Hi Number 4!

Late last night, at about 00.56 local time, my baby druid hit 80! Since she was put on ice for a while, there was a lot of rested XP, and after reaching 77 (and hence being able to fly again) things sped up considerably. As I've once again managed to get a character to 80 almost exclusively by questing (though she did run through both UK and Nexus a little while ago), I now have a bit of gearing up to look forward to. And yeah, a bit of L2P as well :D

Healing on her is something I've enjoyed so far, and I'm looking forward to doing more of that - healing, in general, has turned out to be more fun than I expected back when I decided to make my priest my new "main". Having (and playing) a level 80 tree was my original plan with this particular character, and while a newly dinged 80 isn't exactly all that, it's a damn good start!

Now I just have to try and get her into some dungeons, and maybe she'll be cool enough to get a spot in one of the Naxx 10-runs for alts and new level 80s I've heard talk about in guild chat :)

Branching Out... (heehee)

The snow that fell before Christmas is still here, and even more has fallen since. I don't think we've had a winter like this in "my" part of Sweden for atleast twenty years, and while it's very pretty...
...after more than a month of car doors frozen shut, a runny nose, and way too much snow, I want to pick up and move to Hawai'i.

While I haven't been able to go swimming or go out for a run lately, I've had plenty of time to play WoW. I've worked a lot on my priest - gearwise and skillwise - and I've found myself in instances more often than not in the past few weeks. In fact, I've started to feel confident enough in my healing abilities (and finally found the inspiration) to level that healer alt! That's right, my young druid is finally getting some attention!

She happens to be on an account with no level 80 characters, so last night, when she hit 77, was a big one. I've really missed flight form - on her, since she came to Northrend, and on all the non-druid characters I play - and as soon as I'd bought her Cold Weather Flying, I took her out for almost half an hour of just soaring. She doesn't have her epic flying skill yet, but it's definitely in the cards. Partly because I've had her pick up herbalism instead of tailoring (Having someone steal my herbs simply because they fly faster? We can't have that!), and partly because the epic flight form is sooo gorgeous :)

I've spent a bit of gold in the AH during the past week, picking up a few pieces of caster leather. While I'm fairly prepared for the difference in play style between my priest and my druid - reactive vs preventive, looking all saintly vs being a funky tree - I think the difference in gear level might be a bit overwhelming. Not that I've been doing any kind of hard core raiding on my priest, but given a bit of time, you can put together a pretty good outfit these days, simply by running heroics and doing the occasional weekly raid quest. This also means, of course, that gearing up a new level 80 can be a lot smoother than it used to be. Still, though - I'm trying to get my hands on as many iLevel 187-200 pieces as I can, and I'm hoping to get some lucky drops in normal dungeons - I'm definitely not prepared to start doing level 80 dungeons in the level 70-75 quested greens she's wearing now!

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to giving druid healing another try. Now, however, I'm off to go through my in game finances - it's quite possible there'll be some swift flying tonight :)

Yaaarrrrrr!

I'm currently waiting for my tea to cool off a bit, down to a drinkable temperature. Meanwhile, I'm going through my possible "plans" in WoW. (Aren't I always, though? Well, anyway.)

As you probably know, I just joined a guild, and I'm loving it. OK, I'm still "the new one", but that's not too bad - whenever someone I haven't met yet logs on, they welcome me to the guild, and ask me how I like it so far - everyone's really sweet, and I'm starting to get a grip on which alts go with which mains. Also, the other night, I helped a couple of guildies with a heroic Sethekk-run. They're both druids, and after the mount, and since my priest isn't honored with Lower City, I too chose to play a druid. My old nelf girl was briefly taken out of retirement, prowled past trash mobs paw to paw with her newfound druid friends, and finally got the achievement for heroic Sethekk Halls. The mount didn't drop, but we had a good time, and I got to know my guildies a little bit better.

Yesterday I did the Tournament dailies on Bunnyhop - she's currently working on becoming a champion of Stormwind, the last one she needs apart from Argent Crusade rep - and since I haven't really bought anything with her Champion's Seals, I'm considering saving up for some heirloom gear. It'll still be a little while before I dare to venture into a level 80 heroic with any of my characters, and when I do, I'll probably want to spend my first emblems on gear for the toon who looted said emblems. But with Champion's Seals - there are a few nice pieces to get, but they're quite cheap, and seals are easy to come by - and eventually with badgers... Sorry, emblems - I can haz female gnome warrior with super fancy gear?

Yes, I want a tiny, female juggernaut :D

First of all, though, I hope to get my priest to 80, and get some more experience playing her.

After that? Well, only time will tell. I'm sure I'll be able to find another character to level up, if the mood strikes me (which it probably will). ;)

Also: Happy Pirate's Day!

Plans, and how not to stick to them.

I really, really wanted to write a post with the title "Pallies and druids and priests! Oh my!", partly because I love The Wizard of OZ, but mostly because it would mean I had stuck to my unofficial plan to spend fairly equal amounts of time playing those three characters. That, however, has not happened, and it's not that big a deal, after all. So, which character have I been playing? Perhaps not a big surprise, considering what I've been blogging about lately:



There it is - last night my paladin dinged 67, and while she is dual specced ret and prot, I have yet to use her prot spec. Retribution is ridiculously powerful while leveling, and she's gaining XP so fast by questing I have found myself rushing past the whole instance thing in Outland. It's not that I don't like instances - I love dungeons - but I've been soloing so much for so long, the questing/grinding/leveling process is almost running on autopilot, and I don't realise until four levels later that "ooh, maybe I should've done Ramparts", and by that time Northrend feels so close, I just keep on going. The fun I've had in dungeons in the past has been with friends/guildies, and when I'm on a roll with leveling I can't really find the motivation to do a pug.

Anyway, new plan: Getting pally+priest to 70(-ish), and giving the whole "find a casual guild"-project another try. But then again, every now and then the nice weather lures me outside, and I end up reading a book in the shade instead of hanging out online, so we'll see what happens. Summer seems to be having that effect on a lot of people, and it's probably good with a bit of a vacation, even from fun :)

The how and why, and ooh! Shiny lights!

I finally chose to take my alt out of that guild a couple of days ago. Even though it was nice having a guildchat again, it was actually worse than how the trade channel gets past midnight on weekends. Also, I found myself getting whiny about the whole thing, and that's never good, so I left.

Instead, I'm continuing to look into a few of the "casual, mature and relaxed" guilds on my server - the only thing left to do would be to pick 1-3 characters to apply with (I couldn't possibly - and wouldn't want to - bring all my alts into a new guild, but just one... That'd feel like a betrayal to the ones left behind!), and hope for the best. I do think the odds for a good guild/player-match improve a lot if the guild has its own website, and requires an application to join. Even though the kind of guild I'm after wouldn't be a very "professional" one, chances are you spend as much time with your guildies as you would with your colleagues at a part-time job, and most jobs require you to apply - not only to see that you're qualified, but also to make sure you fit in personality-wise. I very much doubt that the friendliest workplaces recruit random, unemployed people off the street, figuring that they can always give them the boot, if and when they're caught stealing from the cash register.

Right now, though, I'm going to be a lolret for a tiny bit, before it's time for lunch. Leveling is more than fast these days, even without heirlooms, and with a retribution specced paladin it's just crazy! You're wearing plate, you have the bestest bubble in all the world, and if you play your cards right, you never have any downtime! She's almost level 54 - the highest I've managed to get a plate wearer so far - and becoming more fun every time she dings. Leveling is easy, though - I'm quite convinced I'll have my work cut out for me if I am to try and play her in a more organized environment (like, you know, in dungeons and all that). I have, however, managed to keybind - and use - nifty stuff like Righteous Defense, so I'm not entirely clueless :D

Summer leads to...

...laziness? Well, even a non-raiding player, such as myself, can see a change in the playing schedule when summer arrives. It's mostly been a rainy one in Sweden, so far, but there's something about the season that seems to distract me a bit, both when it comes to playing and blogging. I've been following the news regarding the next major patch, though, and I'm excited about most of it. I think we've already established that I adore the new tauren kitty :D

Then there's the whole "mount overhaul"-business. On one hand, I love it. Cheaper + earlier = win for altoholics like me! On the other hand, there are still people who are new to the game. A lot of other bloggers have covered this subject, and I don't really want to go over it in detail as well, but the bottom line is: We do end up with players who have rushed through great content, without grouping, and without learning any of the basic instance "rules" (kill order, don't pull aggro, hug your healer, and so on). So, I've come to two conclusions: My lowbie alts are getting cool rides - w00t! and I'm thinking about actually getting one or more of my higher level characters into a "real" guild. Soloing is flexible, but it gets lonely at times, and being guilded can save you from some of the worse PUGs :) Also, I miss having a guild chat. Nothing is decided yet, though, but there are some nice guilds on my server, with, you know, non-Dirge-spammers in them.

And hey, Negathle has graduated (congrats again!), and is adding a pinch of druid to her playing! More druids to the people!

Also, a while ago Lady Jess mentioned the screenshot addon she's using - Multishot (and of course I can't find the specific post in which she mentioned it, oh well) - and it's lovely. Before downloading this one, I used AchievementSnap, and I was mighty annoyed by how it included a /played in every screenshot. Multishot does exactly what I want: It takes a screenshot whenever I get an achievement, kill a boss, or gain a level. Nothing more, nothing less. And Multishot has a configuration menu - always a bonus! Thanks, Lady J. for the tip!

What to learn from rejection.

Just added a tag cloud, to the right, below the blogroll. Found the code, and an excellent guide, here. My labels-list got a bit out of hand, and didn't really fill any purpose, so it was removed a while ago. I much prefer the look of the cloud - I like to think it neatly organises the disorganised structure of this blog.

Today hasn't been a very WoW-ish day - logged in before lunch, did some Argent Tournament dailies - since I've mostly been doing laundry, and finally managed to get a hold of the person responsible for a job I've applied for. Apparently there are still people who think checking their inbox is "optional", even when they've published their e-mail adress in the paper, below words along the lines of "send questions about the job/apply for the job here".

"Ooh, I see you mailed me last Tuesday[i.e. more than a week ago]! Yeah, maybe I should read it - I'll get back to ya!"

Not exactly what you'd like to hear, especially when you suspect he's already given the available spots to the first people who happened to stumble into his office. -.-

WoW-wise, I've come to the conclusion that my priest will probably have to get dual-specced, and that shadow - in spite of the boredom that creeps up on me whenever I think about it - will be her secondary spec. At 80 I'd love to have disc as secondary spec - for pvp-utility, and tank healing advantages - but while leveling I think being able to both heal and dps will get me more pugs. And no, no matter how much I tried, I couldn't get into that pug by flaunting my awesome smite-crits :´( But I still have to say this: I'm amazed by how easy it's been so far, leveling with a smite-spec! Holy Fire + smitex3 = dead mob, and zero down-time as a result of points in Spirit Tap and Meditation, and it's still nice for healing! I think you need to be able to spec into the mana-regen and damage/crit increasing talents before it runs smoothly, though.

OK, I've got a cookie, and a glass of water. Time to check up on a couple of my characters, and then I'm off to bed.

I long for Northrend fashion.

A while back I logged on to Delinda, the priest who recently had jewelcrafting power leveled, and I noted how her outfit made her look like a street walker. Well, after the jewelcrafting adventure, I kind of got into leveling her a bit - it's probably surprising to some, and not to others, but leveling as holy dps is a breeze! (I developed a severe shadow-allergy when I leveled her to 50, so that was not an option..) She's now level 60, and has done a few of the earliest quests in Hellfire Peninsula. And this is what she looked like before hearthed and logged out:

"Hi, I'm Delinda - just your average, holy priest. And yeah, I like going out in public, wearing nothing but my underwear."

Hmm. I'm hoping for an upgrade. Soon. Preferably some kind of robe.

Not yet a tree, but we're getting there!

So, Easter is upon us, and hanging out with the family and such things obviously leads to less posting. Good food, candies and sunny weather - it's all good :)

There has been some druid leveling action, though - level 46 has been reached, and it may be because of the "first character ever"-clumsiness I suffered from with my first druid, but a healthy amount of points in the resto tree seems to make leveling a whole lot smoother. OK, so I've invested a few gold in a fairly nice staff with a decent enchant - 70 extra spell power is a nice boost at this level, and I'm counting on it to last until she gets to Outland - but seriously, I was able to solo this rare elite I found in Swamp of Sorrows, by alternating rooting, nuking, and throwing HoTs on myself, even though he was one level higher than Rahamra at the time!

I'm sure my first druid would've gotten her feathery ass handed to her, had she encountered this mob at level 44.

OK, she does need a respec - I'd rather take the two points from Naturalist, and put them into Master Shapeshifter, but still, as she doesn't yet have her Tree-form, the latter wouldn't be of much use to her anyway. There's at least a tiny chance one might get to benefit from the cast time-reduction on Healing Touch while leveling. But yeah, I'd like to get those "mandatory" points, so I'm looking forward to the promised free respec in the upcoming patch. Every time I've taken a new character to Hellfire Peninsula, I've been shocked by how much harder the mobs seem to hit, and I doubt this time'll be any different, so being able to switch between leaves and feathers (almost) whenever will be yummy. It changes the rules by a huge amount - suddenly one might be able to find quite a few characters with an actual healing- or tanking spec even at lower levels!

Lunch FTW + my little friend

Just finished my lunch, so comfortably full. I've been doing some cleaning up in my Firefox bookmark list, reading up on blogs I haven't visited for a while, and browsing iTunes. The snow we had last week is way gone now, and yay, one can go outside without putting on the whole hat-scarf-mittens-mega moonboots of doom-extravaganza! Jeans, hoodie and sneakers is perfect - my kind of weather.

The state of my new druid:

Half-way through level 28,
half-way through the quests in Ashenvale,
in love with the idea of getting her a mount in less than two levels :) Spotted Frostsaber on the horizon!
A bit of a weird spec, but I refuse to respec her before 3.1, since talents will be reset when said patch arrives. I'm hoping to get her to 40 by then, so that I can kick off the tree/moonkin plan as soon as possible. So, keeping fingers crossed the "dual spec at 40"-thing makes it to the live servers - can't see any reason why it shouldn't, though.

Been poking around a bit on the PTR version of wowhead, and am very much looking forward to getting this cutie! Being the pet collector that I am, I'll be going for all of them, of course (a bit bummed I don't have a high level horde character, so I could really get all of the pets easily), but the thought of a tree druid with a tiny tree companion is almost too good to be true. Moonkin baby companion, that, on the other hand, would be too good to be true.

And finally, I'd love for the Frostsaber mentioned above to sport some nifty exhaust pipes and awesome flamez!

Quick Like a... Well, Cat.

During the last few days I've done some dailies on Bunnyhop, but most of my play time has been spent on my baby druid. She reached level 26 earlier today, and finally got Dash! Even though you may not be feral specced, it's really nice to be able to prowl around every now and then. Thing is, though, that prowling is slow, mind-numbingly slow, and that's when you love the fact that you've reached level 26, and are able to get a speed boost without breaking prowl! It's wonderful for whenever you want to sneak past patrolling mobs.

Prowl and dash were around when I leveled my first druid, but the "new" Shadowmeld wasn't. I found the old one useful too - it was nice to be able to eat/drink while being hidden from nearby mobs, and it was obviously good for pvp - but since my moonkin could be a serious aggro monkey at times, I'm very grateful for the change. It's saved Rahamra's bum more than once, and even though I haven't had the chance to try it out, it must be great for healers/dps in instances and raids, wipe-preventing, even. I do miss being able to snack while hidden, though :D

New Dark Legacy Comic - demonstrates very nicely why I never go into Stormpeaks on the PTR.

I saw a funny thing on my way to 80...

"My" part of Sweden has gotten a fair amount of snow today - hence, haven't set foot outside the door - and most of mid-morning was spent cleaning the house, replacing the ink cartridges in my printer, and a number of other little boring things.

Rahamra, the new druid alt, has reached level 22, and is so far specced 8/0/5 - not raiding material just yet :D - and she's moving along quite fast, partly because I know the spells and the quests, partly because I've run her through both the night elf zone and the draenei zone. And yeah, I've realised I may have to budge a tiny bit when it comes to my "more resto than balance, even before 40!!!"-plan - with the lack of caster leather at lower levels, she's a bit squishy, and I don't think I can (comfortably) get out of investing a bunch of points in extra damage and crit. But, come dual spec, she'll be heavy resto and a viable dps/solo-spec! Probably moonkin, but being a kitty can be fun too... We'll see.

The situation might have been different, had I started her on a fairly new server, where there's usually a bit more healthy activity in lower-level dungeons. The server on which I have my primary characters opened in January 2007, and during the first 6 months or so, people were putting together serious groups to go through Deadmines, Sunken Temple, Scholomance and so on, but two years later the activity there seems to be limited to boosts. And of course, I too like it when I get to higher levels - you can do a lot more, travel more freely, and the chances that you'll run into people who actually know what they're doing seem to increase, the closer to 80 you get - but there are a lot of things along the way that I don't want to miss:

• Duskwood questlines. I love the "haunted" atmosphere in there, and the storylines are good.
• Ashenvale. I like the quests, and "wild forest"-feeling. The same goes for Feralas.
  
• Un'Goro Crater. A lot of people hate this place, but I love it - it's like Nintendo-paradise, quest- and lookwise.
• Gathering materials for, and leveling my professions of choice, without having the main pay for it. (Rahamra is a herbalist/tailor (flying carpet? I'm so in! Also, nice leg enchant for healer/caster.))
• Silly little traditions, like swimming from Theramore to Tanaris instead of taking the Great Lift, or if you're playing a hunter - at level 10 insisting on running to the other end of the map to get a "special" pet, such as a Strigid Hunter if you're horde, or a Springpaw Lynx if you're alliance.
• In general, getting a feel for the character while leveling - I'm not an RP:er, my characters don't really have a well thought out story attached to them, but I tend to bond with them a lot, and I think I'd lose a lot of that if a friend/someone I paid 20 gold would run me through Scarlet Monastery for three levels and gear.
  

I could go on and on, but I think my point is already quite clear: I like leveling. I often complain about it somewhere around the 40s, when it seems like nothing is happening, and you feel like you're never going to catch up with everyone else, but in the end, it's nice putting the pieces together, finding out what works and what doesn't, discovering the advantages - and disadvantages - of different classes and builds.

So, even though leveling is mostly a solo-project on a server like mine, it's nothing I would like to fast-forward through. Well, there are always areas and questlines that bore me to bits (Read: Desolace. What has anyone ever done to deserve it?), but in the end, I'm always glad I've been through it, and hopefully it'll make me a better player.

The dangers of working from home...

I just discovered it's Friday today. Whoops. Doesn't really make a difference in the long run, or the short run for that matter, but I was surprised, since I was convinced it was Thursday. I'm going to have to keep better track of things, so I won't miss the train on Tuesday :D

No, really, it would be dreadful to be stuck here - friggin' alone - during the holidays. Sure, I'd get my Winter Veil gifts, but that would be it...

Right now, I'm waiting for the oven to get warmed up, so I can make some dinner, and after eating, I plan to continue leveling my huntress. She's currently about half way into level 65, and I'm hoping to get her started in Northrend before the weekend is over. With the offline-time I have looming on the horizon (starting late Feb - early March, may go on for a while), it would be really nice to get her well on her way (maybe all the way) to 80 as soon as possible.

I'm still playing with the thought of trying out mobile broadband for a bit, once I've moved, to see if and how it works. If it does work, nothing much would change, WoW-wise. Time will tell.

Stupid brain.

Last night some deluded part of my mind thought it was an excellent idea to play WoW at 8 AM today, not realising that today is Wednesday. Frickin' maintenance day. Not that I wasn't getting up anyway, but I simply don't like plans that don't work out. Oh well, time for proper breakfast and studies, I guess. Was going to save that for about 11-ish, but yeah, we'll have to move that one around - thanks, brain!

Anyway, the reason that I was so excited to get up and play a bit before my work day starts, is a bit silly, maybe even slightly stupid. I'd kind of like another hunter. I know, I've got my hands full with my druid, and with leveling the draenei, my beautiful Bunnyhop, but this new one would probably be sitting somewhere at levels 1-12, until his/her time comes. Now, what would be so special about this hunter, you ask? Well, here it goes: It would be a dwarf! I have 2 accounts in my possession, and so far no dwarf has set his/her foot in there, at least not past the planning stage, and I have decided it's time to end this madness. Don't know if it will be a he or a she yet, though.

I'm quite familiar with the male dwarf sounds and animations, since my flatmate has a pally of that kind, but I have very little experience when it comes to female dwarves, so I might just check on Youtube to see if it might be possible to see some examples. I mean, seriously, people put up all kinds of crap there, so why not female dwarf animations? Still, I'm leaning towards a male, since I'd love to have a character with a real beard!

Flying, hunting, choosing.

I'm in the middle of trying to understand, and apply, the Learned Hand rule, and am getting a tiny bit frustrated, so it appears to be time for blogging.

Yesterday my druid regrew her wings by turning 77, and learning Cold Weather Flying, and I spent quite a bit of time exploring Northrend, until I got the World Explorer achievement - it comes with a title, and you get a tabard for exploring Northrend. The tabard is very meh, and I'll probably bank it as soon as I've made room for it (I save a LOT of junk), but the title's fun, even though it's quite easy to get. Not everyone feels like devoting a day's gameplay (roughly, and obviously not /played time :D) to traveling around all of Azeroth to find every little nook and cranny, and the completionist in me is mighty proud. Also, I'd love to get the Loremaster achievement done, but I need to do another 700 quests in Azeroth for that, a lot more Northrend, and some scattered quests in Outland, so that would definitely take a while. Also, I'd like to get her to 80 within the next few days, so I highly doubt that I'll be doing any quests that don't give me xp or cash anytime soon.

Also, yesterday I logged on to my draenei huntress, and did some easy going questing in Ashenvale. She's 28, and moving up fairly fast. She is a hunter, after all! Now, I do have a level 70 hunter - a female night elf - and she and I have had a bit of fun, but somehow I can't muster up any passion for her. A lot of people would say that a hunter is a hunter is a hunter, but that is so not the case. Not only does my draenei girl get extra hit rating and a HoT, but she also has a sleeker, cooler look, compared to her nelf sister. It's not that I have anything against female night elves as such - I wouldn't want my druid to be any other race (although, a gnome druid would be adorable) - but when it comes to hunters, they just don't cut it for me. The innate reclusiveness of nelfs works great for the druid, but I'd really like a hunter with a bit more "oomph!", and along comes Bunnyhop, and her fearsome boar Hurricane!

Of course, I wont be deleting my nelf huntress - I'll probably level up her engineering a bit, and maybe do some farming - but I wont be farming for Loque'nahak or Nuramoc with her - I'm saving that work for the draenei!

Back to the books, need to get this working in my brain before it's time for dinner.

With a Song in My Heart!(?)

This Tuesday has so far been slow, and off topic when it comes to this blog (which is just as it should be, since I have a lot of non-WoW-stuff to do). I got up a late, since I went to bed late, and have spent some time trying to figure out the next step in my "get a move on"-plan. I guess the obvious next step is just that: Get a move on. I just need to have lunch and a shower first.

The reason I stayed up so late last night was incredibly important: My druid finally reached level 74, and got to do the "going to Dalaran"-quest! Finally, the ultimate hearth spot! Of course, I've seen it before, on the beta, but now it's the real deal! It is a pity though, that there aren't any class trainers there, and no auction house. Well, I guess that would have been the final blow for Azeroth, and that would probably kill the game, in a way.

Now i don't really know what character to level- should I continue with the druid, and move on towards 80, or should I start levelling the mage, so she can get a bunch of low level alts to Dalaran at 74? Should I give the hunter or the rogue a bit of love, so that I get the farming going a bit? Ah, no. I have a feeling there'll be enough farming in the future, so I think I'll just stick to the druid for a while, and have fun doing a lot of new and fun quests. I did this quest last night - took 2 tries to figure out, but it was hilarious! Very Mario Kart!

You know what else is hilarious? My neighbour. She sings, and plays the piano. She plays quite well - seems to have some kind of classical training behind her - but the singing is, most of the time, just loud. About half an hour ago she almost had me rolling on the floor in fits of laughter when she did the title song from Phantom of the Opera. For a long time she was obsessed with "Wind Beneath My Wings" (Bette Midler song), and there's usually a lot of Bon Jovi and Aerosmith ballads from the early-mid nineties on her repertoir. Her playing+singing is only audible in the livingroom, so it's not really a big problem. It can get a bit repetitive after a while, though - three hours of "Did you ever know that you're my HEEEROOOO?" can make anyone feel a bit nauseous.

OK, I have to get going. I need to eat something, take a shower, get a package to the post office, and try to figure out my school work.

While My Server Gently Weeps.

Server restart. What to do? Blog.

Today's questing/exploring has so far been a bit sparse - I'm awfully old, and my body simply couldn't stand sitting in front of the computer screen all day, so I went out for a well needed walk earlier, did some dishes, and cooked myself a proper dinner.

By the way, I'm typing this on my laptop - since I grew tired of alt-tabbing between WoW and Firefox to check wowhead.com (in the middle of the unavoidable crappy fps that comes with everyone being online), I decided to connect the laptop to the router, and simply be my own QuestHelper (I have that addon too, though - as much as I enjoy the lore, it's just great getting a big green dot showing me where to go).

I managed to reach level 72 surprisingly early last night, somewhere in the Star's Rest area in Dragonblight. That place is also so pretty... It's got a lot of the look from Winterspring, but still with its very own angle - I love it. Anyway, I'm taking it quite easy - not that I'm standing around fishing for hours, but I'm trying to take time to do most (if not all) of the quests, explore, and just look at everything - since I'm not in a raiding guild, and hence don't have the pressure on me to ding asap, I'm just going to try and play through the content.

So, soon I've done all of Borean Tundra, and then I'll be heading back to Dragonblight. Eventually, I might even try and get into some dungeons - the screenshots I've seen of the Nexus are amazing, and instances are fun (if one manages to find a nice+reasonably talented group).

A last note: I've really missed the keyboard of my laptop. It's nothing special - a regular laptop keyboard - but the keys are so much softer than those on my PC one, and there's a really nice, worn spot on the space bar. If I ever write my great Swedish novel, I'll so be doing it on a laptop.

Time to check if the server is back up, me thinks.

Delirious.

Ah, it's pretty, so pretty. And my moonkin is a dream to level. She can take a beating from a few mobs at a time, nuke things down quite fast, and the downtime is basically non-existant - Borean Tundra is cake! The lag + low fps can be a pain at times, but the environments, the fancy new skins, and the quests are so effing great I don't really care! She's gotten to 71 so far - I'm taking it quite easy, but I'd like to get to 74 soonish - Dalaran awaits :)

My mage has been chosen as my no. 2 leveling project, so when the Borean Tundra starts to feel too harsh, I head over to the Howling Fjord. This rather newly dinged mage doesn't have the kind of semi-fancy equipment my druid has, though, so it's a bit slower, with a few more deaths. Not as tricky as Hellfire Pen could be at 58, but those few mid 60s quest rewards can make even my badass mage squishy...

Downside: My home server was full, and queued, last night, and it's the same thing tonight. Serious queues, too - last night I was no. 420! Hopefully it'll get better in a while, but right now there's really no way to easily switch between my two accounts.

Anyway, back to the game - aiming at getting to 72 sometime within the next 24 hours, which shouldn't be a problem :)

En attendant WotLK

Over the last few days I've been laying low, WoW-wise. Not a very big surprise, considering Hallow's End left me exhausted, and without a new title (poo!). Also, my studies actually seem to be moving forward, which has required quite a bit of focus. I spent yesterday evening getting my human priestess up to level 50, and now she only has the (in my opinion) really fun areas left:

• Felwood - OK, I guess some of those demon guys (if not all of them) are a bit too resilient to shadow damage, but it looks sooo cool.
• Un'goro Crater - A lot of quests to do, all in one go (maybe two), as you move in a circle around the place.
• Western Plaguelands - A lot of quests, of course, really close to eachother, and quite a bit of runecloth - yay for tailoring!
• Winterspring - Let's grind some funky reps! OK, so I may not feel like grinding all the way to exalted with Timbermaw Hold, but I love the quests in Winterspring, and the blindingly white environment.
• Silithus - On a second thought, no. I don't like Silithus. Only good reason to go there is to pick up this cooking recipe from a quest, to get cooking to 300 without too much fuss.
• Eastern Plaguelands - This is where I usually do that last grind to 58, killing Scourge and gathering even more runecloth, while enjoying the (yes, once again) effing amazing environment. I like the spookiness of the place, how it feels abandoned, and how one can almost flinch in surprise if actually running into another player in somewhere like Plaguewood. It's just got a really nice atmosphere.

Still, I don't know if I'll feel like doing the final grind all the way to Outland before the expansion comes, which is next week! I'd really like to try and grind some cash (lately, it seems, I've spent it as soon as I've had it), so I can upgrade skills and stuff like that without giving it another thought, and not having to focus on gold for the first few levels in Northrend. On the other hand, I don't really plan on spending a whole lot before getting to 80, except on riding skills, since I honestly don't find it necessary to be fully enchanted when you're running around in quested greens.

Anyway, I'm probably going to try and get enough cash to pay for slow flying for a mage and a shaman, and hopefully about 1000 gold for each of the 70 chars. Should be enough.

Now, I'm going to spend some time trying not to fall asleep, while waiting for my flatmate to get back from work. I made dinner yesterday, and the day before, so I'm expecting food, dammit!

Also: Yay Obama!

My Flaming Friend

I finally (ooh, it was a pain, took from 8-ish last night until about an hour ago... I did get a good night's sleep, though ;) ) got my Captured Flame! Behold:
Yes, it's that orange-pink-thingie next to my sexy huntress. Nvm the quested greens, I'm only hardcore when it comes to small pets ;) Also, she's 67, dammit! All that running all over the world, honouring or putting out fires got her well on the way to 68, though. About 70 % of a level, I believe. And I'm going to keep doing the Midsummer dailies - not only do they give gold, you also get xp - a bit more than 11000 a quest! And with three quests a day, it's not bad at all! Dailies before 70 ftw!