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.

Email this post to a friend.

Make a comment (0)

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

Email this post to a friend.

Make a comment (0)

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.

Email this post to a friend.

Make a comment (0)

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

Email this post to a friend.

Make a comment (0)

I decided to get back into WoW, again. It’s really good for some escapism every once in a while (read: once or twice a week, for a couple of hours). So, I’ve got my level 70 orc hunter and my 40+ human priest. I play the hunter just to explore and fool around, but I’m speed leveling my priest.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Email this post to a friend.

Make a comment (0)

I’ve been playing just my human priest for the past couple weeks, speed leveling with Jame’s Alliance Leveling Guide. I got my priest up to level 40 and got a mount.

I was surprised to learn the human riding trainer and mounts (horses) are way out in eastern Elwynn Forest. I would never have found it on my own if a friendly player hadn’t answered my question posed in chat. The orc mounts are right in Orgrimmar, but I’ve now learned that orcs are the lucky ones in that regard. All the other races have to travel somewhere to get their mounts.

A couple days later I decided to just cancel my account. All my friends, who originally all had Horde characters, have level 70 Alliance characters. My only Alliance character is still 30 levels away from catching up, and all I’ve been doing is playing to level. The game was more fun when we were all on the same team, at the same level, and we could adventure together.

Besides, I really need to use the 4-6 hours a week that I’ve been playing to get some writing work done in the evenings. WoW is a load of fun, and a very pleasant mode of escape, but without playing with my friends, I might as well just get something constructive done with my disposable time. I may restart my account in a few months, or I may not.

And since I’m going to be using my evening hours for more work, rather than any kind of game play, this may be my last post in my Computer Games section for a while. But because my days are always so full and busy, evenings are the only time I can get any writing done. I have to sacrifice the [fun] waste of time for the [fun] productivity.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Email this post to a friend.

Make a comment (0)

Hallow’s End is back. I brought my level 70 orc hunter out of Outland and went to Undercity and Brill to do some seasonal quests. I picked up the quests to throw rotten eggs in Southshore, and then went over to Brill to see about the Headless Horseman. The Horseman only comes at certain times, and an orc matron in the town will tell you how long till the next appearance.

I was in Brill for one of the Horseman’s attacks, and it was interesting for the first minute, but a big waste of time for the following 20 minutes.

A “shade” of the horseman flies over the town and sets some of the buildings on fire. The shade is only level 11, and I targeted it and tried to shoot it out of the air. Sadly, I get a “That is an invalid target” error message. I then tried to put out the fires (”Stop the fires!” quest from the orc matron). There’s a water well and buckets near where the fires start, and you can load one bucket at a time. You then go to a burning building and throw the bucket of water at the fire. After I started fighting the fire, a few more PCs joined in. Trying to put a fire out is an exercise in futility. I only managed to put out small sections of one of the fires, but within a few seconds, sparks set that part on fire again. I eventually gave up and left Brill to burn.

I decided to take on the Headless Horseman himself, at the Scarlet Monastery graveyard. I joined up with a team and we entered. It’s kind of funny to just run past all the SM guards and not worry about aggro. We only ever aggroed one or two who happened to wander into our path. But once we got to the actual graveyard, we had to clear the area of all the walking dead. It was easy, since we were all level 70s and the monsters are no more than level 33.

We summoned and killed the horseman three times (each player can summon him once a day). I got the magic flying broom on the second looting.

Then I went to Southshore to stink bomb the streets and put rotten eggs in their brew. It’s a lot easier to do this quest at level 70 than it was at level 60, last year. (Check out my November 2 post below.) I basically just waltzed into the town center and threw my bombs. Each time, I drew aggro from a guard or three, but I just turned and ran off and they let me go.  I did end up killing two PCs (one of them twice) in the adventure. All in all, the Southshore quest was more fun than the Headless Horseman stuff.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Email this post to a friend.

Make a comment (0)