Played Lately: World of Warcraft

• I'm trying to remember if I mentioned this before. I'm way too lazy to look through my own archives so I'll just explain.


• Since I have a number of alts in World of Warcraft (and yes, almost all of them are blood elves), I've had to figure out creative ways to change up my leveling experience. I've heard other gamers do it, but WoW is the first game where I've set personal goals outside the game mechanics. My most recent challenge was to level two characters on entirely separate continents. My warlock completed the challenge sometime last year, leveling exclusively in the Eastern Kingdoms. Last week, my paladin did the same, hitting my goal level of 58 in Kalimdor.


• This put me in the awkward situation of setting new goals. The natural progression of the game would have me gallivanting eagerly toward Hellfire Peninsula. The problem with that is I've been through That Damn Zone™ five full times since the expansion launched and I'm a little tired of it. Blizzard learned its lesson with Wrath, allowing for two separate starting zones, but this roadblock is still here.


• One part of the game I haven't seen a lot of is the old world instances. So instead of following the traditional path, my paladin will be touring places I've seen little of before, like Blackrock Mountain, Scholomance, and Stratholme. First I leveled as high as I could through quests in Eastern Plaguelands and Silithus, zones that were mostly deserted after The Burning Crusade made them obsolete. So far I've hit the lofty height of level 64.


• This weekend, I took my first tentative steps into Blackrock Depths. Amazingly enough, I had never set foot into this classic instance before. It's of the sprawling, old school style with a dozen bosses, multiple pathways, and thousands (maybe) of trash mobs. At level 64, the trash mobs mostly ignore me unless I come within melee range of them. Over the course of a few days, I was able to take down all but the final boss in the instance. This was not an easy feat. Since I'm avoiding gear that can't be found in the old world, I'm relying on overleveling and patch 3.0 talents to see me through. I'm also using the most up-to-date enchantments from my mage. Even with that little edge, I have driven up some impressive repair bills. But I've also been having a lot of fun. I am very used to the run from the Thorium Point graveyard to the BRD entrance now, but I haven't stopped enjoying the sights and the challenge.


• My next step is to try Dire Maul, an instance I've only explored long enough to get my first paladin her epic mount. Hopefully I'll start finding some better gear to help with all this soloing. If it gets too hard, I plan on leveling by slaughtering the ghosts around Karazhan. Since, at level 70, they are the highest level mobs in the old world, I could level as high as 73 or 74 if I really want to grind it out. We'll see.


• And that's the long way of explaining why I haven't been blogging lately. Have a great day!