Well, since reaching level 70, I haven’t done a lot of questing or hunting. I haven’t done much playing at all, really. I think I average maybe four hours of WoW play a week.

I’ve played my human priest some, just to level her up. She’s level 34, now, and I’ve been following Jame’s Leveling Guide since level 30. The guide is very well done, but I just don’t have the time to put in to really work it. In a twist of circumstances, my three friends who play WoW switched from Horde to Alliance. My main is an orc hunter, so we don’t play together in WoW anymore. That’s why I started trying to fast level my human priest, but it really just isn’t going to work out. They all have more time to put into playing, so I’ll never catch up to them with my Alliance character.

As for my main, most all I’ve been doing with him is flying around Outland on his wyvern. Flying around is a great feature. I did leave Outland for a while to  visit Orgrimmar for Brewfest. I had never gotten a character drunk before, but I had heard about it from my friends. I stocked up on a few dozen brews and started guzzling them. Being [virtually] drunk is fun. The view wobbles and gets blurry; when you walk or run, you tend to weave and loose direction. Nice little gimmick, there, Blizzard.

I played last night for a couple hours, and completed some quests in Netherstorm, Outland with my orc hunter. The quests were nothing special, and I only made less than 100 gold, but I thoroughly enjoyed the flying around.

Without friends to join up with on occasion, WoW has lost some of its appeal. Plus, I have a lot of work to do in the evenings, now days, so playing WoW kind of wastes valuable time. I’m considering dropping the subscription again.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

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My sons have seen me “playing” WoW a few times, and now it’s become a little treat I allow them: to see my toons running or flying around Azeroth and Outland. I don’t let them see me fighting stuff—just exploring. We usually run or ride around in the major cities, and sometimes we hop on a wyvern or griffon to fly through the territories.

My 6 year old knows the major Horde cities: Orgrimmar, Thunderbluff, and Undercity (”a Halloween city”). We’ve also run around Stormwind some, but we’re mostly a Horde family. One of the parks in our area has two jungle-gym-type play areas. One is low and spread out, and one is tall on a smaller area. He’s named them Orgrimmar and Thunderbluff, respectively.

Yesterday, he used his Legos to build some structures: Orgrimmar, Thunderbluff, and the Black Portal. He loves the Black Portal, with the dragon looming over the top. He regularly uses his Legos to play WoW.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

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Look! Up in the sky!

It’s a bird.

It’s a plane.

It’s an orc with a gun!

I stopped grinding mobs for money and drops, and tried just straight questing — OH MY GOD! I made 95 gold in 2 hours! I was getting 7-12gp per quest — and some were so easy.

I love the flying mount! I got the blue wyvern. I can imagine how much easier questing for gold is going to be now with flying. Now that xp from killing doesn’t matter, flying right up to the quest goal, grabbing/killing it, and flying away is going to mean lots of money for me, now.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

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I’ve been hunting (mostly demons) in Shadowmoon Valley for money to buy my flight training and mount. Upon attaining level 70, I had only 650 gold, and I’ve now built up to over 800 gold—I need just 100 more to fly.

There’s a quest in Shadowmoon Valley, in the Son’s of Oronok chain, that sent me to find a rotten arokkoa egg. There’ve been a lot of really funny quests in Outland, and this one is another. You have to look around in the arokkoa area and find rotten eggs on the ground. You open the egg to see if you can take the egg for the quest. The funny part is that the egg gives you a nauseating affliction that causes damage over time. And occasionally, while suffering from the sickness, you freeze up and throw up glowing green vomit. Hilarious! My character actually stops, crouches over, holds his stomach, and spews for a few seconds. That’s attention to detail.

I want to eventually get a dragon flying mount, so I learned what I had to do for that. I have to build rep with the Netherwing faction. So I figured, while I’m grinding for money, I can be grinding rep with Netherwing. I went to the Netherwing Fields and got the first quest in the Netherwing rep chain: kill flayers, get their carcass (a drop), and feed the Netherwing dragons.

After collecting a bunch of carcasses, I went out into the open and dropped a carcass. In the sky of Netherwing Field are many level 69 (elite) dragons. That’s scary at first, but apparently the are too high to aggro on anyone on the ground. After dropping a carcass, one of the flying dragons dives down and lands beside you. It eats the carcass, thanks you, and flies away. (I’m assuming they thanked me; it was in a language I don’t understand.)

Unfortunately, the second quest in the chain requires flying up to and talking to a boss dragon. So I need a flying mount before I can continue. Crap. So much for doing two processes at the same time.

Oh well. I should have my flying mount soon, as grinding in Shadowmoon Valley can earn me about 20 gold per hour.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

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Back at level 62, I got the quest to kill Arazzius the Cruel, a level 63 elite demon in Hellfire Penninsula (Outland). It’s a group quest, with the suggestion of three characters. I tried him solo at around level 65, and he kicked my butt. He killed my pet and I had to Feign Death to get away. I tried him a couple times, but never managed to take him below 75% health. So I gave up on him for a while.

I kept the quest, Cruel’s Intentions, with the intent to take him on again when I leveled up some more. I wanted to solo him. I tried again at level 67, but still I couldn’t beat him. He’s very tough, and deals out massive damage. My pet died twice, again, and I had to FD to escape both times.

After attaining level 70, I figured I’d give him another go. Surely I could take him down from seven levels above him. Damn! I still couldn’t beat him. I managed to get him down to half health, at least. But still, he killed my pet twice, and I had to FD to escape twice. He’s amazingly hard for a 63 elite. That’s just wrong.

Before entering Outland, I could defeat an elite one or two levels below me. They were very hard fights, and required all my attention and a potion, but they were beatable solo. But now, I can’t beat an elite seven levels below me?

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

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I made level 70! Wahoo! Now I just need a few hundred more gold to pay for a flying mount and training.

One of my last quests was turning in the totems for capturing some of each elemental type (earth, fire, water, air). A funny thing happened when I turned in the last of that quest chain.

The quest giver is at a place in Shadowmoon Valley (Outland) called the Altar of Damnation. When I rode up to the Altar area, there was a giant, green rock/fire elemental guy standing nearby. Apparently, an Alliance group had just summoned him from the Altar. I watched just long enough to see the Alliance group engage the elite elemental lord in a fight. I then turned to my quest giver and turned in my quest.

There was a cool scene played out for turning in the quest. The quest giver summoned one of each of the elementals to stand before us, and he questioned them about how to turn the land and elements away from the evil taint that had cursed the land. The quest giver was talking, the elementals were responding, and I was watching. It was an interesting story, conversation, and scene.

The conversation explained that the elementals were under the taint of an elemental lord. The next series of quests would be to find a way to summon the elemental lord to destroy him. Ironically, that elemental lord was currently behind me, fighting an Alliance group.

I panned around to see him, knowing the Alliance group was finishing the quest line I was about to start. The Alliance team was breaking up—some were dead, the others were scattering. The elemental lord chased one Alliance character back to the Altar of Damnation. The elemental lord (sorry, I can’t remember his name) killed the Alliance character, and then aggroed on me and my pet.

I tried just backing off after getting hit pretty hard one time, and my pet counter attacked. The elemental lord hit my pet and killed it. I immediately used Feign Death to escape the fight.

Funnily, the quest giver and the four elementals continued their scene without so much as acknowlegding the elemental lord was upon them, and attacking me. Eventually, the elemental lord turned and went away.

Hilarious. My quest was telling me that I needed to find a way to summon this guy to kill him, and here he was already, stomping on me.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

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One of my friends has a level 60 paladin. There’s lots of talk among my WoW-playing friends about how awesome the paladin class is. One friend, who has fought against paladins, calls them “screws.”

This paladin friend challenged my level 68 boar pet to a duel—just the pet, no assistance from my level 68 hunter. Okay, I accepted the challenge on behalf of my pet. I expected my boar to win, but only barely. If the paladin used her engineering gimmicks in the fight, I figured my boar might lose.

Well, we met in front of the Dark Portal, on the Outland side. The paladin is a human and my hunter is an orc. So we couldn’t talk in the game.

We both turned on our PvP, but neither of us could attack. We both kept getting the, “You cannot attack that target,” message. We moved the duel to the Azeroth side of the Dark Portal, and off the portal steps. We could engage each other there. Hmm. There must be some kind of non-PvP effect on the Dark Portal platform.

The first fight, the paladin pulled out a battle chicken and a mechanical dragon. She killed my boar pet easily.

The second fight, the paladin left her engineering gimmicks out of the duel, and still beat my pet easily. She healed herself from half health to full at one point, but that’s part of being a paladin.

I was shocked how easy it was for the paladin—eight levels difference, and still she totally dominated that fight.

Paladins are screws!

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

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