Thanks to everyone who has written in or commented about the recently datamined item, [Phaelia’s Vestments of the Sprouting Seed]! As if it weren’t enough of an honor to have been mentioned, Blizzard was thoughtful enough to include my as-yet-unborn “Sprouting Seed!” The stats are amazing, and even the crit isn’t necessarily a waste with the upcoming changes. And to top it all off, they’re beautiful, matching the colors of the Tree of Life (plus green)! I’m happy for all the players that will wear them proudly some day. Thank you, Blizzard!

Finally, because so many have asked about it, I am writing a non-Druid-related blog. (Resto4Life has been too much fun to give blogging up altogether.) Focused on my love of Marvel comics – and specifically my long-standing love for two specific characters – the supremely dorky Sugah & Spice blog is small, less frequently updated, and intended to be a much, much, much (much) lower level of responsibility than was Resto4Life. While I doubt the content will be of much interest to many readers, maybe there are a few other comic geeks out there who would be interested in reading something so niche.

Related Posts

• Community Spotlight: Road to Blizzcon
• Resto4Life Closing Its Doors
• Community Spotlight: Gank Frank

Thanks to everyone who sent in one or more screenshots for the Farewell Celebration! Click on any below to enlarge (and scroll through the gallery).

In Game Party

And here were a couple of images from the in-game Farewell Celebration (complete with cake, dancing, and – of course – plenty of booze)!

The Winners

As announced, I randomed off a Belkin Nostromo N52 TE along with 2 Tree Shirts. As a surprise thank you gift to those who showed up, I randomed off an additional 3 Tree Shirts! Congratulations to the following winners:

• Yragon of Medivh (US) – Nostromo
• Timov of Proudmoore (US) – Tree Shirt
• Eittynn of Eldre’Thalas (US) – Tree Shirt
• Ermengol of Shadowsong (EU) – Tree Shirt
• Macclean of Doomhammer (US) – Tree Shirt
• Kayeri of Doomhammer (US) – Tree Shirt

Thanks to everyone who participated, either by sending in a picture or coming to the party!

Related Posts

• Resto4Life Closing Its Doors
• Some Follow-Up
• Timberrrrrrrrrr!!! Arbor Day is Coming!!

First of all, allow me to say how much I appreciate the outpouring of gratitude and support I’ve received since posting Resto4Life Closing Its Doors. It’s truly overwhelming, and I can’t be more thankful to everyone who’s spoken to me – directly, through comments, through e-mail, or through their own blogs – with nothing but kind words. Wow!

Secondly, I’ve realized that I could have been clearer in terms of how you can submit your screenshot for the “Farewell” competition. Here is some additional information:

1. You can submit your image(s) by e-mailing them to.
2. All entries must be submitted on or before March 12th to give me plenty of time to prepare the post.
3. TGA, JPG, or PNG are all acceptable formats.
4. You must be in some Druid form or in one of the class-specific armor sets so that I can verify your Druid identity.
5. I would appreciate also if you could let me know if you happen to live outside the U.S. or Canada so I know whether you are eligible to win the Nostromo N52te.
6. I’m going to do the give away in game on March 19th at 9 PM EST in the Shadowglen starting area in Teldrassil on my home server, Scarlet Crusade (US). Shadowglen is the starting town for Night Elf Druids.
7. You need not be present to be eligible to win, and you need not have submitted a picture to come hang out with all the baby Druids (Restoforwife, I’m looking at you).
8. Because of the tremendous number of shirts that have been ordered in the last few days, I’m also able to offer two shirts as “runner-up” prizes in the “roll off” competition! Thanks, everyone!
9. No, I’m not giving away naming rights to our baby. Nice try, though!

Fimlys and Bre, cohosts of the Twisted Nether Blogcast have very graciously invited me onto their upcoming show. I had to decline recording it live because a) I might get overly emotional and b) I’d definitely be over-nervous, but I am looking forward to recording on Friday (shows are typically released at some time the following week).

My contact form has apparently been borked since the last time I tried to “fix” it. If you sent me a message that way, please send me an e-mail instead. I’ve been unable to respond to Ako of Tortheldrin (US) or Imparatus of Azgalor (US) so far.

Finally, I realize that I wasn’t clear about the future of the site. As far as I can foresee, Resto4Life will remain online at least until the next expansion (the only thing that would change this would be if something went catastrophically wrong with it). I’m a web developer so having some web space available to me is always a good thing. As such, while I appreciate the several offers of hosting I’ve received, I’m happy to continue hosting it myself. Thank you, though.

Related Posts

• Resto4Life Closing Its Doors
• Shift Happens Submissions!
• "Shift Happens" Contest and Community Spotlight

As of March 19, 2009, Resto4Life will be closing its doors*.

As you can (hopefully) imagine, this was no easy decision to make. In fact, it’s one I’ve been struggling with for the past three months which – not coincidentally – was about the time I found out the happy news that Mr. Phae and I are expecting our first child. I quickly came to realize that it will be too difficult for me to balance working full time, taking care of a new baby, blogging, and finding time to actually play the game I blog about.

I feel a tremendous amount of love and obligation toward Resto4Life, its readership, and all of the time I’ve given to both over the past two years. I take pride in the readership I’ve garnered and the reputation I have for helping others. All of which are positive emotions. At the same time, however, feelings of guilt, disinterest, stress, and unhappiness have lead me to conclude that it is time for me to move on to a new chapter of my life. Hopefully this will be a chapter where I can consider playing another MMO, drawing, or rereading a favorite book series without feeling a sense of guilt that I’d be stealing time away that could be devoted instead to improving Resto4Life. Perhaps I can finally take a laptop-less vacation or stop compulsively checking my Blackberry every 5 minutes for new site-related emails or comments. And maybe I can finally stop saying “I’m sorry, but I just don’t have time for another personal project.”

I want to give special thanks to everyone who’s helped make Resto4Life what it is or just helped made my stay within the blogosphere a happy one. Runycat of Unbearably HoT, Megan from Out of Mana, Karthis from Of Teeth and Claws, Bigbearbutt, Andrige, Graylo, Daniel from Bigredkitty, Leafshine, Matt and Sydera from WoM, Bell from 4 Haelz, my co-authors Currant and Korryna. A special thank you goes out to Mr. Phae for his dedication, mathematical analysis, and tolerance of my near obsession over the years. Thank you also to the many wonderful commenters who have frequented Resto4Life, among them Zackoria, Ermengol, Hokuto, Nilianil, Tone, Yggdrasil, Bigtoy, Crythia, Zaira, Kestrel, Kalaghan, Keeva, Aiuriun, Warscreamer, Dimitris, Beathooven, Kaera, Josh, Kuhbi, Ammeli, Draezele, Not An Issue, Wise Fox, Adarel, and Horns. Finally, thank you to all the readers out there, RSS or otherwise. Even if you’ve never commented before, thank you for choosing to read Resto4Life. I hope that it has enriched your enjoyment of the game in some way and wish you all the best in your future adventures in Azeroth, Outlands, Northrend, and beyond.

As a celebration of the community here at Resto4Life, I plan to make a final post in March, comprised of reader-submitted screenshots and artwork. Because over the past two years, I’ve tried to embrace and welcome all types of Druid players, you can feel free to submit a picture in whatever form (excluding Elf or Cow for verification purposes) that you prefer and needn’t limit yourself to Tree Form. Of those who choose to participate, I will randomly be awarding a Belkin Nostromo Speedpad N52TE, purchased from the funds I’ve acquired from shirt sales and advertising revenue. I hope that in this small way, I can say “thank you” to everyone who has made such a difference in my life. If you are interested in participating, please be sure to send me your submission by or before March 12, 2009. Due to shipping costs, you must live within the U.S. or Canada to be eligible to win the Nostromo, but I encourage International visitors to participate anyway.

With warmest regards,
Phaelia

P.S. Although the Tree Shirts store will remain online as long as Resto4Life does, I probably won’t be advertising any further sales. As such, U.S. residents still interested in purchasing a Tree Shirt can save 17% with code MARCH29. Canadian residents can use code CADMARCH39. Note that this discount only applies on orders of $25 or more and will expire March 12th.

*The contents of Resto4Life will remain available for at least the forseeable future. However, I will no longer be posting or responding to comments or contact requests. I will also be largely withdrawing (even further) from the blogging community at large, including Blog Azeroth.

Related Posts

• Some Follow-Up
• Resto4Life … or at least 2007
• Phaelia’s Vestments of the Sprouting Seed

Taking a cue from Leafshine, I’d like to take this opportunity to take a look back at 2008 for Resto4Life.

Top 10 Posts as Measured by Page Views

As I would have expected, among the most popular articles to reference were guides, including 2.4 mana regeneration and how to pick from the plethora of trinkets available in TBC. Andrige is also directly responsible for more than 120,000 of my page hits in 2008 with his sharing of a female hairstyles preview (which continues to receive lots of inbound links) and his customized shapeshifting skins.

1. Wrath of the Lich King Female Hairstyles
   This post alone has brought in more than 100,000 visitors. I imagine the companion piece over at BBB has had similar results.
2. Calculator: Mana Regeneration (from 2.4)
   This will eventually be updated for Wrath, but I’ve been reluctant to invest the time with all the blue talk about wanting to nerf mana regeneration (an action that could significantly change the formula used).
3. 2.4 Mana Regen: The Basics
   Without a doubt, one of my most complex series of 2008.
4. Andrige’s Shapeshift Skins
   Clearly, forms customization is high on the priority list for Druids! Hopefully 2009 will see some innovative and inspiring new forms for Druids of all shape.
5. Mailbag: WotLK Item List
   This was my original “I filter WoWHead so you don’t have to” list. I’m going back and writing more detailed posts by groups of slots now.
6. Grid: Thinking within the Box(es)
   Not surprisingly, many people had follow-up questions to my post on customizing this often overwhelmingly complex addon.
7. Talent Spec: Leveling Restoration/Balance
8. The Belkin Nostromo N52 TE
9. 2.4 Mana Regen: Regrowth as the New Raid Heal
   As far back as 2.4, I totally called the awesomeness of Regrowth.
10. Arrrghhh!!! Trinkets!!!
    This is another post I intend to rewrite for Wrath at some point, though if ever stop posting, it’s a good guess that I didn’t make it through writing it!

Top 10 Posts as Measured by Comments

These are the posts that got visitors talking. I worked hard in 2008 to ensure that I responded to as many comments as I could, but these posts were the ones that gave me a definite run for my money!

1. Direct Healing in Wrath (73 comments) 
   Interestingly, the original post on this subject written during the WotLK beta (since unpublished to avoid confusion) generated 27 comments of its own!
2. Ghostcrawler: Wild Growth May Receive 6-Second Cooldown (65 comments)
   This is a very recent post that generated a lot of discussion about whether such a cooldown was necessary and how much it would affect us if so.
3. Grid: Thinking within the Box(es) (63 comments)
4. The Belkin Nostromo N52 TE (63 comments)
   I was very happy with the amount of interest this post generated. Still waiting for my free Belkin Nostromo N52 TE to give away as part of a site contest, though! /peers Belkin
5. Andrige’s Shapeshift Skins (61 comments)
6. Blue: Mana Regen Complexity and Restoration Scaling (60 comments)
7. Bornakk: Druids Not to be “Big Green Blobs” (59 comments)
   I’m still waiting for the Druid- or multi-healer-oriented blog named “Big Green Blob.”
8. 9014 Nerfs and Ghostcrawler Responds to Resto Concerns (55 comments)
9. Build 8962 Changes (51 comments)
10. Ghostcrawler: Healers Not to be Interchangeable (51 comments)

Surprisingly, many of the top-commented post were related to blue posts or posts about upcoming changes to the class and spec. This would seem to indicate that a large number of visitors like to get their Druid-related (or at least Resto-related) news here and might even prefer discussing it here to discussing it on the forums.

Most Popular Shirt Designs

I love adding new designs to the shirt shop. Here were the top performers in 2008 (these results are obviously biased based on the time they were added):

1. HoTs Girlfriend and HoTs Boyfriend
2. Positive Carbon Footprint
3. Restoration Cloud
4. Resto4Life Logo
5. Restoration Wreath

Other Stats of Interest for 2008

• There were 234 total posts.
• Visitors made a total of 3706 comments.
• I made a total of 650 comments.
• Resto4Life.com received a total of 665,410 visits and 1,355,119 page views.
• Visitors spent an average of 3 minutes on the site per visit.
• There were 29 Community Spotlight posts or an average of 2.4 a month.
• I received (and hopefully responded to) more than 450 e-mails, not including those related to Arbor Day or Turkey Day.

Thank You!

Thanks to everyone who visited and contributed and helped make 2008 an awesome year for Resto4Life! I am looking forward with excitement to 2009 and hope you are, too!

Related Posts

• Resto4Life Closing Its Doors
• Work Complete!
• More Work?