Whirly: good to go

As expected, walking through Eastern Plaguelands was a bore. There is no risk or reward for us there. We came in through the Terrordale tunnel and worked in Plaguewood for a while. That was ok, not too many people, but not very entertaining. We fought our way over to the Lights Hope Chapel, for the flight path, then checked out The Noxious Glade which turned out to be a zero. Too many 60s working there.

I didn’t get to play at all Saturday and Sunday and now I can’t play Tuesday. I guess I’ll have to explain to my family just what an addiction is all about.

Living in the wilderness, I don’t get to see rock stage musicals as often as I should. I remember fondly “Hair” in Sydney, “Jesus Christ Superstar” in Anchorage, “Les Mis” in Seattle and “Bombay Dreams” in London. Is “Phantom of the Opera” rock? Anyway, not often enough, not even close, but I do what I can.

“RENT” is rockier than all those. I wish I’d seen it on the stage 15 years ago. The movie probably only works, well, for those who did or those who can imagine they did. “Hair” and “Jesus Christ”, the movies, were the same, best for those who’d seen them live.

Squint your eyes. Maybe you’ll see the house lights dim, the orchestra swell, the curtain rise and one hell of a good performance in “RENT.” Otherwise, it’s just a bunch of, not so young, people singing, for no apparent reason, about things more appropriate 15 years ago.

We all dinged 56 Friday in Blackrock Depths. We’ve talked of making 60 by Christmas, but it’s just talk and it’s not going to happen. Mark mentioned it’s generally thought working instances isn’t the quickest experience in the game. That seems reasonable as you could fight constantly if you found the right place outside. Inside it’s considerably slower. We don’t do instances for the experience though. We’re looking for the challenge and reward of a hard fight, and experience too I guess, oh and loot, lots and lots of loot, but mostly that challenge and reward stuff.

We’re talking about taking an instance break Monday and doing some outside work. We do that occasionally, but it gets boring quickly and we are back to the same old instance grind within a night or two.  Instance and non-instance, that’s about all there is to do anyway.

Warriors have a skill “Shield Wall” that I use rarely. It reduces the damage taken by the warrior considerably for a short time. Last night, in Blackrock Depths, I gave it a shot. We were facing a tough group of 4 elites and I figured if I could reduce my damage taken, it would reduce healing needed, eliminating a premature loss of aggro, hopefully preventing a wipe out. It worked beautifully, I think. It’s hard to tell, in a long fight, if any one thing makes a difference, but we survived which is good.

The thing about Shield Wall is its 30 minute cool down. At best, I could use it 3 times in a 2 hour play date, and not just any 3 times at that. They would have to be 30 minutes apart. So Shield Wall sits in my button bar unremembered, unused. It would take a better Warrior than me to remember the darn thing.

Our Mage needed to train enchanting in Uldaman so we made a quick stop there last night. We popped in the back door as the trainer is near. To think that back door guy, the one that splits into little guys, once was trouble for us. He’s nothing now. The bug groups were a pain as well, but now they just line up to die.

We also made a run to Searing Gorge to discover the flight path to Thorium Point for quicker access to the Blackrock instance. We spent some little time just looking around the zone as we’ve not worked there before. It looks like it would be fun at the appropriate age. Mark like zones with trees for mobs to hide behind though, it’s an old group joke.

Not the most exciting evening we’ve ever had, but it was entertaining and we got some business done.

I’ve been playing a Warlock recently simply because I’ve played a hunter, the most popular character, to 60 and wanted to play the least popular for a while. For the alliance, that would be Warlock. Correction: Hunters aren’t the most popular, just the most numerous.

At 20 a young Warlock’s fancy turns to love and he’s off to get himself a pet succubus. Cheesh! What a pain. Stormwind, Barrens, Ashenvale and back to Stormwind. I ran into a bit of trouble in Ashenvale though. You’ve got to go through a large number of Warlock and others to cut down a certain tree. I didn’t know about the tree, exactly, but I certainly found all the Warlocks.

I gave it a try, I did, but it was looking to be on the hard side so I camped and took a break. Later, I found Mark on with his 55 Priest. I toyed with the idea of asking him to help, but decided against it. Asking a 55 to help with a 20 quest seems, well, cheap. I eventually did something even lower. I brought in my 60 Hunter to kill everything in the area, camped, and brought up my Warlock to wander on over and cut down the tree. Do I feel cheap? Most of the time.

I now have a succubus. She puts out a goodly amount of damage, but certainly isn’t the tank big blue is. I’d guess she’d be useful when you are grouped with someone who is doing the tank duties and you want more damage output, with more meat than little old sparky, the other Warlock pet, has.

Three of the finest, best looking, smartest, adventures ever to play a massive multiplayer entered Blackrock Depths tonight ready to rumble. Well, there are three of us and we did go to Blackrock Depths tonight, that parts true. We’ve been doing this for years, but I’m still amazed how well we do at this stuff. I’m not sure if my amazement is caused by our high quality play or by my low expectations. Either way, we did well tonight.

We’ve found, when doing groups of 4 to 7, sequence is important. Often the goal is to get the easiest off the table first, but sometimes we need to get the big guy down first, particularly hard casters. Even with a plan, the fight flows as it will and we’ve got to go with that flow. The beauty and pleasure of a good fight is a complicated, unpredictable, situation gone well. If you have a bunch of these good, tight, fights over the course of an evening, If you are continually amazed at how darn great you are, that’s a good evening. We had one of those tonight and we looked good doing it.

I’d read that 60 Hunters can farm the graveyard in Zul’Farrak, yup, they can. I rode my mount to the graveyard and dismounted. The eight guys that had aggroed me, on my run in, showed up a short time later and I feigned death (FD). They stood around looking for trouble for a minute or so then pop away. I pulled up my pet and got to work.

There are two walkers in the area, easily taken. Nothing special about them other than they’ll run at the end.

You get onesies and twosies, from the graves, that are easy enough to kill. Occasionally, I got one that was a bit higher, but with all my tricks, I was able to kill them also. I did get one 3-group that included one of the special guys which I had to move away and FD to survive. I then finished them off in round two.

I collected 4 green items that I’ve placed in the Auction House, I under price the competition, I’m sure they appreciate that, plus a bunch of junk. It looks like I made 11 gold from the junk and cash loot. I might get about 6 to 8 gold from the green stuff if it sells.

I went to the store last night to buy a game. I’ve been wanting one for a while, but had decided to wait till my Hunter made 60. I didn’t have a particular game in mind, but there are a few I’ve been thinking about, Dungeon Siege II, Guild Wars, City of Villains, something else II that slips my mind, and Gun. The TV adds for Gun won, it was also cheaper than the rest.

The graphics aren’t quite up to today’s standards, perhaps it’s a port from a console game. The game is dark and I’ve yet to find a gamma adjustment. The controls will need to be tweaked as a ¼ inch mouse-move spins me around about 3 times.

Kris Kristofferson, my not-father, showed me how to shoot and move about. He took one hell of a beating from the bear before I figured out the pick-up-the-gun and kill-the-bear thing. He seemed a little grumpy after that. We had a few more adventures on a river boat then I was sent off to Dodge City to find the meaning of life or something.

The interface was explaining how I could subdue a fellow with just my hands when a fellow walked by. I subdued him right to the ground. It turned out he was just an innocent citizen. I felt kind of guilty about that, but the west is a hard place. It’ll teach him not to come up on an hombre like that. I’m not a fellow to be trifled with, partner.

My Hunter made 60 last night, finally. I’d expected it to take one more day, I was working at it one hour a night, but with only 15 minutes left I hunkered down and grinded a little longer. Undead in Eastern Plagulands was very, very good to me. I thought maybe the ding graphics for 60 would be a little different, but no, it’s just another level. This is my first ever, maxed, character in any online game. My play style just doesn’t get me to endgame often. Endless hours of grinding just doesn’t suite me.

I purchased my spells, re-specialized, deleted all the quest junk I’ve been carrying forever, abandoned almost all the quests I’ve been carrying forever, sold off bags worth of skins and other stuff, and left him standing in IF with a dumb look on his face.

What are my options at 60?
1) Abandon this character except when needed
2) Farm items & cash. That sounds boring already
3) PVP. Isn’t that attractive to me
4) Explore. There are still lots of things to see. I don’t think this would continue to be interesting long.
5) Start a Rogue