Over the Hump

The thirties were not the most fun of level ranges in Vanilla. You had no mount yet, yet you had to range further and further afield to find quests - particularly painful on classes that don't get some kind of speed boost, like a hunter's Aspect of the Cheetah or a druid's Travel Form (*cough*mypally*cough*). There's also a bit of a dearth of good dungeons in the low thirties... who ever wants to do SM GY? And the only Alliance players who ever want to go to Razorfen Kraul are warriors for their class quest (if I recall correctly).

I've written about questing in Stranglethorn Vale and Thousand Needles, but aside from that I also spent some time in Arathi killing kobolds and Syndicate, and more in Desolace, though I made a point of staying away from anything centaur-related. The quests associated with the goblin caravan turned out to be sadly broken, but from what I hear no private server has got those right yet. Also, Rexxar and his pet bear are jerks. (The latter killed me after chasing me halfway across the map... she just wouldn't let go!)

Either way, I'm proud to say that I'm finally over that hump (thus the title of this post) and hit level 40! There is no ding shot as I was actually in the middle of tanking a Scarlet Monastery run at the time, but I noted down that I hit this milestone after a /played time of four days and about nine and a half hours. So just getting from 30 to 40 took me almost two days of played time, about the same amount of time as 1 to 30! In fairness though, I wasn't trying to be terribly efficient about it (or else I wouldn't be levelling a paladin as prot/holy). I also can't help but wonder how much of that time was spent in combat, compared to running around, sitting on flight paths and idling at the Ironforge auction house. I wouldn't be surprised if it was less than fifty percent.

Of course, hitting level 40 means that I'm finally able to get my first mount! And this is where being a paladin has its perks, because they get their basic mount for free. It counts as a regular paladin ability and doesn't even require you to have had riding training. This is good, because while I've been trying to save up money, I still would have come up a bit short in terms of gold, mostly because ability training is horrifically expensive, and bank space is even more so. (And while the latter is largely optional, I couldn't resist buying some, considering the alternative would have been to *gasp* get rid of some items that I wanted to keep.)

Even though I'm sure that they will take even longer, I'm looking forward to the next couple of levels because a) I finally have a horse, b) they will take me to zones like Tanaris, Feralas and the Hinterlands, some of my favourite Vanilla WoW zones, and c) SM Cathedral and Zul'Farrak are fun and worth re-running more than once if the opportunity arises.

A Guild and Grind

I joined a guild again. It wasn't planned, but as I was sitting in Darkshire looking for people to polish off my last couple of group quests in Duskwood, a person called Pawsy whispered me to ask if I was unguilded for a reason, which I thought was an interesting way of starting a recruitment conversation. We talked for a bit, I told them about how I wasn't playing very much and had ended up somewhat disappointed by the last guild that I'd joined randomly, and in the end I agreed to join their brand-new levelling guild called "Mending". It really was brand-new, as according to the guild info it had been founded only about two weeks prior.

I was pretty impressed by the leadership's recruitment efforts, as they were apparently whispering people like crazy, to the point that they were joking about how they were getting "no, I don't want to join Mending right now" replies as soon as they even said "hi". I was impressed because while they didn't seem to be very discriminating with their invities, they did genuinely try to engage people in conversation in the process.

I asked about the group quests in guild chat and half an hour later they were done. Boom! That's why you joined a guild in Vanilla.

Of course, it also took only a few hours until I had my first impulse to ragequit, when I saw some guy repeatedly use the word "jew" as an insult in guild chat and realised that another guy called Donaldtrumps (the name says it all really) who had come across as kind of trollish in general chat was in the guild as well. However, I decided that I didn't want to be hasty, as the guild is still very new and one has to wait a bit to see how these things shake out. A few bad apples don't need to necessarily ruin it for everyone, depending on how they are received by the rest of the guild, and I've already seen a fair bit of pushback against people saying overly stupid/rude things in guild chat as well. In short: we'll see.

In terms of gameplay, after having gained a few levels in Stranglethorn Vale, I was starting to hit a bit of a wall there, in the sense that I ran out of quests that I could easily solo. Plus, the Horde players I was encountering were starting to get on my nerves a bit... like that troll shaman 7 levels above me that tried to gank me on the road twice, though both times I managed to keep myself alive for long enough for other Allies to come by and kill him instead. Then there was another troll shammy, only 2 levels higher or so, who tried to kill me near Nesingwary's camp, but I kept healing myself. By the time I was nearly dead due to running out of mana and he was out of mana as well, I handed in two quests so that I dinged and was instantly back to full health and mana, hah! Unfortunately that was when another troll shammy (is there anything else in STV?) who was 9 levels higher than me and had been fishing nearby decided to join in to kill me. Anyway, the point is - all those troll shamans were getting in my way a bit and I decided that it was time to visit Kalimdor again.

I took the boat to Theramore and crossed Dustwallow Marsh, the Barrens and Thousand Needles on foot. Seeing the old Thousand Needles again made me so happy, even if its design and textures seem kind of bland by today's standards. I missed those windy canyons. I unlocked the flight path in Gadgetzan and picked up the artisan cooking quest there, since my cooking is a bit ahead of my level, though I'll need to level up a couple more times before I can effectively farm the materials for the quest.

Then I decided to go do a couple of quests in the Shimmering Flats. I vaguely recall not doing those on my priest back in the day, because I was already too high level for them by the time I arrived in the area, so I was only ever peripherally aware of them. It's safe to say that I didn't miss out! They are all super grindy and anything that doesn't require you to simply kill things or pick items off the ground has a terrible drop rate. Salt Flat Venom or Hardened Shells, anyone? I was OK with it though, because honestly, I needed something to grind and these quests just gave me an excuse to pick on turtles and scorpids.

Also, an orc rogue who was something like 7 levels lower than me tried to kill me and failed; I killed her instead. Definitely preferable to Stranglethorn Vale.

The Green Hills of Stranglethorn

While I had found unexpected enjoyment in questing in Duskwood, I was also keen on moving on to Stranglethorn Vale. STV, as it is sometimes shortened to, is a place with a very mixed reputation. Personally I have mostly fond memories of it, but I also know people who absolutely loathed that zone. One of the friends that levelled with me when I first started playing WoW used to call it "Ganklethorn Vale". Since we played on a PvE server I didn't really get this whole world PvP thing at the time and it didn't really mean anything to me. Seeing Horde players for the first time was simply exciting.

Now that I'm actually getting to re-live the experience (sort of), I'm being reminded of both the good and the bad about this zone:

The Good:

- After the gloomy atmosphere of Duskwood, the sunny tropical beaches of Stranglethorn really lighten your mood.

- There are loads of quests by Vanilla standards. I mentioned before that while WoW gained fame for having more quests than any other MMO at the time, by today's standards they were actually pretty sparse, and you were constantly running from zone to zone to find new ones (or submit to the grind for a couple of levels).

The Bad:

- Especially as Alliance, there is so much walking. I'd forgotten that the Rebel Camp didn't gain a flight path until Burning Crusade, so the closest Alliance hub is Darkshire. Then it's all the way down the winding road to Booty Bay and it takes freaking forever because you're still on foot for another ten levels or so. No mercy or consideration for the fact that you didn't actually get a mount until level 40.

- As this is one of the first zones where Horde and Alliance are forced into some proximity, it's a popular spot for gankers on PvP servers. So far I've only been affected by it once though, and I guess I was kind of asking for it by fishing near Nesingwary's camp...

The Neutral:

- Mob density is high and many of them also make pretty worthwhile grind targets (animals for leather, humanoids for cloth and cash). On the other hand: mob density is pretty high and you can't take two steps off the road without being attacked. In a couple of spots you are likely to be attacked on the road as well, plus it's often hard not to get adds while fighting in many places.

- The zone covers a huge level range, from about 30 to 50. In some ways this is good - see the aforementioned positive about lots of quests. On the other hand you'll find yourself coming back to the place again, and again, and again (because this being Vanilla, of course there aren't enough quests to level in STV alone) and you'll probably get pretty tired of it after a while.

- The mobs start to get more interesting in terms of abilities, and since combat is so much slower than in modern day WoW, they actually get to use them. In some ways this is interesting, because it trains you to - for example - save stuns until the caster mob tries to heal, as they will otherwise heal to full. (Kurzen Medicine Men, anyone?) On the other hand, it makes certain mobs plain annoying to fight depending on your class. For example combat as a pally is already slow enough as it is, I don't need a stupid basilisk stunning me for three seconds twice per fight on top of it.

- The Green Hills of Stranglethorn clog up your bags. On the other hand, if you have the money, you can actually buy a chunk of XP, which is pretty neat in my opinion.

- Samantha Swifthoof patrols the road. That lady scared the crap out of me when I was an Alliance newbie and before I realised that she didn't aggro. It was weird to find out later that she never actually had a purpose in the live game... (She was originally meant to teach Tauren Plainsrunning.)

Priestly Noobishness

I also logged into my priest alt again and played her for a bit, though not for long. Unlike my pally, this character's "original version" was levelled with a group of friends, and trying to recreate that experience alone feels like a very pale shadow of the past.

Still, it does trigger some interesting memories. Like learning how to use Power Word: Shield. I remember that when I first got it, I used to basically just attack the mobs and then shield myself once they got into melee and started hitting me. Then one day, I observed another priest soloing out in the wilderness, and for some reason she was shielding herself before even pulling. At first that made me scratch my head. Power Word: Shield has a thirty second duration, so if you cast it before combat you're effectively wasting a fair bit of potential shielding time!

But of course it doesn't actually work like that in practice, because a couple of hits are already enough to consume the shield. And then you'll likely have to deal with the Weakened Soul debuff, which won't allow you to be re-shielded for fifteen seconds after the first shield was cast. By pre-shielding, you could give Weakened Soul time to run out, and by the time your enemy broke your shield you were then able to immediately re-shield again. Just from observing a stranger I learned one of the most important lessons about the basic use of shields.

Likewise, reading the tooltip for Fade brought back all kinds of memories. In Vanilla it said: "Fade out, discouraging enemies from attacking you for 10 sec." Combined with the way that using this ability made you appear semi-transparent for a few seconds, I interpreted that as it giving me some kind of temporary stealth which would allow me to sneak past enemies at a closer distance than usual. When that didn't work, I mentally discarded the ability as useless.

Of course, the real purpose of Fade (and later versions of the tooltip reflected that) is to reduce your threat in combat. After I constantly drew healing aggro in dungeons, someone eventually asked me why I was never using Fade. I don't remember what I said, but probably something along the lines of: "Because it doesn't work!" But then I gave it another go in group content, and seeing mobs that were running towards me a moment ago turn right around and go back to the tank the moment I hit Fade was absolutely mind-blowing.

It's remembering things like that which enables me to have near infinite patience with people who play badly or just don't seem to get how something works, regardless of which MMO I'm in. They've probably got some perfectly valid reason on their minds for why they are doing what they are doing - even if they are "doing it wrong" - and it's probably something that I never even would have been able to come up with. That's the noob's prerogative.

Verigan's Fist

With my nostalgia for WoW as it used to be rekindled by BlizzCon, I decided to log onto my paladin on Kronos for the first time in several months. Her quest log was a hot mess with leftover quests in half a dozen different zones, and I was bumping up against the limit of only being able to hold twenty quests at a time. Argh! As I really wanted to move on to Stranglethorn Vale, land of numerous, glorious kill quests, I made an effort to clear things out a bit. Those leftover group quests from Redridge? Not gonna go back for those... abandon! A quest for Gnomeregan? Bah, whatever... abandon!

But there was one quest I definitely wasn't going to let go: The Test of Righteousness! After all I had already braved the Deadmines for that Whitestone Oak Lumber, fought elite ogres in Loch Modan for Refined Ore and descended to the Blackfathom Deeps for a Purified Kor Gem. All I needed was that darned hammer from Shadowfang Keep!

I figured that since I was past level thirty now, I was probably going to be OK soloing this last step, even though my gear was atrociously bad for my level. Fortunately I already had all the flight points up to Southshore from when I travelled north in search of the Expert First Aid book. I took it slowly, cleaning up a couple more quests on the way, but eventually I stood at the border to Silverpine, faced with giant red text warning me that I was entering Horde territory. I did not encounter any Horde however. Kronos' not particularly high population is definitely an advantage when it comes to avoiding PvP on a PvP server.

I killed the first couple of trash packs inside the instance with no issues but died once to the boss, since I didn't realise that he came with no less than three adds, which was a bit much for me in my gear, even at my level. Fortunately I managed to kill at least one of them before I died, and when I came back for more I was able to handle the remaining two adds before tackling the boss himself. I wouldn't have been able to tell you his name before I came in; I have to confess that Shadowfang Keep is one of those dungeons that I didn't run many times back in its Vanilla incarnation.

After successfully dispatching of Rethilgore, I found the captured Dalaran mage in his cell and talked to him so he would open the door to the courtyard for me. Surprise! The cell door closed behind me as I walked in to chat with him and I ended up trapped! I can't tell whether this was a bug or an actual Vanilla mechanic (after all you were supposed to come in with a group, so someone else would have been able to pull the lever from outside to let you back out), but it sure was annoying! Since there was no way to kill myself, it looked like my only way of escaping might be using my hearthstone... which was set to Darkshire. Ugh! However, then I had one last idea, which fortunately worked out - by casting Consecration close to the wall, I managed to pull Deathstalker Adamant from the adjacent cell, and as he was not held back by trifling matters such as walls or gates, he came over and helpfully agreed to kill me to save me from having to hearth out. Dodged that bullet!

I was kind of baffled by just how packed the courtyard was with mobs and patrols, but once again I managed to fight my way towards the stables with no further issues. At last, there was Jordan's Hammer!

I decided to pull the "horse boss" as a last hurrah, since I wasn't sure anymore whether the other horses would aggro as well. They did, and they stomped me. But I had got my quest item, so it was all good!

It didn't matter that I was prot/holy and had no real use for a two-handed mace. In Vanilla, there were just some things that you had to do because your pride demanded it, and owning your own Verigan's Fist was definitely one of them. Not to mention that getting it felt like completing one hell of a quest, in the truest sense of the word.

BlizzCon, the Warcraft Movie and Ironmen

BlizzCon has come and gone and WoW was once again all over the (MMO) news. There was also that little announcement about further subscription drops and that they'll never report subscriber numbers again, but oh well. I liked the way Wilhelm put it: "In the end, even World of Warcraft in reality cannot compete with World of Warcraft of legend."

The Legion announcement left me completely cold. I say this not to pooh-pooh on anyone who was excited by it, but because it's an interesting contrast to Warlords of Draenor. WoD at least still sounded somewhat tempting to me. This stuff? Nope. I guess I really am over that. I didn't even like the Legion trailer, mainly because it was focused on Varian.



I've been told that he's gradually been turned into a decent character, and maybe that's true, but if it is it definitely came too late for me. To me he'll always be that douche with the stupid hair. The only time I liked him (sorta) was when he was still the missing diplomat.

I was sort of intrigued by the Warcraft movie trailer:



I don't think it will blow anyone away in terms of story, but it does capture the Warcraft aesthetic pretty well and it's interesting to see a more "realistic" rendition of Azeroth for once. It focuses on a time period from classic Warcraft, which will appeal to a lot of people who may not like or care about the current game anymore. And it will be interesting to see how they change up the lore to make it more suitable for the big screen. For example the orcs come across as a lot more sympathetic in that trailer than I would have expected them to be at that point in Warcraft history, plus there's that whole "green Moses" scene...

I've also been watching people play WoW on YouTube, specifically the Ironman Challenge. I seem to remember hearing about the basic idea of levelling a character with as many self-imposed handicaps as possible as far back as Wrath of the Lich King, but it seems to have increased in appeal the more boring the base levelling game has become.



My favourite has been TheLazyPeon's series about it, because he gets so genuinely enthused about exploring the game in a new manner and so freaked out by his near-deaths. (Dying instantly causes you to "lose" the challenge.) You definitely feel a bit of Vanilla WoW flair in the air whenever his little mage sheeps things and runs for his life.

The other YouTuber I've been watching play through this challenge is Asmongold:



He projects more of a "bro" personality on screen, and if you see the weird sort of "fan mail" he gets, you wonder if he ever regrets it. It's interesting to see how completely different his approach is though. He couldn't get what the challenge was about initially, constantly deriding it as too easy (and to be fair, he did roll a hunter). But then he made a stupid pull in Duskwood and pretty much only survived it because he happened to level up at just the right time and it really seemed to sink in that the game could still be challenging if you do gimp yourself enough. He also has pretty much zero interest in quests and lore and frequently seems to forget that Cataclysm happened (as in, he'll keep talking about what sort of quest he thinks is coming up in the next area, but it's almost always the Vanilla version he describes). Still entertaining in its own way.

Vanilla WoW on Hold

Just in case anyone has been wondering why I haven't posted an update on here in over a month, I wanted to give a brief explanation for that. Basically, I found that it's impossible for me to play three MMOs at the same time, at least while also maintaining a level of involvement that I'm comfortable with. (That is to say that I'm not someone who's happy to play any MMO for two hours a week.) So something had to give, and WoW was the natural choice since it was "only" a solo project. In both SWTOR and Neverwinter I have other people coaxing me to log in, so those games couldn't be dropped as easily. (Well, that and SWTOR has been my main game for three and a half years now... it was more of a case of WoW vs. Neverwinter really.)

That doesn't mean that I've lost interest in the project or have completely given up on it. Based on experience I would expect my pet tank's interest in Neverwinter to decrease again after the summer, at which point I might be able to give that game a break and get back on the road to Stranglethorn Vale instead.