The game has given us access to a lot of other mounts out there that you realize even in this aspect the game has come a long way. Back in the days of pre-TBC or vanilla WoW as many prefer to call it, it was a bit harder to get a mount other than your racial mount since you’d have to do a lot of runecloth turn-ins to the cloth quartermaster of the faction you want to get exalted with so you can get a mount from another faction. Then racial mounts were made available through pvp rewards, making it easier to get a mount from a different faction. Now we have mount of all kinds - bears, mammoths, drakes and others!

Juneko from Cho-gall-US realm made an observation that people spending time in Dalaran mostly go around in mammoths, bears and all kinds of exotic mounts and only a small percentage of people still go around in their racial mount. I’d like to ask you guys the same question since I’m curious if you’re one of the majority riding other mounts or one of the minority still using your racial mount.

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I’d like to comment on this phenomenon. The achievements feature has made the game more interesting by giving players something more to do with the game given to them than just the drudgery or continuous raiding, pvping, grinding, doing dailies and things like that. It’s something to show off as well as something to occupy your time. The achievements to collect mounts has driven people to have more mounts than you really need. The fact that mounts no longer take up inventory space makes this even easier.

But I think that even if the achievements system were not around, we’d still see a lot of people with different mounts. I used to have a guild mate who collected all kinds of mounts a long time before the achievements feature was announced. I’m sure she wasn’t the only one. the fact that some people would spend time turning in the runecloth for the rep to get a mount of another faction or to pvp to get the pvp mount rewards is proof that people just liked cool mounts even back in vanilla WoW.

The mount craze is not just achievement based but is driven by people wanting something different and something that looks awesome. Some people actually hate the way their racial mount looks like so being able to ride a nicer looking mount is a godsend. For example, a friend of mine actually hates the blood elf hawkstrider so when she offered to play her sister’s blood elf priest, she actually went out of her way to get the character a bear so she could stand going around with it. In my case, there was a time when I didn’t like kodos but i guess after playing my tauren druid for so long I got used to it.

For you mount collectors out there, I hope you’re having fun with the myriad of mount selections available in the game! Again I ask, do you still use your racial mount?

Don’t be fooled by the title of the post. I’m not really complaining. Yes I find Northrend really huge but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’m enjoying the whole continent as I trek my way to 80, having fun with the several zones I’ve been to so far and doing all the quests. I just had a thought earlier though.

I just hit 79 earlier and the fact is that I’ve only done a small number of the quests in Sholazar Basin when I did and I still haven’t been to Storm Peaks and Icecrown at all. That gives me still much of a whole zone and two entire zones to service my journey to 80. With the way I play trying to exhaust all the quests in a zone before moving on, I definitely will hit 80 even before beginning to work on the quests in Icecrown assuming I move to Storm Peaks after the Basin. Back in TBC when the leveling improvement from 60-70 wasn’t in effect yet, I would have had to work my way through much of either SMV or Netherstorm just to make it to 69.

The thing about Northrend is the fact that each zone seems to pull you into its trap, leaving you to want to do everything. Each zone has so many quests to do so if you’re like me doing all the quests, you’re going to end up hitting 80 with still so much to see and do, quests-wise.

What about you? What are your experiences leveling up through Northrend? Do you find it too big? If yes, is that a bad thing?

It’s no big surprise really that Patch 3.02 is coming out today since season 4 of the Arena Tournament was scheduled to end today and we all just did the math. But it’s still great to put all the speculations to rest and get some confirmation from a “Blue”. That’s exactly what WoW EU Blizzard poster Slorkuz did!

This means that the next time you get to see your characters, all their talent trees are going to look very different. If you haven’t decided on a spec yet, the current downtime is a great time to do some last minute spec shopping. That’s exactly what I’m doing now since I pretty much gave up really working on the specifics of the build I want back when the talents kept changing. Since all the talents trees are going to be different, all our talents points will be refunded. This is a great time to experiment and try out other specs that you find interesting. Or you could stay true with pretty much the same spec you have, just modified for patch 3.02 and later on the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Which will it be?

Ever since Blizzard announced the Achievements feature, I’ve seen different responses from different players towards it. Being able to flaunt what you’ve achieved in the game to everyone who bothers to look can be very gratifying to a lot of people since it gives you a sense that you did something important. Just like showing off your titles like High Warlord or Champion of the Naaru, the achievements feature is very similar in feeding one’s ego.

But like many things in the game, there are people who like it and even go out of their way to make sure they can get as many Achievements done as possible and there are those who don’t really care. Right now, I know know of some friends who are grinding reputation with old factions like Timbermaw Hold just to get the achievement associated with it done. As early as now, many players are preparing so that when the feature comes out, they can be sure to have a lot to show for. Then there are people like me and probably a lot more out there who just don’t really care as much. Maybe since the feature is not really here yet that it hasn’t hit me yet but I’m certainly not going out of my way to get them done now. I seem to have the attitude about Achievements that if I get them done then it’s cool but if not then it’s really not a big deal.

The release of patch 2.4 has kicked the completion of daily quests up another notch. The Isle of Quel’danas and the other Shattered Sun Offensive dailies basically made earning gold a lot easier by making the quests a lot easier than some of the other dailies (I don’t do the annoying Skettis ones anymore haha) and made some dailies accessible to players who still don’t have a flying mount. Of course, the increase of the maximum dailies you can do from 10 to 25 helped a lot too.

With the ease of earning gold nowadays (I estimate about at least 100g a day earning potential if you do even just the dailies that don’t require a flying mount), a friend of mine pointed out that it’s more convenient for him to do dailies and buy the stuff he needs (mostly primals) off the auction house rather than spending his limited playing time farming for them. of course some of you might prefer doing the dailies and farming these stuff and selling them in the AH for even more gold. Some of you would still rather farm the mats they need rather than spend precious gold on purchasing them.

What kind of person are you?

Now that it’s confirmed that Death Knights will be starting at level 55 upon creation, that puts that issue out of the way. but ever since it was announced that Death Knights would be starting at a higher level to give the class an epic feeling that comes with it being a hero class, I’ve always wondered exactly what would happen to Death Knights and their professions.

Obviously Death Knight would have professions too. But starting at a high level puts them in an awkward situation when it comes to professions. When jewel crafting was introduced at the release of TBC, some of the level 60 people decided to drop a profession or two to get it. So in that case, you have a high level player going back to the lowbie zones and the AH just to get the materials to level it up. But this is a totally voluntary thing and you have a choice to stick with your professions. Death Knights don’t have a choice since they get created at a high level without profs.

A solution to this would be for Death Knights to complete a quest or a chain of quests that would instantly bump up their two profs of choice to a higher level of say 225. While this would certainly make the Death Knights happy, I can imagine how other classes would complain especially if it has something to do with the inscription profession or some of the harder professions to level like enchanting, engineering or blacksmithing. Which scenario do you think is better and more fair, having them start from scratch or being able to complete a quest to bump up the professions to avoid the annoying farming of mats in lowbie zones?

I always told my WoW friends that if played as Alliance, my mage would have definitely been a gnome instead of an undead one. While the gnome racials are definitely great for mages, it’s really the other things about them that I love. I love how cute they are and yet also still have the ability to wreak havoc. Unfortunately having played Horde for so long, my many attempts at making the Alliance work out for me have failed and my dreams of having a high level gnome (warlock I was hoping) have long been shattered. It’s nothing to do with the Alliance per se but the fact that all my friends are at the Horde so playing Alliance got too lonely even after joining a guild. Fellow hordies find me strange that I love gnomes but that’s just the way it is for me. I find that gnomes seem to have it in the extremes. Either people really love them or really hate them. How do you feel about gnomes?

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The year 2007 was an important year for World of Warcraft players all over the world primarily because of the release of the game’s first expansion The Burning Crusade. TBC brought with it not only new content but also a different dynamic on the way the game was played. Heroic difficulty dungeons, 25 man raids, the rise of paladins and druids as viable tanks, arena pvp are only a few changes the game has experienced to go away from the way things were before the expansion came. But how has 2007 treated You? How have your experiences with your friends and/or guild mates in game been for you the past year? Any great and memorable experiences you’d like to share with us?

Ever since the Darkmoon Faire was introduced to the game, it always was only in the Elwynn Forest besdie Goldshire or in Mulgore right outside Thunderbluff. I’m not really the type of person who really cares if the Faire is in town or not because I never really participate in anything they have to offer. I don’t collect the card decks or do any of their quests to get tickets. The only time I cared was when I had the Dark Iron Ales to get myself a Jubling.

But enough about me. Assuming you do care about whether the faire is in town. You do their quests and collect their cards. What do you think about the Terokkar Forest as a new location for the Faire like it currently is right now? For one thing, it’s something new and that’s almost always a good thing for us players to see. The problem I see is for those lowbies who want to go to the Faire but are way too low level to get to Shattrath City. This is one opportunity where I see mages taking advantage of the situation and charging absurd prices for a portal to Shat. I guess it’s not that big a deal if you’re high enough or are an alt of a high level toon. But what if you’re just a poor low level main?

Please vote at the poll below but you can comment as normal if you wish too.

The Death Knight is the first of hero classes and the first new class announced since the game was released. Of course it’s expected that many people will try it since it’s new. Just like the case of Draenei shaman and the blood elf paladin, many people tried them out when the Burning Crusade first came out but few stuck with it. Will you level a Death Knight to 80? And maybe a more intriguing question, will you make that level 80 Death Knight your main when WotLK comes out?