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

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

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Level 76

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

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

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.