Space Goats Coast-to-Coast

Thankfully, I've not run into my griefer the past several days.

That doesn't mean I've not been in instances over that time --I have been in two-- but my little friend was not a participant.

However, Briganaa 2.0 has made it to L60*, and after working on getting a few skills up to snuff, this happened early on April 1st:

Some things never change.

Given that the date was April 1st --aka April Fools Day-- I avoided posting anything yesterday lest people think I was pulling their leg.

I've noodled around Hellfire Peninsula a bit...

It almost got me, but here's proof that it didn't.

Killed a few things...

Sorry I didn't get a more dynamic screencap, but
I was a bit busy actually killing him. That green thingie
is an moustache-twirling Villain saying "You killed
my minion! I'll get you next!"

And I have a few thoughts.

• Outland is easier in 2026 than in 2021.
  
  That's not just a generic impression left to the nerfing of the Heroic 5-person instances and the raids, but fighting out in the field. As I explained to my Questing Buddy, whereas she had PvP gear when she crossed over (her Tier 3 gear was all healing stuff so it wasn't useful for questing) I had pretty much the same gear when I crossed over in 2021: a mix of quest greens with a decent amount of dungeon gear from Zul'Farrak, Maraudon, Sunken Temple, and Blackrock Depths. And about half of those items have already been replaced by quest greens from Hellfire Peninsula, so I'm definitely on similar footing with what I had back then. I even have the same Class (Shaman) and Spec (Enhancement) that I had in 2021.
  
  And to me, it's pretty obvious that the mobs aren't as difficult as they were in 2021. 
  
  The Expedition Armory, the ghost area directly south of Honor Hold, was a place that bedeviled me back then. This time around, I have no issues single pulling an enemy at a time, and even holding my own with two of them at once. The road toward Shattrath City, which is crawling with Ravagers, were also no problem at all.
  
  Could this be simply due to experience? Perhaps, but I doubt it. It's been 5 years since I last was in Hellfire Peninsula, and I have forgotten a few things in the intervening time.** I have been playing as if I were in 2021, taking my time and being cautious, but I certainly feel like I can move faster if I chose to. I also suspect the XP rewards are higher than in 2021, because the leveling seems quicker as well. I'm almost to L61 and I'm not even halfway through the zone itself.
  
  
• There are people here, but not even close to what you'd expect in the early part of an expac.
  
  Seriously.
  
  
  
  
  
  The only place where I was constantly running into too many people were in the initial quests just outside of Honor Hold, where I found an L70 killing mobs for an L58-L60 toon --who said boosting was dead?-- and over on the path toward Hellfire Citadel. Aside from that there was plenty of space to spread out. I also noted plenty of queries for group quests in Gen Chat, but not so many that it was overwhelming.
  
  There was also ample evidence that during the day the crowd was not very large, as the layers were about 6 deep:
  
  
  
  
  But did balloon back to 10 deep at night:
  
  
  
  
  There were some people who were hanging around, showing off their flying mounts (no, I didn't get a screencap of them), and there was a steady flow of activity around the PvP locations in Hellfire Peninsula***, so when you add that activity and the L70s going to raid or run instances at Hellfire Citadel, it seems more active than it is. Most L70s are likely raid logging at this point, although once I reach Shattrath City I'll get a chance to test that theory.
  
  
• Finding some gathering nodes are easier than others.
  
  Brig 2.0 is a Skinner/Leatherworker --and, uh, I need to work on the Leatherworking side of things-- so she doesn't have any issues killing beasts and then skinning them as part of her questing activities. I've also seen plenty of herbs around, just waiting for people to pick them.
  
  But mining nodes? Good luck with that.
  
  Every time I've been close to a mining node, someone comes swooping down from above and farms it within a few minutes. That's kind of crazy, given that Hellfire Peninsula isn't exactly where you'd expect the Miners to be congregating at right now; they're probably at Blade's Edge Mountains or Shadowmoon Valley if I'd a guess.
  
  I'm also aware on an existential level that the bot farms are fighting back against the current state of anti-bot behavior with the WoW Classic team by mass reporting so-called "legitimate" farmers as bots, and letting the (presumably) Copilot-driven AI automatically ban them. At least one member of my Questing Buddy's guild has been banned (and then unbanned when he complained) by a bot farm for farming the same area the bot farm wanted for themselves.
  
  
• The more I read Gen Chat in Outland, the happier I am not joining the Rat Race.
  
  If there's one thing I've learned over my raiding experience from 2020-2024, it's that raid teams and raiding philosophies are always in flux. No matter your stated goals for a raid, they never remain static. There is always a trend toward either more hardcore raiding or being a "farm team" for another raid. If you're a good raider, you'll get contacted by someone from another raid to snap you up and join their raid team as that raid team loses people to other raids. 
  
  That's the lie that nobody talks about: you can play with friends, but how long will those friends play with you if they hear the siren song of faster progression or a better raid team? I've watched my raid team fall apart due to regular defections from the best players, who even though they knew the pace we were going to run at decided to push for changes almost immediately after joining the raid. I've also seen friends leave because they were also members of another raid team and that raid team demanded faster progression out of them. So, when push came to shove, friendship wasn't quite as important as that other raid team.
  
  Maybe after a decade of raiding with the same people (as in well-established raid teams in EQ/Retail WoW/etc.) you have had all of those issues shaken out, but I've yet to see that happen. 
  
  As much as I hear my Questing Buddy downplay how hardcore her raid team is, I can speak as someone looking in from the outside that they are very hardcore. While they may not have explicit raid materials requirements that other raid teams do, the expectation is implicit because they utilize Loot Council to distribute gear: If you're not pulling your weight, you won't get gear. It's quite amazing how that tends to focus the mind if you want to progress. 
  
  Are they a top guild on the server? No, absolutely not.
  
  Are they hardcore enough that the only places that people can go to are either sideways (skill-wise) or to a top guild? Yes. There's not very many levels between them and the top guilds, so if you want to leave their raid team to go to a "better" one, you're going to end up on one of the top guilds' raid teams. They also have an advantage in that they're one of the few raid teams that raid on Pacific Time as opposed to Eastern Time (or China Standard Time), so they will attract the top players for their time slot.
  
  Now, the $100,000 question: would I like to raid again?
  
  Yes, but only on my terms. 
  
  I know what the pressure of expectations are, and I'm sick of it.**** I don't play video games to get all the best gear, I play for the satisfaction of having done a good job my way. (Or, given the circumstances, a good story.) I'm not interested in speed runs or what the meta is, because both of those assume you can not only understand what needs to be done (yeah, I can do that) but have the physical skills to accomplish that (I'm in my upper 50s; I know my limitations). I was one of the oldest raiders on the Valhalla raid teams, and despite my Mage Class lead being happy with my performance, I used to get harassed by people who wanted to "help" me play better because I was always a step or cast slower than the others. *****And my experiences in Wrath Classic with our little 10s social raid taught me that --no matter what-- I was always going to be a step slower than everybody else. Therefore, I'm not going to force myself past my limits just so I can raid and make my friends uncomfortable with my inability to keep up with them. 
  
  But would I like to put my ghosts to rest? Absolutely.

I've successfully navigated things this far, and once I crossed the Dark Portal and settled it, I began to relax. Another ghost vanquished.

This encounter was even closer, as I had to
transform into a Ghost Wolf and run away from
a fight, but the Reaper er, Reaver never got me.

And it needs to be said, I'm glad I haven't ended up on a Fel Reaver's specimen listing...

*I didn't get the "Ding!" screencap because I forgot.

**I don't use Questie or any other quest aids, so I'm utilizing only the game's default settings.

***There were pretty regular complaints in Gen Chat about "The Horde is not playing by the rules", to which I laughed. I've seen the same complaints on the Horde side in the past, so I think it's safe to say that both sides are violating The Shattrath Convention, as I tongue-in-cheek call it.

****I get that IRL at work, so why should I want that at home?

*****This continued into my progression raiding in 2021 TBC Classic. I was always middle of the pack in DPS, and always a cast or physical attack slower than the other Shamans on the raid team. The only one who was comparable to me quit pretty early on in the Phase 1 raids in 2021, because TBC Classic didn't turn out what she hoped it would be. And she was one of the few people in my age range (she was a few years older).