I have one main character (level 60), one mule for that character (level 1, sitting in Orgrimmar), and one secondary character (now level 20) that I now play about 80% of the time in WoW.

My friends all have at least four characters (between levels 20 and 60) that they regularly play. I only play twice a week at most, and they play twice at the minimum. There’s nothing wrong with either way, as no one is a “basement case,” but it is interesting.

One of my friends is a dedicated guilder, and the other two have dabbled in guilds. I have never been in a guild, and have no inclination to join one. Our experiences in WoW are quite different, but none is more fun that the other. This is a testament to the depth of entertainment the WoW designers have created.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I never did many dungeon raids with my orc hunter; just a few with my real world friends, when we planned to be on at the same time, together. So as an additional change from my previous WoW experience, I want to take my priest on as many raids as I can.

I took my priest on her first instance raid — The Deadmines (for levels 15-20). The party consisted of:

Priest 17-18 – me
Paladin 19
Warlock 17-18
Mage 26
Warrior 30

These players were complete stranger to me — I had never so much as seen their names, before this team up. It was all pretty good, even though there was only minimal planning for pulls. Only had two deaths.

The paladin died when he went off on his own, way far away from the rest of the group. We had to hunt around for his body. This was the first time I’ve resurrected someone in WoW. Not really all that impressive, but it felt cool to be the one doing it.

The warrior died in the very last fight with a bunch of enemies when I had 3 pirates aggro on me. I remember a friend’s words to me when we were doing instances together, “When the enemies attack the priest, the heals go away.” Very true. The paladin did the resurrection this time; I didn’t even know paladins could resurrect.

I got some good loot from the instance, including a great blue wand.

I won the first two rolls for loot, and someone mentioned, I was “winning all the rolls.” I didn’t tell them that I had 25 rabbit’s feet in my bags. But later on, my luck all balanced out, and I didn’t win that many more rolls. So I don’t think there’s anything to the rabbit’s feet being lucky in anyway. They don’t sell for anything on the Auction House, so I’ve just been gullible and hopeful. I sold the rabbit’s feet to a vendor and freed up all those slots in my bags.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I got on with my level 60 orc hunter again – the first time since hitting level 60. I figured I’d see the new world PvP stuff, and maybe level my pet up to 60.

I went to Silithus first. Cenarion Hold has a ton of quests for level 60 – I picked up about 10. But after reading them more closely, I saw they require reputation grinding. I abandoned most of them.

As for the new PvP action, the Alliance was winning in Silithus. When I got there, the score was around 150 to 50. In Silithus, what you have to do is, go to one of the red “geysers” spewing up . . . something, collect the spew, and take it to the faction base camp. Unfortunately, carrying the spew is burdensome, and movement speed is reduced. The hunter ability Aspect of Cheetah doesn’t even help, and mounting up drops the spew.

So, I got one load to the base camp safely. I then ran off to the southern Twilight cult camp to kill Geolords for a quest. There were two or three geysers around the camp, but there were also half a dozen level 60 Alliance characters. They were killing cultists, too, so I had to wait for the cultists to respawn. Eventually the Alliance left, and I got to kill the Geolords.

When there was no Alliance in sight, I grabbed a load of spew and made my way back to the Horde camp. I had to fight some beasts to get back to base, but I tried to avoid most of them. Walking with a load of spew is annoyingly and dangerously slow.

When I neared the Horde camp, a swarm of cultists on horseback camp rushing out right at me. I knew I was screwed, but they ran right past me and kept going.

Before I got into the camp, I had aggroed 3 beasts. I continued on into the camp, making my pet follow me. I figured I’d get the Horde soldiers to help me out. Damn bastards didn’t move a muscle. My pet and I had to fight them all off, all by ourselves. And we did, but my pet died.

Lousy Horde soldiers; no wonder we were loosing the war.

Later, in another part of Silithus, I saw a level 60 dwarf paladin lumbering along with a load of spew. We both stood there a minute looking at each other. I was debating whether I could take him down (grabbing the spew turns on your PvP). Then he dumped the spew, mounted his goat, and rode off. I considered grabbing the spew and taking it back to the Horde camp, but the camp was a long ways away, and I would have had to walk right by Cenarion Hold, and a lot of Alliance characters. So I let it lay.

I then left Silithus and went to Thunder Bluff. I happen to spot a friend there, outside the bank. I ran up to her, and stood there for a few seconds. She then ran right through me without ever noticing me. After chastising her for rudeness, I went to the Eastern Plaguelands to see the world PvP towers.

When I got to EPL, all 4 towers were owned by Alliance. I was going to change that, if I could. I got to Eastwall Tower, and it was empty, with Alliance flags flying above it. I ran in, but couldn’t figure out how to capture it. Eventually, a troll rogue came to the tower. He told me to turn on PvP to capture the tower. So we both did, and after maybe 5 minutes, we changed the tower to Horde.

We both ran off in opposite directions. I was going to find another tower. On the road, I saw another dwarf paladin. As I rode by, keeping my eyes on him (because my PvP flag was still on), I ran right into a half-dozen Scarlet Monastery humans on horseback. Oh crap! They dismounted and came for me. I tried to just run on my wolf, but I seemed to hit an invisible wall. Something was impeding my movement. The wolf looked to be running, and I could jump, but could make no forward movement. The Scarlets caught me and slaughtered me.

After running back from the graveyard and razzing, I went back to the Eastwall Tower. There was a tauren on a kodo standing at the entrance, and there were what I thought was three Alliance around him. No one had there PvP turned on. I stayed off to the side, away from the group, hoping that maybe they hadn’t seen me yet. I was wondering why the Alliance didn’t just turn on PvP and try to take the tower; they had the tauren outnumbered 3 to 1. If they did, and the tauren tried to fight, I might be able to get in a little help if they didn’t see me yet.

Then I noticed one of the “Alliance” was actually an undead. So it was actually 2 vs. 2 at the tower. With me, that would be 3 vs. 2.

There was a long stand off at that tower. No one was turning on PvP. I guess everyone figured that the first to turn on would be the first to die. Then some more Alliance came riding up. Eventually there were 5 Alliance, and just 3 Horde (including me). I was still concealed off to the side of the tower. Probably everyone saw me, but just maybe I was not seen yet. Most of the Alliance were facing away from me; only the two Horders were facing me.

The situation was pretty cool. A true stand off. But with the new Alliance guys, the odds were in their favor. Still, no one had PvP on. Then something completely weird happened.

Half a dozen undead ghostly skeletons appeared out of nowhere and attacked the Alliance group. The undead were Loraedon somethings, and showed as neutral to me. These NPCs killed at least 1 Alliance, and drove off all but one of the others.

I came out of my cover at that point and asked, “What the hell was that? Where did those things come from?” The tauren answered, “LOL, I don’t know.” It was so fast. Once they drove off the Alliance, the undead came running back, and then disappeared.

I took a spot between the tauren and the forsaken, on our mounts, standing at the top of the ramp to the tower. The remaining Alliance moved on. Eventually, the tauren and forsaken moved on too, having successfully defended the tower without ever actually having to fight.

That’s pretty cool.

I hung around for a few minutes, though. After a little while, the Alliance guys came back. This time there were 6 Alliance, and they were not to be turned back by a lone hunter at the gate. They explored and looked around for a minute before going in and turning on their PvP. I wasn’t about to dispute their presence at this time – being outnumbered 6 to 1 (and probably severely out-skilled).

I hung around in the tower for the entire time it took them to capture it. I lay on the floor and took a nap, sat on the stairs watching them, told jokes, waved, and generally just had fun. Some of the Alliance waved at me and petted my pet. It was all a very congenial takeover.

Eventually the Alliance left again. I logged off when they were all gone.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I started an Alliance character: a human priest. I was told this would be a very different experience from the hunter class, and so far as I’m seeing, it is. The human lands in WoW are beautiful, compared to the ugly orc lands. I think this is a good difference — it really gives you a feel for the orc culture when their land is a rugged hell hole.

But I also notice the distance from starting area to first town to major city is much smaller in the human lands than in the orc lands. That makes it a little easier for the low-level humans, but I don’t know if it makes a significant difference overall.

I’m glad I started a human priest. The difference in character mechanics and the starting environment is dramatic. WoW is a whole different game, now. So far, I’m not retreading any old territory (literally or figuratively).

The wolves in Elwynn Forest are dropping a lot of rabbit’s feet as loot. My friends tell me they “might” give good luck in various game mechanics. I’ve gotten about a dozen of the things in the first ten levels, so far. I want to hold on to them, just in case there is some game mechanic benefit (though I’m doubting it), but I need the bag space for other loot.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com