Unbarc showed up on my doorstep yesterday (after waiting 2.5 months or so). First: the (semi) bad. Someone on Twitter asked me if it was my camera / lighting / flash that made the colors seemed washed out, or if they're just like that. It's a combination of both, actually; I have a simple point-shoot camera, and it was pretty close to the figure while I was taking photos. The flash did wash out some of the colors (my hand isn't quite good enough to turn the flash off), but some of the colors are just like that.

The Good: it's Unbarc for reals! I really love the look of all the gear he's wearing, and it's great to have something to remember this game with (since I've been playing it for the past 3 years). Click the picture to see more in the gallery.

In-game, there hasn't been much since my last post. With the 4th of July holiday, I haven't played much lately. I did join an arena team named Fire and Slice. Only played a few matches (and lost them all [need some arena gear]). Out-of-game, I've been spending a lot of time playing with the new puppy, and she's still taking a lot of my time.

Got some new stuff since my last post. Today, I passed into Exalted with the Shattered Sun Offensive! In return, I was able to
1) upgrade my neck to [Shattered Sun Pendant of Acumen] and...
2) Complete the quest A Magnanimous Benefactor to obtain the title Unbarc of the Shattered Sun. Sure, it was 1,000, but I'm not spending what I have (still have 2k left), and my only other title from the old PvP days is Senior Sergeant or something.

Last night I decided to cash in my 41 for an [Icon of the Silver Crescent]. I'm losing crit, but I'm trying to upgrade overall dps (according to MaxDPS.com). Now if I could just save up enough badges to replace my almost-2-year-old [Ring of the Eternal Flame]...

Finally, many months after I started enchanting, I finally got off my butt and finished it of; granted, in the past 2 days I spent roughly 800 in the Auction House (because I'm too impatient to disenchant it myself). Now I have my rings enchanted with +12 spell damage, and I'm starting to work on getting the mats together for Sunfury.

I've gone and done it again... Unbarc is packing his bags and moving to the Earthen Ring realm. It's been an odd and busy month in real life, and things have made it so I can't play as much. I got another puppy, so she's getting most of my attention. Also, for the past 2 weeks, my wife's been sick so I've been taking care of her.

Here's my character transfers to date:
07/21/2006 - Stormrage -> Kael'thas
11/29/2006 - Kael'thas -> Runetotem
03/06/2007 - Runetotem -> Kael'thas
05/23/2008 - Kael'thas -> Earthen Ring

So, why Earthen Ring? Well a couple of weeks ago I started an alt over there, and got accepted into the guild <alea iacta est>. AIE is a big guild... at the time of writing this, they almost have 2300 members. Currently, every time I get the chance to log on to Kael'thas, 90% of the guild is in a 25man instance, and most of my friends are either in that guild, or other big raiding guilds. AIE always has people on, and are some of the friendliest people I've met in the game. It's sad that I'm leaving my friends back on Kael'thas, but their play styles / plans are different than mine right now, and no sense paying monthly to be unhappy.

Earthen Ring is an RP server. Since I've never done any Roleplaying before, I figured I'd start off by giving Unbarc a last name. After clearing the cobwebs out of the creative gears, I came up with the name Unbarc Nightfire.

I'm really looking forward to becoming part of the AIE family, and can't wait to level to 80 with everybody else once the expansion comes out. Farewell my DD friends, I'll be in touch; come to Earthen Ring, I'll be in our channel.

Well, had myself another birthday yesterday (the 24th), and dinged 26. The day before, I was able to see Gruul and Magtheridon for the first time, and ended up getting [Legwraps of the Aldor], which also gave me one of my favorite set bonuses.

So what'd I get for my birthday? Nothing yet... on Sunday I'm getting Mario Kart for the Wii, and GTA IV for the 360 on Tuesday. Also, in my email inbox this morning was this message:

FigurePrints Wrote:

Congratulations!

You have been selected to create your very own FigurePrint!

Your account has been enabled to allow you to place an order any time before midnight May 9, 2008 PST. To be clear, being selected only grants you the opportunity to purchase a FigurePrint and this email is not meant as a free or discounted product.

To complete your order, simply sign into the FigurePrints website and select "Place An Order" from the main menu on www.figureprints.com to start the process of creating your very own custom FigurePrint.

Please note that this purchase privilege has been granted to you for your personal use only. Any attempted resale of this privilege is a violation of the terms and conditions you agreed to when you registered your account, and can result in a termination of any attempted online resale transaction as well as a deregistration of your account and any rights or privileges associated with your account.

Again, congratulations! We look forward to bringing your character into reality.

Sincerely,

The FigurePrints Team

So it looks like Unbarc will soon be on my desk under a glass dome! I'll post pictures as soon as I get it.

Little update about the site; I added a section in my About page that links to some of my good friends in the game.

I'm slowly getting back into editing / upgrading things on the site, so hopefully I can get some more of my ideas out there.