Holiday plans

It's a holiday weekend, which means much more time to play WoW.

I would love to get my priest to 70 over the weekend, but with her running out of rested XP bonus very soon I don't think it's gonna happen. I think she might be parked for a week or so while the bonus builds up, then she'll be ready for the final push.

I changed my mind again. I want to see Northrend. I know it's crowded. I know there will be a lot of ganking. If it becomes too frustrating I can always switch off to another character and come back when it's settled down more.

I just want to see it. I want some new gear. Everything my druid is wearing is quest greens and a few blues, so unlike all you raiders out there, pretty much any piece of gear I get will be an upgrade.

From what I can tell, Northrend is a little different from Outland in how you level. Outland had one zone to start out in, while Northrend has two. Not only do we now have a choice of where to go first, but when we're done with that we can go to the other so there's now way we'll be behind when we go on to the higher level zones.

I was originally going to finish up some more Outland quests and maybe get to 71 or 72 before heading out, but with three more Alliance characters still to send through Outland, not to mention the Hordies, I'm thinking I'll see everything eventually.

On a side note, does anyone know what you need to train the druid Swift Flight Form now? Do we need the flight training first or can we just learn it as soon as we hit 71? I know with normal Flight Form we didn't need training, and I'm hoping thats the case with this one too.

Have a great weekend everyone, and be sure not to spend the whole time playing WoW, especially if you gorge yourself at Thanksgiving like everyone tends to do or you'll be about 5 lbs heavier just after this weekend. I'll be back on Monday, hopefully you'll be alright without me until then.

Definitely faster

I might have to rethink some things about leveling in Outland. The first time through on my druid I thought I was falling behind a little when I got to Zangarmarsh and was only level 61. I ended up grinding out a level there, then questing the rest of they way through.

By the time I hit 70 I was only halfway through Shadowmoon Valley and that's when I parked him until now.

I'm having an entirely different experience on my priest. I was level 63 by the time I started Zangarmarsh. Not only that, but leveling is also much faster. Right now I am level 67, but I'm still not done with Terokkar Forest yet. It's looking like I'll probably hit 70 before I even finish Nagrand.

I hate to skip zones, but seeing as I've never even been to Netherstorm before I might have to make my way over there to finish up her trek to 70, which means I'd probably have to leave out Nagrand and Blade's Edge.

The reason she was so far ahead of the curve in the first place was because I stuck around in Azeroth until level 61. At the time I didn't know they would be making the leveling faster in Outland, and I also was under the impression that I should enter a zone at a higher level to make it easier.

Turns out that with the changes the made I'm just going way to fast through the zones. Sure it's nice to level fast, and I've done it before so it's not like I'm missing anything I haven't seen before, but it just feels like I'm skipping around and not leveling as intended.

I had mentioned before that I would be leveling my death knight to 60 before moving him on to Outland, but I'm rethinking that idea now. With his blue gear he's already pretty much set up to be ready for Outland, and it was obviously intended that after the starter zone they would be able to head there next.

The death knight will probably sit there for a while more though while I level my hunter and see if starting in Outland at 60 puts me ahead of the curve. If so I am definitely skipping the rest of Azeroth on my DK and going straight to Outland.

With 4 more Hordies coming up I think I'll have more than enough time to get my fill of Azeroth, and if not I can always go back and do some of the many achievements there.

Do I think this new faster leveling is necessarily better? Maybe not. It's definitely more convenient, but at the expense of skipping over lots of content I don't think I could say it's actually better.

Busy weekend

Leveling in Outland is much faster. Much, much faster.

I found myself with a lot of free time this weekend due to various circumstances, and with nothing else really to do I leveled my priest.

So how far did I actually get? Well she now sits happily at about halfway through level 66, and also managed to buy her epic ground mount so I can finally outrun those stupid death knights when they attempt to gank me.

I finished off Zangarmarsh, except for the two elite nagas, and headed over to Terokkar. I got a good amount done there too, although I know there is a lot more to do, but I'm usually a couple levels higher than all the quests that I have to do so the quests are fairly easy and go quickly.

I'm very surprised with the pace I'm going. I've only been through these areas once before, but it seems like I know them just as well as the old world stuff that I've been through 10 times.

Somehow I still have some rested XP bonus that I didn't manage to use up, despite how much I played. I guess most of the experience is coming from quest turn-ins.

I'm also starting to develop a slightly different style of play than my previous shadow priest excursions. First, Dispersion would be a great spell if it wasn't the top tier talent in the shadow tree. I pretty much use it as a glorified version of Invocation. I could care less about the damage reduction, but I do like getting my mana back.

I also really love Shadow Fiend. I try to plan out the cooldowns of this and Dispersion so when I run out of mana one of them is up and I can get it all back.

I also had to learn to cope with not having Star Shards anymore. As a Night Elf that used to be my racial priest spell, but now we all get Devouring Plague. It's a good DoT, and I use it all the time, but Starshards was free to cast. Yep, free, and Devouring Plague costs about the same as Shadow Word: Pain. Sure it's not that bad, but I liked the free one.

Other than that it's all Mind Blast and Mind Flay, and the mobs almost never bring my shield down before I kill them. It actually makes it feel a little too easy, but it's nothing compared to what I see death knights doing.

I can take one mob at a time easily, two gets tough, and more than that I have to use a bunch of cooldowns, but I'll make it. For death knights I see some running around pulling 3 or 4 mobs at a time, and having no trouble with it.

I don't really care so much that they have the ability to do that, they are supposed to be a hero class after all, but it gets annoying when they are using it to take a bunch of mobs away from you that you need for a quest.

As I'm getting further along I'm noticing less death knights though. It's as if most players started them, got them through a little bit of Outland, and then either got bored or decided to take their mains out to Northrend. I'm sure some of them have already leveled through Outland and are on their way to 80, but I'm fairly certain that's the minority.

It's nice for me because I don't have to deal with them interrupting my questing, and I haven't had any more bad PvP experiences since the one I mentioned in my last post. Sure I got ganked a couple times, but there was no corpse camping involved, and after playing on this server for so long I'm used to it.

I think I'll be playing my priest until her rested XP bonus is up, or until she hits 70, whichever comes first, then I have to figure out who is up next. I think I'll wait on that until I get there though. I like to make my character choice a last minute decision.

Death Knights are flooding Outland

I logged onto my priest for a bit last night. I still have a few of those elite quests in Hellfire Peninsula to do, but I'll be skipping those for a while and moving on to Zangarmarsh for a bit.

I noticed on my way there that I was 1 experience point away from hitting 64. This seemed a little weird to me, but I think what happened is that with the new faster leveling from 60-70 I would have hit level 64 with the amount of experience I had already into level 63.

I sort of expected in that situation that they would leave you at the same percentage of the way to the next level that you were at before, but this would mean you were getting XP taken away. Instead they left you with the same amount and it just gets you further toward the next level now, although in my case I probably had more than enough to level, but they just stuck me at 1 XP below hitting the next level.

Oh well, I was happy anyway, and upon turning in my first quests I was level 64 and knew this zone would be a piece of cake now. I only had a little time to play, so I decided to go after the Umbrafen tribe and get that out of the way.

Here's the problem with Outland now. With all the new Death Knights finishing the starting zone and heading to Outland right after, they're crowding up the place. Not only that, but that means a much higher chance that you will run into one of those jackass players.

Of course that happened to me, and in the hour I had to play I barely got anything done. There was a Horde DK running around killing the Umbrafen mobs and basically harassing all the other Alliance players. He killed me a few times, then I tried to move to a different area and found him killing another Alliance players, so I loaded him up with DoTs and took him down while he was occupied with the other guy.

I guess this wasn't the best move, as I ended up relocating again, managed to kill a few mobs that I needed, and then he found me again. Not only did he gank me, but proceded to camp me for a good 20 minutes before I just gave up and logged off since I was running short on time anyway.

Needless to say, I'm reconsidering playing any characters in Outland for a while. It's like a slightly lesser version of what happened when TBC was released, but this time 95% of the players are death knights.

I might have to go back to my Hordies for a little while and let things settle down out there. I'd rather play my priest, she was melting faces like nobody's business, but with DK's decked out in blues and her just in quest greens she doesn't stand a chance anytime one decides to come after her.

How I keep travel time down

As you may know, my WoW time is fairly limited, and as such I have to find ways to get the most out of the time I have to play.

One thing I hate doing is traveling long distance, and this game requires a lot of it, so I find ways to travel without cutting into the time I could actually be leveling. The best way to do this is to use those little windows of time you have where it isn't enough to really play, but you don't have anything else to do in the meantime, or just where you can't give it your full attention but you can check in every so often.

Some examples of this are maybe you're waiting for a friend to pick you up for something and you know they won't be there for another 15 minutes, or maybe you are working out so you can't concentrate fully on the game, but in between sets you can check it.

Most of the time traveling doesn't even require you to be there, you just click the flight point and wait while you fly there. These are the best times to do something else while you wait. I usually watch TV, go to the bathroom, get myself something to eat, or if it's a situation where I'm getting ready to go somewhere I will change clothes, put shoes on, or whatever else I need to do to get ready.

The whole point of this is that next time I get the chance to play I will be ready to go.

Just yesterday I had gotten home from work and was changing out of my work clothes and getting ready to head back out. Now I know I'm going to want to play my hunter and shaman at some point in the future, and they will be starting in Outland. At the time they were still in Azeroth, on in Ironforge and one in Stormwind. Since I had other stuff to do anyway before leaving I made the trip to Outland with each of them.

Both characters had the Nethergarde Keep flight path, so there was no land traveling I would have to do until I got there. While each were flying I did other things I needed to do to get ready to go. When they landed I mounted up and made my way to the Dark Portal, picking up the quest on the way and went through.

Not only did I get to Honor Hold, but I got some XP out of it too from those first few quests. Even better is the fact that when I decide to play one of those characters I will already be where I need to be and can jump into some quests right then.

I also managed to find the time to transfer money to my mage and buy him his first mount. I was a little worried about his money situation, but with the money I made leveling the other mage to 55 in order to create my death knight I even had a little extra after buying the mount. I'm so glad they're have the price they used to be, otherwise he'd still be on foot.

That's really all I was able to do in what little time I had, but the upside is I won't have to deal with any of that boring stuff next time I log in. For anybody else out there that has limited time to play WoW, it's always a good idea to find ways of getting the most out of the time you do have and try get those other little things done in their own time.

The trek continues

Do I ever expect to get every class up to the level cap? No way. I would say my only aspiration is to get one character to the level cap before another expansion comes out and raises it on us again.

Right now I have my druid sitting at level 70, but for some reason I'm not particularly excited about taking him to Northrend. I'm not even really sure what my hesitation is. Everyone says it's awesome, and I know it will be, but I'm just not a big fan of dealing with crowds of players all doing the same quests.

I'd rather wait a bit, work on other characters in the empty Outlands (well not too empty with all the new death knights), and take advantage of the faster leveling from 60-70, then maybe I'll check out Northrend once most players have moved on to the higher level zones.

Not only do I like to solo, but I like to with no distractions. I get more XP per kill if I work alone, and unless it's a group quest I usually have no trouble getting it done.

I also hate when people send me group invites from out of nowhere. Sometimes I'll get an invite, take a look around, and see nobody. Why would you invite me to your group without asking me when you're not even close to me? Just because we're the same level or in the same zone doesn't mean we're doing the same thing. At least ask first, tell me what you're doing, and if it will benefit me as well I might join you.

I also hate the douchbags that like to hang around quest mobs and kill them so nobody else can, or otherwise impede a quest. It's annoying enough having to compete with others for the quests, but when you take the time after you've done the quest to keep others from doing it, that's just not cool.

I think the next order of business for me is to put in some time on my priest. I haven't gotten to play her for a long time and I think she's ready to get back out there and melt some faces.

Above and beyond

Remember how I said I'd be happy with getting that mage to 55 by the end of this week? Well apparently I wasn't going to be happy with that, so I got her to 55 yesterday. Not only that, but I also managed to finish the death knight starting zone with my human, then made an undead DK and went through the whole thing with him.

How did I find the time for that, you ask? Well Sunday I decided to play some soccer with some friends. Ended up spraining my ankle, or just bruising it really bad. Either way, I could barely walk yesterday, so I decided to stay home from work and let it rest. I'm currently at work in an ankle brace wearing a sandal on that foot because I can't put a shoe on yet.

So staying home from work, not able to do anything physical, what else was there to do except play WoW? I had finished up Feralas and started in on Un'Goro on Saturday, had to resort to the human DK on Sunday because of server population issues.

So yesterday I finished up Un'Goro and still had most of a level to finish off before I hit 55. I decided to go to Azshara, since there were a few quests I needed to turn in there anyway from other places.

There aren't many quests there, but the ones I did were very easy as I was a few levels above the mobs. After completing everything I could I wasn't quite there still, but I had some turn-ins at the capital cities.

This is where being a mage came in handy. I ported to each city, turned in the quests, and each had a me return to Azshara to the original quest giver. After turning in those quests I finally dinged 55 and was done. I logged out instantly and created my death knight.

Incidentally, that particular mage made quite a bit of money doing all those quests, and will be sending that to my other mage to help fund his first mount. With a pally and warlock on the way up I won't be needing money for their mounts at level 30, and hopefully they will be able to help out the warrior when he gets there.

At this point I had already completed the DK starting zone with my human, but the ending was a little disappointing for him. I won't spoil it for those of you who haven't gone through it, but let's just say the final event had already taken place and hadn't reset yet, so I really didn't get to see much.

Luckily on the undead DK I got to participate and see the story unfold. After that it all made a lot more sense as to why the death knights are siding against Arthas. The whole experience of questing in that zone was awesome, and it really gave a good look at the new mechanic that causes the world to change as you complete quests. Very well done.

I think for now I will be setting the DK aside to build up some rested XP bonus, then I will probably get him to 60 in Azeroth before I move on to Outlands. For some reason I still don't like to head through the portal at 58, even though I know now that the leveling in Outland is much faster than before.

Actually, I'm not sure who I'm going to level next. I could send my druid to Northrend, which would mean more new content for me to experience. I also have the rest of my Alliance characters sitting around level 60 and ready to quest in Outland.

I'll probably leave the Horde characters alone for a while in favor of the higher level guys, but I will be coming back to them later when I feel the urge to quest back in the old zones we all know so well.

Looks like I have a lot of choices of what to do next, and I'm thinking my decisions will be made on a whim for now, rather than planning it out like I usually do. I'll be playing characters just because I feel like it at the time now that I have my previous goals accomplished and nothing else immediate that I really want to do. I sure hope I don't neglect any of my alts too much in the process.

Hmmm...

After getting off work last night I stopped off at Best Buy to grab the expansion. As expected, they had a full display right at the entrance so I didn't even have to go searching for it. I got home and installed while changing and getting ready for the hockey game. By the time I left it was fully installed and patched, although I ended up missing the first few minutes of the game because of it.

Fast forward to later that night, after the game, and I decided to load up WoW for a bit before bed so I could create my death knight and see what all the fuss is about. Logged in and went to configure a new undead death knight so I could wreak some havoc.

I finished messing with his appearance (I'm never completely satisfied, but now that I can change hairstyles if I want I'm not so picky), then clicked the button to create him, and to my surprise a message popped up saying "You must have a level 55 or higher character on this realm to create a death knight." Hmm...

Seems to me I was mislead at some point about the requirements here. I was under the impression that the level 55 character requirement applied to the account, not just the realm you are creating the death knight on. I have plenty of characters over 55 on my Alliance realm, but I wanted to make my death knight an undead. I was sorely disappointed.

Now the good news is I have a level 50 mage on the realm who was left there by a former roommate and he luckily just left her on there. It means I still need to go 5 more levels on her, but with the highest character I've leveled on that realm being only level 30 I think it's something I can live with.

It looks like he left off in Feralas, so I guess that's where I will be questing first, then probably moving on to Un'Goro or something where I can hopefully get to 55 without much trouble. I'd like to try to get there without having to travel all over the place.

It's kinda strange playing a level 50 that you didn't get there yourself. I ended up just traveling to Feralas, distributing talents, and then killing a few things before I got restless to make a death knight.

I logged out the mage and went over to my Alliance realm. I ended up deciding on creating a human death knight over there, and while he won't end up getting much past the starting quests, he will at least hold me over until I can get the mage to 55 and create the one I want, and then I can get that one through those starting quests even faster.

The first few death knight quests were pretty cool, and really make you feel the mentality of the death knights. All in competition with each other, and willing to kill any of the other initiates who could pose a threat.

The new rune system of fighting is a little different, but so far it seems to be pretty easy to pick up. It was a little crowded once I got out of the keep and I had some trouble searching for other death knight initiates to duel, and with this being pretty late at night, we'll just see how much worse it can get over the weekend.

I'm still trying to figure out why I thought I only need a level 55 on the account and that would allow me to create a death knight on any realm. Was the wording that Blizzard gave us misleading? Did other sites assume this and I blindly believed them?

How many of you thought this was the case too?

I guess at this point it doesn't matter much. What's done is done, and I'll just have to get through those 5 levels as quickly as I can. It will at least let the death knight starting zone calm down a bit so I don't have to deal with so many players. I should be able to get there by next week, so it's only a slight setback.

EDIT:

After some research I've found that the requirement was recently changed to require a 55+ on the same server, not just the account. Apparently they may change it back to just a 55+ on the account, but for now it has to be on the same server. Why, you may ask? I dunno, probably to mess up my plans at release, and then change it back once I've already done the extra work.

Wrath Day!

The moment we've all been waiting for is finally here!

I'm sure most of you won't even read this on account of you playing WoW all day to check out the new expansion. For those of us stuck at work, maybe reading this will help pass the time faster so you can get home and play.

I was actually on my way home last night at around 11:30pm and I was contemplating going by Gamestop to see how the line looks and whether I'd be willing to stand in it to get a copy of the expansion. I ended up deciding against it because I could barely keep my eyes open already, and waiting a little longer might actually be better for my health.

I will be stopping off after work tonight though.

I was originally going to wait until Friday to buy it since I have a hockey game to attend tonight (go Sharks!), but I think if I leave work a little earlier today I can make it in time. I know how long it takes to install, and then probably patch, so I want to get that out of the way early so I can actually play when I get some free time rather than sitting around while it installs.

Why oh why do I have to have plans that keep me from playing on launch day? I was in the clear when my Thursday night softball league ended, and I almost never make plans for weeknights, but this is where I have to decide what is more important.

Do I tell a friend that I've known since elementary school and I rarely get to see anymore that I'm sorry, but I can't go to the hockey game with you because WotLK comes out and I want to play it inested? Obviously not, so I'll just have to stick it out. Luckily hockey is really fun to watch.

So for those of you playing now, I'm envious, and for those of you going home after work to play for the rest of the night, I'm also envious. For those of you who won't get to play until sometime after I get to play, sucks for you! I kid, I kid. But seriously, this will be in the back of my mind, keeping me distracted all day while I still only get to imagine how awesome it will be.

On a side note, I am adopting a kitty, an orange tabby. It's pretty exciting, because not only are cats awesome, but he will keep the gf occupied and maybe I can get some more WoW playing in while she's over. It will be interesting to say the least.

The anticipation is killing me!

Am I crazy?

Didn't get to play last night, although from what I hear it only caused me to miss out on the servers being down. The expansion comes out tomorrow (or tonight at midnight for those picking it up then) and I just hope they have everything squared away by then so they can avoid the massive QQing that would ensue.

I won't be getting the game at midnight. I didn't even pre-order it. Am I crazy?

I don't think so. I remember when TBC was released and I didn't pre-order that either. I went to Best Buy on release day, totally expecting that they might be sold out and that I would be sent home disappointed.

Well they had it. They had lots of copies. It didn't even look like they had been picked through yet. The shelf was almost fully stocked.

So I'm not too worried about whether or not I'll get my copy. There are so many places I can go to get it, and with the fanatics going to the Gamestop midnight releases, I'm pretty sure the places that chose not to do a midnight release will have plenty. And I only need one.

Actually, I won't be picking it up on release day either...WHAT?!?! How can I be so into WoW that I blog about it and not pick up the expansion ASAP, you may ask?

Yeah, I actually have no time after work to stop off to buy it because I will be going directly to a hockey game, do not pass game store, do not collect WotLK.

One good thing about having to wait a bit is that I don't have to deal with the initial rush of players. I predict that within the first week most of that burst will be done with the first zones of Northrend and moved on, leaving those areas lag free.

Even so, I won't be starting in on Northrend for a while as the new Death Knight is first order of business. When I finally do decide to level my druid past 70 he won't be going directly to Northrend either. There's a whole zone in Outland that he hasn't seen yet, and he should make it to level 71, maybe even 72, by the time he's finished there are ready to move on.

Actually, I expect the new Death Knight rush will have died down by then too and moved on to Outland, or gotten dropped after completing the starting area for those that are only doing it for the story. I was one of the people that made a new Draenei shaman at the release of TBC, and while the zone was a mess with so many players doing those first quests, it wasn't too much of a hassle to get them done.

With respawn rates being directly related to number of players in the area, the mobs just keep coming and you don't really run out like you would pre-TBC. I'm not sure how many mob killing quests are part of the DK starting area, but if it's anything like the rest of the game there will be quite a few.

It will be very interesting to see how this plays out, but for now I just have to focus on finding time to play, then I can worry about what's happening in the game and what the next step will be. Everyone else have fun with the expansion when you get it, and I will count on all you other bloggers to post some good stuff about it to hold me over until I get to play.

More event?

Why didn't anybody tell me? I come online today to find a bunch of blogs talking about the new event of the Scourge attacking Stormwind and Orgrimmar. It looks pretty cool, but even though I played a little last night, I had no idea this was going on.

I guess it would be cool if when you start up the game it would tell you what event is currently going on. I'm not sure if I just wasn't paying attention, but I didn't see anything telling me that the capital city is under attack. Sure I was on a level 30 mage, but I'd still like to see it.

Either way, I'm trying to finish up Ashenvale on the mage, and will be completing my last Stonetalon quest, as well as another Hillsbrad quest that I've been putting off before I move on to a new area. At this point I'm thinking I'll go to Thousand Needles. I'm not a big fan of Desolace, and I want a few more levels before I got to STV so I can burn through the first quests quickly.

I had a lot of trouble with one quest in Ashenvale where you plant a banner and defend it from furbolgs until their leader comes out. Normally quests like this will send a few waves at you, then the leader shows up. Apparently this one is on a timer, and you just have to defend the thing for a certain amount of time.

This is not easy on a mage. Two mobs is hard enough, but when you kill one and another appears it gets frustrating, especially since after the second mob you kill you are usually low on mana. At the best I managed to kill about 8 of them, which required me to blow all my cooldowns and use a healing potion before I died, and the boss still hadn't appeared yet. I gave up and did some other stuff at that point.

I guess I should have checked earlier, because I was reading online about this quest, and it looks like there is an easy way to do it by jumping on a barrel with the enemies aggroed and you will evade bug on them. Then you just wait for the boss, jump down, kill him, and loot the item you need.

This info would have been great to know before I had died 3 times with the closest graveyard not really being that close. That's just one thing you miss out on when you use QuestHelper, it doesn't tell you how to do the quests, just where to go, although you usually don't need evade bugs to get stuff done for a quest that's four levels below you.

If I get some game time tonight I will be checking out the event, probably on both factions, just to see them. I didn't do much with the zombie event. I only got infected once, and the guards killed me before I got a chance to do anything with it. This seems like one of those events you need to see though, as it won't happen again once it's over. I'll have to keep my distance though, because I'm sure any of those mobs would one-shot me.

Seems backwards

I finally got a chance to play my warrior this weekend, and in almost no time I had gained two levels and run him out of rested XP bonus. Now I'm not sure if it's my lack of skill or just how the class works, but I tended to die a lot more than I do with most characters.

Alright, I only died twice, and both had to do with ambushes from mobs that just happened to respawn as I was fighting, but the warrior class has very few ways of getting out of sticky situations. Actually, the fact that I chose a Tauren saved me more than any of my other skills. That Warstomp ability is very convenient.

I guess with their high armor compared to everyone else they probably shouldn't need to run away so often, and I got stuck in a lot of sticky situations that I ended up surviving. Maybe I just need to get better.

I just found it a little backwards that I would die more playing on the class with the most damage mitigation. I did get some new skills to use as I leveled though, and I think those will help me out a lot in my survivability.

Other than that I had a lot of fun. Running up to enemies and bashing them over the head is a great change of pace from my mage and warlock leveling where I end up just casting the same spell over and over while keeping the mob at a distance.

Until the expansion hits on Thursday I will once again switch over to my mage and get him as far as I can (assuming I get to play this week). Sad thing is I'm going to a hockey game on Thursday, so I probably won't even get to play.

Oh well, hockey is ridiculously fun to watch, and the death knight starting area will probably be the worst on release day anyway. I can't wait to finally get to see it!

Class focus

The latest post over on Blessing of Kings brought up an interesting topic, and while I won't be taking his suggestion to come up with my own set of class specific tasks to get an achievement, it was actually one of the comments to the post that got me thinking.

Hopefully I'm not overstepping my WoW blogger bounds by talking about a comment from someone else's blog, but here it is:

"What a great idea, but Blizzard seems to be a bit down on providing class specific quests - probably for the good reason that it wants to concentrate it's resources on creating content that's playable by virtually all of it's players - which is hard to fault."

While he does end up saying that it isn't a bad thing that Blizzard decided not to include too much class specific stuff, I think the point is still valid. Would it have been better if there were more class specific content?

It's hard to say at this point, because the game is awesome as it is, but wouldn't it have been cool to face a new class specific quest every 10 levels? At the start it seemed that this was the route they were taking, but then after the level 10 and level 20 quests they decided to spread them out more.

Paladins and Warlocks got the most attention in this area with their epic mount quests at 60. These quest lines required lots of items and help from a group of others to bring down a summoned boss in an instance. Druids now have a similar situation at 70 to get Swift Flight Form. Some other classes had this to an extent, like priests getting Benediction, but that required running MC and so was unavailable to anyone but raiders.

The point is I think it would have been nice to see some more soloable quests for the different classes, maybe getting them a nice blue or a new spell as a reward. These could be ongoing quest lines, requiring you to gain some more levels in order to complete the next one. The quest objectives would require you to use strategies that only your class can use, making you feel more like your class rather than just leveling another character.

Warriors have a pretty good grasp of this with their quests for new armor at 30 and the Whirlwind Axe at 40. If they could make these quests continuous, such as after getting your armor the quest giver sends you to the troll with the quest for the axe, or maybe even throw smaller quests in there that eventually lead you to the troll, it would make for a much more class oriented experience.

With the various ways to get through the game they would have to make any item drops you need for these quests available from mobs in different zones so you wouldn't have to go too far out of your way, but I don't think that would be a problem.

Am I sad they're taking out the epic mount quests? To some extent I am. The sense of achievement won't be there anymore if you can just buy the spell, although it sounds like you'll still have to pay for the riding skill, and that won't be cheap.

The problem is how hard it will be to find groups that are willing to help you on level 60 instances, and with players raiding at level 80 the druids will have trouble with theirs too. I guess it's just the fact of life with MMOs that once they release an expansion and raise the level cap it causes everyone to abandon the previous end game content and makes it too hard to complete any quests having to do with it.

I guess at this point the focus on specific class quests won't change, but I just wonder how the game would have turned out if they had put more in. The new Death Knight starting quests actually seem to go this route, and I'm excited to see what everyone who was in the beta loves so much about it.

Keep moving

It's been on my mind since I finished college and got a new job. Now that I have much less free time than I used to I have to figure out what is important and what I can do without. Obviously I have to work, otherwise I won't be able to pay for my monthly WoW fee. I also am not giving up on WoW, just in case you thought that is what this post is about.

One other thing I refuse to cut out of my life is exercise. I've seen how we all tend to end up later in life. Exercise becomes less of a priority as you get older. You can't exert as much energy as you used to, and just the thought of it makes you tired. I don't want to end up like that.

I used to only have classes four to five hours a day, leaving a lot of the day free to do anything. It was easy to find an hour to work out, or go on a bike ride, or maybe play some basketball with friends.

Now that I have a full time job, which requires me to sit at a desk in front of a computer most of the day, I find the need to exercise even more important. If I just came home, ate dinner, and played WoW the rest of the night, where is the physical activity?

In order to not gain weight we need to burn off as many calories as we consume, but sitting at a desk all day, then coming home and sitting doesn't burn much. In the past year an a half that I've had this job I've put on 15 pounds, and I'm not happy about it. I try to eat healthy, but it's not enough if you can't burn off those calories.

That's something I think most people don't get. Just because food is healthy doesn't mean you can eat as much of it as you want. I will see people walk into one of the lunch places around where I work with a Jamba Juice in hand and order a full lunch.

What they don't understand is that a Jamba Juice has a meal's worth of calories, so while it might be considered healthy, they end up eating two meals instead of one and then they wonder why they aren't losing weight.

My point is that I think WoW is a great game, one of the best I've played, but we need to play it in moderation and make sure not to put it ahead of more important things. If you notice yourself putting on some extra weight, maybe you should cut back a little and use some of that free time to run, bike, lift weights, or do some kind of physical activity that will get your heart rate up and burn some calories.

I decided a long time ago that I wouldn't let the the shift to the working world cause me to gain weight as I see happen to so many other people. I thought it would be a lot easier, but right now I'm losing the battle.

I usually come home and flop down on the couch for a while to watch TV, but now maybe I'll work out while watching TV instead. I can get two things done at once, and it really doesn't affect how much free time I'd have because I would just be watching TV instead anyway.

Don't let WoW turn you into the stereotypical gamer like the one on that South Park episode I'm sure we all saw. Eat healthy, keep moving, and realize that the key to losing weight is burning more calories than you consume. It's as simple as that, finding the time is the hard part.

Another patch?

Yes there's a new patch out. For the most part it fixes a lot of mechanics that were introduced in the last patch but weren't quite working how they were supposed to.

Ret pallies got shot in the face with a nerf gun and are now waking up with a suction cup bullet stuck to their forehead.

Most other classes just got some fixes. With the expansion coming out next week it seems this patch was just to hold us over until then, when the real big changes happen.

I haven't gotten to play with the new patch changes yet, but I don't think they're going to affect me much. My pally will be going ret for leveling, but she's only level 13 right now so I never got to see how much damage the OP ret pally could actually do firsthand.

I actually ended up getting home last night after a long session of watching the election coverage at the gf's house and decided to catch up on some anime. I have a lot of episodes of new shows built up to watch, but some of them just haven't caught my interest like most anime does.

I used to start watching a new show, and while it may not be the best, I would stick it out and see if it gets better. I also used to have a lot more free time than I do now.

Right now there are about five new shows I started in on, but I've been putting off three of them because their first episodes didn't really interest me. I think I might end up just forgetting about some of those and stick with the ones I know I want to watch.

It's a matter of time conservation, especially since that time could be better spent playing WoW, and with the new expansion coming I'm going to need all the extra free time I can get.

Make the switch

I guess there will be a lot more switching between characters than I thought there would be. I'm just blowing through my rested XP bonuses left and right. Last night I finished off the warlock in short order, turned in the quests she had completed, and logged off.

I was all set to log in to my paladin and start some righteous smiting, but I realized that she's in the Ghostlands too, following my warlock. Of course this isn't a bad thing, as I enjoy this zone much more than the other level 10-20 zones for the Horde, but I would pretty much be doing the exact same quests again, right after I just did them on my warlock.

Because of this, I decided it was time to give my warrior a shot and see what he can do. This warrior will be making his way through the Barrens, kickin' it old school like the original lowbie Horde. I decided this because while the Ghostlands is fun, I need to switch it up, and also because I hate Silverpine.

With very little time to actually accomplish anything, I managed to make the run to the Crossroads and turn in a few quests there, which coincidentally got me to level 12, which is perfect for starting the Barrens quests.

I think it will be fun to not have to worry about mana conservation for a little while, just focusing on bashing mobs with a huge mallet (and other weapons as I find them). After leveling all these ranged attack characters (hunter, mage, warlock) it will be nice to get back in there and take it to their faces.

I think it would be nice if I could get all my Hordies up to level 20 by the time WotLK comes out, but I'm not too optimisic about that. I think I can at least get my warlock there though. Then it's time to start up a death knight and see what they're all about.

Warlocks are awesome

I did manage to get some stuff done this weekend, and I just have to say that I love playing my warlock.

She went up two levels this weekend, putting her at level 17, and she's still got plenty of quests left in the Ghostlands before she gets to move on out of the starting lowbie zones.

I think she's even on par with the hunter for being the easiest class to level so far. I'm having no problem getting through these quests, and even when I run into trouble I manage to get out of it without much damage.

The only problem I'm having is these soulstones I have to carry around with me. With my lack of bag space I run out of room very quickly, and it's starting to become a nuisance. I just need some bigger bags at this point and the problem should go away.

I did try to level a human warlock a while ago, but for some reason it didn't really get anywhere. I think the biggest problem was that I was getting burnt out on all the low level Alliance quests and needed something different. Going through Westfall starts to get old after the first few times.

I think another reason I wasn't into it before was how the talent trees were set up. I didn't really want to spec affliction, but I really wanted that instant cast Corruption spell. Now that I don't need those 5 point to get it I find it much easier to just got the Destruction route and not worry about that stupid cast time which should have always been instant.

I also went herbalism/alchemy on this warlock, and that gives her a free HoT, which is very nice for a warlock. I can Lifetap to refill my mana, then cast Lifeblood and get all that health back. It's very convenient.

I just can't wait to spec demonology at 50 and get my Felguard, or summon an infernal, or turn into a demon (although I hear it's not all that great).

It's going to get interesting if I manage to get her up into some higher levels.