WoW Journal - 18-April-2006

Due to the easter holidays I had a 4-day weekend. But I played WoW a lot less than you would have thought. I think I'm a bit burned out, a bit unmotivated at the moment, and the emotional stress of the guild split isn't exactly helping.

So on Runetotem I only did two groups this weekend. The first was to Dire Maul, where somebody needed to kill a ghost as part of the tier 0.5 upgrade quest. That was a complete desaster. He had some information that the best way to get to the ghosts in DM west would be by passing through the library in DM north. Unfortunately there were several people in the group who didn't know their way around in DM, and when the people who did know how to get to the library in DM north without aggroing just ran off without explanations, the others tried to follow, missed a jump or two, and got the whole group wiped. Several times. Then past the library we got wiped by the air elementals in the demon dog prison. We killed the ghosts in the corridor to DM west, but the quest item didn't drop. When we tried to get to the other ghosts, there was a big treant boss mob in the way. So we tried to kill it, but it turned out that if you attack him from that side, he summons all the smaller treants from the upper court, and so we just wiped again. At that point we gave up. My advice for anybody on that quest: Don't try to be tricky, just enter DM west normally and forget about the path through the library.

Second group on Runetotem was much better, somebody from the guild needed the key to BRD, and I made the tour guide. First we went to the arena, and found that the patch 1.10 had improved the loot in this dungeon, the arena mob dropped two blue items, which it didn't do before. From there we went to the top of the big gate, jumped down a bit before that through a window, and got directly to Incendius that way. Killed the architect after that and got the Ironfell hammer needed to get the key. Fought our way through the golems, and then past all the dwarves, past the vault, until we reached the statue where we got the keys for all those who needed it. We stopped there, but I considered it a very successful group. We had no total wipe, just one near-wipe when a runner came back with another group of dwarves, and we recovered easily from that. Some nice loot for the others, but Raslebol is a bit beyond the point where BRD still gives useful drops.

My paladin on Eonar was having fun too, pursueing his paladin quest for the Test of Righteousness. The quest is about collecting 4 parts for a weaponsmith, who promises to make you a mace from them. The first part drops in the Deadmines from the woodcarver goblins, you can't miss it. The second part is from a box under a tree in the Mo'grosh ogre compound in Loch Modan. At level 24 I could have soloed it, but I joined some lower level people who were on the quests to kill the ogres. The third part is found in the stables in the courtyard of Shadowfang Keep. Fortunately I was able to get a group together for there, not many Alliance people go there, because there are no quests for the Alliance side there. But the xp and the loot are good, I got a very nice shield for my pally, as well as the hammer for the pally quest. We even killed Arugal, which with a group of level 22-24 isn't trivial. I just died helplessly in that fight, as Arugal was teleporting around and bombarded me with shadow bolts, against which I didn't have much of a defense. But at least I kept him busy, and the others in the group managed to kill him. Now I'm just missing the fourth part of the quest, for which I will need to go to talk to somebody in Darkshore, and then get the part from Blackfathom Depths. Great, I like BFD too, although in this level range I think SFK is my favorite, that haunted castle is so well done.

But I'm taking it slow for the moment, I'm not in a rush to get anywhere, neither on Runetotem nor on Eonar. I don't want to fall into the trap of doing something I don't enjoy in the hope of reaching "the good part" of World of Warcraft. Because all the parts of WoW are good, but in the later parts the goodness is stretched a bit thinner, and is harder to reach. I prefer so regard WoW as a form of entertainment, where the fun lies in reaching lots of small goals. The big goals, like beating BWL, are out there somewhere, but they aren't worth neglecting the rest of the game for it. I figure I'll probably be able to beat BWL at level 70, and I'm ready to wait that long. The dedication and effort it would take to beat BWL at 60 is a bit too much for me.
- posted by Tobold @ 8:32 AM Permanent Link