Played Lately: World of Warcraft

• Take everything I'm about to say with the proverbial grain of salt. I'm typing in the aftermath of a disastrous week in Karazhan which is sure to color my view of things.


• I have found lately that I'm much more interested in my playing my alts than my main character. A number of things have gone into that. With the patch 2.4 update still a distant vision, there aren't many challenges my mage has left to face. I've been raiding faithfully and pushing through the same old daily quests every day. However that feels more like work than the fun of exploration I so crave. Thus I've looked to other characters, even my retired level 70 pally, to change things up.


• I still have two blood elves, a paladin and a warlock, that I've been leveling on separate continents for the sake of variety. I took the plunge and dropped blacksmithing from my paladin and have begun training herbalism and alchemy. It's only taken me a few days of random wandering to catch up with my current level, but more than once I wondered if it would be worth it.


• Another turn of events that has brought me to a new alt is that my brother has started playing the game. Now that he has a computer with a cooperative video card, he's discovered the addiction that is WoW. I rolled a human priest to tag along with his paladin and together we've already outleveled my blood elf alts. The reduced leveling curve in patch 2.3 has really been a benefit to him. Not once have we faced the problem of too few quests to make the next level.


• I have to admit that since I started writing this post, I've been back in Kara and got both of my Tier 4 tokens. Yay, me! In the long run, it's hard to stay mad when the loot train keeps rolling.