Whirly: good to go

Mark sent email crowing about how god-like his priest is at soloing. Apparently, he can solo three, million-level, sixteen-dot mobs one-handed. Plus, he dinged 13. Pthh, show off. It was a double experience weekend. I needed half a level to ding 13. How hard could it be?

I died four times. There is a series of quests south of Sir Redrenthal’s camp killing wisp things level 13-14. That was my first three deaths – with a long run back BTW. I dinged 13 grinding around Veskal’s Exchange, but became intrigued by two quests just south having bandits in the day and dogs at night. The dogs pop all at once and if you are standing too close you’ll get three, death number 4. I guess my Warrior isn’t god-like. Damn it.

Our server went down Sunday evening. Mike reported a problem with his toon’s in-game look not matching the character selection screen look. I had the same problem. Later, after the server came back up, my toon had a cape at the server selection screen, but not in-game.

Oh, I found a website with a Vanguard dungeon finder. It says Urugog Cave is a solo dungeon, which explains everything. Our trip to the Spider Cave has been canceled (another solo dungeon) and we’ll be heading to a “regular” dungeon instead. I love them internet tubes.

We worked Urugog Cave. I must say I was less than impressed. We walked in as three level 11’s and two and a half hours later exited level 12 and bored. We killed a few bears, a ton of trolls and a couple of named mobs. We were not at risk one time. I could count the encounters with more than one mob on one hand. It was a snoozer – a grind fest.

There was no diversity. While we may not have seen the whole place, we saw a lot of it and it was all the same. If you should die in there you’ll have one hell of a time trying to find your corpse. There seemed little reason to explore. We could have picked one part of the cave and just walked around in a circle.

What’s the deal with loot that is three levels higher than we are? You loot some great thing that you’ll be able to use in two weeks? I’m an old man. A massive heart attack lives two weeks out. I need instant gratification. Strutting your newly acquired stuff is one of the pleasures of killing epic mobs.

Speaking of epic mobs, where are they? Sure, these are newbie dungeons. Sure, newbies learn grouping skills here. But, remember the Deadmines in WoW? There were plenty of bosses down there. There was a battleship for god’s sake. Here, another troll, another troll, oops dead end.

We play 4 ½ hours a week. We’ve been doing this for years. We need entertainment. Something that gets our two brain cells vibrating. Urugog didn’t do it. We’ll be going into the spider cave, north of Veskal’s Exchange, Monday. I fear it will be one large maze of spiders. I hope to be surprised.

Ahh, a peaceful Vanguard evening. I ran eight blacksmith work orders. I’m a level 6 blacksmith and trying to get higher, a little at a time. Mark came online and I noticed he had wandered all the way to Veskal’s Exchange. I suggested he stay as it’s in the general area we were heading Friday anyway. Later, Mike and I made the trip over.

After exploring Veskal’s Exchange, Mike and I went looking for Urugog Cave in the dark. We found it and killed a few of the guys hanging around outside - they might be Trolls - they certainly were ugly. Urgog is about the same level as Riftseeker (10-14), according to my sources. It’s a long ways from a decent sized town so it might not be as crowded.