Weekend (5 Dec) - Weekend Cornucopia

Weekend (5 Dec) - Weekend Cornucopia

As Cataclysm approaches Wild has had to shift his focus from killing the Lich King to mapping out a plan for leveling in the post Cataclysm world. The Lich King is still casts a large shadow over Wild's preparations, but I don't want Wild to be fumbling around on Tuesday, either. These preparations are focused on what Wild needs to have ready when Cataclysm hits.

There are many important things to get done:

* Clear bank bag space to store Wild's current set of gear. Not since Wild acquired his full Tier 1 set back in the day has Wild been as well geared as he is right now. Wild is equipped with Tier 10 now (although not a complete set). Every piece of gear is at the highest non-Heroic level (i264 or better) with two exceptions: necklace and bracers, both at i251. Wild wants to keep all 17 pieces for posterity and comparison with the new gear he'll be getting in Cata.

* Get flying mount training to be able to fly in the old world. Flight trainers are supposed to be located near flight masters in all the major cities. Note that this is trainable at level 60 and costs 250 gold. Wild will be positioned in Orgrimmar to pick up this ability right by the flight master.

* Map out where to start questing and set a route to get there. The two starter zones for level 80s are listed below. Of course, there are higher level zones to get players to level 85, but Wild has to decide which of the first two starter zones for level 80s he wants to begin at, and whether he should do both zones before moving on or move to higher level zones as soon as he is able. If Wild follows past practice, he'll spent a lot of time in the first two zones to reach a playing level that will make getting the higher level zones easier to do:
* Mount Hyjal (78-82) in Kalimdor. Wild should also make sure he finds the Firelands in this zone, which is an outdoor raid featuring the return of Ragnaros from Molten Core. The Twilight Hammer figure prominently in this zone.
* Vashj'ir (78-83) is an UNDERWATER zone off the coast of Loch Modan on the Eastern Continent. Vashj'ir is made up of three zones to quest through, starting with Kelp Forest. I suspect most players will start here as this is the first fully underwater zone and offers the ability to breath underwater and swim faster than ever before.

Wild made the decision to start in Mount Hyjal. The zoned is located in Kalimdor and can be accessed via a portal in Orgrimmar (for Horde), which makes it easy to get there. Maybe Blizzard is making this too easy. Ok, so no one knows where the portal in Orgrimmar is located.

* Reputation - the game now offers special tabards to increase rep grinding with each city. Yep, not only can one grind all kinds of faction rep, city rep is yet another time sink that players will be after. This is already available with the Shattering, but Wild hasn't decided what city tabard he wants to start with. Rep from tabards come from doing dungeons.

* Guild Leveling - Wild will not likely play a significant role in the new guild leveling system. Only the top twenty ranked players in the guild count toward leveling and Wild is somewhere down in the 40-something range. Wild can help the guild reach goals by helping with group achievements, however.

* Addons - I need to make sure that all my user interface addons have been updated to work in cata. Most already are, but a final check is essential to minimize any initial login problems with addons. The last thing I want to spend my first hours in Cata on is fixing addons.

Wild also had to make some adjustments on the Auction House front. Happy has run out of room to store things as sellers fill the AH with items at throw away prices. Happy is betting he will profit from the sales both before and after Cata on select items. There are a number of items that Happy keeps on hand for Wild as well. Happy's storehouse is full to overflowing.

Wild suggested that Happy get an assistant. Happy wasn't too keen on the idea at first. Wild mentioned that Happy already has one assistant, Lost, who handles all of the Alliance AH stuff. That has worked out quite well. Another possible concern involved the fact that the Wild family was made up of two accounts. Wild's account was set for Cata. The account Happy is in will not get Cata immediately. That should not impact Happy's AH business, but "should not" and "won't" are too different things. If Happy can't operate the way he needs to, Wild needs a toon on his own account that can. Happy eventually came around to the idea.

Wild had an additional motive for wanting a new toon. His good friend and druid, Rs, a Tauren like Wild, decided to change his race. With the Shattering, trolls were given the ability to be druids, a class they were not allowed to be before. Rs changed his race from Tauren to Troll, and had to show off. Troll bears and cats look REALLY cool! One quick funny story - Rs "lost" himself more than a couple of times when his eyes kept looking for a tauren instead of a troll. Anyway, Wild wanted a troll druid, but Wild did not want to switch races. What better way to serve all purposes than to create a troll druid to be Happy's assistant.

Even more fun is that trolls have a new starting zone (before the Shattering trolls shared a starting zone with orcs), so the new toon will get to experience that zone for the very first time. The new troll druid will get a separate post soon, but much work has already been done in getting Happy's assistant fully ready and employed.

In other news Melasahnd joined a few battleground matches over the weekend, looking to raise her level to join Lao in the 65-69 pvp bracket. Melasahnd did the best she could, winning a Warsong Gulch match but losing two Alterac Valley matches on Friday night. She raised her experience from 10% to 51% of the way to level 64. Melasahnd also learned that she really sucked as a death knight. Just about any caster that could stay out of Melasahnd's melee range could burn her down in short order. The few times Melasahnd was able to catch that mage or that shadow priest - well, it was worth watching them die. Still, I felt kind of like Fin must have felt - I'm pressing a lot of buttons but I don't have a clue what I'm doing.