Last afternoon, I was noodling about on Quintalan when I noticed that Ancient, of the blog Tome of the Ancient, was on. Since she'd invited me to come and see her house, I figured I'd whisper her and take her up on the offer. I figured that my last Retail toon I'd leveled to (what was then) the level cap would be appropriate to visit with her. So, I pulled Azshandra out of storage and got a hold of Ancient.
Hey, Catwynn can be a sneaky druid...
And away I went...
Knowing Ancient's Druid, Catwynn, there were two things that stand out the most about her: she likes peaceful, wide open spaces, and she likes to fish.
She did not disappoint.
Here's a few screencaps of my time at Catwynn's place...
She does like to look at the stars, like all Night Elves...
And she has a relaxing hot tub to hang out in...
For flowers and fishing... Check.
The house is a nice little rustic bungalow.
But Catwynn's home is a lot like the TARDIS: bigger on the inside!
And like the TARDIS, it certainly seems to be able to warp space and time. See above.
And even a drafting station! This was something I didn't know about Ancient, that she used to do drafting work.
All in all, if I closed my eyes and imagined Catwynn's (and Anicent's) house, this is what I'd picture it as.
Thanks much! But there's just one more thing...
WoW! That was one hard to do achievement, and really worthy of the title!
Okay, two things... A doggo!
I took waaay too many screenshots to fit into this post, but believe me it was all forth it. Thanks to Catwynn for showing me her home, and it was great to see it!
Fellow blogger Kamalia, of Kamalia et Alia, posted yesterday about wanting friends to hang with her at her house for a weekly quest. Since she plays solo for the most part, she'd prefer it be Battle.net friends, but if that wasn't happening she'd be open to grouping.
Well... that intrigued me a bit, so I asked a few questions in the comments, and then one thing led to another, and...
Surprise!
Yes, I pulled out my first max-level toon from 2009, Quintalan, for the visit. It's been a while since he's been out and about, as he's wearing his Tier 9 armor and wielding Quel'delar, but I thought it appropriate that he be the first toon to visit.
Kam showed me around...
From the foyer...
To a parlor/reading area, complete with a floating book. That book tickled my funny bone.
Cardwyn: "Hey, me too!!"
And it wouldn't be Kamalia's house without several Tauren-themed rooms.
She even had a laundry area put together, which given I was actually finishing up a load of laundry at the time, this was perfect.
This is the kids' room, complete with bunk beds. And Ancient, if you're reading this...
All in all, she's done an amazing job of decorating. But if you've ever read of my admiration of her innate sense of decor and fashion, it's not a surprise.
We went to the edge of her property, complete with tallstriders. No hawkstriders around, alas.
I had to admit that I wasn't sure if Quintalan even had flying in the Old World, but at least the Community Center is reachable by ground mounts. From there I could take a portal to Orgrimmar.
I took a lot more screencaps than I posted here, but this should give you a feel for what it was like visiting Kamalia's house. I told her that if she just needed a body to hang around every so often, I was more than up to the task. After all, I'm not raiding or anything, and it'd feel good to reconnect with more of my blogger friends in-game.
I have a confession to make: our house is not something that Marie Kondo would say sparks joy.
When you put two pack rats* together with three kids, you're going to have piles of stuff to move around on a regular basis. While I'd like to look at my home as a place to relax and enjoy myself, when you get right down to it, I look at a home as a place for my stuff.
You knew I was going to put this here, didn't you? This is one of the George Carlin routines that aged well.
I don't really have a sense of decoration, either. I've seen what some people call "decoration" and I think that I can't see the walls from all of the pictures on them. On the flip side, I'm not a big fan of the minimalist look, either. I just want a place for everything, and enough furniture and decoration that don't look like they came out of the 60s/70s/80s to make it work. Despite my best intentions, I simply can't get things decorated well. Not for a lack of trying, mind you, but I also have to balance my mom and my in-laws dumping decorations and whatnot on us that we really don't need with my own distaste of the items themselves.
My own home was built in the mid-80s, and it shows. The two story and bi-level/split-level homes built in that era all have the same general look about them; they tend to be boxy, but they get maximum use out of minimal space. The oversized great rooms and specialty areas of the houses that were built afterward simply don't exist, so my home office is set where the dining room was originally designed to reside.**
So you know where this is going, right?
This is what my homes in video games tend to look like, if I'm left to my own devices:
It's a bit blocky, but it works.
Penny would occasionally complain about all those chests around; I ought to do something about that one of these days. Note that most of the furniture there came with the house.
So yeah, I'm decoratively challenged and I look at houses as a place to put things, rather than to live in them. (It's a failing.)
MMO housing doesn't make me squeal with delight as it does some people. I mean, it's great to look at when it's done well, and believe me, I've seen plenty of people who have done it well --some even read the blog!-- but that seems to be beyond my capacity. I don't have any screencaps of the home I had in LOTRO, but the front of it looked like a stereotypical backwoods shack with all sorts of broken down material scattered around in front.
In other words, I think I would give Marie Kondo a heart attack.
***
So when I saw that this dropped in Retail WoW yesterday...
From an email dated 12/3/2025.
I realized that I was not the target audience.
That's fine. I don't need to be the target of MMO salesmanship; after all, I'm not a big spender when it comes to DLC and whatnot. If anything, that translates in-game to me not really pursuing monetary or bling-centric goals.***
To those who are reveling in the chance to play around with housing, I wish you the best of luck. I'll be reading your blog posts!
*Yes, I'm calling myself out. I may not have as much stuff as my wife does, and I do throw things out more than she does, but there are plenty of things that I know I'll keep until I die.
**We never formally entertained people, and we've never used the fine china that we were obligated to request in our wedding lists. In fact, all those plates and utensils and whatnot are still in storage in the basement, having never been used once. I think the only thing we ever did use were the wine glasses, and those are also now in storage since a) we have a lot of "free" glasses given to us from the local wine festival over the years, and b) I can't really drink alcohol much any more.
***Despite what some people may think, I count Epic Riding and Epic Flying as bling-centric. If it becomes a requirement to do something, I'm going to push even harder against it. But that's just me.
