Since hitting level 40 on my Hunter, I’ve really lost sight of any significant goals… Of course, the next logical big step is to get to Outland, but for some reason, that doesn’t seem to hold as much lure as getting 40 and a mount did. It seems WoW’s pull isn’t quite as strong on me as FFXI.

In any case, I’ve been spending time more on Ilthiran, though only relatively… not been on so much recently, real life has been WHOAMYGAWDWTF? for about a week now, hehe. Anyway, Ilthiran has been dusted off once again to wreak havoc on the forests of Ashenvale (I am so tired of them by now, but at the same time I rather like them I have a thing for Kalimdor, seeing it as very much my home…)

Firstly, there was attacking the thistlefur tribe, and infiltrating their stronghold to get some Troll Charms, which was fun… I love prowling about.

For a quick break, I took a trek down to Stonetalon to do some quests there, including one where I got to attack a Night Elf Settlement, which is always fun, especially when you get to beat up fellow Druids.

Speaking of beating up other druids, shortly after dinging level 24, some level 26 Alliance Druid ran past me with his flag up. Not wanting to start a fight, I walked off a bit… Before reconsidering, thinking if I caught him off guard in cat form, I’d win a fight. Stealthing up, I saw him fighting some Furbolgs… With spells. A balance spec druid? How deliciously squishy…

One shred, a few claws, a rip, and a few panicked Moonfires (I forgot I had beastial swiftness, and there was no way he’d get away from me :3) later, and there was a careless Night Elf splayed on the ground! Oh yeah!

Admittedly, it was low of me to attack him whilst he was fighting a mob, but he was fair game with his flag up. Even in that situation, he shouldn’t have just dropped… Panic obviously set in and he just ran. Not even a rejuvenation on himself or a moonfire on me Then again, theres not much he could do, what with my ability to morph out of the roots he relied upon so much for engaging mobs. -shrug- Either way, I like killing silly foo’s with their flags up.

I don’t however like getting double teamed myself…

You know things are serious when I’m back in Bear form, given my undying love for my Cat Finding the Ashenvale outrunners for that particular quest was most irritating, given their stealthyness.

Oh, and I obtained my first piece of Rare gear that I’m actually wearing, in the form of some really nice +AGI and +Stamina boots, from the surprisingly easy Warsong Supplies quest.

Faulsey… leveled from 40 to 41 almost without quests, a painful experience I have no wish to ever repeat That’s all on him…

Me and Kazume, however, have been busy ridding the Ghostlands of all sorts of threats.

Such as these reanimated trolls. Which, somewhat annoyingly, dropped shoulders (I got a pair of mail ones shortly after), which I didn’t get till about 23 on my Hunter… How come the enemies in the Blood Elf starting area seem to drop shoulder items but those in Draenei didn’t Most irksome

After burning dead trolls, collecting Juju’s, and escorting stupid NPCs to safety, we ended up with a few nice pieces of armour, and another few quests knocked off our lists. Next was windrunner village and spire. We cleared out the village whilst gathering items for one quest, then wandered up to the spire for another… where I got quite excited when a banshee dropped a necklace bearing the name of Sylvannas…

I knew exactly what that would lead to, and was very eager to get out of the spire, that when our quest was complete, and we had about 4 enemies on us, I decided that we should throw ourselves into the sea :3

Eventually,w e found ourselves in Undercity, where I gave Sylvannas the necklace, and got treated to the beautiful Lament of the Highbourne… which I recorded with XFires new video capability… and despite me having a perfectly fine AVI codec, doesn’t playback. Most irritated :\ In any case, Kazume was far less impressed than me, but I liked it

The night was finished off with my now favourite past time… Killing Night Elves :3

First a wee bit about blood elves…

Been ages since me and Kaz were on our Blood Elves, so long in fact, that we had a LOT of rested EXP to work off. We ended up doing about 6 quests, and going from level 13 to 15, but we STILL have LOADS of quests to do, and we hadn’t even used up all the rested state at time of log off

On Faulsey, I finished off all the quests I could in Desolace (which meant returning from my later stomping grounds of Dustwallow a couple of times), which got me as far as 35, when I went to Theramore in Dustwallow Marsh to continue my trek to 40. I finished the Missing Diplomat chain of Quests, which was a long journey, but quite satisfying at the end.

To round up a Gelkis quest, I headed over to Swamp of Sorrows too, to collect some Draenethyst from Ongeku, a lost one. It’s kind of wierd, as a Draenei, to see what a lot of my race has become. Obviously, it’s just a game and a story, but you do get a bit emotionally involved, and it’s quite… shocking to see what has become of people who may at some point have been friends or relatives of my character.

Back in Dustwallow, I also finished the Lighthouse quest chain, which led to some huge sea beast attacking the port, and me having to mortar him to death. Failed it first time, because I got blasted back when I was careless, but second time was easy.

When defeated, you get treated to Fireworks and the like

In a final drive to get Exalted with Darnassus, I’ve been doing quests in Loch Modan and the Wetlands, and today was finally rewarded for my efforts, after finishing the Eye of Paleth chain, which, interestingly, had me and erethia turned into HUMAN undead. Suddenly, I no longer had hooves and horns, which would be somewhat confusing, but Erethia must have been seriously confused, losing her sharp paws and claws for some ineffective human hands and feet

Of course, I still had to get level 40, so I returned to Dustwallow once again, and set about doing all the quests I could, particularly from Tabetha’s Farm. I was quite amused when I noticed an NPC called Apprentice Garion. A guy called Garion, with sort of sandy hair, on a farm, with a woman described as being “older than she looks”, who is learning magic?

Blatant Belgariad reference! Woot! Thats something I quite like in WoW, all the Pop. Culture references. I also couldn’t help notice Commander Vimes, obviously named after Samuel Vimes from the Discworld books, in Theramore.

Anyway, Tabetha sent me off on a fun quest to burn down the tents at a nearby Grimtotem camp, a task I happily carried out.

When I exhausted the quests at the farm, I wandered down to Mudsprocket, and completed most of the quests there, finally dinging 40! I immediately hopped on the next gryphon to Darnassus to pick up my mount.

I settled on the Striped Frostsaber, to sort of match Erethia. I COULD have had a Spotted Frostsaber, but then I’d be staring at spotted cat ass all the time, except during flights. No thanks

I already love my cat

Kaz made a Draenei Hunter on my realm, so I wandered over there to show off my shiny new mount, and, out of racial pride, waste 8g50s on an Elekk that will now sit dejectedly in my bank.

Now that I’ve hit 40 though, a lot of the wind is out of my sails. I’m not even sure where to go to level, at the moment. So I picked Feralas, since it was labeled by Cartographer as being a level 40-50 area, and it has a Night Elf Settlement.

Obviously, the Draenei race has a severe lack of decent heroes, having to rely on me to save the day. I’ve single handedly (though some paws helped too.) saved the Draenei of Azeroth from the dangers of the Blood Elves and the Burning Legion.

However, I get confused without things being in chronological order, so here’s a brief rundown of events prior to that.

Leveled Ilthiran up to 22, and learned Rip, which means I can get some good use out of stealth now, such as using it in the sport of Giant Spider Fighting.

Rounded off all the Darnassus Reputation quests I could;

Elune save Azeroth’s inns and taverns if this Dryad ever becomes a stand up comedienne.

I paid a visit to Warsong Lumber Camp, and spent the whole time worrying about attacking a PvP NPC and then getting raped horribly by some hordies

Whilst doing the Scythe of Elune series, I came accross this rare enemy, and he dropped an uber awesome neck piece :3

Feralas. Would like to go deeper in, it looks pretty nice :3

And my greatest stroke of luck that night… A rare item! I’m always pleasantly surprised to get a green item, so finding a blue in a normal enemy was a mega-surprise. I was even more pleased when I learned it sold for 25g. I feel like I’m rolling in money! Shame I’m not though

Now, onto saving the Draenei people.

The first thing I did was take down 2 demons in Demonfall Ridge, where I also ran into important pieces of Warcraft history. Here, a monument to Grom Hellscream…

And here, the floating blades of Mannoroth.

I’ve never played any of the WoW strategy games beyond the demo for WCIII, though I’d like to (I have a thing for strategy games.), but I have read up on the lore, and it felt quite cool to see such important historical objects.

Anyway, the defeat of those two demons meant I’d saved Ashenvale, particularly the Draenei outpost of Forest Song, and I got a cool ring and praise and so on.

Deciding to make a trip to the homelands that I’d been away from for 10 levels, I remembered I had a few unfinished quests, including an assault on the Vector Coil…

The quest involved escorting a level 20 Elite Draenei into the coil, fighting level 17-21 Elite Blood Elves on the way, blowing parts of it up, before finally confronting Sironas, the demonic whore behind all the Draenei problems on Bloodmyst Isle

Obviously, at level 31, the quest was no challenge, and I regret not having sought another player to do the quest with me when I was level 20, but it was still fairly rewarding, especially when I returned to Blood Watch…

(Screenshot marred by me having a tonne of bags open -.-;)

-Basks in the adoration-

Ahhh. It feels good to be a hero.

FFXI and WoW have two very different ways of doing quests/missions. In FFXI, there is the (somewhat effective) tactic of you as the silent protagonist, who helps out, but is really always pushed to the side when it comes to world saving events, in favour of developing other characters. In WoW, you are recognized for your feats, which gives you a warm fuzzy feeling. Both ways are quite effective, but I can now see why people more into story might get a bit exasperated with FFXI’s “Oh, you’re not important” treatment.

And just for good measure, here’s a picture of me in the shiny tabard I was given, which hides the ugly jerkin I’ve only been wearing for like 18 levels, because I haven’t found an upgrade and am too tight to buy one.

Today, I ventured out to Desolace, where I finished what seems to be, as far as I’m aware, the only Darnassus Reputation quest until after level 40, and after hitting 32, wandered off to far corners of the world to learn Dash and Prowl (Level 30 skills not available till 32 ;

Whilst learning Dash, I found a quest to get me a really awesome axe (As you can see, I’d switched from my old two handed sword to axes after a couple of lucky drops), and ended up using the Stranglethorn Tiger, Ellaria, I’d tamed to help me defeat enemies… Which meant I got attached, and
she’s now in my stables She can’t replace Erethia, of course, but tigers are awesome

My Darnassus rep. is sitting at about 3.3k from Exalted right now, which means, given my low level, it’s time to go grind my way through yet another Alliance races starting quests. I need to get 13.2k rep. through other Alliance quests in order to get Exalted with Darnassus, but I’ll do it. I really want a Saber mount I’ll probably buy an Elekk too out of racial pride, but I really want a Saber.

Ironically, in real life, I HATE cats. Though of the house variety, not the ridable or scuse me, I’m just going to eat your face variety.

Also, in an inversion of the norm, visited Kazu(ra/me)’s main Realm today, and helped try and find that bloody voodoo charm for a quest (it’s a 3% drop rate or something -.-).

We did a few more quests after that, including killing timberlings for tumours… which is where I died. Twice. We came across a rare timberling, which dropped a heart that granted us one use timberling guardians, which we had a bit of fun with.

Elekks are UGLY.

Mechanostriders are ugly and freaky.

Horses are dull.

Rams are… ok.

Nightsabers are AWESOME.

That’s basically my thought process where mounts are concerned.

Being bored, and having no yellow or green quests to do at level 24, I decided to go and get some Darnassus reputation.

My god… what a painful day. I did every quest I could find from Shadowglen to Darkshore, going from about 3k into Honoured to 9k into Revered. The first bajillion quests I did didn’t really get me much, but the later Darkshore quests awarded decent levels of EXP, so much so that I went from 24 to 26 purely by questing.

I also learned now that warlock enemies are REALLY crap… This guy had a Succubus and THREE Voidwalkers.

I froze the Succubus, and had another trap ready, so she was no bother. I wasn’t expecting him so suddenly burst out 3 voidwalkers, making me turn tail and run screaming like a little girl.

Demon enemies, however, are fun :3

Today was also the day I got my first kill in PvP. Running up to Auberdine between quests, I saw a level 22 Tauren Druid charging on down the path. Now, I’m usually content to let flagged people go by, but then again, I usually see them in Ashenvale, and who knows what’ll crawl out of the trees there.

This nonce was running down the MAIN ROAD through an Alliance area. Fair enough, he may have been fleeing from Auberdine NPC aggro, but he could at least have cat-ified and put stealth up, we weren’t that close to town. Really, he was a death waiting to happen :3 So I let loose with all my shots and the like, and he didn’t realise what was happening till he was nearly dead.

It’s quite satisfying to kill another player… even if they were 2 levels lower and probably running from other aggro… I’m a cruel person :3

Another little trek I had to do was to the Wetlands to learn Bite 4 for Erethia. Not fun. I lagged like hell, and nearly died trying to take crocolisks out in the bay.

Thats the only thing I dislike about hunter… Having to go learn new skills for my pet every 8 levels (at least in the case of bite/claw).

In Numinator and Kazume news, we began the quests in the Ghostlands, and we’ve wound up with around 12 active quests at many given moments, which isn’t fun. I hate being spoiled for choice!

Firstly, we went up to Suncrown Village to clear it out, and also have a semi-difficult but very fun fight versus this big undead spider queen thingymajig!

Next up was various quests in and around the lake, such as collecting troll EARS (Kazume wasn’t impressed, haha.), killing vengeful water spirits, and gathering amulets from the lakebed (and almost drowning at the same time.), and fighting a giant water elemental.

With level 12 also came the Redemption quest for Paladin, which involved killing a fellow Blood Knight (As you do.)

And draining mana from the Na’aru under the city. The Na’aru was an awesome sight. For some reason, I expected that it was being kept on Draenor, so it was a cool surprise to see it.

Naturally, after learning Redemption, I got my own back on Kaz, and had HER die naked so I could resurrect her

More quests (and near death experiences. I love Blessing of Protection. I must have saved Kaz with it at least 5 times ) ensued, such as fighting High Elven ghosts and de-boning murlocs, so we could take their spines to some crazy apothacary, which also netted me a shiny new piece of chest armour from a lucky drop.

I’m REALLY easily amused, so having a nice, shiny piece of chest armour instead of the sort of drab, rusty looking one I had before makes me feel all Paladin-y. I also tossed away my old Training Sword of the Bear for a shiny new Norther Shortsword of Strength from the AH.

Normally, I don’t buy AH equipment, but I was too used to my awesome weapon to “downgrade” to a boring 1H Sword, and it was a bargain at 60s too, when you consider the fact copper ore is selling for 2g 50s.

Leveling has slowed way down on Faulsey recently, been busy reading books and playing Valkyrie Profile 2 instead of WoW

Since last post, have went from 21 to 24, getting by on whatever quests were available, which included a huge trek down through Ashenvale, and into the Barrens, to climb dreadmist peak and confront some mad mage dude. That wasn’t fun. Especially when I got bored and killed a Horde NPC then realised I’d have to hide in a bush for 5 mins whilst my PVP flag was still up.

You may notice I have a really bad habit of forgetting to switch to Aspect of the Hawk when I enter combat. It annoys me too, especially when I turn to run away and BAM! 4 second daze!

However, Ilthiran has been revived somewhat, and I’ve went from 18 to 21, simply for 1. Cat form and 2. 2 Talent points into Feral Swiftness so I could go at a decent speed I managed to pull myself through those levels, even though I was bored of bear form, and tired of dying (Druid is harder to solo than Hunter… at least from 10-20) to quilboars for some half assed quest involving killing geomancers. In the end my patience was rewarded with this the moment I dinged level 20:

Jeez, you can’t even level up without basically being accused of being gimped in WoW, can you? /slap And, of course, the disease that all MMORPGs come with… the “Omgs noob i havs bettur chars den u!” illness. No one cares, small child, no one cares. It didn’t particularly annoy me, it just proved once again that people are idiots. It also helped pass the time between the Crossroads and Thunder Bluff before learning cat form, so all is good!

Cat form is loads of fun, though I really need to get an ability to use from stealth. At the moment, it’s really turning out to be the same as using bear form. Yes, I can deal better damage, but, I also have less health and armour, so I have to morph out and heal more.

I also had to redo my talents when I hit 20, as I’d mucked them up during the trial. I had 4 talents in furor before, which is useful, though not as much when you can just stealth until your Energy Generates, so I put all my points into Feral Combat Talents to open up Feral Swiftness. I’ve become used to 30% extra speed by now, with aspect of the Cheetah .

Ilthiran then had to haul ass over to the Eastern Kingdoms, just so I could finish two quests that were the only non OMGWTFDIFFICULT! quests available at the time, so I popped into Silvermoon and waited on Kazume to log in so I could flaunt Cat form to her (she’s a Night Elf Druid on her other realm. Level 10 though.) Then, back to leveling Numinator with her.

We began to finish all the quests we had in Eversong (about 8 at the start of the night), such as one to punish some badly behaved students;

and one to kill some freaky Murloc Dude;

When we hit level 10, we scuttled off to learn our new abilities… I was not impressed with the level 10 Paladin skills though. Rank 2 of Seal of Righteousness didn’t add anything to the damage done per swing, and added… 2 damage to the Judgement effect. Oh joy! I invested in it anyway, since I was practically rolling in cash (more on that later.) Kazume got much better abilities, such as her Resurrection ability and Mind Blast. In the ensuing duel, she didn’t quite melt faces, she’s a bit too low for that, and planning a holy spec, but still held out for a while I had to strip nekkid as well, so she could test her rez spell

After rounding off the very last of our quests in Eversong, we finally departed for the Ghostlands, which are as ugly as hell. We both got our first ride on bats here, too, which was semi interesting, as I’m used to Hippogryphs and Wyverns.

Talent wise, I’ve decided to opt for a Protection/Retribution build to (hopefully) complement Kazume’s healing abilities. I considered Protection/Holy for a brief while, then realised how useless all the extra healing power would be with a Holy spec priest for a duo partner

Anyway, I mentioned money earlier.

WoW’s economy is crazy. In fact, on any given realm, there’s probably 3 economies: Alliance, Horde and Joint.

For my horde characters, skinning isn’t so hot. Light Leather is 50s or less, compared to (or at least, it used to be.) 1g for Alliance. However, Wool Cloth, which was about 1g50s on Alliance a while ago, is 2g50s for the Horde. Even crazier is how much money I’m making from level 1 mining items. A few days ago (on Horde of course), Copper ore was about 1g20-50s for 20, earlier today it was 2g20s, and by night, it was 3g! Ooooh, lovely money… However, Alliance leather prices are dropping, as medium leather was down to 1g, so I’m having to hoard on Faulsey. Bleh!

I leave you with a (possibly) familiar name!