I’m writing this post on March 16, 2010.  I’ve secretly been playing World of Warcraft since January.  It’s just the kind of thing that I do sometimes.

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’m writing this post on March 9, 2010.  My friends still don’t know that I’ve been playing World of Warcraft again.  For some silly reason, that brings me joy.

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.

I’m writing this post on March 4, 2010.  My friends still don’t know that I’ve been playing World of Warcraft again.

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.

I’m writing this post on February 19, 2010.  My friends still don’t know that I’ve been playing World of Warcraft again.

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.

I’m writing this post on February 15, 2010.  My friends still don’t know that I’ve been playing World of Warcraft again, although for a brief moment I considered letting the cat out of the bag.

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.