I’ve still been working my way through Jame’s leveling guide, and my human priest is now level 53. I’ve been working with this guide since she was level 30, back in early October. That’s 23 levels in about three months; two levels per week. I only play once or twice a week, and my character is almost always getting rested xp for her kills. At this rate, she’ll be level 60, and going to Outland, in about four weeks. I might make level 70 in another five weeks. So top level is still over two months away.

This past Saturday night, I managed to gain two levels in four hours of play. One of my friends ran me through Zul Furrak with his level 70 dwarf hunter, and afterwards, I turned in over 54,000xp worth of quests. Bam! That was one hour of play, and then the next four hours I spent in Blasted lands questing and killing. I would love to manage that kind of level gain per hour played for the next 17 levels.

While in Blasted Lands, I took a peak at the Dark Portal, from afar. Couldn’t get too close because of all the higher-level demons patrolling the area. When I went through with my main character, my orc hunter, he was already 60th level, and I just rode him straight through the Blasted Lands and into the portal. I had not quested or hunted in BL with that character, so there was no feeling of building up in the area before being able to go right in.

Several months ago, I dared/bet a friend to take his orc rogue into Stormwind City. He used stealth to get in and took screen shots for proof. I paid the 10 gold reward.

Just for the fun of it, I thought I’d try the stunt with my 70 orc hunter. Hunters don’t have stealth abilities, so I figured to just ride my epic mount in past the guards and see how far in I could get. It’d be cool if I could make it to Deeprun Tram.

So I traveled to Elwynn Forest and sat on my mount outside the Stormwind gates. “Here we go,” I said. I rode straight past the guards, who immediately pursued me on foot, and right through the gate. By the time I reached the main city square, I had six or eight guards chasing me. I continued running through the city and by the time I’d made it to the Dwarf Quarter, the guards were no longer pursuing me.

Oddly, some of the patrollers in the city didn’t bother with me. I ran right through a couple of them and they didn’t change their walking patrol. The standing guards always came after me when I passed, but the walkers didn’t care.

I continued on through the Dwarf Quarter, to the tram entrance. I picked up a couple of new guards along the way, but once I entered the tram instance portal, I lost them.

The tram terminal was empty except the couple of low-level NPCs who hang out in there. I noticed that my PvP flag was turned on by entering the human city — an unexpected, but logical situation. So any PCs I encountered could attack me. While I waited for the tram to arrive a the station, a level 70 draenei shaman came in the terminal. We looked each other over for a few moments, sizing up the challenge.

I really didn’t want to fight. In fact, I didn’t even have my keyboard and mouse arranged for normal playing. Usually, for play, I have my keyboard sitting on top of my desk, at an angle so my hand and fingers can easily, without looking, reach all the necessary keys. And my mouse sits in a nice big open area, with no pad to limit my movements. At this time, because I only intended to run through the city until I died, my mouse was on its small pad, and my keyboard was still on its tray under the desk. I had the keyboard tray pulled out just far enough to put one finger on the forward button to move. If a fight broke out, I’d be screwed more than just by my lack of PvP experience and skill.

The shaman started dropping totems around him. I backed off and ran to the other side of the station. Then a tram showed up and I boarded. While waiting for the tram to leave the station, an Alliance warlock came into the station. The shaman and warlock both boarded the tram, too. And then the tram was off.

I was on the third, and last tram car; the Alliance guys were on the second, middle car. I had the feeling that the were going to jump me at any moment, so I tried to get off the tram. It was frustrating, reaching under my desktop, trying to move around and jump off the tram — guard rails prevented me from leaving the easy way.

Eventually I managed to figure my way off the tram. I fell down into the tram tunnel, just started running back to the Stormwind end of the tunnel. I toggled auto-run and just let my hunter run straight down the tunnel. I only half paid attention to my monitor while I shuffled stuff around on my desk. After a minute or two, I noticed my hunter was hung up on one of the spotlights on the tunnel floor. I grabbed my mouse and tried to shake my guy off the obstacle.

At that moment, the Alliance duo showed up. They had apparently jumped off the tram, too. I was below half health before I managed to pull out my keyboard tray and get my fingers on the keys. I think I fired one shot and then noticed my health was at 200-something. I tried Feign Death, but they didn’t fall for it. I died.

It was a rather embarrassing death. But up to that point, it was a fun little excursion through Stormwind City and into the tram system.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I decided to get back into WoW, again. It’s really good for some escapism every once in a while (read: once or twice a week, for a couple of hours). So, I’ve got my level 70 orc hunter and my 40+ human priest. I play the hunter just to explore and fool around, but I’m speed leveling my priest.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I’ve been playing just my human priest for the past couple weeks, speed leveling with Jame’s Alliance Leveling Guide. I got my priest up to level 40 and got a mount.

I was surprised to learn the human riding trainer and mounts (horses) are way out in eastern Elwynn Forest. I would never have found it on my own if a friendly player hadn’t answered my question posed in chat. The orc mounts are right in Orgrimmar, but I’ve now learned that orcs are the lucky ones in that regard. All the other races have to travel somewhere to get their mounts.

A couple days later I decided to just cancel my account. All my friends, who originally all had Horde characters, have level 70 Alliance characters. My only Alliance character is still 30 levels away from catching up, and all I’ve been doing is playing to level. The game was more fun when we were all on the same team, at the same level, and we could adventure together.

Besides, I really need to use the 4-6 hours a week that I’ve been playing to get some writing work done in the evenings. WoW is a load of fun, and a very pleasant mode of escape, but without playing with my friends, I might as well just get something constructive done with my disposable time. I may restart my account in a few months, or I may not.

And since I’m going to be using my evening hours for more work, rather than any kind of game play, this may be my last post in my Computer Games section for a while. But because my days are always so full and busy, evenings are the only time I can get any writing done. I have to sacrifice the [fun] waste of time for the [fun] productivity.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com