I’ve quit WoW. Again. I actually canceled my account a couple of weeks ago, and the end of my subscription came the very next day. I uninstalled and deleted all my WoW files. My quitting seemed abrupt to my friends, but I’d been considering it for a few weeks.

I’ve complained before that my friends all switched faction from Horde to Alliance, and went on to out-level me in Alliance. They’d all reached level 70 before I reached level 60. They were already working towards heroic-level instances while I was grinding my way through the low 60s.

I really like WoW, but it really had become a grind at the end. Before entering Outland, my human priest character was exploring areas I hadn’t seen or been to before with my old orc hunter. Playing was still pretty much just grinding through the levels, but at least the places and quests were new and different from what I had experienced before.

Then when I went into Outland, in Hellfire Peninsula, my human priest was doing all the same quests, in the same areas that I had done with my orc hunter. The names of the quests were different, and I was based in a different town, but the actual work and terrain was the same.

When I hit level 63, all my friends were so far into the end-game adventures and gear that I really didn’t think I’d catch up and be able to take a real part in their raids for several more months. I found myself trying to play as much as possible so I could catch up faster. It just was taking too much of my time and attention.

I figured I should just give up on the game. Besides, there are some fantastic-looking first person shooter games that I’d like to try. FPSs used to be my favorite computer game style, but I haven’t played a new one in two or three years. I’ve been looking around at computer upgrades, and I’ve found some stuff that’ll let me play Crysis and Call of Duty 4 — games I’ve been dreaming of for months. So in a couple weeks, I’ll be testing out a new video card and a hot new game.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

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I was at Best Buy looking at Bluetooth stuff for my cell phone and a new video card for my computer, when I saw a kid playing Guitar Hero III, Legends of Rock on the demo XBox 360. I’m not a console gamer — the computer is my weapon of choice — but I’ve got nothing against the consoles. I’ve just never played on one since the Super Nintendo (which I still have, boxed in a closet).

Well, anyway, this ain’t about the game system. I’d heard of Guitar Hero, and I couldn’t understand why the game would be as popular as it supposedly is. I mean, I thought, if you want to play the guitar, why don’t you pick up a real guitar and learn to play it. But as I watched this kid play the game, I got sucked into the coolness of it all.

The scene on the TV was a flashy, sort-of-realistic looking stage concert with lights, pyrotechnics, and the band. The camera view moved around just like you’d see in an MTV video (when MTV showed videos). It really pulled you into the setting and feel of a great hard rock performance.

The kid playing was maybe 8 years old, and he was doing well. He kept getting “50 Note” something-or-other bonuses for playing correctly over an extended time. I saw him go through the list of songs to play, and he chose “Rock You Like a Hurricane” by the Scorpions from the mid 80s. That concept made me chuckle — the kid’s parents probably hadn’t even met at the time that song was a hit. But he played it well in the game. (The guitar’s not really a guitar — no strings — so I won’t say he played the guitar well. )

But watching the performance on the TV, I realized the draw this game has. It really does rock, and the videos really feel like a live performance (albeit the characters on the stage are more cartoonish than realistic). I’m not interested in playing the game myself, but I could watch someone else play it for a long time. It’s very entertaining. I get the appeal, now.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

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I’ve mentioned before, in a previous World of Warcraft post, how I failed in numerous attempts to defeat Arazzius the Cruel, in Outland, with my orc hunter. Arazzius is a level 63 elite, and I couldn’t beat him even at level 70. I don’t feel so bad about those failures now.

Playing my human priest this week, I had the quest to kill him. I put out a call for a team on General and I immediately got invited to a party: my 62 priest, a 61 warlock, and a 70 paladin. First, we easily pulled and killed the two six-armed she-demons on his platform. Then after a brief refreshment pause, to regenerate mana, we went after the big A. The paladin tanked him, the warlock put in the DPS, and I kept everyone healed. As my priest is shadow specced, I threw in some Pain, too.

The fight was intense, although no one went below half their health, and it took a long time to drop that big demon. Plus, he summoned two big infernals to make the whole event complicated.

I thanked the party and we all went on our way. A few minutes later, another player contacted me, asking if I was still looking to do the quest. I told him I had just completed it. He asked if I’d help him. I said I was still in the vicinity, so I could help him, but we’d need at least 3 to take him on. “He’s very tough,” I warned.

Soon I was in a new party: my 62 priest, a 61 priest, and a 61 paladin. I directed us to pull the she-demons first, and we did that easily. Then we tried Arazzius. The paladin tanked him, and the other priest, in shadowform, put in the DPS, and I again tried to keep everyone healed. Unfortunately, the big A was dealing damage faster than I could heal, and the paladin died. So there was and his two infernals coming for the other priest and me. Sorry, buddy, I thought, there’s no way I can keep you alive. If A and his boys can pound a plate-armored paladin into paste like that, our cloth armor wouldn’t do us any good.

I started running for the exit a second before the other priest was killed. I ran right into one of those green demons that hang out around A’s platform, and so I had four big, bad, killer demons chasing me. I jumped in the water moat around the platform and swam for my life. Big A and the infernals gave up on me, but I had to fight the green demon to the death. I survived with no mana, and very little health.

I rested and drank and ate to recover mana and health before going back to the platform for a look-see. Arazzius was standing alone, and the corpses of my two comrades were laying on the floor before him. I rezzed the paladin from a distance, but the other priest had already released his spirit to run back from the graveyard.

The three of us stood on the ramp to A’s platform and discussed the situation. The paladin called in a buddy of his. When the buddy showed up, we had a stronger party: my 62 priest, a 61 priest, a 61 paladin, and a 70 paladin. Two priests and two paladins. It would take us a while to kill this bad guy.

The next round with big A ended much better for us. I managed to keep everyone alive, and they managed to take down the big demon and his infernals. After neither victory did I get any loot from Arazzius. But loot wasn’t necessary — I felt good for having beat him, finally. And I don’t feel so bad about my orc hunter, now, because even other level 70 characters need a team to take the demon down.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

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I finally got my human priest to level 60, the old maximum level. Now I just have 10 more levels to go to reach the new maximum level. I’ve been following Jame’s leveling guide to gain levels as quickly as possible so I can catch up with my friends who have been level 70 for months, now.

The leveling guide is great. Because I don’t play very often (just twice a week on average), my priest always has rested bonus for experience points, so I leveled even faster than the guide expected. I reached level 60 while still on level 56 in the guide. But I figured I’d continue the guide till it reached level 60 and then I’d move on to the new high-level Outlands guide.

I took one foray into Outlands while waiting for my friends to show up online one night, and I discovered an interesting little gimmick Blizzard put in the game to entice players to move high-level characters on to Outlands when they reach level 60 in Azeroth. Monsters in Outlands give more xp for their levels than do monsters in Azeroth.

For instance, at character level 60, in the Eastern Plaguelands, level 60 monsters give 690 xp. But in Outlands, level 60 monsters give 1,070 xp. There’s similar differences for monsters level 58 and 59. So it would be a waste to continue in Azeroth at level 60 — much more xp are available in Outlands at that level.

So I gave up on Azeroth adventuring. Fortunately Jame has a leveling guide for levels 60-70 in Outlands, and I started following it. My human priest is now level 61.

It still kind of bugs me that all my friends switched from Horde to Alliance characters. I haven’t played my level 70 orc hunter in some time now.

We had some great horde characters. But the player with a tauren druid and a forsaken priest switched them to another server, following his guild. (He’s now back on our server, but on Alliance side.) The player with an orc rogue deleted his characters and canceled his account. (He’s now back in the game, but on the Alliance side.) The player with a forsaken warrior stopped playing that character and switched to Alliance characters to play with his girlfriend.

So if I wanted to play with my friends, I had to go Alliance, too.

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In the two years I’ve been playing WoW, I’ve never joined a guild. I’ve had many, many invites, including direct invites without even being spoken to. For the record: I would never join a guild where I’m invited blind without so much as a “hi” in chat. I have respect for the guildies who contact me and invite me in a chat, but I loathe the idiots who just send a invite window.

Well, my friends are all in a particular Alliance guild, and I figured I ought to at least see what the guild thing is like from the inside. So I contacted one of my friends and asked to join. She immediately sent me an invite.

I really have nothing to offer a guild, as I only play once or twice a week, and right now I’m just speed leveling solo. And the guild has nothing to offer me that I couldn’t get from my friends without being officially in the guild.

But, it’s at least interesting to see what guild membership is like.

Last night it was annoying. I was questing in Un’Goro Crater, and the guild chat was like a bunch of silly 10 year olds. Now I’ve got no big problem with silliness, but geez, this just went on and on and on. It was so much that my chat window was full of the gibberish. Game info was being scrolled out of the window faster than I could read it.

One of my friends was online at the same time, and he and I mentioned the stupid guild chat. I asked him if there was a way to leave guild chat. He didn’t know, but he asked in guild chat. The answer he was given was “/gquit”. So he tried it (just before I was going to).

That’s not the command to leave guild chat, it’s the command to leave the guild. The guildies didn’t know if my friend (a male person with a female game character) fell for the joke or quit in frustration or anger. The guild chat then went on, in it’s juvenile style, about my friend quitting.

At first I was humored by the speculation, but it just kept on and on and on. So I decided to just quit out of the nonsense, too. I said my friend “had the right answer,” and typed /gquit, too.

My friend rejoined the guild an hour later, but I was already logged out and gone. I’ll probably rejoin the guild when my human priest reaches 65+ (56 right now) and can join guild groups doing instances. The guild has seemed more mature and less annoying in my previous game sessions, so I won’t hold one night of a big bunch of silliness against them. Besides, it wasn’t the silliness that annoyed me, it was the functional problem of having game info overwhelmed by chat nonsense.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

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I’ve still been working my way through Jame’s leveling guide, and my human priest is now level 53. I’ve been working with this guide since she was level 30, back in early October. That’s 23 levels in about three months; two levels per week. I only play once or twice a week, and my character is almost always getting rested xp for her kills. At this rate, she’ll be level 60, and going to Outland, in about four weeks. I might make level 70 in another five weeks. So top level is still over two months away.

This past Saturday night, I managed to gain two levels in four hours of play. One of my friends ran me through Zul Furrak with his level 70 dwarf hunter, and afterwards, I turned in over 54,000xp worth of quests. Bam! That was one hour of play, and then the next four hours I spent in Blasted lands questing and killing. I would love to manage that kind of level gain per hour played for the next 17 levels.

While in Blasted Lands, I took a peak at the Dark Portal, from afar. Couldn’t get too close because of all the higher-level demons patrolling the area. When I went through with my main character, my orc hunter, he was already 60th level, and I just rode him straight through the Blasted Lands and into the portal. I had not quested or hunted in BL with that character, so there was no feeling of building up in the area before being able to go right in.

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Several months ago, I dared/bet a friend to take his orc rogue into Stormwind City. He used stealth to get in and took screen shots for proof. I paid the 10 gold reward.

Just for the fun of it, I thought I’d try the stunt with my 70 orc hunter. Hunters don’t have stealth abilities, so I figured to just ride my epic mount in past the guards and see how far in I could get. It’d be cool if I could make it to Deeprun Tram.

So I traveled to Elwynn Forest and sat on my mount outside the Stormwind gates. “Here we go,” I said. I rode straight past the guards, who immediately pursued me on foot, and right through the gate. By the time I reached the main city square, I had six or eight guards chasing me. I continued running through the city and by the time I’d made it to the Dwarf Quarter, the guards were no longer pursuing me.

Oddly, some of the patrollers in the city didn’t bother with me. I ran right through a couple of them and they didn’t change their walking patrol. The standing guards always came after me when I passed, but the walkers didn’t care.

I continued on through the Dwarf Quarter, to the tram entrance. I picked up a couple of new guards along the way, but once I entered the tram instance portal, I lost them.

The tram terminal was empty except the couple of low-level NPCs who hang out in there. I noticed that my PvP flag was turned on by entering the human city — an unexpected, but logical situation. So any PCs I encountered could attack me. While I waited for the tram to arrive a the station, a level 70 draenei shaman came in the terminal. We looked each other over for a few moments, sizing up the challenge.

I really didn’t want to fight. In fact, I didn’t even have my keyboard and mouse arranged for normal playing. Usually, for play, I have my keyboard sitting on top of my desk, at an angle so my hand and fingers can easily, without looking, reach all the necessary keys. And my mouse sits in a nice big open area, with no pad to limit my movements. At this time, because I only intended to run through the city until I died, my mouse was on its small pad, and my keyboard was still on its tray under the desk. I had the keyboard tray pulled out just far enough to put one finger on the forward button to move. If a fight broke out, I’d be screwed more than just by my lack of PvP experience and skill.

The shaman started dropping totems around him. I backed off and ran to the other side of the station. Then a tram showed up and I boarded. While waiting for the tram to leave the station, an Alliance warlock came into the station. The shaman and warlock both boarded the tram, too. And then the tram was off.

I was on the third, and last tram car; the Alliance guys were on the second, middle car. I had the feeling that the were going to jump me at any moment, so I tried to get off the tram. It was frustrating, reaching under my desktop, trying to move around and jump off the tram — guard rails prevented me from leaving the easy way.

Eventually I managed to figure my way off the tram. I fell down into the tram tunnel, just started running back to the Stormwind end of the tunnel. I toggled auto-run and just let my hunter run straight down the tunnel. I only half paid attention to my monitor while I shuffled stuff around on my desk. After a minute or two, I noticed my hunter was hung up on one of the spotlights on the tunnel floor. I grabbed my mouse and tried to shake my guy off the obstacle.

At that moment, the Alliance duo showed up. They had apparently jumped off the tram, too. I was below half health before I managed to pull out my keyboard tray and get my fingers on the keys. I think I fired one shot and then noticed my health was at 200-something. I tried Feign Death, but they didn’t fall for it. I died.

It was a rather embarrassing death. But up to that point, it was a fun little excursion through Stormwind City and into the tram system.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

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