Monday (29 Nov) - Itching to Level

Monday (29 Nov) - Itching to Level

So, Lao the face melting shadow priest got the urge to level and has been seen recently clobbering random dungeons and pvp battlegrounds. I'm guessing she started in earnest around level 49? and is now at level 64, sweeping past not only her usual partner (Mery, looking winded at level 56) but also scaring the wits out of Melasahnd (at level 62) as Lao blew past her.

The Wild family hasn't been totally out of action, but the leveling has been spread out quite a bit more.

Mery's jump from 55 to 56 was recent. EZ has pushed up a couple of levels to 46. Jocelyne gained a level to 23. Even Happy, who Lao did a double take on when she found him in Orgrimmar questing instead of holed up in Silvermoon City, raised his level by two to 22. The droll Naithipe earned a level, too, failing to state exactly which level that might be.

On the alliance side Java leapt two levels to 31. Chaitee was set to join him in the level march, but Sunday morning (yesterday) when she wanted to start the Pilgrim's Bounty quest chain she discovered that the Bounty was over. I thought we had one more day! she cried. She was disappointed, but at least she had already reached level 20 and gotten her mount via the pre-Cata quests.

With the Shattering also came a huge new set of quests and what is supposedly a revamped questing system that is based a lot more on story lines and smooth travel (vs the often meandering quests requiring all kinds of seemingly purposeless travel and quests which are no more than "kill this many of that mob for no particular reason"). Lower level players will also see phasing (where a zone changes depending on what quests have been completed), something that just didn't exist before. Not that Wild didn't love leveling in Vanilla WoW - he did. So did JB. And Philly. And ... well, it started to get a little old by then.

I'm now starting to get anxious again to do some leveling, and in particular to experience the new and revised questing. From what I've read it is a lot of fun and pretty fast considering that players have 85 levels to aspire to instead of 60. I'm told that 1-60 leveling is much faster, 61-70 a bit faster, 71-80 a lot faster, and then there is the long grind of 81-85 (estimated to take as long as it took to go from 71-80).

I'm trying not to take on more than I can handle, though. I really want to start with a level 1 toon so I can experience everything in Cata, but I'm holding off until the actual expansion arrives so that I can have an Alliance Worgen. It won't be ujust questing. I'm sure she'll get into BGs and dungeons galore! I've mentioned before that she'll be a druid. I also have a name for her, but that will stay private until she is born. There will also be a goblin in Wild's future, but he/she will have to wait a bit. The worgen druid will also have to share leveling time with Wild, as Wild will be my first priority. It won't be fast, as my goal is to level the worgen to 85 before the end of 2011. I'm ready!