Friday, October 28, 2011

A Fish Story - Purple Puffer Giveaway!

Well, it's been a while since I updated the blog. Real life getting in the way, etc. 

I did manage to add two more Hallow's End pets to my menagerie and spend a couple mornings preparing screenshots of them. I put together a sexy green witch costume to go with my green-eyed Feline Familiar. I was thrilled to get a Flying Broom so we could chase bats at dusk together. My friend Jen helped me locate just the right backdrop for my screenshot: the skyline of Gilneas, with requisite chimneys, bats, bare trees, and gothic spire. Here is the gallery page.

Here's a different shot of us so you can see my costume. I'm listing the pieces if you're interested in putting together this costume yourself. It's all cloth, so any class can wear it: Ivycloth tunic, cloak, girdle, and bracelets. Elegant Leggings. Quicksand Waders. Watcher's Cap.



My Creepy Crate screenshot took a bit more preparation. Although I had a matching armor set (Banded mail armor), I couldn't think of a creative backdrop. I just assume creepy crates are found under stairs, so I located a spot under an old stairway and practiced some positions and poses. I noticed the human female bow emote made me look like I was lifting something invisible. So I positioned myself in a way that it appeared I was lifting the lid of my crate. The hardest part was timing my bow emote to synchronize with the random animation of the green creep seepage. Many of you who take screenshots know how much work can go into one simple concept. It's often way more complicated than the final screenshot appears. It took nearly two hours to get this particular capture for my gallery. Yeah, I know. I know.

Anyhow I'm looking so forward to 4.3, but really expected it to be here by now. My inventory is bulging at the seams in anticipation of transmogrification and void storage. To celebrate the upcoming release of 4.3, I have a couple Bloat the Purple Puffer TCG loot cards to give away this week.  Since Bloat is a fish, let's make this giveaway fishing-related. In the comments, tell me your favorite in-game fish story. What fishing-related catch, achievement, goal was your toughest, favorite, or most fun? On Monday at noon GMT, I'll randomly choose two comments to receive a Bloat loot card.

Good luck to all! Don't let this one get away!


21 comments:

  1. One of these days I'll stick to one instead of rotating around, but I've been fishing for the sea turtle and Mr Pinchy for months now with no luck. A week on one, then a week on the other. I keep telling myself that I'll get them eventually, and in the meantime I'm doing some solid work towards the guild achievement.
    ...My guild loves my dedication to achievements! :D

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  2. Oof, that is a tough one..that would be getting the achievement The Lurker Above, which I did with a friend, at level 70.

    Being a priest, I was able to levitate myself and my friend, so off the platforms we jumped right before the first trash pack. Above us countless trash, below us the piranas that would eat us alive, should the levitate not be refreshed in time.

    Finally we hit the location where Lurker was to be fished up. Knowing that he would nuke us down upon spawning, we stood there, just wearing a tabard, while fishing.

    Finally, he spawned. We were dead in no time...but I had my achievement.

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  3. Loving the outfit used for Feline Familiar btw. Also a very creative use of the emote for the Creepy Crate.

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  4. Hm fish related! I spent ages fishing in dalaran sewers for that cutie rat (I love rats as pets and had some in my younger years). I don't know how many times people would come fish beside me for 10 mins and then I'd see their achievement pop up. Talk about frustrating when I'd been there for hours, days on end! In the end it took me over 1600 casts to get my sewer rat! Not as much as some people took, but enough to make me think I'd never get the little bugger!

    and maybe an IRL fish story too haha. I was at a little cafe and saw these super cute ceramic goldfish. I didn't buy them at the time, but after I left I started thinking about them. obsessing about them. It was the strangest thing! When I had a break in between clients at work, I went to the cafe and bought 4 of them, but that wasn't the end of it. I then thought they needed a bowl, but not just any bowl. A fish shaped bowl! I took my mom out shopping for a fish shaped fishbowl, and we found one. They now live in this bowl, with blue rocks. The stupidest thing I've thought of, but I really enjoy looking at them! plus since they're fake I can't kill them like I do with real fish hah!

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  5. I remember doing the "Crockolisks in the City" quest over and over again to get those four baby crockolisks. This was before they raised the drop rate significantly. My fishing wasn't leveled very high, but this was one of the few quests that required only a level 1 fishing skill. I checked that old man for this quest every day, portaled to Orgrimmar, fished for 10 minutes or so, then hearthed back to Shattrath. Left and right, I'd see guildies get their baby crockolisks, but it took me months to get even one. I was so excited when I got my first one, that little blue item in a bag that so often held only grays. I still love those little guys.

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  6. I am most proud of being the second person on my realm to get the Salty achievement. My little troll was an avid fisherwoman from the very beginning, she used to make all her gold by fishing up and down the coast of Stranglethorn Vale. She was also max level fishing in BC before reaching level 58 (a guildie bought the training book for me).

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  8. My favorite story has to be finally getting the stranglethron fishing extravaganza done, and subsequently finishing off my "Salty" title in the process. My realm always had a lot of PvP going on during the tournament and I never got the quest done in time... course some horde just HAD to kill me after i turned the quest in (sore loser), but i still got the achievment in the end.

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  9. So there I was, sitting on my bum on the dock in Booty bay my line cast and my hand on the reel ready to pull soon as something nibbled. I was ally then, dwarf Hunter to be exact, and next to me was an undead priest who seemed to have a similar plan. She was a much lower lvl than me so I paid her little mind. I simply waved and took a seat next to her and she waved back. I caught several fish, as well as a heap of junk, but my goal was to lvl my fishing so it didn't matter. What I didn't sell I'd mail to my alt to lvl cooking. I'd caught about 20 fish or so when out of no where a lvl 80 NightElf Hunter falls on the deck next to us with a "oof." He he is followed by a mob of about 6 VERY angry goblin brawlers and proceeds to multi shot them. I wave but continue my fishing best not get involved. The undead manages to speak in common "L..O..L.." then laughs. By this time the Night elf's spirit beast has caught up to him and is aiding in the fight. The goblins,however, refuse to give up that easily and net the elf. He then receives a bad pummeling but doesn't die. Instead he disengages but overshoots the jump and lands in the water in front of us. We laugh. He waves. Just then I catch my 1000th fish. The undead cheers. The night elf cheers! Then the goblins and spirit beast plunge into the water. The night elf swims for his life and I decide I've had enough fishing for the day.

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  10. My favourite achievement was when I actually got Mr. Pinchy. I had over 6000 casts before I even saw a the item to get the wishes. I used up 2 with no luck and I made my husband do the last wish for me in case it wasn't the pet I was hoping for. I was so mad when he told me I didn't get it, but when I looked in my bag, there he was. My husband lied to me so that I would be even more excited when I actually clicked to learn him. ^_^

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  11. Fishing for ages and ages for the Gold in that Fountain achievement! Actually, pretty much any achievement that involves fishing takes about 2x longer than its supposed to for some reason. The RNG really hates me!!

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  12. I hate to think how many accumulated hours.... days even I have spent fishing ingame
    I still remember the time when I decided to try and catch Old Crafty in Orgrimmar, hiding from the horde and hoping they would not notice my fishing bobber. Quite a few horde noticed me and hung out with me, emoting and dancing lol. I spent a few hours fishing to no avail.
    Then a friend offered to come and guard me while I fished because I was starting to get killed over and over. So they spent all this time travelling to me, and just as they arrived I caught Old Crafty lol

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  13. Mine would probably setting my heart to do Mr. Pinchy, spending 1 or 2 hours reading, prepping, getting everything sorted to spend a day fishing and then getting him on my very second cast! A very happy person I was!

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  14. Oddly enough, for all the hours I've "sunk" into WoW fishing, I don't actually have any neat stories with it. I treat it a lot like I treat real fishing - a nice way to pass the time. Sometimes I'll make an effort to complete an achievement, but mostly they happen all on their own and make me a little happier when they do. Of course, I've got a pacifist rogue named Moreto whose only "backsliding" is that he enjoys fishing too much to give it up.

    Speaking of Moreto, he does have a fish story. One of the ways I level him is by exploring and finding harmless quests. Of course, the quests may be harmless but nothing else really is! I took him out to the Stonetalon Mountains once, and he was swimming across a lake when low and behold, Cragjaw swallowed him. Being unable to do any harm to the monster, I sat in shocked horror as Moreto flailed ineffectually and made tragic noises. The fish spat him out, but it was too late. A moment later, Moreto died of his wounds. Needless to say, he now checks the water and uses Water Walking Potions whenever he can.

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  15. Ok, fishing stories are not my best I have to say, since I never seem to get any luck - but then I remembered my beautiful little rat, 4 adorable crocs and a Mr Pinchy (it cant all be bad can it?). Thanks to this contest my memory of my love of fishing is comming back to me now, it just got a little hazy after about two years of gaining nothing fun... damn you turtle!

    So, my story has to be none other than that of my Mr. Pinchy. Back in TBC days, before pets were learnable, and took up bag slots and bank spaces, I was a wee blood elf priest who'd gotten a lucky drop of a hyacinth macaw which triggered my pet collecting madness. After learning all about pets, and browsing all the available ones one really made me determined to try my luck: the Magical Crawdad aka, Mr. Pinchy. It may have been the Simpson reference, or the fact that it was lucky to catch then luck for my wish to come true... but either way, I decided I would give it a go.

    Hours, Days and weeks I spent hunting that darn crawdad, often to catch one then be attacked by angry mr. pinchy :( But nothing could stop me, I kept going. In the downtime between wishes, I had also decided to roll an alliance alt: a draeni shaman. Time went by, more angry mr. pinchy's but no pet to call my own. My alliance alt then hit 70 before my wish was granted, and I thought I'd see if her luck was any better.

    As my first cast landed I thought "why am I even bothering, it's just an alt" but when the little bobber did it's bobby thing, and a magical crawdad appeared, I was shocked, and confused. So I made my first wish, and braced myself for the attack of an angry crawdad: which never came. I looked in my inventory, and there he was! My wish had been granted! Ok, maybe no the right toon at the time, but well...

    After that, my shaman became my 2nd or "other" main for a while... until eventually she was my only main, and has been for over 3 years now with a collection of 173 and still going strong! My priest is now a human and has only 101 pets, but still no crawdad, I never did stop trying, but without Mr. Pinchy I dont know if I'd have ever discovered the joys of the alliance, or shamanism, and made all the friends I have now :)

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  16. I would have to say my best story would be from when I was trying to collect the cute little crocodile pets from the fishing daily in Outlands. Went and picked up the daily before server reset and got "Crocolisks in the City". I turned in the quest and got Toothy from the bag! Once the server reset I went back to get the quest again and again got "Crocolisks in the City". Did the quest and got Chuck from the bag! It was so awesome! I could not believe that happened! I told everyone I knew and they all thought it was amazing^^ :)

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  17. Hmm, fishing is one of my favorite professions, so this is a tough one. I'd have to say that one of my most memorable moments fishing was when I caught my sea turtle mount, during Wrath. It was the day after it was made available and I was fishing for hours, while my boyfriend was raiding with our guild.

    I can't raid due to a slow computer, so for me, fishing and holiday events, collecting pets and mounts, that's what I do. >:3

    I had been fishing for a good few hours, when I was just about to log off and take a break for the night. But, then I stopped and thought.. no, just one or two more catches. I'm not sure what prompted me to keep going, but I'm so glad I did, because my next catch was the Sea Turtle mount! I was over the moon happy and just incredibly excited. To this day, I love that mount so much. :3

    The hardest catch for me, though, was probably my last baby Crocolisk, Chuck. He eluded me for so long, but I managed to eventually nab him, hehe.

    Thanks so much for the opportunity at this awesome loot, Drrum!

    Happy Halloween tomorrow, all! ^_^

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  18. I had been farming for mr pinchy for weeks, hours upon hours, my bags were full of fish but no luck on the elusive crab. I had a halloween party and around midnight I had the random inclination to log on. I set forth one cast and low and behold there he was! I began to scream so loud with excitement that about 20 people from the party in their various costumes came run ing in to see what was going on! Needless to say they had no idea why I was so happy but since it was well into the night and they had been drinking they all started screaming too. What a great Halloween gift!

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  19. I absolutely love all your matching pet outfits. I wish I were skilled enough to put together a WoW outfit. xD

    My entry for Bloat the Purple Puffer:

    I haven't really gotten a chance to fish yet as I had been lvling to 85 on my new character. I never fished before, as I wasn't all that serious about pet collecting. Now that I am a HUGE pet collecting addict, I do plan to fish for every fishing pet. Because I have no experience fishing up the pets yet, I've decided to choose the pet I feel is going to be the most challenging to get.

    That fish would probably be the Magical Crawdad. The reason I think he will be my hardest is because of the way he is obtained. Not only do I have to fish up Mr. Pinchy, I also have to make 3 wishes, each with a 48 hour cooldown, and hope that I get my pet from one of these wishes. Then if my wishes fail, I'll have to fish up Mr. Pinchy again and start all over with my wishes. This could be a really tough challenge, especially if I am unlucky. It will be even more challenging for me due to the fact that I really hate fishing in WoW.

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  20. My absolute favorite fishing story comes from back in WotLK. I had been fishing for what seemed like forever (at least several months!) for my sea turtle. I usually spent my time in the Grizzly Hills, fishing in salmon pools to cook up and sell the goods. I might as well make some gold while I wait for my turtle to come along, right?

    Well, along comes my good friend to keep me company one day. How sweet! Only, he whipped out his fishing rod and started fishing in the same pool as I was! I yelled at him in voice chat and screamed, "Get out of my fishing pool! If you catch my turtle, I'll kill you!" He laughed, and wouldn't you know it... he got my sea turtle on that first cast that he made as a joke.

    I was SO furious with him! He tried to console me and told me that he was certain I'd find it soon. I kept on fishing, fearing that if I didn't get it soon, I'd wring my friend's neck. It turns out that he was right. I did get my sea turtle that day!

    We're still the best of friends and to this day, we love riding our sea turtles together and laughing about our fishing tale. =)

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  21. Fishing is one of my favorite professions. http://wow.farmer100.com/

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