Project Lore

My fellow blogger Bastosa recently posted a nice article on the grind to level 80. It will be interesting to see how well the 5-man instancing team sticks together. From my previous experiences, running with a group of friends over and over caused us to become a bit competitive.   One evening, we called it a night after a few productive hours of grinding XP.   Well, we woke up to see that our Mage had stayed up all night to get three levels higher.  It wouldn't have been the end of the world if he wasn't six levels higher than the lowest person, and refused to come back and help us. The Mage's overly competitive nature basically killed our group. Bastosa's logic – that a group leveling together in instances should create skilled raiders down the road - is sound nonetheless and I hope it works out for them. For me, I will be going the same route as a few of the commentators, questing and exploration. Here is the major difference though, I will be leveling my newly acquired level 59.99 Priest instead of my faithful Rogue. Thanks to the Refer-A-Friend benefits, my buddy and I managed to level up a new set of alts to level 59.99 in under three days playtime. For the moment, we are both enjoying our never-before-played class and do not feel like stopping. By the time Wrath of the Lich King drops on November 13th, my new Priest should be 70.  At that time I hope to have enough experience under my belt as a healer – yes, also my first healbot - to begin healing in all of the new 5-man instances. Heck, if all goes well and I ding 70 with time to spare, I will probably start a tank on that server.  People always need a tank.  We have to burn those extras hand me down levels somehow. This isn't to say that I am abandoning my Rogue. I have been roguing since day 1 and have no intention of stopping. Yes, there have been ups and down through that time. Rogues were overpowered to begin with, causing us to be nerfed left and right. C'Thun was incredibly annoying as a dagger Rogue.  Gruul is just annoying, and I still have little group utility (that will change with the Echoes of Doom patch). It would be nice to say that I will try to co-level the characters on my main server.  Trading back and forth to get the most benefit from Rested XP, but honestly, that is just a pipe dream. So what about you guys? Sticking with your main? Taking this opportunity to switch your main? Re-rolling Death Knight?  Or experiencing the new content with an alt first? Bastosa, best of luck to you and your group. Be sure to update us when you ding level 75. I can't wait to do the Heigan dance again – the pull to him...not so much.

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Love it or hate it, the Refer-a-Friend promotion seems to have been a big hit for Blizzard.  I have numerous acquaintances that have either signed up, signed up a friend or signed up themselves.  Surely, they must be getting very close to the 11 million mark with the new marketing scheme?  The benefits – mainly the 300% experience gain, including quest XP – are so high that it made my close friend resubscribe just to level a Hunter for the first time.  Seriously, he had no reason other than “it'll be easy.” Seeing as I was his only remaining friend who still plays World of Warcraft on a regular basis, we decided to link our accounts.  The free month will certainly be worth it so I figured what the heck.  What harm can come of some saved money, and a new level 70 character?  Or two.  Lack of sleep, that's what. My friend came over yesterday to watch the football games and we started questing while the Eagles trounced the Rams.  Then the second game came on...and the third.  It was 3:00 AM and I had to wake up in three hours to get ready for work.  What the hell? How did I let this happen again?  The class may be new to me (never leveled a Priest all the way) but the game isn't.  Why did I get sucked in again? After thinking on it for awhile, I came up with a conclusion.  The reason I got sucked in so entirely was because of the grind.  With the new 300% XP bonus, I was burning through those first 30 levels so fast that the “I will just finish this level” mentality was able to remain viable for much longer than normal. At this rate I should have a level 70 character in under five days played.  That is being a little on the safe side since I am already level 30 with just about a day played.  For those looking to get another character to 70 for Wrath, I highly recommend finding a friend to play with.  Or just /follow on a second computer.  The time you save on leveling is likely worth the two-month subscription fee and purchase of the battlechest. You mount collectors will surely want the Zhevra.  It is meh for me though.

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