Bit of time since my last update-- vacations without access for gaming will do that. Fortunately, I remembered to park my butt in an inn before I logged out and I returned to nearly a level's worth of rest xp. It only accumulates when you're in an inn or a capital city. So, although I hada short amount of play time, I made what I could of it, and made my way back to village of Southshore. Southshore had a few quests that pointed me up to the north-- the mountainous and snowy area of Hillsbrad, so I hiked my way up that way to test my might against a dangerous extremist organization called "The Syndicate" and a crapton of ogres.
Humanoid monsters are, in my opinion, a pretty good target. They generally all carry cash, they drop cloth (useful for tailors, some quests for reputation, or selling on the AH), have better magic loot, and generally have less 'trash drops'. Couple that with many of them try to flee when their health gets too low and it's like getting free shots when you're a ranged character.
Since the critters were, for the most part, ranging from two levels under to two levels above, I ignored my leveling guide which told me go hang out in a zone twenty minutes and a continent away and contented myself with grinding the aforementioned enemies into so much blood sausage. By the time I had killed and gathered my way to completing three quests, I had dinged 38. That meant new abilities and an upgrade to my primary attack spell: frostbolt. One teleport later, I'm chilling with my mage gnomies in Ironforge and spending hard-earned coin on the latest batch of upgrades.
Since solstice last Monday, we've had a "fire festival" holiday event going on. I was afraid it would end while I was on vacation, but it appears that it will last for another couple of days yet. With the celebration, there are a number of fire-related entertainment and quest options going on that provides a bucketload of coin and xp for lower level players and I took advantage of what I could last week.
To begin with, there are a number of bonfires around the world, generally a couple in each zone (one for Alliance, one for Horde) that can be visited and "honored" (read: click the NPC standing next to them). Honoring the fire gives an xp + coin reward, as well as a few burning something-or-anothers which can be used as currency at festival merchants in the capital city or as tinder to light an extinguished bonfire. If your side's bonfire is lit, everyone on your side gets a tasty little buff that randomly does hundreds of bonus damage as you're fighting. Alternatively, if you find an enemy's bonfire, you can stamp it out and get a lot more xp as a reward, ending their buff and flagging you for PvP for a few minutes. The risk is well worth it.
Additionally, at each bonfire is a maypole-type affair that you can dance around. Tendrils of energy will charge you up as long as you spin and twirl at the pole, granting a buff that gives bonus xp from kills-- the longer you dance, the longer the buff until it reaches a maximum of one hour of bonus for one minute of staring at your character twirl like an idiot. Also well worth it.
Aside from that, in cities there are daily mini-games of torch juggling and torch tossing that grant even more coin and xp. Finally, for dungeon delvers there's a big bad that can be bested for loot. I'm nowhere near the level to challenge that one, but the other games are a fun little side diversion.
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