Duskwood and Westfall

I wanted to take care of my Paladin-only quest before I added so many levels that it wouldn't do me any good, so instead of continuing with Stonetalon we made a diversion. From the Exodar we took a sea trip to Menethil Harbour via Auberdine then flew to Stormwind and ran over to Sentinel Hill to open up that flightpath. From there we flew to Lakeshire and yomped down into Duskwood so that we could open up the Darkshire flightpath - that means we now have seven major flightpaths open in the Eastern Kingdoms.

The problem with Westfall, from Kate's perspective, is that the mobs there are so low level that she wouldn't have got any XP had she gone there with me, so my suggestion was that she could stay in Duskwood where the mobs are tougher (levels 25-30, roughly). I was originally planning on flying from Darkshire back to Sentinel Hill but I escorted Kate out as far as the Ogre mound in southern Duskwood. The ogres there are tough enough to give good XP (over 400 for some of the higher level ones), they drop good money, they have a couple of chests to open up for goodies and there are some copper and tin veins in the area to mine.

I continued out west (stopping in a couple of places to mine some copper and tin) and made my way to the Longshore to find my contact for the quest, Daphne Stilwell. It took a while - I started at the cliffs west of Moonbrook and followed the beach all the way around to where it leads back into the Elwynn Forest. No luck finding Daphne, so I found a safe spot to leave my character for a minute so I could check with WoWWiki. It turned out that she's located just a bit south of where I'd picked up the Longshore near Moonbrook, along a cliff trail that I hadn't seen.

I found the place, closed the quest and got the next quest in the chain: to defend Daphne against three incoming waves of Defias, three of them in the first wave, then four, then five. The last wave was a bit of a challenge because my health and mana was a little low from the second wave and I didn't get time to eat and drink before the bad guys were on me, but I prevailed.

That led to the next quest in the chain, to return to Duthorian Rall back in Stormwind. That was for later; I took a shortcut through the Dagger Hills to pick up the road east back into Duskwood and hooked back up with Kate. While I'd been kicking Defias butt she'd been whacking ogres and had been having some problems with the higher level ones. I had the same problem after we met back up - I was level 25 and I could take a level 28 ogre, but it turned out that the level 30 guys were just too tough. Level 29 was marginal (except at the point where two of them latched on together - nothing marginal about the spanking I got). By this time we were both close to levelling up so we stayed in the area for a while longer, concentrating on the ogres at the eastern end of the mound since they're easier (levels 25 to 27).

As soon as we got our levels we took off - Kate hearthstoned directly to the Exodar while I ran back to Darkshire and took a Gryphon to Stormwind. At the Cathedral I found Duthorian Rall, closed out the quest and got a new spell - Sense Undead, which will show me nearby Undead on the mini-map - and a new shield eighty-odd armour points better than my old one. While I was at the Cathedral I hit up the Paladin Trainer, but I only had enough cash to pay for two of the five lessons on offer. That done, I joined back up with Kate at the Exodar.

I was able to sell some of the junk I'd picked up from the Defias guys and the ogres, and that made enough cash that I was able to pay for at least one of the remaining Paladin lessons. I smelted the copper and tin I'd picked up and made a couple of things for auction. With that all taken care of and repairs done, it was time for bed.

Stonetalon Peak

We decided to take care of a couple of quests around Stonetalon, so from Astranaar we flew there directly. Once there we started by exploring the area around the 'town' - mostly to find ore deposits - before heading south down the road.

There's a small lake not too far to the south and an area just to the west is infested with Pridewings. Quest #1 was to gather twelve Pridewing venom sacs. This took a fair amount of time because only perhaps one in two or three would actually drop a sac. We eventually got our quota and we'll have to take those back to Astranaar at some point.

The plan then was to continue south to the larger lake to whack Venture Company goblins, but we got a little sidetracked when we went to the west side of the trail to explore, and found ourselves in the Charred Vale. As it happens we have a quest here too - to knock down seven each of the Bloodfury Harpies, Ambushers, Slayers and Roguefeathers that are all over the place. This was actually pretty tough; we both got wiped a time or two, not least because the Bloodfuries aren't the only things around that area - there are Chimerae and other things around. More than once Kate got surrounded by Bloodfuries and I wasn't able to help because of being under attack myself, and on one occasion I got was attacked by a Chimera, a big lizard and some kind of living rock elemental all at once.

We ran out of time before we'd got even half our quota on this quest, so we'll have to return to finish up. We made our way to The Exodar to get equipment repaired and so on, and while we were there we set the inn as home base - with so little of any use in Stonetalon we decided that having it as home was rather pointless.

Still, a check of the map shows that we've mapped almost the entire Stonetalon region, with perhaps one small area in the far southeast remaining. We should have no trouble getting another level each while we finish up these handful of quests, then I think we should be in shape to return to Astranaar and continue with the quests we have in Darkshore and Ashenvale, as well as exploring the southern and eastern parts of the area.

North and South

Almost everything I set up for auction sold, so I had enough when we started to pay for the missing Paladin training that I'd had to leave the day before. After taking care of that and a couple of other things in the Exodar we used hearthstones to get back to Astranaar and checked over the open quests to decide what to do next.

North

There was a quest to the north, to grab the skull of a Furbolg called Dal Bloodclaw, and another to meet someone at a place northeast of Astranaar and give them the gem we'd taken from the murlocs at Lake Falathim - the gem, it turns out, being part of a powerful magic rod. Since these two quests seemed to be located close together it made sense to try to cover them in one trip. Accordingly we took the west road out of Astranaar and picked up a northbound trail not too far away that we'd seen before.

The trail led to an area filled with furbolgs, all level 27 and 28. Bear in mind that at this time I was level 24 and Kate was 25; nevertheless we don't have too much trouble taking on mobs three or even four levels higher than ourselves (and in fact we can usually each handle two at a time although it can get a bit hairy), so between the two of us we didn't have too much trouble with these guys. At one point Kate did get four on her back and I was actually able to keep her healed for a while, but then I ran out of mana and that was the end for both of us. Temporarily, of course.

Anyway Kate took down Dal and got the quest item and then we hung around whacking more furbolgs until he respawned and I was able to take him on (we didn't work grouped because doing that splits the XP and so it takes us twice as long to hit new levels).

From there we worked our way east to locate the person we were to meet for the other quest. It took a while but eventually we found the Moonwell - it looks like a kind of rustic hot tub - and our contact, who turned out to be a centaur.

We handed over the gem and that led to a new follow-on quest, to get a key from one of the treants to the northeast, use the key to get another part of the magic rod from a locked chest and bring it back to the moonwell.

There isn't a direct path northeast from there so we had to head southwest and skirt around the hills before we could get going in the right direction, and that brought us out on the road leading north into Felwood. We found the treants and each got our keys without too much trouble, then continued north. Kate found the locked box before I did, in some ruins just off the road - in fact I was standing almost next to it and still didn't see it until she pointed it out to me.

Since we were so close to Felwood we thought we'd carry on up the road to take a look, but that came to an end when we saw a 'level ??' mob ahead of us and that was the signal to head back to the moonwell. There we dropped off the rod parts and now we have another quest, to locate the last part of the rod. This is a 'red' quest (at least for me) and in any case is located somewhere we haven't found yet. We both had pretty full inventories and needed repairs, so we hearthstoned back to Astranaar.

South

We each had three quests that all meant finding Stonetalon Peak, so with repairs done and space cleared in our packs we took the east bridge out of Astranaar and then the south fork in the road. One of the quests gave fairly clear directions for finding the way to Stonetalon; to start, we had to find a tunnel through the mountains.

Not too far down the road we found a lake with an island in the middle, and we could see Stardust-laden bushes over there. Since we needed stardust for another of the quests, we swam over and picked what we needed. It wasn't without incident - there are creatures all around that can sprout roots around your feet to stop you moving, fire lightning bolts and in some cases create mini lightning storms right over your hat.

Back on the road we continued south until we hit the mountains then followed them along to the east until we found the tunnel. I'd expected that we'd have to fight our way through but we passed through without seeing a single mob or even any other players.

The quest directions said to go southwest, cross a lake then head north. After a false start or two we found the northern path. This whole region is desolate - deforested and burned out by Venture Company goblins. The lake is polluted with garbage and oil slicks.

The run north to Stonetalon Peak was pretty uneventful and it didn't take long to get there. I was expecting a town of some kind - a forge, somewhere to cook stuff, a profession trainer or two, maybe even Paladin and Warrior trainers. The reality is disappointing; as far as I can see there's an inn, a trader and a flightmaster. And that's it, apart from another Moonwell. (What are moonwells for?)

We set the inn as 'hearthstone-home' then, since Stonetalon has very little that we needed right then, opened up the flightpath and headed back to the Exodar. That just left one detail - the stardust that we'd picked up on the way, to be given to someone in Astranaar. The quickest way to do this was to hearthstone back to Stonetalon then fly to Astranaar and once we'd taken care of that we checked in to the inn there and quit.

We still have quests open in Ashenvale, and there's a big chunk of the eastern end that we haven't explored yet. That could be risky - I'm fairly sure there are Horde settlements out that way - so we'll have to decide which to do first: take care of the Stonetalon quests or finish in Ashenvale.

Western Ashenvale

The Zoram Strand is the coastal region on the west side of Ashenvale. We went there from Astranaar to explore and to run two or three quests. The area has a lot of Naga and a small number of Hydrae (the first time I saw one I thought I was looking at two Threshers close together) but it wasn't too tough.

After that my inventory was full to bursting with stuff picked up from the Naga so we hearthstoned back to Astranaar to sell stuff and get repairs.

We decided to head west again to find Lake Falathim, needed for another quest, but on our first foray we didn't find the place. We explored the area south and west of Astranaar, including two shrines one of which was filled with some fairly tough enemies. But eventually we found that we'd gone round in big circle and come back to Astranaar.

Since we were so close we went into Astranaar for repairs then made an unplanned trip to Auberdine - partially for reasons I'll describe shortly, but also because Astranaar doesn't have a forge and also, strangely, doesn't seem to have any kind of cooking facilities.

When we got back to Astranaar we took the road back to Maestra's Post and struck out west and south. According to the quest information Lake Falathim is west of Astranaar so the only place left to look was the area between where we'd just been and the Zoram Strand but there are hills in between. It turned out that the lake was there, on the north side of the hills from where we'd looked before, and infested with murlocs. We cleared up two quests around there - one to find someone who turned out to have been got by murlocs, then another to reclaim a gem from those murlocs - and I think it was about this time that I hit level 24.

We took off back to Astranaar then flew to Teldrassil/Darnassus for training... only to find that Darnassus doesn't have a Paladin Trainer, so after doing a little business there we took the boat to The Exodar.

My inventory and my bank slots between them have been getting pretty choked with mining and blacksmithing materials, many of which I have no use for so at Kate's suggestion I decided to use up as many of the metal bars as I could to make axes and armour for auction, then I also auctioned a lot of the excess raw materials. This cleaned up a whole bunch of space in my inventory and I'm hoping it'll bring in a decent pile of cash - not least because my Paladin training cost most of the money I had on me (or rather, had left after buying a couple of 12-slot bags) and I still have a couple more skills I need to buy but couldn't afford.

So after doing our business we quit for the night in The Exodar so that we have access for the training immediately when we start again and hopefully have some more money available from the auctions.

High Level Idiots

One of the reasons that we had to take off to Auberdine from Astranaar was that a level 68 Undead Mage (player) decided to wipe out the Weaponsmith while I was in the middle of selling stuff and getting repairs then started following us around and hitting me with Polymorph spells. No doubt this dope thought it was funny, but the larger question is that I'd like to know what the point is of going to an enemy town just to knock down the NPCs.

This isn't the first time we've seen this - it happened to our Mage and Rogue at Sentinel Hill and again in Lakeshire, where a group of Horde players laid siege to the place by whacking the flightmaster. Is that all there is to do when you get to those high levels? I hope when we get up there I can find something a little more interesting to do.

Darkshore and Ashenvale

We started this time with a boat trip to Teldrassil to open up the flight path from Auberdine, so now we should be able to get to a bank and auction house from anywhere in Kalimdor in a single flight.

Many of the quests available from Auberdine are obviously intended for lower level characters and I guess the game intended for us to take these on earlier. As such they show up as Green or even Grey difficulty and don't deliver much XP or cash. Kate decided she'd rather grind for better XP so she went back to Menethil to whack murlocs in the marshes while I persevered in Darkshore.

I abandoned all the 'grey' quests - about five of them - and explored pretty much all of Darkshore starting at the northern end, finding mushrooms in a cave behind a waterfall and lockboxes from two sunken ships off the coast, and taking message parchments from warlocks around the Tower of Althalaxx.

As I went south the quests and the mobs got harder and by the time I crossed into Ashenvale and got to the area around Maestra's Post I was getting enough XP to push my level to 23 in a short time. Kate brought her warrior back to this area after I'd already done a couple of the quests so I was able to give her a couple of pointers (such as how to find the plant bundles needed for one of the quests - they're hard to spot until you know what you're looking for).

Continuing east we got to Astranaar where we were able to close out three or four quests, set the inn as 'home' for our hearthstones and open up the flightpath. We made a quick trip over to Darnassus to do a little auction house business then returned to Astranaar and quit for the night.

One thing I didn't do was to explore Darkshore's coastal region and I'd like to do that soon, starting at Auberdine and following the beach south as far as it goes. The flight out of Astranaar takes you over a stretch of the beach and it looks like there may be things of interest to explore there.

Ironforge Airport

A little resarch into the airstrip in the hills near Ironforge showed that it's actually quite difficult to get there and there's not much point anyway. One opinion is that the place was put into the game for a purpose that was abandoned, and it was left in for scenery; another is that it'll be opened up later. In any case I'd like to try to get up there at some point, just for the sake of doing it, but it can wait.

Finding The Way

Money

The guy that owed me money was online when we went in so I pinged him. He was actually good about it and returned the cash, plus a bit extra for the inconvenience. That tells me that he probably wasn't trying to cheat me; I think he was just being a bit dumb, and made a commitment that he couldn't meet. I'm not worried about it; I won't have any more dealings with him and in future any and all trading I do will be through the trade window or via COD mail.

The High Frontier

According to information from WoWWiki the Tome of Valor quest that I was looking for should have been available from someone near the Paladin trainer in Ironforge - not Exodar as it was originally implied. So I took a quick flight up to Ironforge to check it out but there was no sign. Back at Stormwind I ran up to the Cathedral and found that the Tome was there, in the hands of Duthorian Rall. So I got the Tome and checked it, and it turns out that it's the first step in a chain - the next quest takes place in the Westfall.

I put that to one side for the moment, since the reason we were there in the first place was to take care of Kate's quest in Lakeshire. We ran out there and found the guy Kate was supposed to meet, but it turned out the next quest is timed and Kate didn't feel like doing that under time pressure so she decided not to take it, at least for the time being.

At that point we could have gone to the Westfall and picked up on my Paladin-only quest but to be honest I didn't feel like going out there again just yet, so instead we decided to head back to Auberdine and pick up from where we left off after leaving Bloodmyst.

Flying back to Menethil Harbour on the way to Auberdine we passed over an area we'd noticed before; I mentioned in the July 3 post that we'd seen Gryphons on the ground, high up in the mountains in an area where there was no flightmaster shown on any map. In that post I said that this was in the north of Loch Modan, but I was wrong - it's actually in the far north of Dun Morogh, east of Ironforge. In addition to the Gryphons you can see two straight roads close together, some buildings and what look like Tanks (the tracked-vehicle sort).

This is intriguing and we decided to try to get up there on foot. There doesn't seem to be any way to get there from the Wetlands side to the north - the cliffs and mountains are too high and steep - so it looked like our best chance was to fly back to Ironforge and head east from there.

On the way we passed close to the quarry where there are quite a few copper veins around, so we were able to pick up some ore. From there we skirted all around the area where we'd seen the Gryphons but we couldn't find a way up. It looks like this area was put in as a teaser to hook people in just the way we were, and I don't think Blizzard would be so cruel as to put it there in plain sight and have no way to get to it.

As far as we can tell we checked every possible trail that leads in the right direction. Either there's a way and we just didn't find it, or there's a hidden way - a cave, perhaps, that leads to a way up through one of the buildings we saw. We did find one cave, just above the Amberstill Ranch, but it was a dead end.

We'd spent enough time on this for the time being so we decided to pack it in until we can do some research. Instead we made our way back to Menethil and took the boat to Auberdine, picked up all the quests that start in that town then quit for the night. But on the way we made one more intriguing discovery.

Instead of walking back to Ironforge we used Hearthstones, which had been set to Stormwind as a home base, then flew up from there and this took us right back over the same area one more time. You have to be quick but I was able to do a fast 360° as we passed over, in particular to look for anything that looked like a path leading in. I didn't see one, but what I did see this time that I hadn't noticed before was surprising - biplanes on the ground. Planes of unusual design, to be sure, but definitely planes. Those aren't roads we saw down there; they're runways. The place is an airstrip.

This makes me wonder if the only way to this area is to fly in, in one of those planes, at least until you can get to the flightmaster and open up a Gryphon flightpath. Something technical like a plane would be the work of the Gnomes - they're into all that engineering stuff. So maybe the way there involves going to wherever the Gnomes call home - Gnomeregan is a name I've heard - and flying from there. But if Gnomes are involved there's another possibility: Ironforge isn't too far away to the west and there's a 'suburb' called Tinkertown that appears to be a Gnome quarter. My feeling at the moment is that this is the key - I'm betting there's a stairway, path, tunnel or something leading from Tinkertown to one of the buildings in this hidden valley. Definitely a hot topic for some research - or maybe we'll just go to Tinkertown and see if we can find it without help first.

Heroes of the Hand of Argus

To complete the final Bloodmyst Isle quest we escorted Demolitionist Legoso to the Vector Coil so that he could plant a bomb to destroy it. Twice. The first time we got wiped because I was attacked from behind by a Sunhawk Saboteur at the same time that Legoso attracted the attention of at least two other Sunhawks. By the time I'd got my attacker off me, Legoso's health was so low that he went down before I was able to give him a boost with Holy Light. His attackers then came for us and while we actually did pretty well there were just too many of them and they were too strong.

The second attempt went better. Legoso planted his bomb and we stood back to watch the fireworks; that was the first part of the quest done. Up the slope from where we were, Legoso noticed something else going on - Sironas draining power directly from somewhere. He decided to plant another bomb to bring down a support structure and stop the flow of energy; that got Sironas' attention and what happened next was truly weird - she grew to between five and ten times her original size and started beating up Legoso. With no other Sunhawks nearby (we'd helped Legoso take them out just before the second bomb went off) we were able to help him fight back and with three of us on her she didn't last long. Legoso told us to get back to Blood Watch and we didn't hang about to ask questions; we used our Hearthstones to port back from where we were standing.

Back at the Watch, we closed out the quest and what a swell party that was - we walked out of the tower to find an honour guard lining the path with most of the local characters dancing, and Velen himself waiting for us at the bottom to reward us with Honour Points, new weapons and a Heroes of the Hand of Argus tabard.

We did repairs and so on, then it was time to pack our bags and leave Bloodmyst. We made our way to Menethil Harbour then yomped across the Wetlands (with a side-trip to whack a few murlocs and other things - the additional XP was enough to push me to level 22), through Thelsamar and on across Dun Morogh where we made a few side jaunts to mine some copper veins that we could see from the road. At Ironforge we made a short stop for training and repairs, then from there the Deeprun Tram took us to Stormwind and that's where we left things. Next stop: Lakeshire, where Kate has to meet someone at the inn for her Warrior quest.

The way I understand it I should have picked up a Paladin-only quest when I hit level 20. According to WoWWiki I should have picked up the Tome of Valor from someone not far from the Paladin Trainer in 'my capital city', which for Draenei would be The Exodar, but it never happened and I haven't been able to find out exactly who I should see. Maybe it's actually in Stormwind; since we're there anyway I'm planning on running up to the Cathedral of Light on the off chance. In the meantime I need to check some other sources for something more specific than that vague hint that WoWWiki gives.

Liars and Cheats

I think most players treat others fairly, but as with any large group of people there are always some that think they can cheat other players and get away with it. These people spoil it for the rest of us, because they make it impossible to trust people. Such is the case with a git that advertised armour kits (+24 armour boost) for 30 silver each on the trade channel. We were in The Exodar; he was in Stormwind, so we agreed to do business through the mail. Accordingly I sent him one and a half gold to pay for five kits. I didn't get them right away - he said he had to make them, which I take to mean that he'd actually sold all he had and yet still taken my money. Then he said it would take a day to get them together; I said that was too long and I wanted the money back.

I still hadn't got the kits or the cash by the time we got to Stormwind so I've sent him a 'last chance' mail. If I don't get the money back (or the kits I paid for) PDQ I'm going to report him to the GMs. And unfortunately thanks to this idiot I will no longer be able to trust any other player when it comes to trade; in future I'll only do this through the Trade window or on the understanding that I'm not paying for goods until I have them in my hands. [Edit: in hindsight I think this is what the Cash On Delivery option in the mail system is for. I'll check and if so I'll bear this in mind for the future.]

The Last Few Quests

The Vector Coil is located on a hill in the west of Bloodmyst; we found the Sun Gate on the flat ground below it to the south, and we were able to take care of two of the three quests on our lists in that area. The first involved taking out Sunhawk Pyromancers (or pyrocasters, or pyromaniacs - pyro-somethings, anyway) and Defenders. They were for the most part level 16 and 17 and not too much trouble.

While we were doing that a small, dark, indistinct thing skittered past me so fast it took a moment to identify it - it turned out to be my first look at a Void Critter, and we needed to whack twelve of these each for the second quest. They're only level 3 and a single hit will do the job, but the tricky part is that they appear from the Sun Gate in a crowd every few minutes and their movements are fast and erratic, so you have to be real quick to target them.

Still, it didn't take long to take care of them and that just left the third and hardest quest - to take down Sunhawk Agents and Saboteurs. As I think I mentioned before, these guys are level 19 elites and pretty tough. We both got wiped twice in the process of taking them all, but we got there in the end and returned to Blood Watch to close out two of the quests and take care of other business, then it was back to Vindicator's Rest to close out the third quest.

One of the quests (the one with the Sunhawk elites, I think) wasn't quite the end of a chain; we got another quest to destroy the Sun Gate. This is straightforward but a little fiddly because you have to open the four portal controllers near the Gate, and to do that you have to right-click at just the right moment. But we got the job done and that left us with no quests.

Well, almost. Kate has her Warrior-only quest, and we have one last quest that we just didn't sign up for yet that involves escorting a Demolitionist back to the Vector Coil and keeping him in one piece while he erases the thing from the skyline. Once we're done with that, assuming that it's the end of that quest chain, we'll be finished in Bloodmyst and free to move on.

I know we have a herd of quests waiting for us in Auberdine, but as I mentioned before our plan is to take a trip over to Redridge first so we'll be taking a sea voyage to Menethil Harbour by way of Auberdine (skipping those quests for the now), then trekking east and south to Thelsamar in Loch Modan. From there it's west to Ironforge then we take a trip on the Deeprun Tram to Stormwind, then on foot down to Goldshire and east out to Lakeshire in the Redridge Mountains. On the way we'll be able to hit the flightmasters in Menethil, Thelsamar, Ironforge, Stormwind and Lakeshire, and opening up so many flightpaths alone makes the trip worth doing. We could even take the time to stroll out to Darkshire and Sentinel Hill to add those in, since we'll be in the general area.

It's hard to guess how long it'll take to get to Lakeshire but if we just hammer on through without stopping to make any side-jaunts I think we can probably do it in maybe forty-five minutes. Once we're done with Kate's quest we'll be able to get back to Auberdine much faster - five or ten minutes, maybe. That's assuming we don't pick up a bunch of quests out there and decide to hang around for a while. We'll see when we get there.

Islands

I was right about the Treants that I thought I'd seen south of Blood Watch; we found a camp of the things and almost every one dropped the crystallized bark that Kate and I needed to complete that particular quest, so that old quest was out of the way very quickly.

From there we went northwest to the Cryo-Core where Kate was able to clean up another quest, picking up cases of medical supplies (I'd already done this one). From there it's a short walk to Vindicator's Rest where we were able to capture Matis the Cruel. This was a lot easier than I thought it would be - you're given a flare gun when you receive the quest, and all you have to do is get close enough to Matis to get his attention (i.e. get him to attack you) then fire a flare. At that point another guy (an agent of The Hand) appears out of thin air and renders Matis unconscious after a few seconds, during which all you have to do is keep yourself alive.

We decided to go next to Wyrmscar Island to take care of the two quests we had there, so we cut northeast to the Warp Piston and swam across.

The first quest was simple - just pick up two mushrooms that a guy in Blood Watch wanted, and they're big and lit up like candles so you can't miss them. The tricky part is that the area is swarming with Veridian Whelps and Broodlings - little flying dragonlike creatures. The whelps aren't so bad but the broodlings spit poison; luckily I have the Purify spell that removes disease and poison curses.

The other quest involved finding the ghost of a ship captain - he turned out to be on the beach on the east side of the island and he gave us a quest to wipe ten of the Naga sea creatures in the area. That was made much easier by the fact that he hit us both with a spell that enabled us to breathe underwater for twenty minutes. With that quest done he gave us another, to collect the souls of four drowned sailors, then finally he wanted us to go south to Bloodcurse Isle to destroy a statue and take care of a boss Naga.

On the way to Bloodcurse Isle we bumped into Prince Toreth, who asked us to pick up a bundle of dragon bones from Ragefeather Ridge, an Owlkin camp back on Bloodmyst. We put that to one side while we took care of the boss Naga then swam over and picked up the bones and went back. Toreth then asked us to wipe a few of the Veridian Whelps and Broodlings, and with that done he wanted us to take the bundles of bones we'd collected earlier and throw them on a fire burning at the top of the hill in the middle of Wyrmscar Island; that would summon Razormaw, a level 20 elite Dragon. This was easier than I thought it would be.

With that all done we went back to Blood Watch and flew on to The Exodar for training and to take care of bank and auction house business. While I was there I was able to push my Cooking skill from 8 to over 100, first by making Spice Bread (which got it up to 40) then making a run outside to collect some Moongraze Stag meat and bringing that back to cook, which brought it up to 50, then finally cooking fifty-odd bits of clam meat that I'd collected and kept in the bank. The boiled clam meat gives over 200 health and adds 4 to stamina for 15 minutes - very useful.

So I now have just three quests remaining on my list, and there's one other that we have to go back to Vindicator's Rest to pick up that involves escorting a demolitionist to the Vector Coil (I think) which he plans to destroy.

Kate also has her Warrior-only quest that takes us to Redridge. We know how to get there, but because we haven't opened up any flight paths we'll have to walk the whole way; nevertheless we've decided to do that just as soon as we're done with these last handful of quests because it'll open many new areas. Once we're done in Redridge we can carry on where we left off at Auberdine.

Seven Quests

As I suspected would happen, the number of incomplete quests dropped sharply as we finished chain-end quests. I'm down to seven and Kate has eight because she picked up a warrior-only quest - one that will take us back to the Redridge Mountains, familiar from our travels with our Human avatars.

We covered a lot of ground in quite a short time, completing quests from the Warp Piston on the northeast coast, down through Vindicator's Rest then south to the Cryo-Core and west to the Vector Coil. (The places with the hi-tech sounding names are plainly parts of the Exodar that scattered all over the islands during the crash-landing.) I made level 19; Kate's just a couple of thousand XP away from level 21.

One quest that continues to frustrate involves taking crystallized bark from Treants - we've had this one on our lists for ages. All we need is six pieces of bark each, but it seems that there aren't that many Treants about, and when you do find them it seems that you have to whack four or five at least to find one that drops the bark. I need just one more piece; Kate needs at least three. I remember seeing more Treants wandering about near the road south of Blood Watch; I'm going to try down that way next, to see if they drop the stuff more readily.

The other quests we have to finish up include two that'll mean swimming over to Wyrmscar Isle, just off the coast near the Warp Piston - those should be fairly easy. We also have to capture a Blood Elf called Matis; this guy is a level 18 elite who wanders along the road near Vindicator's Rest and wiped us both the other day (although it was a close thing - we almost had him) when he caught us by surprise before we knew who he was. I saw a character on a mount and thought it was just another player. I'm not sure at the moment what 'capturing' this guy entails, since I don't remember any other quests we've done that involve doing that; it may be easy, it may not be - we'll find out soon enough, I guess.

We also have to locate some Void Critters (whatever they are) near a place called the Sun Gate that we haven't found yet but appears to be somewhere near the Vector Coil. The hardest outstanding quest (as far as I know) is around the Vector Coil, to take out a bunch of Sunhawk spies and saboteurs that are attempting to do something to the Coil itself. What makes this so tough is that every one of these guys is a level 19 elite; Kate took out a handful of them but it wasn't easy even at level 20 - I burned through a lot of mana keeping her alive with Holy Light during the fights. This isn't going to be easy when my turn comes and I'm not planning on running this one until I hit 20 myself, just to make sure I have the best edge I can get.

Bloodmyst Isle

We've been pushing the quests as hard as possible the last couple of days so that we can get off Bloodmyst and head on to mainland Kalimdor, so we've been whacking away at Flutterers (basically giant moths), Murlocs, Treants, Bears, Lashers and so on. I wasn't keeping an exact count but I've probably finished seven or eight quests. My quest count is still over a dozen, though, because most of these quests are in chains that we haven't yet reached the end of. I expect that to change today as we complete more chain-ending quests.

Bloodmyst isn't such a dangerous place, of course, once your level gets up where it needs to be. Kate's now at 18 and I hit 17 and so things are noticeably easier, and I feel a lot more secure about going into the northwestern part of the island where, by all current indications, we'll find the toughest enemies.

So for the time being the plan remains the same - keep bashing at the quests. The only thing I want to do a little differently is to make a point of spending a little more time looking for ore deposits to mine; I've done very little mining, especially yesterday, and as a result I've had nothing to auction that would make very much money, apart from a couple of uncommon items from drops. Considering that every time we go to get repairs done after being out in the field for a while it's costing four or more silver, I'm going to end up getting severely depleted of cash before much longer if I don't find more materials and make stuff.

Another thing I need to do is get more bag space. I'd really like to get two bags with at least twelve slots each just to hold unprocessed materials (ore, linen, wool, rough and coarse stones etc.), and processed stuff (smelted metal bars, grinding and sharpening stones and so on). I like to keep things organized into bags, so I have two bags like these plus another I use to hold food, drink and potions and another that's just for quest items and good items for auction. My main backpack is then for everything else - weapons and armour I'm not using at the moment, mostly, plus common and poor items that I'm planning on selling to vendors - and is also overflow space for stuff that won't fit into the other bags. The problem is that I'm always getting some overflow and I also run completely out of space from time to time, especially when we've been out questing for an extended time.

While the primary trades - mining and blacksmithing - have been coming along quite well, I really need to push a little harder on fishing and especially cooking. The reason is that high-level cooking skill makes it possible to create food items that don't just replenish health but also boost strength and stamina for fifteen minutes at a time, which is very useful. As it happens I had a few of these in my pack, but I'm now down to the last couple so I'll have to buy some more, and they can be pretty expensive. Far better if I can make my own.

Questing Like Mad

I started yesterday with about 11 quests, and having run probably six or seven I now have about 15; the things are multiplying. For one thing almost every quest is part of a chain so that completing one leads to another. Also I picked up two items that start new quests when opened. Finally, the XP from completing a bunch of quests pushed me to level 15 and that triggered two or three new quests (or quest chains).

Bloodmyst Isle is a dangerous place to be. While running around the place questing I ran up against at least three separate areas where I could see level 17 mobs in large numbers. I could probably handle them one-on-one but if I got targeted by two or more I'd be in bad trouble, so I'm leaving those areas alone for the time being.

One of the quests involves taking a ship to Auberdine and is plainly intended as an introduction to intercontinental travel and as a gateway to mainland Kalimdor. I may go ahead and run the quest anyway just for the XP and to get it off my list - it should be easy - but despite how hard Bloodmyst is the sheer number of quests (and the XP that go with them) makes it worth keeping it as home base for some time yet.

So my plan is to bulldoze through the quests as quickly as I can. I suspect I'll be up to at least level 18 by the time I'm ready to move to the mainland permanently.

My Best Pal(adin)

I haven't posted for a couple of days because Kate and I have been playing our Draenei Warrior and Paladin characters in preference to the Human characters. I didn't expect it to be that way but in hindsight I think running the older characters through areas that we'd already been through once just isn't as interesting as exploring the new.

My Draenei Paladin has now overtaken my Human on levels - I hit 14 yesterday on the strength of XP from three or four quests. I'm seriously tempted to 'strip' the Human Paladin - mail all his good gear to the Draenei, sell the rest and send the proceeds on - then delete him. Among other things I don't need or want a plethora of characters to maintain.

Making the Kessel Run in eight minutes

A summary of what my Draenei Guy has been up to...

There's not much point describing the first few levels, since they're pretty much the same for everyone. Suffice to say that the Draenei starting area is the crash site on the east side of Azuremyst Isle and once you're done there you move west to Azuremyst proper. Azure Watch is close to the middle of the island and the logical place to call home for a couple of levels, until you're ready to move on to The Exodar.

Exodar is a strange and wonderful place - a city built from the Draenei ship that crash landed on the west coast of Azuremyst. The core of the Exodar is underground, buried where the ship smashed into the ground, and the walls and floors are warped and cracked, but it's a huge space filled with light and a nice place to be.

Having explored most, if not all, of Azuremyst and its small neighbour Silvermyst to the southwest, and cleared all the quests to be done there (as far as I know), I moved north to Bloodmyst Isle about two days ago just about the time I hit level 11. One notable quest came from a character named Kessel; you have to visit three places around Azuremyst and you have just 15 minutes to hit all three and get back to your starting point. What's different about this quest is that Kessel lends you an Elekk - a mount that looks like a small elephant and moves at twice your normal running pace. I was able to do the Kessel Run (that really is the name of the quest) with seven minutes to spare, and I wish I had a mount of my own.

With that done I've now met up with Kate's Warrior (she's a few quests and a couple of levels ahead of me) at Blood Watch; we both just ran the quest that gives us access to the flightmasters, and we've set the inn there as home base. Blood Watch is also the start point for something like ten quests, so I think we're going to be around there for a little while.

Some people...

One rather irritating thing happened at Blood Watch. A level 16 Mage challenged me to a duel while I was smelting copper ore; I declined. He challenged again; I declined again. He challenged again... you get the picture, although it seems that he didn't.

After about the sixth challenge he said something - I don't remember what it was except that it was mildly insulting and evidently meant to goad me into fighting him - and I told him BUGGER OFF, at which point he took off for a while. Then he came back, challenged me one more time (can you guess what I did?), did something insulting and went away at last.

What is it with some people? You'd think one Decline would be enough, but this airhead obviously wouldn't have a clue if one jumped up and gave him a haircut. Anyway, I have his name and I'll be watching for him; if I see him again I'll load up with every potion, aura and buff I have so I'm ready for his challenge and when it happens I'll do my best to flatten him before he's had chance to cast his first spell...

Wandering

Too tired to do much

Kate set up a Draenei Warrior that she wanted to play for a while, and in any case I was physically exhausted from work by the time I sat down to play last night, so all I did was run out to the area just south of Goldshire to mine some copper then back to the forge to make two sets of Runed Copper Bracers, one each for me and Kate. These give 68-point armour compared to the 45-armour bracers I have at the moment, and Kate's 54-armour bracers. We won't be able to use them until we hit level 14, but that shouldn't be too long.

After that I ran to Stormwind to check on my auctions, then packed it in.

Are we finished with Elwynn Forest now?

The Paladin-only quest

The first thing we did was head east from Goldshire toward Stone Cairn lake. We went cross-country rather than sticking to the road; it took longer but we got some extra XP by whacking anything that got in the way and we could pick up materials wherever they showed up.

There are murlocs around the lake shores but it turns out that the island in the middle (which we'd never been on before) is populated with Defias spellcasters. The quest itself is pretty straightforward; find the body of the dead guy (Kate found him right away, spread out on a rock) then use the stone I was given to bring him back. Then the alive-again guy said to get a script from one of the Defias; that was easy, too, as the very first one I knocked over had one. The last step was to take the script to the Cathedral of Light in Stormwind, which we did pretty much right away. After handing over the script I received training in the Redemption spell, meaning that I now have the power to resurrect. Cool!

The Warrior-only quest

At that point I thought we were finished with eastern Elwynn, but I'd forgotten that Kate had a Warrior-only quest and it turned out it meant turning right around and going all the way back out to the Eastvale logging camp. Once there, we had to go south to the area near Ridgepoint Tower to look for Defias bad guy Dead-tooth Jack.

He wasn't hard to find and of course he had the usual entourage that a lot of elites have. No problem, though - Kate waded in and took down Jack and one or two of his mates while I kept her health up from a distance with Holy Light spells. Job done (or perhaps I should say 'Jack done'). And somewhere along the way we both hit level 13 and I think we're not far off 14.

We headed back to Stormwind, making a stop in Goldshire on the way to sell junk, make repairs, cook food, smelt copper, make some items for auction, etc. (waiting until Stormwind to do all that would have taken quite a lot longer because I'd have had to go over to the Dwarven Quarter to do the blacksmithing work then into the Old Town to do the cooking - the Pig and Whistle Inn is the only place I've found so far that has a cooking fire). Once in Stormwind all that was really left to do was hit the auction house to set up a few sales, then we headed back to Goldshire for the night.

We're both itching to get out of Elwynn. As far as I know, all we have left to do here is report to Westbrook Garrison, at which point if I remember right we'll get a quest to take out some Gnolls - that may be enough to get us to level 14 - and then it's Hogger Time. I'm really not too concerned about him; what bothers me more is that if we hit him at a busy time we could end up with a bunch of other characters trying to get him at the same time as us. What we may have to do, if there are other groups around, is wait at a safe distance until they're done then jump in as soon as we have him to ourselves.

Once Hogger's gone I really think we're done and can move on to Westfall. And frankly, I have no problem leaving Elwynn behind with uncompleted quests just to get on.

Slapping the Pig

I think we've now cleared all the quests in eastern Elwynn Forest (except for one, which I'll come back to) and most of the ones in the western end. With all the running back and forth we were able to pick up quite a bit of material for our trade skills; that in turn pushed my mining and blacksmithing skills up still further. On top of that we got level 12, so it was off to Stormwind for training.

I don't have any new mining skills just yet, but I did get another couple of blacksmithing plans and one thing I couldn't help but notice is that at least one of these new plans requires Silver - something that just doesn't seem to exist in Elwynn Forest. I may be reaching the limits of blacksmithing in this area and I suspect I'll have to wait until Westfall or maybe Redridge before I can mine materials that'll let me add many more points.

Paladin training enhanced one or two of my existing spells (I don't think I learned any new ones) but hitting level 12 also triggered a Paladin-only quest chain. I was able to finish the first part very quickly, because it required ten pieces of Linen Cloth and as it so happened I was carrying fifty (they're used to make sharpening stones), but the next part means returning to the island in the middle of Stone Cairn Lake in eastern Elwynn. I could probably handle it solo - the murlocs around there are no higher than level 10 and I've taken them on three at a time without too much trouble - but having Kate along would make things quite a bit easier as well as keeping us together on XP.

I think this quest is an important one, because I recall reading somewhere that there's a quest chain that'll give me a Resurrection spell and I think this may be the one that does that (the big clue is that the quest is to locate and resurrect some guy, using a special stone that I've been given). I have very little idea of how this spell works - I do know that I'll be able to resurrect Kate, but I don't know if I can resurrect myself (probably not). All the same, this could save us a lot of time and messing about - there's nothing worse than almost taking down an elite mob then getting wiped so that you have to run back from the local boneyard, giving the bad guy plenty of time to get back to 100% health.

I want to get that quest done next, and then I think we'll be ready for Hogger, down in Forest's Edge. As a level-11 Elite he's more like level 14 and gave our Rogue/Mage characters a lot of trouble but as a Warrior and Paladin I think we can give him a good slapping this time even though we're 'only' level 12. If Kate goes toe-to-toe with him while I stand back and keep her health up, the only thing that can really go wrong is that he knocks her health down faster than I can pile it on (I can give her a burst of around 100 points every three seconds). If it goes bad I have a spell that gives me about three seconds of invulnerability, which would give me time to either drink a mana potion and maybe boost my health with Holy Light, or resurrect Kate with minimal health then keep him busy while she drinks a potion. As Leeroy Jenkins taught us there's no point overplanning - I guess we'll just have a go and see how things work out.

Once we get past Hogger there'll be no reason to hang around in Elwynn; it'll be time to go into the Westfall.

Questing in Elwynn

We cleared two or three quests around the Eastvale Logging Camp at the eastern end of the Elwynn Forest and made Level 11 in the process. One thing that I was able to do was to try standing in a safe place some distance from Kate while she was fighting multiple enemies (murlocs, mostly) and hitting her with a healing spell every time her health went down to about two thirds. It turns out that I can keep her going against four or more enemies for an indefinite time, and I suspect it'll work just as well when she's up against one high-level or Elite enemy - I'm thinking here of Hogger to start with, and Rhahk'Zor later.

I was able to push my Blacksmithing to 65, but I only got three or four new plans, and a plan for a one-handed sword isn't among them so I guess I'll have to wait on that. However at the rate I'm making stuff and pushing up those skill points, I don't think it'll be long before I get more plans. I must remember to check the 'Unavailable' plans to find the one-handed sword plans and check to see what skill levels they become available at. And I should do the same thing for shields - if Blacksmiths can make them, that is.

I was able to make five pairs of mail leggings and two copper swords with the material I collected while were out east; I gave Kate two of the leggings and a sword to auction off to help with the cash situation, and I auctioned the rest. It looks like I severely underestimated the demand (and the buyout price) for the leggings - I set a buyout of 18sp and all three pairs were sold in minutes. I suspect I can double that price and still make good sales - I'm planning on making another batch and banging them out at 35.0 but I do want to check with the armour vendors to see if they sell the same thing and if so, what the price is.

I forgot to check in with the Mining Trainer and I must remember to do that next time - the last visit I got the ability to smelt tin, bronze and silver on top of the starting ability to smelt copper and although I suspect it'll be a while before I find any mithril (I haven't even found any tin yet) I want to be able to handle it the moment I do.

Another thing I forgot to do was assign a Talent point when I reached level 11. I must try to remember to fix that first thing on the next trip.

We have one more quest over in the east (to collect some free armour from a vendor at the logging camp) but the majority of our remaining quests are now in the west and soutwest of Elwynn Forest. Once we have Hogger out of the way, I think we'll be moving on to Westfall.

Smithy

We completed a small handful of quests around Elwynn Forest, such as collecting Defias Bandannas, taking out Princess the Prize Boartusk Sow, and eliminating Morgan the Collector. The XP from that was enough to push us both up to level 10 (and in fact we're more than halfway to 11 already).

However one of the major achievements from my perspective was that I pushed my Blacksmithing skills up to a point where I can now make equipment that's significantly better than what we can buy or find easily. We now both have leggings, gauntlets and chest armour that's several points stronger than what we had before, and also adds points for Stamina and Strength. What's more is that I only need a few more skill points to reach 65 at which point I'll be able to buy a bunch more Plans, and that's likely to enable me to create even better equipment - among other things I want to make Kate a better one-handed sword. In fact, I could use one myself, as well as us both really needing better shields - but I'm not sure if I'll be able to make shields as I don't recall seeing a Plan for that so far.

Still, so far the Mining/Smelting/Blacksmithing route has been far more useful than Enchanting ever was. I can mine enough copper in a short time to re-equip both of us from head to toe, and have enough material left over to create things to auction. What I'm planning on doing is to keep us both equipped with the best kit that I can, then anything else I can make will be sold or auctioned and I'll split the proceeds with Kate (or I'll just give her half of what I make and let her decide how she wants to convert it to cash).

Going forward, we have quests to complete at the east and west ends of Elwynn; we'll figure out which to do first later, but either way we should hit level 11 very soon.

Elwynn Forest

Kate decided to go with Herbalism and Alchemy as the trade skill combo for her Warrior, and we spent some time scouting the region around Stormwind to find herbs (for Kate's Herbalism) and minerals (for my Mining trade). My Blacksmithing is going exceptionally well - I made Kate a butt-kicking two-handed sword and I've got an axe I think she can use too (and if she can't, I think it'll sell for good money). At the moment we can buy armour that's better than anything I can make, but I don't think it'll be long before I can turn that around. These characters are a heck of a lot stronger than the Rogue and Mage but we are both wide open to Fire and Frost attacks; we need to do something to boost our resistances, and I may be able to do something about that.

We mapped out the area west as far as Forest's Edge and the entire northern strip all the way to the Eastvale Logging camp. One interesting thing we came across during our exploration was a gulley west of Stormwind that led to an area we'd never seen before - Thunder Falls. High up in the hills we found a house (and half a dozen Defias) and a stream leading to a waterfall. Jumping down the falls and following the stream further we found another waterfall, and climbing up the rocks on the south side we found an incredible view looking down on to Westbrook Garrison and the bridge leading into the Westfall.

We made level 9, so it won't be long now before we start getting Talent points. I didn't know much about Talents with my Mage character and as a result I think I made some bad choices; while I wanted to specialise with Fire talents, I think I put too many points in that direction so that my Frost spells in particular were underpowered and that left me in a weak position when I ran into something that was resistant or immune to fire.

So this time I want to make a plan for my Talent build in advance, and try to stick to it. Paladins have talent trees for Holy (healing), Protection (defence) and Retribution (damage) attributes. At the moment I'm thinking about biasing in favour of Retribution with Holy as a secondary - perhaps for every six points I may put three into Retribution, two into Holy and one into Protection. The WoW site has talent calculators that you can use to experiment with different builds, and I'll certainly be using the Paladin calculator to plan in advance how I want to do things.

Edit: I have a provisional plan for my talent build that takes me up to Level 27. Here it is (this is mostly for my own reference):

10: Improved Blessing of Might
11: Improved Devotion Aura
12: Divine Strength
13: Improved Blessing of Might
14: Improved Devotion Aura
15: Improved Blessing of Might
16: Divine Strength
17: Improved Devotion Aura
18: Improved Blessing of Might
19: Divine Strength
20: Improved Devotion Aura
21: Improved Blessing of Might (MAXED)
22: Improved Seal of the Crusader
23: Improved Judgment
24: Improved Seal of the Crusader
25: Improved Judgment
26: Improved Seal of the Crusader
27: Seal of Command

To see the talent trees, click here.

Starting Over

Rebooting

A Mage and a Rogue don't complement each other very well. That's the conclusion we've come to after all the problems we've had, such as the Deadmines. So we decided to begin afresh with two new characters - Kate now has a Warrior, and I have a Paladin. We went with Human characters again, which means that we'll be covering a lot of old ground, but the advantage is that we'll be in familiar territory.

We'll be limited on ranged attacks, at least to begin with, but between the two of us we should be able to deal out much more punishment and while my Paladin won't be quite as damaging as Kate's Warrior I should still be far better off than the Mage and I have protection and healing abilities to keep us both alive. It may not be the perfect setup but I think we'll do better this time round.

One thing that occurred to me was that once we level these new characters up into the high twenties, we'll be able to mix'n'match somewhat - Kate's Rogue will be able to work with my Paladin and her Warrior with my Mage. We'll see how that works when we get that far, which is likely to be at least a couple of weeks. In the meantime I think we'll probably leave the older characters to sit in Menethil.

A Tale of Two Tanks

Obviously, we haven't got very far yet. We're up to level 7; we cleared all the quests in the Northshire Abbey starting area then moved to Goldshire and ran three or four quests there, including all the Fargodeep Mine quests. I have Mining and Blacksmithing as primary trade professions (which will allow me to create armour for both of us) but I need to research to figure out good combinations for Warriors.

Even at levels 3 and 4, I was able to handle three and sometimes four Defias at the same time in the Northshire vineyard; my Mage was dead meat if more than one of those guys latched on. Somehow I don't think the Deadmines are going to be so much of a problem this time...

Level 30

We didn't get much further last night - we stayed mostly in the marshes north of Menethil Harbour, running back and forth to find lockboxes so that Kate could practice lockpicking to bring her skill level up a bit.

We did complete a quest (The Cursed Crew) and the XP from that, combined with the XP from all the murlocs in the area, was enough to push us both to level 30 so we headed over to Ironforge to find trainers. I now have more powerful Fire Blast and Arcane Explosion spells, among other things.

As before, we have no real plan at the moment beyond continuing to move north and then start sweeping east.

Change of Address

We decided to move on and explore some new areas, so we've relocated to Menethil Harbour and spent some time exploring the coast to the north of there. We didn't do much in the way of any major questing - primarily we were exploring - but we did get a little closer to level 30.

We don't have a fixed plan but I think we'll probably sweep eastward to map the rest of the Wetlands; we'll have to take a little care because although the Wetlands are Alliance-favoured, I think the north/northeast is close to a Horde zone. I don't think we'll have much trouble, though. After that we could go south into Loch Modan and Dun Morogh, or north into the Arathi Highlands.

We abandoned the Deadmines quests, at least for the time being, but sooner or later we'll have to return to Redridge, Duskwood and Stormwind. For the moment, though, our local shops are in Ironforge. Maybe it's just me but Ironforge seems larger than Stormwind.

One curiosity: the Gryphon flight route to Menethil from (I think) Stormwind took us east to Loch Modan then north over the mountains into the Wetlands. Up there in the mountains, in the border area, I saw Gryphons on the ground but none of the maps I've seen show a flightmaster anywhere near. The next time we happen to fly that way I'll try to pinpoint the location, then I'd like to see if we can reach it on foot.

Deadmines and Duskwood

Deadmines: The Worst Good Time We've Had

We attempted the Deadmines again, and failed again, and although we made it much farther we won't be trying it again for a good while.

I'm guessing that the quest really is intended for a full complement of five players including a Tank and a Healer. A Mage and a Rogue don't cut the mustard, even at level 29.

We got past Rhahk'Zor without problems. Sneed's Shredder wiped me (same problem as before with the threat level, it seems) but Kate was able to take it out; but then she had to take on Sneed solo, while low on health from the fight with the Shredder, while I was running back from the graveyard (and it's a long haul from the graveyard in Sentinel Hill) and she got wiped too. Once together again we were able to deal with Sneed pretty easily.

One thing that annoyed me: because I was out of the picture when the Shredder went down, I didn't get the Gnoam Sprecklesprocket that's needed for one of the quests - so I'm going to have to take on the Shredder and Sneed again just to get that one item.

After Sneed we got to the Goblin Foundry and both got wiped at least a half dozen more times before we were able to clear out the goblins including the head goblin Gilnid.

In the next area after the foundry we encountered Defias Overseers and Magicians, and while we were fighting them we got surrounded by a bunch of miners. Even though we took down a few of them, we didn't really stand a chance.

That's when it just got stupid. It had taken us an age to get as far as we had, and we weren't far from the Cove and the end of the mines. When we resurrected this time around, we found that all the miners, overseers, evokers and the rest had respawned - so we'd have had to fight our way past all of them again just to get back to the point we'd got to before. And since we're level 29 and all these guys are level 20 or less, we didn't get even one point of XP for the whole sorry episode.

It's a game; it's supposed to be fun. This wasn't fun any more, and we didn't want to do all that again.

Frankly it's just annoying; every damn goblin in the place is an elite, not just the bosses - the level 20 goblins in the foundry are harder to kill than the level 30 ogres we found in the Ogre Mound in Duskwood. To have to go through so many for no XP isn't really fair. We picked up some good cash and some 'green' and 'blue' items to sell or auction, but all in all we'd have done a lot better elsewhere.

So basically we have no more reason to go back there except to finish off those last two quests, and as far as I'm concerned that can wait until we're at a high enough level where either one of us can gib one of those little bastard level-20 elite goblins with a single hit, so that basically we walk in, kill everything, grab the goods and walk out.

As far as I'm concerned Blizzard really got this one wrong; instance dungeons could and should be balanced dynamically to take into account the number and capabilities of the group attempting them. And the quest log entries should be coloured accordingly - this quest now shows up as grey, meaning that it should be really easy, but that's probably assuming a balanced group of five.

Raven Hill

After the Deadmines debacle we flew to Stormwind, where Kate was able to deliver the Sprecklesprocket to Shoni the Shilent, and we took care of some auction and bank business. From there we went back to Darkshire and then Raven Hill, where we were able to collect on a couple of completed quests from the day before. And that, I think, is where we left things.

I think I'd like to finish up our three remaining quests in Redridge, then it's high time we moved on. Kate mentioned that she'd like to do some more exploring and I know I'm ready to see some new scenery. I'm thinking we should do a trip to Ironforge and explore the city and the Dun Morogh zone; we have an old quest in Loch Modan, and we should explore that area too. Then we could go north and explore the Wetlands. We have quests in Lordaeron and Kalimdor. Or we could go back to Teldrassil. There are plenty of options.

The Deadmines can wait.

A Big Push in Redridge and Duskwood

We made a lot of progress yesterday. We started in southern Redridge, mostly so that Kate could gather Condor and Spider meat for Redridge Goulash (which heals and also gives 15 minutes of increased Spirit and Stamina), and worked our way to the Tower of Ilgalar. There's a statue outside the tower where we'd dropped a special pendant as part of a quest earlier; the statue (or rather the pendant) had another quest for us: to take down Mordanth, who lives in the tower, and take his pendant. I already had a reason to go into the tower - a Mage-only quest to collect a book to be returned to Stormwind.

So we got into the tower and, fighting Gnoll Shadowcasters and dog-like Servants of Ilgalar all the way to the top, whacked Mordanth and got the book. Two quests down.

Yomping back to Lakeshire we detoured to Stonewatch Keep to take care of another quest, this one to collect the head of Gath'llzog (or something like that). This should have been easy but was complicated by the fact that another player followed the trail of bodies that we'd left up the stairs, then decided to 'help' in the fight, and thanks to the silly sod getting in my way I got wiped (there really should be some kind of etiquette guide for WoW, you know). By the time I'd got back from the graveyard (all the way over the far west side of Redridge) the fight was all over. But at least we got the head, and we moved on.

Back to Lakeshire to collect on the head, then a quick trip to Stormwind to hand over the book and take care of auctions and banking. Delivering the book to Andromath closed that quest and started another, to collect spider silks.

We went to Darkshire and back to the Ogre Mound in the south, and whacked a bunch of ogres for XP and gold. Then we moved north to the Raven Hill cemetery and we were able to take care of two more quests - the Mage-only one to get the spider silk, and while we were at it we decided to go after Mor'Ladim; level-30 elite he may be, but we got him (or more specifically, we knocked him down quite a bit then I got wiped and Kate finished him off solo).

This happens a lot; Kate will tag a mob then I'll start hitting it with Fireball and Arcane Missile and the damn thing will lose interest in Kate and come after me. Since I switched on Target of Target I can see when the switch happens. I think it's down to Threat Level - something I'm doing is pushing my level up so that it's higher than Kate's and so I become the priority target. It's annoying because I end up in a melee fight with Kate having to chase the mob to stay close. This is why I keep getting wiped in these fights (as well as the times when another player joins in uninvited, as in Stonewatch Keep). I need to check on which of my spells increase my threat level, and plan my attacks accordingly.

Anyway, we took out a bunch of ghouls for more XP and gold, then from Raven Hill we went north and crossed the river into Elwynn Forest and ran to the Tower of Azora, where we could deliver the pendant we took from Mordanth earlier and close yet another quest.

All in all a successful trip - a bunch of quests closed (my log is down to 15) leaving three remaining in Redridge and another three in Westfall (including two in the Deadmines), and we both made level 29 along the way.