Hallow’s End is back. I brought my level 70 orc hunter out of Outland and went to Undercity and Brill to do some seasonal quests. I picked up the quests to throw rotten eggs in Southshore, and then went over to Brill to see about the Headless Horseman. The Horseman only comes at certain times, and an orc matron in the town will tell you how long till the next appearance.

I was in Brill for one of the Horseman’s attacks, and it was interesting for the first minute, but a big waste of time for the following 20 minutes.

A “shade” of the horseman flies over the town and sets some of the buildings on fire. The shade is only level 11, and I targeted it and tried to shoot it out of the air. Sadly, I get a “That is an invalid target” error message. I then tried to put out the fires (“Stop the fires!” quest from the orc matron). There’s a water well and buckets near where the fires start, and you can load one bucket at a time. You then go to a burning building and throw the bucket of water at the fire. After I started fighting the fire, a few more PCs joined in. Trying to put a fire out is an exercise in futility. I only managed to put out small sections of one of the fires, but within a few seconds, sparks set that part on fire again. I eventually gave up and left Brill to burn.

I decided to take on the Headless Horseman himself, at the Scarlet Monastery graveyard. I joined up with a team and we entered. It’s kind of funny to just run past all the SM guards and not worry about aggro. We only ever aggroed one or two who happened to wander into our path. But once we got to the actual graveyard, we had to clear the area of all the walking dead. It was easy, since we were all level 70s and the monsters are no more than level 33.

We summoned and killed the horseman three times (each player can summon him once a day). I got the magic flying broom on the second looting.

Then I went to Southshore to stink bomb the streets and put rotten eggs in their brew. It’s a lot easier to do this quest at level 70 than it was at level 60, last year. (Check out my November 2 post below.) I basically just waltzed into the town center and threw my bombs. Each time, I drew aggro from a guard or three, but I just turned and ran off and they let me go. I did end up killing two PCs (one of them twice) in the adventure. All in all, the Southshore quest was more fun than the Headless Horseman stuff.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Well, since reaching level 70, I haven’t done a lot of questing or hunting. I haven’t done much playing at all, really. I think I average maybe four hours of WoW play a week.

I’ve played my human priest some, just to level her up. She’s level 34, now, and I’ve been following Jame’s Leveling Guide since level 30. The guide is very well done, but I just don’t have the time to put in to really work it. In a twist of circumstances, my three friends who play WoW switched from Horde to Alliance. My main is an orc hunter, so we don’t play together in WoW anymore. That’s why I started trying to fast level my human priest, but it really just isn’t going to work out. They all have more time to put into playing, so I’ll never catch up to them with my Alliance character.

As for my main, most all I’ve been doing with him is flying around Outland on his wyvern. Flying around is a great feature. I did leave Outland for a while to visit Orgrimmar for Brewfest. I had never gotten a character drunk before, but I had heard about it from my friends. I stocked up on a few dozen brews and started guzzling them. Being [virtually] drunk is fun. The view wobbles and gets blurry; when you walk or run, you tend to weave and loose direction. Nice little gimmick, there, Blizzard.

I played last night for a couple hours, and completed some quests in Netherstorm, Outland with my orc hunter. The quests were nothing special, and I only made less than 100 gold, but I thoroughly enjoyed the flying around.

Without friends to join up with on occasion, WoW has lost some of its appeal. Plus, I have a lot of work to do in the evenings, now days, so playing WoW kind of wastes valuable time. I’m considering dropping the subscription again.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

My sons have seen me “playing” WoW a few times, and now it’s become a little treat I allow them: to see my toons running or flying around Azeroth and Outland. I don’t let them see me fighting stuff—just exploring. We usually run or ride around in the major cities, and sometimes we hop on a wyvern or griffon to fly through the territories.

My 6 year old knows the major Horde cities: Orgrimmar, Thunderbluff, and Undercity (“a Halloween city”). We’ve also run around Stormwind some, but we’re mostly a Horde family. One of the parks in our area has two jungle-gym-type play areas. One is low and spread out, and one is tall on a smaller area. He’s named them Orgrimmar and Thunderbluff, respectively.

Yesterday, he used his Legos to build some structures: Orgrimmar, Thunderbluff, and the Black Portal. He loves the Black Portal, with the dragon looming over the top. He regularly uses his Legos to play WoW.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Look! Up in the sky!

It’s a bird.

It’s a plane.

It’s an orc with a gun!

I stopped grinding mobs for money and drops, and tried just straight questing — OH MY GOD! I made 95 gold in 2 hours! I was getting 7-12gp per quest — and some were so easy.

I love the flying mount! I got the blue wyvern. I can imagine how much easier questing for gold is going to be now with flying. Now that xp from killing doesn’t matter, flying right up to the quest goal, grabbing/killing it, and flying away is going to mean lots of money for me, now.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com