Classic!

That's right everybody, Blackbare is now a Classic Dungeonmaster!

Alright, maybe for a level 80 it isn't the most difficult task to complete, but before going for the achievement I had only been to maybe half of the instances the original game had to offer, but now I have seen them all, and I think I can understand why people are so drawn to it.

My first character I got to level 60 was my rogue, and this was before the first expansion, so I had a chance to run a few of the end game instances. My experience with it wasn't too great. Being a rogue it was very difficult to find a group, as there was never a shortage of DPS characters needing groups.

Now I get to see them in sort of a different light. Sure I can blow through them really quick on my own, but trying to think about what it would be like for a group of level 60's trying to make their way through one of those instances makes it very interesting.

I'm able to skip so many mobs, the loot doesn't matter, and the bosses go down easily for me. An instance like BRD was just so big, I can't imagine working my way through it at that level. I really can see why instances have become more and more streamlined starting with the first expansion. They were big and epic before, but just took too much time for me to want to run through them constantly.

Next up, time to get my hunter ready to solo Heroic Underbog, or get a better attempt in at least. She'll be questing in the Storm Peaks first, then moving on to Icecrown if her turtle pet hasn't hit 80 by then. The new patch just decreased the amount of experience for a pet to gain a level too, so this should go more quickly than it was.

Besides that, I plan on taking my druid to the new Heroic instances with my guild, and hopefully get some crazy gear out of it. Blackbare has really become my instance guy, and the funny part is that since we have such a good tank in the guild that leads us through, I end up running everything in cat form as DPS. Not really what I expected his role to be, but hopefully I can eventually get an off-spec set and go boomkin as my dual spec. Oh that would be sweet. I wouldn't mind trying healing either at some point.

Retro WoW

So in the process of going for the Classic Dungeon Master achievement, I also joined my guild and a few others for a run of Blackwing Lair. It was quite the experience, and now I know that I would have never been able to raid in vanilla WoW.

The group itself wasn't bad. We had some well geared people who knew the instance, and the rest were just along for the ride. The first hickup we had was attunement. Sure you don't have to be attuned anymore, but without it you have to run through UBRS to get in. We decided to just become attuned.

Well we eventually did it, but only after I got stuck along with two others at one part behind a gate that apparently doesn't open after the boss is killed. So we had to get summoned back and run back through the instance. One player even fell into the lava in Blackrock Mountain and we pretty much left him to catch up with us.

So we're all attuned and make our way into BWL. This is quite the instance. Lots of different mechanics for the boss fights. With 11 level 80s we didn't really have much trouble with the fights, it was the other players we had problems with.

One of them pretty much singlehandedly held up the party for a good half hour or more as he had died in the instance, released (after we told him not to), and came back, only to be killed by respawns from the first boss' room. When we went back to rez him his body was nowhere to be found, and so he had to run back again.

This wouldn't be so bad, except that he didn't get attuned somehow, so the run back wasn't just to the beginning of BWL, but to UBRS, and then you have to run through that to the entrance to BWL. It was quite the ordeal, and all I could do was sit there and wish we hadn't waited for him.

It got me thinking about the 40-man raids people used to do at level 60, and the horror stories I heard about them. With all the troubles we had with just one person out of 11, I don't know how the 40-man groups ever made it. Sure if it was all in the guild you probably are all on the same page, but even then there are hold ups, and after this weekend I really don't think I'd have the patience for stuff like that.

In the end we got through it, but it took an hour and a half, and I went into it expecting to spend less than an hour. At least I can cross that off the list of old world content I want to see that I never got the chance to before.

Next up: finish the last few dungeons for the Classic Dungeonmaster achievement. I tried BRD with my friend this weekend as well, but we got lost, as neither of us has done it before, so I think we might have to use a walkthrough. We're n00bs...

Can't fight it

I knew I'd be drawn back into this game at some point. For a while there I was just questing every so often when I really had nothing better to do, but I now find myself with more goals to accomplish that are actually attainable for me.

First off, I want to beat all the classic dungeons. Right now I'm working my way through everything but the level 60 stuff, and the last ones I need are Sunken Temple and Zul Farrack, which will be easy enough for an 80 druid. Next up comes level 60 5-man content, which should also be easy to solo. Luckily I've already done all of Dire Maul, that place took forever, I don't know how people did it in vanilla WoW.

Last on the list would be the raid content. At this point I'm not sure how this will go at my level. Can I solo it? Do I need help? And how much help do I need? Anybody experienced with this that has some advice?

Next up is getting epic flying for all my 80s, which is just going to take lots of money, so that goal is pretty straightforward.

Last on the list at this point is getting a Cenarion War Hippogryph for my hunter. This will require running the Coilfang Reservoir instances on Heroic a lot, and I expect I won't be able to get help every time, and I can't do it myself with what I have right now, so I am working on making my hunter good enough to solo it.

How am I doing that, you may ask? Well first I switched to a tenacity pet for the better survivability. Before I had used a core hound, but now I brought out the turtle. Only problem is I need to level it up to 80 now, so I just plan on questing more. More money for me and XP for my turtle at the same time.

I also crafted the entire PvP hunter set with my druid and sent it over. Took a while to farm all that leather, but now that it's done I have the recipes to be able to deck out my shaman in the same gear when she hits 80. Sure it's not quite as good as stuff you'll pick up running instances, but it should do.

I'm hoping that will be enough, but right now I have no idea. I could very well finish all these tasks and then enter the instance, only to find out I still can't take it solo.

That being said, I think I might start blogging regularly again, so keep a look out!

Yes I'm still playing

It's been a looooong time since my last update, and I don't expect to be posting regularly anytime soon, but I've made some good progress recently despite my lack of time to play.

I've been pushing Keldreth to get up to level 80, and she's 79 right now. I expect she will be 80 by the end of the week. Going through Northrend as a hunter is very different than with my other characters. I can solo almost any elite quest, the regular mobs are never a problem and there is hardly any downtime. This makes for faster XP gain because I pretty much don't have to sneak by any enemies.

Right now I have just finished up in Zul Drak and have moved on over to Shalozar Basin. By the time I was at this point on either of my other 80s they were only around level 77 or 78, which meant that after finishing Shalozar they still had to do some questing in another zone to get the rest of the way. At this rate my hunter will be 80 before she even finishes up in this zone, leaving lots of quests and gold to be had from questing the higher level zones.

I have sort of put my Horde characters on hold. I like that I went through to level 40 on Kunzagah, the mage. Knowing that the entire old world will be reconfigured when the new expansion comes out, I'm glad I was able to play through much of this old world as Horde. I will probably save at least two characters to play through when the expansion comes out.

On a side note about the expansion, I'm very excited about the Worgen being a playable Alliance race. Sure they're pushing it on the lore to make it work, but that's not really something I ever cared that much about. As far as I'm concerned, if Blizzard writes some ridiculous lore to make they're games better, then I'm all for it.

I plan on making a Worgen Death Knight right off the bat, but I also want to quest their new starting zone, so I'll have to make another character for that, class TBD. It's going to be very interesting to see how the old world turns out with the release of the expansion, but it's been in need of some work for a while, and while we may lose those familiar quests that us alt addicts are used to, it opens up so much new stuff for us to explore and compare to how it was before. I predict it will be awesome.

What have I been up to?

Yes I know it's been a long time. I expect lots of the people who used to read this have since given up and moved on to blogs that actually update. I'm not sure if I'm coming back, but it's been a long time since the last update and I feel like I should get you up to speed with what I've been doing this whole time.

First and foremost, Vonari is level 80. Actually she's been there for a while now, and fully decked out in the crafted PvP set that she made for herself. I got a chance to run some BG's with her, and it was really fun. My friend brought his paladin and kept me alive while I burned down the bad guys. We got some really good teamwork going sometimes, making it almost seem easy.

Having said that, I haven't played her or Blackbare for quite a while. I tried tanking some instances with Blackbare, and it was fun (mostly due to the tips I got from reading the BBB), but it's just too time consuming for me. I can't dedicate that much time to the game. Don't get me wrong, sometimes I play for hours at a time, but it's never planned, I have the option of logging whenever I want.

I also started getting Keldreth on her way to 80. She's finished up Howling Fjord and is now on her way through Borean Tundra, but I'm putting her on hold for a while. Avialle is making her way through Outland; she and Deadbare both made the jump over to the new server as well, but they won't be joining the guild until they reach level 70.

Actually my most recent endeavor has been making some progress on my Horde characters. I'm finding it to be very fun making it through good old Azeroth as the opposing faction. Most of the quests are brand new to me, as well as the classes I'm using, so it's a completely different perspective from what I've known.

So far Kunzagah (mage) and Shanaera (warlock) have been the characters I play the most, trading off as each one gets through their well rested XP bonus.

I really like the damage the mage puts out, but I can see how just casting frostbolt over and over would get boring. I might have to think of a way to change things up later on.

The warlock is fun as well. It has the feel of a hunter with it's pet, but it also has the damage output of a mage, and those DoT's can really do some damage. One thing I didn't plan on but that works out really was having her take herbalism, which gives you Lifebloom, and in combination with Life Tap I never have downtime due to low mana. It's also great to use in combination with Health Funnel to keep your pet alive.

So if you haven't looked at the armory profiles in a while, you might be in for a big surprise, and I will try to get back in the groove of posting every so often, but I'm thinking it will only be when I have something more than just little updates to talk about.

Leave of absence

I know it's been a while since my last update, and that's because I always update from work. That being said, I got laid off last week and as such I haven't been at work to update. You'd think that means I would have more time to blog, but I guess I like to do other things online when I have full internet access.

Anyway, I probably won't be updating for a while, at least as long as I'm unemployed, so check out my blogroll for some other great blogs, assuming you don't read those ones already.

And if anybody lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and knows of any civil engineering jobs, feel free to let me know, any and all help is appreciated.

For now I have lots of time to play WoW, and once I start a new job I will be sure to update you on all of my escapades.

Slow week

It's not so much that I haven't had time to play this week, it's just that I've had other things to do with the free time I would normally use to play WoW. I don't think it's burnout, just different priorities at the moment, but this weekend might see a change in that.

I never realized how many different TV shows I watch during the week, and they aren't really shows I can just half pay attention to while playing WoW, I need to focused or I won't know what's going on. Part of it is that last year we had the writer's strike and lots of shows either had short seasons or didn't even air.

Luckily I'm almost fully caught up now, and I should be seeing more free time soon, which means I will be pushing my way to level 80.

I'm not only excited to get to 80 just so I can try my hand at some PvP. I also want to go back and run some of the old instances and raids. I want to do all the attunements from vanilla WoW, then fight through places like MC, BWL, and AQ.

I actually got asked to do BWL by a guildy, but at the time I was busy with other stuff and wasn't going to have time for it anyway. Now I'm hoping there will be some interest for some fun runs through old content that I was never able to experience but have heard a lot about.

Of course the fact that I can earn achievements by doing those instances is a plus, but I think the main reason is to see those places for myself. I know it won't be quite the same as a full blown 40-man raid at level 60, but just to be in those various fights that I've only seen screenshots of before would just be awesome.

Well it looks like I have even more to look forward to once I get to level 80, and I'm really starting to see the benefits of being in a guild with what I can do once I reach that point and start looking for fun activities to do.

Weekend Progress

I'm making my way further into the Howling Fjord, and so far I haven't had any trouble completing the quests there, even soloing some group quests. I'm now on the last quest hub, at least as far as I remember, and should be moving back to Borean Tundra very soon, where I'll hopefully blow through quickly and be able to move on to new places.

Somehow soloing has been really easy for me on Vonari, but it wasn't always that way. Up until Northrend I pretty much had to skip every group quest unless I had somebody to help me. There were a few I could solo, but mostly I got past those through luck more than anything else.

Now I'm going through the elite quests as if they're just tougher normal quests, instead of quests that are impossible without help. I was able to take out the pirate in the cave and the giant bear that eats him, even though the bear was immune to fear. Then I went after the ice dragon and got him on the first try as well.

I'm finding that most of the time my PW:Shield holds up until the debuff wears off, then I can re-apply immediately, and any health I lost is given back by VE. It's really very convenient, and it's fun getting the hang of all the skills I don't normally use against regular mobs that allow me to stay alive in a longer fight.

I'm hoping this practice at staying alive in longer fights will help me out in PvP as well. Sure it's not quite the same, but some of the tactics used to keep myself alive are similar, and the more precise reactions are something I need to work on as well.

For now it's just sticking with the leveling and making my way to 80, but once I get there I think things are going to start getting really interesting. I'm hoping this time around the end game will be a much better experience than it was in vanilla WoW, and with all the new stuff that has been implemented since then I think it will be.

Still fun the second time

I was a little worried that running through the Howling Fjord quests for the second time would get a little boring, but so far it's still almost as fun as it was the first time through here on my druid.

I'm getting close to hitting 71 on Vonari, and she has finished off the quests around Utgarde Keep and most of the stuff with the Vrykul towns up on the cliffs above. It's really helpful to have been through here before and I have a pretty good idea of what to do for the quests.

Obviously I have to use some different strategies to complete certain quests, and that's probably one of the reasons why it's not becoming monotonous. I really like the spirit world quests where you get to see the history of the Vrykul. The new quests are just so much better in comparison to anything pre-LK.

I also hope to level my professions while I level up to 80. That was the whole reason I made such a big deal about leveling them to that point. I don't want to have to do any profession grinds again.

I think up to this point I never really had the tools to level up a profession without outside help. Now with three characters at level 70 or above, I think I my characters will be able to provide each other with plenty of mats to keep from getting stuck, except for those few recipes that require atypical mats.

That's about all I have to update on at this point, plus it's Friday (Friday the 13th for that matter), and I'm ready for a good long weekend.

Still can't decide

So I'm leveling my priest, Vonari, through Northrend now. I finished up what I wanted in Borean Tundra, which got me about halfway to 71, then headed over to Howling Fjord to make my way through that zone.

I'm really starting to remember why I like playing my priest. Actually I think I say something like that every time I switch characters. I just like them all. They each have their own playstyles, and I find them all appealing, although each in it's own way.

At this point it's really looking like Vonari was the right choice to level alongside my friend as we make our way through Northrend and eventually start getting into some PvP action. Actually, I'm not sure how a priest/mage combo will hold up in 2v2, but we'll see how that goes when we get there.

I was actually asked recently by one of my guildies which character was my main. I had to tell them I'm really not sure. I have three characters at or above level 70, another two at level 60, and various lower levels on the Horde server. I just can't choose one to say it's my main.

Then they ask which is my favorite. Yet again I don't know. I just can't choose one. The only reason I'm leveling Vonari right now is to play alongside my friend, and the reason I chose her was because I thought she would make a good partner for his mage to do arenas with.

There were no favorites, just me trying to figure out the best way to do things. I could just as easily have said that Blackbare was a good choice because he was furthest along, and I'm sure he'd do just fine in arenas as well.

What it all comes down to is that I can't choose just one character and stick with it. I know lots of people can, and I used to, but when I started that first alt I just couldn't go back to playing just one, and it just escalated from there.

After thinking about how things will go when I actually get to 80 and start getting into PvP, I don't think it will stop me from leveling my alts. I won't be doing arenas or BGs every single time I'm on, which means I will be playing a different character.

I just have so many other things I want to do in the game with other classes to stick to just one, and in the impossible event that I am able to accomplish those goals, we have a ridiculous number of achievements that I can go after. I don't think I'll ever run out of stuff to do, even if I don't ever raid.

Grand Masta

It took forever and my funds are running dry, but I finally managed to get my priest up to grand master tailoring and enchanting, which means she's ready for Northrend. Had I known that leveling these two professions together would take such a toll on my gold I would never have chosen them, but too late now.

I think the worst recipe yet has to be the Runed Adamantite Bar. The mats are just ridiculous, and there's no way to get them without help from other professions.

Primal Might has to be made by and alchemist, and the transmute can only be performed once per day, so even if you manage to find someone to do it for you, and you have your own mats, you're still going to pay a lot for it.

Then the Adamantite bar requires a blacksmith, and those are way more expensive than the mats needed for it because they know enchanters need them.

The rest of the mats aren't quite so hard to come by...if you only needed one or two of them, but 8 Large Prismatic Shards is a lot, especially considering how infrequently you get them from disenchanting. Luckily one of my new guildmates had some extras he was willing to part with. What a nice guy.

Well at least that part is past me now, and tailoring wasn't nearly as bad as enchanting was, plus I could DE all the crafted cloth to get more mats.

I sent my priest to Northrend shortly after and made my way to the profession trainers to up my skills to Grand Master. Actually I only had enough money to be grand master in one profession when I got there, but after a few quests I went back and got the other one, although I don't have money to buy any of the recipes now.

I started out in Borean Tundra again, but I'm thinking I'll head over to Howling Fjord after finishing off a few more of the quests since I really liked that zone much better, and my friend is leveling over there right now anyway.

I'm finding a lot less stamina on the cloth drops in Northrend, but much more spell power and intellect. Luckily I don't get hit much because I am almost always shielded, so I'm wondering if this was done on purpose since clothies try not to get hit much anyway and would rather see bigger numbers. I sure don't mind.

For now I'll be pushing my priest as far as I can until I run out of rested XP bonus. I'm sure my friend will get to 80 way before I do, but I just can't stand leveling at the normal rate, so he'll have to wait around before we start our arena team.

I'm still undecided on a spec to go for arenas. I'll be pairing up with a mage, so I'm thinking shadow will be good if we focus fire and just burn down opponents really fast. I was thinking discipline for a while, but I think with two squishies we're just gonna need all the damage output we can get and hope it's enough to kill them before they get to us.

Well, with duel specs coming up I guess I can just try out both and see which works best. It's going to get interesting.

Luck of the draw

I logged on yesterday for one purpose, and that was to farm some Fel Scales to level up Blackbare's leatherworking. I remembered them dropping fairly often from ravagers, so I made my way over to Hellfire Peninsula to grind them out.

Going by the guide I found, I would need enough to make 10 boots to get to 350, plus some extra since the recipe would go yellow at 345. This meant I would need over 20 Fel Scales, and I wasn't sure I would have enough leather to make them all either.

Well, it didn't go that quickly, but I did get 20 Fel Scales and also a good amount of leather, so I decided to try my luck and see if I could just get to 350 without more farming.

And guess what? It worked! I made 5 boots with the recipe in yellow and got a level each time. Not only that, but I still have some leather left over that I can send over to my priest to make some tailored boots.

I had actually expected that task to take a little longer, but now that it was done I still had time to play. I sent Blackbare to Stormwind, grabbed all the Borean Leather out of the bank that he had been collecting, then sent him to Northrend.

Once there I trained up my leatherworking some more and with all the Borean Leather I was able to get him up over 380. That's over 40 levels in one night, and probably a new record for me. I sent all the crafted stuff to the priest to disenchant.

Now it was time to get Keldreth's (that's the hunter's new name) herbalism up to Northrend level. Obviously this won't get done in one night, but I was surprised how fast it did go. She started off at 35 (pathetic for a 70, I know), and after running around Elwynn and Redridge she got a few levels past 100. It wasn't very eventful, just lots of running and one-shotting mobs that decided to pick a fight.

The interesting thing was, just about every time I picked something it gave me a level, even the yellows and greens. Actually I only remember one or two times when something didn't give me a level. Looks like last night was my lucky night for leveling up professions.

The next place I'm sending her is the Wetlands. I decided to do the traveling last night so I can go straight into gathering next time. I stopped off at Ironforge on the way and put up the herbs she had just picked for auctiong. May as well make some money since I don't really need them for anything. Then I sent her over to Menethil to log out.

I guess I was worried about this profession leveling for nothing. I really thought leatherworking would take much longer. Herbalism is going pretty quickly too, although I think once I get into the Outland stuff I will have a little tougher time of it, but at least it's not stressful like a crafting profession, and I'll actually be making money from it rather than spending.

Soon enough I'll be able to level the little hordies a bit more before I dive back into leveling my priest to keep up with my friend. I'm pretty sure I'll get left behind, but I'll at least try to stay close.

I'm actually really looking forward to trying out arenas, but I'm wondering if I should do some BGs first to gear up before I head in there. I'm thinking I'll probably just go straight to arenas, but when I'm not doing that I'll do BGs on the side to grab some PvP gear so we'll gradually become more competetive. I'll really need some practice figuring out how to play a priest in PvP.

Lost my name

I made the jump yesterday. Switched three of my characters over to the Eredar server to play alongside my friend. He's only level 60 right now so I still have a little time to play the hordies before he's caught up, but he plays a lot more than I do so it shouldn't take too long.

I have decided to use my priest to level with him. I'm not really sure about how that's going to end up in PvP later on (him being a mage), but if that doesn't work out I can always level somebody else up to 80.

Actually, the only thing I wasn't happy about was my hunter lost her name. I really liked Aluvia, but apparently somebody already has that name on the server. I checked Armory, but I didn't see the character on there, so either their account is closed or they aren't level 10 yet. Either way, I think I should get priority, being level 70, but whatever.

I can't even remember what I named her right now. I updated the Armory links on this page, but her's will have to stay unchanged until I get home and figure out what I named her. Not that it's a bad name, I actually like it, but I just can't remember it at the moment. I also had her name her core hound, Corey (get it?), because I felt bad he's been fighting for her all this time without his own name.

Besides that I didn't actually do much in the game. I decided to take this chance to level some more professions. Blackbare got his leatherworking a little higher, although he needs a bunch of Fel Scales to get anywhere, so I'll have to do a little farming. Vonari's tailoring and enchanting are both coming along, but she's out of money. She's just going to have to live with being poor until her professions are leveled all the way up.

I'm thinking I better head back with my hunter and level her herbalism. I'm running into some enchanting recipes that require different mats and I really don't want to pay AH prices for them if I don't have to. I'm hoping it will go quickly, I'll have to find some guides one where the best places to go are and then just gather, gather, gather. Hopefully I can also sell all that stuff as I go and maybe fund Vonari's profession leveling.

So with all that going on, I'll have to distribute my time better. I want to play the hordies, but I also want to get my professions up to Northrend level in time to play alongside my friend. That might mean making some sacrifices, I'm just not sure what those are going to be yet. Looks like I have some thinking to do.

#3

That's right, I got my third character to level 70 this weekend, and got to do some pretty cool quests in the process.

First I set out to help Oronok, gathering tubers and destroying slayer eggs, but then he asked me to find his sons and help them out. Those quests got very interesting, with different mechanics that we don't get to see very often in our questing.

The first was fairly straightforward. Kill nagas, find a key, and open a chest with it to get the item. Only thing is, the item doesn't have to be in the chest, it could just be a bunch of random items, so you have to keep doing this until you find the right chest. This one went pretty quickly and I got it on the second chest.

Next up sends you to the southwest camp of demons. This son is dead, but his spirit wants you to do something for him. You have to first free his soul, then find his bow so he can help you on the next step. Once he has his bow, he basically becomes a pet, except he has a mind of his own. This made things go pretty quickly, and we downed the required mob and completed the quest.

The last son had me ambush a courier and then disguise myself as a blood elf to deliver a note to the commander at Eclipsion Point. I actually liked the ambush part the best. You set a package in the road across the bridge and then hide until the courier is distracted by it, then you rush in and take him out. The rest was similar to any of the disguise quests, except all the dragonhawks can see through it so you have to stay out of range. Still very fun.

After finishing up those quests and a few more I hit level 70, immediately dropped everything else, and made my way back to Shatt, where I ported to Stormwind and learned all my new skills.

I'll be setting my hunter aside for a bit in order to level my mage. I also need to see how far my druid's leatherworking can get with what she provided to him. If it's not enough to get to the Borean Leather recipes I'll have to do some farming. The priest's enchanting I'm not too worried about though. I still have my shaman, and maybe my rogue, that need to get through Outlands, and they should give me plenty of items to disenchant for mats to get her through the levels.

I checked out my mage for a bit this weekend too, enough time to complete a quest and then fly around to wrap up a few loose ends so I can start in on finishing off Ashenvale and then probably move on to Thousand Needles. I'm hoping to get at least a couple levels before his rested XP bonus runs out and I have to switch off. Leveling goes so much faster at these lower levels.

Left behind

I feel bad about my rogue, Deadbare. He was my first character, my first main, first to 60 (which was the level cap at the time), and pretty much is the reason I've stuck with this game so long.

Once Deadbare got to level 55 or so I was starting to feel the pull of the alt. I had made it so far, but the grind to get to 60 was starting to wear me out, and I felt I needed a change. So I made Blackbare, my druid, and had a great time leveling him, since I convinced my friend to also create an alt and level alongside me.

As I went, I switched off playing the two, and Deadbare ended up making it to level 60. At that point the game really opened up for me. I was able to go to all those level 60 instances I had heard so much about. I could get some awesome gear, and eventually join in raiding with my guild.

Well, it didn't go quite as planned. Rogues and hunters were a dime a dozen, so getting into a PUG was nearly impossible. It was made even harder by the fact that priests were considered the only viable healing class and warriors the only viable tank class. Sure we had paladins and druids that could heal or tank, but they didn't have all the tools they do now.

So after a bunch of runs to Strat and Scholo, and a few LBRS and UBRS runs with no upgrades dropping I was starting to get very frustrated. I was making some money, and eventually bought a few of the gear upgrades that were BoE, but even those weren't a big help because my guild was fairly strict on gear requirements to get into the raids.

I was playing my druid more and more because I just couldn't justify spending time in the game if all I was going to do was sit around Ironforge for hours trying to get groups together that were just going to fall apart before the end of the instance half the time.

I started thinking about how to fix this. I thought maybe if I were to create a new character of a class that is in demand I can actually accomplish something. So I made a priest, Vonari, and while I was planning on healing in the end, I leveled her as shadow to go faster. I never got her to 60 before BC came out and bumped up the level cap.

So after trying out a few other alts, making some horde characters to see what it was like, the expansion came out and introduced a lot of new stuff to the game.

I had always wanted to try a shaman, and now I could make one on the Alliance side. That was fun for a while, then I left the brand new starting areas and was back in the old world again, with all the same quests to do. I wanted to see Outland.

At that point my druid was also close to being able to go to Outland, but not quite. Deadbare could though, and I sent him out to see what it was like.

After a few of the quests I had replaced most of my gear, including the stuff I had spent all that money on so I could get close to being able to raid. It was sort of disheartening to know how much work I had put in and was now having everything replaced with quest greens. I decided to get my druid to Outland instead and would come back to Deadbare later.

Well that never happened. Deadbare still sits at level 60, hanging out in Ironforge as a bank mule. It's a little sad, but I guess the bad end game experience I had with him sort of makes it hard to pick him back up, and now that I have so many other characters to level he's getting left behind.

Will I come back to him eventually? I'm not sure yet. The rogue talent trees have changed so much in the past couple years, and it would be fun to see what he's capable of now. I also have so much to do on my other characters that I don't know if I'll get around to playing him again. He's going to be hard to fit into my other plans.

Funny how attached we can become to our characters and actually start thinking of them as real people with feelings.

Quite the journey

I've been thinking recently about my early experiences with WoW. It's been a long time since I first started out, and the game has almost become somewhat second nature to me. I don't know nearly everything about the game, but I am still very familiar with a great deal of it.

I remember first starting out, and getting lost in the gnome and dwarf starting area because I thought it was so huge, then as I go through the cave and reach the other side only to find a new area much bigger, and realizing that this was just a fraction of the entire world. I was a little overwhelmed at first.

Playing alongside my friend, we eventually made it to Loch Modan, which was a nice change from the snowy Dun Morogh. We decided to go exploring and found the entrance to the Badlands. Oh man, we were only level 12 or so, and seeing those dwarves with skulls for levels was so scary. We had no idea what level they were, but we booked it back to the Loch very quickly.

Now I pretty much know all the zones. Maybe not everything there is to know about them, but I know the names, level ranges, where any towns are, and the other basic stuff you pick up along the way. I can read other blogs, and when they explain their progression through a zone I have a picture in my mind of exactly what they're doing.

Thinking about that, I realize that anybody who has never played or isn't to experienced with WoW would never have enough familiarity with it to follow and explanation like that. All the bloggers out there assume their readers have at least a basic knowledge of the game in order to explain things, otherwise a lot of their posts would be impossibly long with explanations and pictures to point out every reference you would need.

Luckily, anyone who has enough interest in the game to actually think about looking up blogs about it is almost guaranteed to have the required knowledge to follow what the blogs are talking about. I guess I just find it amazing that a game can have so much detail that you need a good amount of experience with it just to understand what's going on in someone else's story about it.

Soon I will be taking another step and changing realms to play with some other friends. At this point I might just move all my characters over there. I really don't want to lose that synergy they have with their professions.

I also want to have some options open to me on which character I want to play. Even if one character turns into my main and the others end up being solo projects, I still want to be on the same server to get that interaction with my other friends.

I sure hope all my characters get to keep their names. It would be quite disappointing if I had to change any of them.

Interesting turn of events

I have recently become reacquainted with a friend that I haven't talked to much in the last couple years. I knew he played WoW, but I had never really brought up the subject with him because for the most part I try to avoid discussing videogames too much with people.

Well last night we got to talking, and he mentioned that I should start playing again, I guess because he thought I had quit for some reason. I told him I still played, just not as much as I used to because I'm usually busy with other stuff. Then he suggested we should play together.

I asked what realm he was on, and of course it's not that same as mine. He also said he was in a guild with a bunch of people I knew way back in high school. I wasn't great friends with them by any means, but just the fact that I know who they are outside of the game makes it an interesting prospect.

The only problem at this point is that I like my characters to be on the same realm. It's very convenient to be able to supply yourself with what you need, and right now I have a pretty good synergy with my characters collecting materials for each other to advance their professions.

Add that to the fact that it costs money to make the transfer and it's going to be a little harder to decide what to do. If I were to do the transfer it would probably only be one of my characters because I really couldn't justify paying for more than that, so it would split up the team.

I also don't know who I would even want to transfer. My friend said he's not too into raiding, but he likes Arenas, and I'm not sure who would be the best character for that. Right now it's between the druid, priest, and hunter. Not only that, but I'd probably have to change specs on whoever I choose because they're not really set up for PvP right now.

I do miss the social aspect of the game that was there when I first started playing. It was fun when your friends logged on and you could do some quests together, or just talk while you played.

I guess at this point my only obstacle is how much I'm willing to pay. I really have nothing holding me to my current server except that I can't just up and move to another one for free. All my friends there have quit playing, I'm unguilded, but I have 5 characters at fairly high levels and I'm not sure I want to split them up.

It's quite the dilemma.

Something new

After making it most of the way through Outlands with my hunter, I'm finally finding some new quests that I hadn't done previously on my other characters.

This past weekend I managed to get to level 69 and am about 1/4 of the way to level 70. I figure on finishing up the push to 70 in Shadowmoon Valley, and so far it's looking like I may just be able to accomplish that goal.

The last time I was in this zone was with my druid, and he hit 70 pretty quickly there, so I didn't actually need to finish everything. Now I've finally made it to the point on my hunter where I've done everything my druid did and everything from here on should be brand new to me.

It's been interesting to see how the stories are playing out in this zone, with all the lore being based on the Black Temple and Illidan. The Scryers are training demon hunters, and I was sent in to take them out. Pretty crazy stuff, and it's too bad I didn't have the chance to experience any of it before now.

I'm really hoping to get as much of this zone finished off as I can before I hit 70, but I'm not sure how many quests are actually left there. I want to see how all this stuff plays out, and I'm not sure how long it will be before I am able to make it back to this zone.

My next character through Outland will probably be finishing up their run to 70 by going through Netherstorm, since I never got the chance to finish that zone off the first time through.

Other than that, things are going pretty much normal as far as where I was hoping to be at this point, in WoW at least. Other things not so much, but that doesn't get covered in this blog.

200th post!!

I almost forgot to post a little something today, and this will be my 200th blog post, so it's sort of a big deal. Well maybe it's not, because I only get about 20 page hits a day, so it might just be 200 posts that nobody really reads.

Either way, my hunter has moved on to Shadowmoon Valley and will be spending the rest of her time in Outland there before moving on to Northrend at 70, although she'll probably get a break when that time comes so I can move on to another character.

So when I first got the expansion I created a death knight. I had to create a human because while I wanted to make an undead one, I didn't have a level 55 on my Horde server yet. Now I don't resent the fact that you don't need another 55 on the same server, I think playing through the death knight starting quests was great both times I did it, but I haven't done anything with either of my death knights since I finished that part.

The only problem at this point is I really don't want to go back to Hellfire Peninsula yet. For some reason that zone is just depressing to me, and every time I go through with a character I need some time away from there before I send another character back in. Since death knights are meant to go directly to Outlands, I don't see myself leveling one through there right away to avoid Hellfire Peninsula for a while.

I could spend some time in the higher level Azeroth stuff, but with how much faster leveling in Outland is now it would just be a waste of time...time that I could be using to level other characters who are way behind the rest.

So it's looking like the little hordies will get to come out to play for a while. At this point I haven't made it past level 30 with a Horde character, and I'm interested to see those zones from a different perspective. Not to mention I've never played some of these classes past level 20, and I'm excited to see what they can do.

Things are going to get pretty interesting once I my hunter gets to level 70.

Hunters nerfed?

With the new patch 3.0.8 coming out just two days ago, we saw a load of changes to hunters, especially BM hunters, and while it looked like a huge nerf, we weren't quite sure how it would all play out in the end.

For the record, I'm not one to rely for knowing anything about DPS in raid situations. I don't raid, I don't have much experience with it outside of one ZG run in Vanilla WoW when I wasn't even geared for it but my guild at the time had it on farm so they brought me along.

So I logged in to the hunter, more to continue leveling than to test out just how badly we were nerfed. At this point I was almost done with Nagrand, just a few more normal quests, and then all the group quests that I will probably just skip over.

I finished off the easy ones pretty quickly, and at that point I had already killed Gutripper and Banthar, two of the elite beasts for Nesingwary's quest line. All I had left was Bach'lor, but for some reason he had been giving me a lot of trouble. It just seemed like his damage output was much higher than the others, and I couldn't keep my pet alive.

Then last night I decided I really needed to get that quest out of the way so I could continue the chain and get the gun at the end. I also knew that BM hunters had been nerfed, or at least that's what everyone has been saying after reading the patch notes. I sort of figured that I would have no chance to solo him now if I wasn't able to before, but I was going to try anyway.

First attempt I waited for him to get clear of other mobs, then send the pet in. I started out doing well, my pet was staying alive for the most part, at least enough that it would probably last the whole fight, and I was blowing my cooldowns to get him down faster. Then I see one of those roaming wind elementals coming into view, and he's heading right into the fray. He aggros on my pet and it goes down, then they both turn toward me. If it was just one mob I would have tried to kite it, but with two all I could do was feign death and try it again.

Now I was optimistic. My pet was actually holding up this time, and when it died, Bach'lor only had about 4000 health left, and had that wind elemental not shown up he would have gone down.

Second try, clear out any hostile mobs in the vicinity this time, then send the pet in again. Once again I blew all my cooldowns, kept Mend Pet up, and all was going well. Then what do I see? Horde coming in and AoEing the mob of talbuks that follow Bach'lor around. I was sure that was end of that. They were probably after him too, and were going to take me out so they could have him.

At that point Bach'lor was almost down, just a few more seconds and I could head back to Nesingwary to turn it in. I took a look at the Horde group and they were just finishing up the other mobs, and I knew I was next. Then somehow I pulled off a few crits in a row and he was down! I rushed in, grabbed the horn, mounted up, and fled the scene. I wasn't followed.

I'm not really sure of the exact mechanics of what happened during that fight, but I do know that if BM hunters had been nerfed as badly as everyone says they were, I wouldn't have stood a chance. I was pleasantly surprised that I could handle that fight on my own, although I needed a little help to take down Tusker, but it did prove to me that I can still look forward to soloing a lot of content with my hunter that many other classes can't handle on their own.

At this point I think the only change my hunter will be making is her pet. I really like my core hound and his damage output, but sometimes I run into these types of situations and it would be really nice to have a tanking pet that can outlast the tough fights.

Maybe when I head to Northrend I'll look into switching pets, but I still have some ground to cover until then, so my core hound still has a chance to stay with me if we can get through this nerf and still be as strong as ever.

Independence

I've always made a point in WoW to deal with the AH as little as possible. Sure it's a great resource to use in order to make money, but with my playstyle I'd really rather do other things than have to traffic my items back and forth to make some extra gold.

One good thing about this is I find ways to supply myself with the materials I need to level up my professions. There are a lot of professions leveling guides out there, but most of them are very similar in which items to make that will require the least amount of materials overall.

This is all well and good, but there are those other players that exploit this, and if you don't want to do the farming yourself you have to be ready to pay quite a bit if you want to level up your profession quickly.

Now I don't tend to have that kind of money, and while I could farm items to sell on the AH, it seems easier to just farm the items I need for myself and skip the AH altogether.

It's worked out pretty good so far. My priest has an almost endless supply of cloth coming from the lower level characters as they come up. The druid gets leather not only from his own skinning, but from the hunter as well, and then any items he makes get sent to the priest to disenchant, thus giving me some enchanting materials.

I will be trying to get my Horde characters to have the same synergy as well, although I will be taking some different professions with them, just to change things up.

This synergy not only relates to leveling professions, but also to supplying myself with items. In the process of leveling leatherworking, I managed to make my hunter a set of mail armor that dealt exclusively with agility and RAP. It's way better than the quest items I was in before, and will probably last me through the rest of Outland. I should be able to supply my shaman as well, and my priest can supply herself with armor oncer he tailoring catches up.

The only thing I'm having trouble with is my shaman trying to level her jewelcrafting. She mines her own ore, which helps a lot, but I'm just not motivated to do the work it requires. I really think I need to use a leveling guide for this one, because it's looking to be way to expensive and time consuming if I try to figure it out for myself.

One thing I'm glad I don't have to deal with is leveling those secondary professions. For all you raiders who need to gather and cook food in order to provide the necessary buffs, it's a no brainer that you need to level your secondary professions. For me, I don't raid, I almost exclusively stick to solo content, I don't really want to go fishing or cook in a game, and so I just don't bother with them.

This isn't to say that depending on people every so often is a bad thing. Keep in mind that there are times when you're going to need help, and knowing when and how to get that help is essential if you're going to get where you want to. So if you like to go it alone like me, just remember that you always have the option of getting help when you need it. I've met quite a few decent people who were willing to give me a hand, despite my solo playstyle.

The hunt is on

It seems that no matter what class you are, those Nesingwary quests in Nagrand just take forever to complete. Not to say it didn't give me a good amount of leather, but it still wasn't all that much quicker than the first time I did it. I guess killing 30 of each thing is just going to take a while.

The disappointing thing is that even with how many skins I was able to get, I still don't think it's enough to get my druid's leatherworking skill up to 375 where I can start to use the Borean Leather he's been collecting in Northrend. Looks like I'll have to do some farming at some point.

In the meantime, it doesn't look like my hunter's rested XP bonus will last her until she hits 70, at least not at the rate I'm going. I can see the end of it, and I'm about halfway through level 67, so by the time I hit 68 it will be almost gone. She's also getting close to finishing up Nagrand. She's on the tail end of most of the quests right now and should be moving on pretty soon, which means 2 more levels in another zone.

I'm thinking I'll head over to Shadowmoon Valley next. There are some interesting quests over there which go pretty quickly, and my first time there I didn't actually get to see most of it because I hit 70 part way though.

But first I'll have to spend some time on my mage and the rest of my low level hordies while the hunter builds up her rested bonus again. Then it will be time to get her the rest of the way to 70 before she takes a rest for a while.

On a side note, I've noticed most of my posts recently have been about my planning for my various characters, what I expect to accomplish with them, who to play next, stuff like that. I'm not sure if this is interesting to people or not, and if not I apologize, but getting it written down like this really helps in my thinking process.

In the past I would sign into the game, then sit there for about ten minutes thinking about which character I wanted to play, trying to figure out the most efficient, and then another 5 minutes second guessing myself before finally either just picking something and going with it, or giving up and exiting the game to do something else.

Now I can do all my thinking here, make a plan, reason it out in writing, and then when it comes time to play I have a clears sense of exactly what I want to do next and maybe even what I will be doing the next few times I play.

Hopefully that makes sense. This isn't to say I won't bring up some topics sometimes that have to do with game mechanics and how I see them, but those come to me on a whim, so I really can't plan on writing about stuff like that, it's just something that is maybe triggered by something that happened while playing or maybe something I read on another blog that I feel I should make my own post about.

That's enough rambling for today.

Better, stronger, faster

Well for me I guess it's just the faster part. When I logged in last night and saw myself sitting in Shatt, I decided I really didn't want to make the run to Nagrand on my old +60% speed mount.

I took a look at my gold and saw that I had almost 500g. I can never remember the prices for that kind of stuff, but I figured I was pretty close, and I could transfer some from my druid if I needed more.

So I took the portal over the Darnassus and bought the riding skill, but didn't have quite enough for the mount, so I was going to have to "borrow" a little. Hopped on the druid, sent it over, and went and got my new Swift Stormsaber.

How did I narrow the choice down on which one to get? Well my druid and priest have the other two, so naturally I have to take the one I don't have yet. I also trained a few new skills while I was there, then hearthed back to Shatt so I could make the run.

As I traveled I grabbed all the quests on the way, although I didn't have time to do any of them, but I always think it's better to have the quest and do it later than wait to pick it up, just in case you end up in the area for another reason and can kill two birds with one stone.

So I'm now running around Outlands faster than before and it feels so much better. Seeing myself getting passed up by all those death knights with their free epic ground mounts that they get just for finishing a quest was getting old, but now I can keep up (or run away).

On to Nagrand

I finally managed to finish off Zangarmarsh on my hunter last night before logging out. Not only that, but I dinged the quest and exploring achievements for the zone, and hit level 66.

I'm really realizing just how awesome of a solo character my hunter really is. I never have to ask for help, and the only time I think I remember dying while questing in Zangarmarsh is when my internet went out but I didn't disconnect right away so I was getting beat on by invisible mobs, then I logged back in and found myself dead.

Doing all the quests in each zone is no problem, even the group quests, so not only am I able to get those achievements, but also the extra XP and sometimes even a good quest reward that I can use.

Does it really matter anymore if you side with the Aldor or Scryers? It doesn't seem like those rep rewards are that useful anymore now that level 70 isn't the cap. I ended up siding with the Aldor, if for no other reason than my other two characters that made it through Outland did the same and I'm used to going up that elevator already.

Next up I will be moving on to Nagrand to roam the plains. I'm a little worried about the end of the Nesingwary quests, not because I expect them to be too difficult, but because the reward is a gun and not a bow.

I'm not a big fan of guns.

I've stuck to a bow from the start, but I know the gun reward will be a big upgrade to what I'm currently walking around with so it wouldn't make sense not to take it. This also means I'd need a new ammo pouch, so hopefully I can find something cheap that holds a good amount of ammo.

Other than that I'm expecting Nagrand to go very smoothly. I probably won't hit 70 there, but I expect to be level 69, or close to it, when I finish it off, especially since the end of my rested XP bonus bar is nowhere in sight.

Scarce quest rewards

As I make my way through Outland on my hunter, I'm noticing a lack of good gear coming as quest rewards. For the most part you get some choices as to which piece of gear you want when you turn a quest in, but more and more I'm finding that the gear that's offered usually isn't for hunters.

I see lots of mail with intellect and spell power, which are better for caster shamans, or the stamina will be high, but the agility or attack power will be fairly low, which I would assume an enhance shammy would want.

See, as a hunter, with my pet doing all the grunt work, I don't see much need to have a lot of health. When I do start getting beat on, I can just feign death anyway and send the mob back to my pet.

For the same reason, I haven't really been bothering with getting a lot of armor either. For the most part I will tend to look at the leather option when it comes to quest rewards. These tend to have more the stats I want for hunter gear, just with less armor, which is fine because I don't care so much about that.

I guess I just find it unfortunate that there is a noticeable lack of gear specifically for hunters until you start raiding and picking up the high end stuff. With the number of quests out there you will eventually get what you want, but it really seems like the hunter gear comes much less often than the others.

Maybe it's just because they changed the stats that are important to hunters in WotLK, and all that BC gear is outdated. I'm basically looking to boost AP and agility over all else, with maybe some +crit if it comes along, with AP being slightly higher in importance than the others. Stamina seems to be on everything in generous amounts already, so I don't really need to worry about that, and with Aspect of the Viper I can lay off trying to find anything with +int, or any other stats for that matter.

I didn't really pay much attention to the other gear while running my druid through Northrend, but I'm hoping there will be a little more variety, and I can get more than one or two upgrades per zone.

Other than that, I'm most of the way done with Zangarmarsh, and should hopefully be done in the next session, then it's time to move on to Nagrand, where I will hopefully be able to get enough leather just from questing to supply my druid through to 375 LW.

A slight return

Despite all the football playoff games going on this weekend, I did manage to get some playing time in on my hunter. Actually, since I really only cared about one of the games, I watched that one and played during the others while just half paid attention to them. It worked out well, and I was able to get my hunter to level 75 fairly easily.

At this point I think I have Hellfire Peninsula and Zangarmarsh down pretty well, at least on the Alliance side. Within a few hours of playing I finished up Hellfire and am now probably around 75% of the way done with Zangarmarsh. I should be about halfway to 76 before moving on.

Next up will be Nagrand. I figure being in the 75-76 range I can just skip Terokkar, since I've been through that zone twice already, and I have other characters coming through that will have plenty of time to get acquainted with that zone.

I'm also getting a little tired of Hellfire Peninsula. The big downside to this is I have my shaman sitting there waiting to be played, but I'll probably hold off on her for a while until I can psych myself up enough to run her through. I also have my new death knight that will be going through when I play him again, and he might take precedence over the shaman just because I've been wanting to try him out.

In the meantime, once my hunter runs out of her rested XP bonus, I'm debating whether to go back to my druid to continue on through Northrend or switching back to one of my lower level hordies to get them a little further through the old content.

Right now I'm leaning towards the Horde characters. Not only would questing through some of the older content be refreshing for me, but those guys also don't take long to run out their XP bonuses, so I figure I'd be back to my druid fairly quickly anyway, but with a newly refreshed mindset.

One good thing about my Horde characters is 3 of the 5 get their own class mounts, one of the others already has their level 30 mount, which only leaves one more to buy their first, and then those two to buy their epics at 60. I've had such a hard time with my other characters getting their mounts on the Alliance server, but I don't think I'm going to have to worry about it this time through.

Luckily I really don't get into the content that requires flying much, so for now I'm not too worried about getting any flying mounts, but it has still been a struggle. All my characters that have been through Outland haven't even gotten their epic ground mounts until around level 74-75 because of lack of funds. My hunter still doesn't have her's, and my shaman will most likely end up in the same boat.

I have a lot of stuff I want to try with all the different classes, and I have a long way to go before I have them at a level where I can, but I'm slowly working my way to it. At least for now it's nice just to think about getting there and working my way towards that goal.

Clarification

I feel like my last post was a little vague on why I think I need to cut back on WoW when normally I'm complaining about how little time I have to play.

See, this past summer I was leveling my druid through Outland in an attempt to get to level 70 and be my first max level character in BC. I managed to get it done, but it took a long time. I think he started the push at level 63 and it was almost 3 months later that he finally got to 70.

Now compare this to my priest's leveling through Outland more recently. She also started at level 63 when I decided to concentrate on getting her to 70, and I believe it took less than a month before she got there. I know they had made leveling through Outland faster at that point, but cutting it down to less than a third of the time would suggest a drastic change in my playing habits.

Despite my complaining about lack of time to play WoW in the past, I was actually sort of glad that I wasn't becoming too addicted. I didn't let it get in the way of real life, and while I may not have been leveling as fast as I wanted, I felt I was letting the more important things have priority.

Then a few months ago I found myself with a lot more time to myself. Because I was used to a lot less of that free time, I would use it to play WoW, so that's what I did, except now I would get home from work and just play the rest of the night until I went to bed, which meant almost 6 hours, sometimes multiple nights in a row.

I was on a binge, and I was using WoW to escape the real life problems that were the cause of my excess of free time.

Over the holidays I have been spending more time with family and friends, and thinking more about the situation, and I have come to the conclusion that if I keep playing WoW the way I have been it will just make things worse. I need to confront the situation in order to resolve it, and more WoW isn't going to help me do that.

It's strange how much of an effect a videogame can have on your life, but WoW proves once again that it has the power to be a major influence. Some of you readers may even have had a similar experience and know exactly what I'm talking about.

So that's the reasoning behind my decision. I'm not sure if it's making things better yet, but I'm hoping it will. Only time will tell.

Back from the holidays, and resolutions

It's been a while since my last post. I've been pretty busy with other stuff, such as taking some time off work and all that other holiday stuff.

Well, in all that time I haven't played WoW at all. I'm not really sure why, but I haven't been too motivated to continue on recently. I got a Playstation emulator and have been playing through Final Fantasy IV instead, and have the other rest of the series lined up to played once I'm done with that.

I also got a Blu-ray player for Christmas from the gf (which was an unexpected but awesome gift) and have switched my Netflix account over to send me blu-ray discs and sent back the DVDs I had so I can get the blu-ray versions instead, so I'm pretty excited about it. Actually, I'm not sure if it was just my imagination, but my old DVDs even look better through the new player. I think I'll be watching a lot more movies now.

This sort of goes along with my resolutions for the new year, so here they are:

1. Get back in shape - Ever since I finished college and got a full time job I have had less time to work out, and less motivation. I managed to gain about 20 pounds in the past year and a half, and it's time to get rid of it. So far I am back below 200, but not back to what I was, so I still have some work to do.

2. Cut back on WoW - This helps me out with resolution #1 as well, because that hour a day less of playing WoW is the hour I need to work out. I will also be looking to other ways to spend my time. Lately almost all my free time has been spent on WoW, and I feel I need to expand my horizons, not just in other games, but other things in general.

And I have a few more resolutions, but they are sort of private so I won't be discussing them here. For the most part I probably won't be posting every weekday anymore. With less WoW playing in the future I really won't have enough to talk about anyway, but I'm not quitting yet, I just needed a little time off recently.

I'm fairly certain my next move will be to continue on with my hunter. She's almost done with Hellfire Peninsula and I'll be glad when she is. That's probably one of my least favorite zones, especially now with all the death knights running around, but they're slowly filtering through and it should be back to its old barren wasteland self pretty soon.

Time to get back into work mode after my time off, which is turning out to be pretty tough. Hopefully you didn't miss me too much.