The levelling-game.

After a long journey, that started way back when Cataclysm was out for a few months, three dwarfs and two gnomes have finally reached their intended goal. Last monday, after a three-hour-run, they took the last hurdle, and took the last two levels. Class Act is now level 85.

Lurche reaching 85, the others followed fast.

The strange part is of course, that Innovation already has the Class Act-Achievement. When Class Act reached 50 orso, my own gnome rogue reached 85,  and others have made the extra bank-slot available long ago, but Class Act is sort of a different thing, having some fun with guilds in lower levels.  The point is to reach level 90 before WoD, which seems possible.....

Reaching level 85 on Lurche, also puts me on the last 5 levels I can get on Argent Dawn. And because Argent Dawn is a full server, there will be no connected realms, so no more character slots for me. Which is a shame, because I wouldn't mind levelling a new character in either Innovation, or Single Abstract Noun. And yes, I still find this somewhat unfair, the fact that some people can have more then 11 characters sending mail and stuff to each others, while others can't.

I know, that when WoD releases, I have another 110 levels to level, but speaking from experience, this is what probably will happen; Mardah (if that remains my raiding character), will be levelled to 100 a.s.a.p. Because they stated that Garrisons will be available at level 90, I will probably get all my Alliance alts there a.s.a.p., but the first month will be focused on Mardah, to get her ready for raiding, so getting reputation and gear and stuff. 

Somewhere three weeks in, I will start levelling one Alliance Character, and one Horde Character for the Lore. That means I will do every quest with them in all zones, so they will probably be enchanters to get stuff for enchanting (So, yes, Gowron). This will not be that fast, as I am still focused on Mardah. After a month or two I will have probably have three level 100's, or very close, and I start to think about which professions I really miss at 100, and I will then level 1 or 2 other characters.

Gowron preparing to slaughter Illidan...again

Now, while the first three characters that levelled had mostly no idea what was where considering quest, with number 4 and 5, I will probably know where to go. That kind of levelling goes fast for me. I just sit down for a day, and tick of the quests, racing around, and if it is a little bit like last time, those will be levelled in a month. So after three months, around the release of patch 6.1 I guess, I will have 5 lvl100's, and I probably do not want to level anything anymore for a month  :).

Because there is only so much different stuff you can do at max level, it will become boring again somewhere...and my addiction starts again.... but I really do not want to level through Old D. so soon, so I make an alt in Innovation to happily run around in lower levels to...oooh..wait.... no slots left, so I have to either level on a different server, and not with my friends!! (the catchphrase for WoD it seems), or delete a character. Yes I can also transfer a character... but that costs cash, which I don't seem to have much of these days :(

Oh...  and from experience, after transferring a character I almost don't play them anymore, because my friends (them again) are not there. There is the rare exception, when I just don't want be in Innovation, and I play somewhere else, but mostly transferred characters sit quietly on a sever, far far away. And yes, I cannot bring myself to delete those..  or any other char I played for a while.

Gowron getting his second OH-Glaive, which he still can't use.

So, I hope Blizzard will actually let go of the cap on characters per server. For players playing this game so long, it really starts to feel like a stupid cap now. And now you are also giving people a free 90, and possible the option to buy lvl90's. Yay, I get a free 90, mmm what should I do with that?

Alt Appreciation: Warrior

And wrapping up the Alt Appreciation started by World of Lae.  This week:  Warriors

Warriors, the bane of levelling for a long while. And the only acceptable tanks during Vanilla WoW. For a long while I actually didn't had a warrior above lvl 20, why? Because they died to easily. At low level, they could tear down one enemy without problem, shredding them to pieces, but if you managed to accidentally pull two, to *gasp* even more, you'd better run.

It wasn't until me and 2 friends levelled a little together. I created Whiteheart, a dwarves Warrior-Tank. Somewhere during the ICC-summer, I made him a Troll called Whiteyyama, and just before Cata hit, he reached 80.

When I joined Innovation, a lot of my alts followed, so the troll became a dwarf again, this time called Stoneheart. He has been my main-alchemist for the last tree years now, although he has been joined by two others now to have all 3 masteries.

Stoneheart between golden flowers...

I do like playing him, but there is a little problem, he is melee. I really don't like all the hugging up, you almost can't see you character anymore. That, and the fact that you can hardly see what is bad stuff, and what is spell-stuff from your teammates, well, don't expect me to do 25man with a melee often.

This concludes the Alt Appreciation-posts. Not only did I wrote 11 posts, I also started blogging...  again... lets see how long I can keep the two posts per week up .

Thanks Lae for the idea, and no, this is by far not the last post on alts  :p

Two servers become one?

So, it is already happening for a time, but I didn't really had any thoughts about it, and when I though about writing something about it, with intend to gather more alts, I wrote down the title, and suddenly the post I wanted to write changed.

It would have been about the fact that a merged server actually means more place for alts, but that bigger servers probably wouldn't be merged, so people on a larger server will have less alts.

But then I wrote down the title, and now I am questioning myself if some servers actually can be merged, and I am not talking technical, more psychological.

Mardah and her army of alts lives on Argent Dawn. AD is a Role Playing Server. Now that doesn't mean everyone does role play. There are enough pure-PVE and pure-PvP players on the server, but there's also a lot of roleplaying going on....well..at least I think there is.

Fact is, I am not that a big role-player. I did participate in some random roleplaying, mostly by being a random bystander. But in those cases, I was remembered that I was on a RP-server, some random stuff can happen suddenly, enjoy it I would say...well..unless you go to Goldshire.

Now I don't really know if merging another server with AD would work. Blizzard already stated that RP-servers wouldn't be mixed with non-RP-servers, but still, merging two different societies can have some problems.

Players will have different opinions, and instead of 3 blood-elf guilds trying to run Silvermoon, you will 6 I guess (Side-note: why are there still Kael-Thas statues there).

Oh wait, reads before the side-note, It may actually be more interesting I guess, a larger influx of role-plays with slightly different ideas may actually spice things up  :0

But back to my original idea for this blog now, Argent Dawn is a pretty huge server, so I actually have no idea if it will be merged, and at the moment my gold would go to 'No'. Which means I will not have access to more alt-spots.

Lorinthe trying to breach the dimensions between worlds.

Remember they said the two servers would works as one. So basically, if you live on one of those servers, you suddenly would get access too 22 character-slots (or 33, if it's tri-joined).

Now, to be honest, I haven't...and actually can't test if you can actually make 22 characters on two merged servers, but as far as I know, they didn't said it wouldn't be possible.

So, now I am going to throw a card, I hardly play...the 'I pay the same as everyone else, so I should be able to do the same' .  Do min, I did use 'able', and at this moment I think everyone is able to do everything gamewise, although for some it may take a little longer, the option is there.

Now if AD wouldn't be merged, I actually will have 11 character-slots less then someone on a merged server, and for me, with only 17 levels to go for 11 level 90's on Argent Dawn, that is a big deal...

I actually like playing lower levels, but I also like them to be in Innovation (or their channel). In the past I did actually transferred high level characters of to other servers, to play lower level again. But that has just become to expensive.

So, yeah, one solution is, something that Blizzard has mentioned before, just scrapping the limit on characters on servers (although the total-limit would remain 50). But I would love to actually increase the size of my army of alts...and maybe start a lower level Horde again with Single Abstract Noun.

Alt Appreciation : Warlocks

Continuing the Alt Appreciation started by World of Lae.  This week:  Warlocks

So, yeah, warlocks. I played one during the ICC-summer. An Orc Affliction Warlock named Cymar. No idea how I came by with that name. But, being three years ago, I have no memory of playing him. But I did reach levelcap back then, so here he is..  (for own reference, maybe it is time I actually started tagging posts so I can find stuff)

Cymar looking gloomy in Thunderbluff 

Somewhere the last 3 years, I also made another Warlock on Argent Dawn. If this happened before Cymar was send of, or after, no idea. But this one became a human female. She was put into the guild 'When Elekks Fly'. This guild is used by me and a friend of mine to store various materials sometimes needed to level up professions.

So I played her a little bit, especially to look at some of the new zones during cataclysm. She was never heirloomed out, although I had access to those, and very slowly she levelled up. Being played sometimes when I felt to it, but mostly as Bank/AH-alt.

About a month or two ago she reached Outlands. Now because I know those zones very, very well, I went dungeoning with her, but that totally blew me off, so I finally heirloomed her out, so she...ell not sure actually..  no professions, no goal.. until I figured out I could use a third Alchemist in my Alt-army for making flasks (already having a transmute and a pot-master)

Lorinthe sans Heirlooms

@Dalaran

Last wednesday I wrote about her being 69, so that is probably her level in the picture above, and then I started doing the halloween stuff. Travelling with her all over Azeroth. And after a lot of travelling...and gaining a level through exploring/opening pumpkins, I got myself a title wordy of a Warlock.

 

After that, I just went on, I levelled her up, found some masks, and levelled her to 83 to get the deepholm and vashjir pumpkins. But 83 to 85 doesn't seem that much... actually, the levels between 70 and 85 costed me about 1 hour to 90 minutes. So 4 hours later, Lorinthe was on her way to Pandaria, for the last Pumpkins

I was worried that I could not get into all areas, but that was actually not the problem. There is a wall-acces in Kun-Lai, the Shado-Pan Fallback, where you can get up the wall, and then jump into Valley of the four Winds. So, I was going to get all the achievements for this Halloween...  I got to the Klaxxi, the temple of the Ox, the invasion of Trolls, all pumpkins where mine...except for Westwind Rest...

Westwind Rest is the little town you unlock after several quests in Kun-Lai, before that it is a burning hell hole...  without pumpkin. So now I had to reach level 87 to actually get those quest. So I set off, and surely enough within two hours I reached 86, hurray, 2 more and I can get that last pumpkin....well..no.. that took about 5 hours... oh well.

Lorinthes bank after Halloween

It will probably take me a few more weekends to reach level 90 with her, but then she will be my eight level 90 character, and happily joining my army of manufacturing alts.

(oh, btw, I had a vacation last week, that's why I could level her that fast)

Next week, the masters of Rage, the Warriors....

Alt Appreciation: Shaman

Continuing the Alt Appreciation started by World of Lae.  This week:  Shamans

Shamans, totem-throwers, master of the elements, and I even levelled two of them to the (then) max level. First up, the one I levelled during the now infamous ICC-summer, in Single Abstract Noun.

Cloudcaller

I may be mistaken, but as far as I recall, this was actually the character with which I first joined Single Abstract Noun. I have no idea what his spec was, but I do know I did some Role Playing with him. Listening to tales of the Loa, visiting a fight-tournament in the STV-arena.

I also remember that during Cataclysm, I actually walked with him from Ogrimmar to his birthplace in Feralas...yes walked... and got horrible stuck when he fell into the chasm between north and south barrens.  The pictures are somewhere on my hard-drive, one of the projects never finished.

But this character is for me how I played in Single Abstract Noun, a little levelling, a little Roleplaying, and a lot of talking...  the catchphrase for the guild was '... the guild where nothing gets done, because everyone is talking'

My second Shaman is alliance, and currently my best geared alt:

Verulani

I have no idea where she came from, it is probably buried somewhere in my blog-history, but she may actually been one of my earliest alts. She is now my enchanter/tailor, supporting Mardah. She is also my best geared alt, and I actually did Heroic Stone MSV with her.

She was one of my characters that started my transmog-sets. Although the set is fairly well know, and often seen, my transmog has some nice oddities mostly not seen in combination with the rest. First is the shield, which actually made me do this transmog. It's a reward from the north-western-plaguelands quest in the alliance city.

Th shoulders are from the bug-bosses in AQ40, this on from the one easiest killed...so hardest to get. Try keeping that one alive...I also have a set for weapon transmogs, shown is the dagger of Julie or something. I also have a big axe, and a hammer.

She was enhancement until she killed the LFR-Deathwing enough times for two of his axes, and then went Elemental. I actually considered making her my main starting Pandaria, but it is a little bit hazy why that didn't happen. And in the months to come, she will probably be played more, while we wait on the next expansion.

Next week, the dark arts...

Alt Appreciation: Rogues

Continuing the Alt Appreciation started by World of Lae.  This week:  Rogues

So..yeah..rogues, I did mentioned I didn't like Holy Power... because I don't like Combo-point actually. And rogues are also in the middle of all the stuff around a boss, so, yeah, not my favourite class to play with, although low-level PvP is fun. I am pretty sure I got some achievements by guarding flag rooms.

My first rogue was a Krid. We where levelling with 5 friends, we all rolled orcs, that all looked the same, and named them Kridek,Kridok,Kridik,Kridek and Kridak..... but that was a long time ago on Ghostlands.

The other two rogue are both from AD, although one is been stationed somehwere else.  Lamars was levelled during wrath, and I actually did a weekly raid with him. Actually, I think I levelled that one when I was in a depression...  depression-rogue...

One of my current farmers is Tiramuria. Happily providing some scribe-functions to my characters. I levvelled her, and put her on sun song...  although she has some timeless stuff now. It's just that I am not really a rogue-person....  well, I always have the pictures:

Alt Appreciation : Priests

Continuing the Alt Appreciation started by World of Lae.  This week:  Priests

..and back on track..barely... today we take a look at Ezrila, the only priest I ever levelled high enough to even mention, and actually (together with warriors) the class I had the most difficulty with getting to level 80 back in Wrath. This probably was due to the low-survavibility, priest do have healing spells, but at low level, their spells used to be 'lacking'...

Now where did the name Ezrila came from. It is a name I used before. The female Bloodelf paladin at level 70 from last post was the first I called that. I am pretty sure some other paladins from me are also called that, although these days I tend to find new names, rather then re-uisng existing alt-names. But Ezrila, named after Ezri Dax... I did tell I was a Star Trek Fan?  Ezri was taken, so I added La...and apparently not many use that name.

I don't know for sure, but I think Ezrila was one of my 'ICC-Summer'-alts in Single Abstract Noun. As far as I remember I levelled her as a Disco-priest. I do know that before the 4th of november 2010 she reached level 80, and was trying to make a ROFL-copter, she is an engineer, so she needs one.

How do I know that specific date, well..  I am (still) playing with a MacBook Pro, and World of Warcraft has a build-in movie-maker in the Mac-version, so I was experimenting with that, and behold:

But this was the end of ICC-summer, and within 2 months after this video, Single Abstract Noun emptied..  and my Alliance-days started in Innovation. Somehwere during Cataclysm, I transferred her over to the Alliance-side, did some DS-LFR with her. And with a twitch, after having so much trouble actually levelling her, she was my third or fourth to reach 90. She now spends most of her days farming ore, although I sometimes take her shadow-ing in an LFR or dungeon....

Next week, it is time for Tiramuria and Lamars, my rouges...rrr...rogues.

Alt Appreciation: Paladins

Continuing the Alt Appreciation started by World of Lae.  This week:  Paladins

Well.. and suddenly I miss a week, so I also have to do Priests somewhere this week, but here are my Paladins...well... most of them.

First of course, my still most played character, Gowron, the Tankadin...  still played sometimes, but mostly for Lore-reasons. As you see above, he has some of the timeless gear, mostly because I am swimming in those.

Here is on of my farmers, literally. Timicin the Holydin...although he is in Retri-gear on this pic...mm..  why did I do that. Timicin is a BS/JC, and I actually made him two years back, because I saw myself healing in MoP....well..that didn't happen. He is now farming ore, making trillium ingots and making gems for Mardah...a lot.

I also used to have a lvl70 Retridin during TBC, but that was on a different account, which I don't have anymore...  but I did find a picture of here, together with Gowron.... yes, I even used two PC's back then.

As a bonus, because I maybe just liked Paladins that much, here are some more alts, running around in 20-30 bracket.

Alt Appreciation : Monks

Continuing the Alt Appreciation started by World of Lae.  This week:  Monks...

Oh-o..Monks, so, yeah, now I have a little problem. Looking through all my alts, I encountered 2 Monks. One lvl-12 Horde Panda, and one Tauren. The Panda was made to see the panda-start-zone. The Tauren because I wanted to see a Tauren roll.

Some months ago, I actually had a Dwarf Monk on Argent Dawn. That one made it to level 50-something, but I grew tired of the hit-to-heal mechanic, so he was deleted. But now, how to make a post about monks, when you don't have a monk.

So, here is the story of Doiral. Her first ten levels. Yes, Doiral, I actually wanted to name her Dorial, but I misspelled...  but Do-iral doesn't sound that bad. I made her a Draenai, mostly because it has been a while I was in that starting zone...  and the idea is that I eventually take her through the Alliance level 20-30 zones to see what happens there (in kalimdor). So...  logging in...  some story about the 'current' state of events, and tadaa..there she is.

Oh, yeah...Add-on-clutter all over the screen... so some clicks later, Doiral is ready to take her first quests.

Her second quest is killing some Vale Moths, here she is, hitting the moth for 15, wow. And after setting the loot on auto-loot...  (why isn't that standard), she is murdering the local wildlife.

Oh, look, new NPC here, a Panda:

And here comes the moment my memory is catching up, the Blood Elves are not hostile....  so the named mob can be pulled alone...

It is not, until I reach the second quest-hub, that Doiral encounters her first Hostile Mob...which is turned into some leather scraps quickly.

Ahem..../blush... that's what you get when you don't look around... I stumbled upon a pack of nightstalkers...  and they outnumbered me 3 to 1..

And tadaa, here she is, level 10, ready for more killing...and she didn't even do the furlborg-quests...

I did find questing with the monk fairly pleasant. I have no idea if a mist weaver actually gets healing spells later on, haven't seen them yet. Now, I am hoping Argent Dawn will be teamed up with another realm (which remains to be seen). Because then I can make more alts...


Next week...  My paladins will storm you all, remember the former subtitle of this blog:

Tankadin at Heart

So..we heared your alts had it though?

The timeless Isle, where Timeless refers to lag I guess...

There are so many people running around, that everything dies within seconds, see a rare, quick tag it, it will die in 10 seconds, after which it takes 40 seconds to loot the Epoch Stone....

I do like the minimap-sumbol for a rare, and I heard from a Big Butt source that it also works for all the rares in the world now.

I did get my legendary cloak fairly easy. Stand in the arena and wait till your faction tagged all four once (and get a Tier-pants in the progress), run around killing rares and opening chest and do some quests to get 5000 coins was fast enough. Get some backstory, and tadaa... Legendary with wings.

After the small story from Cho (He is out to kill us), back to the Isle, to kill the only-if-you-have-the-legendary-on-any-character-boss Ordos...Ordos... weren't they the green faction in Dune 2? I think I may have been in the first group of people that killed him on Argent Dawn. I know the group was forming for a while, like more then an hour, before I got my cloak.  The boss itself is a pushover. About the same health as the Sha of Loot, and with less strannge abilities. Some firey stuff, some exploding stuff.

Ooh..and opening chests on the Isle, I'll tell you, before the end of the wekend, when all my alts have travelled to the isle, all my alts will be near Ilvl 396. There is so much BoA-loot that drops, that I already have some gear for low-level alts, if they ever reach 90....

And then there is a thing to upgrade a token tot 535..  which I ried on a ring...  that wasn't a succes. The ring was worse then the upgraded shadopan-ring...  ala, maybe try it on a BoA-trinket later on. Having enough alts, means enough tokens to do that.

So, yeah, we heard you didn't like how all your alts didn't get enough time to get loot... well..here it is. The Lag-Island of loot.

Oh, and Innovation started to raid. So, wednesday we tested flex...with a full-blown raidgroup of 25... yeah..  well, it helped us last night..but that's another story.

Alt Appreciation : Mage

Continuing the Alt Appreciation started by World of Lae.  This week:  Mages

I should call this the Lurche's I guess. Yes that does sound awfully familiar to the URL, and one of the two actually had that name for a long time. So let's see what happened...and where did the other Lurche came from?

Lurge
Undead Mage-Frost
Current level: 83
Reached max level in TBC and Wrath.
Born: Ghostlands
Moved to Argent Dawn, renamed Lurche, then moved to Steamweedle cartel

Lurge has been around a long time, and in my mind he will be called Lurge, not Lurche. It's a little bit unclear to me when I actually started to play him. It must have been in '07, because I remember that I actually had him in another guild then Retribution. Not that that lasted long. Somewhere he joined XII, and was my second character to reach level 40..then 50, 60 and 70. I even did a raid or two with him in Karazhan. If you notice the gear on the pic down here, you see he was a tailor.

After my raiding-days where over, he was transferred, just like most of my toons, to Single Abstract Noun on Argent dawn..where I had to Frenchify his name a little bit. I had some more fun times with him, but at the start of data, I went Alliance, and he was sort of left behind.  He had to move to another server becasue of a new Lurche, but, I did play with him later in the expansion. I just love the way undead cast frost bolts.

Here is a picture of Lurge, the undead Frost mage.

Now, to the other mage...  

Lurche

Dwarveb Mage-Frost

Current level: 77

Part of Innovation's Class Act

Born: Argent Dawn

So, yeah, the dorf Mage, where did he came from, well...from cataclysm's Class Act. There was guild-achievement to get every class/race combination to 85, and somewhere, about two years ago, we found out we missed some of then. So 5 members of the Innovation raiding team made some little alts. I apparantly went Dwarf-Mage. Gunho went Dwarf-Priest, Moreor went Dwarf-Warlock, Merrai went Gnome-Rogue and Calaron went Gnome-Warrior.

This didn't went fast, and we were overtaken by others, or even by ourselves I guess. But we had fun with them. No idea if we are going to continue with them soon, or ever. A choice that probably has to be made shortly.

Here he is, sporting the levelling-heirlooms:

I must say that I do like frost. I did try Arcane on Lurche, and one of my lower-level, and forgotten alts is a Fire Mage, but just having that big Water Elemental besides you...well...

Next week...  monks....oh my.

Alt Appreciation : Hunters

It is Hunter Week , following the alt appreciation-theme of World of Lae

Hasn't everyone played a hunter? That's what I sometimes ask myself. My very first character, called Mendak, was a Dwarf hunter, he had a pet-bear from Ashenvale called Ursa, and boy, was I a newbie. I remember loggin on him once, with some more knowledge, and I just was laughing at my equipment. Everything was hunter-gear, wasn't it?

Alas, poor Mendak, he was on the Ghostland server, and in my Horde-only empire there, he had to go. He was replaced by, and I quote a friend; "The ugliest female orc I have ever seen." She was called Miriani. Miriani reached level 70 during the fun-patch just before Wrath of the Lich King, but she did a quick Zul'Aman raid.

She was my third character to reach 70, and was (still is) a miner/jewelcrafter. After XII she was put into our friends-guild, and she stayed their a while, up until the ICC-summer. She was then transfered with a lot of stuff to Argent Dawn, had to be renamed to Luaran, and was turned into a Draenai for a short while.

She is now an Orc again, level 85 and made her first steps onto Pandaria. However, I don't know how long she (and her companion Gowron) will be on AD. those are two spots I could use for Alliance Alts, maybe the new merging of servers will help.

And here she is, with her pet Miriani...

In the meanwhile, during Cataclysm, I levelled an Alliance Hunter on Argent Dawn, called Forak. He was actually my third character to reach 90. And he is a real farmer. Mining and Herbalism, although mining may be axed soon to make him a flask or potion master. I am not doing much with him, he is now actaully farming ore on his farm, so here have a picture of him, with his pet Picard, on the farm.

Now I do have more hunters, a undead one somewhere, a Troll Hunter called Jimi, with a pet called Hendrix, but I haven't played those in ages. And there are a plethora of hunters deleted, or way-low-level. But it is always nice to play a Hunter, Scatter shot, send in pet, and feign death....

Alt Appreciation : Druid

Alt Apprecation, Druid week (started by World of Lae)

So, yeah, druids. Well, my current main is a druid, but do I have alt-druids? There are some low-level druids running around, but they were made for short-time fun mostly. The only druid I played to level 60 or so is long gone, that was a kitty iirc.

What is an alt exactly? Let's go with two simple rules:

1. A character I once played till the level cap of an expansion.
2. A character I am currently playing.

Simple rules, so that means Tamarian of last week was a real alt btw, levelled to 85 during Cata, and... that means Mardah also falls into this category, levelled to 80 during Wrath when this was still more a Tankadin-blog.

As mentioned some years ago, Mardah actually started on another server, and for a long time was a level 3 sitting in the Night Elf start zone. After I stopped raiding I levelled her up, I remember a Sunken Temple run where I healed, dps-ed and tanked, this was back when ST was Big. Somewhere along the line I brought her to Argent Dawn to play with some friends. I actually did a PuG-raid of ICC with her, as a Tree.... back when tree-form was needed for healing.

There was this heroic moment when I solo-healed 10-man Saurfang from 80% down, because the Shaman-healer got the omg-healme-debuff, and died to it....  reincarnated, and died again...  Do mind, I was not really raiding so my gear was meh... but I managed it...

At the start of cataclysm, after my paladin levelled up, I levelled Mardah. Disgusted by the fact that my beloved tree-form was gone, I went Balance, and I liked the lightshows. So much, that I actually applied to a guild, and started raiding again. Now with Mardah as main.

So, keep up acting all, some day, it may become your main...

Alt Appreciation : Death Knight

Normally I am a lone blogger, I have/had some feedback due to Single Abstract Noun, but mostly I keep to myself on this little piece of the internets, not mingling that much with fellow bloggers.

But when World of lae started this, well.. being althoholic and all, maybe I should Join.

So here we go,

DEATH KNIGHT

Death Knights, the former enemies, lots of lore as they used to be a Horde-class, something to do with dead orcs orso.  DK's where the first new class introduced in World of Warcraft, and a Hero-class at that. You start at level 55 in a DK-only zone, and when you got out, you are level 58, decked out in blues, and ready to storm Outlands.

I have made several Death Knights over the years, mostly because one of the things is that you end up with 30 gold, which was very nice for lower level alts.

I fondly remember tanking in Outlands as Dual-Wield Frost. I really liked that, but Cataclysm killed that spec. That was actually the deathknell for most of my DK's. The only one levelled to 85 was Tamarian, a Tauren, during the days of SAN.

Tamarian was once shown here: "He is coming"

Tamarian is already a Tauren Male there, but I am pretty sure he use to be a human female...

At the moment I have no plans or space actually, to level another one, or to level Tamarian. He is now on Steamwheedle Cartel on a leave of absent I guess.

Actually, while looking into my Death Knights, I only encountered two others, both below lvl 60, so apparantly I deleted some of them. So, mmm, apparently I am not really a Death Knight Player.

Here he is, riding that Death Knight Horse over Ogrimmar.

Too busy to write??

Almost 5 months, oh my, time does sometimes goes fast. So, well, my last post was on the 18th of september. Innovation just killed Deathwing Heroic, that seems ages ago...

It's not that I haven't been playing, but between work, being in love and lots of stuff to do IN WoW, I actually did the latter. It's either playing or writing about WoW, although I am currently between LFR's with Verulani...  who?

Oh yeah, that's the first time that name comes around. Verulani is my Shaman, formerly known as Mariandel, and she is doing LFR's as my prime-alt. Yus, still raiding as boomer with Innovation, but my altism isn't gone.

And that's one of the things post aren't that forthcoming now, there is so much to do in-game. Raiding, levelling, dailies, LFR, more dailies, pet-battles.....well...more dailies.

Since the the start of Pandaria, I levelled 6 characters to 90. First was my hunter-gatherer, followed by my paladin and then Verulani. Around the last two I already had some of the inccrease-reputation-thingies, so that helped for Verulani.

After those 4 alliance, I gradually levelled ye ole Gowron, to look at the Horde-side, including the invasion-dailies....  and let me spoil something, if Garrosh is not going, the current Horde will break apart..so..  yes, methinks Garrosh will be history soon enough.

After Gowron, I noticed the huge amount of lockboxes I had accumulated on the alliance-side, and now my rogue is also level 90. Currently being levelled is my priest as disco through dungeons...not that fast though...and I also have a monk-mistweaver somewhere.

Monks...  I don't know, I tried low-level tanking, and healing, but didn't like it that much. SO my dorf-monk is now doing nothing...  my dorf-mage has a future again...with a bit of luck, Class Act will happen again...although Innovation already has Class-Act, a journey back to kill the minions of the Lich King seems in order now.

So...  enough to write about after 5 months. Pet battles, raiding, oh and 5.2..and much more, just some quick thoughts.

You don't have to do dailies, I figured out very quick that doing all available dailies will make you mad, and to be honest, I don't think I have been VP-capped in ages... well, by accident maybe.

Pet battles are very addictive, it reminds me of civilization's 'one-more-turn-syndrome', being 'one-more-pet' now. And I do have a lot now, even that achievement-plant-thingie.

Transmog...  yes I transmog, and although the new rules considering weapons are nice, it also is a shame. Just yesterday I went with Verulani into a BG to get some honorpoints because I had a new LFR-mace but no fitting mace to transmog to. In 5.2 I will just transmog it into an Axe....

Innovation and raiding; Innovation is not a hardcore-guild, so we have been happily progressing through the normals. Elegon held us up for about a month methinks, and that honour now seems to lie with Garalon, who is crushing us to death (although we already had a 7% wipe).

Is this slow, probably yes, but Innovation is a 25-man guild, and that can be a problem...the amount of times we had raids with less then 25 the last 4 months is huge, I think about 70% at least, and that is holding us back the most methinks. And what is most strange is that there aren't that many 25-man guilds on Argent Dawn (europe). So there should be more people wanting to raid 25's then the just maybe 100 currently in those few guilds...

Well... next reset MSV will be taken of the roster by Innovation, and we will be starting to look at the Terrace...which I very much like. The Terrace that is, not that gloomy as the other raids, just some open skies, and some sunlight...

Adding up....

Sheep the Diamond

Ok, let's see

Argent Dawn
With my former main Gowron (153d4h2m) and my current main Mardah (55d8h6m), AD clocks in at a grand total of 268 days 23 hours and 10 minutes (probably more by the time anyone reads this).

The Sha'tar
One of the send-away realms, Lamars the rogue is there with almost 12 days, and it's clocking in at around 12 days.

Steamwheedle Cartel
Another send-away realm. Cymar the lock (8 days) and my undead hunter Vornik (1 day 19 hours) are staioned there, clocking in at around 11 days.

Ghostland
My former main realm. Most of it is gone, but still around 15 days.

Others
And then there are the realms where I only have 1 character, or there are the chars I have disbanded (most notably a 72-paladin and a 40-mage). And the fact that I also had access to another account sometimes. Let's estimate that on around 15 days, seems reasonable with the levels gained.

So, that would made it around...mmmm...310 days I played world of Warcraft..... that's about 10.5 months.

Low Lock Levelling

So, after the Horde-experience, I started levelling a human warlock. So, first the spoiler warning:

Behold, Bunnies will tell spoilers ahead.

So, there she was (yes, female, I just can't stand the human male form), standing before the church, ready to go battle wolves, orcs and...mmm...wait, Aznam? An Imp, nice. So, the first zone is mostly the same, some new quests (did I mentioned Orcs), but mostly old... just a better flow. Eastvale logging camp has a FP, so you get there much faster. A lot less running around, although I have the feeling, it is still a lot. Oh, and you don't kill Hogger.

Onwards to Westfall, which completely changed. A long story is told here, with the start-point being a murder, and the end-part is actually in Heroic Deadmines... what, lore-wise, was most striking, is that the humans have a big problem, lots of unhappy citizens. If you look at ogrimmar. most orcs are rallying for battle. The humans are begging for food. Oh, and what is that big whirlwind-thingie doing in Westfall, no one told me?

After I found the killer, I went onto Redridge Mountains. There is a very nice questline here, with you being in a squad of soldiers, ready to kill a lot of orcs.... to bad the quest at camp everstill bugged out... and because I was already on the level-treshold, onwards to Darkshore...rrr...shire (see what I did there ghostlandiers).

Now. I never did this zone often. back in the days it was a lot of running, yes RUNning, between Darkshire and Raven Hill, even taking a detour to Moonbrook Village. That changed, hurray. I actually only used the road from east to west once, they put a FP in Raven Hill. With the new Gilneas-faction, the Worgen-story is more prevalent here, and a lot of quests seem follow ups from old ones. Oh, and on the old spt north-west, where some quest used to be, a rare spawn was killed.

So, after saving a soul, my lock went to the Jungle. Before I knew it, I was knee-deep in killing Kurzen's people, and slaughtering the local Wildlife for the Expedition. And they needed a page... A PAGE??, ONLY ONE??? So, I needed to find only one page, to be precise, number 14. Great... how long should that take? So I killed my first tiger and looted the page. (Insert random nightmares from pre-cata about trying to find that one page that no one had that you needed to complete the book).

And there she is now, Northern Stranglethorn (they divided STV into two zones, although it is a little strange on the map). I do have the feeling that I will outlevel N-STV, because she is lvl 29.65, and only 50% of the map is visible at the moment. Oh well, laters....

Kitty Continued

I left Morshando in Feralas.

(Spoilers ahead mates)

After battling Cho'gal (see next post), I was one level to low to continue. Maybe I should not have skipped the quests in the Desolace? So, I entered the LFD for a dungeon or two. Luckily, to keep in spirits, I got Dire Maul. After completing, a level was gained.

....and Morshando entered Thousand Needles...... IN WATER.

You actually get transported to a little place where some Taurens are fighting, and then off you go to a barge in the middle of the shimmering flats...rrrr...waters? There are two major stories here, you do some pirate-stuff, and som Tauren-stuff. But the best part is:



You get your own River Boat. Just cruising along, nothing beats that to set sail to the...oh wait..only in 1K.

So, after all the Pirates, some Ice-creams, and some other old friends, Morshando was off to the desert...well...at least what was left of it. Tanaris still has you battling pirates, and killing some bugs. And there is also a quest-line explaining that two-part sword from Zul'Farrak. You also help the Bloodelves in some archaeology-digs, and have to enter the old doors of Uldum.

And some has read to much Herbert:



...and off to the Crater.

In Un'goro some things changed, but you still have to kill a lot of dino's, be aware of the Ninja-saurs. Do some mud-diving, and help a Paladin... actually a quite fun quest. The collect-the-colored-stones-quest has a new ending, which was rather well done lore-wise. But, as in Feralas, one level short to continue, so some dungeons later, I was on my way to Silithus. Mind you, this was as lvl54.

Now Silithus has a warm spot in my heart. Not because I actually like it, but because almost all my characters dinged 58 there. Some just after running through the elven village, others longer in. And, of course, Gowron has been farming here for cenarion Circle reputation.

Off all the zones, Silithus has changed the least. I didn't find a quest into the leven village, but you still have to clear the roads by killing tons of wildlife. And kill the Twillight Hammer for fun. You also encounter some bugs, and a nerfed Pincer. And when Morshando reached lvl 55.95 (just before 56), he was done....

wait a moment... I am done... two levels short of Outlands. shouldn't there be more quests here? Actually, the achievement only needs 18 quests (1 more then Alliance-Arathi Highlands). So it seems this was it.

I do hope Blizzard is going to update this zone, it just doesn't feel finished. No reference to the opening of the gates, no big AQ-storyline...

Before I am making a real conclusion, I will first finish levelling a human lock. She's now in STV, and will continue to The barrens-Dustwallow and then up north, towards winterspring.

Tomorrow: Innovations Second kill of Cho'Gal, which we one-shotted.

Low(er) level questing.

Last few days, I did something I wanted to do along time, levelling through questing. Before Patch 4.0.1 came out, I already had a heirloomed undead hunter do a lot of the Horde Eastern Kingdoms quests, now I made a Troll kitty, to see the Horde Kalimdor quests.

This time though, no heirlooms, only 10% extra xp from a guildperk. I blasted trough the starting zones, and before I continue....

There be spoilers ahead, mates.

I helped an old dragon in Azshara, which I actually never did that far in. Normally I just start dungeoning around lvl15, not this time I said, no dungeons, only quests...

(For all the new guys: Azshara used to be a higher level zone where bo one would actually go, because the quests where to far apart. Only lvl60's went there for stuff gathering... )

So, my kitty entered Ashenvale, at lvl23 or so.... which is way to high. How could that have happened? Oh, wait, there is something called rested, you know, the fact that you get 200% more xp when you logged out in an Inn and/or City... so, no more rested for Morshando then, and luckily, I have done the Ashenvale quests. So, at lvl25, I visited a board, and went to the Stonetalon Mountains.

If you think Ashenvale is a warzone, wait till you see Stonetalon, you are constantly fighting alliance there. And there is a nice end-quest here.



By the way, every zone is now made for 5 levels and has some nice end-quest, with a blue reward. There are also several in-between-blues. I did almost all quest in Stonetalon, and had a choice, either go Southern Barrens, or go Desolace. Morshando went desolace.



They completely changed this, very nicely done. Although there are more 'old' quests here than in earlier zones. I skipped those, united all centaurs, and went one level to early to Feralas.... wait.

In Desolace, there is a Troll town along the coast, Shadowprey Village at least had some quests. For all of you Horde playes, if you want a nice and quiet town, visit the Tauren retreat in Stonetalon. It has a flightpath, but as far as I know, no quests anymore.

So, Feralas, head-story here resolves around the Green Dragonflight. But of course, you still have to kill a lot wildlife and Ogres. And a new face... or old for me now, rears it ugly head, once and for all proving that you CAN sail East from the Eastern Kingdoms, and reach Kalimdor, yes the Azeroth is not flat. (Actually, I noticed more Azerothian Globes around). Oh yeah, the familiar face:



Whoops... no face... oh... and this is getting a long post, so, to actually up my posting,

To be continued....

Happy May?

Yes... not dead yet. I have just been busy with a lot of things lately, so actually writing in a blog came in last. So let's do a quick recap I guess.

Mardah still raiding 2/3 nights a week, we haven't downed Nef or Cho yet, but I don't know wether that is because we lack the skill to quickly clear the first bosses, or the fact that it was really hard to get 25 man online the last month. The last week seemed better, we actually had people to sit out.

It is also a little strange that I am not in control. Both in Retribution and in XII, I was an Officer. I am now just a loyal foot-soldier, or Tsjikin for that matter. And I do like it, not the burden of having to do stuff.

On the horde-side, Gowron is retired. As is all of Single Abstract Noun it appears. There are still some players who log in often, and it seems that with the absence of the Guild Leader Tamarind, some members have formed a new guild called Single Abstract Cow. But the busy guild it was, is gone. Maybe we'll really return there if there is again a year-stop in new content....

And of course I still have altism. But I noticed something strange, I remember having a real problem leveling a priest in TBC/WotLK, it just didn't click for me it seemed. But the last two characters that I got to 80 last year, are now both 85. Although one has become a gnome (Gnome shadowpriest on a Roflcopter rocks), and the other is back to dwarf. I also transferred a shaman back, and leveled that one from 72 up.

Yes, that means some other chars where send away. I have several 70+ and 80's scattered around different servers now, just doing nothing until I call them back I guess. I got two lower-level characters left on AD. A goblin disco-priest, in support of a goblin harry-in-the-warry-warrior. And a Tankadorfadin called Yurinov, heirloomed out, and already rockin in the mid-30's.

And now it is time to see if the servers are back online, and time to think about more boomkin-nerfs incoming.....

Oh, yeah, and a need a random-blog-title-generator.