The Kitty Collector introduces herself

Hi. I'm MW, and I'm a catoholic.

It's not that I haven't tried taming other pets. but the crab and the scorpid both drove me nuts with their clicky little walks, and the crocolisk's hissing was nearly as bad. I thought the boar would work out, until I sent it into battle and it let out that awful squeal. The wolf and bear were both fine, sound-wise, but I couldn't take their snarling little faces. The wind serpent flopped about annoyingly, and the dragonhawk just couldn't take damage.

Besides, how can you help but love your cats when they stretch and yawn so cutely before running in and tearing a naga to shreds for you? And who else would eat all of the fish you catch?

Ideale was my first hunter, created when I first started playing World of Warcraft solely to explore the blood elf starting area and quickly abandoned. I loved having a pet, but I died really, really fast (turns out, if you set the pet on your target first and THEN shoot it, it won't run up and kill you), and with my paladin, I could bash stuff in the face with a giant hammer.

But then, after a random Google search for info about my main realm, I discovered a hunter blog with links to a whole bunch more, and after reading for a few weeks I wanted to try some of the things they wrote about. Playing a hunter quickly grew on me, especially when I found that I could solo Dar'Khan at level 19 ... and Ideale became the first in my collection of cat-taming hunters.

Ideale currently runs around The Venture Co. - U.S. with Cinnamon, her Elder Springpaw Lynx, and Saffron, her Ridge Stalker. She was joined by the troll Daj and her Snow Leopard, Serai. On Laughing Skull - U.S. I have Tshaya, a draenei hunter who has a Strigid Hunter named Artemis, a.k.a. the only non-cat pet that MW doesn't find incredibly irritating ... because I felt like I should have at least one non-cat pet and Sian'Rotam would have been a little impossible for a level 10 hunter to tame (but when Tshaya turns 60 ... just wait).

Why write another World of Warcraft blog?
I like the game a lot, and I like to write a lot. Since all of my characters are low-level — Ideale is the highest at 43 — I think it would be neat to have a blog focused on low-level questing, tips for newbies, and so on. Also, most of the blogs I read are focused on raiding and end-game content, which is great, but what about us PVPers? Instances are fun and all, but I'll take a world PVP event or Arathi Basin over a grind quest any day. If I could level in the battlegrounds, I'd spend most of my time in Warsong Gulch, coming out just to explore new zones and join raids on Stormwind or Ironforge (and get dropped over and over again because everyone else in the raid is 30 levels above me).

Why another hunter blog?
Mostly because I love the class, and I never would have given it a shot, pets or no pets, if I hadn't read The Hunter's Mark, Aspect of the Hare, or Big Red Kitty. If I can pass that on to someone else, yay! And if no one reads this, then at least I have a place to keep my notes.

Mostly, though, I replied to an entry at Aspect of the Hare's asking Pike for newbie hunter tips, then started to wonder if maybe, instead of "begging," I should write up some of my own tips for levels 1-40. So in the next few weeks, I'll be putting up entries on useful 1-40 quests/instances (i.e., those that give "hunter loot"), tips on sneaking into enemy territory for opposite-faction pets at level 10 (I am addicted to this), and whatever else I find useful. And we'll see where it goes from there.

Do you think you know something about lowbie levels that other hunters don't?
Not really.

Do you really expect anyone to read this?
Nope! But if anyone does and finds it helpful, I'll be super-happy.

Why cats?
Because my roommates won't let me adopt any more in real life, and I have to get my crazy cat lady fix somehow.