Dreamboats of Azeroth!

 Whoever is doing the social media for World of Warcraft these days has a great sense of fun, and dare I say likely loves the game. Teen dreams Dagren and Anduin!

Atheren At The Anniversary Celebration

 Atheren the newer character (Blackwater Raiders) has a more low key existence than others with her name, since she's not meant to be the lead character at all.  She's just a lowbie in a big pile.  I don't mind taking the time with her to try to do some of the special events that pop up. After working on quests in the event and doing two Classic Timewalking Dungeons, she's level 35, having been at 26 when her session started.

She's getting a ton of extra xp, some from the anniversary, but also an extra 25% because of the "Mentors" aka the number of characters already at 80.

First up: Balloon Riding. It's a short flight around the anniversary grounds.

There's a sleuthing event from a squibby little creature.  He has you go all over the ruins of Tanaris looking for treasure, and some others are found using a mostly useless bird in the event area.

There's a story time event. They seem to have several, I watched one featuring Baine and other unknown to me Horde characters.  Thought he should have popped the woman who killed his dad.  I would.

I'll get my three dungeons and try another quest or two, I'm not doing raids or world bosses, so I can skip those.

Atheren's January 2025 Goals and a Tiny Wrapup of 2024

 

Here we are, enjoying the fleeting moments of 2024 and waiting for the KABOOM of 2025. Let's note I started writing about World of Warcraft exclusively on this blog after the daily blogging run of Blaugust 2024 which I wrote all about on my Last Chapter Blog.

This blog will have a total of 18 posts for all of the year after I drop this hefty bomb of a post (being facetious as always).  My plan for 2025 is to return to my old blog post goal of 100 posts for the year.  A mere 2 posts a week will accomplish this lofty goal.  

I know from experience it's easier for me to meet post goals if I have some set topic or meme I can use as a framework.  I'm not sure of the form that might take.  I like the idea of writing up a mini-session review/recap after I play at night.  Dear Blog Diary, blah blah.  Pretty damn scintillating when you think of it.

I've been dividing my play time about half between the War Within and half the Anniversary Edition of Classic.  I must say the crowd starting out this time was a big warm snuggly group, some had played other versions of Classic, some no versions of Classic, some had not played the game at all in as much as twenty years.

I remember starting off in the original classic, and how my family all thought the game was really challenging to play, too hard to play was the unanimous judgement of the younger set who all bailed quickly.  The Older Smarter Tougher, by God, crowd of us just kept going until it didn't seem so tough.

This time around, I don't know if they softened the edges of things as they sneakily do, or if my time playing Classic and especially Hardcore Classic made it all seem simpler.  Same game, different rule set.

I'm playing this version as I did the Hardcore version, starting with a Paladin and a Priest as my main characters.  My Arms Warrior is catching up so she can get better armor for the Paladin.  My characters always have each other's backs.

Guild wise, I'm doing what I was doing on Pagle (Cataclysm Classic) and just letting my characters be in different guilds to see if one turns out to be really good.  I'm turning down invites for any guild whose name I wouldn't want to wear over my head, and man, there are some stinkers.  I'm also seeing guilds from Blacksail Buccaneers and Pagle advertising here.  Interesting.  Not going for any of those.

Now that my most of my characters who are the Lead Four on the campfire screen are all under the level of the War Within (they're in the Dragon Isles), they are not as fun to play, so time has shifted upwards to Atherne, so she could take a look at the 20th Anniversary Celebration in Tanaris (sorry not compelling), to the Siren Isle which has many interesting features.  Once I'd done most things and was not raising my Item Level significantly, I went back to slogging in Azj-Kahet for the Vizier.

Also, I find myself looking at the Traveler's Log for the first time because I wanted the Murloc Jammies.  Just squeaked getting them.

I am looking forward to The Undermines, after seeing a Wowcast on it.

Undermined Revealed | WoWCast

I'm no particular fan of Goblins, never having gotten out of the starter area with a character, but it looks like drag racing in the streets.  Too good.

Happy New Year, May the Force Be With Us All.

Ho Ho Hallowfall

 The Warcraftians are in a holiday mood.  I love this.  The Thrallmark channel!

War Within The Next Class(es)

My Holy Priest is finally level 80.  Slow slow going as her fights last forever.  On the plus side, she rarely dies, yay!  

I've changed my mind about the next set of characters to level.  Ever since I saw on Reddit one Day there's an achievement for getting one of each class to 80, it's been on my mind.  This next group are classes that need considerable leveling, and there's a Shaman somewhere below these.

Beast Master Hunter, Death Knight, Evoker, Demon Hunter

Atheren's World of Warcraft Goals for November 2024

 My October goals were met and surpassed.  I sent my main character, Atherne the Druid through every area, did every quest, got every exploration, did all the delves and dungeons.

I now have 6 level 80s.  I'm using the camp fire group to select the set of characters I level, and work left to right.

In the first group I had two Feral Druids with Alchemy, one Retribution Paladin with Blacksmithing/ Mining, and a Fire Mage with Tailoring and Enchanting.  Once they were at level 80 and had completed all quests and delves and quest related dungeons on the Isle of Dorn, off to the Ringing Deeps.  I also start working on their Tradeskills in earnest at level 80.  Having two alchemists to provide Health potions for my other characters in the Warband bank has been great.  

The second set of characters are a Rogue with Leatherworking and Skinning, a Destruction Warlock with Inscription and Herbalism, an Arms Warrior with Engineering and Mining, and a Holy Priest with Jewelcrafting and Mining.

I'm really enjoying the leveling process, picking characters to be my next group.  This group is all Blackwater Raiders characters because they were the highest level crafters for their particular skillset.  For the next round I'll be having a mix of classes from the Guild Realms (Blackwater Raiders, Earthen Ring, Proudmoore) to try out all the classes on the new content.   

I used to have leveling characters "prove themselves" by sending them into dungeons, but the meter of success is now Delves, to see how they fare in them.  

November goals are easy:

Continue leveling characters.

Work on Tradeskills.

Move all level 80 characters through each area: Ringing Deeps, Hallowfall, and Azj-kahet doing all content in each.  

Work on gearing up.

I almost forgot I was able to create an Earthen character. She's a Retribution Paladin, who I cleverly sent to the Earthen Ring Server. Home Sweet Home, right?

Atheren's Gaming Goals for World of Warcraft October 2024

 

Get Sojourner of Hallowfall

Atherne has all of the major achievements except Sojourner of Hallowfall.  There are two time gated quest sequences, as in a week between them when you'll be able to do the next one, and I thought I got the third part of one of them today, but zip.  This, along with the whole time sink area with the all the light the fires and blah blah blah are making Hallowfall my least favorite land in the game.

Raise Rep with Azj-Kahet

Particularly with The Vizier.  He and I are at Crony level, if you can imagine.

Level up The Big Four

Get Proudmoore Paladin, Earthen Ring Druid, and the Blackwater Raiders Fire Mage to level 80.  The Paladin is at 77 1/2, and has only been out for a few days. It helps so much that Atherne did every single thing everywhere, so I know where to go and what to do.   I've got the Mage doing quests and World Quests to gear up quickly, as Mage isn't one of my best classes to play.  Druid two should be heading out soon.  All should be 80 by months end.

Tradeskills

Honestly tradeskills are a super butt pain, requiring loads of materials to trash with experimentation, and little to nothing to show for it, even for Cooking.  Knowing this now, every character is loading up on every resource possible before they even start to craft.

Do Every Quest, Every Delve, Every Dungeon Before Moving On To The Next Area

As much fun as it is to move along to the next adventure, leave no Quest or Delve unturned, is my motto.