Inori Week continues here with a look at this pillowcase by the circle A.C.G.. That’s the same circle that produced the Catherine dakimakura cover, but while that one was drawn by as109, this one is drawn by an artist named sola (not to be confused with the manga and anime series of the same name). Looking at the circle’s products, it looks like sola has drawn the majority of them and I would guess he or she is its main artist. I came across this dakimakura cover while shopping at Doujin-dou and though I was unfamiliar with the artist’s work, I decided this was the Inori pillowcase for me.
I talked a bit about the character in my Inori figure review so I’ll skip the character discussion. This pillowcase is, as expected, 160 centimeters long and 50 centimeters wide and is made of two-way tricot.
I think Inori has one of the most attractive designs amongst anime characters but she hasn’t gotten a ton of dakimakura covers, unlike, say, Sena Kashiwazaki or Sword Art Online’s Asuna. Inori did get an official dakimakura cover courtesy of Movic but I don’t think it’s that impressive; her legs are oddly tapered on the front and the image on the reverse seems rather small. Perhaps the nicest one other than this one is Evening Call’s version, which has the advantage of featuring a front and rear view, which is the pillowcase configuration I prefer. I didn’t get it and I’m not sure why; perhaps it was because it went up for order while Guilty Crown was still airing, and my poor opinion of the show fortified my inhibitions.
At any rate, I decided to get this dakimakura cover. I didn’t know anything about the artist – and still don’t, really – but I quite like his (or her) rendition of Inori. The front side shows her beaming a friendly – perhaps too friendly – smile while holding a string like a garrote. The twine is, of course, the cat’s cradle which, like the spoon in The Matrix, is supposed to be a fancy bit of symbolism but turns out to be an irrelevant footnote. However, while it’s not important in the show, it’s a useful thing on this pillowcase as it gives Inori something to do.
This dakimakura cover really gives you a good sense of just how skimpy Inori’s outfit is. Her front is almost entirely exposed, with a plunging cut that dares to bare her crotch. Her breasts are a bit asymmetrical here which I expect is going to bother some people. Being that she’s lying down, I think it’s reasonable for her breasts to not be hanging downwards – though I admit it would also be reasonable to expect an artist to toss realism aside in favor of aesthetic appeal.
Inori has very pretty legs but her high socks are really dark and it looks kinda like her legs are melding into each other. It’s easier to distinguish them if you jack up the brightness on the image.
The reverse side offers another front view of Inori, albeit with a lot more naughtiness (though not necessarily much more exposed flesh). I don’t actually remember what outfit this is; I guess it’s a variation of her schoolgirl outfit?
She appears rather shy or embarrassed on this side, which isn’t really in character for her but still looks quite appealing.
We get to see her breasts – looking perhaps larger than they ought to – but there isn’t any further explicitness. I would’ve liked a more explicit view but what I would’ve actually preferred would have been a rear view instead, even if it weren’t explicit at all – Inori’s outfit is sexy enough that I think I’d prefer seeing it than her completely nude.
And here are her legs, which are very sexy-looking, and that twine again.
I really like this pillowcase a lot; it’s probably one of my favorites in my collection. I have no fondness for Guilty Crown and I think Inori is a pretty bad character, but I definitely have no issue with the show’s character designs. For fans of the other female cast members, Ayase got a nice pillowcase from Ask, and Tsugumi got a dakimakura cover from Hold On Pillow. Tsugumi also got an official dakimakura cover from Movic, but Ayase seems to have been neglected, to say nothing of poor Hare, the most likeable character in the entire cast.
Man, A.C.G. Arts really has released some fantastic products and yet I’ve managed to skip them every time. 🙁 I had two chances at the Catherine cover and more than enough time to book this one, and yet I missed out on them both. If I could only have one Inori cover (or maybe Guilty Crown cover), I think this would be my choice for sure, as much as I love both Evening Call’s Inori and HOP’s Tsugumi (both of which I own, oddly enough.)
I too prefer a front/back view, and going off topic a bit, I think that’s the only complaint I have about pen’s art; his art is absolutely fantastic and I’d say it’s leagues better than most other artists, but he sticks to a very tried and true formula and I’d absolutely love to see some variation in his art. Going back to Inori, it would have been great if there was a bit more explicitness but I’m strangely happy with what they’ve provided here. I absolutely love the shape of the breasts seen here.
If you’re interested, I ended up with a double of EC’s Inori that’s still sealed and untouched in the box it arrived in.
I thought I remember that you had gotten both; I had thought about getting the Ayase one since I think I saw it at White Canvas, but it’s not there anymore. Actually, their whole dakimakura section seems curiously empty now; I’m not sure if I’m not looking at the right place or if they’re not stocking as many as they used to.
Yeah, I wish pen would do a front-and-back shot, or at least have both sides explicit; I know he’s done a few where one side isn’t explicit, like the Rin Tohsaka one (speaking of which, I was organizing stuff a week or so ago and took a look at it; the one I’ve got doesn’t really look low-res to me, and I wonder what the reissued version looks like). That said, I can’t say I have any quibbles with the Fate and Nanoha pillowcases.
It’s funny that you mention that; I was just looking at Mandarake and was thinking of buying the EC Inori pillowcase they have there, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to eat the international shipping charge without buying some other stuff. If you’ve got an extra, I’d definitely be interested.
Nope, I didn’t buy either of the A.C.G. covers, nor did I buy Ayase (I actually ended up not liking that one too much.) I noticed the same thing with White Canvas, though they never really seemed that big on dakimakura covers when compared to D-Stage or Toranoana. I think a few circles have decided that consignment isn’t really profitable for them; I know HOP announced a few months back that they weren’t doing consignment anymore and it seems that they now require a minimum of 30 sales to even print new covers (Ask has adopted a similar policy.) I imagine having to increase the price a bit to factor in the consignment’s cut and also having your product spread over multiple sites can be a bit troublesome.
His art is fantastic and I haven’t nothing to complain about any cover individually, short of the few I don’t really care for character wise (the Tsukihime chick is the only character thus far that just didn’t appeal to me.) As a whole, I’d absolutely love to see him branch out a bit. I’d be interested to see what the new Rin looks like myself. I’m still debating Ignis but I only have another day to decide; I really want her, but I have some SMJ/AmiAmi invoices I need to pay and I just can’t afford it otherwise. I’m level 3 on Evening Call and I believe one of the benefits is an extended payment deadline, but I always feel like a jerk if I get invoiced and don’t pay something off immediately.
I was worried I wouldn’t be able to find it, but I do indeed have a double that’s still sealed. I’m assuming you have access to my email, so feel free to send me a message and we can work something out. Or if you don’t, I believe we’re friends on MFC.
Two question groups:
1. What is this about Rin getting a rerelease? Is this the Evening Call one that Tier reviewed a few months ago? If so where do I get information on the rerelease?
2. Where can I get more information on this case as none of the links worked for me.
http://blog.埋もれる抱ãæž•er.jp/archives/9118
1. Yeah, that’s the one. And the re-release was months ago. It originally sold maybe 1-2 years ago, and it got a re-release earlier this year. It isn’t available at Evening Call currently.
2. Depends on what type of information you were looking for. The link you provided has the price, where it will be sold (at a specific event), the artist, and a bunch of other information. Was able to find the order form easily enough. You can find it here.
2. About the actual character on the pillowcase, her name is Saya Kitazono from the game Shukufuku no Kane no Oto wa, Sakura-iro no Kaze to Tomo ni. She’s a third year student who is the granddaughter of a famous politician. She is said to have no sense of direction and gets lost very easily.
Ah, sorry, I meant I thought you got the Tsugumi and the Evening Call Inori pillowcases. Yeah, I noticed that White Canvas seems to be offering a more limited product selection than they used to; they used to have a lot of the same stuff as Doujindou but now they seem to have less stuff, particularly R18 stuff.
Hmm, that is interesting indeed. I always imagined that dakimakura covers had to be fairly lucrative, since I cannot imagine that they cost too much to print, being that textile printing seems to be a very low-cost, low-tech sort of industry. I don’t know anything about textiles though so I could be wrong.
I’m going to consolidating replies here instead of also posting in the Yukikaze post since it seems silly to have two conversation threads open. With respect to the Saber blanket and the various Sabers, I actually know Saber Extra best since I played through Fate/extra and haven’t played Fate/stay night (although everyone says it’s good and people who’ve played it seem to delight in dispensing various bits of Fate/stay night trivia and minutiae). She’s a really fun character, though somewhat cheaply-designed, I guess, being that she’s basically a brand-new character stuffed into Saber’s basic design (though that’s not to say it’s a bad design; indeed, I very much like both of her designs).
Haha, yeah, I kinda regret getting that Kimi pillowcase at that price as well, being that I could have saved myself nearly $70 or so by just waiting a week. Then again, I’ve been burned by waiting; it’s why I didn’t get a $200 Playstation 3 last week.
I flipped you a DM about that Inori pillowcase; any time you want to talk about it, you know where I can be reached.
Ah, yeah, I have both HOP’s Tsugumi and Evening Call’s Inori. I wonder if it’s at all related to their increased overseas presence. I know it isn’t hard to assign one or two people to an overseas team, but from following their Twitter account, it seems like they attend events in other countries. I don’t think the increased international presence would cause them to lose products, but maybe they’re increasing their international presence because it’s tougher to compete with Toranoana and other consignment stores.
I don’t know anything about textiles either, so anything we discuss here is likely to be purely speculative on both sides. My best guess for their expense would be covers that started out as being printed in Japan. Being the small island nation that they are, printing in Japan would take up valuable production space and if they also had to import the materials in which they print on, I could see that adding significantly to what would otherwise be a fairly cheap production cost. The companies that print outside of Japan likely just choose to stick with the market price because there isn’t any reason to charge less for a product that people are buying. But I honestly have no idea.
There are a few things I do have a slightly better grasp on, but am still largely in the dark about. P80’s website actually has a pricing chart for printing individual covers, and for a two-sided 2WT cover, it’s quite a bit more than what most circles will charge. They do offer a 10% discount for customers who purchase more than ten of one print, but even the cost is still quite high. I imagine circles that have built a relationship with P80 get a better deal because they print more often and in greater volume, but it still leads me to believe that most of the profits will be with the printing company and not necessarily the circles. I wasn’t able to find a similar chart for A&J or Seiren, but I’d imagine that the prices are likely to be in a similar range.
Using HOP’s 30 sheet example for moving through with production, maybe that’s the number they’ve worked out with Seiren where the profits become more reasonable and it’s worth it to move forward with production (whereas if they only printed one or two of a particular case, they may break even at worst.) On the other side of things, for event exclusives without a mail order I could see it being even more complicated. Regardless of how much profit they’ll be pulling in with each sale, they still have to put the money down up front to have them printed.
Eh, I didn’t think Fate/Stay Night was anything fantastic. It was a lot more enjoyable than most VNs you’ll find available, but I never understood the absolute obsession a lot of people seem to have with it. I will admit that I like the characters (okay, not Emiya) and I’m very happy it’s popular because it will always lead to a steady stream of fantastic Rin and Saber porn.
I like the Kimi cover a lot. Short of my ero Miku, it’s probably my favorite Anko cover in recent memory (though Laura and Charl is fantastic, too), so I ordered another when they did their web reception a few weeks back. I figured I still really overpaid for the one, but I managed to bring down my average price a good deal. And I have the same regret for storage drives. The 3TB drive I could have purchased for $90 is back up to $180 and the closest alternative is a 2TB drive for a bit over $100.
Gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that you might be about to order this:
http://eveningcall.net/information/image/C83gai/fate–ab.jpg
(very short order time frame though)
Can’t imagine why I think that, but it is pretty cute… kinda tempted myself
Yeah, I know Tier is going to order it and I’m likely going to pick it up myself. If for whatever reason you miss out on it in the limited window, don’t worry too much. Evening Call is pretty awesome when it comes to “event exclusives.” It has been the pattern for the last 5-6 batch of event exclusive covers that they open preorders for a limited window before the event (as little as 3 days to as long as 2 weeks.) However, after the event has ended, they usually get a longer reception period that lasts the traditional 1-2 months. While it’s always possible that they won’t extend the reception period at a later date, I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t do it in this particular case. Even so, I’m tempted to get an order in now since I really would like to hit level 5 on their site eventually and they’re offering 1500 experience for each cover. >_>
It is within the realm of possibility that there is a chance that your assumption could be correct.
I want her in my bed nao!
Freaking Amazing! Have more to say but need to finish work! :\
She is! You should definitely finish your work; flunking out of school is bad.
I rather appreciate that her face feels like another character cosplaying as Inori. Kinda disappointed by the lack of her rear. I’m not a fan of her iconic red dress, but it looks quite pretty here.
A rear shot would’ve made this pillowcase perfect, I think. I recall that the show’s producers highlighted her rear in the second episode but unfortunately it didn’t get a ton of attention thereafter. Inori’s backside needs more attention.
Inori looks lovely in this rendition. Much better than the figure version ironically. We know the fact that the show is …….., but we got some delicious chara designs.
Indeed! I wonder if I prefer the anime’s character designs to redjuice’s concept artwork; I think I actually might. I like redjuice’s art but there’s something really appealing about the fairly conventional faces and body shapes of the anime characters combined with his sense of costuming.
I like this case. I especially like the artist’s rendition of Inori. Her face is charming and she has a nice body. I think the reverse image is the better of the two sides. I am not a huge fan of the breast shape on the reverse, but the rest of her is really nice. My favorite feature is how she is starting to pull down her stocking.
Is it just me does the front image make her hips look really skinny and her body really long (because of the cape).
Yeah, the loose stocking is definitely a very nice touch; asymmetry is an eye-catching element that doesn’t seem to be used too often, even amongst the offbeat and oddball designs that anime culture facilitates. I think the slimness of her body depends on how you are looking at it; I see the swell of her hip as being directly under the flowers along her sides, so her hips actually bulge out prominently in my view.
Cute one and quite modest (â—’â—¡’â—)
On the front she looks a trigger happy yandere character,which is pretty cool, I like cute and sexy anime girls with a slightly evil presence. It’s a good idea that she is illustrated with something between her fingers, the whole scene appears more casual that way, her non casual outfit aside.
Stop the no backside trend, it’s a shame in this case as well.
It looks rather uncomfortable when the girls are lying on their arms, yet it’s a common theme on dakimakura covers.
I like how Inori looks sort of like she might strangle you with that string; it gives her a more interesting look, which is nice since she’s not that interesting a character. She had the possibility of having an appealing level of complexity, but the writers blew it, as they did with pretty much every aspect of the show.
Haha, yeah, I had not noticed how her arm is tucked under her body, but that could certainly be uncomfortable. Inori’s backside probably cushions the pressure, though.
>> Shashin
That is true, I had forgotten that most legitimate dakimakura covers are printed in Japan rather than China. It does seem curious still, though, that the cost of bootleg pillowcases is so much lower; I cannot imagine that the more expensive labor pool in Japan accounts for much of that cost. This is all speculation on my part though and I am still not sure why the cost of printing a pillowcase is so high.
That is also true that Fate/stay night’s huge popularity leads to very nice porn. Curiously though, I don’t see a lot of Rin hentai, and I probably see even less Rider hentai (in fact, I would guess that in the last year, I’ve probably come across more yaoi Fate/zero images on Danbooru than Rin Tohsaka images, which is rather regrettable). And neither of those characters really gets a lot of figures. It’s very strange, and now that I think about it, I wonder if Fate/stay night has a relatively larger female fanbase than typical visual novels; the male servants certainly seem to be extremely popular.
There ought to be a Black Friday every month. I really wish I’d picked up that PS3, the James Bond Blu-ray collection, and some camera stuff when I had had the chance. Hopefully some of that stuff will go back on sale for Christmas.
Yeah, all speculation on my part as well. I have no idea what it actually costs the printer in material costs, nor do I have more than a vague idea (thanks to P80’s pricing chart) what it actually costs the circles to print. But based on the limited information available, I think that if anyone’s making a massive profit, it seems to be the printing companies and not the artists. Surely the artists are factoring in some profit for themselves, but the base price of dakimakura covers seems to be set by the printers. It is worth noting that the cost between the average bootleg 2WT cover and the lower priced legitimate 2WT covers isn’t that huge of a gap: from the few bootleg sites I’ve browsed, if they offer 2WT is usually goes for $70-80, while the lowest priced 2WT from a legitimate source I’ve seen is about 10k yen. So while there still is a gap, it’s a lot different than comparing a $40 peach skin cover with a 13k yen P80 2WT cover.
I actually don’t really pay attention to hentai releases all that much, short of dakimakura covers and the monthly video releases. Going by dakimakura covers, Saber is absolutely the most popular, but Rin gets her fair share. Rider, Sakura, and Illya are all absolutely underrepresented. Irisviel was quite popular when Fate/Zero was going, but I haven’t seen anything featuring her in awhile.
I wouldn’t say no to awesome sales more often. Or at the very least retailers offering more leniency when it came to the length of the sale. A lot of stores seemed to do deals through the weekend, which was really nice, but I’d like to be able to walk into the store on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving and pick up deals that are similarly priced (short of the absurdly good door busters, maybe.)
It’s all a matter of timing, I guess. A few weeks before Black Friday Fry’s had Mists of Pandaria for $20. I flip flopped on wanting to pick it up all week, and finally checked their website Thursday night; it was still $20, so I decided I’d pick it up in the morning. Went off sale that Friday, but by that point I had already convinced myself I wanted to buy it, so I did… and sure enough Black Friday was about a week or two away, and it was down to $20 again.
That is true; I have no idea what peach skin feels like but given the costs of fabric, it seems reasonable that something like two-way tricot would be a lot more expensive. I occasionally buy fabric for use as backdrops and the fabric store I shop at also sells spandex, and it’s more expensive than I thought it would be.
I wound up getting the panda expansion at Amazon; they had it for $15, which seemed to be the cheapest I could get it for. I also picked up Starcraft 2 as a digital download, which I normally do not like but hey, for $20 I’ll compromise on that principle. I probably ought to try it out, given how much I played Starcraft in college, but I have so many games to play that it’s difficult to find the time.
I find it amusing that I’d consider myself fairly well versed in the world of dakimakura materials, but I’m very poor at comparing them to materials that might be seen in everyday items. I don’t know what the material composition of peach skin is, but in terms of feel, peach skin is pretty accurate; it has that sorta velvety feel to it that a peach has, without the fuzziness. It isn’t necessarily a bad feeling, but I don’t think it compares to a good 2WT. There are other downsides to the material, but comparing them on a pure prince standpoint would be difficult without knowing the composition of material.
I have to say that it’s nice to know that I can play the game without being as helplessly addicted to it as I was. I’m sure I could get there eventually, but I was playing on a 10 day trial and I ended up not playing at all for the last 1-2 days of it. Though come to think of it, I should extend my game time soon because I believe I had an auction going for a blue that WoWhead should sell for about 2400g. >_> Either way, I was enjoying playing the game casually and I look forward to starting up again after I’ve finished my finals.
I never really played Brood War that much, other than the campaign, which is surprising considering how enthralled I was by the (now defunct) Korean professional scene around the game; it was a hobby that I held for a good seven years. I tried doing the same for SCII, but it’s a very boring game to spectate, at least for me. I’ve never really been a fan of multi-player games unless it’s just screwing around casually with some friends, but I did enjoy the campaign a lot. I’d say that would be worth the $20, if nothing else.
That doesn’t actually sound too appealing to me; I don’t think I like pillowcases that have a noticeable texture. One of the things I really like about tricot is its smoothness, particularly compared to the polyester material that my older Cospa pillowcases are made of.
Uhh, I don’t want to say that I’m addicted again, but in the month since I’ve re-upped, I’ve gotten my first paladin from 70 to 80, my fourth paladin from 70 to 78, leveled a new priest to 49, resurrected my old guild, played a couple of dozen battlegrounds, and run Stratholme probably about fifty times. (Also, people need to buy my auctions. I have a crapload of bikini plate armor, which I used to hoard back in classic and TBC. I never dreamed that it might actually have gold value later on, but people aren’t buying it.)
I played a lot of Starcraft, though quite casually and usually just against AI opponents with a couple of friends. It was a lot of fun, but even though SC2 looks quite like SC1, at least by visual inspection, I can’t quite shake the feeling that Blizzard doesn’t know what they are doing these days.
Yeah, I don’t care for peach skin much at all. If anything, the image quality alone is enough for me to opt for 2WT, but the wrinkling and feel of peach skin seal the deal. I don’t think I could go back to any of the old materials after as long as I’ve spent with 2WT/2WR. If there was a case I really wanted that was only available in a certain material, I’d probably still buy it but I might have to seriously consider it before I took the plunge.
While I’m still on a dakimakura note, the Saber blanket I wanted went back up for a limited preorder this morning and SMJ managed to get an order in, so I’m pretty happy about that. I had also wanted a Miku cover that was supposed to release around the same time, but for whatever reason the preorder window was closed, despite it being listed as being open until late December. It felt kind of weird just doing a one item special order for Toranoana, especially considering all the goodies I could have added to my cart, but I really wanted to make sure I got an order in. Also, I’m really digging the new Omega Star case; it looks like a silver-haired Mafuyu to me, which is not a bad thing at all.
I received Reiko today (along with the fantastic Lilith Lilia case), and I do think I want to let go of her. Her body is absolutely fantastic, but there’s just something about her face that I really don’t like. I noticed it in image 5 of your review, and thought it might have just been the camera angle. Looking through the screen of the box, I couldn’t really find an angle of her face that was appealing to me.
I’ve been taking things rather slowly. I know that if I let it, it will probably sink hooks into me again, but it hasn’t been able to yet. I’m slowly leveling my Paladin to 90. I think I want to start a new character on a new server; the server I’m on is absolutely dead and I don’t have any friends that play anymore. The social aspect of the game was never what I played for, but it made grinding along more enjoyable. I think I want to start a warrior; I played one briefly in TBC and had a lot of fun with her.
Destructible rocks.
this one looks awesome ero cute I would say 😉
dakimakura are printed in japan that’s new to me as I don’t pay attention that much ^^
Not all are printed in Japan. The big three printers (A&J, Seiren, P80), whom are generally regarded as the best in terms of quality, all print in Japan. There are a few Chinese/Taiwanese based circles that obviously use printers based in China/Taiwan, and then there are some Japanese based circles that use overseas/unpublished printers (with the assumption being that it’s printed overseas because if it was printed in Japan they’d surely boast about it.) And of course bootlegs are likely all printed in China.
It is! As Shashin says, I think some are, or at least they seem to use a fabric developed by Asahi Kasei.
>> Shashin
Yeah, I figure if you’re paying a premium price, you ought to be getting a premium item. I’ve on occasion done a one-item special order from Toranoana but it’s usually so expensive that I don’t do it often. That usually results in me missing out on stuff since I wait until there are other items that I want to bundle with the order, and I usually wait too long. I definitely do dig the Omega Star pillowcase, which I guess is of a character named Shizuku Sawatari; however, I wonder how explicit it is. There was this other pillowcase that Happoubi Jin did of a character from Classy Cranberry’s and I really liked it, but it had Barbie doll anatomy, so I didn’t buy it. Though I have to admit that even with the featureless crotch, it was still really tempting. I do see that this new one is on Amiami, which will make a purchasing decision easier.
I think I can understand why you might not like Reiko; I like the figure but I think it could be improved upon, particularly in terms of her face. I often complain that all Tony figures look the same but in this case, I think it would’ve been better had the figure looked more like Tony’s style (and when I do complain about Tony’s figures, it’s sometimes in terms of thematic similarity rather than that all his faces look the same).
I seem to be fully back into the PVP grind. I must be insane. The good thing is that I’m sure that this infatuation won’t last long.
Heh, there are actually quite a lot of other items I could order from Toranoana had I wanted to… I just was worried about getting an order in before things closed out since I wasn’t sure how long it would be open for (it had the few stock symbol and the original preorder had closed – I was too lazy to figure out if they were extending it by a few days or if it was selling off a few more.) Hmm, that’s a bit disheartening. Companies do seem a bit more willing to be explicit than they were just a few years ago, but that could just be due to the rise of certain companies (CranCrown Black, Lilith, Takumi Makura, etc..) where there are still the other companies that choose not to tread the line (Gephalsa.) I do have the Mafuyu cover and if I remember correctly she still has her panties on, so there wasn’t any reason to have Barbie anatomy… but I don’t believe this character is wearing panties. There really isn’t anything I hate more than lazy censor work (or censoring in general), but I don’t think it’s a cover I want to pass up, either way.
Your infatuation with WoW or just PvP in general? :O I was never big on PvP myself; I’d do battlegrounds occasionally whenever I had a group of friends with an open slot, but I never was really into solo PvP (I absolutely loved vanilla AV, though) or arena. If anything, I am really happy I was into the grind a bit during vanilla; Knight-Champion is a fantastic title to have for a Paladin, and it has the added benefit of being no longer available.
I’m getting to the game a bit more now that most of the semester is done for me. I’ve actually put my Paladin on the back-burner for now in favor of dual-boxing some new characters with Recruit a Friend. I wasn’t going to do it initially, but the Blizzard sale with the $5 battlechest sealed the deal. It took me awhile to get used to playing two characters at once again, but I have a fairly simple set up that I’m happy with. Probably the best addition to when I was dual-boxing my paladin/warrior years ago, is the picture-in-picture script I have running with my key cloner. It makes things a hell of a lot easier when it comes to playing both screens at once. I’m doing Monk/Paladin now, and I’m really enjoying the way the Monk plays. I’ll probably try to level at least one of each class to 80ish on my primary account during the three month period, before likely letting the trial account expire. I could see myself dual-boxing at 80-90, but I don’t know if I really want to buy another copy of Pandaria right off/pay the monthly fee for two accounts.
With Warcraft! I’m sort of an indifferent PVPer, though I did enjoy playing 2v2 arena back during seasons 2 and 3. I do grind PVP battlegrounds a lot, but that’s mostly because that’s the easiest way that I know to gear up. I did get up to Lieutenant Commander back in the day, but I gave up there; as I recall, there weren’t any armor pieces for getting up to rank 11 and I didn’t have nearly the stamina to keep going.
I got Warcraft installed on my old junk laptop (I think it has a Core 2 Duo processor; it might have an even older CPU than that). It actually runs, which is all I need it to do, so I guess it suffices, though I’m still really tempted to get a new laptop anyway. The game sure has changed a ton, and not just the game, but the stuff people run outside of it, like two-box software. And BG bots. Back when I last played, people just AFKed without really worrying too much about it but now I see there is sophisticated botting stuff out there. Odd.