Expand those zones

My hunter is about halfway through the few quests in Azshara and I got to thinking, how come some of the zones are so underdeveloped?

It isn't the only zone with a very limited amount of quests. Swamp of Sorrows and the Blasted Lands also don't have much, at least for Alliance, and up until recently Dustwallow Marsh was pretty useless unless you were going to kill Onyxia.

You may also notice that the later zones run a little lower on quests than the early ones. It's not such a big deal now with the faster leveling, but before that we had a tough time finding enough quests to do to get to level 60. Even so, I would like to see those zones developed a little more. They just seem like optional zones that usually aren't worth going to, but I think making them more viable for leveling would give us some variety in where we choose to go and help us altoholics out a little.

Now with Outlands in the picture we can see that Blizzard figured out that maybe they should put in more than enough quests to get to the level cap rather than just enough. With just enough, you usually had to grind at some point because you would be skipping the group quests. Now some people don't even have to set foot in every zone to get to 70.

And they did this all without taking away the raid content. Actually it seems like there is a lot more to do in end-game raids than with the level 60 stuff, and a lot more end-game content overall as well.

I think the initial idea was to make getting to the level cap a huge challenge, something that not everybody could do, and to get there you had to go pretty much everywhere, or else end up grinding out levels to make up for it. Now grinding isn't worth it, they've made the lower levels go by faster, and Outland has way more than enough quests to get you to 70.

It looks like they figured out that, while leveling may be fun when you haven't experienced anything else, people don't want the level cap goal to be so out of reach that it takes forever to make it there. For those people who don't get to play that much (like me) it gets frustrating when you hear about all the cool stuff at the end and know that it's gonna take forever to get there. Also, grinding sucks and if they want questing to be your main source or XP then they need to give you more than enough quests to get you there.

I guess I was a little intimidated to get to 70 at first because I thought it would be like the trek to 60 that I had endured before the expansion. Now that I have one character at 70, and didn't even have to finish Shadowmoon Valley, let alone even see Netherstorm, I know that when the time comes to make my way through Outland on another character I can go about it in a different way and still get there without having to worry about running out of quests.

Choosing a class

For many players their character's class is their identity. BRK is a hunter, BBB is a druid, and while they may or may not have other characters they play, they are still their main class at heart and that is how everyone knows them. I, on the other hand, am pretty general. I play them all, some more than others, but I don't identify myself with any one class.

Either way, choosing a class is important, especially when you first get the game as this will most likely determine how much you like it. Choosing a class that you don't have fun playing can quickly make you lose interest, so try to imagine yourself playing and what you imagine your character being able to do. Now read on to see if any of these class descriptions match what you imagined. Obviously I can't go into too much detail or it would take me all day, but I'll give you the highlights.

• Druid - Probably the most versatile class, you can shapeshift forms becoming a cat that can claw away for lots of damage, a bear that will take a lot of punishment and keep you alive for a long time, a moonkin (owlbeast) that can blast spells at enemies from far away, or a tree that will keep your allies alive and well. If you're undecided on a class I would go for this one so you can try all different styles and pick on that suits you best.

• Hunter - This is the only class that can hold it's own using ranged weapons like bows and guns. You also get to tame a pet, which will run in to attack enemies while you shoot them from afar. Some say they make the game very easy compared to other classes, but playing in groups with one is a whole different ball game.

• Mage - Like doing lots of damage? Like throwing fireballs and ice bolts at enemies and watching their life go down quickly? Then mages are for you. As long as you keep from getting hit it's all good, but don't count on staying alive too long when enemies start beating on you.

• Paladin - These are the holy knights, able to wear heavy armor, take lots of damage, and heal allies. You will usually carry around a big two-handed sword or mace and cause big damage to enemies while also being able to keep your friends alive, or you can choose to defend them with a shield, maybe not causing as much damage, but definitely taking the brunt of the attacks.

• Priest - Most people who have played a game like this before see the priest and automatically think 'healer', but with the right skills you can cause lots of damage too. Yes, they are one of the best healers in the game if you choose to go that route, but you can also turn into a shadow priest and blast enemies while using that damage to heal yourself and your friends.

• Rogue - Rogues are sneaky, strike fast, and cause lots of damage up close. You can become invisible to your enemies until it's too late, then stab them in the back before they even know what hit them. You can even add poison to your blades to cause extra pain and keep them incapacitated so they have no chance of even striking back.

• Shaman - Another class that can serve many roles. Shamans can be powerful casters, throwing lightning and other spells at enemies and causing massive damage, but also able to run in close and hold their own in melee, all the while having healing spells to keep yourself and your friends alive. They also use totems to further increase their power, just don't get too far from them or their benefits will fade.

• Warlock - If you don't mind being evil and watching people run away screaming while you burn them down, then you might like being a warlock. They use various curses and diseases to cause damage over time, then throw fire and shadow spells to cause even more damage. They also have a range of minions that they can summon to fight at their disposal which have various skills of their own.

• Warrior - This class is built around melee combat, both dishing out damage and taking it. Warriors utilize plate mail, a shield and lots of health to stay alive, but can also either dual wield or swing a big two-handed weapon to inflict lots of damage. They use no magic and have no healing abilities, but make up for it using their rage.

Are any of these descriptions what you imagine your character to be? If so then choose away and have fun.

If not I would suggest going with a druid as they mimic many of the other classes, and even if you find you don't like it, you may like one aspect of it. Bear form is like being a warrior, cat form is like being a rogue, moonkin is like being a mage, and tree form can be compared to a holy priest. None of them are exactly the same, but should be close enough to get the idea. This doesn't cover every class, but it should be enough to get you thinking.

After all this explanation it might be good to add that you should not fret too much over your class. With how well this game was made, chances are you'll have fun anyway, even if it doesn't end up being your favorite class. I've found that I like each class in its own way, and while I may like one better than another, they are still fun to play.

BETA not guaranteed

It may seem to many of you that the bloggers have been rather lucky in getting beta keys for the new expansion, maybe a little too lucky. Well I don't have one, nor have I ever gotten a beta key from any game I signed up for. I was very hopeful in getting one for Warhammer Online because I put my name in pretty much as soon as they opened up for applications, but that doesn't seem to be a factor. So far the only beta I've been in was for Warcraft 3, but that was when they made it and open beta.

I'm not complaining though. Sure I would review a lot of the stuff here, and running Vista I am probably the most prone to having the game cause my computer to crash, but since any progress I would make in beta wouldn't count once the expansion was actually released, I don't see myself playing it all that much in favor of leveling my current characters.

Something else that alleviates the bitterness is this new patch (see previous post), and since I probably won't venture into Northrend right off the bat anyway, it pretty much means getting the expansion early for me.

Actually, that isn't quite true. See, what I'm going to do right when I get the expansion is create a death knight. I mean come on, cool new class that the game hasn't seen before? Of course I have to try it out, just like I have to try every other class out.

I know many of you are going to wait on it until the initial rush dies down a little, but I made a Draenei shaman right when TBC came out and I have to say, it wasn't too bad. The thing is, at that time we thought the game mechanics would stay the same, and with so many players running around the same area, with the same quests, killing the same stuff, it would be impossible to get anything done. Well the new respawn rate rules were also introduced at that time, and I have no trouble finding mobs to kill.

Blizzard actually tends to read our feedback and in the case that they believe it is valid, they will do something about it. I'm sure by now they have heard all the speculations on how the death knight starting area will be way too crowded and have done something about it. Sure it will be crowded, but that doesn't mean it will be impossible to get anything done.

I'm sort of wondering where the death knights will be after finished up their starting area. Will they be ready for Outland, or will they still have to do some work in Azeroth before they are up to speed? Obviously it also depends on how you go about playing through the starting area, but for the most part they tend to plan zones around getting you to a certain level before you move on to the next.

It's gonna be cool to create a character and immediately have a bunch of talent points to spend. I personally can't wait to summon ghouls, but I'm a little undecided on which talent tree to go into, they all sound pretty cool. I guess by now the beta testers are already figuring out which trees work best for which styles of play, so hopefully I can find some info out there on release day to give me a better idea of where to put my points.

On a side note, my hunter hit level 54 and is now on her way to Azshara to take on the few quests that are there. I always wished they would do more with that zone as much of it doesn't get utilized in the game, but it doesn't look like they will be going back to add to any of the Old World content anytime soon.

The big news

I'm sure by the time you get around to reading my blog you have already heard the big news about the upcoming patch incorporating a bunch of WotLK stuff. I'm not going to quote it again here, but if you really haven't seen it you shouldn't have too much trouble finding it.

One thing I do want to know is whether we will get our talent points refunded. I know that sometimes when they revamp a class' talent tree they will refund the points because of such a drastic change. Well I think adding new tiers of talents is a pretty drastic change, and with lots of talents that were previously very good becoming useless and vice versa, it only seems fair that we should be able to respec for free when the changes hit.

I've also been looking into the new hunter pet families and it's probably one of the things I am excited about the most. Not only do we get more pet stable slots, but there are way more pets to choose from and your choice isn't going to be based one of only a few viable pets that outperform everything else. Sadly it looks like cats aren't going to be much good with prowl as their special ability. Lots of people will be putting away their cats for something else now.

The one thing I've noticed though is out of all the families that are listed so far, there are still a lot missing. Of course it wouldn't make sense to have any of the underwater only beasts as pets, but what I'm not seeing are the rest of the dinos from Un'Goro, kodos, clefthoofs, basalisks, talbuks, or even a zhevra or stag. I realize most of these guys are normally neutral, but they still tend to pack a punch if you do decide to fight them.

I saw BRK's pics with his giant rhino, so that rules out the kodos and clefthoofs being too big, of course your raid would probably hate you if you brought one along. Basalisks seem like an obvious choice as they tend to have a stun ability (stone gaze or something like it), which would be very good for a pet. The Un'Goro dinosaurs don't seem too far fetched if we can have raptors and devilsaurs, and the pterrordax with a fear ability seems like an obvious choice for PvP hunters.

I suppose the talbuks, zhevras and stags are more grazing animals, and might not make sense when you think of training one to obey commands. I suppose they would be more like sheep or cows, and we all know how well they listen. That isn't to say that sending a cow in to off-tank a raid boss wouldn't be hilarious, but maybe Blizzard is being reasonable about this. I couldn't see these types having any special abilities anyway.

Lastly will be the new inscription profession. As I mentioned before, my hunter is really far behind on his herbalism, and with my lack of motivation to go back and level it up to where it should be, I might just drop it and go for inscription when the patch comes out. Can you send glyphs through the mail to other characters or is it going to be like enchanting is now?

I really want to try out the new druid shapeshifted form changing glyphs, but they will probaby be in pretty high demand, meaning high prices. Along those lines the, inscribers will be able to make some kind of parchment for enchanters to put their enchants on and sell as items. This means my priest can finally just send her enchants to my other characters and maybe even make some money selling them.

I ended up talking about the patch pretty much the whole post even thought it's been posted about enough already, but that just goes to show how much anticipation is built up about the new expansion and all the changes that will be going along with it.

Back to basics

I never read blogs over the weekends. It's more of a 'do in your free time at work' thing. Usually I end up with a bunch of new posts to read as I do read quite a few other blogs, some of which will have multiple posts per day.

Today was a bit of a surprise as my normal barrage of new blog posts to read was a lot smaller than usual. Many bloggers didn't post this weekend, and the ones that did either kept it short or just had one new post. I'm not sure what the deal is. It doesn't seem to be people getting burnt out, more like with a new expansion coming most people just aren't as motivated since most of what they accomplish now will be obselete in a few months.

I guess I'm lucky in that respect since pretty much all the leveling I do will only further my characters along in the game, I'm just holding off on my level 60+ characters in hopes that Outland leveling will be accelerated in the expansion.

This weekend I got to relearn how to be a hunter again, although not for much longer as I can already see the end of my rested XP bar. It actually feels a little strange gaining two levels in the amount of time it would take to get about half a level in Outland. Really makes you notice how much faster the leveling is before you hit 60 now.

To recap, I finished up Tanaris pretty quickly with my hunter, then moved on to Un'Goro crater. I'm really starting to remember what made being a hunter so fun. I can pretty much solo anything within 4 levels of me, maybe even more, I just haven't tried it yet.

I started out at level 51 at the beginning of the weekend and am now most of the way through level 53 and should be 54 very soon. The only drawback is when you level this fast you run out of that rested bonus fast too. I'm already closing in on it, and since my strategy is to level characters only when they have rested bonus, I may be switching over to the shammy sooner than I may have liked.

One advantage with my hunter is that she is a dual gatherer, with skinning and herbalism. The drawback is she never really leveled herbalism much and I can't really pick any of what I see in the areas I'm questing in. Good thing I have no alchemists that need farming, but I'm not really looking forward to farming a bunch of zones to get to where I need to be.

The plus side is I haven't managed to level my druid's leatherworking past 300 yet so he is stuck with lots of knothide leather that he can't use. Well now that my hunter is far enough along he's getting heavy and rugged leather from all those dinosaurs and gorillas in Un'Goro, meaning he can give it over to the druid and maybe I'll eventually push my leatherworking into the higher levels.

If my leveling keeps going at this rate I could very well have 5 characters over level 60 by the time the new expansion comes out, and I might even be able to find some time to level my little Hordies a too.

WoW as in literature

Unlike most games that have very simple storylines, WoW has lots of background, both coming from previous games and from literature that has been written by various authors. Now I can't claim to know too much of the lore behind the game, but from what I do know of it I can easily relate to other fantasy novels.

Anybody out there think reading fantasy is for geeks? Well if you play WoW you are pretty much playing a role in a fantasy, and that would make you a geek too right? And I'm not just talking about Lord of the Rings here, but pretty much any fantasy novel or series out there. The Warcraft storyline loves to follow the recipe that most of those books use.

A powerful evil being unlike anything the world has seen before calls upon an army of terrifying beings to kill off all that stand in their way. The good guys are comprised of multiple races who had their problems in the past, but to face this greater evil they must work together. Despite the overwhelming forces of evil the good guys find a way to defeat them, usually through some kind of magic. Sound familiar? Seems a lot like the Scourge or the Burning Legion to me.

I relate this to fantasy novels just so you can get a sense of what I'm talking about, but what is interesting is that most of the ideas for the fantasy books come mainly from Scandinavian mythology. Yes, even Tolkien didn't come up with all that stuff on his own, and now with the new expansion we see it more than ever in Northrend.

The world tree Idrassil on Mount Hyjal? Well the Scandinavian world tree is called Yggdrassil. Hmm. The new Vrykul race in Northrend seem a lot like Vikings to me, and Utgard Keep is named after Utgard, the place where the giants live. The Howling Fjord is one of the new zones, and as you many know, fjord is a word of Scandinavian origin. The dwarves in Scandinavian mythology are made by the gods from the earth, so it's no wonder they would live inside of a mountain in WoW. And guess who else has a hammer that can throw lightning. That would be Thor, son of Odin who is leader of the Scandinavian gods.

Obviously I can't say everything in the game comes from this Norse mythology, because it doesn't, but there are many similarities between the two. I'm sure many of the other important pieces of the Warcraft story come from various mythological stories of different cultures.

This isn't to say that the stories they have come up with aren't original, but I do think it's interesting to know where they draw their ideas from. Blizzard obviously either has some well read writers or they just really know how to use Wikipedia well.

On a side note, I read a review of the new Indiana Jones movie a little while ago, and the complaint was that it was too much like a videogame. After thinking about that, it occurred to me that he had it backwards. The movie wasn't like a videogame, it's just that videogames have become more like movies. Looking back at the first three Indiana Jones movies, I think if they had been released now he would have said the same thing about them too. We're just spoiled with games now that have great storylines, and WoW has one of the best so far.

How it all began

Everything happens for a reason, and my obsession with alts is no different. Now I'm at the point where sticking with only one class just seems a foreign way of thinking to me, but it wasn't always that way. I played my first character, Deadbare the rogue, well into the 50's before I created my first alt, and he was mainly there to take up time for my rogue to rest at an inn.

Blackbare, my druid, started out on a whim I had. As I got close to 60 with my rogue I found very few quests left to do an still a few levels left, so I resorted to grinding. I hate grinding, but it had to be done, and with the double XP bonus you get when rested I decided to only grind when I had a good amount built up. This led to creating a second character to play in the meantime.

Why a druid? Well I though shapeshifting was cool. I actually didn't know that the forms each served different purposes, I just wanted to be a bear or a cat. Once I started out I found that being able to heal myself was the best thing ever. No sitting and eating, just cast a spell and move on. The druid slowly grew on me, but the rogue was still my main and getting to 60 would take priority.

Upon reaching 60 I was in a semi-end-game guild. Most players had a 60, with some up and coming, along with alts that were being leveled but in the guild so they could still chat with us. Problem was we had lots of rogues, and they were running MC and ZG and such, which I wasn't ready for yet. I managed some Scholo and Strat runs with some of the less experienced guildies and PUGs, but with so much DPS out there it was frustrating trying to find groups.

After a bunch of runs in which I never came out with any gear I was getting fed up. How was I supposed to join the rest of my guild if I couldn't get myself decently geared up? I noticed that every time I tried to get a group together the hardest thing to get was a healer and that if I had a healer I would be getting in groups easily.

Now at that time priests were pretty much considered THE healer class, bar none. Sure I had a druid, but everybody wanted a priest. I made up my mind to create a priest and join the guild in the endgame when I was ready. Of course I knew I wouldn't get her to 60 before the expansion, but priests would always be healers, so I would fill that role in end-game no matter what.

She leveled as holy for a while, but it was getting ridiculously difficult and I switched her to shadow. It was great, and I knew that getting to level 40 I would get shadow form, which pretty much makes you and your mount look awesome, which I cared about more than the stat boosts.

Now I had three characters, and they were all fun in their own way. Then came the announcement that shamans would be playable by Alliance. Shamans always seemed awesome to me, and there was a time that they were PvP champs, the bane of the Alliance. Now we would get them, and then and there I made up my mind that creating a shaman would be first priority when I got the expansion, and that's exactly what I did.

Not only was the shaman fun, but the new Draenei starting area was really cool and well thought out too. I went enhancement for the high melee DPS it provided and haven't looked back, although I respecced when I found I had picked some of the useless talents out of that tree.

With four characters sitting on my account I was well into becoming obsessed with alts, and now that I had witnessed firsthand the fun I could have with each class, I was becoming very curious about the others.

This pretty much led to all the other characters, and while at first I went Horde to play with a friend, I eventually decided the change of faction would add even more variety to the game.

My hunter came from a desire I had to play a hunter ever since I first got the game and watched one of my friends play one. The mage was because I had seen two undead mages just obliterate a bunch of Alliance in WPL. The rest I just figured I had everything else, why not complete the set?

I've come a long way since then. One 70, two over 60, with two more coming up in their early 50s. Of course with how limited my play time is I don't expect to ever be going on any raids or even end-game instances, but unlike many of you that's not what makes the game fun for me. I like leveling up, doing quests, and I like to do it on all different characters.

DING!

I just had to say it. Even though most of the people in the game that say it are annoying as hell. I was in a guild once where one of the members was leveling an alt that he also had join the guild. Seriously, starting at level 1 he said "DING" for every single level up until I quit the guild, and at those low levels it's like every 10 minutes.

But I'm getting off subject. The important thing is I FINALLY HAVE A LEVEL 70!!

Remember yesterday I said I would have big news soon? Did you even read yesterday's post? And those of you who did, did you guess what I was talking about?

Well this is it, and I'm pretty proud of myself. At the end there I almost couldn't do it. I keep seeing all this cool new stuff about the new expansion and while some of it has to do with druids, I also want to make sure my other characters are in a pretty good position to experience it as well.

First thing I did was port to Moonglade and learn all my level 70 skills, as well as use the last talent point my druid will get until the next expansion. Then I logged out and took a few minutes to let the excitement fade a little.

Some of you may think getting to 70 is just the start, and for you that may be true, but for me it's a goal I've been striving to reach for a while. It would be nice if it wasn't so close to expansion release or I would look into doing some dailies to get my epic flying skill, but that will have to wait while I work on other characters.

I hopped on my priest to see where she's at and it looks like she is much closer to 300 tailoring than I thought. She's actually at 295 right now and if I could get my hands on some Ironweb Spider Silk I could level her the rest of the way up. How is that stuff not on the AH on my server? You pretty much have to have it to level your tailoring to 300. I expected to find it way overpriced, but to my surprise it was nowhere to be found. And where can I find Ghost Dye?

For now she's just staying at Honor Hold until she gets more supply of runecloth, then she will be making loads of bolts of netherweave.

I also checked out my hunter and where she's at, although it was too late to actually do anything but look. Apparently I've already completed a bunch of Tanaris, although I do have a few quests left there, then I can head to Un'Goro and beat up on some dinosaurs for a while.

I'm interested to see what this change of pace will feel like. The levels will be coming at me a lot faster now, and while I've been estimating my leveling time based on my druid recently, I'm not sure I even remember how fast the levels come in the 50's. It's also been a while since I've seen a lot of the Azeroth world, and I'm excited to be back in my old stomping grounds.

Searches

Some very exciting news is coming soon, but not quite yet. I'm sure you can probably figure out what it is if you've been reading this blog, but all I can say is I'm not quite there yet, but I'm very close.

In the meantime, I thought I'd take a look at all the searches people use that end up leading them to this blog. Some of them are quite interesting, and some of them make me wonder how far they went down the list before their search showed that this blog is relevent.

Here we go:

"how to pass items from a horde to alliance character" - This one is tricky, as you either need someone you can trust to help you or take a risk on losing the item. First, both characters need to be on the same server, which means you can't be on a PvP server as you can't be both factions on those. Next, find a neutral auction house, either in Booty Bay or Gadgetzan, and put your item up for auction.

Here's where you take the risk. One relatively safe way is to have a friend you trust that is the same faction as the character you are sending the item to buy the item from that AH and then trade it to the intended character. If you don't have any friends you need to log out and log into the intended character as fast as you can and hope nobody bought the item you put up in the time it takes you to do that. Then you can just buy your own item and you're done. Either way it takes some planning, and make sure to use the exact same AH, I don't think the neutral ones are linked like the faction ones.

"how to change world of warcraft drop rates" - This was a mechanic they had in Diablo 2 where certain equippable items and charms increased drop rates of items. This can't be done in WoW thouhg unless maybe you are on a private server, and if that's the case you can just make yourself some items anyway.

"wow ogre playable" - not yet, and you can read this post on why they probably won't ever be.

"d3 new character" - I don't think anything new has been announced yet, all I know is I'm hoping for the Amazon to make an encore appearance.

"wow worst race troll warrior" - I've heard this too, as apparently the racial abilities of trolls are not nearly as good for warriors as other races. If you really want a troll warrior don't let this stop you though, play how you want, it's all about fun.

"wow zoning" - This isn't really an issue in WoW as there is no loading between the overworld zones. Instances are a different matter, and I think they took a smart approach to this, letting many groups into different instances of the same dungeon so they don't interfere with each other.

"if i transfer a level 70 character to a account can i still make a deathknight" - The only stipulation seems to be having a character of over level 55 on your account, so if that is the case you should be able to do that.

"hate the barrens" - Me too, but I'm not sure what the point of searching for this is, I think Barrens chat would be a better place to talk about this.

"problem with levels 65 at BEM wow" - Yeah, you're probably a little low to be up there, make sure you've gotten most of Terokkar and Nagrand done first, or do some grinding.

"horde player beginner wow" - Well, it's a big game, with lots of stuff to learn, but you don't need to know everything right away, it will take a while before most of the stuff becomes important to you. Take a look at my Beginner Tips on the right sidebar, they can give you some pointers on the early levels and what you should be thinking about up until around level 20 or so.


Any other questions for me are more than welcome. I might not have too much experience with end game content, but for new and leveling characters I have tons.

So close...

As I predicted, I didn't get much time to play this weekend. Went to a couple birthdays and they got me too tired to do anything more than sit and watch TV the rest of the weekend.

I did manage to get myself a little further along the road to 70. I'm probably somewhere close to 2/3 of the way through level 69 and at this pace I should be able to hit 70 sometime this week. It's coming down to the wire, so close I can almost taste it, and then I get to figure out what my next step will be.

It would be nice to get swift flight form on my druid, but it seems like that will take a lot of time, first to collect the money to get my riding skill, then to actually do the quests and run those instances, plus I really want to play another character at this point to get a change of pace.

My priest is sitting at level 63 right now, but after all this time spent in Outland already I'm thinking of taking a break from that and going back to one of my lower level characters. It would be nice to get her to 300 tailoring, but she's in need of runecloth, and a lot of it. Right now she has a ridiculous amount of netherweave just waiting to be used, but I'll need to level up her skill, and I don't want to spend money on the AH if I don't have to.

That's where my hunter and shaman come in. They are both around level 50, have rested XP bonuses filled up, and I think they are ready to do some leveling. I'm thinking the hunter will go first as I really like playing her much more and soloing on a hunter is just so easy. The problem is I think she is ready to start in Un'Goro Crater, which pretty much has nothing in the way of humanoids, and therefore no runecloth drops.

The shammy on the other hand I'm not really sure about. Every time I hop on one of my characters that I haven't played in a while it takes a little time to figure out exactly what I was doing last time and what I will be doing next. I think I just finished up Feralas and her next move is either Tanaris or the Hinterlands. Either way I don't think her runecloth collecting will start until she's ready to take on the Plaguelands.

The change of pace in leveling will be a little bit of a relief from what I've been used to. I'm thinking I'll catch up to my rested bonus in the same amount of time it was taking my druid to get half a level worth of XP, maybe even less. I'm sort of looking forward to when these characters take on Outlands and I have to figure out different ways of making it through all those quests.

The big difference I think will be that on my druid I had stealth, and then at level 68 I got flight form. Since most of the time I could just stealth past most mobs if I didn't want to fight, it may have hindered my leveling rate. Then getting flight form I could just drop in, do the quest, and fly away, fighting one or two mobs instead of 15 to get to the quest objective.

I wonder how much faster these up and coming characters will level up compared to my druid. On the one hand I won't be able to sneak past everything to get the quest done, which means more mobs and more XP from that. On the other hand I won't be getting that quest turn-in XP as quickly because of the fact that I'll be getting stuck killing mobs rather than turning in the quests. It's a trade off, and I expect these characters will hit level 70 before they do many of the quests my druid had to do, but I'm not sure if the time it takes will be any less.

No matter what it will be a long time before I even think about getting to 70 with another character with how often I play, and at that point 70 won't even be the level cap anymore. This game is gonna keep me occupied for a good long while.

Taking on the Legion

I'm in the process of building a bomb to take out the Legion's infernal reinforcements. If any of you don't know what I'm talking about, it's a quest in Shadowmoon Valley. So far I have hidden in a box while eavesdropping on the Legion's plans to destroy the Alliance and Horde bases there, then took some parts from broken Fel Reavers to put together to form a bomb.

Overall I'm having a good time in this zone. The quests aren't so much just killing random mobs for drops, there are a lot that have to do with taking down the big bad guys. It feels more like I am contributing to the cause and less like I'm just collecting some items for some lazy NPC that can't take the time to do it himself.

I'm also past the halfway point between 69 and 70, and this weekend I may just be able to push myself up over that final hump and make it to the top. It's gonna be hectic though, there are a lot of birthdays in August for some reason, maybe because Christmas is 9 months before? Anyway, I have two birthday parties to go to, and that might not leave much time to get that last half of a level, but I think I'm only gonna need a few hours to get there.

I normally can't watch YouTube videos at work, and that includes all those videos on BRK's site that he's posted recently showing him with some of the new pets and their talent builds. Well the filter is down today or something because there they were, and I could watch them. I must say, I'm pretty excited to play my hunter now and get some of those new pets when the new expansion comes out.

Obviously the one I'm most excited about is the devilsaur, as I'm sure most hunters are drooling over that one, but what I'm really hoping is that pretty much any beast can be tamed. I know it's a long shot, but there are a lot of beasts in this game that I would love to see running alongside some hunters. Maybe I wouldn't personally want each one, but I know if they were made available there would be hunters who would use them.

All those beasts in the Barrens? You know, the zhevras and giraffes and such? Kodos would be cool, along with their cousins the clefthoofs. The stags in Ashenvale? Actually, how sweet would it be to tame a squirrel? Or a chicken? I know we can have them as cosmetic pets, but you could really humiliate some people by letting your pet sheep kill them.

Alright, maybe this won't be implemented for the critters, but I really do think any mob in this game that is defined as a beast should be tameable. I know they will be making some of them "exotic" pets only tameable by beastmaster hunters that get that talent, but I know how hunters are. We look for that perfect pet that very few people have. We want people to stop us in Ironforge and ask us where we got it. By making this plethora of new pets available to hunters you would be making us very happy indeed.

Why I think this won't be hard to implement is this. The animations don't have to change when you tame a pet, so no work there. With the new pet talents they don't have to define which skills you can teach each and every pet, just which type of pet they are. It seems most pets have a special skill specific to their family, and with the imagination Blizzard has I'm sure they could come up with some more to go along with the new families.

In a game like this, with all the hours we put in to deck out our characters, customization seems to be one of the things we haven't been able to fully explore. Soon we will be getting new haircuts, even more mounts, better armor, even glyphs that will change druid shapeshifted forms, so why not give us a wider variety of pets to pick from? Not just different skins from the same family (there are so many cats out there it's ridiculous), but new families altogether.

I think this is the direction Blizzard will have to go in order to keep people interested. Add in more variety so we can make our characters unique and cause others to turn heads. Obviously some of the more exotic differences will be hard to achieve, but much like the titles that we can get floating next to our names, I'm sure we wouldn't mind even more stuff that makes people look and be impressed.

Olympic distractions

Anybody out there watching the Olympics? Me too, and it is seriously hindering my WoW playing time. Not to say that's a bad thing, but I am eager to hit level 70 and move on to a different character. Druids are fun and all, but variety keeps me in this game and I need a change of pace or I'm gonna burn out.

The problem I'm having is mainly how addictive the Olympics are. On Sunday I was pretty much sitting in front of the TV all day watching various sports. I now know way more about women's gymnastics than I ever thought I would. Did you know Michael Phelps eats about 12,000 calories a day while he is training? That's crazy, but he's obviously burning it all off.

Usually I can play WoW and watch TV at the same time, but with so many big events coming one after the other it's hard not to pay attention to the TV. Every time a gold medal event comes on I find my eyes glued to the TV, and if I do that while playing WoW I usually end up dead when I finally look back at the computer screen.

The other problem is how late the games are on. I mean, I usually go to bed around 11:00, sometimes a little later, but I don't function well on less than 6 hours so I try to get at least that. Now I'm stuck watching the Olympics until past midnight, then I'm dead tired the next day and that usually makes WoW hard to play. I would set my DVR to record them, but I know I'll read about it in the news the next day and then it won't matter, plus I wouldn't have time to watch them before they came on the next night.

It's quite the dilemma, and one that I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to figure out. I guess I will have to start playing during the sports I don't care about, except that even when those sports are on I find myself intrigued by them. Water polo, badminton, volleyball, I end up watching everything.

I did manage to squeeze a little time in last night, enough to do a few quests at least, and I am now about a third of the way from level 69 to 70. It's coming down to the wire folks, and being my first I'm pretty excited about it. Too bad it's so close to the expansion that most end game stuff would be almost a waste of time, but thats why I have my alts.

I hope to be hit 70 early next week sometime, then I can start figuring out what my next move will be. Maybe not as cool as being the greatest Olympic champion of all time, but it's a pretty good accomplishment for me

Expansion excitement

I'm hearing some good news about new developments for the expansion. If you read other blogs I'm sure you've heard this already, but apparently through the inscription profession you will be able to change the look druid shapeshifted form. Right now there are two, a red lynx cat form and polar bear form.

I really like the direction they are taking in making your characters more customizable. I think for how much the game has to offer, one of the things it was missing is being able to set your character apart from everyone else. Another example is the addition of new tameable pets for hunters and pet talent trees, getting away from those few types of pets that are the best and making each type have its own strengths.

Something I always wanted to see was the ability to change your armor color. We have all these dyes that we can buy from tailoring supply merchants, but they are used only for certain recipes. When I first started the game and saw those dyes I automatically thought that armor color would be customizable, but it didn't turn out that way.

What seems to be holding them back is that certain armor is distinguishable by its color and may look exactly the same as some other armor in all other respects. This lets players in PvP judge the other team before they even start fight and they usually become familiar with what kind of skill they are going up against by what armore their opponents are wearing.

I still would like to see customizable armor colors, but I also know there would be a lot of complaining if that was implemented. If the new armor sets could be all made to look different then I think this has a shot, but for how many different armor models they have to make I don't see that happening.

On a side note, I'm thinking about making a guild to put all my alts in. Right now when they support each other by sending items back and forth in the mail, and while this works fine since they implemented the immediate delivery, I'm finding I have very few spots in each character's bank.

If I made a guild out of them I could combine resources, put all those reagents that get used by all the professions in the guild bank and instead of trying to figure out who has what, I can just look in the bank and grab what I need.

The problem is I'm not really sure how to go about doing this. I don't really have any friends in the game right now, and while I have no problem grabbing a bunch of lowbies to sign a charter to get the guild started, I need some way of inviting each alt. Can you invite someone who isn't online and have them get the invite when they come back on? It doesn't seem like you can, but if anyone knows differently it would really help me out.

The more I think about it, the more this idea seems to be the way to go, now I just need to figure out how to implement it and I will be set.

Taking it to Nagrand

I did something I almost never do, I joined a group and knocked out some elite quests. Yes, surprising as it may be, I'm telling the truth, and it actually worked out fairly well.

So I showed up in Nagrand and was on my way to take out Banthar all by my lonesome. I don't usually pay much attention to general chat, and this time was no different, but I do pay attention when I get a whisper. All of a sudden I get whispered asking if I would heal to take down Durn the Hungerer. Being one of the quests I skipped on my first visit to Nagrand, and even though I'm feral specced, I said sure, and promptly got an invite.

I ended up in a group with a warrior, mage, and two hunters. While following Durn around waiting for our chance to strike with no adds around, one of the hunters says his 70 druid friend will tank for us since the warrior was a little low, so we sit around waiting for him to show up. Since that hunter had already done the quest and was just helping, he left the group and joined the new druid while we tagged Durn before letting him take aggro.

I like to think I did a pretty good job of healing, especially when the only way to see your tank's health is by selecting him, besides having to save the mage after he pulled aggro, and we made it through the fight fairly easily. Sure it's nothing compared to those instance bosses, but I was proud of myself.

After the fight we departed from the hunter and druid and our group of 4 decided to wreak some havoc on the legion camps for some more elite quests, which I had also skipped the first time around. I tagged along because there was pretty much no chance of me completing those on my own, and since I rarely join groups they would probably never get done if I didn't do it then and there.

I had a great time working with that group. I mostly tanked in bear form, saving the mage time and again whenever he pulled aggro, and we burned down the first couple quests in the chain. Then came the hard part as we were told to go to Shattrath for the next part of the chain and the warrior and hunter decided it was time to log.

So the mage and I pretty much duo'd the rest of the quest line, getting help only on the very last one from another group of 3 that lent us a hand in taking out the big bosses, the only part we were unable to do on our own. He was a decent player, but I think all my blog reading has really paid off in learning how to tank, even when faced with multiple mobs. I kept remembering stuff from BBB's blog about skills to use when tanking, and for the most part the mage never got touched, although without a healer I had to stun the mob and heal myself when it got tough.

We went on to take out two of the three elite mobs at the end of the Nesingwary chains, then parted ways. I soloed the last of the three right after then went to turn in everything. Most of the quest rewards weren't that great, but I had a great time teaming up with that group and getting through some tough quests.

I am now well into level 69 and have moved on to Shadowmoon Valley. At this point I may not even need to go to Netherstorm before I hit level 70, or at least if I do I won't have to do much there. This bodes well for my plan to still have some Outland quests to do when the expansion comes out so I can finish up there and be level 71 or higher before entering Northrend. I find my solo style of gameplay really works best when you enter a zone at a slightly higher level than it was designed for.

It actually looks like I will reach my goal within the next couple weeks, and with about 3 months before the expansion comes out I will have a good chance of leveling up some of my other characters a pretty good amount before then. Things are shaping up pretty well.

Put 'em up to put 'em down

Something my friends and I usually say when drinking beer, but I think this applies to my weekend WoW activities as well. I said last time that I would be going back to take out some of those elite quests I skipped in Terokkar and Nagrand, and I managed to do just that on Saturday.

First up was Terokkar. There were seven quests that I had left unfinished my first time there becuase I couldn't complete them on my own at the time, but coming back at level 68 I was confident that I could manage it.

Up in the northeast was a basalisk whose blood I needed to collect, and while I half expected to have a stone gaze spell of some sort to deal with, he didn't have one and I took him down in now time. I quickly headed over to the blood elf base that was nearby and managed to save a night elf druid from her cage and help her escape. Her friends were pretty happy about that.

I made my way to the Tomb of Light and summoned a big guardian. Not really sure what he was doing, but he needed protection and I provided that, along with a couple buddies that happened to be in there at the same time. Had a little Horde trouble, but nothing we couldn't handle, and we made quick work of those vengeful draenei.

Moving south again I took out a huge spider, all by myself, although I had almost nothing left at the end of it. Then I remembered this big bird I needed to kill in the west. They told me to kill his mate first, which was a large vulture, so I did that on the way, but when I went to lure him out he ended up being an owl. Not sure how that works, but whatever, he's dead now.

Heading even further south I talked to some dwarfs who wanted to do some digging, so I protected them along the way, which ended up being pretty easy. Then they wanted me to summon worms until I killed enough to lure out the big one. Long story short, I used a little trick I read about where I stood around a corner out of line of sight and just hit it every so often to keep it focused on me and he ended up dying on his own. I felt like I was cheating, but maybe he was just old and the excitement was too much.

Last up for Terokkar was gathering skulls from those bad draenei that are always summoning up ghosts from dead bodies. Pretty freaky stuff, but I round up enough to summon a big bone dragon. When I saw him land on top of me I thought I had no chance, but I stuck it out, maybe with a little luck, and he went down just like the others.

With that I was done with Terokkar and ready to make my way over to Nagrand to finish up there. Oh, upon turning in those quests I turned level 69 as well, only one left to go, it won't be long now. Nagrand will have to wait until tomorrow, but needless to say I had similar success there. Nesingwary was very impressed.

Time to knock 'em out

As I mentioned before, I'm having some trouble getting to where I want to be before I head out to the next zone. See, once the expansion comes out I want to have some leftover Outland quests I can finish up before I head out to Northrend and the new content, that way I will be ahead of the game and have a much easier time with the new stuff.

As of now I'm working my way toward level 69 and have pretty much finished BEM except for some elite stuff that I can't do on my own. I really wanted to hit 69 before moving on, and since I hate grinding, that's causing a little bit of a dilemma. I tried to do some of the elite quests in BEM last night but didn't stand a chance on my own, and with no luck finding help I was stuck.

I checked out my quest log and I had kept a bunch of the elite quests from other zones, and some of them were now 4-5 levels below me, which usually means they can be soloed, even though they will still be tough.

First I headed to Zangarmarsh to take out the two naga leaders that I failed to kill while I was there the first time. The first one had this ice spell that summons blocks of ice that blow up and cause AOE ice damage. Not and easy fight despite the level difference, and I almost died, especially when she started running and I got a few adds, but I managed to take her out and then book it out of there. I think the only thing that saved me was that she ran out of mana.

Next up I found the other leader, and this guy was all melee, which was perfect for me since I can just pop bear form and tank the hell out of him. He also had this big knockback that he used, and it actually helped a couple times since I could cast a heal or two as he ran over to where he had knocked me back to. No problem on that guy.

Without much time left I made my way to Terokkar. I had previously abandoned the elite quests there to make room for new ones, but I managed to find the quest givers again and picked up the quests, but had no time to do any of them because it was already way past my bedtime.

I really like these challenging fights. Fights where you actually have to prepare before going into it, where you barely make it out alive and you have to be ready to react to anything they throw at you that you didn't expect.

The first naga leader I fought summoned a water elemental, rooted me, and ran away once she ran out of mana, and I had to figure out how best to deal with those situations with so many other mobs in the area that I really didn't want to aggro.

The challenge is what makes these games fun, and it doesn't just apply to WoW. Most games have boss fights, some of them requiring more skill than others, but the ones that have your heart pumping at the end when you finally win are the ones that you feel the most accomplished about.

It isn't the fights you win easily. Sometimes games that are too easy can get boring really quick. WoW keeps it interesting though, and even though I don't get the accomplishments I would get from raiding or PvP, I still get to face all those mini boss battles that require all of my focus to get through.

I'm actually excited to see how well I fare against the elite mobs in Terokkar since they should be a little tougher, but I think I'm up for it. This is where you get to learn to use the skills you don't normally use and be creative because you aren't conserving anything to save on down time for the next fight, you're going all out and using everything at your disposal to win.

Almost there, almost there

Anybody out there gone after the wintersaber mount? I think it would look awesome with my priest, but I've heard horror stories about the rep grind you have to go through.

I've also heard that at some point they changed the amount of rep you get to make it go faster, but how much faster? If anyone has any details let me know, I want one, and it just might become my side project after I hit 70 on my druid.

It really seems my progress is starting to slow as I get closer to 70. I know it's not like I'm getting less experience, it's just the anticipation of getting there that's getting to me. You know how when you were little and once December came it took forever to get to Christmas? I think this is the same thing.

It's funny though that with any of my other characters, the only other time this happened was my first 60, my rogue. I have since gotten two other characters to 60 and beyond, and one of them even got there before they accelerated leveling from 20-60, so it should have felt the same, but I think it's just that the anticipation isn't as much anymore once you've done it the first time.

I think a big part of the problem is all the group quests I have built up from various zones. I figured I'd keep them around and try to solo them later when I'm at a level where I think I can do them. I even still have some from Zangarmarsh that I could probably take right now.

What I'm trying to do is hit level 69 before I leave BEM, but right now I'm only a little over halfway and it doesn't look like there's much left to do there, so those group quests may come in handy a little sooner than I thought.

I'm just glad I'll get to 70 soon, I'm starting to get antsy playing the druid all the time and I have to really resist the urge to play a different character. This is exactly why I have all those alts, I just can't commit to one class for too long without wanting to switch it up.

Usually I can just run a character out of rested XP, and by then I'm ready to switch, but in this case it takes so long to level that I'm going to have a blue bar all the way to 70. I just have to stick it out for a little while longer.

I'll try for a more insightful post tomorrow, I need to play some WoW for inspiration.

Mounts

Being someone who plays a bunch of alts, and the fact that I currently have 4 that are under level 30, I'm excited about getting them to that point and being able to mount up 10 levels earlier than before. Now since I don't have any high level horde characters to fund my buying of mounts, I caught a lucky break because two of those characters are a warlock and a paladin, both of whom learn a spell for their mount instead and don't have to spend a lot of hard earned cash to do it. It seems to me this will cause a bit of a dilemma once I get them to level 60 and their epic mount becomes available.

Both warlocks and paladins have quest chains to go through to get their epic class mounts that involve a number of various items, as well as killing bosses in some of the level 60 instances. The problem is there aren't many people that bother with those instances anymore, so I think that would make it very difficult to find a group. Sure if you could get a couple 70's to join up with you it would be a piece of cake, but how many 70's out there would be willing to spend their valuable time running you through a lower level instance to help you out when there is no chance for them to get anything valuable out of it. All those epic drops we used to drool over pre-BC are now useless compared to even the quest greens you get from Outland. Unless you have a nice guild that is up for some fun in old world dungeons, I think high level help will be hard to come by.

If you're stuck in a situation where you can't get any 70's to help out, you have to resort to different methods, namely, finding others that can benefit from what you need to do. For the most part this doesn't include many people. Those instances were hard for us at 60, and anybody past 58 will probably have moved on to Outland for much better items than what you would be seeing. What you have to do is find others of your class that also want to get their epic mounts. This is going to take a lot of patience, and hoping that there are some higher level players out there who put off getting theirs. Going into Stratholme with a bunch of level 60 paladins hoping to take down a boss that was hard for a well balanced group of 60's will get frustrating very quickly. Warlocks might have a better shot at their Dire Maul boss, but without much in the way of healing, that one will be pretty tough too. You're probably going to have to recruit a few that are 65 or above so that you can take those bosses down quickly.

In my Outland escapades I have noticed a lot of paladins and warlocks who either still have their normal mount, or decided to just buy a different epic mount instead of doing those quests. This could be a good sign, and hopefully it means some people will be willing to help out since it will help themselves too. I haven't looked at prices for those quest items you need, but hopefully they are much less than they were before, considering how few people are probably bothering with getting those mounts now.

I guess buying a normal epic ground mount is an option, but it just wouldn't feel right knowing that your class could get a mount made specifically for them. It's still a long way off, but when that quest chain becomes available I will be trying my hardest to find people to help me get it done and get my mount. With my sparse amount of playing time I can't be too picky over whether or not I get epic gear, but there are certain things you just have to be picky about, and this is one of them. The other is getting a frostsaber mount for my priest, but that's a different story. I hear those rep quests start getting old pretty quickly.

Keeping busy

WoW does a great job of making sure you have something to do. I found myself running back and forth a lot this weekend, doing quests, turning them in, then being sent right back to where I just was to do the next part of the chain. This is the tactic they seem to use the most in order to keep players occupied. Normally I try to get multiple quests done at the same time and sort of go through them in a circular pattern to minimize travel time, but that doesn't always work so a lot of the time I end up taking a lot longer to finish quests than it should take because of all the running around. It's something I didn't really notice when I first started playing as everything was new and exciting, but now that I've been through enough quests I get to see all the patterns.

One new tactic I'm noticing in the Outland quests is how drop rates work for quest items. Thinking back to my Westfall days and killing endless amounts of boars who all seemed to be missing the body parts that I needed to make stew, I've noticed it's become a little different since then. Now instead of getting a drop every so often, you start out with no drops at all, then all of a sudden you get all the drops at once. It's like Blizzard figured out exactly how many of each mob you should kill and tuned the drops to that number. Most recently I was killing raptors in BEM in hopes that they would drop some of their teeth. Well after killing about 20 of them with no teeth, I all of a sudden got 5 in a row that dropped them, and was all I needed to complete the quest. Hmm, seems a little too convenient to me, and I think it's actually better than the totally random drop rates they used to have that took forever.

I'm really starting to feel the pressure of getting to 70 now. I'm about halfway to 69 and I really want to push to finish up the last level and a half to get to the cap. I remember when I was level 58 on my rogue, and I had run out of quests that I could do on my own, so my only option left was to grind my way up. I ended up going to Silithus and killing the elementals in the northwest corner until I hit level 60, which seemed to take forever. Now I'm in a similar situation with regards to my proximity to the level cap, but I still have two zones that I haven't seen yet. I think Blizz did a much better job of making quests available all the way up to the level cap and beyond. The problem was before they would give you a bunch of group quests at the end, and if you couldn't get a group together you were stuck grinding. Now the group quests are optional for the most part, and are just nice bonuses that can give you some extra XP and better rewards.

I'm really starting to think that I will hit level 70 without even needing to go to one of the last two zones, but while it would be nice to get there faster, I'd rather see all the zones before the expansion comes out and I move on to Northrend. I suppose if there are any quests left over I can finish those up once the expansion comes out so that when I do head to Northrend I will be a little ahead in levels. That wouldn't be so bad.

Son of a Gruul

I don't die very often during regular questing. I can usually manage to take on an add or two if I switch over to bear form so I can absorb more damage. Then yesterday I was killing some beasts in BEM because those gnomes wanted some of the items they dropped. Then off in the distance I see a huge gron, those big guys that hang out with the ogres. His name is Maggoc I think, and his title was Son of Gruul. Well he looked pretty big, mean, and scary, so I tried to stay my distance from him. It's a lot like staying away from Fel Reavers in Hellfire Peninsula. For some reason, even though they are huge, they manage to sneak up on you somehow. Well I had finally gotten the hang of looking out for those guys so I was a little better at staying away from this guy.

So there I am, happily clawing away at a raptor, and just when I finish killing him I see Maggoc coming around to make another pass in my area. This time he was pretty close, so I didn't have much time to get away and figured stealthing (or prowling I suppose is what druids to) would be the best way to go. So I hit the button, see myself turn transparent and I should be safe right? Hmmm, guess I didn't notice the raptor had given me a DoT disease that was ticking away, and wouldn't you know it, next tick and my stealth breaks and Maggoc is all over me. First he throws a rock, and it does 2000 damage, then he comes over and punches me into the ground for another 2500 and I'm dead because I never had time to heal after the last fight.

Now this wouldn't have been too bad, the graveyard was pretty close to my body, except that there was a big pit in between. See I was right next to Death's Door, which is basically a big hole in the ground surrounded by cliffs with Burning Legion mobs walking around. Well, I had to go around, although I guess it wasn't too bad, but why can't they make ghosts able to fly? I mean come on, Casper can fly, Slimer can fly, pretty much any other ghost can fly, so why can't ours? We can already walk on water, flying is just the next step. I guess they have to make you suffer for dying somehow, and this is a lot less harsh than some other games. I always hated dying in Diablo 2 and losing a chunk of experience and a bunch of gold, and while gold didn't really matter much later on, it mattered a lot on new characters, and that's also when you tended to die more often.

It's Friday and I'm not making much sense so I'm gonna stop now. Have a great weekend everybody!