My Housing Updates

Things are good on this end of the block.

My raid team (and me) got some pulls in on normal Ula’tek this past weekend. This means that we’ll get ’em on this coming weekend and then normal will be “on farm” and we’ll slowly roll over to the heroic version of the raid.

What this REALLY means is that the pressure is off (of me) and I can swing over to my house and get some build time in! This is good news indeed.

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Ancient Memories of the Sea is the headliner for the Tortollan endeavor. Typically, I just say, “the turtle guys” but a blog is a wee bit more formal.

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This is a cool piece. It is very bright; it has fish and baubles and bubbles and beads floating about inside of the globe. So, yeah, kind of magical and animated. And look at that, you can see it beaming away far (far) down my hallway.

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I’m excited. The sidewalk is clacking a tune, and the windows are whistling faint notes in the breeze, it is time for “A Build!”. Gray skies are gonna clear up.

Just starting, this room will be fun. I can see a pathway through grasses and maybe some waterways.

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Never enough, I began working on a window treatment. I left a little window so you can stand on the table and look inside. It has the Horde Roost guy and Fishy and a couple of waterfalls (so far). I like how it looks but it needs … a little something more.

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Because the new things are fun, I used the new Centaur fence, pushed down for the spiky tops, to make a barrier.

A barrier that you can easily jump over! This makes it fun. I hope.

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Okay then. It’s time to close this blog and go open up the shop!

WoW Housing: The Octagon Room

The Octagon Room can be tricky. One often has to carefully turn their items to make them line up with the walls, there is a lot of real estate and what to do with the center?

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I like “things magical”. These two animated banners have been used by me a lot. They are placed on a Large Wooden Covered Table that has been dyed. And then the magical Mana Lanterns always have a bit of fun and animation to them.

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I used the Large Wooden Covered Tables as the base for each of my sections. Here is the animated Parchment with hanging lamps again.

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Magic and animation are the themes for this room. And who doesn’t smile when they see Pepe? One can click and he’ll be on your head chirping about for an hour. You know that it is the Elven Floral Window pushed into the table so that the cross pieces are gone and making a fine little perch for Pepe. He doesn’t like standing on that thing, he always seems to be a few pixels above it. And, yeah, people do look closely.

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More magical are these two panels. The little swirling dots are from the Chaotic Void Maw pushed behind the table. And you betcha, this is a Troll move. One might be curious and click the cog and instantly find themselves in Grizzly Hills. To the left is my old friend the Conclave Pedestal. To the right I added the Holo deck control panel for its swirling warm colors.

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The center of the room is, right now, in a test phase. It is the new engineering mural of Ula’tek, scaled up and flipped down flat. Below the floor is another Chaotic Void Maw, used for its swirly magical dots. And more mana lanterns, of course.

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And looking from the other side, same thing!

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It feels right and it feels like a good start. The areas between the middle piece, which will change, and the walls need to be filled and addressed.

This is one take on the Octagon Room with its large size and funky angles.

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Happy Housing!

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WoW Housing: Large Covered Wooden Table

Credit for fronting this piece goes to Kamalia in her post Wednesday on the Avenue 35 | Kamalia et alia. She featured this table very well in an empty stairwell and taking advantage of the size and height of the room, distance.

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I decided to try it myself and I feel that it is just the beginning. Their value, if you will, is that they are large and can take three different dye colors. I tried it in a short hallway:

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It is the repetition that makes it strong. I chose Red, Blue and Green for my main colors. In this way it shows how flexible it can be as a wall covering, more than our typical banners. I know, RGB are the primaries of light, maybe I should change the green to yellow.

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There is something about this set up in the hallway that makes me want to extend it into the next room. It could be marvelous to see the repetition continue with the changing color scheme on the tables. And, yeah, that is what Kamalia did. But this would be different with continuing with the lamps and so on. I need to get on it!

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Part of what makes this “work” is that there is movement. The scroll has an ever-shifting pattern that exists but is subtle. The hanging lanterns sway a little bit. There is life in this hallway.

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It is just a start with exploring this new, to me, piece. I haven’t touched scale, for example. Nor have a flipped it to see the bottom. Nor have I shoved it into a wall to make shelf! In fact, I haven’t used this yet as … a table.

This is a nice addition to our decor choices!

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WoW Housing: The Zoomies

There are several pets who are All Stars in Housing. I have Stinker + Bombay Cat both outdoors and indoors and they do own the house; you’ll see them in some far corners. Egbert is the same, a long roamer.

The Darting Hatchling is fun because, now and then, he’ll go bonkers or, as they say, get the zoomies.

Good luck getting a screen shot, this guy is smoking across the floor! It is not quick or sudden; he zooms for minutes at a time. He runs and runs, often to the end of the house and back.

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I was visiting a player’s house one time on a tour. They had a packed house. But their upstairs area was empty, and it was a shock to the system. I said, “At least a pot of flowers like you are just moving in”. I don’t know how many times you have moved but that potted plant in your lap while driving to your new digs gets to be the first thing put into the new home.

So, I’m slowly adding at least something to my many empty rooms. That is a plant, a lamp and a rocking chair.

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And I’m having fun claiming corners or nooks to fill in and make something to look at.

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As a player, I’m still under pressure to get my gear up and Raid Ready. We got the first three bosses down on Normal the first week of raiding. It felt like the team was kind of disappointed that we didn’t go farther. I need to remind them that we finished Season One two months early and had nothing to do as a team. So, for me, Delves and probably Time Walking this week.

But I’ll make sure to have some time for Housing! It is fun in my house.

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WoW Housing – How to do the Simple Fountain

That is a clumsy title. Still, let us get to work.

Fountains as decor pieces are great. They are welcoming and pleasant. Some fountains have a nice water sound for ambiance in your room. I’ve seen them scaled tiny and set on shelves; I think that players like them.

The fun part of designing is taking an item and making it more or different than the stock piece. It is common to typical for a designer to take a fountain and push it down to use the falling water animation and make a pool of water.

Let’s break it down step by step.

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This is one of my favorite fountains. It would be okay to just fine to stick it in a corner and leave it. But let’s do some more.

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Scale it up and push it down. Now the original base is under the floor, and we can see the splashing water on the deck.

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The Circular Woolen Rug makes for a fine pool of water. It can be dyed too so you can customize your look.

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Place it on the floor.

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Flip it!

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You now have a pond or pool, and you can see the animated splashing.

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Take it to the next level with the Small Stonework Fountain. We don’t care about the fountain, we want the splashing on top.

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Place it. Then push it down. Fiddle with scale until you like what you see.

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Now you have an additional bit of splashiness in your pool. Add more if you want.

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After that set up, now comes the fun part — decorating! Cobblestones and flowers or tables with tea or delicate lighting and a life of luxury. That is all up to you.

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There are plenty of fountains to play with. Most designers like to feature the water flowing over an edge. It is fun to do and after the set-up, the most fun is decorating all around it.

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WoW Housing – How to Backlight a Piece

We’ve all been learning the Tricks of the Trade when it comes to decorating a house. Once you’ve learned a trick you kind of look at other’s houses and expect those solutions.

Today we will look at backlighting a piece. As you will see, this can work for a LOT of things but today we’ll keep it simple and a step-by-step process. Screenshots can’t compare to the live game, so suffer along with me.

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This is the Lively Songwriter’s Quill. It is a fun piece because it is animated. In this case I flipped it ninety-degrees and max scaled it and put it on a wall. This is an empty room for this example. It looks dull and needs lighting but no need for intrusive candles!

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We’ll be using, this time, the Elven Floral Window. Some windows are very bright, and we’ll be shoving this one into a wall.

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Pick it up and place it. Then begin pushing it into the wall.

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Here we go. The screenshot betrays me a little, you can see a square of light that isn’t there in my live house. I had to tinker some because the game doesn’t like you pushing objects deep, you have to stay shallow. In this case I scaled the window down a little and then pulled the Lively decor piece just a little forward.

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Backlighting a piece makes it look far more interesting.

Let’s try another window, this time with a warm color.

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And I think that the warm window looks better than the white window! Let’s keep this version for my house.

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Once you’ve learned this Trick of the Trade, you’ll be using it all over your house.

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I hope that you consider backlighting your decor as a design choice!

Happy Housing.

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WoW Housing: Starting a Build

With the massive amount of Level 12 space, I now have most of my layout done with plenty of room for change or evolution.

And it feels that finally, I’m starting to build some things.

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I’m making a Fel Room or vaporous corruption or something like it. This is partially based on the new stuff that we got from the Amani Endeavor. So: first up, the corners:

This is what I like to do. The above screenshot has a Fel Fountain as the anchor. The new Witch Doctor’s Punch Bowl is buried in there for the fumes. And then more and more. Nothing is done, just starting!

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This corner, well, my old Demon friend is back. What you cannot see are the very cool fumes from the Maelstrom Lava Lamp, that is the base for the build. Coming along, coming along.

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This corner may seem lacking. That is okay, it is something different. That is the Icecrown Plague Cannister flipped and pushed into the wall to make a frame for the book. I might change books because the animation takes away from the cool cannister effect.

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This corner was my start, so it has more of a complete feeling. The lava is flowing onto the egg so that it will heat up and hatch. What I really enjoyed was giving that Venom-Fanged Font an earring. His left ear has a Pyrewood Glass Bottle, flipped and pushed so we see the bottom of the bottle — it blinks on and off so, I guess, my guy has some bling! I really do get the giggles sometimes.

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Maybe a temporary solution but at least there is something. The four corners need something to connect them. I put a huge Horde Throne in the middle/middle of the room. The ceiling piece is the Witch Doctor’s Punch Bowl.

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And I look adorable on my mighty throne.

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The main thing for me is that I am designing again. Nothing feels set but there is a start and something to do. This, dear reader, is a Very Good Thing.

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WoW Housing: Redesigning the Layout

I chalk it up to lack of experience.

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You want to use the New Stuff, right? Here is a fun little area with the new Shrine and the Witch Doctor’s cauldron from the new endeavor.

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And I made a fun little Alchemy spot with a dancing Treant who is a familiar or something. He is so cute, he was here before Groot.

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But my Layout Design was a disaster. I ran the rooms and hallways too close to each other. Pushing that Shrine into the wall made its backside show up in a hallway!

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And the windows in my Alchemy area are blowing out my entrance to the house.

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My first instinct was to “fix the problem” by putting up banners or masking with decor.

But the problem was with the layout, and I’d be hitting that issue over and over because I will want to put up windows or push decor into walls.

Delete it all and start over!

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Pet Beds – Early Review

As far as “entertainment value” goes, Blizzard did a great job with placing our battle pets in our houses. I have found myself passively staring at the pathing of a pet. I can’t complain. I did predict that they can dominate a room and they can. As time goes on, we’ll learn to be judicious in our placements.

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Not everything works perfectly or matches our imagination. I tried making a tiny pet bed and setting it in a lantern. The idea was to have a moth fluttering around the light! The pathing is, in fact, straight lines and the roaming is kind of an illusion. But, in this case, the moth glitches out near the walls or beams of the ceiling and then reappears.

My point is that it is on us to find the ways to use the pet beds successfully.

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This is the Harpy Youngling. It might look great in the Blood Elf houses that are naturally bright, I don’t know. For this to work I added four candles to make it bright enough to see it. So, is the investment worth the payoff?

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This is an early review; I have 1400 pets to sift through! But I think that the Baby Blizzard Bear has to be one of the best. For a battle pet, it is big. It is white and easy to see. And it is super cute and adorable.

Remember that each of the pets have their own sounds too. That impacts how your house is received as well.

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This is Pilot the Duck. He is dead.

There were warnings about this. Some of the bird pets, when they idle, will kind of hunker down as if nesting. Then they fall over dead. If you are running about with this pet, it is no problem because with distance, it will wake up and catch up. But in this Pet Bed situation, there is nothing to wake him up. So, now you know. Dead pets are depressing, right?

AND this pet was set to roaming so it should not have died (as I understand it). If you set the pet to stationary … it would surely die!

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I was in Test Mode and lined up a few or more of the new Pet Beds. The Enchanted Pen gives more bang for your buck, it is zippy, voidy and has a trail. The Enchanted Torch casts no light so it wasn’t too fun. As I type this, I realize that I’ve forgotten to look at the Lofty Libram! You can see that I had to put down lights to see these guys.

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All four pets from the Celestial Tournament on the Timeless Isle are winners. I really like Xu-Fu, the tiger cub. He has his own light and is, in fact, kind of bright! And, as ever, cute and adorable.

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This is Xao from the Celestial Tournament. He leaves a smoke trail like the Dust Bunny does but brighter and better.

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One of the best, I felt, was the Enchanted Broom. I was not the craftsman that I’d like to be and failed at trying to screen capture this pet. The sweeping and its dust animation kind of fakes you out that it is a straight line. The pathing is pretty good to see it hop up on a table and dust it off. There is a sort of practical presence to the Enchanted Broom that you don’t get with any of the others.

So far, so fun.

WoW Housing: Tricks of the Trade

If/since you’ve been reading this blog, you know that I know the tricks of the trade. I can do almost every trick that can be done with windows, fountains, ramps, special effects and so on. So, here we embark on the newest housing journey, House Level 12.

It is BIG. Not that I’ll have visitors for quite some time, it will take forever to even begin to feel like I’ve tackled the size and scope of the real estate offered, but I do feel some obligation to that visitor to be able to navigate my home.

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I don’t know if this will translate well, but here is my new layout.

If you squint, you can see that the Entry leads into a Square Room. This is hyper-symmetrical. If you go right, then you’ll hit an Octagon room and then be led into the very large Autumnal Westfall Barn. Same thing, if you go left, you’ll hit an Octagon room and then a very large Stormwind Guild Hall. From the Octagon rooms you can go “up” and there is a cross over to the other side and the other Octagon room.

I think that the entry/square room needs to be unique or specific, so the visitor knows that they’ve been there already. Like an anchor.

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The “bottom” half of my design is the opposite pathway from either Octagon Room, and it leads to a cross-over too except there is a Square room. And then the odd bits at the “bottom”.

The Cross-Shaped Room is an import from my last house, it is the Magical Tunnel and, you betcha by golly wow, I did do a successful import!

That final T-Shaped Room is my only (go ahead, look it over) way to expand in this layout. So, someday, I’ll probably put a stairwell there and go up a floor. I have the budget for sure.

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The outside is frustrating because I tried for the new Large House that was the new Barn thing. I could not spin it so my visitor could see the doorway. Not welcoming at all! I’m now at the Large Human home and this is the best I can do to spin it, and it feels like a compromise, not something that I designed.

It blows my mind to see all of my dock stuff gone!

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I can’t tell you what my house will look like. Probably, um, the tricks of the trade, you’ll see window treatments and rugs in the wall that are backlit by windows. I don’t have much in mind yet.

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Still, I have started. I’m excited to get going on a new and very large project. I don’t know if I’ll “get creative” and make strange things or maybe I’ll go for nice and comfortable.

Just between you and me, faithful reader, and I’m sure that you’ll understand; I have a crazy urge to place a million plants in that Autumnal Westfall Barn!

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