Succumbed to my desire to “just do it, already” and ran a few quests in the Eastern Plaguelands to hit 58. As my gnomic gnomad levels, there are certain points that redefine the way I play… 20 for mounts, 50 gave me Steve, and now at 58, I can easily access the Outlands, the areas introduced in the Burning Crusade expansion. The foes and quests there are generally much more rewarding, in terms of both experience and loot.
I strode through the portal in the Blasted Lands and found myself in Hell, proper. “Hellfire Peninsula” is the entrance zone and has been designed to “make it look as badass possible”. The terrain is broken and along with various demons and orcs and such, giant Fel Reavers (super-mecha-demons) stalk the land. To my credit, I only got squished by those twice.
After finishing the introductory quests and telling myself that no matter WHAT any questgiver says, I am not buying a timeshare here, I find a person willing to teach me flying lessons. I took him up on that in and in short order I’m lazily flapping around on the back of my own golden gryphon. It’s a little on the slow side and I usually have to re-summon Steve whenever I get somewhere, but my quality of life has greatly improved now.
Knocked out nearly every quest anyone would give me and levels 59 and 60 ticked by quickly. The final tally for level 1-60? /played said 5 days, 10 hours. I really don’t care how long it takes me to get the last 20 levels. (possible lie!) By the time I hit 61, I had exhausted Hellfire completely, save for a few group quests.
Moseyed over to the Zone Next Door, Zangramarsh, and just settled in for a little marsh-fun and as I’m collecting a few insect wings or killing 10 (marsh) rats, I get a hail from Brian, inviting me on a dungeon adventure.
Dungeoneering will likely get a more detailed post in the future, but for now, know that I’ve avoided all dungeons like the plague in WoW to this point. The reason being, aside from my general disdain of pickup groups, is the length of time they take. For all the time I play, I usually don’t play large blocks of time straight: someone always needs something and I often have to logout at the drop of a hat. That’s usually no problem solo, bigger issue if you’re in the middle of a 4-hour dungeon crawl. I’d heard things were ‘better’ these days—well, now I’d see for myself.
I partied up with Brian (his Death Knight being my level) and he joined the queue finder and almost instantly we were teleported inside a level-appropriate dungeon. Sparing you the utterly cool narrative of what transpired within, I found that they really had made dungeons fun! It took about a half hour to run through to completion and the experience rewards were quite nice indeed as we rolled through the encounters quickly. Now that I had a handle on the mechanics and a little experience with How to Mage in a dungeon (spam Blizzard or frostbolt, repeat as needed. In this game, “crowd control” means AoE the fuck out of something), after Brian dropped off, I tried one on my own (Ding! 62), then another and another.
The dungeons were not all positive experiences, as not all pugs are created equally, but they provided not only a welcome change of pace for me, but a source for delicious rare gear. I made the mistake of acquiring an addon called “Gear Score”, which assigns people a number based on their gear’s level, the enchantments on them, and possibly witchcraft. I used it to compare my relative score to those that I teamed with and found myself…lacking. This isn’t that surprising, given that I’ve been mostly ignoring gear aside from quest upgrades and the rare AH purchase, but it drove home the fact I REALLY needed more rare drops. That meant more dungeons….
By the time I reached level 64, I had replaced much of my gear and now had a score on par with a number of people I was teaming with, but I’ll be turning off this add-on soon: I see the trap clearly and I’m going to avoid it…for now. There’s still some things I need to replace and I’m getting a handle on checking to see what dungeons I should be queueing up for. As time goes on, I’ll be splitting my time between above and below ground expeditions.
Tomorrow: the Seven Types of People You Meet in a PUG (more or less)
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