For Keep’s Sake!

Over at Blog Azeroth, Feral Tree suggested a topic that is so perfect for me, I couldn’t resist to join in: “WoW mementos, things you’ve kept over time.”

Oh my…those that know me, have rolled their eyes at me over how bad my bank is crammed with all sorts of useless clutter, old gear, dresses and random goofy things. I can’t part with at least half of them and I actually believe that bag space is something that happens to other people.

For one thing I am a bit of a loot-paranoid: whenever I get special items (like the goblin rocket helmet) or for example a new trinket, I will keep the old one because I might NEED THIS AGAIN FOR SOMETHING! It happened to me once or twice in the past that I dumped an item I had a use for later (and a totally game-altering one too) and ever since I choose safe over sorry. I wonder if that’s just me or whether other players have this eerie feeling about dumping gear too..

Then there’s my outfit spleen: I have kept almost all my old tiers and PVP sets, I’ve also kept my old trinkets from MC, Onyxia, BWL…At some point I decided that “staves are really cool!”, so I started keeping all my staves. And then there is of course an endless number of special dresses, from holidays, vendors, or drops, stuff like the jungle hat and my ‘blue collection’ which is essentially…..blue dresses only (I like the color blue, can you tell?). Of course I don’t manage all this on my main, I have a mule with my own guild bank full of stuff – she keeps extra minipets too, in case my own run away.

So it’s not exactly easy for me to pick my mementos – but I won’t post an endless list of random items here. To be fair, most of these things I keep because I am a maniac shinies collector and not so much because they’re keepsakes. So what I will do is list the Top 5 items that I kept for their meaning rather than just looks.

1) Benediction

Thats right, Benediction is the ultimate priest keepsake. Nothing says “I kept your asses alive in vanilla” the way this staff does. I earned this the hard way, raiding and waiting patiently for weeks (and patience really ain’t my thing) until I finally got Major Domo’s eye for my priest quest. And I did it the first time around too, all by myself, thank you very much! /flex

If there’s a thing like a vanilla-epeen, I think I have just found mine.

In any case, a priest trashing her/his Benediction is unthinkable, disgraceful, blasphemous! You will probably never get another weapon that’s transformable like this one either! There was only two of them and one required you to be a hunter (eugh). 

2) Devout Set

Not officially a Tier and not really nice looking, I kept this oogly lilac set because it was the first priest set in the game and also, it took me longer to complete than any Tier set ever after. I think all that went through the same grind for the 8-piece Dungeon sets know the feeling. I don’t remember how many Scholomance runs it took me just to get the crown – one can only take so many “school is in session!” before your sanity’s self-protection kicks in.

3) Gavel of Infinite Wisdom

I tell you why I kept this mace of infinite suck – so that it would always remember who its master is! I GRINDED you, you utter piece of shit, that’s right!! /hysteric laughter

There are not many rep grinds in WoW that come close to the drudgery and torture of getting Cenarion Circle to exalted back in the days. I haven’t done the insanity achievement, so for me this was the single most horrible, tedious and mind-altering thing I ever did in this game. I’d redo all my WotLK rep grinds in a heartbeat instead of this.

For one thing I really hated the insect theme of Silithus and the AQs. Farming in the hives drove me mad – getting lost in Hive Ashi anyone? I spent tons of cash on the AH to buy twilight texts or armor just to speed things up A LITTLE. I summoned more of those stupid lord things together with an equally driven guildie than warlocks can say “succubus”! There was nights when I actually dreamt a giant wasp was chasing after me through endless gooey tunnels.

I will keep this weapon of doom forevermore, like the trophy head of my worst enemy. Also, it was better than Benediction which is kinda outrageous!

4) Grayson’s Torch

LOL I really still have this torch. It was a reward from a lvl 20 quest at Westfall lighthouse and I loved the blazing graphics of it. I have an awesome screenie of standing over Westfall beach overlooking the sea while the torchlight is illuminating the night around us. /emo
What makes this memory even more special is that 1 minute after I took that same screenshot, we were ganked like the utter noobs we were by a group of equally low level hordes because we didn’t know what ‘PVP flagged’ was at the time. Oh, teh memories!

5) Big stick

The Big Stick was given to me for an Xmas present by a guildie and co-healer last year. I dont know if I got it in reference to my healing team often calling me the ‘lady with the whip’ or maybe because I’m a teacher (same thing?) or whether he was trying to tell me something quite different, but it made me laugh all the same when I found it in the mail. I used it in this picture here that I created for our 2nd anniversary’s quiz page.

True memories

These are mementos I will always keep. Most dresses and baubles can be replaced if needed,  but these items really can’t. It’s not so much about the item but the story behind getting it.

Maybe it sounds weird to some people but I feel about these items the way I feel about the screenshots in my WoW folder: as if they were real things and real photographs. I think they are too – after all I was there.

And with this I end my contribution to this lovely topic with some very old screenies of mine, because a picture (or two) says more than a thousand words:

1 Minute to go,
enjoy it while it lasts!
/sigh

8 comments

  1. I have a bank full of old things, my proudest, is the Arcanite Ripper, that turns me into a guitar playing undead.

    But, I no longer play WoW, and I’m not sure when I’ll be back, if ever.

    The one thing that has stayed with me, has been my name, and a massive impulse to steal candles.

  2. I still have Rhok’delar, Longbow of the Ancients and Lok’delar, Stave of the Ancient Keepers (they were separate btw, not like Benediction and Anathema – hunters got both, and also a shiny quivver – I think you’re thinking of vendorstrike as the other item that transformed) on Thalynia and I won’t delete them! They weren’t the best hunter weapons available in Vanilla even, but the quest itself was awesome, probably my favourite quest in the whole of Warcraft in fact. Blizzard really should implement more of those involved, flavour class quests!

    And yes, I still kick myself at having vendored the original Quel’Serrar on Stumpers. >.< Those are my keepsakes.

  3. A lot of old stuff in my bank, I just hate cleaning. But I’m afraid 99 percent of it is just useless crap. I’m keeping one object out of affection and nostaghia, a souvenir from TBC, and that is the skull from Illidan. I always found it very cool and it gave you a mystical appearance as you used it. Here’s the story about it. http://www.pinkpigtailinn.com/2008/11/epic-drops-come-with-good-story.html

    But I think that’s about it. I never was around in Vanilla, gathering all those classic epic items.

  4. @Pangoria
    oooh yes that’s the one – from karazhan right? I’d love to have that, and the transformation orbs!

    and you no take candle! =P

    @Stumps
    hmm was Lok’delar 2 items for hunters? ah well, it comes down to the same, epic class quest and all!
    as for Quel’Serrar you’re a real muppet, but we knew that already.

    @Larísa
    I remember when you got that skull, hehe! a cool item indeed.
    I keep a lot of mementos from TBC as well to be honest, T5 and T6 were my favourite sets in the game.

    and what about other nifty items, like holiday ones, dresses and hats – you don’t keep any of those?

  5. the bastards raped us!

    i was excited of getting into a brawl, i didn’t know it would only last 0.3 seconds.

    🙁

  6. Well I do have a bunch of holiday stuff filling my bank slots. Definitely. However I can’t say it’s something that I’m really THAT fond of, that it’s very dear memories to me, something I hold on to. I don’t use it very often. Once a year, at the most. So basically it’s just taking up slots without offering me much of entertainment.

  7. Aww you should’ve screenied the poem I included with the Big Stick!

    I did my best to make it all rhyme =)

    Naturally I still carry the pimp outfit wherever I go. I’ve added that groovy pink staff with the rotating rune circles from Sunwell to its loadout.

    I wish there was a sombrero in the game.

  8. oh hey Kash!! took me a while to figure it’s you haha, doh!! ^^

    and indeed the poem! I have kept it as a note in my bags though!

    “I wish there was a sombrero in the game.”
    – but there IS?! check the “Haliscan Brimmed Hat” on wowhead!

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