Augmented Reality

Android must-haves

2011-04-12T13:44:00.001-06:00

I've had my Android phone for a couple of months now and it seems to me that it's best treated, in some ways, as you would a Windows PC. By that I mean that, just like Windows, Android comes with apps that are basic and can/should be replaced with something better.

So here is my list of (free) apps that every Android owner should look at.

Browser: Opera Mini/Mobile

The built-in browser is ok but it's slow, not particularly easy to use, and lacks features. From my perspective the biggest flaw is the lack of XSLT support which is a must-have on browsers with limited bandwidth. Opera fixes all this. The Mini edition uses Opera servers to grab and render pages, which are then sent to your phone compressed. It's much faster than the built-in browser, has more features and is easier to drive. The Mobile edition is similar but does it's rendering locally, so it's probably a bit slower (I haven't tried it so I can't say).

Email: K9 Mail

The built-in email client on my phone was a bit clunky to start with but after a few days it started behaving strangely; it lost account details, changed ports at random, and would get stuck trying to download mail. Enough was enough.

K9 is much better. It's easier to set up, has more configurable options... It just works. Enough said.

Calculator: RealCalc

The standard calculator is truly horrible, and that's all I'm going to say about it.

Enter RealCalc. It has all the configuration options most people would ever need, includes many unit conversions (including imperial measures - not surprising because it's British (yay!)) and all kinds of constants. Best of all it does RPN!

In the next post: some useful add-on (as opposed to replacement) apps.

Inception: the best movie I've seen in a long time

2011-02-19T18:58:00.001-07:00

If this movie doesn't win Best Picture in this year's Oscars, something is very wrong. Enough said.

Mobile

2011-01-31T18:21:00.001-07:00

I used to write blog posts a bit at a time as I got a few minutes here and there through the day. Then I'd post them before leaving or maybe the next day.

Then quite some time ago now, we were advised not to use the office computers to access sites for personal use, because there were no guarantees that any passwords we used would be kept safe. Well, that threw blogging out the window, because I wasn't about to risk my blogger password. This is why I haven't written for such a long time.

That changed just a few days ago, because we bought Android smartphones, and then I found and installed a blogging app that works with blogger.com. This is what the small test post was for yesterday - to test the app and make sure it works, which it does, so far.

This is perfect, because it means I can blog the way I used to, a little at a time through the day.

But it gets better; I'm not tied to only writing while I'm at my desk. I've entered the age of mobile blogging. I expect to be blogging much more frequently going forward.

Eighteen Months

2011-01-30T14:09:00.002-07:00

It's hard to believe it's been that long since I posted anything here. I used to post from work, writing a bit at a time as I had a few minutes here and there, but that became impossible and so I got out of the routine. Eighteen months though - wow.

Now at last I can get back into it though, for reasons I'll go into later. I'm keeping this post short as it's something of a test. I'll be adding more shortly.

Get rich quick (or at least, as quick as possible)

2009-07-27T14:14:00.000-06:00

The money has been rolling in better than I expected. Since the other day I've now made numerous trips out to Sholazar Basin to mine saronite, and I've made two complete sets of Savage Saronite Battlegear as well as selling stacks of ore directly. The first set sold almost completely (the only piece that didn't sell was the gauntlets, which is a shame because they're about the highest priced); the second set is up for sale as I speak and I'll check later to see if there's been as much interest as there was for the first set. After buying my bird the other day I had a bit over six hundred gold; last night I was up to almost two thousand.

The fast bird makes things very much easier for gathering ore. The full set of armour requires two hundred and four chunks of ore, as I mentioned in the last post; even with others mining around (some of whom are greedy, rude bastards) I can collect that much in something like an hour. Most times I've also been able to collect enough titanium to cover a day or two's manufacture of titansteel bars (Kate currently has a stack of fifteen bars; once this stack is complete I'll start making my own stack again and then probably make two complete sets of titansteel armour, one set each for me and Kate).

I mentioned before that the saronite deposits also often yield crystallized earth and crystallized shadow, both necessary for making the saronite armor (actually they need the 'Eternal' equivalents - ten crystallized X converts to one eternal X). However the armor requires crystallized fire, air and water (and the titansteel bars need fire) - and that doesn't come from saronite deposits (titanium deposits often throw up crystallized fire but those deposits are rare; cobalt deposits give crystallized water reasonably frequently, but I don't really have time to mine cobalt just for the crystallized water; I have no idea what mineral nodes might yield crystallized air).

Kate mentioned that the water elementals in and around the lakes in south-east Wintergrasp often drop crystallized water, and I also found that the fire elementals further east, and the air elementals to the south, are similarly the best sources for crystallized fire and air, so I've been starting out the last couple of days by taking a trip into Wintergrasp to gather these things before moving on to Sholazar, and for the most part it's been fairly quick - the revenants in particular usually drop at least two pieces of crystallized X, so grabbing enough to make a couple of days' supply doesn't take long.

Unfortunately all this mining means that other things have had to fall by the wayside for the time being; I still haven't managed to get to Warsong Gulch and all my outstanding quests are still there waiting to be completed.

What's more, one of the biggest hurdles I have now is that my reputation with various factions is nowhere near high enough for me to buy certain items that I want. For example, the Alliance Vanguard quartermaster in Valiance Keep has blacksmithing plans that I want, but my rep with the vanguard is too low right now.

So at the moment here are my priorities: first, get my cash up to around 6,000. At that point I'll decide whether or not I want to spend a thousand on dual spec to that I can work as a healer or perhaps a tank in the battlegrounds. Second (and I can be doing something about this between mining runs) run quests or do whatever else I need to do to push my rep up with a number of factions - the Alliance Vanguard and the Sha'tar, just for starters. Third, get into more battlegrounds; I need honour points and marks of honour to be able to buy some better gear (if it's better than stuff I can make, that is).

So for example the plan for later today is: go to Wintergrasp if necessary to pick up more crystallized X; move on to Sholazar and mine saronite; then see what I can to to increase my rep with the Sha'tar (probably - maybe I'll try the vanguard first) and if there's any time left after that lot, see about getting into a battleground or two.

Acceleration

2009-07-24T11:38:00.001-06:00

I mentioned before that I'd decided on a target of 6,200 gold before I bought my epic flying mount; this would cover the training (5,000) and the cost of the bird (around 200) and leave me about 1,000 in the bank so that I wouldn't be completely broke.

I dropped my target to 5,500 last night, for the simple reason that while mining around Sholazar Basin I was getting beaten to one saronite deposit after another by two or three other guys mining the area. The final straw was one bastard who jumped on a deposit while I was standing next to it, delayed a couple of seconds because I fat-fingered my keyboard.

I had a little over 5,000 at the time, so I was desperate to get the extra I needed. However a while ago I lent Kate eight hundred gold (I think it was when we bought our first flying mounts) and when she saw my distress (i.e. the fact that I was getting truly pissed off) she paid it back, and it couldn't have been a better time.

I immediately hearthstoned back to Dalaran (Kate was right behind me), got flight training from the trainer at Krasus' Landing (the Dalaran flight platform) then bought a swift blue gryphon for a hundred and eighty gold.

What a difference. I flew the new gryphon back to Sholazar rather than taking a rented bird, and I swear it was faster (I'm going to time a couple of flights to compare - it'd be interesting to know for sure). Once there, I got back to ground-hugging saronite mining, and even though those other guys were still there I managed to collect over two hundred ore chunks in a fairly short time. My target was two hundred and four - enough to make a complete eight-piece set of Savage Saronite Battlegear armour.

Once I had all that ore I went back to Ironforge, made the armour and put it up for auction; if it all sells it should make about four hundred or so - enough to get me back up to about a thousand in the bank, right where I'd planned to be.

What to do, what to do...

2009-07-22T15:59:00.001-06:00

Cooking

I'm at 442, just eight points short of max. I also have a main bank slot full of cooking ingredients, and I need that space. Plan: cook eight more items to max out, then sell everything except succulent clam meat and musselback sculpins. After that, I can live on grilled sculpin and dalaran clam chowder.

Mining and Blacksmithing

Both maxed. Last night I mined about ninety chunks of saronite ore, and about a dozen cobalt ores, smelted them to bars and put them up for auction. I also had something like a dozen quite high value items for sale. I'm not expecting everything to sell but I should at least push over the 5,000 gold mark.

Battlegrounds

It turns out that I only have one more battleground to fight in to complete the one quest I mentioned yesterday - Warsong Gulch - so the plan is to get in there as soon as possible. Also, I still have to be in Alterac Valley during an Alliance win.

Quests

I still have a herd of old quests in Dragonblight and Storm Peaks, which I guess I'll get to eventually.

In General...

At this time I think my best plan is to continue mining and blacksmithing for stuff to sell, interspersed with runs in battlegrounds for honor points and also to break the monotony of mining.

Battlegrounds

2009-07-21T15:51:00.002-06:00

Quite some time ago (October last year, actually) I mentioned here that we'd had a go at the Alterac Valley battleground and that it hadn't worked out too well; Kate's system was just too slow for one thing and mine wasn't much better.

All that same that hasn't stopped her from going battling recently. Having taken on Wintergrasp a few times she got the bug, and now the first thing she does when going into the game is to check how long we have until the next Wintergrasp battle.

I've joined in a few times too, although frankly until we both get machines with faster processors and graphics cards, I've pretty much decided I can't handle the main action - when the Horde come through the fort wall things turn into a free for all with probably forty or fifty players on screen, and my system has a hard time keeping up. It's easier to move away and perhaps take on one of the towers to the south or at least move outside the walls and take on horde that have separated from their main force.

Wintergrasp isn't the only battleground, though, and we've been trying out in some of the others - including Alterac Valley, the place that gave us so much trouble before. As it happens we have quests involving battlegrounds; for example I have one that just involves going through one battle in each of five battlegrounds (win or lose) - if I remember right I have two more to hit to complete that - and another that'll be complete when I'm on the Alliance side when we win in Alterac (the one time I've been in ended up a draw).

The battlegrounds are fun - more fun, I'd say, than Wintergrasp, because there are hard limits on the numbers of players that can be in the instance. Wintergrasp is not an instance; it's a complete zone that happens to be set so that you go PvP just walking in (or riding, or flying, although it's a no-fly zone and you get dismounted with ten seconds if you go in on a flying mount) and it seems that there are no fixed limits on the number of players - each raid party is limited to forty players but from the look of things it's possible to start a second party once the first is filled. The result is complete and utter mayhem. There's a rumour that the latest patch (which may very well be activated today) will address this by adding a queue system to Wintergrasp, like the regular battlegrounds.

Anyway I'll continue battling; I'll make a start by completing battles in those last two grounds that I need, then I'll take on Alterac again until my side gets a win.

In the meantime, though, I still have priorities - I'm still building up the cash reserves toward getting my epic flying mount, so I've been mining and blacksmithing to make items to sell (and incidentally, two items I made last night gave me the last two points I needed to max out my blacksmithing at 450). My gold reserves are just a few hundred shy of the five thousand mark and I have a number of fairly valuable items up for auction which, if they sell well enough, will tip me over that mark.

My target is currently 6,200 gold - that's enough to pay for the Artisan level riding training (5,000) and a bird (190-200 depending who I buy it from) and still have a thousand left in the bank. That may change, though - there have been rumours that the prices are coming down with this new patch. We'll see about that.

Mad Max

2009-07-17T14:49:00.001-06:00

Since the last post I've been concentrating on continuing to push my blacksmithing skill and as such, pretty much all I've done is to go out into various areas mining for materials. As I mentioned last time, there's plenty of cobalt all over Northrend - especially in Zul'Drak, Borean Tundra and Dragonblight - so it wasn't hard to get from 350 to 400 and I think it was somewhere around there that the plans I was learning began to include saronite.

At that time I started mining Sholazar Basin pretty much exclusively. There are some saronite deposits to be found in Icecrown and Wintergrasp (and I think I've seen a couple around the Storm Peaks) but Sholazar is definitely the place to go.

Unfortunately every other miner knows that too, so there are times when it can take time to gather everything you need because there are just so many others grabbing the stuff as fast as they can find it. All the same I worked up a tactic, and a strategy, that seemed to help.

The tactic is quite simple and relies on the fact that most of the people who have fast birds, and use them to beat me to mineral outcrops, tend to fly high. I found that on my slower bird, if I stay much lower - hugging the ground - I can still spot an outcrop at the same distance and have a slight edge in getting to it. The Crusader Aura helps a bit, I'm sure, because it gives a twenty percent boost to mounted speed. There is one guy I've seen around Sholazar a few times, an Orc flying an epic dragon, and while he's beaten me to the punch most times there have been several times where being closer to the ground got me to the saronite just ahead of him.

The strategy works like this: at every five points many of the 'orange' plans that are guaranteed to make you a skill point turn to yellow. At the same time the Grand Master blacksmithing trainer in Valiance Keep (and presumably the trainers in Dalaran and Valgarde) has new orange plans. The trick is to look at all the new plans and select the item that takes the least amount of materials; often there will be more than one that'll work (for example I think there are plans for cobalt helms and boots that both take four cobalt bars) and in that case I generally picked the item that had the higher market value at the auction house. Also it helps to pick things that don't have expensive extra ingredients that you'd have to buy - for example some items require Eternal Earth or Eternal Shadow and those aren't a problem because I found you get a fair amount of Crystallized Earth and Shadow from the saronite deposits; on the other hand some plans call for Eternal Air, and Crystallized Air just isn't in evidence so you'd probably have to buy the stuff.

Once you've picked the best item to make, figure out how much material you need to make five of them (that is, look at the plans and multiply everything by five). Now go mining until you have what you need, then go back to the forge and make your five items. Go back to the trainer, get the next set of plans, and repeat as necessary.

I was able to do this and because of the sheer amount of cobalt and saronite around I didn't have to fast-track the process by buying ore or bars from the auction house, so for the last few days my money reserves haven't been draining away.

This strategy works fine up to 435. There it breaks because at that point all of your orange plans turn yellow and the trainer has no more plans until you hit 440. It's possible that there are plans you can buy from a vendor, like the adamantite ones I had to get from Telredor earlier, but I wasn't able to find any. In any case the best bet seems to be to pick one of the newly-yellow plans (likely the same plan you used to get from 430 to 435) and go grab enough material to make ten of them. Yellow means that you should average a point for every two items you make - you can't count on that but if you've got enough to make ten then you should be at least close to 440 by the time you're done. It worked for me.

At 440 you get a bunch more plans - but now you have another problem because these all require titansteel. Lucky for me I had my stack of twenty so I was able at least to make a couple of points, and while I was at it I made for myself a Titansteel Destroyer - a two handed mace that does some serious damage. I'll probably make another one, because those things are worth around a thousand gold at auction and I could really use the cash right now.

Since then I've made a few more things, including a couple of saronite items from 'green' plans that through sheer luck made me two points. As a result I am, if I remember right, at 447 or 448 (you think I'd remember something like that, but I really can't be sure until I look again).

As I mentioned, my money pile hasn't been shrinking but at the same time it hasn't really been growing either. Some of the items I made have sold, but many haven't and in particular this mostly includes the high value items. I was able to sell one titansteel item for close to five hundred, but I've had two shields, a helm and a breastplate - each worth over four hundred - up for auction for a couple of days without a bite. It's a bit frustrating because at the moment I'm back down below the four thousand gold mark in the bank and money from those sales would be enough to get me up to five thousand. I can't make people buy them, unfortunately. If they bounce back to me I think my best option would be to try to hawk them on the trade channel at, say, twenty-five percent below market.

Being so close to maxing out the blacksmithing, there isn't the urgency any more to go mining so often (although I still have to provide Kate with eight saronite bars each day so that she can make titanium to help with the titansteel bars - of which I'm continuing to make one every day). As such I'm now free to pursue other things. Kate's been battling in Wintergrasp, sometimes two or three times a day, and I've joined in a few times too. We created a 2v2 arena team, although we've still got to get to an arena and have a go (I know we'll get cut to bits, at least at first, but I'm still anxious to try it). I've got a stack of old quests in Dragonblight and Storm Peaks to close out. There are a stack of achievements to go after. And of course, I can mine and smith for stuff to sell to keep some cash coming in, so that I might eventually get my fast flying mount. There's plenty to do.

Grand Master

2009-07-07T15:16:00.001-06:00

It's taken a while but I finally managed to get blacksmithing up to 350 points.

Since the last post here I was able to get hold of enough thorium to get to 300 and at that point I began to get plans using fel iron. I bought some when it was cheap, to speed things along, but I also spent a lot of time around Hellfire Peninsula and Zangarmarsh mining the stuff. Unfortunately I'm not the only one out there so the pickings were a bit slim at times.

All the same I was able to push through to 335 in a fairly short time and then I started getting some adamantite plans, including a couple I bought at Telredor. By that time I already had a small stock of adamantite bars but I bought some cheap ore to help along again.

With the final stock of materials in hand I was able to get to the 350 mark at the forge in Stormwind; I dumped the stuff I'd made in the auction house (if it sells I should recoup around four hundred gold) then took the boat to Valiance Keep and hit the Grand Master blacksmithing trainer.

So now I'm a Grand Master, and along with that I got a handful of cobalt plans. I should be able to dump the excess thorium, fel iron and adamantite that's clogging up my bank slots and use the space for cobalt and saronite going forward.

Things should be a bit cheaper now; Northrend is teeming with cobalt deposits so it shouldn't be hard to gather all I need without needing to buy from the auction house, and I generally don't have much of a problem gathering saronite either - on one circuit of Sholazar Basin a couple of weeks ago I was able to pick up a hundred and eighteen ores in half an hour or so.

So I'm hoping that getting that last 100 points to max out at 450 won't take too long now. By the time I get to that point I should be able to make us some exceptionally good titansteel armour.

On the subject of titansteel I have a stack of nineteen bars in the bank and the one I make today will complete the stack. Should I sell it? That stack would give me a one-time hit of around 1,300 gold. But it took three weeks to make it and I may need a stack like that when it comes time to start making our own stuff. I think I may hold onto it until I have a better idea of when I'll be able to make titansteel items and how much stuff they take.

Armo(u)rsmith

2009-07-04T13:22:00.003-06:00

The armoursmith quests were bugging me and I decided I just wanted to get them out of the way, so I made a big push to get them all finished. If I'd done things the 'right' way - by mining all the mithril I needed myself - I'd still be doing this a week from now, so I checked the auction house and found ore at a decent price. Added to what I already had in the bank it was enough. All that remained was the work of running around to get the quests, making the necessary articles, and closing out.

It all begins in Ironforge where Grumnus the armoursmith trainer gives you a quest to make three types of ornate mithril armour - but you can't make it right away because the plans are rewards for other quests that you have to complete along the way. Worse, he doesn't tell you where you have to go to get started.

The first step is actually to see Hank the Hammer at the forge in Stormwind, who asks you to make six mithril scale bracers. He'll then send you off to Booty Bay to see a guy called McGavan; in turn he sends you off to find Galvan the Ancient, who's at a forge in the middle of nowhere, up in the northeast of Strangethorn Vale.

Galvan then gives you three quests to gather a bunch of materials (one hundred and twenty mithril bars, forty iron bars, five truesilver bars and four citrines) - this is where I fast-tracked by buying the mithril to save time. Iron's not a problem; there's plenty around the Arathi Highlands so one trip out there was enough to take care of that pretty quickly. As it happened I had enough truesilver sitting in the bank, as well as a couple of citrines (I had to buy two more to fill the quota). All that remained was to smelt that lot into bars and take it back to Galvan.

The reward for each quest is the plan for another kind of ornate mithril armour - but unfortunately none of these are the ones you need for Grumnus back at Ironforge. Once you have all three the next step is to run across to the far side of the world to see Trenton Lighthammer in Gadgetzan.

Lighthammer then gives out three more quests, each to make some more items for him, so there's yet more mithril involved as well as other materials. As it happened I'd made sure to get plenty of mithril so it was only the other materials that I had to get together, and that didn't take long.

In return for completing these quests Lighthammer teaches you how to make the three items that Grumnus asked for at the start, so finally it's off back to Ironforge and then buy or gather the materials (I bought) and make the items.

Finally you present these to Grumnus and presto, you're an armoursmith.

Completing this cleaned a stack of low level quests off my list and made two more armour plans available, with more to come as I continue to push the skill level up. It also freed me up to get back to the main task, which is to get the blacksmithing level up as fast as possible. This diversion was worth it, I hope, because it took time away from mining thorium that I need for blacksmithing skill points and also cost money that I haven't been putting back. I'm something like a thousand gold down from where I was a week ago, but on the positive side I'm up to 290 in skill points - just ten points away from being able to learn a stack of new plans and hopefully to be able to put the thorium mining behind me in favour of better areas with more abundant materials. Frankly, I'm getting sick of the sight of the Eastern Plaguelands.

I'm planning on taking a break first, to get some other quests done and mine some higher value metals to auction to try to get the money situation fixed. I really want to get that epic flying mount.

Master Blacksmith

2009-07-01T15:48:00.002-06:00

I reached skill level 275 at blacksmithing and got Master level training yesterday. I also spent some time chasing a series of low level quests that should ultimately make me an armorsmith, but the next step requires a hundred and twenty mithril bars (I have thirty-four, I think) so that'll take a little while. In the meantime I think I still need some thorium but I'll be shifting to higher level materials very soon.

Mister Smith

2009-06-30T15:15:00.002-06:00

Our primary goal now is to get enough cash together so that we can get our epic flying mounts and have a decent pile of cash left over. In aiming for that we've been running quests, including the Dalaran daily cooking and fishing quests (although the fishing doesn't actually pay any money, as I noticed the other day) and spending time running around various areas mining and skinning (me) and gathering herbs (Kate) to have stuff to put on auction.

A couple of days ago I decided on a new course; I dumped the skinning profession completely and started learning blacksmithing instead. Since there's nowhere in the world we can't go, and my mining skill is maxed so there's nothing I can't mine, learning smithing shouldn't really be a problem.

I started at level 1 two days ago and on the first day I was able to push the skill all the way through to 261. Great going, I thought. Things slowed down toward the end because I needed a lot of mithril, so I had to spend long periods out in the field mining. At the end I got my first thorium-based patterns, which I thought would help because in general I've found it easier to find thorium in relatively large quantities.

So yesterday I went out with a goal of gathering one hundred and eleven thorium bars (I needed fourteen points to push from 261 to Master level at 275; eight bars per point assuming I can make thorium belts and bracers all the way to that point; less one because I had one bar in stock). It didn't work out and I suspect other players were out in the same areas grabbing all the thorium. I did two passes of the Eastern Plaguelands - one of the best areas for thorium - as well as one of the eastern end of the Western Plaguelands and one of Winterspring, and only found enough to make forty-nine bars, less than half my target. Which meant that I was only able to add six points, bringing me to 267. I have two smithing plans that I can learn at 270, which should help, but I'm going to need another twenty-four bars to reach that point.

So I guess the plan for today is the same; I need those twenty-four to start with then probably another forty to get me to Master level. Winterspring was disappointing and I probably won't waste my time there this go around; I'll stick with the Eastern Plaguelands.

LEVEL 80!

2009-06-24T16:28:00.000-06:00

It happened a few days ago, but I haven't had time to write about it here, and even now I only have a few minutes.

One night, when it was almost time to pack in, Kate hit level 80 after a fairly long session questing in the area around K3 (I was in Zul'Drak, doing quest after quest there). I was just about 20,000 points behind - just one quest would be enough to tip it over.

The first thing we did next day was the Dalaran cooking and fishing dailies. The cooking quest got me around 16,000 XP; the fishing quest was the one that tipped it over, so I hit level 80 while standing next to the Dalaran fishing trainer.

We immediately went back to Ironforge for training. Since then, for the last few days, we've been pushing to make as much money as possible. We both want epic flying mounts and it's going to cost us 5000+ gold; at the moment we both have something over 4000. I've been mining saronite and (when I can find it) titanium all around the Sholazar Basin; the saronite's been going for auction and the titanium is making titansteel bars - I can only make one every twenty hours but they sell for around 70 gold each. So far I've built up a stack of six and I'm not planning on selling them off until I have a full twenty, which should be worth something over 1,300 gold and will give me enough to be able to get that epic flyer and have some cash left over.

Sick Time

2009-06-07T17:41:00.000-06:00

We didn't play at all for a few days because Kate wasn't feeling well, and in any case I had a few rough days at work and really wasn't up to staying up late.

We just got back into things yesterday and hammered a stack of quests. We started off by doing the cooking and fishing dailies in Dalaran - the cooking quest meant taking the crystal portal down to Crystalsong Forest and finding a few wild carrots, then back to Dalaran to cook them with some chilled meat to make stew. Easy. The fishing quest involved a quick trip out to Unu'pe to fish for Monsterbelly, in particular a bloated monsterbelly that had swallowed someone's arm, then take said arm back to Dalaran.

With those done we decided to have a bash at the Reclamation quest in Sholazar - the one that my work colleague said he couldn't solo. He was probably right. Taking control of the Etymidian (a huge robot-like thing) you have to dispose of 200 undead enemies, which is actually much easier than it sounds. That done there are then three level 80 elites to take down. Two of them are tough, but not impossible. The third is a sod. I think we got wiped twice, maybe three times, before we got the timing right and Kate was able to take him down.

That was the last of the quests in Sholazar and we headed east, finishing off one very easy level 71 quest. It gave us so few points that we decided to move on to better things; we went to Wintergarde Keep, where there were at least eight or ten quests to take care of - some in the mine nearby and some in the town downhill below the keep.

The mine quests involved locating someone, mining Strange Ore and knocking down baddies to find some kind of cards they were carrying. The ones in the town meant flying down to the Carrion Fields and rescuing the villagers, taking them back to the flight point in the keep; knocking down ghouls, freeing villagers and more.

The quests gave us enough XP to push us to level 79 and a little way toward level 80, and there are still more quests out there for us to clear up. In addition a couple of the quests will take us out to Stars' Rest, so I think the plan will be to finish up the Wintergarde quests then head out to Stars' Rest and take care of those. After that we have some outstanding quests in the Storm Hills; between all those I expect we should get enough XP to get most of the way to level 80.

Questing in Sholazar Basin and the Storm Peaks

2009-05-30T12:54:00.000-06:00

We started off with the daily cooking and fishing quests in Dalaran; the cooking quest just meant running around Dalaran a little bit, but the fishing quest sent us out to River's Heart.

Sholazar Basin

Our first task was to complete the fishing daily, which was to catch a Ghostfish and figure out its secret (which is that eating one makes you invisible for a short time).

We continued questing where we left off with a series of simple quests: switching on two activation consoles at Maker's Perch and Maker's Overlook, on opposite sides of the basin, to power the Waygate; passing through the Waygate to find and activate the Etymidian, a weapon which is actually a large automaton.

We left it there, with the last quest ('Reclamation') not done yet because a workmate who is also player told me that even with his level 80 Paladin he wasn't able to complete this quest solo. I may have a go at it anyway, just to see if it's that bad.

Storm Peaks

We moved on to K3 and continued with some quests we'd left off there: collecting a power cell for a Goblin transporter pad, getting the pad working then knocking down various baddies. Then there was a repeat of the quest we'd done earlier, laying land mines.

The last quest in K3 meant jumping on a rocket that flew us automatically to a crash landing in Frosthold, not too far away, and there we started more quest chains.

I lost count of the number of quests we completed, but the XP we gained was enough to push us from about a third of the way to level 79 all the way up to about eighty percent, and there are still quests to be done around there; one more good session today should get us to level 79 and a good way toward level 80.

Back to Sholazar

2009-05-29T11:38:00.001-06:00

After making another titansteel bar for auction and doing a little fishing I met up with Kate in Dalaran so we could run another cooking daily quest (which was actually a repeat of the one we did the other day, picking mushrooms in the Dalaran sewers). We passed on the fishing daily - it would have meant going into Wintergrasp, which we're not sure we're ready for yet.

Once we were done in Dalaran we decided to fly back to Sholazar to take care of the quest to knock down the level 77 elite that had wiped us both twice last weekend. This time, thanks to indestructible potions and better timing with the item that reflected his spells back on him, he wasn't so lucky. We closed out the quest and got another to check out the Lifeblood Pillar nearby, then another to blow a horn at the top of another pillar and another to gather spirits from elementals... we still haven't finished the whole quest chain because we ran out of time, so we'll be getting back to that later. We've made a big leap forward toward level 79; another few quests like this and we'll be there.

Fly Fishing

2009-05-28T12:30:00.000-06:00

We started late the last couple of days, not really leaving enough time to make any progress toward the next level. That's not to say that we haven't made progress in other things, though.

With time being short I've been concentrating in three areas (and Kate's been doing something similar). First, I've been making titansteel bars; each needs three titanium bars (or six titanium ores) and some other things, and you can only make one every twenty hours but it's worth it because even if I have to buy some of the ingredients on auction the profit margin is still very good - one bar sells for seventy or eighty gold.

Second, I've been fishing for Borean Man o'Wars to make Black Jelly, and the way I've been doing it has been to fly along the coast of the Borean Tundra with my Fish Finder enabled on the minimap, watching for schools of the things. It's not that I need Black Jelly specifically, but until you reach a skill level of 425 at cooking this is one of only two recipes that will give you any skill points. I was at 424 for a long time until yesterday when I finally got the extra point and at that time both of those recipes stopped giving more skill points. From 425 there are only two more recipes you can get that will advance you toward a 450 skill level; both recipes can only be bought for Dalaran Cooking Award points, and the only way to get those is to complete the daily quests from Katherine Lee in the Hero's Welcome inn in Dalaran.

So the third thing we've both been doing is running those quests. The other day we got one award point and yesterday another two for a total of three - enough to buy one of the two recipes. We'll be continuing to run those daily quests for a little while at least.

In addition to the cooking dailies, there are also fishing dailies that give you some money and a bag of fishing goodies. We didn't know about these quests until yesterday and we tried the first one, which meant fishing for corroded jewelry in the Dalaran Sewers. These are more daily quests that we'll probably continue with, at least as long as they continue to deliver cash, goods and XP.

Icecrown, Dragonblight and Storm Peaks: Level 78

2009-05-26T13:13:00.001-06:00

Icecrown

As I mentioned, I started off a little way behind Kate (about 160,000 XP) and I decided that I might be better off, at level 77, knocking down baddies around Icecrown since the flight point at the southern end is almost within sight of Dalaran. Sure enough, right outside the camp where the flight point is located there's an area that's pretty well loaded with those undead spider-like creatures, and they respawn pretty fast.

I spent a short while there then decided to move north and found another area with some large bug-like baddies. I knocked a couple of them down but for some reason I didn't get any XP off them and I couldn't loot them either; very odd. So I got airborne (it's great being able to fly around) and headed east, thinking I might have a bit more luck in Storm Peaks.

There did seem to be more stuff around but I didn't stay long because it occurred to me that I needed worm meat (to get a few more points on my cooking skill). I made my way to K3, bashing stuff as I went, and from there I took a flight to Fordragon Hold in northern Dragonblight.

Dragonblight

East of Fordragon Hold, just south of the crossing into Crystalsong Forest, is an ice canyon (the Crystal Vice) and leading off from that is a deep cave filled with Jormungar Feeders; most of them drop worm meat. Here I was able to get the twenty bits of worm meat I wanted and get some XP at the same time. It worked out perfectly; I walked out of the cave with the meat, I'd gathered enough XP to be even with Kate on points, and Kate had finished up with auction house business. I flew back to Fordragon Hold and we made our way to the goblin settlement at K3.

Storm Peaks

There were three quest givers at K3, and between them we got five quest chains in the area to take care of. We had to gather charred aircraft parts, retrieve a toolkit from the middle of a minefield (without flying - the minefield is surrounded by turrets that shoot down any flying mounts), recover supplies stolen by gnolls, lay land mines, use a bomb to blow up a mammoth, and get ore from a cave just north of K3.

One quest chain took us into Sifreldar Village and we had to go into a mine in disguise - this turned out to be quite a long chain and involved freeing dragons and prisoners while airborne, fighting on armoured bears, and finally jumping from dragon to dragon using harpoons while circling the Temple of Storms a very, very long way above the ground.

Thanks to all these quests we made level 78 and got some way toward level 79. I think we've cleared pretty much all the quests out of K3; the plan at the moment is to move on to Frosthold next, where we know there are at least three more quest givers. At the rate we're going we'll hit level 80 sometime in the next few days.

Closing on 78

2009-05-25T12:07:00.001-06:00

We spent most of the time in Sholazar again, pushing through the leftover quests out of Nesingwary Base Camp including a small chain that involved tethering a mammoth then riding it into battle against a high-level dragon on the north side of the region. The mammoth didn't make it but at least by the time it croaked the dragon's health was down to something like ten percent, so finishing the job wasn't that hard.

I'm about sixty percent of the way to level 78; Kate's a little way ahead at about seventy percent, so I have a little catching up to do but it shouldn't take long. I may stay in the Sholazar Basin to do this but it depends - the baddies will be giving less XP so I'll have to bash that many more of them, and even as many as there are around it may be quicker to move to a slightly higher-level area. Zul'Drak, perhaps.

The Flying Explorers

2009-05-24T13:51:00.001-06:00

We had a number of open quests in the Howling Fjord, mostly out of Valgarde but also some in the area east of there, across the river. Mostly they were the usual take-down quests but there were a few that were particularly interesting: in one, you disguise yourself as a robot so that you can gather data crystals; in another, you control a hawk as it gathers eggs; and in one you shoot flaming harpoons to destroy enemy buildings then finally ride one of the harpoons to land yourself in Valgarde.

After running all of the quests Kate was about eighty-five percent of the way to level 77 - ahead of me by about twenty percent. I spent some time in the area of Crystalsong Forest near Dalaran, knocking down high-level baddies to try to catch up, but I found that I was spending more time running around looking for baddies than I was actually fighting and getting points. I decided to move on to the Sholazar Basin because the cobras and crocalisks are thick on the ground there, especially in the marshy area west of River's Heart, and even though they're lower level than the ones in Crystalsong it didn't take too long to get level with Kate.

Once Kate joined in we started running quests in Sholazar - a couple from questgivers in River's Heart but mostly the ones from the Nesingwary Base Camp to the west. Some gathering quests, of course, but with a couple of more interesting ones thrown in. For example, one involved being a co-pilot in Pilot Vic's plane to run a reconnaissance mission, and you end up having to fly the damaged place back to a safe landing. In another you have to take down a level 77 elite by using a magical item to reflect his attacks back on him - we failed miserably, twice, so we'll have to go back to that one. One small chain of quests has you locating a plane engine and some parts, and at the end the plane is rebuilt, creating a new flight point at the Nesingwary camp.

Thanks to the quests we finally hit level 77 and shortly after that we got our cold weather flying training from Pilot Vic - and so at last we can fly in Northrend!

We finished up a couple more quests in the area then went flying - first to get to the two last areas of Sholazar that you can't get to on foot, finishing our mapping of that region, and then continuing into Icecrown. I went a bit too far south at one point and entered Wintergrasp, which resulted in a warning that it's a no-fly zone and I was about to be automatically dismounted. I turned back north as fast as I could.

We mapped all of Icecrown from the air, only dropping to ground level for two flight points that showed up on the minimap. That left only the Storm Peaks to map, so as late as it was getting we went for it. Again, we found a couple of flight points in the south and got our first glimpse of Ulduar on the north coast. But the highlight was when we finally hit the area called Narvir's Cradle; this was the last area we needed to finish exploring the Storm Peaks, and Northrend, and the World! We now both have the title 'The Explorer' attached to our names.

It doesn't mean we've explored every corner of the world, of course - there are a lot of areas that aren't part of the achievement and so we're always finding new places that are on the map but we just never got close to before.

We're both just around halfway to level 78 and as far as I'm concerned the next major milestone will be to gather the five grand we each need to be able to get the next level of flying training and buy our epic mounts.

You Can't Stop The Signal

2009-05-22T15:54:00.001-06:00

...But the TV companies can still scramble it

One of my Christmas presents from Kate last year was the boxed set of the TV series Firefly. I'd been interested in seeing the show since we'd watched the spin-off movie Serenity - which hadn't made a hell of a lot of sense at the time, but I was intrigued and I wanted to understand more.

Before I allowed myself to watch it, I wanted to finish watching all the episodes of Babylon 5, which meant buying seasons 3, 4 and 5, and so I did – watching two or three episodes almost every day, and then also the TV movies (including the awful A Call To Arms – what the hell were they thinking?). There were a lot of episodes. It took weeks.

Finally I got to where I felt comfortable starting on Firefly.

What can I say? This show is bloody excellent. It's usually classed as 'Space Western' rather than hard SF, because it's set in a star system where many of the worlds are remote, so these places have a western pioneer trail-like feel; like all good SF it doesn't focus on the special effects, concentrating more on character and story.

Excellent show, as I said – and yet only eleven episodes were shown before it was cancelled (the DVD set includes three other episodes that had been filmed but weren't shown at the time). The fact that the show had a loyal following is illustrated by the fact that Universal made the feature-length Serenity a few years later. So, what went wrong?

The TV company that aired the show the first time round, that's what went wrong; specifically the program scheduler that decided to not show the pilot episode first (may his/her soul roast for eternity in hades). The pilot episode that sets up the entire series and shows how Simon and River Tam join the crew of the ship in the first place, and why they're there. The episode that hooks you in and leaves you gasping for the next episode, because you want some answers to the questions it asked. The TV company didn't show this one first (apparently they showed it at the end of the run) so I imagine viewers were pretty damn confused by the episodes they did see. A great series, brought low by one idiot.

Anyway, I watched all fourteen episodes then watched Serenity again (and this time it made much more sense), and then I put them to one side for a bit and I've now watched the first eleven episodes again with the last three coming soon.

If you haven't seen Firefly, watch the first episode. If you like it (that is, if you then can't live until you've seen the second episode, etc.) then go out and buy the set. And the movie. And write to Fox and tell them to bring Firefly back.

Level 76

2009-05-22T12:09:00.001-06:00

We Must Fly

For the last couple of weeks we've been spending most of our time in Northrend, in part for exploration, but also to gather materials for sale. It took us an age to get from level 74 up to 75 because we spent more time gathering and getting our other skill points up (we're both Grand Masters at all the skills we have, and I'm not too far of maxing out fishing and cooking), but then we powered through and hit 76 fairly quickly, thanks mostly to a series of quests in the area around the Westfall Brigade Encampment in the Grizzly Hills.

Grizzly can be a rough area, even at these high levels. There are elite giants wandering from south to north along the coastal strip, and they move faster than they look – you might see one some way off and think you have the time to knock down a wolf or two, then the next thing you know the bugger's on top of you. Mostly a zero survivability situation, although at one point I did manage to shake one off me by running for it and jumping into the sea.

Still, there are a lot of quests in the area including a handful that take you into the ruins on the coast east of the encampment; all good for XP, and you get to meet Harrison Jones (looks like Indy, talks like Indy, but doesn't have a whip). Right now we're pushing hard for level 77 with one major goal in mind – to get our cold weather flying training so that we can fly. Among other things we both want to get our Explorer achievement and title and there are places we just can't go until we can fly, which we realized when trying to explore an area on the east side of Sholazar Basin; it's way up the side of the crater and it turns out you just can't get there on foot. I don't remember if I mentioned this in an earlier post, but we completed our explorations of the Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor and Outland and we've covered all but four or five of the Northrend regions, so we really don't have much more to do for that.

Of course, being able to explore these high reaches isn't the only advantage – I'm expecting that just as in Outland, being able to fly gives a better chance of staying out of harm's way. The next big step after that will be to put together enough cash to buy an epic flying mount, but at five thousand gold it'll be a while before we get to that point. (At least, I think it's five thou... I may be wrong.)

Children's Week

2009-05-05T16:52:00.001-06:00

We decided to have a go at the children's week quests. Starting in Stormwind City we got the quests, which entailed taking an orphan to places all over the world. There was a similar quest starting in Shattrath. The orphans could be called and dismissed with a whistle, thank goodness, or they wouldn't have lasted ten seconds in some of the areas we had to take them to.

So the rest of the time was spent taking them all over the place - Darnassus, Thousand Needles, Nagrand, Auchindon, Hellfire Peninsula, Loch Modan, maybe a couple of other places. It was an interesting distraction and made a few points, as well as ending with a couple of new pets - a turtle and a weird, floating, one-eyed alien jellyfish or something.

Since then we haven't done much. I desperately need to go mining some more, to keep the funds rolling in, and I'd like to quest for more points toward level 77, but Kate's been sick so we haven't really done anything like that. Hopefully we'll get back into that soon.

Kalimdor and Northrend

2009-04-30T15:29:00.001-06:00

Mulgore

Thunder Bluff wasn't half the problem that Silvermoon and Orgrimmar had been - we were able to add it to our maps just by getting close enough, and we didn't have to try to get inside.

Unfortunately it still put us into PvP mode for 5 minutes and during that time, while looking for a secluded spot to wait for it to wear off, we ran into a level 80 Hordie. He followed us while we ran around some, then he went PvP and attacked Kate. He may have had a bit of a shock when a mere level 74 knocked his health down to 10%, but unfortunately for me he was somehow able to heal himself, at least three times. I kept the bugger fighting for what must have been a couple of minutes and I know I had him on his knees several times, but eventually I ran out of mana, I'd used up all my healing options, and he got me. Still, I have his name and I'll be watching for him when we hit level 80.

After that we both held off from resurrecting until our PvP went off, then at least we were able to explore the rest of Mulgore without further problems. With that, our exploration of Kalimdor was complete.

The Howling Fjord

With Kalimdor completed we have only Northrend to complete, and we already had five of the ten regions completed - Borean Tundra, Dragonblight, Grizzly Hills, Zul'Drak and Crystalsong Forest. Of the rest we've explored almost nothing, except that we'd covered all but a handful of the subregions of Howling Fjord. Our plan was obvious - go to the Fjord and finish those last handful. Along the way we had a quest to finish off ("Ancient Armor of the Kvaldir", or something like that).

It went pretty easily, as all the areas we needed to cover were close together in a strip down the eastern coast. The Armor of the Kvaldir we found on a ship anchored next to a small island a little way off the coast, and once we'd got it we were able to save even more time because there was a small plane we could use to fly to Scalawag Point, just south of the Ancient Lift. All we had to do then was let the lift take us right to the person we needed to turn in the quest. He gave us another quest, to take the armour and three other items that we'd picked up on related quests to a graveyard and place the items on the correct graves. We've yet to complete that one but we'll get to it soon, I'm sure.

Sholazar Basin

Yesterday we started off in Valiance Keep, or rather on the ice floes off the coast there, fishing. I was mostly interested in Musselback Sculpins, since the grilled sculpins are great for boosting stats. I was able to get a whole stack of twenty, and shortly after that Kate finished getting the Suckerfish she wanted and we moved on.

Next stop was Fizzcrank Airstrip on the way to the area to the northwest, where there are a bunch of fire, earth and air elementals. We spent quite a time there knocking the elementals down for points and the various crystallized elements, then we moved north and got our first sight of Sholazar Basin.

Sholazar is a very pretty area, in some ways similar to Un'goro Crater only smaller, more fertile and very crowded with large snakes, crocolisks and big cats. There's also ore there worth mining, and a lot of herbs, it seems. Most important, there's a flight point pretty much in the middle - which is great because we mapped perhaps half the area and we need to go back to finish up, and the flight point will make that very easy.

Durotar: The Silvermoon Strategy

2009-04-28T07:19:00.000-06:00

We decided to begin our exploration of Durotar by getting Orgrimmar out of the way first, and we started by trying the idea I mentioned yesterday - I swam under the bridge leading into the west side of the city in the hope that I'd get close enough to register on the map. It didn't work; even as close as I got to the walls by the gate, I still obviously wasn't close enough.

That left the other strategy - the one that had worked, after a fashion, in Silvermoon City. I used a Free Action potion this time, giving me 30 seconds of immunity to stuns, then jumped on my horse and ran like stink across the bridge and into the city, with three orc grunts chasing me. With the grunts latched onto me that gave Kate the chance to follow me in without being attacked.

We'd got Orgrimmar on the map the second we'd cleared the bridge and I was some distance from the bridge and gate before the potion wore off and one of the grunts managed to stun me off my horse, and they started bashing the hell out of me. I fired up Divine Protection to give me a chance to heal myself, mostly so that I could get further from the gate before they wiped me, but to my amazement the grunts stopped attacking me and ran back. I can only assume that I'd run them beyond their range. In any case I was inside Orgrimmar and still alive.

Kate tried to get to where I was and would have made it too - most of the orcs wandering around were around level 65, I think - but she got a little too close to a level 80 elite and I couldn't get back to her in time to help out (not that I would have been any help against that guy). At least I was still alive and able to use Redemption to resurrect her in a safe spot.

We had one other thing to do - the Fishing Diplomat quest (not 'Ambassador' as I wrote yesterday), which requires catching one fish in Orgrimmar. We didn't have much time but I'd found a pond a little further down the path into the city centre, and we were able to get to the bank and start fishing. It was a little tense - there was a low level horde guy running around on a mount the other side of the pond, no doubt shouting out our prescence (in addition to the 'Orgrimmar is under attack!' messages that would have been appearing in the local defence channel). But we were able to get our fish, get the achievement, and hearthstone out before a horde of Horde showed up. Phew!

Hearthstoning out took us back to Dalaran, of course, so we had to get back to continue exploring the rest of Durotar. So we took the portal to Darnassus and flew back to Ratchet, then crossed the river into the southern part of Durotar. The rest was routine, just criss-crossing the region until we'd filled in the map.

Time was up, and with the last region of Kalimdor to be mapped being Mulgore just to the west of where we were we decided to ride back down to Ratchet and stay in the inn there. Our next target is Thunder Bluff, and again once we've done that we can finish Mulgore and with that, Kalimdor will be ours.

Exploring

2009-04-27T12:17:00.000-06:00

One of our goals for a while has been to explore every region so that we can complete the exploration achievement. Until recently it's been more of a background goal, because we've put levelling at a higher priority, but starting the other day we decided to push forward with the exploration. And so we started by finishing up all the areas in the Eastern Kingdoms.

Kate had two little subregions of the Deadwind Pass unexplored (I'd explored these a while ago, mostly by accident when I fell into the gorge and couldn't find my way out) so we started there and got those out of the way.

The next stop was the Badlands - we'd simply never been in there with these characters, so we had to run the entire area to map it. The same was true with the Ghostlands and Eversong Woods. That's where we ran into a problem...

Silvermoon City is a major Horde settlement, and there are two subregions (the city itself, and the ruins) that are on the list of areas that have to be mapped to complete the region. The problem is that the only way to map those areas is to go inside the city walls - past pairs of level 65 elite guards. It was tough, as expected, but we did at least manage to get it done even though I got wiped at least three times. Mostly I would run in first and get the guards' attention; they'd wipe me but by that time I was inside the wall and so all I had to do was wait to become unflagged before resurrecting. At that point my map was updated, and if I got wiped again getting out, at least I was outside the wall. In the meantime, because I'd taken the heat Kate could follow me in without the guards going after her. Not the most elegant strategy, but it worked.

Once Silvermoon was done, that completed the Eastern Kingdoms and we moved on to Kalimdor. We had a lot of areas where we'd explored all but a couple of subregions, and a couple that we'd barely touched, such as Silithus. After a marathon session all we have left to cover is Durotar and Mulgore. Neither should be too tough although both have important Horde settlements - Orgrimmar in Durotar and Thunder Bluff in Mulgore. We'll just have to see how that goes and if one or both is Silvermoon City all over again, so be it.

I have a plan for Orgrimmar: there's an entrance on the west side with a bridge going across the river, and the guards are on the far bank away from the city wall. I'm thinking that if we sneak down the east side of the riverbank we might be able to avoid attracting the guards while still getting close enough to the wall to get the city on our maps. If it works, we should also be able to fish - we only need to catch one fish to complete the "fishing ambassador" quest, so it should take less than twenty seconds.

Of course, that may not work and if that's the case, we're probably back to the Silvermoon City strategy again. We'll know soon enough.

Dalaran

2009-04-24T11:54:00.001-06:00

Getting to Dalaran was as easy as I'd hoped - we flew to Valgarde and found Baron Ulrik von Stromhearth in the inn there; he's one of the five people who give out the quest that takes you to Dalaran. We were in Dalaran in seconds.

Once there we found the Hero's Welcome inn and set our hearthstones without problems. We also found the flightmaster and it turned out that there are connections to several flightpoints at ground level that we already know - we should be able to fly to Dalaran from anywhere in Northrend.

Last stop was the hall containing the portals. From Dalaran we can port to Stormwind, Ironforge, Darnassus, the Exodar and Shattrath. This is going to make things so much easier... we really have no need to take the ships between the major continents or use the dark portal any more, I think.

Level 74

2009-04-23T16:53:00.000-06:00

Kate had got to level 74, while I was only 60% of the way there from 73; it took a while to catch up but I flew out to Amberpine Lodge in the Grizzly Hills and, using that as a base, went a-questing in the area around. It went mostly pretty quickly, at first at least, because the first handful of quests could all be taken care of in the area close to the lodge. Later came quests that meant heading farther out, and ultimately I ran into a couple of quests that I couldn't get through. Actually I think the failure was simply not knowing the best way to handle things, and if I had another go I think I might be able to deal with them.

One involved helping someone escape from a logging camp in the north, and as part of it you have to jump on a horse that the escapee is controlling. We became overrun with enemies and I think it was because I didn't use the burning lamp oil the way I should have. That was a wipe.

The other quest was in Voldrune, and for this one I had to release a dragon (easy) then fly it off to attack the level 74 elite bad guy at the top of a nearby tower (hard). We didn't make it.

Since my objective was to level up I dropped both quests for the time being and headed off to find Gryan Stoutmantle (who I'd last seen at Sentinel Hill) at the Westfall Camp to the east. He had another couple of quests including one to clear out some undead scum from a mine to the north, and it was while doing that that I got the last handful of points and hit 74. Yippee!

We should now be able to get to Dalaran. The way I understand it, we can pick up a quest from any of five different people - one in Valiance Keep, one in Zul'Drak, two in Dragonblight and one in Valgarde (which is the closest from where we're both settled at the moment). The quest is to take some item (I don't remember what) to someone in Dalaran (I don't remember who) and to make it possible the quest giver will port you right to the place. Couldn't be simpler.

So when we get there the first objective is not to close out the quest but to find an inn and set our hearthstones. I'm fairly sure there'd be an inn but if for some reason we're not able to set our stones, the next option is to find a flightmaster. The potential problem with that is that the flight point may not be connected to any of those we have, in which case we'd have to locate a connecting flight point on the ground to be able to fly back.

If both of those things fail, the third option is to abandon the quest that got us there instead of closing it out. If we do that, then any time we want to get to Dalaran all we have to do is take the quest again. Not an ideal solution but it should work.

Catching Up

2009-04-22T11:22:00.001-06:00

It's been waaay too long since I last wrote about our adventures in Azeroth and Outland. Looking back I see that the last entry was three months ago, at which time we were at level 62 and in the Terokkar Forest outside Shattrath.

Much has happened since then. Kate's character is now at level 74 and I'm a little way behind, but not far; we've explored most of Outland and half of the regions of Northrend; we got flying mounts. So much has happened that there's no way to go into detail - for one thing I can't remember it all and even if I could it would take a couple of weeks of constant writing to get it all down. So instead I'm just going to give a very rough overview of some of the things we've done, then pick up with what we've been doing recently.

Outland

As I recall, we did enough questing and grinding around Outland to finally hit level 70, at which point we were able to go and buy our flying mounts. That was tough - Shadowmoon Valley, where you have to go to get the requisite flying training (which is actually just the next level of riding training), has some very tough baddies and they wander all over the place including onto the roads. As a result, just getting to the trainer can be a rough trip. Getting back isn't half as bad because instead of staying on the ground you have the choice of hitting the flight master or flying your own mount. We chose the second option, which at that time turned out to be a bad idea because I didn't even make it as far as the Terokkar Forest border before being knocked out of the air by a spell from something below me. Still, it was a learning experience in that we now know that flying over hostile settlements is not recommended.

Being able to fly makes some things much easier; for one thing you can go over regions infested with baddies and thereby avoid them, which we did in Zangarmarsh while moving between quest locations, and you can also get to areas that are impossible to reach any other way. It was thanks to this that we were able to finish our explorations of Zangarmarsh, Nagrand, Blade's Edge Mountains and Hellfire Peninsula.

Northrend

We'd actually visited Valiance Keep at the western end of Northrend, and Valgarde in the east, some time ago, but since several sources suggested that Northrend in general wasn't a good idea for anyone under level 68 we hadn't gone beyond the walls of either.

Of course, once we did hit 68 that opened it up for us and we started exploring the Howling Fjord and the Borean Tundra very soon after. That included making a trip by land from west to east so that we could find all the intermediate flight points, making it possible to fly between Valgarde and Valiance whenever we need to.

Starting from the coastal strip that we explored as part of that run, we've pushed northward to explore and quest. It didn't take long to finish exploring the Borean Tundra and since then we finished mapping Grizzly Hills and Zul'Drak (which we went into more than anything to get the manual for making Heavy Frostweave Bandages) and then moved into Dragonblight. Once that was finished (just the other day) we went north into Crystalsong Forest.

Recently in Northrend...

Crystalsong is tough at level 73, I can tell you. Most of the baddies wandering around are level 78 and higher; I can just about handle one level 78 wolf without help, but I'm fairly certain that's my limit - a 79 would slice me up. And we've seen level 80 mobs in the area.

Still, by being careful we were able to complete the map and along the way we found the ruins underneath the aerial city of Dalaran, and along with that found the portal crystal that we should be able to use soon to get into the city itself. The way I understand it, as soon as we hit level 74 we can get a quest that will give us one opportunity to portal in; once there, we should immediately find an inn and set our hearthstones, so that we can go back any time we choose just as we currently do with Shattrath.

Last night we did something much simpler and less risky; as part of the 3.1 patch it became possible to see Nat Pagle the fishing trainer and get a new fishing pole that adds 25 to your fishing skill, so we went out there to get one each; and it also made available a new Clamlette Magnifique recipe, from Quickcleave the cooking trainer in Gadgetzan, so we flew down there to get that too.

I had to dip out at that point so I hearthstoned to Shattrath and took the portal to Stormwind so that I'd be in a convenient place for the ship to Northrend when I get in later today. Kate stuck around in Northrend and hit level 74 - so I have a bit of catching up to do. Once we're both at 74, I think our plan is to do whatever we need to to get to Dalaran as soon as possible.

Quitting: Day Thirteen

2009-01-30T18:37:00.001-07:00

Cigarettes Today: 2

Not exactly my zero target but not bad considering my lapse over the last three days.

Quitting: Day Twelve

2009-01-29T21:02:00.000-07:00

Cigarettes Today: 6

The last of the pack I bought the other day. With those gone I'll be able to get back on track. My target for tomorrow is zero ciggies.

Quitting: Day Eleven

2009-01-29T20:39:00.001-07:00

(Posted late)

Cigarettes Today: 8

The side effect of buying that damn pack yesterday; just knowing I have ciggies in my pocket makes it almost impossible not to have one when I feel the urge.

Well, that leaves five for tomorrow. If I burn all five that's the end of it, and I can go back to where I left off the other day.

Quitting: Day Ten

2009-01-27T19:30:00.001-07:00

Cigarettes Today: 6

Bad day. Whoever's supposed to take care of the roads around Denver should be fired - there's still snow left lying all over the place, and in some places it is of course compacted by the traffic.

The upshot of this is that the back end of the car broke away just after I negotiated the curve from I-25 onto 6th avenue; I got control of it but as the back end snapped beck into line it overshot and went the other way. I steered into it again and got it back, but by that time I was pointing at the barrier, on snow - I gentled the brakes but there was just no traction and I hit at maybe 15 mph - not even enough to fire the airbags.

I was a little bit shaken up but more than anything I was just angry - if I'd still been working at the USDA I could have worked from home, but where I am now they insist on my presence even though there's useful work I could have done without coming in.

In any case I lost it and bought a pack at a gas station on the way in, and I've burned six. I'm trying as hard as I can to make those the last for the day.

Quitting: Day Nine

2009-01-26T19:04:00.000-07:00

Cigarettes Today: 1

It snowed all night, from the look of things, and although it wasn't heavy it built up to about four or six inches. The main roads had been ploughed, though, so it wasn't too bad for the first hour of driving to work - I wasn't about to do the speed limit but fifty or even sixty in places was okay.

Then I got down to about mile 217 and ran into heavy snow, and everything slowed to a crawl. It took another hour to cover the last fifteen miles to work, and it was pretty nerve-wracking in a few places because there was almost no traction; in one place I hit the brakes and even with the antilock the car started to slew. I'm pretty careful in these conditions and I had a big gap between me and the car in front, but I was more concerned that I'd slide into the lane to my right since I lost the steering for a moment. Scary.

So by the time I got in I was twitchy again, the willpower went again, and I scrounged another cig off Leo (a guy I work with). That set me straight and I'll be okay now for the rest of the day.

Quitting: Day Eight

2009-01-25T14:48:00.000-07:00

Cigarettes Today: 0

Basically the same situation as yesterday; no stress but I have to guard against boredom, because that gets me thinking about a smoke.

Yesterday I watched The Matrix and about half of The Matrix Reloaded on my portable DVD player; today I watched the second half and then completed the trilogy by watching The Matrix Revolutions. That kept the boredom at bay but right now it's not quite 3pm and Kate has Miss Potter on TV - a good film but it's been on about a dozen times in the last couple of weeks; I could probably quote Ewan McGregor's lines from memory.

So the plan is, first, to run up to WalMart to pick up some milk, eggs and a few other things including some silicon-based sealant; second, to use said sealant to fix Kate's little table fountain in the living room; third, pick out another movie to stay occupied - I'm thinking about the X-Men films, but we'll see.

Quitting: Day Seven

2009-01-24T19:42:00.000-07:00

Cigarettes Today: 0

It's Saturday, so I don't have to worry about driving to work, or work itself, and the associated stress bringing on any craving for a smoke. What I do have to consider is other factors such as boredom, since it's habitual to light one because of having nothing to do. So I'm trying to stay busy to keep that from happening.

Quitting: Day Six

2009-01-24T08:55:00.000-07:00

Cigarettes Today: 1

(Actually posted on Day Seven...)

Not doing so bad today. The drive in was okay but I got feeling a bit twitchy in a gap between meetings this morning. Same as yesterday, I wasn't able to concentrate on reading some important technical documents, and had to scrounge a thinking stick off a colleague. The good news is that I haven't had any cravings since then - about five hours ago as I write this.

Quitting: Day Five

2009-01-22T21:11:00.000-07:00

Cigarettes Today: 1

I was trying to read the documentation for Metro (a web services package from Sun); there's a lot to it and it's quite heavy going in places, and the craving was making it almost impossible to concentrate. I caved in for the sake of sanity and scrounged a smoke off a colleague; at least I'm now able to focus on what I'm reading. I had to make a commitment to myself that this one would be the one and only for the day.

A note on the colour coding; if the number of cigs shows in red that means I'm not happy with it - it means I had more than I meant to (which for the most part means more than zero). If it's in green that means I feel okay about it.

Quitting: Day Four

2009-01-21T22:05:00.001-07:00

Cigarettes Today: 0

Another rough traffic day but this time I was able to resist the urge when I got here despite the twitchiness - thanks to coffee, chocolate covered blueberries and Eclipse chewing gum.

Quitting: Day Three

2009-01-20T14:55:00.001-07:00

Cigarettes Today: 1

I got stuck in traffic on the way to work and when I got there I was so twitchy I couldn't stand it - I had to scrounge one off a co-worker. I made it last all day by just getting a few puffs at a time then putting it out. Shameful, but better than breaking down and buying a whole pack, as I was sorely tempted to do.

Questing in Terokkar Forest

2009-01-20T14:54:00.000-07:00

We went after the couple of quests that we'd picked up in the Refugee Caravan south of Shattrath; they weren't too difficult. The first was to knock down a bunch of bad guys in an area south of the caravan and the other involved going into an underground area to the west (not a dungeon in the usual sense, since it wasn't an instance) to locate three items that turned out to be held in three lockboxes.

The first part wasn't too tough at all although some of the spellcasters could be a challenge, especially if another bad guy happened to latch on at the same time; they had pretty damaging fireball spells. All the same it didn't take long to whack the necessary quota and move to the northwest from there to find the underground area.

That part didn't take too long either; there were basically three rooms, each rooms having three or four bad guys and one of the lockers we needed to raid. There were rooms to the left and right and another a little more distance and down the central path. That last room was bigger and had a level 65 baddie standing close to the locker, but it wasn't an elite and wasn't too hard to knock down.

On the way out we picked up another quest to escort a Draenei from that central room back to the Caravan and while he managed to pull a couple more enemies on the way it wasn't that hard.

All in all, something like 35,000 XP for the three quests together which made for some good progress toward level 63 for both of us.

Quitting: Day Two

2009-01-19T15:43:00.002-07:00

Cigarettes Today: 0

Would have been easier if I'd realised, or someone had told me, that today is Martin Luther King Day and therefore a federal holiday. As it was I drove to work and only found out when I got there, and had to turn back. It would have been extremely easy to drop into a gas station and get a pack of twenty, since it's an hour and a quarter drive home. I managed to resist the urge although it was a close thing. That was about 9am, and since I got home it's been mostly okay; although I've had the cravings a couple of times I've managed to suppress them by keeping my mind on other things.

Nagrand

2009-01-18T20:34:00.002-07:00

We decided to make a push to get the next level, only this time instead of wasting time with low-level quests and dungeons we figured our time was better spent grinding for points in higher level areas.

Accordingly we flew out to Shattrath (actually we'd started there and took a portal to Ironforge to clear out our packs from the day before, then flew to Nethergarde Keep and rode to and through the Dark Portal), and rode out into Terokkar Forest.

We headed south and then west to explore the region and found ourselves crossing the border into Nagrand. This area is a little higher than Terokkar; level 66 mobs were generally the highest level we saw compared to about 64 in Terokkar. Since we were level 61, that put those higher level mobs five levels above us, making this area a bit of a tough proposition.

All the same we did pretty well, apart from one point where I was noticed by a couple of level 70 elite guards from what appeared to be a Horde outpost in the northeast. That was a wipe, of course.

In an attempt to find refuge we made our way to the middle of the region - where the map showed a settlement - and found a place called Halaa, which turned out to be an Alliance outpost.

From there we went southeast - a quick look at the map on WowWiki.com showed another, larger settlement there called Telaar. The place turned out to be neutral rather than Alliance-friendly and we weren't able to make use of any of the facilities except the mailbox and the flightmaster. I'm guessing that would change if we upped our reputations with the right faction, but at least the place was a relatively safe haven. It's also rather beautiful; see the picture, a snap I took from the flightmaster's platform high above the town.

From there we started out north but Kate hit level 62 before we'd gone very far and we turned back to take a flight back to Shattrath. I flew on to Honor Hold, since I was only eighty percent of the way to that level, and rode out to grind for as many points as I could from the level 61 boars and other things in the general area.

It didn't take too long and by the time Kate had finished her business in Shattrath I was ready to get back to Ironforge for training.

After that we went back to Shattrath and spent just a short time exploring a little more to the south and east of Shattrath, picking up a couple of quests in the Refugee Caravan we found out there, before we hearthstoned back to Shattrath and called it a night.

Quitting: Day One

2009-01-18T20:00:00.000-07:00

Cigarettes Today: 1

What's the Cigarettes thing?

I've decided to make a concerted effort to quit smoking, and as part of the effort I'm planning to put a little note every day to keep a track of progress - nothing too long, and some days no more than the heading. I'll probably only write more when there's something worth writing.

Watch This Space.

The Searing Gorge

2009-01-17T21:15:00.001-07:00

We had some open quests in the Searing Gorge so we decided to go and try to clear three or four. Unfortunately it wasn't quite that simple.

As we've been getting higher levels, more and more quests are turning out to be Dungeon quests, which we don't like too much - they take too long, and the instances are filled with elites which means that (1) they're tough but (2) you only get the same XP as you would for knocking down a regular mob of the same level.

Yesterday was a case in point - we found ourselves in the Blackrock Spire instance and although we gave it a fair shot we just could not locate the item we went in there for - the minimap showed a location but there were several floors and it could have been on any one (it wasn't on any of the ones we checked). Finally we walked into a room full of level 58 elites; we'd had no problem up until that point taking these guys on in threes and fours (well, mostly - Kate got wiped at one point and I nearly bought it myself), but a whole roomful?

We figured that the XP from fighting these guys wasn't worth the effort, and that our time would be better spent elsewhere.

Also, we've started to get quests marked PvP, meaning that they're Battleground quests. We're really not up to battlegrounds - we found ourselves in the Alterac one a few weeks ago and it was extremely annoying - I could barely see what was going on because the fighting was all happening around some fat Tauren and nobody would move far enough away from the dopey sod where I could see what I was doing; Kate couldn't react in time because her system wasn't fast enough to provide a decent screen refresh rate with so many Horde guys on us.

So as a result we're restricting ourselves mostly to whatever plain, ordinary, non-dungeon, non-PvP quests we can find. Unfortunately, they're getting a bit thin on the ground.

So we did actually manage to clear up one quest that meant collecting thirty Dark Iron fragments, but other than that the only real achievement was that we completed mapping the region.

We'd hoped to hit level 62, but we didn't get enough XP to push us much more than about halfway, so I think our plan next is to explore the Terokkar Forest area near Shattrath; the mobs around there are high enough level to get us a level in a reasonable time, and at the same time we can be gathering valuable materials (adamantite and fel iron, in my case) to help with the cash situation.

More Mining and Herb-picking

2009-01-16T19:46:00.000-07:00

We haven't taken a lot of time for questing or anything else that would get us some XP and level 62; instead for the past couple of days all we've really done is continue with mining and picking herbs in an effort to replenish our cash supplies.

Kate's been sticking mostly to the Western Plaguelands and while I've spent some time there mining thorium and mithril, I've also done the same thing in the Eastern Plaguelands and Hinterlands.

The money's coming up a bit at a time; I'm back to having over six hundred gold in the bank and after last night, when I picked up almost thirty chunks of thorium ore as well as a handful of mithril, I'm hoping to be closer to seven hundred when I check tonight.

As for tonight, it's Friday so we're planning a bit of a marathon session with the primary goal of getting level 62.

Mining

2009-01-14T10:29:00.001-07:00

We're still trying to recoup some of the cash we spent on riding training - partially because we'll both need it to buy new equipment pretty soon, and partially because we're not terribly far from the level where we'll be able to buy flying mounts, and we both want to be able to do that. There's a little bit of confusion about how much a flying mounts costs - 5000g is a figure we hear a lot but according to one source that's for an epic flying mount, and there's another, lower-level type that you can get for 800g. I'm also unsure about whether Paladins get a cheaper alternative, as we do for the horses.

Either way, we need the cash so for yesterday's trip we decided to do nothing but gather materials for auction. Kate went to the Western Plaguelands and pretty much stayed there; I started off in the Arathi Highlands to pick up as much iron as I could find to replenish the stocks I'd used the other day, and while I was there I found a decent amount of mithril as well as a small amount of gold and tin.

After doing the circuit of Arathi, I took off for the Eastern Plaguelands since I know it's a good place for thorium; as it happened, though, I ended up spending more time fighting than mining (including getting wiped when two level 58 elites jumped me near Tyr's Hand), so I decided to move on somewhere else. I'd seen thorium and dark iron from the air in the Searing Gorge so I took a trip down there and did find some dark iron and more mithril, but only one thorium outcrop.

By now I was running out of time so I decided on one last attempt to find something worth some money and so I went through the Dark Portal and flew to Honor Hold, then from there rode southwest into the Terokkar Forest. I was hoping to find fel iron and adamantite, but no soap - it looked like someone had cleaned the place out before me. I was pretty close to Shattrath so I decided it was time to call time and take a portal back to Ironforge. I smelted the iron (apart from a few chunks that I prospected, getting one measly moonstone in return) and put that in the bank; the rest went for auction and with a bit of luck that lot should put the better part of a hundred gold back into my account.

Jewelcrafting, First Aid and a Huge Mechanical Monster

2009-01-13T12:47:00.001-07:00

We didn't have much time to do anything yesterday; Kate spent a lot of time helping our son, who just started playing a couple of weeks ago, by finding weapons, armour and other things on the auction house and also making a few things, for which I donated some iron bars and a couple of other things. While she was doing that I spent some time burning up some of the materials I've collected in an attempt to push my jewelcrafting up at least a few points - this was largely fruitless because I very quickly ran out of jewels while still having quite a few stacks of metal bars, especially bronze and mithril.

I think the only way to go forward with this is to go out mining for ore and then prospect it for jewels; the problem with this is that doing so will certainly reduce the amount of cash I can get by auctioning the ores off (although it might result in more excess jewels that can be auctioned), at a time when I really need to be pushing for as much gold as possible to recover from the cost of the riding training.

In fact I've been seriously thinking about dumping the jewelcrafting profession altogether and replacing it with another gathering task, probably skinning. Jewelcrafting is an expensive profession and the returns are limited, at least at the level I'm at; perhaps that'll get better as I get the ability to make more and better stuff, but who the hell knows? It's a tough choice, given how much I've put into it so far that would be lost. Perhaps I'll go mining for materials purely for prospecting, then see how things work out.

Medic!

I headed out to Hellfire Peninsula to take care of one particular thing - obtaining two sets (one set for me, one for Kate) of two books that teach the making of Netherweave Bandages and the 'heavy' variant of the same. The books come from Burko, a Draenei Medic in the Temple of Telhamat in the northwest corner of the Peninsula.

I made my way out to Honor Hold by way of the Blasted Lands and the Dark Portal, rather than hearthstoning, for the same reason as before - I wanted the hearthstone ready in case of an emergency. While I was at the Hold I found a master mining trainer and at last was able to get a bit more training - I can now smelt adamantite and fel iron, among other things.

We hadn't been out to Telhamat before so this was terra incognita and I only had a rough idea of the Temple's location. While the Peninsula was pretty hairy at level 58 it isn't too bad now that we're at level 61, but there is one very scary thing in that area: a Fel Reaver. It's huge, it's level 70 elite, it has a hundred and four thousand health points compared to my slightly less than four thousand, and it wanders all over the western part of the Peninsula.

I rode out from Honor Hold, sticking to the road and moving as fast as I could while watching for the Reaver, and I saw the Temple off to my right at the same time as I saw the Reaver heading on a path that would take him across the road I needed. He didn't seem to be moving too fast - although that could be an illusion caused by his sheer size - so I decided to get ahead of him on the road I was on then cut north to the Temple.

This was a bad move; when I left the road I ran into some kind of vulture. It was about level 58, so not too bad, and I knocked it down fairly quickly - but then another one latched on, then as that one went down another attacked. And all the time I could see the Reaver getting closer.

After about the fourth vulture went down the Reaver was just southeast of me and I was sure he'd spot me if I stayed where I was so I ran for it, with at least one more vulture still pecking at me, until I reached the Temple steps and safety.

I found Burko and got the books and also found, thank Dog, a flightmaster. By this time Kate was running a quick herb-gathering pass of the Blasted Lands on her way to the Dark Portal, so I flew back so that we could hook up and then we went together back to Honor Hold and she followed me from there back out to Telhamat so that she could map the area and get the flight path. This time it wasn't so bad - it was a pretty straight run and the Reaver was well behind us, and Kate made one quick stop to pick a herb she spotted. The Reaver was just coming into sight over the rise to the east as we ran the last short distance to the Temple.

Time was up; we flew to Shattrath and did our usual tidy-up before quitting for the night.

Faster

2009-01-12T15:56:00.000-07:00

Plaguelands

I flew to Lakeshire then rode to the Eastvale Logging Camp to get Journeyman riding training (480 gold - argh!). After that I rode across country to Stormwind City and went to the Cathedral of Light to get my Charger training (another 16g, but at least it's cheaper than a horse). The Charger is distinctly faster than the Warhorse.

I was planning on flying direct to Chillwind Camp in the Western Plaguelands but Kate decided after all to say hell to the expense and go get the same horse training; I took the Deeprun Tram to Ironforge and we went back to the Logging Camp together and Kate got the training and a Fast Palomino.

We made our way north to Chillwind Camp the fastest way we knew: ride back to Lakeshire (definitely quicker on the new faster horses) then fly from there. Once there I started by making a circuit of the Western Plaguelands looking for ore and whacking the odd spider, bear, wolf and Scarlet Lumberjack.

After that I ran across the bridge into the Eastern Plaguelands and detoured north to the Terrorweb Tunnel to grab the last five crypt fiend parts I needed for a quest, then did another circuit grabbing more mithril and thorium. I found a road leading north out of the area and took a second detour to check it out; it leads through a portal and takes you into the Ghostlands, a low-level hostile area - I saw a couple of level 17 mobs and a copper vein and that's all, then I headed back.

Kate spent longer in the Western Plaguelands and followed through to Light's Hope Chapel after a little while. We had a new plan - explore the area around Shattrath City.

Terokkar Forest

We could have hearthstoned to Shattrath directly but that would have been taking a risk - with a sixty minute cooldown on the hearthstones, if we'd got into a bad situation in the wild we wouldn't have had an easy escape option - so instead we flew down to Nethergarde Keep and rode to and through the Dark Portal. On the other side we found the flightmaster near the portal and flew to Shattrath.

We did a few quick things in the city - dumping auctionable items in the bank temporarily, and finding Haris Pilton in the World's End Tavern (she sells a pair of sunglasses for five copper that go for ten gold and up on the auctions). After that we went to the bridge on the east side of town and headed out into the Terokkar Forest.

It's a high level area - mobs from level 59 to about 64 - but although it was a bit heavy it really wasn't that bad; about the worst thing that happened was that we'd get attacked by nearby baddies while trying to mine ore or gather herbs. Kate was able to get some of the rarer herbs and I found Adamantite and Fel Iron.

We made our way northeast and found a path leading back directly to the Hellfire Peninsula (bypassing Zangarmarsh) and we went a little way that direction before heading back.

The path runs along the edge of the world - Outland is the largest remaining fragment of Draenor, the destroyed Draenei homeworld, and we'd seen from the air that it's easy to get to the edge and look over. Unfortunately it's a little too easy... out of curiosity I went to take a look and went onto a part of the slope that was just a bit too steep. Strangely, my body appeared near the edge of a cliff on the north side of the Terokkar Forest, so I had to make my way north while Kate came back west, and we met up on the road just outside Shattrath.

Time was up - we headed back into Shattrath through a short tunnel that leads right into the Lower City, then took the portal to Ironforge and after grabbing the stuff we'd put in the bank for safekeeping, set up a whole bunch of auctions and packed it in for the night. I'm curious to know how the Haris Pilton shades will sell...

Plaguelands

2009-01-11T16:22:00.001-07:00

We'd left off in Light's Hope Chapel in the Eastern Plaguelands, and from there we went back to the Western Plaguelands to see Chromie in the ruins of Andorhal and close out a quest, then after that we moved around the region gathering ore and herbs and grinding for XP.

After a while it became clear that there wasn't much left to gather so I flew back to the Chapel and rode to the southern border, then west to find what ore I could. There wasn't much - perhaps a couple of mithril outcrops.

When I reached the river I headed north along the eastern bank and found the entrance to Terrorweb Tunnel, which leads through to Terrordale. The great thing about the tunnel is that there are a bunch of Crypt Fiends in there and many of them drop crypt fiend parts that we need thirty of for a quest. I started with about four parts; by the time I got to the far end of the tunnel I had twenty-five.

There's also a level 60 elite Nerubian Overseer in there - basically a bigger, tougher Crypt Fiend - and he drops several parts in one lot but he is very challenging to take down because I largely rely on Consecrate, Hammer of Light and other spells in the tougher fights and he keeps "silencing", which stops you casting any spells. You're basically relying on regular damage and being able to throw in the occasional spell during the moments when the silencing spell wears off.

Kate moved to the Eastern Plaguelands by road rather than flying at about the time I was making my way east along the southern side of Terrordale, so I made my way around to where she was so that we could meet up. At that time I was just a few thousand XP off level 61 and Kate wasn't far behind; I got the level and hung around giving Kate the occasional health boost and curing poisons and diseases until she hit 61 too. Once we'd got to that point we hearthstoned to Shattrath and took the portal to Ironforge.

I'd picked up a fair pile of thorium ore and a little mithril, gold and truesilver, as well as a couple of greens and a bunch of junk; I sold the junk, auctioned the rest and got repairs done. Then it was time at last to get my Charger spell.

I was disappointed - the spell didn't show up in the available training and I had to check a couple of things before I figured out why. It turns out that one of the requirements is that I must already have Journeyman Riding skill, so after all I have to pay the 480 gold for that. Once I have that, I can get my Charger.

That changes things; I have easily enough cash to pay for the training, but not enough to pay for Kate's at the same time, so I may have to wait until I have at least another couple of hundred gold so that I can do what I need without leaving me too skint to pay for new weapons, armour and whatever other kit I'll need going forward.

Talking of going forward, we've managed to trim down our quest list to a more manageable number but many of the open quests are in dungeons; I don't think we'll have a choice but to do a few of those before much longer. In the meantime the Ghostlands area is just to the north of the Eastern Plaguelands and although it's a Horde area it's low level; we may go in there very soon to map it and to find our way to Eversong Woods.

Level 60

2009-01-10T15:53:00.000-07:00

It's been busy, busy, busy for a month and I haven't had time to write here, but I'm intending to get back to my old daily (or at least almost daily) schedule.

We've come a long way since Felwood. Since then we've finished exploring the Burning Steppes and covered part of the Searing Gorge; we've explored the Western and Eastern Plaguelands, and some other areas. Along the way we hit level 58, and that let us go through the Dark Portal to the Hellfire Peninsula on Outland. We took the opportunity to finish exploring the Blasted Lands, then went through.

We had no idea what to expect; we knew that Shattrath City was somewhere the other side of the portal and I had the impression that it was very close, but that turned out to be wrong.

The first thing we found on arriving on the peninsula was a group of very high level mobs fighting each other. My guess is that one group was fighting the other to prevent them getting to the portal. In any case, we didn't want to be involved so we kept our distance and slipped around the north side.

We made our way west, avoiding bad guys since they were all quite a bit tougher than us and seemed to be staying in groups. It was pretty tough going, especially as we had no kind of map to go by, but we did manage to find Honor Hold - a friendly area - and take refuge for a while before continuing northwest into Zangarmarsh.

Zangarmarsh was also a bit of a tough area but we seemed to be relatively safe as long as we stuck to the roads - something that did not appear to be true of the eastern part of the Hellfire Peninsula. We found another friendly (well, neutral, anyway) settlement - Cenarion Refuge - in Zangarmarsh. From there we headed south and thanks to a roadsign or two we soon found or way into Shattrath City.

One thing that's really cool about Shattrath is that there's a large room in the middle with portals to every major city. We set our hearthstones to an inn in Shattrath, so now we can get to any place we need to in just a couple of jumps - hearthstone back to Shattrath then portal back out to where we need to be.

After Shattrath we continued to explore the Western Plaguelands and then moved into the Eastern Plaguelands, whacking mobs for points and completing a bunch of quests. Along the way we hit level 59 and then 60, which is where we are now - perhaps a little more than halfway to 61.

At level 60 we gained the ability to train for Journeyman level Riding skill and get faster horses, but we haven't done that yet for a couple of reasons - first, as a Paladin I get the Charger spell which will summon a Charger rather like the Warhorse I currently have; I can get the skill now by going through a rather complicated quest chain, or I can wait until level 61 and get the skill from a Paladin trainer. The second reason is that Journeyman training costs 480 gold and a fast horse costs another 80; that's quite a pile of cash.

So I've decided that I'm definitely getting my Charger at level 61; that'll mean that Kate will be stuck with a slower horse and that will hamper us, so I'll pay for Kate's riding training and horse so that we'll be running at the same speed. I've got a bit over 700 gold so I can manage that and not leave myself flat broke.

Felwood and the Burning Steppes

2008-12-10T13:39:00.002-07:00

Felwood

We’d never been to Felwood before, although our Draenei friends had got close while exploring Ashenvale a long time ago. We had a quest to complete there – to gather slime from two different kinds of living ooze – and another to meet someone in Winterspring, the region to the north-east of Felwood, so we decided to go ahead with these quests.

We made our way to Astranaar in Ashenvale then rode east and north. Completely uneventful, all the way to the Felwood border. Felwood is long north-to-south, narrow east-to-west, and once past the border at the southern end we took advantage of that fact since it made it possible to explore the whole region fully.

We worked our way north, with me mining mithril wherever I could find it and Kate picking up herbs; the hostile creatures in the area were all around level 52 give or take a level or two – tough enough to be a challenge but not so tough that we were ever in any real danger. Along the way we found the oozes we had to whack for the slime-gathering quest, but all in all it was very straightforward.

By the time we’d reached the border with Winterspring we’d completed the map and picked up another quest or two in the area, although there are a handful more we could go back for if we want to later.

There’s a tunnel leading through the mountains into Winterspring, and it brought us out just a short distance from the person we were supposed to meet here for the last quest; with that completed our time was up so we hearthed back to Ironforge for the night.

The Burning Steppes and Level 54

Although we’d left a couple of quests open in Felwood and Winterspring, we had another couple of high level quests in the Burning Steppes and we decided it was about time we took them on. I was actually thinking about doing the Sunken Temple quest in the Swamp of Sorrows first then finishing our exploration of Deadwind Pass on the way to the Steppes, but that Temple quest involves going into a dungeon and from past experience we knew that dungeon quests can take a very long time, so we decided to leave that for the time being. Instead, off we went to Lakeshire and hit the road north into the Steppes.

Our first quest here was to pick up twelve relics from the ruins around the centre of the region. The way north from the Redridge Mountains side is pretty heavy with Dragonkin, Whelps and a fair number of adult Dragons, mostly around the level 54 mark, and I found things getting pretty hairy when I was attacked by two whelps and a wolf at the same time.

The area around the ruins is patrolled by some fairly huge golem-like creatures and fair number of dwarves, many of whom carry either guns or poison-bladed daggers; those little buggers are pretty quick, too, and I had to use Seal of Justice on the ones with guns because otherwise they had a nasty habit of running away and shooting from a safe (for them) distance. All the same we soon had all twelve of the relics we needed, and along the way we both hit level 54; we headed north to find the person we needed to meet for the second quest. That quest of course led to another, in which we have to find her brother – and bring back his head. Nice family.

We spent the rest of the time making our way west to try to finish mapping the region; unfortunately we didn’t complete the job, because thanks to me not being careful when reading the map we’d missed out a fair chunk of real estate at the eastern end of the Steppes. Never mind – we’ll go back soon and take care of that.

One thing we did find that was of particular interest is the large building in the mountain area in the north-west; I think the Blackrock Depths dungeon is inside there somewhere and if I have my information correct, this is the place where the explorer Leeroy Jenkins gained his fame. Sometime soon I’d like to stand on the same spot, just so that I can say that I have.

The End of Un'Goro

2008-12-08T13:08:00.000-07:00

We went back to Marshal's Refuge and took on as many of the quests as we could there; these were all high-level quests (relative to our starting level of 50, that is). We were already close to level 51 and it didn't take long to hit that, but in a couple of very productive sessions we powered all the way through to level 53. Quests we did included gathering some power crystals, knocking down Pterrordaxes (think Pteranodons), fighting our way in and out of a cave filled with Gorillas, and taking the head off a particularly nasty (and huge) Raptor. There were so many quests I can't remember them all.

Un'Goro is level heaven - with so many quests in a relatively small area, and so many high-level mobs around (including level 52-56 elite lizards that patrol the west and southwest) it's a great place to power through.

Our last session in the area cleaned up the last of the quests, with one exception - an escort quest to get someone called Ringo back from the volcano in the centre of the crater back to Marshal's Refuge - it should have been easy but we blew it and probably won't try again.

Some of the quests we closed are of course parts of quest chains, and so lead to other quests. Most of the follow-on quests were also in the Crater, and of course we completed those too, but there are three or four follow-on quests that'll take us to other areas; we have a couple that we'll have to go back to Feralas to finish, for example.

However I think our next destination will probably be Felwood; we have a quest there and according to WoWWiki this is higher level again than Un'Goro, so there'll be more XP, and there's also supposed to be more herbs for Kate to pick up and more ore for me (gold, mithril, truesilver and thorium - all good for pushing up my mining skill and making a bunch of money in the process). Felwood leads through into Winterspring, where we have another quest to close.

Level 54 isn't far away and I'm hoping Felwood will give us enough quests to get us to 55; at that level, we get our Death Knights.

Return to Un'Goro Crater

2008-12-05T11:25:00.000-07:00

We didn't go back to Zul'Farrak yet - among other things, one of the quests there still needs us to grab a hammer of some kind from the Hinterlands, so we'll almost certainly take care of that so that we can complete all the remaining quests in one trip.

Instead we headed southwest from Gadgetzan to find Thistleshrub Valley, where we had a quest to knock down a number of Thistleshrub Rootshapers and Gnarled Thistleshrubs; these guys are level 48-51 and weren't any kind of a problem.

After that we went northwest and down the trail leading back into Un'Goro Crater. The last time we were there it was very tough; we were about level 45 and just not strong enough. This time, five levels higher, we're much better matched.

We started off with just two quests in the Crater - one to gather Un'Goro Soil, which is apparently dropped by every living thing in the region, and another to get sticky tar from the elementals around the ponds in the northern part of the region.

So we started whacking raptors and lizards in the south, making our way west as we went so that we could fill in the missing parts of our maps. The creatures start at around level 51 in the area where the trail opens up onto the crater floor, but they get tougher as you go west with level 54 and 55 beasts showing up. In a moment of madness I took on a huge level 53 elite lizard - and won, getting over 1200 XP in the process.

It took a while to gather all the soil we needed - the quest called for twenty piles and the drop rate isn't so good - but we got there in the end. In the process, as we explored, we picked up three other quests - one when we found a damaged boat laid up on the edge of a pond, another when we found a battered journal and another from a guy standing around on the rocks on the southern border. The first two of those didn't mean doing much; just closing out at Marshal's Refuge. The third meant collecting some meat from a dead raptor.

We didn't get to the Sticky Tar quest, but we did manage to complete all the others we'd taken and because of the high level mobs in the area we got enough XP to push us to something like three quarters of the way to level 51. And we also finished mapping the area.

With those quests done we returned to the guy in the south to close out his quest (and get another) then rode to Marshal's Refuge for two of the others. That just left the Un'Goro Soil, which had to be taken to Darnassus, and the Thistleshrubs for which we had to go to Steamwheedle Port. The XP from all the quests left us just a a little way short of level 51.

There are at least half a dozen more quests we can pick up at Marshal's Refuge and with the Crater being as high level as it is, I think our next trip will be specifically to take on some more. We should hit level 51 very quickly and one more good session like this last one may even see us to level 52.

Level 50!

2008-12-03T15:35:00.000-07:00

We took a trip out to the Hinterlands for a quest that involved grabbing an Ancient Egg from a cave in the far southeast of the region. We hadn't mapped anything of the Hinterlands beyond a fair sized chunk at the western end near Aerie Peak, so we decided to take the opportunity to explore the whole region and fill the map in.

As such it took us quite a while to reach the cave where the egg was, all the way whacking owlkins and wolves, but most of the time we were fighting our way along the road that wound and zig-zagged through a city-like structure surrounding the cave entrance - this whole area was filled with level 47-49 baddies with level 50 and 51 mobs appearing as we got close to the cave itself.

Inside the cave things weren't so bad; some caves we've been in are complicated enough to get lost in, but this one was relatively simply laid out so we were able to find the Ancient Egg we were after and get out again with very little trouble.

With that done we headed north to finish mapping the bits we hadn't already covered, knocking over more owlkins and wolves as we went along. We'd entered the Hinterlands with perhaps three-quarters of the XP bar to fill and I didn't think we had much of a chance of getting the next level, but we'd knocked down a pretty huge number of owlkins, wolves and bad guys and as Kate filled in the very last missing section of the map, getting the achievement in the process, the XP was enough to tip her over to level 50. I was just a little way behind and all I had to do was take down four or five level 41 wolves to hit 50 myself.

It was getting late but with the new level there were some things we just had to take care of - we went from Aerie Peak to Steamwheedle Port by way of Menethil Harbour and Theramore so that we could hand over the Ancient Egg for 8500 XP, then hearthstoned back to Ironforge to deal with our overstuffed packs, and last but definitely not least we went to our respective class trainers - I picked up a new spell (Holy Wrath, I think it's called) that'll do something like 500 Holy damage to any bad guys within ten yards, which should be very useful.

All in all, a very productive trip even though we actually only took care of one quest. For our next trip I think we'll be returning to Zul'Farrak to complete the two quests left over from our last trip there, and if there's time we have two quests in the Un'Goro Crater to deal with; maybe we'll explore that whole zone while we're there. We might even make level 51 in the process.

The Scarlet Monastery

2008-12-02T13:22:00.000-07:00

With the thanksgiving holiday and other things going on, we had a stretch of four or five days where we had no time for anything except auction house scans.

When we were able to get back into things we decided on a plan to take care of a bunch of 'grey' quests; we could have simply abandoned them but many of these old quests still give decent reputation points even if the XP is negligible. Accordingly, we went back to the tower inside Stromgarde Keep in the Arathi Highlands to take care of one quest then west across the sea to Desolace for another; while we were there we had Nat Pagle's fishing quest to deal with (we'd already caught two of the fish we needed and just needed the ones from Desolace and Feralas) so we went out to the west coast of Desolace and then from there went south into Feralas. Once we'd taken care of the fishing quest we took a boat from there out to the Night Elf settlement, giving us another flightpath.

That left just one remaining grey quest - we have to go into the Badlands for that, and with no other reason to head that way just yet we've decided to wait until we're ready. Instead we flew to Southshore and went west into Silverpine Forest so that we could both finish mapping that area, then north into Tirisfal Glades where we had a level 40 quest to take care of in the Scarlet Monastery in the far northeast.

It took two trips. The Scarlet Monastery actually contains three instances, all filled with level 34-39 elites, and the quest involved knocking over four level 40 elite bad guys spread around those instances. The first one wasn't too hard to find, being right there in the first and most obvious instance. What's not so obvious is that the other instances are hidden behind two doors that are locked and require the Scarlet Key - and the key is in a trunk in the first instance. We wasted quite a lot of time looking all around the monastery and the first instance, sure that the guys we were looking for were there somewhere.

Once we realized that the other instances were hidden away we unlocked the door to the Cathedral and went through, and it didn't take long to find the second bad guy we were after. After clearing a way through to the altar, where the bad guy was, we went for him. This was my idea and a bad mistake... all the other guys in the Cathedral ran in to help out, and that was that. By that time it was late so we went back to resurrect and went back to Ironforge for the night.

The next day (yesterday) we went back to finish up, now that we knew what to do. Back in the Cathedral we took on all the guys in the aisles and the side rooms, leaving just our number two target baddie, then went after him. He wasn't too hard to handle but as soon as he was down, target baddie number three showed up and resurrected him - so now we had both of them to deal with. It was a bit of a fight but as level 49s we outclassed the two level 40 elites and it was soon all over.

That just left target baddie number four, in the Armoury in the last instance. This took a lot of time because we had to fight our way all the way from the entrance to the circular room at the back where our man was, but once we'd got to him it was all over quickly. One big shock at that point was that a whole bunch of level 30 trainees ran into the room; I thought we were dead but they were relatively weak and Kate managed to knock most of them down with one of her blast effect spells.

With all four bad guys gone we hearthstoned out to Southshore - we'd reset our stones to the inn there on the way up - and closed out the quest before flying back to Ironforge.

Zul'Farrak

2008-11-24T15:27:00.002-07:00

We decided to have a go at Zul'Farrak, since we had seven quests in there and we'd got a couple of levels since the last time we tried. All in all it was a great success - of those seven quests we were able to deal with five, and we could probably have handled one more if we'd really wanted to.

We figured out a strategy that seems to work well when you get bad guys in small groups: both of us targeted one of the group (usually the one with the lowest level) and went in swinging until the baddie went down. The reasoning was that the bad guys do the same damage regardless of their health, so it's better to have two baddies with 100% health than three with 30% health since two can only do two-thirds the damage that three do. And this plan seemed to work very well, and even seemed to get better as we worked our way through - I guess we were just getting practiced.

Using this strategy we made our way round the place, knocking down trolls and collecting vials of Troll Temper (we needed twenty each) and bashing scarabs for shells.

We found a troll we needed to whack for a special stone - the first of two - and got that, which completed a third quest, then made our way to another part of the map to collect the matching stone and get the Tiara of the Deep, both from the same character. This last part we managed but not without gathering a following of trolls who of course kicked our collective butt.

No matter; that was five quests complete and we were happy to leave the sixth for another day. (The seventh, it turns out, involves sounding a gong but we can't so that until we've got hold of a special hammer that comes from the Hinterlands.)

We had to do something of a world tour to cash in the quests for the XP - one of the questgivers was in Gadgetzan, another in Steamwheedle Port nearby, another on Teldrassil and I think there was even one in Booty Bay. The XP was enough to push us to level 49 - great news since it seems to have taken us an age to get there. Hopefully we'll get level 50 quite soon now.

Exploring All Over

2008-11-21T14:13:00.000-07:00

We ran a bit of a marathon the other night to finish mapping a number of zones, starting out in Westfall then going east to Duskwood and down into Stranglethorn Vale. In the Vale we closed out a couple of quests while we finished up the map, then went to Thelsamar to finish mapping Loch Modan. After that we rode north into the Wetlands and took care of three areas at the eastern end to complete Kate's map. Finally we went back to Ironforge and ran out into Dun Morogh, since neither of us had mapped much of the eastern and southern regions.

After that we flew out to Darkshire and ran through Deadwind Pass into the Swamp of Sorrows. Mapping the area took longer than we'd hoped, for a couple of reasons: first, the place is a herbalist's dream - there's stuff everywhere. Kate needed herbs too much to pass any of it by, so we made our way along the northern edge then south down the coast, stopping to pick herbs wherever Kate found them. On the coast we were able to fish for Mahi-Mahi - another fish needed for Nat Pagle's fishing quest - before heading west along the southern edge of the swamp. We ran into trouble here, because there's a horde outpost right there and I got just a bit too close - I hadn't known that there are high-level guards camped outside the compound fence, and they saw me before I'd realized they were there.

All the same Kate was able to collect quite a pile of herbs and we both finished our maps of the zone before heading south into the Blasted Lands. Nethergarde Keep is just to the east of the road passing into the Lands; we went in and opened up the flightpath.

That was a lot of regions completed along with a quest or two, and along the way we'd both hit level 47. I'd originally thought we'd stay in Nethergarde for the night but as far as we were able to tell, there's no inn. Instead, we settled in Darkshire since it's pretty close.

Yesterday we returned to Nethergarde and rode back up into the Swamp of Sorrows - Kate needs money, lots of money, and we figured the best way to make a pile quickly would be to go herbing again and auction what she picked. In the meantime I scouted the edges of the swamp looking for minerals to mine. The night before I thought I'd seen quite a few deposits and veins around, but this time I wasn't so lucky - I suspected another player must have mined the area out just before I got there and I was only able to find a couple of Iron Deposits and a Mithril Vein or two.

Ultimately, in the northeastern part of the swamp, we decided it was time to call it a night; rather than ride all the way back to Nethergarde we decided to short-cut things by hearthstoning. Our hearthstones are set for Gadgetzan, though, so we finished a long way from where we started. All the same, when we start out next time we'll be able to finish mapping Tanaris and we have quests that we can complete along the way; we're even considering having another go at getting into Zul'Farrak, but we'll see how that goes.

Exploring Stranglethorn

2008-11-19T11:05:00.000-07:00

We went to Stranglethorn Vale to quest and we're still at level 46, although very close to 47 now thanks to the one quest we were able to complete in the time we had. For this quest we had to find Mystics and Witchdoctors in an area in the middle of the Vale and take four somethings (I don't remember exactly what it was we were collecting) and return them to a guy at the rebel camp in the north.

The quest itself wasn't too hard at all and didn't take long but while we were in the area we took care of a couple of other things - exploring for the achievement, and fishing up a bluefin for a quest from Nat Pagle that'll get us Artisan level Fishing (we need three other kinds of fish from all over the place to finish this one). On the exploration front we covered most of the zone, only missing out on about four areas. We still have a couple of quests in the area and we'll probably go back very soon to complete those and finish up the exploration.

There is one thing I want to try, that came about because of something we came across in the Western Plaguelands the other day. In Caer Darrow we found a place called the Scholomance, and nearby there was a Meeting Stone. This is something we'd never tried using, and based on what I knew we'd given it a try, only to get a message telling me we weren't high enough level to use that particular stone.

So what occurred to me was that I've seen a similar stone in Westfall, near the entrance to the Deadmines (apparently the stones are all placed near instances). Kate has a couple of areas missing from her map of Westfall, and as I mentioned yesterday we both need the Twilight Vale in nearby Duskwood to complete that zone, so what I'm thinking is that I can fly down to Sentinel Hill and ride out to the Deadmines, group up with Kate and try to use the meeting stone. If it works we can then finish up that little bit of exploration before heading back out to Stranglethorn.

After that... well, we don't have much left in Stranglethorn and Kate's mentioned heading out to the Blasted Lands; for that I think our best bet is to dash through Deadwind into the Swamp of Sorrows then head south - if I read the map right, there's a road leading through to the Blasted Lands from there.

Still 46

2008-11-18T15:52:00.000-07:00

We've been moving around quite a bit, trying to get some quests done. As part of one quest we found ourselves in Alterac and while we were there we made a point of exploring every corner, since there are a whole bunch of achievements we can get by doing that for each zone. As part of my exploration we ran across a new flight point in the Western Plaguelands - a nasty area that we'll probably need at least another five or six levels before we're ready for.

However for all the exploring, mining and herb-gathering we've done, we're still at level 46 and quite some way from 47, so for the near future I want to make a point of completing a bunch of the quests clogging our logs; that's going to mean a fair amount of travel because they're spread out over the whole planet. I'm going to see where Kate thinks she might want to start, so I have no idea where we'll be going next until she suggests somewhere. I do know that we have high-level quests remaining in Tanaris, so we may start there, but we've also left a bunch of open quests in Stranglethorn Vale.

Also I know that Kate really wants to push those exploration achievements, and there are a number of zones in which we have only one or two areas missing; for example, in Duskwood the Twilight Vale is the only remaining area that we haven't explored (with our Human Paladin and Warrior, anyway - we took our Draenei characters in there once, a long time ago, and high-tailed it out when we saw a level ?? dragon ahead of us).

We've had a few nasty shocks up in the areas north of Alterac - the Western and Eastern Plaguelands and Tirisfal Glades. At first sight the areas don't seem so bad but we ran into some very tough customers in the Western Plaguelands (hence my comment about not being ready for these yet) and at one point I was wandering around a town called Brill which appeared to be populated mostly by level 23 undead - and then I was attacked from behind by a level ?? guard. By the time I'd realized what was attacking me it was too late.

Anyway, as I said I'm not sure where we'll be heading next but I hope by this time tomorrow to be able to report that we've hit at least level 47...

The Number 46

2008-11-14T14:51:00.001-07:00

We spent some more time around the Un'Goro Crater but to be honest it was just a bit too high level for us, at least at that time. With only high-level quests in Tanaris, and our quest logs full of quests gradually fading into greyness, we decided to go on a bit of a world tour to clear some of those old quests while they were still worth doing.

After a whirlwind trip starting at the Arathi Highlands and taking us down to the rebel camp in Stranglethorn Vale and on to Booty Bay - which cleared three or four quests all told - we made our way to Desolace. Because of a Paladin-only quest that had taken me out to the Blackfathom Deeps I'd already opened up the flightpath to Astranaar, but Kate didn't have that so we had to hoof it from Auberdine. We rode out to Astranaar and while we were at it we continued west and took the back road through Night Run and Xavian to Forest Song so that Kate could open up that flightpath. And since it was so close, we ran the short distance east and across the bridge into Azshara to open the flightpath to Talrendis Point. From there we flew back to Astranaar and headed south into the Stonetalon Mountains.

I already had the flightpath at Stonetalon Peak opened, for a very strange reason; a few days before, I'd been on the boat out of Auberdine to Azuremyst so that I could see the jewelcrafting trainer in the Exodar, and the boat had vanished out from under me leaving me suspended in midair, then I was disconnected. When I reconnected I thought I'd either drop into the water or reappear on the boat, but neither happened - instead I materialized several hundred feet above a graveyard near the Webwinder Path, and from there had to ride up to Stonetalon Peak so that I could fly back to Auberdine where I'd started. Very strange.

Kate and I rode up to the Peak so that Kate could get the flightpath, then we went back south to find the road into Desolace - and the name's appropriate because the place is truly desolate, with murky looking pools and virtually no vegetation of any kind. It's pretty horrible.

Once there we were able to find Nijel's Point, where there's an inn and another flightmaster; two people we needed to see for quests were there, so we were able to close those out.

And that's where we are for the time being. There are caves to the southwest, including an instance, and we have a number of high level quests in and around that area. Thanks to the level 44-45 elites in the instance we pushed to level 46 the same night that Wrath of the Lich King was released (and yes, I was at the Wal*Mart a mile from the house at 12:30am buying two copies).

Ah, level 46: this is the highest level I've taken any of my characters. My Draenei Paladin is level 45 and until this point was the strongest I had, but I'm planning on sticking with my Human Paladin for the foreseeable future and all the way up to Level 80.

For now, we still have pretty full quest logs and we have more of the world to visit to try to clear more of those, but for the moment we have enough to do in Desolace, so I think that's where we'll be staying for a little while.

Un'Goro

2008-11-06T16:32:00.001-07:00

We decided to have a go at getting into Zul'Farrak; we have something like four quests in there, of which a couple are low-level enough that we thought we could handle them. It wasn't to be - right inside the entrance are half a dozen or more high-level elite guys, and they stand around in groups of three so it's not possible to take them on one at a time. I tried to keep Kate alive but they just did too much damage, and in any case firing off Holy Light spells increased my threat so that I became a target too. We died.

There's no point going in there again until we get a few more levels, so we headed south to whack what we could in the area. We found ourselves in the Noxious Lair and we both hit level 44. The bugs in the Lair are pretty tough - levels 48-50 - but being careful we were able to take them on individually and didn't do too bad.

On the west side of the Lair the rocks rise up, forming a wall. I climbed up there mostly so that I could get a good view of the Lair but it turned out that just the other side is the Un'Goro Crater. It's a long drop but I can 'bubble' us so that it's possible to jump without harm. Unfortunately Kate slipped and fell all the way down before I realized what was happening.

The crater has some really tough critters around, very reminiscent of dinosaurs, so we had to be careful and in a couple of places we almost got into serious trouble. We headed north, following the crater rim anticlockwise. On the north rim we found an outpost with, thank goodness, a flightmaster. Since we'd hit level 44 I wanted to get my training so we flew out and made our way to Ironforge. I now have the Hammer of Wrath spell - very useful.

Next trip we'll probably go back to Un'Goro - Kate wants to get herbs and provided we're careful I think we can pick up quite a bit of XP there. It'd be good if we can hit level 45.

Pirates

2008-11-05T14:28:00.000-07:00

The last big burst of real activity we had was a few days ago and involved running out to the pirate enclave on the coast and taking care of five quests in one hit - taking down Andre Firebeard, knocking down various numbers of various kinds of pirate, grabbing a stash of booze, and so on. The XP from all that was enough to push us both to level 43.

Since then we haven't done much; Kate's been sick and I've been tired out at work, so really all we've done is one quick foray west of Gadgetzan to use a dowsing widget to collect a water sample.

The last couple of days all I've really done is spent a few minutes checking the auction house for Mithril Spurs; one of those five quests gave a really nice pair of plate boots but neither of us want to use them until we have the spurs to give us the extra speed boost. The problem is that at the moment the only spurs for sale have been way overpriced - market price is something like four gold, but the cheapest I've seen have been around twice that, and I'm not about to give someone the satisfaction by paying that much. I've placed a limit on how much I'll pay: six gold, no more.

We have a fair pile of outstanding quests all over the world - a couple in Alterac, one in Arathi, a couple in Desolace, one in the Swamp of Sorrows, one or two in Dustwallow, and others. What I'd like to do is get out to these places and knock these quests down; if we can hit level 45 in the process we'll be better prepared for taking on the remaining quests in Tanaris, which are all quite high level. I'll put it to Kate and see what she wants to do.

In the Desert Again

2008-10-31T14:24:00.001-06:00

I started off by heading back out into the desert to whack things to push for level 42 - Kate was ahead of me by something like seventeen thousand points but the basilisks, scorpids, rocs and so on were all level 41 and up so there was plenty of XP, and combined with the rest bonus to double the points for a while it didn't take long to hit 42.

As soon as I got the level I rode back to Gadgetzan and made my way to Stormwind by way of Ratchet and Booty Bay. I could have gone to Ironforge (via Theramore and Menthil Harbour) which might have been quicker but I wanted to go to the cheese shop in Stormwind to get the Alterac Cheese we need for the Clamlette Surprise quest, which will give us the next level in our cooking skill.

In Stormwind I got my level 42 training and took care of some quick business in the bank and the auction house... and completely forgot to visit the cheese shop before heading back. Damn.

Back in Tanaris we didn't really go after any quests, although we both made a point of knocking down rocs for the giant eggs they drop - another ingredient for the Clamlette Surprise. When we'd done these quests as Draenei it had looked like there weren't enough rocs around to supply all the eggs we needed, so we'd gone to the Hinterlands to gather them from owlkins. As it happens there are plenty of rocs in Tanaris; they're just deeper in the desert than we'd looked before. This time Kate got almost all the eggs she needs and I have more than half of my own quota.

Other than that we just took the time to explore as much of the region as we could while whacking away for points. Incidentally the Necropolis that had been within sight of Gadgetzan had moved further south into the deep desert. We need to keep watching it; with a bit of luck we may be able to get our levels up to where we can take on the Scourge and have a chance of winning a few, while the Necropoli are still around.

In the Desert

2008-10-30T14:39:00.001-06:00

The Necropolis that was hovering over the desert in sight of Gadgetzan was still there, and still apparently sending various kinds of high-level Undead to the staging area a little way to the west. That hampers us a little bit because we daren't go near those areas.

All the same we have plenty of quests to be getting on with that are much further out in the desert, and so we started yesterday by heading east out of Gadgetzan to take on thieves and bandits, and to whack Caliph Scorpidsting. We both dealt with the required number of baddies and Kate ran into Scorpidsting pretty much accidentally. He's level 46 and in this case had several helpers around him, but I was in range to keep Kate healed and she was able to take him down. When I'd finished with bandits and thieves we hung around the area to the south that appears to be the place Scorpidsting starts from, but after a while he still hadn't showed up so we went back to Gadgetzan to close out what we'd got so far and get repairs done.

For round 2 we had to knock down shadow mages, rogues and assassins in the same area, so after taking care of a few of those I wandered up the trail in search of Scorpidsting. I found him, and better still he was all alone, but Kate got into trouble with one particular assassin who seems to be stronger that her level would suggest, and I was about to leave Scorpidsting to go and help when his wandering brought him just a shade too close and he ran at me, so I had no choice. As I mentioned, he's level 46 - five levels above me. However he wasn't as tough as I thought he might be and I was able to beat him down.

We were pretty much out of time by then so we went back to Gadgetzan to close out quests and pack it in for the night.

Berserker

2008-10-29T12:38:00.001-06:00

We made our way out to Ratchet and part walked, part swam to Fray Island, the place where Kate was to meet a guy called Macleod as part of the Warrior-only quest chain she needed to complete for her Berserker fighting stance.

I joined the spectators on the bench, which turned out to be a mistake; Kate stepped onto a grating, which was the signal to start fighting with other warriors as part of a test - and the first fighter targeted me instead of Kate. I guess I was the closest 'enemy'. I ran to a safe distance without retaliating so that Kate could tag the fighter and get his attention, and from there it all went smoothly - Kate knocked down five or six fighters, one at a time, then finally out came 'Big Will' and while from where I was standing at least, he seemed tougher than the other fighters he still wasn't in Kate's league - I think these guys were all about level 27 compared to Kate's 41. Kate got her Berserker stance from Macleod and we went back to Ratchet.

The original plan had been to head out somewhere, probably the Hinterlands, and do some questing but we didn't have time for that; the backup plan was to go to Auberdine and run out to Astranaar and Forest Song to fill in the map and get the flightpaths, but we were too short on time to do that either.

Instead we rode out west into the Barrens then south to the Great Lift (with short side-trips on the way to explore a little, gather herbs and mine ore). The lift took us down into Thousand Needles and we rode southeast toward the Shimmering Flats.

On the way we passed Freewind Post and unfortunately got noticed by the guards, who are level 45. They were tough but at our level 41 they weren't beyond us, and pretty soon we were back on our horses.

At the Shimmering Flats we went mostly south, heading for the pass into Tanaris, but we did go a little further east to get Mirage Raceway on the map, then found the pass, crossed into Tanaris and stopped at our target destination of Gadgetzan.

There was a Necropolis hovering over the desert just south of Gadgetzan, and it appeared to be flinging out crystal totems of some kind that stick in the sand; around these totems we noticed a number of high-level Scourge enemies (at least level 52) and I suspect the totem is the centre of one of the Scourge staging areas that the Argent Dawn people mentioned. I was hoping to be able to take on some Scourge, but that's way too high level for me or Kate.

It was already past time to pack it in so we went back to the inn in Gadgetzan for the night. We've taken on all the quests available from the questgivers in Gadgetzan and I think our plan will be to stick around this area for a while and clear some of those up. We're still quite a way from level 42 but I think some questing in the desert will get us there fairly quickly regardless.

Zombies and Stromgarde

2008-10-28T10:28:00.000-06:00

No More Zombies

The plague is gone, but it's left a few traces: there are zombie remains lying around here and there; the Necropoli are still hovering over the cities and mucking up the weather; and the Argent Dawn people are still in the cities.

Just out of interest I talked with a couple of them, and found that in addition to handing out some really useful freebies (three charms that added 14 points to Stamina for an hour), they have a wealth of information about what's happening with the Scourge. I didn't have time to find out much but one nugget is that the Scourge are setting up staging areas directly under the Necropoli, and that's worth knowing since that places the staging areas very near the entrances to Stormwind, Ironforge and the Exodar (and presumably Darnassus and the Horde cities, too). This is something that's likely to affect us directly, so I think it's important to know as much as possible about what else the Scourge is up to.

Also, this may lead to quests and fighting the Scourge on behalf of the Argent Dawn, and that could get our reputation with them way up - which would be very good because that's likely to allow us to push our First Aid skills up (the Argent Dawn have a First Aid training book, but if I remember correctly you have to have a good rep with them before they'll let you buy it).

So one plan I have for today is to spend a few minutes to find out as much from them as I can.

Stromgarde

We had four open quests, three of them in Stromgarde Keep and the fourth in a cave behind the ogre camp to the east, so we flew out to Refuge Pointe and moseyed on over to the Keep, doing a little mining and herb-picking on the way. Kate spent a little time exploring Faldir's Cove to the south of the Keep, then we moved around to the north side and went in.

The Keep is a ruin but there are two camps inside - an Alliance outpost on the west side (this is the place where Deneb Walker sells First Aid books) and an enemy outpost on the east side.

We went east - we needed Stromgarde badges from the baddies, and we had to take down three boss bad guys. None of it took very long, and we moved on east to the ogre camp where we were able to liberate a stolen wand from a boss ogre at the back of the cave.

That was all four quests done and we made our way back to Refuge Pointe to close them out; between the XP from the fighting and the big XP from the quests we both hit level 41. One of the quests leads to another in the chain, meaning that we still have one quest left in this area; we'll have to decide whether we want to bother but my own feeling is that we should do it then move back to the Hinterlands.

We do have one other important matter to take care of, and that is that Kate has a Warrior-only quest she needs to do over in Ratchet so that she can get her Berserker fighting stance. This is important enough that we should do this before anything else. Since we still have open quests in Dustwallow, not far from Ratchet, we'll probably take care of those before coming back to the Eastern Kingdoms.

Plague

2008-10-27T10:15:00.003-06:00

On the 'normal' gaming front: we hit level 40 over the weekend, mostly by whacking wolves and owlkins in the Hinterlands, and we also closed out some quests in Stranglethorn Vale. With level 40 we've been able to switch some of our armour to Plate, which of course has been a great help.

Also, since I've been neglecting my fishing skill so that it was abysmally low on skill points, I took a break from questing to go fishing. In just a couple of hours I visited Crystal Lake and Stone Cairn Lake in Elwynn Forest, moved to Lake Everstill in the Redridge Mountains, spent a little while in the Forlorn Cavern in Ironforge, then flew up to Southshore in the Hillsbrad Foothills and by the time I'd finished there I'd pushed my skill level up from 5 to around 140. I'd also managed to catch around seventeen Oily Blackmouths and a handful of Firefin Snappers - Kate needs these for her Alchemy.

However it's not been at all easy. Things have been made very difficult by the Zombie Plague.

It started around Friday night; we first saw it in Mudsprocket, where some of the NPCs were infected. Suspicious looking crates, giving off iridescent green fumes, appeared in Ironforge and there were also roaches - again, giving off green fumes - here and there around the city. Anyone opening one of the crates or killing a roach contracted the infection.

Once infected you have a few minutes at most to find a cure; the cities have Argent Healers around and all you have to do is stand in their light, and also as a Paladin I'm able to cure the infection, but it doesn't always work - sometimes I have to try five or six times and even then it isn't guaranteed.

If you don't get the cure in time, you die and then come back as a zombie. In this state you're immediately marked as a hostile so any NPCs nearby, such as Ironforge Guards, will attack you - and when they do, they get infected too. Since the guards and many of the other NPCs are usually pretty high level, when they turn they're damned hard to kill and they attack anything around them, spreading the infection.

Luckily the zombies have a limited lifespan, if you can call it that - maybe five minutes, then they die properly.

Very soon the infection spread to the other cities and many of the towns. Stormwind became a no-go area, and Goldshire - being on the major road route out of Stormwind - was bad too. Southshore, for some reason, was badly hit. Other towns in more remote areas aren't so bad - Gadgetzan didn't appear to have been hit too badly, for example, and neither was Aerie Peak when we were there.

There are also... things... floating above the capital cities. Huge pyramids of dark stone or metal, dripping green infection from skull mouths on their sides. The first one we saw was above the Gates of Ironforge, then one showed up over Stormwind, and then there was another one over the Exodar. There's probably one over Darnassus by now and I suspect the Horde capitals have their own. Nobody seems to know what they are or where they came from, although it's certain they have something to do with the plague.

By yesterday evening Stormwind appeared to have hit critical mass - the NPCs going zombie, infecting the other NPCs and so on, dying and respawning to get infected again in an endless self-sustaining spiral. I don't know how long it'll be before Ironforge goes the same way - it may already have happened.

It's part of the game's storyline and a lead-in to the release of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion that's coming out in a couple of weeks. As such I can live with it, and I could probably get used to it until it ends - presumably the infected crates will be cleared away and things will return to somewhat normal.

What I won't put up with, though, is the infantile, schoolyard bully behaviour of some of the players. Using the argument that "it's part of the game", these inconsiderate pricks are going into populated areas and deliberately getting themselves infected, then deliberately avoiding getting cured - to the point of getting abusive with other players who try to cure them. When they turn zombie they infect as many NPCs and other players as they can manage, specifically targeting the auction houses, the banks and the inns.

I've heard that some of these juvenile bastards are carrying the infection into the starting zones, picking on low level characters who aren't able to defend themselves and who in many cases are new players. If the forums are anything to go by, players who've just paid money to sign up are coming into the game for the very first time, only to be killed and turned zombie within minutes, and they have no idea what's going on or that this is not normal for the game. That's a great first impression.

It's basically because of these stupid, childish, destructive assholes - the kind of dumbfucks that get into the whole game atmosphere by picking character names like "Wazzuuup" or "HordeKilla", and whose idea of fun is to wreck things with no thought for other people, that it's virtually impossible to actually accept the plague as part of the game and play as if it were a crisis for players to deal with together - which might actually be fun.

Instead, it's the ultimate Player-vs-Player setup, with the players that want to actually play the game in a struggle against the halfwits that play just to spoil things for everyone else and call it 'fun'. Stormwind is basically cratered; it's not safe to hit the auction house or the bank, or get essential class or profession training, or simply go to a vendor to clear junk out of your pack. Half the time you have to think twice before even going into an inn to get out of the game while getting the rest bonus.

I'm reading in the forums about people setting up vigilante-style groups to go into the cities and cure anyone they see infected, and kill every zombie they can find. If I was high-enough level I'd be tempted to join them, but at the end of the day it shouldn't be necessary just because of a minority (I hope) of destructive kiddies.

In fact I'd wholeheartedly support Blizzard setting up a new class of game realm just for that style of gameplay; in addition to Normal/PvE, PvP and RolePlaying realms they could have Asshole realms where people can and should pick the most stupid names they can think of and where everything in the game world can be destroyed by the players, right down to reducing the cities to rubble. Maybe then these dopey cunts would be happy.

It's a game. It's supposed to be fun, but right now it isn't as much fun as it was and should be. That's sad, and I hope it isn't going on much longer.

Update: CURED

I just read a headline saying that the plague should have been cured, just within the last couple of hours. Apparently there will be some remnants of this episode, including the Necropoli - which I'm guessing are those dark pyramids floating above the major cities.

I'll be glad to see the back of this but when all's said and done it's a bit of a shame, really; it was a chance for the players to show a little communal effort in helping each other. Instead it became a showcase of how a minority of immature assholes who probably destroyed their toys when they were little kids can, given a little freedom, ruin something that should have been fun for everyone. Shame on you, you little snotnoses. People like you don't deserve fun; you don't know the meaning of the word.

Tauren and Raptors

2008-10-24T11:19:00.003-06:00

Kate had done a couple of quests that I hadn't, so while she was busy taking care of bank and auction house business I did them to catch up.

The first was to see Captain Darril at North Point to close out a quest, and I got two more quests - one to collect Blackhoof Armaments from the village to the northeast, the other to find their battle plans. I went ahead and did the first quest, since Kate had already done it - a simple matter of gathering the armaments, knocking down any Blackhoof tauren that got in the way. The battle plans are in the form of four notes that you have to pick up from the Blackhoof Elders, and I got one of the notes in the process.

North Point was on the way to the next quest - to pick up wyrmtail stalks from the area south of Mudsprocket - so I dropped in to say Hi to Captain Darril and hand over the armaments.

Finding the wyrmtail stalks was easy - there are plenty around and I only needed eight - but it seemed like every one I went near meant getting a bit too close to either a crocolisk or a dragon whelp, so there was quite a bit of fighting involved. All the same it didn't take long and I went back to Mudsprocket to close out, get repairs and wait for Kate.

We didn't have a lot of time left so we went after two quests just west of Mudsprocket - to gather five Bloodfen Raptor feathers, and knock over Goreclaw the Ravenous. Neither took very long - about half of the raptors drop feathers so that part was quite easy; Goreclaw is pretty huge compared to the other raptors nearby but despite that he's the same level and no harder to take out.

During the fighting with the crocolisks and dragon whelps I'd picked up a couple of green items worth auctioning, and one of the quest rewards was some plate mail armour that I wanted to keep (I can't use it until I hit level 40), so I made a quick trip to Ironforge so I could hit the auction house and drop the plate armour in the bank. When that was done I was out of time - rather than head back to Dustwallow I stayed in Ironforge for the night.

I don't think we have many more quests to finish around Dustwallow and I think after we're done there we may see about moving on to the Hinterlands.

Levelling in Dustwallow Marsh

2008-10-23T11:02:00.002-06:00

Starting out from Ratchet we rode south down the coast so that we could hand Razorspine's sword that we'd picked up the day before over to Jarl. That cleared out that quest and completed the chain.

We spent most of the rest of the time finishing up quests in that region - finding a deserter camp, knocking down Grimtotem tauren, testing a captured totem against crocs, gathering venom from spiders and screechers, finding cargo and busting animated slimes around the gnome zeppelin crash site; the XP from all this was enough to get me level 38 and Kate very close to it.

With time running out we continued a bit further south to Mudsprocket to close out one other quest (to see a particular goblin) and while there we picked up three more quests in that area before opening the flightpath and heading back to Theramore.

My packs were almost full with junk I needed to shift, and as I'd hit level 38 and needed Paladin training, I made my way back to Ironforge for that and to make some pack space and get repairs before returning to Theramore.

Kate continued on after I checked into the inn, since she was so close to getting level 38 and was able to get that by whacking a few more of the ghosts and ghouls in the area around Swamplight Manor.

We still have a handful more quests in Dustwallow; I'm hoping we can have another productive session like this one next time - maybe we can close out most or all of the remaining quests and hit level 39 while we're at it. The plan I mentioned yesterday to go to the Arathi Basin battleground has been postponed for the time being, in favour of getting levels. It remains to be seen when we'll get to that, but if we hit level 40 any time soon I'll probably defer it until we get up into the high 40s.

Swords and Bandages

2008-10-22T10:22:00.002-06:00

We started way too late to do very much, but we did make some progress. We've gained a few levels since we got the Archeus swords back at Raven Hill (I'd hit level 37 the previous day), so while I was waiting on Kate I spent a few minutes in the auction house looking to see if there were any swords that were better. I found one that does 30.0 DPS with a chance of up to 114 extra damage, compared to 23.9 DPS and a chance of 85 Arcane damage for Archeus. I bought it, equipped it and compared the stats, and it was a beauty so I went back to the auction house and got one for Kate.

Kate needed to get out to Theramore for the Triage quest to push her first-aid skill up a notch, so off we went. The Triage quest is tricky but we've both done it before and I think we've got it down to a fine art; we got it on about the third attempt this time.

We were technically out of time at that point but we decided to do one other quick thing before packing it in; we needed to get Razorspine's Sword (Razorspine being a relatively high-level murloc to be found on the coast north of Theramore) so we decided to take a quick run up the beach, knock over Razorspine, grab the sword then continue north to Ratchet on the Barrens coast to open up the flightpath there.

And it was pretty much that simple. We had a few detours along the way for Kate to collect herbs and for me to mine some copper and tin, and when we got to Ratchet we hit the forge for repairs, and so that I could smelt the copper and tin I'd picked up and do a little jewelcrafting, and made a quick trip to the bank there so I could make a bit of space in my packs, and last but not least opened the flightpath. With that all done we settled in the inn in Ratchet for the night.

We're not sure just yet which way we'll go next; we have open quests in Wetlands, Arathi, Dustwallow Marsh and maybe Hillsbrad (and in fact, I think that's the order we should do them too), but we also need to make a decision about hitting the Arathi Basin battleground (incidentally I did a little more research to answer the big question I mentioned yesterday, and as far as I can tell it's not possible for an enemy player to loot stuff from us if we get wiped).

Here's the deal with the battleground: players go into an instance, bracketed by level (20-29, 30-39, etc.). I'm level 37, Kate's 36; if we hold off until Kate hits 38 - by which time I should be 38 or 39 - we'll be at the top end of the 30-39 bracket and that may give us a better chance. If we hold off until level 40 we'll be at the bottom end of the next higher bracket, and that probably isn't such a good thing. So what I'm going to suggest to Kate is that we continue questing until she hits 38 then go for the battleground right then. I'm curious about the battlegrounds, and I want to get some of the Honour points and be able to buy some of the stuff that goes with them. So basically, although I'm apprehensive about going up against enemies with real, human players behind them, I'm still determined to get in there and have a go.

A Level Every Two Days...?

2008-10-21T09:47:00.002-06:00

Battleground

Kate wanted to check out some of the inns we haven't been to recently to try to pick up Hallowe'en candy and so we did a little tour, ending up at Thelsamar. On the off chance that there'd be more at Refuge Pointe we rode north from there, but there was nothing. From there we went west and got to Southshore, where Kate was able to close out a quest and we were both able to get a bunch of the candy (it's really useful - lots of boosts to Stamina, Defence Rating and so on).

We flew back to Refuge Pointe with the intention of taking on some quests in that area and while we were there we decided that we want to have a go at taking on the Arathi Basin battleground. Not wanting to just jump straight in unprepared, I spent a little time to research what we'd be expected to do and so on. It's basically a CTF setup - there are five resource nodes to capture and defend and each team gets points per second as long as they can keep control of one or more nodes. The more nodes you control, the faster the points pour in. The first team to collect 2000 points wins.

I think it would be interesting; even if we lose we still get Honour points just for taking part. Kate wants us to go in paired - not the best strategy from a battle standpoint but at least we might be able to capture and defend one of the flags and keep each other alive long enough to see it through. One thing I haven't been able to find out for sure is exactly how long a battle is likely to take; the best I can figure is that it could take anything from about half an hour to maybe a couple of hours. The only way to know for sure is to just get in and do it.

There is one big, big question I want a definitive answer to, before we go into any battleground: Can the enemy loot your body if you're killed? The last thing Kate and I want is to lose an important weapon, piece of armour, money, whatever. If necessary I'll strip one of my other characters down to soulbound items only, and put all his cash in the bank, and take that character in to find out risk-free.

Levels

Our human Warrior/Paladin pair are only seven or eight levels behind the draenei equivalents and are doing so well that I'm fairly determined to continue pressing forward. I have a sort-of goal in mind to get the humans up to the same levels as the draenei and beyond, and to do that I'd like to be pushing through high-level quests in high-level areas to average a level every two days for the next two or three weeks. I was originally thinking a level a day but I really don't think that's possible - each level needs more XP to get to as you progress so that while a new level 1 character can get to level 10 in a couple of hours, that slows way down as you go higher. I think that if we keep pushing hard we might even make level 50 in time for the release of Wrath of the Lich King, but if we can get to level 45 I'll be happy - not least because at level 44 (or maybe 42 - I don't remember) I should get the incredibly useful Hammer of Wrath spell.

Actually, Hammer of Wrath isn't so terribly important since the 3.0.2 patch made changes to the Paladin system of Seal and Justice spells. I've heard that a lot of Paladins consider that the changes weakened them but for myself I've had very few problems - at least once I understood how the new system works - and if anything it's made things easier. Hammer of Wrath is great for stopping baddies running away to get help when their health gets low and the way things were before that was handy because using my usual combo (Seal of Light, Justice, Seal of Command) I would have to use a Hammer of Justice stun to stop someone running, and if it was on cooldown I had the choice of chasing them and risking running into more baddies, or letting them go and risking them coming back with reinforcements. With Hammer of Wrath I could whack them with 300+ damage if they tried to run and in most cases that's a finisher.

With the new system I can get the same effect as the old three-spell combo with just two spells, and if they try to run I can use one of the new Justice spells to stop them. That's not to say that Hammer of Wrath won't be useful - it will be, and more so as we get into those higher level areas.

Welcome to Theramore

2008-10-17T09:39:00.000-06:00

Morbent Fel Down Go Boom

We started off by clearing up one last quest in Duskwood - to take down Morbent Fel. We both had the quest to do, so after arriving at the house on the hill at Forlorn Rowe we grouped up. To get Morbent Fel you have to use Morbent's Bane, a special wand, to dispel his protective enchantments; the bane is an off-hand weapon so we couldn't use it while wielding our two-handed swords, and we had to set things up so that we could switch weapons quickly.

Fel wasn't around when we arrived - someone must have been there just before us. When he reappeared it went pretty easy, although it would have been easier if we hadn't been hampered by another player who arrived after us but was obviously intent on tagging Fel first. It didn't work for him; we got the tag and took Fel out. We had to fight our way out past some ghouls that had appeared in and around the house, but once we were clear it was a quick run back to Sven Yorgen to close out.

Theramore

We crossed the river to Sentinel Hill, flew to Menethil and took the boat to Theramore, and we spent the rest of the time whacking through a bunch of quests: in Theramore itself getting Thresher Oil for the lighthouse, exposing traitors, taking propaganda papers and distributing them after they'd been modified by an SI:7 agent, taking down the boss traitor in the boat moored offshore; then outside Theramore knocking down huge turtles, getting secret Defias orders, tracking down a missing diplomat, investigating the burned-down Shady Rest inn near the border with the Barrens, gathering frog legs, whacking ghosts, collecting herbs and summoning and dispatching Zelfrax (the level 36 demon that our Draenei characters had taken care of quite some time ago).

That was some serious questing and it was enough to get both of us to level 34 when we went back to Theramore to close out. Time was up so we headed back across the sea to Ironforge to take care of repairs and class training before leaving it for the night.

Split Personality

2008-10-15T09:47:00.001-06:00

For the last few days we've been playing our Human characters; for myself I've been playing the Mage and the Paladin, and the big problem is that at this time they're both at roughly the same level and covering the same quests. It's really confusing since I can't remember which character has done which quests. Apart from the fact that we were running Kate's Warrior and my Paladin in the northern part of Stranglethorn Vale, I'm getting a bit lost.

I can say that my Mage character has come a long way; with the new equipment he's a lot tougher than he was and he's cleaned up pretty much all of the necessary quests in Redridge and Duskwood, and is ready to move on to Theramore and Dustwallow Marsh.

I've even spent a little bit of time pushing forward with the Human Warlock I created as an auction-house stooge; he's not far from level 8, but since he mostly stays near the auction house anyway I consider him very much secondary.

For today I have a different plan for all of my characters, brought about by the fact that the 3.0.2 patch was activated yesterday and in the process every character's talent points have been reimbursed. We have to take all of our characters back to their respective class trainers because the patch introduced new spells and abilities and we need to make sure we have all the training; after that we need to rebuild our talent trees. Neither of these should take too long and then we can get back to where we were.

Another big change in the patch is that Stormwind City now has a harbour, and I want to see it and find out where the boats go from there. It'd be great if you can go direct to Theramore or even Azuremyst.

On a more personal note, I'm working on another writing project and that means I won't be able to spend as much time on this blog as I have been. I'll either keep writing daily, but with much shorter posts, or I'll keep on with the longer posts but not so often - maybe twice a week. I'll have to see what works best.

Goodbye Duskwood, Hello Stockade

2008-10-09T13:15:00.003-06:00

First quest: Kate needed to take out some Nightbane Vile Fangs and Dark Runners, so we took off from Darkshire to an area just west of the Tranquil Gardens cemetery to do that. I did the Healer bit while she whacked and that didn't take too long.

Second quest: from there we went further west to the Ogre Mound to grab a monocle from the ogre Zzarc'Vul that Viktori Prism'antras in Darkshire needs. The ogres around the mound have given us problems in the past but this time we were much better equipped and had no real problems. Zzarc'Vul hangs out inside the cave at the back of the ogre mound and isn't too hard to find; as soon as we got into the cave entrance we grouped up so that we wouldn't have to do the job twice. It was pretty easy; I can't help but remember how hard this one had been in the past.

Third quest: we continued west to find the Defias Docket, which turned out to be in a box in a house in an area infested with Defias scum. Again, mighty easy and I'm thinking our Archeus swords are making a big difference here.

With those three quests done we ran back to Darkshire to close out. Next stop was Stormwind to take care of a new quest that came up as a consequence of one of those we'd completed (the one with the Defias Docket, I'm pretty sure) and to take care of some bank and auction house business.

While we were there we decided to try the Stockade again, since we had three open quests down there and we'd both got a couple of levels since our last try. We geared up and went for it.

It was tough and a good challenge; I was surprised that the elite Defias guys down there were still high-level enough that we got XP - after past experiences with dungeon instances this isn't the norm for us. Also, although we got wiped it was only maybe twice - certainly no more than that - and I think we actually did damn good, considering.

We finished all three quests - one to collect Red Bandannas, one to knock down a certain number of criminals and one to take the hand of one particular bad guy - and somewhere along the way I hit level 31 (it actually startled me; I wasn't expecting enough XP to make a real difference and when the flash went up I thought I was being hit with some kind of magic attack).

We got out of the Stockade and closed out two of the quests, and the XP pushed Kate to level 30; this is a major milestone that we've been waiting for so that she can get a horse. To close the third quest we had to head back to Darkshire so we flew out there and took care of that, then ran north and crossed the river to get into Elwynn Forest not far from Eastvale Logging Camp, where the horse trainer and breeder are, and Kate was able to get her horse.

As far as we know that means we've finished all the Duskwood quests (hoorah!), so we rode out to Lakeshire and flew to our next stop: Menethil Harbour. There are a lot of quests in the Wetlands region so we'll probably base ourselves there for a little while. Incidentally, this means that our Human Paladin/Warrior pair have now reached almost exactly the same point that our Human Mage/Rogue reached before we switched over. From here on out it's all new ground - at least from the Human perspective.

Almost done...

2008-10-08T12:19:00.002-06:00

We're approaching the end of the quests we can do in Duskwood (hoorah!) and we should be able to move on soon. We managed to complete quite a bunch yesterday and got enough XP to finally push us over to new levels; in fact I finally got level 30 and along with it got my automatic Paladin warhorse (hoorah again!).

We'd started off doing the Worgen in the Woods quest chain, knocking over Nightbane Shadow Weavers, Dark Runners, Vile Fangs and Tainted Ones in the southeastern part of the region. We also had to get rid of Skeletal Raiders, Healers and Warders in Raven Hill cemetery. None of this was particularly hard thanks to Archeus, the unique sword that we both happen to have.

I don't remember exactly where I got level 30 but that was the signal to head back to Stormwind at the next opportunity to get Paladin training, and of course that's how I got the Summon Warhorse spell.

We had a quest that took us into the Cathedral of Light anyway, and while we were there Kate picked up another minor quest chain (one I'd started some time ago; so long ago, in fact, that I'd forgotten where it started). This one meant a certain amount of running around in Stormwind - to the Keep, then outside the gates, then back to the cheese shop - before sending us back to Darkshire to talk to one of the guards there. The next step (for both of us; this is as far as I'd gone with this chain) is to get the Defias Docket which is located somewhere in southwest Duskwood.

If I remember right this leaves us with no more than four current open quests around Duskwood. After that, where next? We're thinking the Wetlands and Arathi Highlands, but that's what we've done before; maybe this time we'll try Stranglethorn Vale instead.

More questing in Duskwood

2008-10-07T11:25:00.001-06:00

First Aid

To get my (Human Paladin's) first-aid skill any higher I needed the medical books from Deneb Walker in Stromgarde Keep, but to get there I would have had to cross the Arathi Highlands and I wasn't sure that I could make it at level 29 without a mount. If I ran into a spider or raptor up to level 33 I could have probably handled it, but I really didn't want to spend any longer than necessary as we had other things to do.

Instead I decided this was a job for my Human Mage, since he's level 31 and has a horse. Also, he had two quests in the area - one to find a guy called Skuerto at Refuge Pointe, and another to talk to someone in Southshore in the Hillbrad Foothills to the west - so he could kill three birds with one stone.

It was a really quick trip: a ride east from Menethil to pick up the road north through Dun Modr and across Thandol Span into the Arathi Highlands and straight on to Refuge Pointe, talk to Skuerto and the flightmaster; then west along the road to Stromgarde Keep, locate Deneb Walker and buy the books; then west again through Thoradin's Wall into the Hillsbrad Foothills and south into Southshore, talk to the guy I needed to find there, then hit the flightmaster for a direct flight back to Ironforge and drop the books into the bank.

I took the Mage out of the picture and brought in the Paladin, and he picked up the books from the bank in Stormwind City. Thanks to the books and piles of wool and silk that Kate and I had hoarded just for this purpose, I got the first-aid skill up to 216; I can now make Mageweave bandages and I have a stock of Heavy Silk bandages to keep me going for a while.

While we were in Stormwind Kate got new axes and I picked up a new two-handed sword a lot more powerful than my old one, a snip at about twenty gold. Little did I know that I wouldn't be keeping it very long...

The Heart of the Embalmer

The first thing we wanted to take care of was to get the Embalmer's Heart from Eliza's grave a little way behind Abercrombie's shack near Raven Hill cemetery. This was pretty simple: we disturbed the grave and out popped Eliza, in a bad mood and not looking at all well. She also had a guard but even together they weren't that hard to take down and we grabbed the heart for return to Darkshire.

Mor'Ladim

On the high ground north of Raven Hill cemetery, not far from the river, there's a weathered grave and when you examine it you get a quest to see Althea Ebonlocke, an Alliance guard in Darkshire. The grave is that of Morgan Ladimore, hero of the Alliance who was corrupted and became Mor'Ladim, the armoured skeleton that wanders the west side of the cemetery, and Ebonlocke sends you to kill him and bring back the skull.

Kate and I flew out to Sentinel Hill then crossed the river and grouped up to take down Mor'Ladim. Thanks to the new weapons we'd bought in Stormwind, plus the fact that we were at least a level higher than the last time we ran into him, I for one was a lot more confident about beating him this time.

We found him in the usual place and, making sure there weren't any other enemies nearby, we engaged him, me from the front and Kate from behind. Even with the new weapons he was tough - he was doing as much damage to me as we were to him and he shrugged off a Hammer of Justice stun that I threw at him hoping to slow him down. Things were getting very close to the wire and I had to put up Divine Protection to give me time to heal myself; as soon as I did that he started bashing Kate but since his attack up to that point had been mostly aimed at me she was in good shape and was able to finish him off.

We went to take the skull... and that's when we realized Kate hadn't got the quest in her log. Ah well. We found the grave up the hill so that Kate could get the starting quest and we made our way back to Darkshire; I handed over the skull and was instructed to see Ladimore's daughter nearby, who gave me a ring to place on her father's grave. Meanwhile Kate got the quest for Mor'Ladim and with those done it was back to knock him over again.

This time Kate whacked and I healed, and she got the skull. I placed the ring on Ladimore's grave and in return got Ladimore's sword Archeus, and what a sword it is - 23.9 damage per second with a chance of serious Arcane damage with every hit. I'll be keeping this for a while, I think.

One more quick return trip to Darkshire so that Kate could get the ring and come back to collect her own Archeus, and we were done.

Pushing for Levels

2008-10-06T11:40:00.001-06:00

I've switched my Human Paladin's primary professions a little. I'd already changed my Mage's professions so as to get rid of the rather worthless Tailoring and replace it with Jewelcrafting - this promised to be far more useful, but after working it for a while it became plain that it really needs Mining as a gathering profession to make it worthwhile. Since my Mage had Enchanting, which is quite useful and I didn't want to lose it, I decided to change the Human Paladin's professions so that he now has Mining and Jewelcrafting. The Mage will replace the Jewelcrafting with the Herbalism that the Paladin had before; it'll mean taking the Mage back to Elwynn Forest to be able to start building up the Herbalism but he's level 31 and has a horse; it shouldn't take too long to get that skill level up to where the Paladin was with it.

With my Paladin at level 28 and Kate's Warrior at 26 we decided to have a go at the four quests we had open in the Stockade, an instance dungeon inside Stormwind City. Kate acted as Tank while I made like a Healer and we didn't do too badly - we completed one quest that involved getting the head of one bad guy, and made a dent in one that meant taking down a number of Defias guys. But we got wiped two or three times and basically it was just taking too long in general. The last straw was when we realized that unlike the Deadmines where it takes a long while for baddies to reappear, the guys in the Stockade come back much quicker and we'd have had to fight our way back through the same parts for no real benefit. It would have been cool to clear all four quests but it plainly wasn't going to be that easy, or at least not yet; we decided to move on and come back when we've got another level or two rather than waste a bunch of time.

We went back to Lakeshire to close out the one quest that we'd completed then went north to take down the fifteen Blackrock Champions we needed for another quest. With us grouped this went much easier than I expected and we got the fifteen very quickly. While we were in the cave where the majority of the champions were, we found a guy (I don't recall his name) who'd been reported missing on a poster outside the inn in Lakeshire and he asked us to escort him back to Lakeshire. He moved slowly, which made it easier for us to clear the way ahead of him. Also, he was a level 25 elite and helped out whenever a fight broke out. Once we were well clear of the cave and found the start of the road back to Lakeshire he picked up the pace and we all ran back to the bridge, where the quest ended.

I'd started off with about three quarters of the XP I'd needed to take me from level 28 to 29. The XP from the two quests - clearing the fifteen champions and escorting this other guy - was just enough to tip me over to level 29.

Kate had a quest for which she needed to collect three magic orbs from Blackrock Shadowcasters, and it so happened that one of the casters we'd dealt with while knocking over the champions had dropped one of these orbs; she only needed two more, and I knew where to get them - Stonewatch Keep near Alther's Mill.

So off we went to take care of that. When we got there the place was deserted and we had to wait for the casters to show, so we wandered about a bit with Kate knocking over the sentries while I kept an eye on the yard on the south side of the keep waiting for one particular bad guy to show: Tharil'zun. Since we both needed this guy's head for a quest we grouped, and when he showed up - together with a Shadowcaster minder - we were ready. He didn't last long and neither did his friend; we got the head and Kate got orb number two.

From there we went to wait near the steps leading inside the keep itself, and before long another caster showed; I stood back while Kate took him down and got her third orb.

At this point we could have moved on but we were real close to another quest - to get the head of Gath'llzogg (orc heads must be the fashion in Redridge this month) so we decided to go for it while we were there. Gath'llzogg lives up on the top floor of the keep and we made our way up there - there was a trail of dead orcs indicating that someone else had been there just ahead of us, but it made for a real quick run up to where we needed to be.

We hung around a bit and sure enough Gath showed up, together with another orc minder and an elite Dragon whelp. It was a tough fight. I stood back as healer while Kate whacked away and took care of Gath and the orc minder, but by this time our health was real low, my mana was gone from keeping Kate alive and I had none left to help myself, we'd both taken potions so we couldn't do any more on that front, and the damn dragon whelp was blasting me with fireballs. There was nothing more I could do, and despite Kate whacking at the whelp it was just a second or so too late for me; I got wiped. At least while the whelp was focused on me it wasn't attacking Kate and she did manage to finish it. I got back as fast as I could (I wish there was another boneyard closer to the eastern end of Redridge) and we were able to get Gath's head. As ghost I'd seen that all the orcs inside the keep had returned, so rather than fight our way back we hearthstoned out.

Kate's stone took her to Stormwind and mine to Darkshire, so we had to fly back to Lakeshire to meet up (and we reset our stones to make the place home for now). This time the XP from the orb quest and the two orc heads pushed Kate to level 27. I did a little jewelcrafting with some copper ore that I'd picked up on our travels, and I decided I needed to go back to the trainer in the Exodar so I made my way there while Kate went back to Stormwind to take care of a quest (to do with this guy Stalvan) before following along.

In the Exodar I picked up some more Jewelcrafting plans and while I was there I was able to max out my First Aid to 150/150 - which means I have to get books from Deneb Walker in Stromgarde Keep to go any further.

My hearthstone still had twelve minutes of cooldown remaining so in the Exodar I stayed for the night. Next trip Kate has another quest to complete out near the Tower of Ilgalad so that'll be our first move.

More Goings On at Raven Hill

2008-10-03T11:57:00.002-06:00

While Kate was taking care of some things in the bank and the auction house I flew out to Lakeshire with the intention of taking on Lieutenant Fangore, the level 26 (I think) gnoll who hangs out in the eastern end of the Redridge Mountains region. I could take him easily in a fair fight, but he has a couple of friends including a shadowcaster and never strays far from them; it doesn't seem possible to pull Fangore without alerting his mates. I got wiped, and that's a pain in the bum because the nearest boneyard is all the way over to the west so it's a long trek back. I was thinking of trying to pull Fangore's friends one at a time to get them out of the way, but by then Kate wasn't far from done in Stormwind so I left that for the moment.

I went on ahead to Raven Hill and whacked the last handful of the twenty Plague Spreaders I needed for the quest I was working on; that left the field clear for Kate. I made my way back to Darkshire to close out, then flew to Sentinel Hill to hook up with Kate.

From there we swam the river and I watched Kate's health while she got her twenty ghouls. We got into trouble at one point - we went down into the crypt under the cemetery to find a few more ghouls and when we came out there was a herd of the things waiting for us. We got surrounded and it was a wipeout. After resurrecting (which is quick; after all we were already in the boneyard) I thought I was tough enough to take on Mor'Ladim, the level 30 elite armoured skeleton. Actually I could have got him; Kate was helping and we'd knocked him down a good way and had every chance of finishing him off when I was attacked from behind by another skeleton. I went down and they set on Kate, and that was that.

I resurrected nearby and as I was getting back into shape, Mor'Ladim must have wandered a bit too close and came at me from behind again. Slightly irritating because it wasted the two potions and a 'cheesehead' wolf steak I was in the middle of eating when he rudely interrupted. Never mind; his time is coming.

Kate got the rest of the twenty she needed shortly after that. We didn't take off for Darkshire right away - instead we went south to pick up a crate of stuff that Abercrombie wanted from the Ogre Mound. Along the way we knocked down a handful of spiders and that was enough to push me to level 28, which made dealing with the ogres a little easier since they're no more than level 30, and it didn't take long to get to Abercrombie's crate. We made our way back to Abercrombie, who gave us a note to take back to Darkshire.

Time was getting short so we headed for Darkshire to close out quests - there was a certain amount of running back and forth at this point, because the guy we took Abercrombie's note couldn't read it until it was translated so that had to be done. The next quest in that particular chain involves finding the grave of someone called Eliza, which according to QuestHelper isn't far from Abercrombie's shack.

At this point I was about out of time but there was one last thing I wanted to get done; now that I'd hit level 28 I needed Paladin training, so I flew out to Stormwind and ran to the Cathedral of Light to get that done.

By then I really was out of time, and didn't even bother checking into an inn; I found an empty room on the upper floor of a building near the auction house and packed it in for the night. Kate was really close to hitting level 25 by this time and decided to stay on for just a little while to get that.

Ghouls and Skeletons

2008-10-02T10:22:00.001-06:00

We went back out to Raven Hill, our first objective being for Kate to hand over the zombie juice to Abercrombie and get the next quest in the chain. With that done Kate was at the same point as me in that particular quest chain.

The next step was to start whacking ghouls all around the boneyard nearby, looking for ribs that Abercrombie wanted for something or other. I was still a step ahead of Kate on another quest for which I need to knock over twenty Plague Spreaders; since these are a type of ghoul and they're in the same area, I was able to make some progress on that quest at the same time.

The rib quest took a while because it seems like fewer than half the ghouls actually drop the ribs we needed, but we got it done and closed out with Abercrombie. I think I got more than half the Plague Spreaders I needed along the way, which will help when it comes to Kate's turn because there aren't a huge number of them about - if I get all mine done then Kate'll have a clear field when the time comes.

Kate had another quest to complete that I'd already taken care of, that involved beating up Skeleton Horrors and Fiends (these are the ones I'd mistakenly thought were around Tranquil Gardens on the far side of Duskwood). She'd already got her quota of Horrors and just needed the Fiends, so I whacked Horrors to keep them off her back while she took care of the Fiends.

Kate had one more quick quest to take care of, to see Jitters in the old abandoned town of Raven Hill, and then we ran over to Sentinel Hill and flew back to Darkshire for the night.

We still have some more quests around Duskwood but as I think I mentioned quite some time ago, Duskwood is depressing. I'd like to get them cleared and move on.

The Human Factor

2008-10-01T10:01:00.001-06:00

Kate's pushing hard to get her Human Warrior up a few levels so I think we'll be concentrating on that character, and my Human Paladin, for a while.

The way we've been pushing this is to get as many points as we can by running quests, so when we started yesterday our first objective was to close out a quest we had in Duskwood. Well actually, it was two quests to see the same person; I had to see Abercrombie, who lives in a hut near Raven Hill cemetery, to give him some Zombie Juice he'd asked for, while Kate had to see him to give him Ghost Hair from Blind Mary (which leads to the quest to get the Rot Blossoms needed to make Zombie Juice - in other words Kate's working the same quest chain but she's just a step or two behind me).

Raven Hill is near the western edge of Duskwood and quite a way from Darkshire, so it turns out that the quickest way to get there is to fly to Sentinel Hill in the Westfall then go east and swim across the river. You can run from the riverbank to the cemetery in a hot minute, but we scoured the area a bit first to knock down some wolves for meat; Tender Wolf Flanks make steaks that gives the "well-fed" bonus. We gathered a few flanks then went to see Abercrombie.

Of course Kate got the next quest, to get Zombie Juice from the inn in Darkshire, while I got the next quest after returning with the juice (I have to get some ribs from the Ghouls in the boneyard nearby). I'm holding off going for the next step, since it'll be easier to wait until Kate catches up and we can work it together.

So we went back to Darkshire the quickest way, by retracing our steps back across the river to Sentinel Hill and flying; Kate went to the inn to close out the quest and we headed out to Blind Mary's house to the southeast, which is where the walking skeletons carrying the rot blossoms hang out. I kept an eye on Kate's health and gave her a boost now and then while she whacked the skeletons and collected the blossoms.

With the blossom quota collected, Kate also wanted to bash some Skeleton Fiends for another quest and I mistakenly thought they were to be found near the Tranquil Gardens cemetery, so we headed that way; it was only after we'd been there a couple of minutes that I remembered the fiends are back at Raven Hill so we'll have to head back out there again very soon. (But we have to go there anyway so that Kate can give Abercrombie his juice.)

By then I was about out of time; we headed back to Darkshire and I checked into the inn for the night. Before I continue I'm planning on hitting the auction house to see about getting some better equipment; I'm up to level 27 now and I suspect I can get some better armour at least.

The rest of the team

2008-09-30T15:15:00.002-06:00

For the last week or more we haven't played our regular characters, or at least not much. Instead we brought Kate's Human Warrior out of retirement and did what we could to push her skills up, not least because she can do Alchemy and that means she can create powerful potions that all our other characters can make good use of.

We wanted to be able to take this character into fairly high-level areas, places where there's no way she could survive alone. To make that possible I brought my Draenei Paladin back from Gadgetzan and accompanied her around Redridge Mountains, mostly, and some other places.

I've also gone back to my own Human Paladin, running quests in the Westfall and Redridge Mountains; at the moment he's finishing up some quests in Duskwood and he'll be going back to Redridge very soon to finish up some quests in that area. He's up to level 27 and he's taken the place of the Draenei Guy as protector of Kate's Warrior, now that her level is closer to being in line with the areas we're in. We have an idea to head to Stormwind, possibly today, and take care of four quests in the Stockade - a place neither of us have ever been before. Kate's plan is to push this character up to level 35 as fast as possible because until she reaches that point she's stalled with the Alchemy training.

I'm also planning on bringing my original Human Mage back into the picture. He's been an Auction House stooge for several weeks and I've set up a new character to take over the duty. The plan is to completely rework his talent build (I may change his specialization from Fire to Arcane), re-equip with the best armour I can manage, check to make sure his training's up to date then take him on a trip out to the Eastvale Logging Camp for riding training and to buy a horse. Once that's done he'll pick up where he left off with open quests.

However I don't want to spend too much time on these other characters; I'd like to get my Draenei back to Tanaris and continue questing.

Tanaris and Feralas

2008-09-22T10:55:00.000-06:00

We headed out southwest from Gadgetzan to find the Noxious Lair, where we were to splat some Centipaar bugs and collect the insect parts for the Water Co. representative. I don't know what I expected but the Lair is pretty scary looking - a bunch of craters edged with what look like insect legs sticking up in the air a hundred feet or more. And they twitch, like they're alive. Creepy.

The Centipaar bugs are nasty, too - wasps and ground crawlers with levels from 47 to 50. The first couple we whacked weren't too bad but we made the mistake of going deeper into the lair, and that made us very vulnerable because we'd be whacking away at one of the bugs and then another would get a bit too close and then we'd have two of them on us, and then we'd be surrounded by three or more. I know I got wiped at least four times and I'm not sure how many times Kate caught it.

So we moved back to the north side of the lair for the last couple and things went much easier. Not every bug dropped the parts we needed but enough did that it didn't take us too long, and with that out of the way we rode back to Gadgetzan to hand over the parts.

We have a couple of open quests for which we need to go back to the Pirate enclave where we'd taken down Andre Firebeard, but I wasn't in the mood to go back there just yet. Instead we took a flight over to Thalanaar in Feralas and rode west from there intending to find some Screechers - flying snake-like things - for a quest a Night Elf in Steamwheedle Port had given us.

From Thalanaar we went a little bit north to pick up the road then went west through the forest. Feralas is reminiscent of Ashenvale in that it's heavily forested, but to me it seemed nicer. Maybe it's just me but Ashenvale seems dark and oppressing somehow, where Feralas is lighter.

We made good progress on the road and it was looking as if we'd get all the way to the Vale where we'd find the screechers without incident. Then we found Camp Mojache, a Horde settlement; the road went right into the camp, and at the gate were two guards, at least level 57. Luckily we saw them first.

We got off the road and headed south and then west, bypassing the camp, and before we knew it we were in the right place to find the screechers. The problem here is that there are lots of gorillas and bears around, and the screechers tend to wander across quite a range, so we'd chase after one only to get too close to a bear or a gorilla (or a bear and a gorilla) and have to fight those off and by the time we'd done that the screecher was even further away.

Luckily we only needed three each, and for each one we had to wave a special wand to gather the spirits. When we'd done that we spent a few minutes knocking over Hippogryphs - there's a quest back in Gadgetzan that needs an egg, but neither of us found any and we didn't hang about doing that for long; maybe the eggs we need come from a different area. We went north to pick up the road but before we got there we ran into a camp of Yetis and had to fight our way through.

When we reached the road we had a choice - go east and have to bypass Camp Mojache again, or go west and hope for the best. We went west.

The road brought us to the coast and we found a jetty, and after a short wait a boat showed up and we hopped aboard. We had no idea where the boat was going; for all we knew we were about to be taken right into a major Horde city, so we were especially watchful when we got to the boat's destination. Kate was the one to spot Darnassus-faction Night Elves on shore and then the boat pulled in at Feathermoon Stronghold, a Night Elf outpost on the north shore of an island.

The stronghold doesn't have much, but it does have a flightmaster. We explored a bit, including riding all over the small island to fill in our maps, and then we returned to the flightmaster and took off back to Gadgetzan, where we packed it in for the night. Next trip we'll run out to Steamwheedle Port to close out the Screecher quest, then we'll decide where to head next.

Tanaris

2008-09-21T10:36:00.000-06:00

There was no pressing need to get back to Ironforge right away so instead we took off from Thelsamar and went south to Booty Bay to take care of a quest on the coast nearby, to collect some orders and a map and knock down ten swashbucklers. Getting the documents wasn't a problem but the swashbucklers are thin on the ground and don't reappear quickly; with other players trying to run the same quest and in at least one case, basically killstealing, this took a lot longer than we'd hoped. But in the end it got done, and we returned to Booty Bay and took the boat to Ratchet (forgetting to close the quest out in the Bay - we'd have to come back for that later).

From Ratchet we flew down to Gadgetzan as the majority of our open quests were (and still are) all around Tanaris. The first one we took care of took us west to Sandsorrow Watch to collect a water sample from a pool for the Gadgetzan Water Company representative. While we were doing that we were attacked by a couple of huge bugs, but they weren't too bad (my two-handed sword with the Fiery Blaze enchantment is really paying off) and before long we were ready to head back.

We didn't go direct - there were a couple of small encampments with bad guys to the north side and we went that way to explore a little and also get some more XP. It was during this bit of exploration that we found Zul'Farrak, which is important because we have some higher-level quests inside there that we'll be getting to soon.

Back at Gadgetzan we closed out the quest by handing over the water sample. The XP pushed me to level 45, and we got a new quest: the bugs that attacked us are basically sucking the water sources dry and the Water Co. rep wants us to investigate further, so we'll be doing that shortly.

The next quest we took on was one we'd tried before - to get the head of wanted pirate Andre Firebeard from the enclave on the southeast coast. That first time we weren't strong enough; this time we were ready. We went south across the desert, and I helped Kate get to her next level by whacking her tagged targets (basilisks, mostly) to speed things along until she got it.

As before we went around the south side of the hills surrounding the enclave and approached from the beach, climbing over the hills to get to the enclave fence, and getting inside by going around the end of the fence where it meets the water.

That was about as far as we'd made it before - we'd got surrounded and overpowered. This time was very different and we were able to take these guys on, even four at a time. The Hammer of Wrath spell came into its own here - I was able to stop the baddies running off to get help when their health got low. We'd pretty much wiped out the camp before we found Firebeard, and when we did it was quite a fight because as is usual for the bosses he had three or four friends helping him out. In this case it didn't help him and it was all over fairly quickly. We headed out of the gate on the north side of the enclave and swam around the headland to the beach not far from Steamwheedle Port, where we were to take Firebeard's head for the reward.

We returned to Gadgetzan and flew back to Ratchet for the boat to Booty Bay, and closed out the quest we'd taken care of there; from there we went to Ironforge to close out the quest that Theldurin had given us in the Badlands yesterday. Kate was disappointed with that one because it gave less than 1,000 XP, so she didn't want to take on the next quest in that chain but I've checked into that and it turns out the next quest would give us 5,600 points; we may end up taking it after all, but we'll see.

We spent a little time in Ironforge taking care of the usual business and then made our way back to Gadgetzan via Menethil and Theramore, and parked ourselves in the inn ready to continue questing next time. As far as I remember we still have at something like eight quests in the desert and another four in Zul'Farrak. We'll have at least one more level each before we're done in Tanaris, I think.

Badlands

2008-09-20T15:09:00.000-06:00

There's a quest we've had on our list for a while, to find Theldurin the Lost, so we flew out to Thelsamar and from there went south into the Badlands for the first time. The Badlands is what I expected the Barrens to be - a vast expanse of rocky desert. The area is rife with wolves and vultures, mostly around level 36 give or take a level or two.

We found Theldurin on the far side of the Badlands, near the southern border, and he had another couple of jobs for us. The first was to go up into the hills nearby and recover three fragments of the Scroll of Myzrael from the elementals there. This is part of the quest chain that began all the way back in the Arathi Highlands where Myzrael had asked us to help set her free from where she'd been trapped underground. Theldurin told us that doing this would not be a good thing, and we need the scroll to make sure that she stays trapped.

We went up into the hills and found the elementals but it took a while to find all three fragments - there weren't many elementals about at first, and we had to knock down quite a few before we'd gathered all the fragments. But we got all the fragments in time and went back to Theldurin, who put them together to reconstruct the scroll. The next step is to take the scroll back to the Shards of Myzrael back in the Arathi Highlands, but it'll be a while before we're ready to do that.

The other task he had for us was to go to Uldaman (we'd passed the place on the way down) and locate the Tablet of Ryun'eh, so we went north.

On the way we found the only vulture that wasn't anything close to level 36: a level 55 elite that attacked me before I knew it was there. It was way too much for either of us and although we made a dent in its health, we didn't stand a chance. We steered clear of its range after that, and I made a point of checking every other vulture I saw to make sure there weren't any more elites around.

We also found another questgiver, camped on a hill; he wanted a Drake Heart and in return would give us a fiery enchant for our weapons. This was too good to pass up, so we went east to the area where the drakes were. When we got there we found quite a few whelps and also an area with four or five full-grown elite drakes, all level 43-45. We assumed that the bigger drakes would have the hearts we needed so we spent quite a while knocking them down (they weren't as tough as I thought they'd be, considering that they were elites) but we didn't find any hearts and sure enough, when I checked the quest details, it turned out that the whelps were the source. So we went after more whelps and eventually both got the hearts. With that done we rode back to hand the hearts over and got the enchants - my two-handed sword now does some serious flame damage.

We continued to Uldaman and made our way inside. Uldaman is a dungeon and it's pretty full of troggs but we didn't have too much trouble fighting our way through and finding an ancient chest containing the tablet. Uldaman also has at least one instance and we went through for a little exploration before heading out.

Returning to Theldurin with the tablet, he gave us another task: to find Yagyin in Ironforge. We decided, before we left the Badlands, to run around a little to fill in some of the gaps on the map. There's an Ogre camp in the southwest and a Horde settlement somewhere near the western border, but other than that the area doesn't have much, and once we got back to the road we continued north back into Loch Modan.

By this time it was late, and I was pretty tired so instead of getting back to Ironforge we checked into the tavern in Thelsamar and packed it in for the night.

Taking Care of Business, Aaaarrr

2008-09-18T11:51:00.002-06:00

There were no questin' this time, naaarrr; we had a number o' trinkets gathered that we needed to take to ye House of Auctions, an' as I said 'fore, it were high time I got meself a new blade more suitin' me new level. I been usin' the same single-handed axe atime an' it be good at slicin' up the monsters, but it ain't strong enough in them thar new areas we're startin' to wander, naaarrr.

So we went to ye Auction House an' put the trinkets up, an' I got me some new potions as I was gettin' low, an' I looked an' found a real nice two-handed blade that were the business but I didn't get it, naaarrr, cos it were seventy-five gold an' that were too rich for my purse. But seadog Katey had a sword she'd picked up somewhere, aaarrr, an' it be a honey an' even better than that other one, an' she let me have it, yaaarrr.

It been a while since I used a two-hander so I needed a bit o' practice 'fore I go a-whacking, so I took meself outside Ironforge and sliced up a couple o' boars but they was too easy; one whack an' there were bacon all over. So Katey and me went to the Aaaarrrathi Highlands and I put meself up against some o' them raptors an' spiders an' them Rumbling Elementals yonder at the Circle of Inner Bindin', an' now I be ready to go on a-questin'.

An' if you're wonderin' why I be talking like this, it be because today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day. YAAARRR!

Stranglethorn Vale and the Swamp of Sorrows

2008-09-18T11:51:00.001-06:00

We abandoned four remaining low-level quests in Ratchet and took the boat to Booty Bay, and once there we took on three quests and headed out into Strangethorn Vale. Eventually. It took a little while to figure out how to get out of Booty Bay, since it's accessed through a short cavern/tunnel but I didn't know that, or where it was exactly.

Stranglethorn Vale is much better matched to our levels than the Barrens, with a lot of level 41+ mobs, mostly Gorillas (at least in the area near the Bay - they may get harder further out).

The first quest was to take the heart from a Gorilla called Mokk, as it was the only cure for the Stranglethorn Fever that was killing a character back in the Bay. To get the heart we had to locate a witchdoctor in a cave to the northeast; the doc used his shadow magic to summon Mokk, but while he did that we had to keep a couple of other Gorillas off his back. Once they were gone, Mokk appeared and we were able to get the heart.

The second quest took us out to the cove north of the Bay, where we found a bunch of bad guys camped and a document, plainly the object of the quest, sitting out on top of a barrel. The only way to the document was through the baddies so I tried to pull just the nearest, and as is standard operating procedure for me, managed to get the attention of at least four of them including a shadowcaster. I should have fired up my shadow protection aura, but didn't; when my health was low I should have fired up Divine Protection, but I clicked the wrong button and got wiped. Luckily the boneyard is real close, but in any case Kate was able to take down all the guys that had been attacking me in the time it took me to get back and into fighting shape. I must remember to set the various buttons in the same positions for both my Paladins; I've been playing the Human Paladin while Kate was sick, and I got used to the different button positions, and that's why I clicked the wrong one at a crucial moment.

We read the document but then had some confusion over where we had to go for the third quest, so rather than waste too much time on it we went back to the Bay to cash in the two quests we'd completed and the rep boost was enough to get us to Friendly status with the Booty Bay faction. Of the four Steamwheedle Cartel factions that leaves just one to get a better rep with - the Everlook faction, based in a high-level area in northeast Kalimdor (by high-level I mean 55+, well beyond our current levels).

Since we'd got the rep boost we were after we didn't worry too much about the third quest right away. Instead we flew out of Booty Bay to Darkshire, with the intention of finishing up a long-overdue quest on the coast of the Swamp of Sorrows. Getting there means heading east out of Darkshire and racing through Deadwind Pass - a level-55+ area sitting between Duskwood and the Swamp. Not knowing what to expect in the Pass, we fired up as much protection as we could, saddled up and went non-stop. We needn't have worried so much; neither of us saw any living thing anywhere near the road, and we got through to the Swamp in probably no more than a minute or so.

The Swamp of Sorrows is moderately high level - about 35-45, I think - so for the most part the baddies there aren't a problem. We did have something of a close call when we went through a village thinking that there was no real threat; unfortunately something hit me with a Stun and knocked me off my horse, and the next thing we had four or five bad guys on us like a cheap suit including yes, you guessed it, another bloody shadowcaster. However we had something like eight levels on these guys so, as close as it was, we were able to get through it and carried on to the coast.

The target of the quest was to gather twelve crawler legs each (the crawlers look like big crabs) and this was pretty straightforward since there were plenty of the things around the beach, they respawn fairly quickly and many of them dropped two legs so we didn't have to find two dozen of the things to bash up. The only complication was that there were a fair number of level-41 crocs around, and they had a tendency to wander into range while I was in the process of knocking down a crawler. It was after fighting off a croc that had done that very thing when I hit level 44, and Kate hit her 45 very quickly after that.

It was getting late by the time we'd got all the legs we needed so rather than riding back through Deadwind Pass we hearthstoned straight back to Ironforge and spent a little while tidying up - vendoring junk, getting repairs and most importantly getting class training (I picked up a new spell that'll let me throw a hammer at an enemy for 300+ damage provided that said enemy has 20% or less health). That left just one last thing - a quick trip out to Theramore to hand over the crawler legs and get the quest points. So we took a gryphon ride to Menethil and jumped on the boat, took care of the quest and then checked into the inn right there in Theramore for the night.

Next time in I want to spend some time in the auction house before we head out anywhere; it's pretty obvious that my weapons are underpowered for my level, since it takes me way too long to knock down the bad guys, so I'm planning on finding the most powerful two-handed sword I can afford. After that I think we'll probably be heading back to the Hinterlands to finish up some of the outstanding quests there.

Working for Steamwheedle

2008-09-17T08:51:00.000-06:00

We left things with a handful of low-level quests in the Barrens, all given out by characters in and around Ratchet. As low-level quests we knew they wouldn't give us much XP but the idea was to boost our reputation with the Steamwheedle Cartel factions. One of the quests we'd finished up before had pushed our rep with one of the factions (Gadgetzan, I think) to 'Friendly' and we want to do the same with one or two of the others.

The first quest - chosen because it was the closest to Ratchet - was to gather some raptor horns. We headed out of Ratchet to the plain to the northwest and found a couple of raptors, but they were few and far between and didn't drop many horns. According to QuestHelper there were more to the south so I rode down there to have a look around, and found a whole raptor village; Kate followed me down there and finding the horns was quick work after that.

Next stop was the Wailing Caverns to the northwest, to take a bottle of 99-year old port from Mad Magglish. We were exploring the caverns when Magglish suddenly appeared next to me - he'd either been stealthed or perhaps someone else had got him a little earlier and he just happened to respawn while I was standing there. Anyway he got whacked and I got the port, and we waited for him to reappear so that Kate could get him. And waited. And waited. I was about to suggest moving on and coming back later, when he showed up again and that was that.

We didn't have a lot of time left but we decided to take care of one last quest in the far north, to collect a mysterious piece of kit called a Samophlange from a Venture Co. installation. To do this you have to operate a console then close three valves, then go back to the console at which point you find you need to get the key from Tinkerer Sniggles nearby. With the key you can then open the console and grab the Samophlange. All extremely easy at our levels, although I imagine it'd be quite a challenge for the level 14-15 players this quest is plainly aimed at, since at every step you're being attacked by the Venture Co. guys trying to stop you.

Our time was up; we headed back to Ratchet and closed the three quests out, and both got a reputation boost to 'Friendly' with the Ratchet faction. We still have a couple of quests left to do, but since we already got the rep boost I don't know that it's worth spending any more time in this area. Instead we may abandon those and take the boat to Booty Bay to take on a few quests over there - that should get us another rep boost with the Booty Bay faction as well as giving us a chance to explore around Stranglethorn Vale, which I think is higher level than the Barrens and so would bring us more XP along the way. We'll see.

The Scythe of Elune

2008-09-15T14:56:00.001-06:00

Kate wasn't feeling well and didn't feel up to playing, so I didn't do much either though it did mean that I had time to take care of the Scythe of Elune quest that's been sitting on my quest log for far too long.

I'd left off with my Paladin sitting in the inn in Ratchet, and from there Duskwood is quick and easy - a boat trip from Ratchet to Booty Bay then a flight direct to Darkshire. Once there I sharpened my axe, conjured up my auras, jumped on my horse and headed south out of town.

What I was looking for was "evidence" of the Scythe; I found it in the form of a mound of earth inside a mine surrounded by level 29 worgen, down on the southern border of Duskwood. When I fiddled around with the mound, the ghost of Velinde Starsong appeared with a message; if I remember it right, the gist was that the Scythe had been lost.

Completing the quest meant riding back to Darkshire to see Jonathan Carevin; he sent me back to Darnassus to take the news to the Night Elves there, so off I went by gryphon, boat and hippogryph. In Darnassus the person I had to see accepted the news and that was the end of that quest chain at last.

With that done, I flew direct from Rut'theran Village all the way back to Ratchet and back at the inn, packed it in. I must remember to check, when I go back in, that I got all my arms and armour repaired.

The Barrens

2008-09-12T11:16:00.001-06:00

We didn't have a lot of time so we only really took care of one quest - to find an emerald in a mine in the northeast of The Barrens. We took off out of Ratchet, going east first to the river that separates the region from Durotar, then following the river north.

Most of the beasts in the area are very low level - 14 or 15 at most. However we found a Horde outpost near a bridge that leads over into Durotar, and there are some level 40 Horde guards watching the bridge presumably to limit Alliance access to Orgrimmar.

We went over the bridge for a quick look before coming back and heading north. Something rather odd happened about then; Kate and I were both affected by a "Sap" spell, but we couldn't figure out for sure where it came from. There was a level 16 Undead player nearby and at first I blamed him; I tried to attack him but presumably he wasn't in PvP mode because I couldn't do anything, and if he wasn't PvP that would imply that he wasn't the source of the spell (although I have to admit I'm not 100% familiar with how the PvP mode works; we're not in the habit of whacking other players, even if they are nasty stinking unwashed Horde).

Anyway we carried on north and the Sap attacks stopped. We found the mine and started knocking over the baddies in and around it and I found an emerald fairly quickly, dropped by one of the goblins not far into the mine itself. Kate wasn't so lucky and had to wipe out everything in the mine, twice, before finding her emerald.

Once we were done there we headed back to Ratchet but rather than retracing our steps we went west to the Gold Road (the main north-south road running the length of the Barrens) then south. We found a Horde outpost at The Crossroads and kept our distance, but other than that it was a straight run to Ratchet.

We closed out the quest and although it gave us a little XP the main thing was that we are now considered "Friends" of that faction. To try to up that reputation a bit more we had a look around for other questgivers, taking on another three or four quests. They won't give much XP - they're too low level - but they should be quick and easy, and the rep boost can't hurt.

By then we were out of time, so we checked back in to the inn there in Ratchet for another night. Next trip I guess we'll go after those low level quests first, but after that we'll probably go somewhere a bit more challenging so that we can push for new levels.

Eggs

2008-09-11T12:42:00.001-06:00

We went back to the Hinterlands to clear up a couple more quests; the closest and therefore the first one was to dispose of a pesky wizard and his spider minion who live in a cave southeast of Aerie Peak.

We got to the cave and got rid of the couple of guards at the cave entrance, then went in; the first time, Kate took on the wiz while I kept the minion busy and so to complete the quest we each needed to deal with the other opponent, which meant waiting for them to respawn. We weren't sure how long it would take for them to reappear and we considered moving along to the other quest, but that was some distance away and we didn't think we'd have a long wait; sure enough the guards reappeared after just a couple of minutes and we didn't have a long wait after dealing with them before the wizard and the spider came back too. This time Kate tagged the spider with an arrow and as soon as it moved I dashed in to wallop the wizard.

The other quest was to recover five stolen Gryphons eggs and meant going back behind the same wall as the day before. As I mentioned at that time I'd tried to jump to the top of the wall from the nearby rocks, without any luck. This time Kate tried it but in a stroke of genius thought to do it on her Elekk, which moves 64% faster than we can on foot and appears to jump higher, and landed neatly on the top of the wall. From there it was just a matter of dropping down on the other side and fighting our way through some spiders and trolls.

The area behind the wall has three large pyramid-like structures with a stone staircase leading to the top of each; at the top of each structure there are three or four baddies, including a shadowcaster who'll conjure up a nasty-looking minion if given the chance. Three of the eggs are sitting in a tray partway up one of the pyramids and standing right next to them is a good guy with another quest (which means going to the Swamp of Sorrows - that makes two quests we have to go out there for). The other two eggs are sitting on an altar near the foot of the same pyramid.

We had quite a battle with one of the shadowcasters; he did a lot of damage, and at the same time his minion was attacking me from behind as another bad guy joined in. The damage took my health down fast and I wasn't watching closely enough - normally I'd have fired off a Divine Protection spell but I timed it badly, got wiped and had to run back from the boneyard near Aerie Peak. Other than that, though, the area wasn't too bad. Once we'd got all the eggs we went northeast to find the spot where we knew we could get out by going over the rocks, and went back to Aerie Peak to close out the two quests for a total of 13,000 XP. Not bad at all.

That cleared up all the quests in the Hinterlands that we could take on at the moment; there are more, but they're rated for level 48+ which is a bit beyond our reach right now, so we'll come back when we've each gained a couple more levels. We had another quest to close out - the one from the day before where we'd collected fifteen feathers. This meant a quick trip out to Rut'theran Village and got us another 6,060 points. After that we checked quests and found that Kate had picked up one in Ratchet that I didn't have, so we made a quick flight out there so I could get the same quest on my list. That quest is in the Barrens and with no pressing need to return to Ironforge, we checked into the inn in Ratchet for the night.

Feathers

2008-09-10T11:59:00.001-06:00

Kate didn't want to do the Scythe of Elune quest in Duskwood (I may end up running this one myself just to get it off the list) so we went back to the Hinterlands and cleared up a couple of quests.

The first was one we'd picked up in Rut'theran Village on Teldrassil; for that one we needed to pick up fifteen Wildkin Feathers each. It took a while; at first it went well because the feathers are large and out in plain sight, and we got about half the quota each fairly quickly. But then things slowed right down - it looks like each feather takes about thirty minutes to respawn so once we'd found all we could in the area all we could do was run back and forth, getting attacked by wolves and owlkins, until some started to reappear. Once they did, it only took a couple more circuits around the area to pick up the last few we needed.

The other quest was to find the remains of someone called Featherbeard and meant getting past the wall that runs northeast-to-southwest on the southern edge of the Hinterlands. At one point we'd thought it might be possible to jump onto the top of the wall by climbing up the cliffs and rocks at the southwestern end, but it seems to be just a bit too far to jump.

At the other end of the wall, however, you can climb up the rocks and drop down on the other side. There's a group of four baddies down there, all about level 45. One of them ran up the rocks and attacked Kate while she was mining a mithril vein on the rocks; he didn't last long, leaving just the three so I jumped down after one of them - a shadowcaster - thinking that she was far enough from the others that I wouldn't attract their attention. This didn't go as planned - one of the other two got a bit too close and came to see what the fuss was; at the same time the caster summoned a nasty-looking minion, so for a moment I was one against three. Kate jumped in pretty quick and between us we made short work of it. Kate took care of the last one while I reloaded on health and mana, then we carried on along a path that runs behind the wall.

Featherbeard (or rather, his body) was lying on a stone table on top of some sort of building. We were able to get what we needed, and by then it was getting late so we hearthstoned out.

Level 43

2008-09-09T10:33:00.000-06:00

We weren't terribly far off new levels and we had a good number of points toward them "banked" in that we had a handful of quests completed but not cashed in for points. So before we went a-bashing, we made a trip to Rut'theran Village on Teldrassil to close one out then took the long flight south to Gadgetzan to close out another two there. Well I had two; Kate had three because she'd whacked Caliph Scorpidsting a day or two ago, and I hadn't. It made sense for me to get that one done - among other things it delivers over 7000 XP - so we went out to try to find him.

One of the other quests we'd closed out led to another which meant knocking over shadowmages, rogues and assassins; these baddies were all in the same area as Scorpidsting and so we were able to deal with this one while we were searching for him. As it happened, though, there were other players looking for the same guy and basically getting under our feet. One in particular, a blood elf, was very annoying - jumping and running all around us, standing real close during the fights, and just being a general pest. But after a while he buggered off and I was finally able to get Scorpidsting to myself.

Once he'd been dealt with we had just a few of the other guys to clean up to finish that other quest and once they were done we rode back to Gadgetzan to close out (and I think it was the quest XP at this point that pushed Kate to level 44 and me to 43), clear the junk from our backpacks and get repairs done. By then it was past time to finish for the night and so we hearthstoned back to Ironforge.

With the extra level we're ready to start the quests that'll get us the mechanical chicken pets (yes, it sounds silly - but also fun, and that's what it's all about), but I think before we start out on that road we want to finish up some older quests; in particular I'd like to get done with the Scythe of Elune quest in deepest, darkest Duskwood then head east from there through Deadwind Pass to the Swamp of Sorrows to gather the stuff we need for a quest that was given to us in Dustwallow Marsh. We may do that today.

The Quest for the Robot Chicken

2008-09-08T11:19:00.000-06:00

Before we began...

My cooking and first aid skills have been coming along pretty nicely the last few days and are both up about as high as I can manage for the time being. Of the secondary skills that just leaves fishing somewhat wanting, so I may take some time out to address that. Or maybe not; I don't know that it's actually necessary, so I don't consider it a priority.

The primary skills have been lagging a bit, though. I can only advance mining/smelting by finding mithril ore and smelting it, and at the moment even smelting the stuff isn't getting me many points, so I need to get out and actually mine some of the stuff so that I can learn to mine higher-level minerals.

However I did spend some time yesterday, before we headed out, trying to advance my blacksmithing. As I've been gathering ore and smelting it I've been adding the metal bars to my collection in the bank, and I'd reached the point where the sixteen-slot bag I was holding them in was overflowing. I had over eighty bars of iron, for example. So I grabbed all the metal and took it over to the Great Forge and (literally) hammered through as many levels as I could, using high-level 'orange' plans to make as much stuff, and more importantly as many points, as I could, and at the same time free up some bank slot space. I started at level 147 and made 171 before I ran out of iron. I need to mine and smelt more iron, and perhaps some copper and tin for bronze, before I can go further. I think I have to get to 200 before I can train at the next level (Artisan, I think).

Anyway since all the stuff I made (and there was a lot of it) was free or pretty cheap (the ore is free; I had to buy some extras, such as flux, dye and leather), I was able to push it all out to the auction house on buyout at under market price. Hopefully I'll make some decent cash off the stuff, but if not I can always vendor it and get something back.

OOX-09/HL

I mentioned yesterday that when Kate hit level 43 I was just a couple of thousand points short of level 42 and went out into the wilds near Aerie Peak to whack a few wolves to make the level.

What I neglected to mention was that one of the wolves dropped an OOX-09/HL Homing Beacon; this thing is a quest starter, but it requires level 43 and so I had no idea what it did. So yesterday I did a little research and found out that it begins a quest chain that ends with you getting a neat little item - a mechanical chicken pet. It's only a pet - it can't help you out in a fight - but it sounds like a bit of fun to have. I mentioned it to Kate, and that set our plan; we had to go out and find another OOX-09/HL so that she could also have a pet mechanical chicken.

We flew from Ironforge direct to Aerie Peak and headed out east. According to the information I'd looked up the homing beacon was a rare drop from the owlbeasts but since I'd got one from a wolf we started with the ones in the area I'd been in at the time (WoWWiki didn't mention the wolves dropping any; I should set up an account and correct that). We spent a while in that area without any luck so we made our way southeast toward an area where we knew there were a lot of owlbeasts.

We whacked some owlbeasts and I found another OOX; that was a mistake. The damn thing binds on pickup and the beast carrying it was my tag - there was no way Kate could get hold of it. Having learned a lesson we grouped up and I set for free-for-all looting.

We whacked away for a good while - at least we got some good XP along the way since the owlbeasts and wolves were mostly level 42-44 - but we didn't find another OOX. By then we were running out of time and about to pack it in when a Silvermane Wolf dropped another OOX. Kate grabbed it; mission accomplished. We hearthstoned straight back to Ironforge and that was that for the night. Next trip, we have four or five quests that we can close out and that may give us enough XP to push us up another level, or at least be very close so that it won't take long to make the difference. As soon as I get to level 43 we're going on the hunt for the Robot Chicken.

Questing all over the World, part 2

2008-09-07T14:22:00.003-06:00

Arathi Highlands

We started this time by going back to Arathi to deal with the Rod of Order, which meant taking it to the Circle of Inner Binding and clearing a path through the rumbling exiles to the obelisk in the middle. We touched the Rod to the Obelisk, the ground shook, and the next thing we knew there was a level 42 giant standing next to us. Luckily for us, unlike Fozruk this one didn't have an entourage of kobold minders and so wasn't a problem to deal with. The next step in that quest chain means talking to Gerrig Bonegrip back in Ironforge so that went on the list for later and we headed west.

Before we'd left Ironforge this time I'd done a little checking on where to find the things we needed for the 'cooking' quest in Gadgetzan - giant eggs, Alterac cheese and zesty clams - and saved us some time by pre-buying what I could. I'd made a quick solo flight to Stormwind for the cheese, and got all the clams and most of the eggs from the auctions. All that left us needing was three eggs each, and one suggestion was to take them from Owlbeasts in The Hinterlands.

The Hinterlands

The Hinterlands was an area we've been wanting to explore but it was too high-level for us the first time we went in. This time I was up to 41 and Kate was at 42 which put us into the right range, and the place is pretty close to Arathi so off we went through Thoradin's Wall into the Hillsbrad Foothills and north through the woods, and we found ourselves in Aerie Peak.

We took on a handful of quests from the people there and headed east into the Hinterlands to take care of those and find our eggs. The quests involved thinning out some of the wolves, opening some cages where the local Witherbark baddies might be holding a rather important captured Gryphon, and taking the necklaces from those same Witherbark Trolls. While we did that we found the owlbeasts we were looking for and got the last handful of eggs we needed.

By the time we'd done that Kate had made level 43 and I was very close to 42 so I went back out solo to whack a few more wolves to make up the difference, and with that done we went up the path to the flightmaster up in the highest part of Aerie Peak to get a flight to Menethil Harbour and from there we caught the boat to Theramore.

Tanaris

From Theramore we flew directly to Gadgetzan and closed out the cooking quest by handing over the ingredients we'd gathered, then we spent a little time roaming the little town to see what was there. I was surprised to find not only a bank but also an auction house - but it's a neutral auction house and as far as I could tell only had a few hundred items up for sale, compared to the Alliance auction house that typically has over twenty thousand.

Tanaris is about the same level as the Hinterlands - high enough to be a challenge and be good for XP but not so high as to make a trip into the wilds a suicide run - so we decided to take on a few quests and explore a little. We headed east along the road toward Steamwheedle Port on the coast but before we'd got very far we ran across some Wastewander Thieves and Bandits that one of the quests wanted us to knock over and we ended up heading south into their territory.

We cleared up the numbers required by the quest, then Kate suggested going after the pirate Andre Firebrand (another quest, from a Wanted poster in Gadgetzan) since according to our information he wasn't too far from where we were. Here we got into a bit of trouble because as we made our way in the direction of his Pirate enclave we encountered scorpids, basilisks and other creatures of higher and higher levels until we began seeing things that were level 47 and above. We managed to find our way around to the Pirate enclave and we even got inside the compound; Kate pinged one of the level 45 baddies with her bow, hoping that we could deal with these guys one at a time, but he dragged one of his mates along; we weren't doing too bad but then one of them ran off to get help and we weren't quick enough to stop him and a few seconds later we had another three or four of them all over us and that was the end.

By this time it was getting late, so we resurrected just outside the enclave fence and hearthstoned ourselves back to Ironforge. Not a bad trip at all - a good number of quests taken care of, another level up for both of us and we're both now masters at cooking so we can make some things that'll really help. We have more open quests in both the Hinterlands and Tanaris, so we have to decide which we want to take care of first the next trip, or whether we want to go somewhere else - we have an open quest I'd like to take care of that means going through Deadwind Pass and out to the Swamp of Sorrows; two more areas we've never been to and that I'd like to explore.

Questing all over the World

2008-09-06T19:16:00.002-06:00

Arathi Highlands

We started out by flying to Refuge Pointe with the intention of finding Fozruk the giant and taking the Rod of Order from him. Fozruk's path takes him over a wide area so I started off by trying to locate him, the idea being to keep track of him until Kate could get there.

I found Fozruk not far from the Circle of East Binding - he and his three kobold friends were moseying along in the general direction of Refuge Pointe. However his path took him through the Circle of Outer Binding and I didn't want to get into a fight with the elementals there and fall behind, so I circled around the south side. When I got to the other side, though, he didn't show up. I have no idea how I lost him.

Anyway I met up with Kate and we followed the road west, all the way to the Circle of West Binding, and still didn't find him so we went back eastward. Kate found him, not too far from where I'd lost him earlier. I guess because Fozruk is in demand, we weren't the only players in the area so things got a little confusing. I knocked down two of Fozruk's kobold hangers-on and was about to join in with the giant-whacking but by the time I got there it was too late - he'd already gone down.

We picked up the Rod of Order but rather than continue on with it to the Circle of Inner Binding we decided to get back to Theramore and continue with some of the quests in Dustwallow Marsh.

Dustwallow Marsh

Our first quest was to report to North Point Tower; the guy there wanted us to go on to Tabetha's Farm.

Before we did that I for one needed spider meat, so we went west to the Darkmist Cavern. We spent a long time there - I think more than half the time this session was spent here. Kate in particular gathered a huge amount of mithril and iron and between us we gathered enough spider meat to last us quite some time.

When we were done there we carried on down to Tabetha's Farm and got a couple more quests that involved going to the village of the Grimtotem Taurens (who it turned out had been responsible for burning down the Shady Rest Inn while two people were inside). Burning down all their tents, for one thing, and gathering seven Grimtotem armaments. It didn't take long and the next step was to take the news back to Theramore.

We didn't do that right away - the long stretch of fighting in the caves earlier meant that our packs were getting full and we needed repairs, so we went back to Ironforge to take care of those things before returning to Theramore on the boat.

In Theramore we closed out the last couple of quests from the chain that had started at Shady Rest Inn - putting flowers on the graves of the victims, which was a rather moving touch for a game.

We flew back to Mudsprocket and from there went out to the Den of Flame to take care of a couple of quests for Brogg the two-headed Ogre. One quest was to use a totem that he'd given us to gather Black Dragonkin Essence; the other was to collect a banner that he wanted.

The Den is full of level 39-41 Dragonkin and they respawn rapidly. Also the den itself isn't very big inside so it didn't take long to find the banner and to get the essence that we needed. With that done we went back to Mudsprocket to close out. I think that means we only have a couple more quests in the area, and at least two of the oustanding quests mean travelling to other regions (for one, we have to find The Swamp of Sorrows in the Eastern Kingdoms).

Tanaris

We had two open quests in Tanaris, and with so many quests cleared in Dustwallow we were ready to make our way out there, so off we went; from Mudsprocket north along the road then west into The Barrens, south to the Big Lift and into Thousand Needles. At the lift, one of the guards decided to attack and just for fun I jumped - forgetting that Kate had set to follow me automatically. As I thought, we ended up as ghosts at the graveyard just a few yards from where we'd 'landed'.

Thousand Needles is a weird looking place - basically a gorge filled with flat-topped spires of sandstone-like rock. This time we went southeast from the lift until we reached a point where the spires ended and we came out into a huge open area - the Shimmering Flats, which looks like a salt flat.

The road to Tanaris took us across the flats, with a small detour to the Mirage Raceway. Apparently the Gnomes and the Goblins have races here every month; that's something I'd like to see. This time in though, there was nothing going on so after a little exploration we continued south across the flats and into Tanaris.

The first thing you see coming down the road on the south side of the hills separating Thousand Needles from Tanaris is Gadgetzan - a neutral town primarily occupied ny goblins. We had a quest here - to find the chef who would be able to advance our cooking skills. However, it wasn't quite as simple as that - he wanted us to go out and gather a dozen Roc eggs first.

Tanaris is a sandy desert; there's very little out there apart from things that look like Hyenas and Scorpions. It's also a relatively high-level area; most of the creatures I saw were level 43, give or take a level.

We scouted around a bit, but only came across two rocs and neither dropped any eggs. By this time it was getting late; we'd covered a lot of gound and gained a level (I'm now 41) so we decided to call it a day and head back to Ironforge.

Dustwallow Marsh

2008-09-05T09:57:00.000-06:00

I headed right out to the Circle of West Binding and whacked away at the Fire Elementals; thanks to the rest bonus I got 400+ XP for each one and although I didn't time it I think it took about twenty minutes to hit level 40.

By that time Kate had gone on ahead of me to Theramore so I flew back to Ironforge, dumped the vendor trash, put the Burning Charms from the elementals in the mail to Kate, got my stuff repaired then hit the Paladin Trainer. I always get all the training I can, regardless of the price, on the basis that you never know what you're going to need. In this case I picked up upgrades to a bunch of skills plus a new aura, and the main thing I was after - the ability to use Plate Mail.

Next stop was the auction house. I was planning to spend some time to get a good combination of kit but with Kate already out at Dustwallow Marsh I wanted to be quick, so I just picked up a new plate belt and breastplate - both pretty cheap, or at least well below market price - then took off for Menethil and the boat to Theramore.

There were two more quick stops in Theramore: one to grab some arrows for Kate, then a visit to the Trauma Surgeon to learn how to make Runecloth bandages (so now I need to find some Runecloth to push my First Aid up to 290). That done, I rode out to meet Kate near the Bloodhoof village in the northeast.

Kate was whacking level 36-37 raptors and we knew we could do better so we rode out to the west side of the marsh with the intention of finding the level 40-41 mobs we knew were out there. On the way we found a spot (just west of the road to the south of Brackenwall Village) where we could take care of two quests - one to gather some feathers from raptors, and another to take down one particular raptor. It took a while because only maybe one raptor out of three would drop the feathers we needed (we needed five each), but the boss raptor we were after was, despite the fact that he was huge, only level 39 and didn't take long to knock over.

Both of those quests had come from NPCs in Mudsprocket so we made that the next stop and closed those out. We had another outstanding quest - to pick up eight stalks of Wyrmtail, a herb that grows in the area just south of the settlement - so we headed out and took care of that one too.

While out in that area I noticed an area - an island, really - that was wall-to-wall with level 41-42 Dragonkin. These looked very like the creatures we'd seen out in northeast Ashenvale (like the one that had wiped Kate in two seconds with a single spit of poison). For a minute I considered taking one on but these guys stay so close together that I didn't think I could do it without attracting others, so I decided to leave them for later. In any case, they're gathered together in some kind of camp and my guess is we'll get a quest that'll mean taking them on sooner rather than later.

We ran back to Mudsprocket to close out the Wyrmtail quest then flew back to Theramore - Kate wanted me to show her the vendor that sold the good arrows, since they're actually hard to find. This particular vendor is very close to the flightmaster and sells arrows for characters up to level 55.

While we were in Theramore I vendored some of the trash items I'd picked up and got repairs done. By then it was getting pretty late and I was thinking of just checking into the inn right there, but Kate wanted to check the auction house and I want to do that first thing on the next trip, so we hearthstoned back to Ironforge and left things there for the night.

Almost to level 40

2008-09-04T10:18:00.001-06:00

We spent a little time looking at new talent builds for Kate's Warrior, to see how the points might be better distributed to increase her damage. I came up with a build the way I would do it, but I have to admit that since I've never had a Warrior character I can't say that it would be the best way - Kate knows better than me how she uses her Rage points and fighting skills during a battle, and I can only guess. All the same I think that what I put together would boost her damage and increase the rage points. It would be nice if the WoW Armoury pages would let you experiment by applying a talent build to a character to see how your damage is affected, but it doesn't do that, so the only way to know what the impact would be is to try the build out and see what happens.

At least it's not too expensive - for my own character I decided to move a couple of points and spend them where they'd be more useful, and to do that I just needed to go to a Paladin trainer and unlearn - it cost one gold and gave me blank talent trees and thirty points to spend. I'd printed out the original build and marked up the changes I wanted to make, having first checked them out using the online talent calculator, and it took just a minute to drop the points in place the way I wanted.

Thanks to a pile of Mageweave Cloth that Kate found for me, I was able to push my First Aid skill up to 240; to advance I needed to see the Trauma Surgeon in Theramore again, so I made a quick trip out there to take care of that.

Kate's been spending most of her time in the auction house, since she's been doing a lot of auctioning and so on, and she was still busy taking care of business so from Theramore I headed back out to the Arathi Highlands to push on toward level 40. As before I spent a while whacking Rumbling Exiles around the Circle of Inner Binding, but after a bit I decided on a change of scenery and took a horse ride to the Circle of East Binding not too far from Hammerfall. The elementals there are Cresting Exiles and tend to drop Enchanted Water (which replenishes a lot of mana) and Cresting Charms which would go to Kate - there's a Warrior-only quest she may get that you need the charms for.

I was hoping to hammer on through all the way to level 40 but I was running out of time and ended up having to cut it short. I went back to Ironforge, vendored a bunch of the junk I'd picked up and put a couple of items up for auction, then gathered some more of the Mageweave Cloth that I'd left in the bank and pushed my First Aid up to 260. The next step to advance that skill means going back to the trauma surgeon for training in how to make Runecloth bandages and at that point I'll have to see about getting hold of some runecloth before I can go much higher. I could have run back out to Theramore but it was getting late so I'll take care of that next time.

All the same I didn't do too bad - I started off 27,000 points short of level 40 and left off needing around 8,000. I should be able to make that in about twenty minutes so by this time tomorrow I should have that level and hopefully be re-equipped with better armour and weapons.

Grinding for XP

2008-09-03T10:50:00.000-06:00

We didn't do much of anything this time - Kate spent most of the time looking for good equipment to give her Warrior the best possible stats, and meanwhile I flew out to Arathi again to whack some more Rumbling Exiles around the Circle of Inner Binding, purely to gather more XP to get me up to level 40. I'm now only about 27,000 points short of that target, and as soon as I get the level-up I'll be able to use Plate armour - my plan is to completely re-equip at that point with the best weapons and armour I can afford.

I could have spent longer in the area but I felt like I'd done enough for one session and flew back to Ironforge. I did make a short trip out, to take a look inside Gnomeregan - we have a quest or two down there but the main reason for going was pure curiosity since I've never been there before. I didn't spend long, only making my way as far as some kind of train station and making a short foray inside the instance portal. I don't know that it's worth bothering with - like the Deadmines it's full of relatively low-level elites (I was attacked by five at one point and although it was a close thing I was still the Last Lifeform Standing) so you can whack away at dozens of them and not get any XP, and I didn't pick up any dropped goodies better than some silk, linen and wool (although I did find a handful of some kind of unidentified dirt-encrusted objects which appear to be quest objects and may be worth something).

Next trip I'm planning to make a big push on XP (probably in Arathi again, but we'll see - Dustwallow Marsh has quite a few level 40-41 beasts, and frankly grinding in the same area over and over gets old pretty quick).

Talent Scout

I did a little bit of research to try to figure out why Kate was having the problem with her damage and it looks like my analysis was right - the majority of Kate's talent points have been used in the Protection tree (Warriors have talents in Arms, Fury and Protection of which Arms appears to be the one related to damage). I'm betting that rebuilding the tree with most of the points in Arms will do the trick, but there's no way to know until we try it.

One thing I did know is that unlearning your talents costs money, and it costs more each time you do it - but I had no idea what that cost is. As it happens it's not too bad; the first time you do it, it costs one gold, the next time it's five. Each time after that it goes up by five gold to a maximum of fifty. The price goes back down again over time, at the rate of five gold per month until it hits a minimum of fifteen. The point is that right now it's affordable, so what we could do is rebuild Kate's talents and if it doesn't work out it wouldn't be a great loss to unlearn them and set them back the way they are now.

In fact for that price I may rebuild my own talents - for the most part they're how I want them but I do have two points on a talent that really doesn't do me much good and would be better spent elsewhere, and I certainly don't mind paying one thin gold to have things exactly the way I'd like them.