Level 2... DING, Gratz... To Zee Trainer!

I remember sitting in my room 4 years ago watching a little blue bar slowly get bigger. The installation of WoW was taking such a long time that I was seriously beginning to wonder whether this was a good idea or not.

So what do I do? I start reading the manual! That's right kiddies I. Read. A. Game. Manual. It lasted all of about 5 minutes before I went back to bar watching. Eventually my computer plays this very VERY dramatic music and the game is installed. So now I'm promted to create an account. So I go through the whole process "Blah blah blah I hereby agree to sell my soul and life to Blizzard from here on out" So I finally sign in. EXCITING! Da da daaaaaaaaaa...

Now for the hardest decision a noobie has to make, what on earth am I going to play. What race, what gender, what class. So I have a look at what each class can do, and ask a couple of friends who already play the game. So what do I roll you ask? Here it comes. So very exciting.

A Female, Tauren, Hunter.

That's right... A FEMALE! I laughed like Whoopie Goldberg, and clapped and danced and had a jolly ol' time.

Time for a name, and being as inventive as I am I chose "Kachiku" it's literal translation "Livestock" in japanese. So here I was, a level 1 female Tauren hunter... white in color with a ring a through my nose and no idea what I was doing.

In my honest opinions, the fact that blizzard gives you tips the first time you play is great! At least that way, you don't get lost. Well.. too lost anyway. I still remember running around for HOURS in the barrens trying to find manriks wife, only to have to lookup the location and being told the co'ords. At that point in time I was like "I don't have any co'ords" Lets face it, the standard Blizzard UI, kinda sucks. It's hard to find your way anywhere "Go west to find blah blah" yes but they don't tell you that in order to get to that specific place in the west you have to go east then north, then west. Also, the map. How on earth am I meant to know where to go when I can't see anything except blank parchment. Oh cartographer how I love thee so.

But anyhow, all bad things put aside at the time, I was in heaven! I thought (and still think) that this game was the greatest thing since sliced bread. I killed me some plainstriders, I killed me some boars. It was great. And then... TRAINING! Oh the best part about leveling, the new abilities. It rocks my socks. Concussive shot was my best friend. So we do the low level quests and start thinking I'm an absolute gun at this game. Then I die... continously, against a bristleback, who's fat and ugly. The joys of running to your corpse over and over and over again. Lets just say I knew Mulgore inside out by the time I left to go to the barrens.

So after a while I hit level about level 8 I think it was. And this warlock runs past me. He waves, I wave back.. then suddenly wonder why there's a warlock, with skin hanging off his bones, running around with cows. He was nice enough and the next thing I knew, I was invited to a Guild. The same guild that I raided with (after a name change in Burning Crusade and a leadership adjustment, but same people) all the way through Vanilla WoW and Kara in BC. Good fun, leveling buddies. Willing to help out at the drop of a hat. But that's getting ahead of myself.

I remember every single green item that dropped, if I could wear it, I would. I had no idea about what stats to stack for specific classes. Nor did I care, at that point in time, I just wanted to look pimping. I remember getting to Thunderbluff and seeing a guy standing there in full Dragonstalker. I nearly died.

So with renewed gusto, I plunged into my leveling again, coming up against some rather nasty dwarves near Thunder Bluff and searching for the elusive Ara'Chea. Eventually, I reached level 10! DUN DUN DUN!! Pet time... the level every hunter waits for. So I do the stupid "Go get this pet and bring it back, then rinse and repeat" quest, which was cool. Then I got my taming rod and it opened up a whole world of... of... really crappy pets. So what did I do? I camped the Rake. I wanted that lion soooooo bad. Of course I only knew about it because of my lovely guild mates, who helped me overcome a modicum of my noobish habits.

So I came, I camped, I conquered. It was AWESOME!!! So I was happily running around with my brand new LION (woot) and then I realised I had no idea where to go. So I ask in my lovely guild chat. The reply...

Oh it was wonderful...

It was amazing...

It sent shivers down my spine...

The Barrens. Because your Mum is that easy and Chuck Norris is that cool.

Enter, the barrens. A place filled with dirt, zhevras, girrafes, deformed gazelles (ok, ok, sickly gazelles), manrik's wife, southsea freebooters, and... The Wailing Caverns. Not to mention, oasis' centaur, ratchet, a boat, a long ass graveyard run and... a whole lotta Chuck Norris jokes. Which reminds me, did you know;

When Chuck Norris does a pushup, he isn’t lifting himself up, he’s pushing the Earth down.

Ok so that was in poor taste. But that's all you used to get people, COME ON!! The Barrens wasn't about leveling, it was about surviving Barren's chat and maybe, just maybe, wanting to live the rest of your life.

But alas, I've run out of time. My rested XP is up and I need to logout to get some more. Yes I'm a giant nerd, but I bet it made you laugh. And if it didn't... UP YOURS! Kidding!

Check back again soon, till then have a goodun.

FOR THE HORDE!!!!

Tip for the day: Cartographer is so very, very good.. I might marry it.

Level 1... DING, Gratz!

Ok so first post. Always a fun moment, full of nerves and worry. The excitement and anticipation that someone, somewhere might read this and get a laugh out of it. Then of course it may also stay unknown, and be my little sanctuary where I rant about the good, the bad and the ugly parts of WoW.

To start off, I'll tell you about myself. I'm 22 years old, I'm a chick, and I work in a gaming store. The only game I get to play ALOT of is World of Warcraft (HORDE FOR LIFE), mainly because I'm a cheapskate and am still living with my parents, so trying to get game time on the 52" plasma is basically unheard of. Although I have been able to play The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess the last couple of days... I think my mum feels sorry for me because I have the flu HAR HAR.

The last console game I finished was Blue Dragon. I'm a lazy gamer with console games, I start and stop. I started HAWX, Fable 2, Street Fighter 4, Banjo-Kazooie nuts n bolts, CoD: World at War, Lost Oddysey (Too. Much. Talking.)... literally a drawer full of games unfinished.

HOWEVER, World of Warcraft is the one game that I have been playing almost continuously for the last 4 years. I no longer hold the rigorous raiding schedule that I used to, I just don't have the time and/or effort for that anymore, but I do love a good romp in a Battleground, smashing peoples faces with my lionheart executioner. Oh, wait... that was PRE Wrath of the Lich King. I got lazy, I will admit it. I worked the Midnight Launch for WotLK, took home my collectors edition (paid for in FULL no staff discount) and went to sleep. YES, I went to sleep. Sad of me I know. I installed, I rolled a deathknight and waited for hour upon hour to kill "X" number of "mob" because 400,000 other people decided to roll a death knight too. Then I left the game alone, for a looooooong time.

I didn't game at all. I really don't know what I was doing at the point.. oh wait, that's right. NOTHING. Watching crappy tv. Eventually I got back into WoW and dragged my Partner for life/in crime back into it as well, he was as happy as a pig in poop levelling his dk. But I couldn't find my groove. I leveled my druid to 75. My Deathknight to 70, my Warrior to 71 and then Poof. I was supposed to be leveling my Warrior with my Partner in Crime's Shaman. But I couldn't do it... We were leveling our deathknights together and I got bored of that too. So, I went to the warrior again. And BLAM! level 70 - 80 in no time at all. Apparently a Titan Grip Fury Warrior and Blood Spec'd Deathknight are leveling machines.*insert dramatic music here*

There were some amusing moments... My partner in crime, now to be refferred to as Kaeltheras because Partner in crime is FAR to annoying to type, and I found that we could 2 man most [3] and [4] man quests, making the leveling and LOOT really good. Well.. good for Kaeltheras, BAD for me because I was in epics. I do however remember standing in front of a GIANT frostwyrm in Dragonblight and typing "Lol, this will be easy" and having my face smashed in with a 6k crit with the first hit. Not so easy. So we pushed on doing quests entering the occasional "LFM to kill giant Frostwyrm" in general chat. We finally got a level 80 shammy and pally to help us out, but still... we were demoralized.

I have noticed in playing through WotLK (not that I have actually played through it yet, rested xp from level 70 - 80 meant I didn't even have to do Icecrown, Storm Peaks, Sholazar basin, or Wintergrasp) but regardless of that, I have noticed alot of difference in the way quests are layed out, and how well they seem to knit together. I'm actually paying attention to the stories when there is a quest line, I can actually chain together 10 quests without going "Omfg where am I going again, plz 2 b helpz?!" And the scenery is FANTASTIC. That might have something to do with my new video card, but REGARDLESS STILL PRETTY!! It seems that alot more detail has gone into the creation of WotLK in comparison to Burning Crusade. BC Was good, but WotLK was exceptional. And now... CATACLYSM! Woo Woo!! Bring on the destruction of Azeroth. FIRE everywhere!! Deathwing the Destroyer is PISSED.

So that is all for todays blog entry, tomorrow, I shall try for a more comedic entry about the trials and tribulations, of a noobs first outing in the world of Azeroth...

Tip: Male Taurens + Bear Mount = Awesome.