You Only See It After The Fact

I attended the visitation for my friend last night, which was cathartic. I hadn't realized just how many people he knew, because there was quite a line of people to see him, but I also ran into several other members of my amateur radio club there. Yes, I'm quite aware that visitations and funerals are for the living rather than for the dead, but still it was good to be reminded that we have other people who count on us and connect with us. 

Speaking of connecting, I made a point the other day to get my annual flu and covid shots while I was picking up my medications at my pharmacy. While I'd known the people at the pharmacy for years, they'd been strictly professional in all my interactions with them. I'd occasionally wondered if they actually recognized me --a strange concept considering I'm a redhead with a (now gray) beard. Well, when the woman providing the shots took me into the little private room, I discovered that not only did they know me quite well but they were happy to see me whenever I made an appearance.

***

That got me to thinking about a couple of recent instance runs I had on the Anniversary servers. 

The first one, on my Hunter, was a run through the Underbog*. The tank and healer were from the same guild, and the healer was max level, so yay for us. But still, for the most part I was trying to stay out of trouble. Which, as a Hunter, meant not having my pet pull aggro from the tank nor trying to be a jerk and hitting the enemies hard enough to pull threat myself. Yes, Hunters have that reputation, and I'm quite aware of it. 

Of course, I did miss that I had the wrong buff on when we started (Aspect of the Pack). Sure, it makes you run faster, but when you get hit you get stunned, so... Yeah, not a good idea. 

When the Healer mentioned it, I apologized and switched the buff to the correct one. "I think every Hunter, myself included, has done that before," the Healer replied, which made me feel better.

"And here I was trying to make sure that Growl was off," I added. "Oh well."

I think that a little kindness there went a long way, and I appreciated that.

The second instance was a Sunken Temple run on my Horde Mage, Neve. After my failed attempt to get into ST the other week, I wasn't sure what to expect. However, the Druid tank was up front in that they hadn't been in ST in years, so they might need some guidance in finding their way around. Luckily, another party member pulled up some of the more intricate parts of the instance on ChatGPT (I guess going to Wowhead would have worked too), so we had that part covered. Since our tank was a Druid and I know Druid tanks quite well because I first met my Questing Buddy while she was on her Druid tank, I knew to wait and get a chance to see how they'd do at handling threat before I went all in on my DPS. 

Okay, so I'm casting Blizzard right now; sue me.
Typically I focus on a caster/healer and make sure
we kill them first, or at the very least I can counter
whatever healing or damage spells they put out.

That didn't exactly work as intended, because I kind of got excited a couple of pulls in and pulled threat. "Sorry about that," I said, "I'll slow my DPS for a bit so you can keep threat." 

"That's okay," the tank replied, "I don't speak English well."

Honestly, I had no idea why that mattered in terms of me slowing down my DPS, but I kind of shrugged and did my best to keep myself from pulling threat. I mean, that's my job: do damage but don't be an asshat; do crowd control** and make things easier for the tank and healer; provide food and water for the group, and make sure everybody has the buffs they need.

In case you've forgotten, Sunken Temple (formally known as The Temple of Atal'Hakkar) is one of those Classic instances that can take an entire evening to clear if you're very thorough, or if you're not quite at the right level for it. Just like the other four massive Vanilla instances, Blackrock Depths, Blackrock Spire, Stratholme, and Maraudon, you'll just have to take your time and relax.

So I did.

I mean, I was constantly drinking to get my mana back, so I was fine with the pace. And to be honest, about 1/3 of the way through our group got into a groove and then we were able to speed things up just a bit.

Still, I was floored when the tank said in group chat, "Yr good Mage, you don't go all in on aoe when I pull."

"Thanks," I replied. I thought about making an additional comment, but that was kind of embarrassing. I mean, I'm part of a team, and I look good when the team looks good.

When we finished, both the tank and the healer said in group chat that they added me to their Friends' list. Again, a little kindness went a long way.

***

If there was one thing I'll always remember about my friend, it's that he was always there for you. He encouraged people, enabled them to do their best work, and celebrated with them when they achieved their goals. He was living proof that behaving like other people mattered and were worth cheering for paid dividends, both for the people he affected and himself. I don't know if he ever got to see how many people's lives he'd impacted, but I'd like to think he did. 

*Yes, it's Underbog, not "Underdog", the cartoon from the 1960s. Although I have been known to say "Never fear, UNDERDOG is here!" while in that instance.

This is a poster by Ian Glaubinger.
Note the evil Simon Bar Sinister on the
bottom left, and Polly Purebred on the right.

**Apparently not that many Mages actually do crowd control like you're supposed to. My Questing Buddy has informed me on numerous occasions that the Mages in her guild simply don't do any of that stuff. Or even bother with things such as removing curses from party/raid members, leaving that job to other classes. I have no idea where that mentality comes from, but I consider those "lesser" things a critical part of actually playing a Mage. 

EtA: Corrected intent in a sentence; it could have easily been misread.

Was There a Full Moon Out?

I had a distinctly weird experience the other day.

I'd gotten on Neve and was mainly working on things such as leveling Tailoring when I figured that I had enough time that evening that I could try to squeeze in an instance. And by saying "squeeze in an instance", we're talking an hour or two's worth of an instance, such as Blackrock Depths or Sunken Temple. Since I was relatively close to Sunken Temple at the time, I decided to try to get into a group for that. 

Sure enough, being a Mage meant Neve didn't wait long for an invite.

As I was the only one nearby, it was a few moments before I arrived at the Summoning Stone and waited for someone else to appear so we could summon the rest.

I waited.

And I waited.

I also spent some time dancing with a nearby Night Elf.

I took a look at the map, and everybody else was scattered throughout and... They weren't moving.

"I'm at the stone," I announced. "I just need another person here and we'll summon the rest."

Again no response. And no movement on the map.

Finally one person began moving on the map, and they got to Booty Bay, and... That person dropped.

Then two others dropped.

"WTF?!" The remaining person asked.

"I have no idea," I replied. "It was as if nobody wanted to actually travel and they were waiting for somebody else to do it."

It was at that point I just made an executive decision to not bother with a dungeon that night and just spent the evening crafting and questing instead.

And flying. Can't forget that.

Happy Hour at the Dungeon

It's kind of a tradition in MMO group content to find someone who's been imbibing some alcoholic beverages. I mean, it's typically an after hours activity, and if you're at home (or at an internet cafe) and you're of the right age, why not have a drink or two?

Unfortunately, it's also a tradition for people to over imbibe in group content.

There was one time back in January 2022 where our TBC Classic raid team was raiding Serpentshrine Cavern, and we were testing out a new Main Tank. He seemed competent enough, and while I could hear the occasional glug of a drink, I didn't think anything of it. I mean, I used to have a beer when I raided before my hospital stay, so why not someone else? Well, right before we were to take on Lady Vashj, we'd prepped for the pull and.... Nothing. The "new" Main Tank didn't pull. He didn't respond to our calls in Discord.

He had passed out right before the pull of the last boss in the raid.

Oops. 

We quickly scrambled and to a replacement MT to show, but no, we didn't kill Vashj on that raid. 

Oh well.

Anyway, I bring this up because last night I was taking a break and goofing around on the Anniversary servers, and I figured I'd get into an instance or two. If nothing else, they ought to be pretty standard runs for a Friday night. 

Have I ever mentioned my naïveté before?

On the first run, there were three guild members: tank, healer, and Enhancement Shaman DPS. The Healer was drunk. And by drunk, I mean "he was doing shots of tequila" drunk. Despite that, we were doing okay, until the latest shots hit his system, about 2/3 of the way through. 

How do I know this? He started speaking of himself in third person. 

At one point, the Shaman had died and I made a quip about reaction times and the Shaman replied saying "I'm laughing so hard I'm crying right now."

People died enough times that someone thankfully dropped a repair bot, so we could repair without our gear breaking.

Still, it was a fun run, if for nothing else that the Healer provided enormous amounts of unintentional comedy.

The second run was a bit different, because the Mage didn't speak English other than "GO" or "YAY" or "SAD" or "HAPPY".* Still, I could tolerate that were it not for the tank being inebriated, so he wasn't being that attentive to the Healer. At one point the Healer specifically said after a boss fight "brb bio", and the tank kept right on going. When the Healer came back and managed to rescue a bad pull, she pointed out she said "brb bio" and tank replied with "we didn't die".

::rolls eyes::

The tank made a couple of other bad judgements in the run, one we recovered from and one... we didn't. Luckily I was on Joan, and therefore I had Soulstoned the Healer just for such an emergency. The Healer then called out the adds that we had on that pull and the tank claimed innocence.  At least that didn't turn out to be a big row, but for certain the Healer split right after the last boss. Can't say I blamed her.

I guess it's a pick your poison sort of situation: if you make people laugh and you're obviously silly about it, that forgives a host of sins. But if you're pushing when there's no reason to, and because you're a bit drunk you're not quite as fast with reflexes as you think you are...

Hey, it wasn't my fault this time!!!

*At the end of the run, I asked for a portal in both English and Spanish, and no bueno.

#Blaugust2026

It's Not Exactly Bottled Lightning

It's been a busy couple of weeks around the house. Family, guinea pigs, amateur radio club stuff, things like that. And not to mention cleaning and more doctors' visits.*

Oh yeah... And work, too.

From Tenor. (And Warcraft.)

Consequently, not a lot of game playing has been going on.

But I can tell you a lot about grounding and bonding antennas and radios!

There ought to be a lightning arrestor
in that diagram, as well as bonding between
the shack ground and service ground. From W8JI.

Anyway, I should mention a few things.

As of July 14, 2026.

Joan is at L64, and instead of spending money on other things I bit the bullet and bought a dual spec option for her so I could switch to Demonology and get the Felguard tank, who is much better at holding threat than the Voidwalker ever was. Although I do miss some aspects of Affliction, such as some instant casts and some extra Curses and whatnot, I kind of prefer not dying more.

I overall have had good interactions with people while playing Joan, but there are a few here and there.

You kind of get the idea. The person's guild was
"Big Pull Energy", so I didn't encourage him.

There's getting licked by the occasional Troll or Forsaken, to which I respond by a "/flirt" which tends to make them stop in their tracks long enough for me to move along. Maybe they were expecting me to be grossed out or do a "/slap" but I wasn't about to ask them any detailed questions while I was getting away from them.

I still do forget just how tall Draenei are until
I'm right next to one. They make Joan look like she's
in 5th grade or just about to hit puberty.

Right now she's finished with Hellfire Peninsula and is about halfway through Zangarmarsh, which makes her pretty much on point for matching what the others have done. The only difference is that she's doing it faster, because I'm only leveling her.

As for Neve, she's still in the mid-L40s, and that's fine. I play her when I want to get on WoW but not do Outland, although I know she'll eventually get there. Whether that happens before TBC Anniversary ends is kind of up in the air. 

Outside of these two, I've pretty much retired the other three toons that made it to L70.** There's no real reason to play them --I've already covered that before-- and despite that just the other day I turned down a spot in a Karazhan raid for Linnawyn because even though they wanted her for the Paladin buffs, she'd be next to useless in the raid itself. When you have gear mostly from Nagrand (mid-L60s gear) and a few mid-level instances, your ability to actually DPS is so bad compared to people who have run heroics and whatnot that it would be effectively a 9 person raid, not a 10 person raid. Since I didn't want to grind for gear just to "not suck", which is a sliding scale given that my friends who were asking had been getting pre-raid BiS (best in slot) gear for their toons prior to running Karazhan, by the time I got gear I'd consider "good enough" to raid with, they'd have all moved on to much better gear themselves, leaving me in a perpetual state of trying to play catch-up.

No thanks.

As for the future, I can see Joan finishing up sometime early-mid August, and then I'd likely move on to leveling one of my other toons to L70. If I play my cards right, I can actually get about 5 Alliance and 1 Horde toon to L70 in time for whatever happens next.

*My numbers are still good, thanks for asking. 

**Except for working the guild bank I created. Card's the GM, so I've retained most guild bank capability strictly to her.

Time for Plan B

I wasn't expecting this to happen this quickly, but here we are.

June 13, 2026.

June 25, 2026.

I wasn't expecting both toons to hit L70 before the end of June, and I certainly didn't expect them to finish in Nagrand, either. But it's done, so now the question becomes what to do next.

Neve is still in the low-mid L40s, so I can work on her for a bit. That's not a difficult thing to do, because Mages are still in demand in the Old World; the only real drawback there is that she needs to generate gold to cover the cost of her training, and that won't be quite as easy given that demand for Vanilla items such as fish and cloth aren't that great right now.

What I decided to do in the interim is take my Warlock, Joanofdark, over to try her out for a bit last night.

"Mom! Marshal Isildor is IGNORING me again!"

She killed a few boars, got a couple of quests done, and got her first quest reward from Outland: a wand.

Yes, a wand.

Not exactly a real boost in gear, there. Although to be fair, the DPS boost if I'm actually using the wand is rather nice, but it still isn't quite what I was expecting. Oh well.

But hey, I've got probably until Winter to finish leveling her, so I've got time.

Same Old, Same Old

In the last little bit of time since I posted about the Anniversary servers, this happened:

June 2, 2026.

One down, two to go.

Cardwyn dinged L70 in Nagrand, leaving three untouched zones behind: Blade's Edge Mountains, Netherstorm, and Shadowmoon Valley. 

I don't think the other two toons are going to get so lucky, but we'll see. 

Listings are as of June 10, 2026.

I ought to note that unlike my experience leveling in Vanilla Anniversary servers, I basically would switch toons once they cleared a zone. So, the level you see for Linna is where she stood after finishing up Terokkar Forest. Briganaa was at L67 as well when she finished up Terokkar, but Card was a lot closer to L68 than the others are, which is how she was able to finish up leveling in Nagrand. There's also the little fact that getting some quest drops for Card were harder than others, and my exploration of finding Corki (that Broken NPC who somehow manages to get himself captured by ogres multiple times) meant I cleared out more caves than was necessary. All this meant that Card got a lot more XP from simply killing mobs than Brig did; she was just more efficient at questing than Card because she came along second and got to learn from the Mage's experience.

***

I've recently begun doing something I'd previously done on Retail, and that's just hanging around cities, watching the crowd.

And being amused by the guild names...

I still do make quips or gestures about things that pop into my head while playing, though...

The number of medical ads is too damn high.

And sometimes NPCs can't take a joke.

There is Always Plenty of Time

I haven't done one of these posts in a while, because I had no need to.

Listings as of May 29, 2026.

I've been leveling 3 Alliance and one Horde toon, and while it's somewhat slow going compared to the Vanilla zones in TBC Anniversary servers*, I'm perfectly happy at my pace. 

As you can see, Card will likely hit L70 (the TBC maximum level) in June, and it's also expected that at least one other toon will join her. Neve is still plodding along in the low L40s, which considering that I'm not really doing much with her isn't a big surprise either.

Once toons start reaching max level, what then?

Well, one thing is certain: I'm not planning on raiding or even doing Heroic dungeons. 

I'm fine with the regular variety, thanks.

Unless I know everybody in the group, there's no real reason for me to do the Heroic dungeons. After all, I've been there in 2021 when I needed to run Heroics to get attuned for raids, and they're hard enough without having to deal with any random group drama. There was also the problem of simply finding groups, as once people overdosed on instance running in 2021 they simply stopped doing any instances once there was no explicit requirement to do so. I've already seen a dropoff in players in Hellfire Peninsula from as little as a month ago, so I'd imagine that the number of prospective dungeon participants coming up through the leveling process has dried up.

Does that mean I'm not enjoying the TBC Anniversary servers? No, I'm having fun. And really, that's all that matters. If I'm not having fun, I'll go do something else. That doesn't mean there aren't frustrating moments while playing, such as while I'm off somewhere, killing mobs as part of a quest, and some random L70 toon flies in, grabs all of the mobs in the vicinity, and then downs them all using AoE.

"What a dick!" is my usual outburst when that happens, and then I go somewhere else (or play something else) until the toon has finally moved on. Usually that takes about 15-30 minutes, but sometimes they're out there farming for hours.**

Outside of that, I've found that I don't need flying, a fast mount, or even a mount itself (in the case of my Shaman) to enjoy the game. If I want to run an instance, I prep beforehand and make my way to the instance before I put myself out there in the pool. That alone eliminates any issues with travel prior to entering the instance, and I'm in no particular hurry in trying to get into an instance either. That means I can chill while I wait. 

I've found that hanging out right by the Summoning
Stone at Scarlet Monatery does wonders for people looking
for DPS. I've entitled this screencap "Four Female
Blood Elves and a Tauren Walk Into a Bar".

I guess the lack of flying means I'm not doing the Tempest Keep instances, because flying is required to reach those instances. Then again, I'll likely reach L70 long before I would even reach Netherstorm (where the instances are located), so it's kind of a moot point. 

***

Right now, I'm thinking of simply putting any L70 toons I will have effectively in storage and noodle around with other toons instead. 

Why? Because if everybody is right and we'll get a Wrath Anniversary server this Winter, why push hard for anything when it won't matter once Northrend opens up? If I'm not raiding, there's no reason to stress over my gear or attunements or whatnot. And if we somehow get a TBC Era server out of this, I can wait until the mass of people have moved on to Wrath and then I can come out from hibernation and noodle around Outland without any crowds or pressure to boat race my way through to the end. 

Now, I have thought about returning to Battlegrounds and Alterac Valley once my toons hit L70, and that is a possibility. I guess I'll have to consider that when the time comes. For now, however, I'm happy at my own pace.

*As opposed to when they were Vanilla Anniversary Servers. It's a noticeable difference in speed from my perspective.

**I sometimes wonder what goes on in their heads that makes them think that they're entitled to bad behavior when other people are attempting to play the game. Then again, I've seen bad behavior out of people out in public because they think they're entitled to whatever it is they're bitching about. Doesn't matter if their poor or rich, white or black, it's that some people are just assholes and have no concept of shame. 

Now Here's a Pertinent Question

I haven't watched Wowcrendor much the past decade or so, because I'd just not engaged with Retail WoW much since Mists. However, something caught my eye today, and I thought I'd share.

He posted it yesterday, and it can be turned into a broader question about MMOs in general. 

Why do we login to these games and play? Is it inertia, friendship, curiosity, addiction, the goal-oriented nature of things, or something else?

For me, I'm not exactly sure why I login. 

Does that sound strange to you? It sure does to me.

I mean, I may chat with my friends group on the WoW Anniversary servers, but I don't actually play with them. They'd all reached max level ages ago --and some have multiple toons at max level-- while my own toons are L66-L67. And I've already decided that once ny toons start reaching L70 I'm going to probably not play them much at all and instead play other toons. Perhaps that's borderline insanity to the average Anniversary server player who's got multiple raids already under their belt, but I'm kind of happy that I've never pushed myself to that route. Hell, I probably won't even get epic riding at all on any of them*, much less flying. But getting that stuff isn't why I play. (At least I know that much.)

Maybe it is exploring the world that I'm attracted to the most. When I get on LOTRO or SWTOR, I spend more time just putzing around and looking at places than anything else. ESO is the same way. I can engage at my own pace without worrying about catching up with the Jonses or feeling like I'm missing out. I also did a ton of simply exploring places my last year of playing Retail back in 2013-2014, because the Battlegrounds only made me angry and most people I'd known had quit the game. It was pleasant; empty, but also pleasant.

I think I'll turn the question over to you, the reader: What's your reason for playing?

*One L67 toon, my Shaman, doesn't even have "basic riding", because she's got Ghost Wolf form. Sure, it's not as fast as basic riding, but it's free and it's an instant cast spell that has gotten me out of jams numerous times in the past.

Somebody's Following Me

I can't go anywhere in Outland without running into someone on a nether drake mount. 

It began the moment I set foot in Outland at Hellfire Peninsula...

And it's continued throughout my experiences here so far...

Being able to walk on water has its advantages.

At least in Shattrath City you can find people on other mounts, but still the nether drake is by far the "standard" mount found on the Anniversary servers. 

These are just a few of the times I've seen nether drakes around. It's so ubiquitous that one could be forgiven if you'd have thought they simply gave you one once you unlocked flying. But no, there's a long grind to get a nether drake mount. I did it once during Cataclysm simply because I wanted to see how it was done, and while it's not the worst grind in the game it didn't engage me either.

That being said, seeing all these players with their nether drake mounts, I'm reminded of Syndrome's quote from The Incredibles...

From The Incredibles vis makeagif.com.

A Tale of Two Extremes

One of my unwritten rules about pugging is that I don't go all in until I get a feel for how a tank and healer operate together. It obviously goes without saying that such a conservative approach would not be good if I were to ever get the urge to run Mythic+ instances in Retail, but it's served me well over the years. My credo boils down to "Don't do anything stupid, pull threat, and wipe the group while people are feeling each other out."

Well, I figured I hadn't been on my two Horde toons in a while, so why not pull Neve out of the garage and go visit Scarlet Monastery? Neve is a Frost Mage*, so she consequently has a lot of utilitarian/crowd control abilities. When you combine that with my 'starting off slow' approach, what could go wrong?

Almost from the beginning, the Healer kept pushing us to go bigger. "I can heal through it," she said.

When I used single target for the first couple of mobs, she said "Mage, AoE to save mana instead of single targeting when over 3 in a mob."

I was annoyed at that because we originally had three in the pull but two additional enemies came wandering in midway through that fight, and I mentioned as much. 

"I main a Mage," the Healer replied. "I'm used to it."

"I main a Mage too," I replied, "and I want to make sure how well tanking is working before I go ham."

"You'll pull threat. It's what we do, get used to it."

I grumbled at that. There's enough tanks I know who dislike that belief and the behavior it encourages that I was immediately sympathetic toward the tank, who said nothing.

We got partway through the instance, and then the tank said "brb 5 min" and then stayed put.

Well, the Healer was having none of that, so she started pulling mobs one by one and we slowly worked our way forward. I suspected the tank was just going to basically go AFK and then vanish, and sure enough he did just that. So the Healer got another tank and we continued on and finished the run. 

Once we finished it, the Healer dropped and we got a new Healer. The tank, after the first few pulls asked me to go single target because he was having trouble keeping threat with me constantly AoE-ing so much. "I know you want big numbers and all," he began...

"I'm fine with single target. Whatever you need," I finished. "We don't have that first Healer around, and that's fine."

"Whew," our new Healer said. "I'm still learning healing." 

"No biggie. I want to go at a pace you're comfortable with."

***

It goes without saying that while that first Healer was definitely skilled, I preferred the second Healer because I worked at the pace that the Tank and Healer were comfortable with. I didn't need any extra drama, and I think that's a problem that some people seem to relish causing. 

This reminded me of the time back in 2021 when I attended an AQ20 raid where our Raid Leader had pugged one of the two tanks, who turned out to be from the top raiding guild on our old Myzrael-US server. Yes, the guy was good at what he did, but he wasn't interested in listening to what the Raid Leader wanted, which drove all of us nuts. He began freelancing his way through the raid, ignoring our Raid Lead and essentially directing people to do it his way.

Well, our Raid Lead kicked him, top guild member or no, and our Guild Master also kicked him from our Discord. Sure, the tank we got as a replacement wasn't as good, but at least he could work within the raid team paradigm.

There comes a point where you have to relinquish your desire for big numbers to work with the rest of the group. MMOs have "multiplayer" in the acronym, after all, and the entire point is to work with people to accomplish a singular goal. If you're not interested in that, maybe finding a group of likeminded people is best for you, so that I can grab a bowl of popcorn and watch the fireworks when they start.

*Cardwyn: "I approve."
Me: "That's nice and all, but I'm pretty sure she doesn't need your approval."
Cardwyn: "We mages stick together. End of story."

Me: ::sigh:: "Why can't the voices in my head be more normal?"

EtA: Corrected the year of that AQ20 run. It was a couple of weeks before pre-patch for the original TBC Classic in 2021.

Second Verse Same as the First

After my previous post about how leveling seems to have been subtly speeded up, I decided I was going to make some changes how I was going to approach leveling in Outland.

As of April 15, 2026.

I was originally planning on leveling Briganaa all the way to L70 and then go back and level other toons one at a time. After the process of slowly leveling what eventually became 4 toons at once, I figured changing the methodology was in order. 

Well, then I met the speed of leveling in Outland.

In the two weeks that I've been enjoying the view in Hellfire Peninsula, I now have one toon at L62 and two at L63. I suppose it's slipping back into old habits, but I discovered the quickest way to combat a game that insists on pushing me faster toward max level is to simply spread out the leveling process among several toons. At the moment I intend to stick with three, but I think that I'll eventually bring five into Outland.

Something I have been wondering about is what I intend to do once I start getting toons to max level. Even if the leveling slows down the farther in I go, I expect some of these toons to be getting to L70 by July. What to do then?

Well, the first thing I've thought of is to simply not get flying. 

Blizz opened up the quest chain for the nether drake mount
right when the Dark Portal opened, so you can't go a couple
of minutes without seeing a player on one. It's almost
as bad as seeing the paid boost ground mount "reward"
everywhere as a reminder that people paid money to
skip playing the game.

I don't need it to get to max level, and since I'm not raiding I don't need to do the Tempest Keep instances as part of any attunement quests.* I don't intend to impoverish myself just because, and I'm still expecting  a lot of players to stop running instances as time goes on. Other than getting to Tempest Keep, there's no real reason to get basic flying: a fast ground mount is quicker, a Druid's fast flight form is much quicker at diving in and obtaining gathering nodes**, and it does cost a bit of gold.

Is it a hipster move? I'm sure some people would say yes, but I pushed back on it even in 2021 and then in late 2022 in Wrath Classic. I simply don't want to be a slave to having to make gold just to get a mount that I won't really use, and I don't like standing around somewhere, preening and showing off my new fancy mount and/or gear.*** 

If I'm not doing flying, and I'm not raiding, I'm starting to think about running some Alterac Valley battlegrounds. I'm not interested in Arenas because I know I'm not good enough for them, but I would like to go out and play some AV for a change. I could also run some instances, so long as I'm not required to utilize flying for them.

And, oh yeah, I've got a couple of Horde toons around. I ought to work on them too.

*You need flying to get to the Tempest Keep instances. No way around it, as the time of posting you can't even summon a player in front of the instance entrances themselves. I do think that'll change as time goes on, but I'd not count on it just yet.

**That happened in 2021, where Druids with fast flight form would frequently pick entire zones clean of gathering nodes because they were so fast compared to anybody else. So, why should this be any different once a Druid's fast flight form becomes available in Phase 2?

***Yes, I'm the sort of guy who, when presented with a cost-is-no-object choice, would likely end up buying a decent quality-built sedan to drive around with. I don't want to be seen, and I don't want anything flashy. In my experience, people noticing you isn't really a good thing; as I like to tell people who I am introduced to in meetings, if you don't know my name it's because I'm doing my job well, and if you know my name it's probably because people were shouting it during emergencies.

We've Gone to Irrelevance Speed

I suppose that it's inevitable that I would have more thoughts about being in Outland for the third time.

Okay, it's not the third time ever, to be certain, but going there fresh as part of either a first time through WoW (back in 2009) or through WoW Classic when the TBC portion was current (2021 and now 2026).

It's definitely not my first rodeo in Outland, but it's my first time going there in a fresh context in almost 5 years. This is also the first time I'm heading to Outland --period-- without a further goal in mind. In 2009 it was to get to Northrend and to the current expansion to meet up with Souldat and his wife who got me into WoW in the first place, and in 2021 it was to get to max level and ready for the initial tier of raiding within a specific time limit. Here, in 2026, I don't have any further goal other than exploring Outland and just getting to L70. No raids, no Endgame, no Heroic Instances, nothing more than the Journey itself.

Late Sunday I got Briganaa 2.0 to Zangarmarsh, the second zone in Outland. There's one questline I refuse to do in Hellfire --the one that eventually leads me to killing Maghar Orcs-- so I was largely finished with Hellfire Peninsula. I arrived at the Cenarion outpost in the marsh, collected a bunch of quests, and ran up to the initial Alliance base in the zone and did the same*, then a strange sensation began to take hold of me, so Monday over lunch I dusted off Card and sent her over to Outland to see if that sensation went away.

Yes, getting the Robe of the Archmage sewn
was one of the goals I'd set before she crossed over.

The Burning Crusade questing feels like it's designed to push me into going faster, and I can't shake that.

It's all relative, of course, but it certainly feels less organic than Vanilla questing does. Some of this is explicit to the Anniversary servers, where the sparklies that indicate that something is the object for a quest is now present on the Anniversary servers**, which completely eliminates the need to look around with your eyeballs on the screen and remember what the quest text said. Considering that I'm practically the only person on the Anniversary servers to not use Questie*** I'm probably the only person to notice, but it's pretty obvious to me that Blizz said "here you go: you want it, you got it" and there it is. Quest markers all pop up on the mini-map just like they did in Wrath Classic, so I've suddenly found myself staring at the mini-map far more than actually paying attention to where I'm going, which is never a good situation to find yourself in when there's Fel Reavers wandering around. 

When you combine those quality of life changes with the questing hub changes, it's become far more explicit that Blizz is streamlining the leveling process further than in 2021. Wrath brought in the concept of the zone stories, complete with phasing, so that's not present in TBC, but it's only when you decide the journey is the destination do you begin to realize that the pace of the journey changed. 

***

It did feel that while Brig was leveling in the Old World she was almost effortlessly moving forward, but not so quickly as to outlevel her ability to pay for training, gear, and consumables. When the Joyous Journeys buff made an appearance in late TBC Classic in 2022, it was tuned to level you so quickly that you'd outstrip your ability to make gold to pay for those associated costs. I found that similar to the leveling process on the original WoW Classic Seasonal servers, Season of Mastery. When you can't afford even the basic spells for L10 because you leveled so damn fast, then yeah, you've got a problem. Apparently Blizz tuned the Anniversary servers better without creating an explicit buff, so that while the leveling was faster in the Old World, it wasn't so fast that you couldn't afford to level so quickly. 

But now, in Outland, everything seems tuned just enough to make it easier and quicker to go through the leveling process. Mobs do seem to respawn faster (except named mobs, as one of my friends noted the other day), they go down quicker, and the XP feels... chunkier, maybe? That last one I'm not sure of, but I do know that when you combine these changes with the TBC-specific tweaks to the concept of quest hubs****, boy do I get the urge to just keep going and not pay attention to things such as sleep, food, etc.

At first I wanted to describe the leveling in Outland Anniversary Edition as hollow or boring, but that's not it. It feels like the leveling is being pushed toward irrelevance by speeding it up. Given that TBC Anniversary will only be around for a year, I guess it's not that great of a surprise, but it certainly shows that speeding up the leveling process doesn't make for a better experience by itself. Leveling on these Anniversary servers is merely a means to an end, and you're in the wrong place if you want to enjoy leveling itself.

If there's a Wrath Anniversary Edition coming this Fall, then we can expect some further streamlining going forward. It wouldn't surprise me if the concept of Follower Dungeons gets ported back to the Anniversary edition, in a bizarre reversal of Retail being the testing ground before being added to the Old Game. However, that will only come into play if we have a repeat of the collapse of instance grouping as happened in 2021, and the No Changes crowd has sufficiently been cowed into submission.

***

*Blink blink*

I just thought of something. 

Could it be that the "big thing" that Holly Longdale teased in the Community Update video be a release and support of "official" private servers for Vanilla WoW?

It's most definitely NOT Classic Plus, but it would eliminate the private server problem in one fell stroke.

*Plus getting the flightpoint.

**It was in Wrath where that first began showing up.

***If there's somebody out there who doesn't, I've not seen it yet. Whenever I'm in a group, and I'm talking about every single time, if someone gets all the items for a quest the Party chat immediately is spammed with an announcement saying that they're done. Another reason to not want Questie is that it can snoop on you and share your progress with others in your group, providing they also have Questie installed. 

****Unlike Vanilla WoW, the quests are congregated more completely into centralized quest hubs. If you go into Ashenvale as Alliance in Vanilla, quests are scattered throughout the zone and you're constantly running back and forth across the entire length of the place. However, if you go there in TBC and Wrath, several of the quests for the eastern part of the zone are moved out of the Shrine of Aessina area and to Forest Song, which becomes a fully developed quest hub. Blizzard centralized things further in Outland, where the questing equivalent of "one stop shopping" allows a player to blow into a quest hub, grab everything, and head straight on out into the field.

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 in, 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).

EtA: Corrected a couple of misspellings and some grammatical errors.

This is Getting Ridiculous

Last night I happened to be in Western Plaguelands, finishing up the Key Quest for Scholomance, when I got a whisper out of the blue.

"Hey, our Mage split, are you interested in joining a Scholo run?"

I didn't hesitate.

"Ironically enough, I just finished up the key quest for Scholo. Sure."

After I received the invite and joined, it occurred to me that they might want a Mage after all, especially given that zombie room at the end of the instance.* I offered to switch to Cardwyn, and the Lead (a Paladin) said he was fine with me as-is. So I took a quick peek at the classes we had while I ran over: Paladin, Warlock, Shaman, Hunter...

Hunter? Wait just a fucking minute. Is that...

I bit back a scream. 

"You have got to be kidding me!" I growled.**

Yes, it was that Hunter. Again.

Since I'd not been here at the beginning of the run, I couldn't demand that the Group Lead get rid of the guy, and since my immediate dropping would be a bad look in general, I decided I was merely going to keep an eye on that Hunter and call out any shenanigans. Besides, the rest of the group seemed decent enough.

The group had already cleared through to Rattlegore, so that made things pretty straightforward. We go kill the lich Ras Frostwhisper, head back to the last section where the final seven bosses are, and finish things up. That was when I discovered that for a few people in the group it was their first time: first time tanking in Scholo, first time healing (ever), and my first time in Scholo on this toon. The Warlock was there for the stage of the Warlock's mount quest (something I've never done), and thankfully for us she was L61. That meant we had someone who could bring decently big damage numbers to the group.

It was then that I made the decision to help out the tank by describing the mechanics for each boss and room so we wouldn't wipe. It also meant that once I put the right mechanics out there, if the Hunter did any crap it would be caught immediately. 

Bottom left. That's the guy.

We muddled through, with only two of us surviving the zombie room, and we eventually managed to down Alexei Barov with only the healer still standing. I kept telling the ranged people to move farther back***, but the Hunter kept moving in close --taking a lot of extra damage-- and distracting the Healer.

Still, we survived the rest of the dungeon and I complimented the group for their work. "Especially since we were a bit underpowered for run," I added.

The group lead whispered me:

After the Lock had left, I whispered to the group lead to kick the Hunter, and then I explained to the two remaining what my experience was in BRD with that guy. It turns out our "friend" had been doing terrible numbers again all night, so we were effectively 4-manning Scholo with only one group member able to bring big damage numbers. Also, while I was a group member I noted that the Healer got their healing upgrades without any surprise Needs from the Hunter. I'm sure that my presence helped a bit, because he likely knew he wasn't going to get away with misbehavior from that end. 

Still, I have to stop running into this guy. It's not good for my mental health.

*For the uninitiated, there's something like 20-30 so-called "Unstable Corpses" in one of the rooms, and if you attack one they all come after you. They don't have a lot of health, but when you kill them they go BOOM! and explode for lots of damage. So yeah, not a very fun room to do if you don't have the ability to dump a lot of damage.

**Not that loud, because it was after 11 PM and my wife had gone to bed.

***Alexei has an AoE damage that radiates from himself; the farther away you are the less damage you take. The tank and I had to be in close to melee attack him, but everybody else was ranged so they should moved way back to minimize the damage.