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After wrapping up some in-town busy work in Dalaran, I headed out to the flight deck. Before I jumped on a flight to the next zone I picked up a quest from a mage right at the flight master -Where in the World is Hemet Nesingwary? Upon taking the quest I was ported across Northrend to Sholazar Basin. Knowing that I was already a huge fan of the Nesingwary quest lines in Stranglethorn Vale and Nagrand, I was already excited at the thought of finishing my acheivment – Hemet Nesingwary: The Collected Quests.

All told, it took Haf and I about 2 hours to finish the Nesingwary quest line in Sholazar Basin to complete our achievement. It would have been much faster if Haf hadn’t intentionally dropped Path of Frost every time I strutted out onto the middle of the rivers and lakes, plundging me into the grasp of the angry aquatic mobs below us. Mr. Funny Man…

Skin-a-palooza!
Sholazar Basin is a skinner’s paradise, much like Stranglethorn and Nagrand were in their day. My evening was complete when I received two Arctic Furs, back to back!

For those that aren’t in the know, Arctic Fur is a skinning drop that is used not only in leatherworking patterns, but also as a form of currency to purchase bind on pick-up (BOP) leatherworking patterns. Through my adventures in Northrend thus far, I have acquired 10 or so Arctic Furs. So, needless to say they are pretty rare to come across.

Happy Hunting!

Leveling is such a chore for an ADD-challenged lady such as myself. The event of “dinging” followed by the residual joy and excitement is often followed by the sad panda look of, “How many more levels are left?”.

Granted, the questing is nearly effortless, the stories are very involved and play out very nicely at the end of the long quest chains. But, since my in-game time is limited towards the end of long days, I am usually falling asleep at the keyboard after about 2 hours of play.

So, after only an hour of play last night I finally dinged 74 (insert awesome golden spinny-thing animation here) – only a few minutes after Haf! Yeah! So, rather than push forward to the next level by doing more of the same, we set forth to Dalaran. At 74 everyone is given a quest to see out the magic of dalaran, which inturn lets you pick-up the fligt plan and learn the port-up/port-down system in the middle of the city. How fun!

I was also on a trek to do all of the cool stuff that I have been reading about for months! We first went to the Underbelly down what appeared to be a well. While there we fished for a bit, then picked up our Ghostly Skull pet. For 40G, it is basically a badge of – “Yea, I have been there”.

Next we set out to find the fountain. The fishing acheivement, Penny For Your Thoughts. While I was tapped out and bored with it after about 20 minutes, Haf stayed and nearly completed the task after about an hour.

I also set out to find the elusive books for the Well Read acheivment, which ends up granting access to Archmage Vargoth in the Violet Citadel. And, Vargoth has a super-exotic pet for purchase – the Kirin Tor Familiar. The challange with all of this is the fact that the books around town are random, and they are on a 3-hour spawn timer. So, unless I plan on staying up into the wee hours of the morning, it will be quite some time before the books are all located. Besides, I still have critters to locate and love on!

Exploring Dalaran was in some ways more exciting than getting off the Zepplin the first night of the expansion. The layout is easy to navigate and very appealing. The storefronts are beautiful with lit stained glass and display cases inside. All in all, I was once again impressed with the beauty of the artwork. Well done.

Happy 4th Anniversary to World of Warcraft. Those of us who were playing through the evening were started by a lovely surprise when achievement spam began rolling as people began relogging after midnight. Anyone who logs in today will receive a Feat of Strength Achievement denoting the 4th Anniversary, along with a cute little Blizzard Polar Bear vanity pet.

Thanks to Blizzard for the special little tribute on this noteworthy occassion.

Of the 70 or so players in our guild, we now have close to ten level 80’s, and counting. Since we are only a little over a week into this expansion, it leads me to wonder – how on in the world of Azeroth is this content going to keep us occupied for the next few years if everyone is blowing through questing and instances like the idea of leveling in itself is some sort of competition?

Even more important, there are more fascinating aspects of the game that I hope people aren’t bypassing while they have their eye focused on 80.

Lore
The story lines in the quests leading to and from each zone and sub-zone are amazing. I have referenced this fact before, but the further I get along, the more intrigued I am by the stories coming full circle, and obscure references to stories not mentioned since the original game.

Scenery
It is worth noting that nearly half of the manual that came with the WOTLK expansion pack was a listing of credits for artists who worked on the game. And, equally impressive is the amazing artwork within the game. I often times find myself staring at the sky or the waterfalls, underwater worlds or the character movements of NPCs and truly gasp with amazement at the work put into this game. It really is becoming a world within a world.

Pugging
I know most people hate the very idea of pugging, but I believe that grouping outside of the guild is a great way to meet new people and introduce existing friends to new ones. Someone that is racing to 80 by AOE farming or instance hacking isn’t adding any value to their gaming experience outside of their personal goal.

I know that the WoW-experience is different for everyone, and that anyone paying a monthly subscription is entitled to their on level of play. But, I believe to truly enjoy all aspects of the game is equally important as the larger goal of reaching level 80.

With the Death Knight on the back burner for the time being, I am hitting Howling Fjord hard and heavy. The questing is so very well planned in the Wrath of the Lich King, and the stories are amazing. The zones have many sub-zones this time around with quest-hubs with chains anywhere from 5-20 quests deep. And, with the linear chains lead to each of the various sub-zones. All are very well thought out in efforts to avoid overcrowding in various areas.

So, with these amazing stories comes little lessons in lore and happenstance along the way. Today’s adventure in northern Howling Fjord lead me to Gjalerbron, where after slaying Queen Angerboda for the quest The Slumbering King, the Lich King yells:

which equates to the fact that I will see Ymiron again. And now, having done the quest line leading up to that moment, I understand why he is angry. But, I have to do some reaserch on why he is so sleepy.

Winding down the zone I was able to get into a party for Utgarde Keep, one of the two instances within Howing Fjord. The story about the Keep’s existence, and how it relates to the zone is very evident. And, much to my amazement, the first boss was the good ol’ Death Knight teacher-guy from back in Eastern Plaguelands – none other than Prince Keleseth. Knowing that he is a hard and fast member of the scourage, which I am working to exterminate throughout Northrend, I was happy to take part in kicking his ass.

Overall, Utgarde Keep was a great first WOTLK dungeon experience. The story lines were great, and the imagery and interaction was amazing.

While the Death Knight class comes with first aid pre-leveled to 270, no other professions are trained or leveled. So, anyone serious about investing time and effort into the class has to also spend quite a bit of time playing catch-up with both primary and secondary professions.

I found a handy guide on El’s Extreme Anglin’ that details steps to level fishing and cooking simultaneously. I have still had to invest quite a bit of time running all over creation, and I tend to space out and start doing other things rather than fishing, but it has been more productive than past power-profession-leveling experiences.

And, when it comes to leveling herbalism or mining, having Gatherer is a major help. It tracks the nodes and adds a mini-map display for noted locations. Additionally, I just learned of MapWoW.com today – which has captured the same node information and displays it utilizing the same type of googlemaps technology. Either or both is helpful in searching for an locating the often rare node.

Whatever profession you are leveling, don’t be afraid of doing some research and following guides that are available all over the web. No matter what you are leveling, there are thousands of people that have leveled that profession before you. Why not learn from there experience and make yours faster and more enjoyable.

I swear, if I see another Deathnyte, Deadbourne, Nitedeath, Deadnite, or any other lame combination of the words dead, death, night, born, or dark…. I will shove my fishing pole up someone’s Deathcharger. It amazes me that people who are in this ultra-story of an MMO can’t do any better than Deadnub when it comes to picking a name for their Death Knight.

Maybe I am some sort of anal wierdo when it comes to picking a name, but I figure that since most of the time people end up referring to each other by our character’s name there should be more to it than the obvious. I would equate it to the idea that every new child in the is coincidentally named Bob, or some variation of Bob. There is Bob in this family, Robert in this other, Bobby is the neighbor, then this guy Bawb works in the bank, and Rawbert at the store. How strange and generic would that be? Calling all Death Knights dark or dead something-or-other is pretty much the same thing in my mind.

Be imaginative people! Read some lore, discover the ideas and history of the toon you are about to invest a crap-load of time playing! Sheesh!

World of Warcraft was the first, and currently the only, MMO I have ever played. My previous gaming experience was limited to various console games. So, when my boyfriend at the time came home with a 10-day pass that a co-worker had given him, he tried very hard to share the delight with me in this game. Alas, I wanted to have nothing to do with it at the time.

But, by watching over his shoulder, learning about the basic game mechanics, and seeing in-game PVP for the first time – I was hooked. PVP really sold me on the game. The idea of being able to attack and kill another player, and general make them have a bad day, thourally tickled me.

We sat down together at the character creation screen and pieced together the things that the bits and pieces of lore that we had learned in our short exposure to the game. I first decided that I wanted to be a fairy. It made total sense to me since there were fairies in every type of fictional lore I have ever seen. But, much to my chagrin, the only fairies in WoW are males *giggle*.

So, the next best, and cutest option, was a gnome. And, the warlock seemed somewhat of a dark and creepy option. The choice was made.

Stumpy was my boyfriend’s nickname, and Thumbelina was a fairy tale that I always enjoyed as a child. So, I combined the two to create Stumpalina. I set off in my adventures on my first Alliance toon in December of 2004, shortly after the game’s release.

The game now known as “Vanilla WoW” was challenging from the get-go. The daily grind from level 1 to 60 really taught me the nuts and bolts of the game (with a few exceptions). I was a fear-bomb, dot and run machine – in both PVE leveling, and PVP face-melting. Around level 20 I finally realized that the pet bar was there for some reason. Around level 40 I realized that I could put the pet on aggressive. And, the pivotal moment for me was at level 58 while running Blackrock Depths with some guild members and my boyfriend the party leader asked me to off tank a mob with my voidwalker. I responded with, “I can turn him onto aggressive, but I don’t know what he is going to do.” You could feel the /facepalm over ventrillio.

From that ubar-embarassing moment on, I have learned that there is much more than clicking buttons and smashing keys when it comes to playing this game well.

Once Stumpalina finally landed on the then magic number of 60, I became more knowledgabe at my class and a proud officer in my guild. At the time we raided Zul’Gurub with great frequency, moving onward towards Molten Core and beginning Blackwing Lair shortly before the release of The Burning Crusade.

Also in that span of 2-years I gradually earned the Alliance rank of Knight-Captain. At the time, the feat was a huge accomplishment due in no small part to the hour+ battleground cue times.

The Burning Crusade expansion brought with it changes, not only in our visual surroundings, but also in our class builds and broaded our raiding experience. Stumpalina ended up being a DPS machine by the end of my time with her. Loredrin (my husband), and I raided through a majority of the T6 content before deciding to hang up the ol’ toons for a wider variety of in-game experiences. We officially made the switch to our current mains in March of 2008.

I am still somewhat sentimental about Stumpalina, and I occasionally still log her in to redo her hair, or sell some random crap she still has sitting in her bags. But, for now, she is in retirement until a time TBD.

Q: Is it possible to have multiple mains and give each the required time needed to fully develop the character?

My evening begin mild and uneventful as I ran daily quests for money for the last time on my druid and prepared for my copy of the expansion by cleaning out my bank toon and settling on a name for my new Death Knight.

Meet Putricity… the name is very disease-like and kind of reminds me of “Felicity“.

For the past few days, Haf (my husband) and I have been reading up on Death Knight theory, spec and the beginning zone quests to make leveling our DK a breeze. The beginning zone quest were some of the best planned and most exciting that I have ever done in this game. Not to mention the fact that each of the quest upgraded the first set of badass looking gear with an even better set of badass gear.

Towards the end of the quest line, we had our last encounter with the Lich King in this zone. And, he eludes to future encounters in Northrend.

So far we are quite pleased with the DPS and flexiability of the Death Knight class. Haf is leveling in the Unholy school, and I am sticking with Blood for the time being.

More to come on Death Knights in the Outlands, and Intros into my other toons.

Well, the servers have been sketchy since maintenance yesterday, and the expansion is set to release in-store in less than 14-hours. I sure hope that they get the mail system worked out soon because my last few hours of finishing up things in preparation for the expansion is narrowing.

So, I am taking this opportunity to start this blog that I have successfully put off for this long. Taking cues from the many blogs that I consistently subscribe to, I will be following and maintaining a format, once one is developed, and, I plan to discuss death knight, druid and warlock theory and play-style while experiencing Wrath of the Lich King along side with my husband.