On Leveling Pt 1.

As I've posted previously after the dissolution of Utopia on Fenris, I became depressed and disillusioned with my NE Druid Neren. I was stuck in a rut due my spec & my lack of options that it left me with raid progression. I also had reached a point where guild drama had made coming home & playing wow not fun, but as much of a chore as work. Luckilly I had rolled a tauren druid & transferred a trust fund of gold over to the horde side of the fence.
That was around Memorial Day, it's now almost 4th of july. I think since then I've logged onto the alliance side maybe three times since those events occured.
Over the last couple days I've been mulling over some thoughts I've had while Leveling. Since I didn't have an end game toon on the horde side, The experience has been close to what it was like when I leveled Neren. which is to say I don't have the feeling of juggling my time between my main character & my alt. Regardless though I've done it before so I have the blessing of experience.
Here are my thoughts.
1.) Smell the flowers: Blizzard has stated that WOW is about the journey. You start out a level 1 noob & end up a level 70 L337 toon w phat lewtz. The point is that while your on this journey smell the flowers, explore the world, see what's out there.
2.) Blues vs. Greens: This was something I forgot, and I think a lot of end gamers lose when they're spending all their time in raid dungeons. Old world gear is on a different scale than outland gear. Blues last a long time compared to their outland counterparts. If any Blizzard Developers read this blog, I would recommend that the gear be tuned so that moving to outland is a smoother process.
3.) Quest rewards: Again another item I noticed that may be in the works with the developers. The old world quest reward system is built for a game universe where the players don't have access to large sums of gold. The rewards for completing kill x trolls etc. were designed so that a player who's broke could get by on quest rewards.
Now we have a game universe where players have access to large sums of gold, and the majority of low level character are in fact end game players who are leveling an alt, so this enviroment renders the system broken. I find that overwhelmingly the gear I get is sold within a couple of minutes.
From where I see it there are two options.
1.) create a system where players are 'taxed' for transferring gold to lower level characters.
2.) update the reward system so that players have more than one choice with gear rewards.
This concludes part 1 of 'On Leveling'

WOTLK Lust

As I've posted before my summer project is to level a tauren druid. But I know in my heart that my main toon is calling to me every day a little bit more & more. So it's a lil struggle, keeping my sights on my goal & resisting the urge to login as Neren.
On the flipside. WOTLK is coming out shortly, & I'm lusting for the changes to the moonkin spec. Yet I also am resenting it. What made me level moonkin was two things
1.) Seeing a moonkin druid for the first time
2.) Not doing any theorycraft research & realizing I could've leveled as feral & switched.
Now with the talent changes in WOTLK Balance will be a viable spec to level which makes me actually annoyed. Ok I'll confess resent the changes. Which now makes me face something I don't like elitism in Wow (or in the real world.) because now I can see the argument.

Thoughts on Leveling

My tauren druid is almost level 24, total time played is less than 1 game day. This is still stunning to me, because I remember leveling balance pre-bc & I can't remember how many times I died. Not to say I haven't died leveling Greathoof, but not like I did leveling Neren.
I understand that Blizzard makes a leveling spec for each class, and that at level 40 you can move into your desired spec to learn how to play it. But it just annoys me a little bit. Esp after leveling Peda to 50 as an Ele Shaman. It wasn't hard & it was a lot more fun than Enhancement.
Feral though is interesting, The problem I see is that you have to gear properly. There's a sudden switch @ 20 to Cat Form, which means you need Agility gear & Tanking Gear.
Personally I like bear form better but still leveling is leveling...

Taking a break from your worries...

As of right now. Neren is sitting in hibernation. Sleeping in the emerald dream, while my shammy sit's in IF gaining rest state. I haven't logged onto Neren since Monday & I don't think I'll touch him for a while. I need a vacation from WOW, or more specifically the end game obligations that I had.

But then again that all went up in smoke over memorial day weekend when my guild disbanded.

(Anyone who wants to read greymantle's dry statement can go on the Fenris Forum)

I wish I could lie but this left me devastated, and depressed. I was left in a very tough place because there was no where for me to go..so to speak. We were at #3/#4 in guild progression on the server. The top raiding guild was horde. The Top Alliance Guild has a no moonkin need apply policy. The other alliance guild @ our progression was selecting which ex-guildies they wanted. I joined up w my friend Brian's guild, but they were so low on the progression that I wasn't an asset but a liabilty, since my dps over shot the tank's threat, even when I used a SF only rotation.

Yet in darkness there's is light. And from my experience in both the real & the virtual worlds, it's always in the oddest places. The Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend. I had decided that I wanted to roll a horde toon for shit's and giggles. So I rolled a orc hunter, (with a sweet handle) transferred myself about 425 gold through the ah & a friend helping me, and went over to the other side. I didn't like the hunter (I will admit hunters are so boring.) But it sparked an idea, the kind that bugged me until I had to do it.

I rolled a tauren druid.

And the Universe smiled on me, and Lo I got a good handle. I struck platnium with my toon's name. I mean a really good toonname. One that has sparked envy in other players. One that actually urges me on to level the character. It's one thing to be Neren, Champion of the Naaru. It'll be another to be Greathoof, champion of the Naaru

I told you it was good.

But the best thing about leveling this toon, is there is no stress on me from guild obligations, It's just fun & fairly new. I had tried leveling a horde toon before, but I never got past level 12 since I didn't have the alt gold. to make the process easy.

Now it's easy and relaxing.

On the flip side. I sometimes feel like I'm a crippled toon. since I've been up to Sunwell trash, having the lowbie abilities is rather odd. Also no one knows me. so I can say what my toon is etc. But it could be just BS. And lord knows WOW has a lot of that. And lastly, there are still new players in WOW, so you can mark like you would in a heroic & you may have never seen those marks before.

Still though It is a breath of fresh air. But I know I can't hide from neren forever

Maybe another week.

A nice two week vacation

Where has the Moonkin Gone??

I started this blog back in the winter & I wrote dilligently.
As the real world crept in I stopped writing daily.
Now I look & see that I haven't posted since April
This Will Not do!
I will start posting again!
Sorry
Neren