neighborhood Endeavors, but it's all Atherne and her Warband.  Go team warband!

 

 I got a community endeavors chest reward that had coupons and something else I didn't pay attention to.  Zzzzzzz.

 Also, I think we earned some lights adorning the town center for our efforts (me and me and me).

 

Mechagon is the assigned Endeavor theme for my public Alliance neighborhood.  I swapped my Gnome Warrior Engineer in to finish up the questing there, and I just can't get her to leave.  I hated Mechagon so much when it was originally offered I only sent one character there.  It should have been my Engineer, clearly.  I'm going to let her try to complete everything before Midnight arrives.

 

 

Hunter Love

With my BE Hunter, I saw this adorable toad-like beast  called a Fussy Swoglet and wanted it.

 

 

 

It turns out, you need to get a special book in Valdrakken city from the Stablemaster to train a dragon pet (he doesn't look like a dragon to me).

 

No problems! The flight to Valdrakken is short, and with book in hand, I got my Swoglet. 

 

Despite my Transmog whine, I have been buying from the Trading Post anyway.  I have a thing for the guns for Hunters, which are often elaborately steampunk-ish in design.  How about this BAG?

 

  

Atheren's Gaming Goals for February 2026

 Here are my main goals for the month:

Prep for Midnight 

 

It's crunch time! March 2 the WoW world descends into darkness with the coming of Midnight.  Or so it would seem.  Can our heroes, with the supposed help of the Army of Light overcome Miss Twinkle Toes?

Level up!   

My Rapscallion Blood Elf.  I've got the Mysterious Winds buff plus the ongoing 25% xp for having 8 max level characters.  Eek will that go away in Midnight once there's a new level cap?  Yikes. Just thought of that.   My Blood Elf also wants to do Endeavors in her neighborhood but they haven't been available to her.  Maybe now she's out of the Burning Crusade Time Loop the neighborhood will be kind. There's a watering can   (10 coupons each) available on the Endeavors Vendor and a little garden trowel (5 coupons each) that I need for both of my houses.  I mean REALLY NEED.

 

 

I have replaced my squishy main Tailor/Enchanter who is a Mage in the Midnight Runners with a currently level 77 Warlock.  Need to get her to 80 in a trice.  Warlocks never really get nerfed, in my opinion, so she should be viable in the new expansion.

 

 

Gear Up!  

I have to get all the Midnight Runners through the new pre-patch gear up area of the Twilight Highlands.  My main is a druid and before the Squish she could easily handle five mobs at a time.  Now two or three have got her on the ropes.  I've only done one session with her in the Highlands though and zero gear dropped, plus two of the world quests seemed buggy.  I think these problems were addressed  in last weeks patch?

 

 

Continue hunting down tradeskill recipes and ingredients for decor with all of my crafters.  Hot tips:  Dark Runes drop from Corrin's Crossing Dark Casters and Vile Tutors while I got none in two Scholomance runs.  The Firelands Raid in Hyjal is, in fact, a simple place to get your Living Embers, and the only place you will find them.

In Before The Lock

 I always loved that phrase, from way back in my Forum Rat days.  Here is post ten for January, putting me on course for squeaking out ten posts a month this year.  Yay me.

I chose The Dragon Isles for my Blood Elf Paladin.  I felt a little guilty leaving the Ghostlands unfinished, but these feet were made for flying through the air.

 

 

Beloved Raptor Plushie and The Dark Portal Decor I Didn't Know I Needed

 My Tailor made a new Plushie for the House.  I had to gather and mill a fair few Dreamleafs to get Roseate Pigment with my Inscriptionist, and Prospect also quite a bit of Leystone Ore and Felslate Ore with my Jeweler, but ta da!

 

Here's the Raptor in his original size, next to the embiggened Elekk Plushie.
 

And here I set both plushies to their maximum size, which I think I will keep.

 

Free for owning Midnight and logging into the game, your own personal Dark Portal.  After sneering at my neighbor who had an ugly green round portal in his yard (of course I didn't actually sneer), I am going to rearrange my furniture and find a spot for this bad boy.  I didn't realize I was fond of the Dark Portal, but it pleases me to no end to have it.

 

World of Warcraft The State of Azeroth

 Thursday, a video feature was posted with Holly Longdale and Ion Hazzikostas  talking about where Wow has and where it's going. 

 

 

 

 

In addition to the usual roadmap layout, they talked about many new features coming to the game.   

Though I don't PvP, I think it's interesting they're introducing an AI powered PvP mode so you can learn the basics without being camped at the graveyard by real people. 

There's a new Delve type coming that's called Labyrinth (for now) that is huge and sprawling, as if it's numerous delves joined together.  You can do the various parts as suits you.

Also I don't raid, but there are a few Single Boss Raids in the works, which seems less torturous than the normal raids.   Noice.

They did also cover upcoming Mists of Pandaria and Anniversary realm events.  Something for everyone.

Housing of course slipped into the presentation a fair few times.  It's a fantastic feature and some players are truly doing incredible things already.  Give them more tools, and what will they imagine?

I liked the presentation, but, then I like the game and play most days.  Holly and Ion seemed genuinely happy and enthusiastic, which is a good thing. 

The Bloody Elf On The Shelf

 Half the battle of writing a post is getting just the right title.  I pondered quite a bit before that gem came up.

 You will recall I made this character to snare some of the new Blood Elf themed furnishings now available.  I haven't any at all, I don't think.

My plan to level her using dungeons on high pop Horde server Area 52 has not been a grand success.  She's level 28, which is perhaps a little higher than she would be if I had just quested with her.

The Blood Elf starter area is Sunstrider Isle, Eversong Woods and The Ghostlands.  It may be somewhat akin to Ammen Vale and Azuremyst Isle for the Draenai in size. It feels like it goes on forever.  I'm in the Ghostlands portion, and you can see how much more there is to do.

 

There's no flight here.  Also, it turns out, the whole area is in the Burning Crusade Time Period, not the Midnight era of the game.  The big gate you see on the map leads to the current era.   Additional timey wimey twistiness is that in order to get Classic Dungeons for my runs, I went to Orgrimmar and chose the Cataclysm timeline.   I don't believe I have gotten a single low level Classic era dungeon in my queues, as they time out and try for another era.   A trip to the Big Bad O for nothing.

I did travel there yet another time to get my house at level 11.  I went with the traditional Blood Elf style home. I've not done much with it because I have no money (though I took 2000 gold out of the warband bank to get her started), and also, I want to use this house to experiment with changing the structure of the inner house, trying to add stairwell rooms and such.  Simple is good, I can just stuff all my things away and then move walls and ceilings and doors around, constructing staircases from beams like the big boys and girls do.

 

I got a really nice plot looking out to sea again in the neighborhood. There aren't any close neighbors here either.  It's a good escape on a day when my girl may have gotten pounded into the ground by bad guys.

I'm unsure where I'll go once I finish the Ghostlands.  I was trying to think of an era of the game where there's a neutral hub so I can be in a city I'm familiar with. The three possibilities I came up with are Draenor, Legion, or Dragon Isles.   Dunno.