The highest that I’ve leveled a Horde character is 23, so I haven’t seen a whole lot of the Horde side of the game, and I suppose with the Cataclysm coming soon, this will be my last chance to see the “old world” from the Horde perspective.  I’m guessing I’ll have about two months before Cataclysm comes out, so I don’t think I’ll get too far with this Warrior before I’m re-rolling yet again to see the Cataclysm stuff.

This new character of mine is level 17 as of this writing.  I’m actually on vacation at the moment, visiting with my sister, and in what must count as one of the saddest things I’ve done in a while, I downloaded the WoW client to her MacBook Pro within minutes of arriving here.  Like a junkie I just need my fix.  My excuse is that I’m an early riser and I’ve been able to play while waiting for everyone else to wake up.

The hardest part has been playing without a mouse, using only the touchpad.  That has taken some getting used to.  I’ll be back home in just a couple of days however, where I will eagerly await the arrival of my new PC.  I ordered an Alienware from Dell and the tracking information tells me it should be arriving the day after I get home.  WoW may actually take a back seat once the PC arrives, as I’ve been wanting to play Dragon Age for some time, but couldn’t bring myself to do it on my aging PC.  There are a few other games in my pile that I’ll be looking to check out on the new hardware as well.  Should be fun.

My Mage hit level 80 last night in World of Warcraft, marking the first time that I’ve had more than one character at the level cap since I started playing MMOs.

I haven’t been playing my computer much these days, contributing to the complete lack of updates to this site, but I’ve been pecking away at my Mage’s levelling here and there.  The climb from 75 to 80 actually took much longer and felt more grindy than I had remembered with my first character; all those Northrend quests start to blend into each other and feel the same the more you do.  Last night though, thanks to a friend playing his level 80 Paladin, I whipped through a bunch of quests and did a couple of Argent Tournament events and finished off the final three-quarters needed to hit 80.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do now though.  I think for a little while I’ll try to gear up as much as I can, but I can see that getting old for me really fast.  I could also try going back to my 80 Shaman who’s been neglected ever since I started playing the Mage, but I’d be doing the same thing: grinding for gear.  I’ve never levelled a Horde character… but do I really want to do that now?

Cataclysm needs to hurry up and get here.

As I write this, my Mage is just half a bubble away from level 71 after doing just over half of the quests in Howling Fjord.  In a previous post I talked about how fast the leveling has been since hitting 58 and entering outland.  Since hitting 70 however, my progress seems to be moving at a snails pace.  I can feel my motivation waning as I turn in quest after quest.  I’m sure that part of it has to do with the fact that in relative terms, it wasn’t all that long ago that I quested through Howling Fjord on my main character.  I can remember each quest as I receive them, and it seems the further along I go, the more I’m saying to myself, “ugh, not this one”.     The Dungeon Finder hasn’t been much help either because after using it four times since level 70, each time it’s put me in Utgarde Keep, which I find to be a fairly boring dungeon.  I’m looking forward to finishing up the quests there and getting the heck out of dodge.  I’d really like to avoid Borean Tundra but I suspect I’ll head there for a level or two.

It’s funny though, because throughout this whole leveling process, I kept telling myself, “just get to Northrend, and everything will be gravy”, but now that I’m in Northrend, I’ve found it harder to motivate myself to continue.  The leveling pace seems to have taken a dramatic drop and I really miss seeing that experience bar quickly moving to towards the right of my screen.

I moved on to the Howling Fjord at level 68 as I had planned and quickly steamrolled my way to level 69.  A few more quests later along with a run through Utgarde Keep and I hit level 70.  I must say, it feels good to get there because I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Just ten more levels to go.

Aside from the levels, there are a few other goals I want to achieve which will serve as carrots to lead me on.  First of which is getting the gold necessary to purchase my artisan flying skill, followed cold weather flying.  The two of those will cost me 6000 gold, of which I currently have about 350.

Speaking of money, I made quite possibly the easiest 20 gold I’ve ever made in WoW.  While leveling my crafting skills in Ironforge I noticed a call in general chat from someone in Stormwind looking for a port to Theramore.  He was paying 20 gold.  I immediately grouped up with him, portaled to Stormwind, met up with him, collected my 20 gold, and opened the portal to Theramore.  This to me, was ridiculous.  I could understand if he was a low level character who wouldn’t otherwise survive the trip, but he was level 80.  Also, Theramore isn’t that far from Stormwind really.  Just take the tram to Ironforge then fly to Menethil Harbor.  Once there, Theramore is just a quick boat trip away.  I guess he just wanted to save himself five minutes.  Lucky me.

I’ve also started leveling up my Leatherworking profession, mostly because my bank was full of leather that I’ve skinned since I started this character and I needed to free up space.  It didn’t take me long to realize that once again I can potentially profit off other peoples laziness.  I was short a stack of Heavy Leather so I checked the auction house and it was selling for 38 gold for a stack.  That seemed insane to me.  I took a quick trip to Dustwallow Marsh and started killing and skinning everything I saw in the Wyrmbog area.  Not long after, I had all the the heavy leather I needed (and more) along with seven pieces of Heavy Hide and five pieces of Thick Hide.  The Heavy and Thick Hides also sell for crazy amounts on my server.  A stack of ten Heavy Hide is listed at 100 gold on the auction house.  I would guess I could have a stack in less than an hours time, maybe slightly more.

My adventure leveling may take a bit of a hit over the next few days as I try to farm and sell all this stuff.

My Mage hit level 68 last night, a little behind the arbitrary schedule I had set up, but I’m happy all the same.  I plan on leaving Outland for Northrend right away after I finish up a few quests in Nagrand.  I had originally planned to quest in Shadowmoon Valley and Netherstorm because I never spent much time in those places during my first run through Outland, but the leveling has just been too fast.  I’ve done all the quests in Hellfire Peninsula and Zangarmarsh, along with a few in Nagrand, and I’m now 68 after entering Outland ten levels ago.  That leaves four zones in Outland that I won’t even touch.  I really like Outland but I just want to level this Mage up as quickly as possible, so I’m off to Northrend.

I had a funny moment last night as I was turning in a quest at the Throne of the Elements in the northern part of Nagrand.  There are three friendly level 70 elites that hang around there that will attack anyone who initiates PvP.  I found that out the hard way a long time ago with my Shaman.  I tried attacking a Horde guy and the elites quickly came over and stomped me to death.  Last night a 65 Horde Priest had me targeted, and I just knew he was going to attack.  I happened to be standing right next to one of the elites and I knew that if he attacked me the elite would crush him, so I was really hoping the Priest would try something.  Sure enough, he threw some DOTs on me and right on cue, the elite ran over and one-shot him.  I ran over to his corpse and emoted a /LOL to rub it in a little.  The funny part is that I wasn’t paying attention to the DOTs on me and my health was inching ever closer to death.  I had just returned from killing a bunch of mobs so I wasn’t at full health to begin with.  I quickly went to drink a health potion but discovered that I was all out.  Crap.  I couldn’t use a bandage either as I had recently been bandaged.  Double crap.  There I was, laughing at this guy just as my health slowly ticks away.  I alternated my view between the DOT timer and my health, hoping beyond hope that I’d have enough health to outlast the DOT.

When the DOT ran out I was left with 2 health.  Phew.

I hit level 66 last night after running through the Underbog (thanks Dungeon Finder!) and finishing off a bunch of quests in Zangarmarsh.  I’m still very surprised at how fast the leveling process has been going since hitting Outland.  I first set foot in Outland with my Mage on February 16 at level 58.  Just 20 days later I’m level 66, which I’m sure is very slow for a lot of players, but given my limited play time, that’s crazy fast to me.  According to my archives, my Shaman entered Outland at level 58 on June 23rd, 2008.  44 days later he was 65, and then 22 days after that, he was 70.  In comparison, my Mage is flying through the levels.

The Dungeon Finder put me into a pretty good group for the Underbog, except for the healer who decided to just leave unannounced after the first boss.  We quickly got a new healer however, only to have him leave just a few minutes later, also without saying a word.  What the hell?  Finally, we got a third healer who stuck it out to the end and I got my Underbog achievement.  My DPS is slowly getting more powerful as I’m finding more and more that I have to watch my aggro.

I have the day off of work today and tomorrow and my plan is to hopefully reach level 68 by the end of the day tomorrow, but that’s looking like it’s not going to happen.  Today is server maintenance day and they’re scheduled to be down until 1:00pm my time, which will give me about an hour to play before I have to run off for a dentist appointment.  I can definitely see me hitting 67 without too much difficulty, and soon after that I’ll be off to Northrend.

When I logged in yesterday, my Mage was just a couple of bubbles away from level 63.  I quickly finished off a few quests and got the level.  I then realized that I also had enough gold to purchase my flying mount and picked that up immediately.  I had previously purchased the required riding skill a few days earlier which had left me without enough to get the mount.  I anticipate my questing going much smoother now, not that it’s been all that difficult, just a bit of a pain avoiding mobs that I don’t feel like fighting as I traverse my way to the next quest point.

After hitting 63 I queued up for a random dungeon and continued with my questing.  I noticed a Horde-shaped flying mount shadow on the ground near me, and sure enough, hovering way above me was a 63 Orc Warrior who had me targeted.  He came sweeping down and charged at me.  I was able to kite him fairly well, being frost specced and all, and it looked like I was going to kill him fairly easily… until I backed up into an elite guard standing in front of the Horde outpost of Falcon Watch.  That was the end of me.  As I was running back to my corpse my dungeon finder window popped up, saying it found a group for me.  I’m not sure what would happen if I entered the dungeon as a ghost, so I kept running to my corpse.  Fortunately I wasn’t too far away and I quickly revived and entered the dungeon.

I was put into a fairly decent group and we ripped through Slave Pens pretty quick.  By the end of the run I had gained a full half of my level.  We all decided to stick together and run another random dungeon.  This time we were put into Mana Tombs, and again we were doing well until the last boss.  We wiped on Nexus-Prince Shaffar and for whatever reason, three of the five group members dropped group without word.  I couldn’t understand why we wouldn’t attempt him again, but oh well.  At that point I was just two bubbles away from level 64.

I quickly rattled off a few more quests and got my level.  All in all, it took a total of roughly two hours to gain that entire level.  Things are going fast, and I’m liking it.  Level 64 already and I’m not even out of the first area of Outland yet.  I have two days off of work next week and yes, I plan on gaming as much as possible on those days.  If all goes well, including any play time this weekend, hopefully I’ll be heading to Northrend soon.

As soon as I hit level 58 (three days ago) I marched on through the Dark Portal and entered Outland.  It’s been a while since I’ve been there, but I remember liking the levelling experience there on my main character and I’ve been eagerly anticipating my return.  So far I haven’t been disappointed.

I actually like Hellfire Peninsula; it’s got a nice theme to it and it’s nice and open and full of quests.  The XP has come in bunches and after just a few short play sessions there, I’m already level 61 as of this morning.  I’ve also managed to replace a decent chunk of my gear in the mean time.

The main difference I’m seeing now in Outland is that the open world PvP is much more active.  I’ve been ganked more times in Hellfire Peninsula over the past couple of days than I had been all the way from level 1 to 58 in Azeroth.  I’m still trying to figure out exactly what level 80s are doing hanging out in this zone, but whatever the reason, my little Mage doesn’t stand a chance against them.

The other night a group of Horde characters were continually attacking Honor Hold.  I was just returning to the inn after completing some quests when I walked through an area of effect spell going on.  My water elemental immediately went off and attacked whoever it was that laid the AoE down as I sheepishly crawled into the inn and hid.  A couple seconds later, thanks to my elemental, I scored a killing blow on a Death Knight, giving me the honor kill, and also scratching off Death Knight on the “touch of class” achievement.  All while I was cowering behind the counter with the innkeeper.

The Dungeon Finder has once again come in handy.  I’ve run through Hellfire Ramparts twice already, both times getting some nice gear upgrades.  The first time through was with a power group and we steam-rolled through the place at a crazy-fast pace.  The only problem with the group was the presence of a stereotypical “uber player” who knew everything and kept pulling his own mobs regardless of what the tank was doing.  When others in the group called him on it he responded with any number of vulgarities.  I was surprised not to see a kick-vote.  The second group was much better, despite taking much longer to work our way through the instance.  Everyone was very friendly and there was a lot more chatter than is normal for a dungeon finder group.

I’m really enjoying the pace of levelling so far; three levels in just over three play sessions.  I hope I’m not being overly optimistic in thinking I’ll be 70 in about two weeks, depending on how much I get to play.

As I was leaving work today my friend stopped me to say that he was going to be running a couple of my other friends’ lower level alts through Molten Core.  For a brief second I thought about telling him that I’ve been playing again so that I could bring my Mage to the party.  Ultimately I decided to let it go, thinking I’ll have more fun revealing that I’ve been secretly playing when my alt is closer to level 80.  It sure would be cool to get the Molten Core achievement on the Mage though, not to mention any possible epics that would drop.  The XP would probably be crazy as well.  Ah well.

I’m just about to log in and hopefully I’ll get into a good dungeon finder group.  I’m currently just a few bars away from level 58, which means that Outland is just around the corner for me.  The levelling has definitely gone faster than when I first played through to 80.  I can remember spending time in Western and Eastern Plaguelands, Silithus, Un’Goro Crater, as well as Blasted Lands and Searing Gorge.  This time however, I haven’t set foot in any of those zones except for a few quests in Blasted Lands and Searing Gorge.  Once I hit 58 (tonight hopefully), I’ll say goodbye to questing in Azeroth for a while.

I was chatting via email with the friend whose Warrior is on the same server as my Mage.  He was stuck at work on the night shift while I was happily questing in the Blasted Lands.  I asked him how his shift was going and he says, “not bad… have you resubscribed to WoW yet?”, which seemed totally random.  Why was he asking that?  Does he know something?  I replied, “yes, in fact I’m playing right now” which wasn’t a lie.  I followed it up with, “I just solo’d Arthas” which, of course, would be a definite lie, but it helped throw him off my trail a little bit.

As for the game itself, I managed to ding level 55 and even got three quarters of the way to 56.  I’m hoping by the end of this coming weekend I’ll hit 58 so I can get into Outland.  I remember really enjoying Outland and also remember the journey from level 60 to 70 didn’t take very long at all.  If I can get to 70 before revealing to my friends that I’ve been playing I’ll be ecstatic.

I’m really having fun playing again, which only confirms in my mind that I enjoy the leveling process much more than the end-game.