I’m writing this post on February 8, 2010.  My friends still don’t know that I’ve started playing World of Warcraft again.  I’ve managed so far to refrain from logging in to my main character at all (highest risk of detection), choosing instead to play as my Mage.  At the time of this writing he is level 55.  I had hoped to be 58 and into Outlands by this point, but I’ll have to push that goal back a week or so.

Ever since reaching level 50 I’ve been spending a lot of time in Blackrock Depths, courtesy of the random dungeon finder.  Typically, the groups haven’t stayed in the zone for long, choosing to zone out after clearing the prison area and killing High Interrogator Gerstahn.  A couple of other times the group has also done the Ring of Law, but for the most part, the groups have seemed content to get out of the zone as quickly as possible.  The other night however, I got put into a group that wanted to clear the entire zone.  We ultimately didn’t make it, stopping after killing Watchman Doomgrip in the vault.  It was late at that point and once one of the party members left, the group disintegrated.

It was still nice to see a lot more of the zone, which I’d rank right up towards the top of my favourite dungeons list.  Everything about it feels very epic, from the size of the zone itself, to all of the bosses, and of course all of that lava, which movies and games have taught me is the hallmark of evil zones.  It’s clearly not as difficult as it once was, as our group of low fifties players tore through it without much difficulty.  I’ve read comments from a few years ago that talk about the difficulty of bosses like Bael’Gar (pictured above), and how you’ll need to be prepared for a “long fight”.  For us, he went down in under a minute.

Once again, it would have been nice to see the zone back in its heyday, but the XP was still great, and that’s good enough for me at the moment.  I gained an entire level during our extended foray into the dungeon.  It would be nice to finish the entire zone at level though, I’m just not going to hold my breath on that one.

If you’re reading this, and I can only assume that you are, then that means it’s either April 1, 2010, or my friends have discovered that I’ve been secretly playing World of Warcraft since re-subscribing on January 17.

Despite a valiant effort, my will finally gave in to the relentless calling of WoW.  The random dungeon group finder just sounded too perfect for me to not check out for myself, so the credit card came out and I re-activated my subscription for three months.  My goal is to work on leveling up my Mage, pictured above, who was level 44 when I last played him, and is now just two bars away from level 51 after two weeks of sporadic play.  Ideally I get him to level 80 in time for April 1 when I publish this post, and before my friends discover I’ve been playing again.  That’s the dream.  The reality may be different, I don’t know.  My lack of time for games certainly hasn’t changed at all, so that’s definitely a factor in my road to level 80.  Not to mention the fact I could slip up and mistakenly reveal that I’ve been playing, or one of my nosy friends could happen to look up my character on the armory for whatever reason.  My friends have transferred their main characters off of the server my Mage is on, so I’m not too worried about running into them in-game.  My 80 Shaman however, is on their server and on their friends lists as well, so I’ve forbidden myself from logging in to that character, lest my grand plan be spoiled.

That means it’s been pure Mage for me so far, and it’s been fun.  I’ve already taken part in three random dungeons (Uldaman, Sunken Temple, and Maraudon), all of which went very quickly and smoothly.  I have to say that it’s quite refreshing to just sit back and blast away at the target.  In group situations as my Shaman (leveled as Enhancement spec) I was constantly adjusting position, running around to ensure I was constantly melee attacking the mobs.  It’s also quite fun to actually see the spells I cast.  Unlike the Shaman where I looked mostly at the mobs chest, I can see my Frost Bolts fly out from my fingers and smash into the mob.  The Blizzard spell is also pretty cool to see in action.

The downside to the Mage so far is in open world PvP.  Keep in mind that I’m quite likely the worst PvP’er in the history of video games, but I was fairly decent in open-world PvP with my Shaman, but so far I’ve been terrible with the Mage.  If someone gets the jump on me, the only thing I can do really is run away.  Ice Barrier and Blink certainly help in that regard.  I haven’t had much luck being the aggressor either though.  About a week ago, at level 47, I came across a level 38 Warlock who I figured I’d mop up pretty easily.  To my utmost embarrassment, I got soundly thrashed.  I was Feared almost immediately and then had my face smashed in by the Warlock’s voidwalker.  I sure do miss my Shaman’s Tremor totem.

If all goes well with this little WoW secret, you’ll be reading this when I’ve reached, or am at least close to level 80.  I’ll try to continue writing posts following my progress and saving them as drafts to be published after the great reveal.  Should be fun.