On my way to the Outlands, I will confess that I was not thrilled with leveling in the Plaguelands. The quests took a ton of running around. At under 60, I got killed quite a bit as I was playing solo. I finally deleted all of the quests I hadn't finished for the area and found other places to level.

Fast forward many months. Kattina is now 70 and has gone through probably a majority of the Outland quests. She does arena. The guild raids Kara and has just started raiding ZA. She does her dailies (usually the cooking daily and sometimes others) and farms primals for her every four day cloth runs. I am a putterer and explorer at heart though, and I am curious about the many (many many) instances and areas that I skipped on my way to the Outlands.

I have run solo through some of the lower level instances. If I'm careful, I don't do too bad. I get to about the Blackrock level of instance at the point where I'm really pushing it. If I'm careful with my pulls, I can progress, but if I get any unexpected adds - well, it's a long body run is all I'm going to say.

Recently one of my guildies posted about the great story in the Tirion Fordring quests in the Plaguelands. I was intrigued, so this weekend I headed back to the Plaguelands to pick up some of the stuff I missed.

I did a lot of quests in addition to finding Mister Fordring. I actually got from neutral to honored with the Argent Dawn while I was there. My next step takes me to Stratholme looking for a family portrait. I think I'm going to try and recruit a buddy to go with me. I've helped a few guildies with their holy water quests in there, and I'm not sure how far I can get on my own.

I know I'm not going to get any loot comparable to Outlands loot on these little ventures. I'm not going to get the cash I could get farming pretty much anything in the Outlands. But still....there are places to go and things to see and people I've never met that are calling from the old world, so I'll just keep puttering and exploring and generally having fun along the way.

Hi, Kattina here again.

Zhahara found out for us that a special pet was available just during the midsummer festivities. Of course, being obsessed with rare pets, we had to go after it. It was quite a challenge. We had to find special bonfires within Dire Maul, Scholomance, Blackrock Spire and Stratholme. Even at 70 (me the shadow priest and him the hunter) this was no easy task. Luckily we had some very nice guildies that came along to help. (I really haven't done many instances in my road to 70. This was actually my first visit to each of these places.) After a few days of on and off questing, we finally returned to the festival lorekeeper for our new pets - the Spirit of Summer. They're kind of a sparkly, glowing, red ball of light. They're definitely unique, and I have to say I've not seen anyone else with one, but I still love Egbert best.

While we were in Western Plaguelands to do the Scholomance drop in, I picked up the quest to make the key to Scholomance. I finally finished that one tonight. I need a bunch of skeleton parts to begin with, then the alchemist in Chillwind camp enchanted them. Now I was off to Gadgetzan to get a mold made (and pay 15g service charge). That goblin sent me to the lake of lava on top of the volcano in Un'Goro crater (along with two thorium bars I had to get) to set the key into the mold. At this point, back to WPL. The alchemist at Chillwind had me go kill Araj to get the headpiece for the key. Again, I was lucky to have my guild to call on (Overlords on Proudmoore - great bunch of folks). I may have a few levels on him, but he's 61 elite with a bunch of buddies. All went well, and now I have my very own skeleton key, should I get called to come help someone else in Scholomance. I have no immediate use for the key, but I'm glad to have gone through the process.

Oh yeah, and my other quest over the weekend was starting the attunement process for Karazhan. I did it solo with a little chat guidance though it will need a group for collecting the key pieces from instances. It looks to be a busy week coming up.

Kattina decided to clear some quests in Tanaris out of her quest log last night. She's trying to clean up some odds and ends before she moves operations to the Plaguelands.

Her first move was going to be using the miniature platinum disks at Uldum. She flew from Ironforge to the Wetlands. She took the ship to Theramore. She flew to Gadgetzan. Finally, she arrives. Her stupid player is on the phone as she's getting set to head to Uldum - and intead of hitting the hotkey for her horse, I hit the hotkey for the Hearthstone. Back to Ironforge. Doh!!!!

Now we're at 'trip to Uldum, take 2'. She made it back to Tanaris without incident and was able to successfully mount up. Of course I couldn't have made the same mistake this time since the Hearthstone will still be in cooldown mode for a while yet.

The ride to Uldum was without incident. Kattina defeated one of the elite giants out front, and then realized that as scary as they look, you can carefully walk around them to get to the pedestal with no aggro issues. She was able to use the disks and listen to the story of the history of Uldum. It was some interesting background flavor and the experience was nice too.

At this point she was directed back to Ironforge. I decided to work on another quest as long as she was out here (and the hearthstone might be usable again by then).

Her other quest was to find poor missing Scrimshank. Apparently he's lost in the Gaping Chasm. Oh joy. Giant bugs. She made it to the lair and was able to get down into the hive with minimal effort. She was able to use her featherfall and jump over the side to bypass the entrance guards. Once down in the hive, that was another issue. I swear she went round and round in there and could not find the remains of Scrimshank. She did well against most of the critters, but the Swarmers were insane. All those little bugs attacking her damage shield was just miserable. She defeated the first two (not at the same time) but the third one, and his buddies, took her down. At this point I was so frustrated that I deleted the quest and respawned at the graveyard. Maybe I'll try again later. We'll see.

I was now able to hearthstone back to Ironforge. I turned in the platinum disks and got another little xp hit, and then got a really nice payoff turning the quest in to the head of the Explorer's Guide. He gave me a bit over 2g for my time and trouble. Yay!

Tomorrow, maybe the bugs again, maybe Ungoro Crater, or I might bat some cleanup in the Searing Gorge. We'll see.

I was quite happy to get my Burning Crusade collector's edition - not just because of the cute little netherwelp pet for all of my characters - but because of the new areas and the chance to play a Draenai shaman.

The starting experience was so much different from my Draenei Daelrathra (Dael) than the other characters I've played - and I've played all of the alliance races. The whole starting quest line is so immersive. I really felt that I was a survivor of a crash and needed to help my people pull together on this strange new world. Yes, there's the usual, go kill x of y, but the story behind it all is really nice.

Ever after leaving the initial starting area, the well thought-out quests continue as Dael worked her way towards the Exodar. I quested from area to area and made new friends and allies. I could of course leave this area and head to the mainland, but I wanted to experience every quest available here before moving on. I found many new creatures and strange sights to discover.

For anyone that hasn't had these quests yet, I don't want to spoil anything, but at the conclusion of one particular quest line (towards then end of my stay on these islands), I had the best experience I've ever had completing a quest. Yes, goodies, experience and cash are all nice, but in this case all of my friends and allies showed up to celebrate my victory! There was clapping and cheering and dancing. I really felt like a hero. What a rush!

If you haven't tried a Draenei yet, I highly recommend it. And do all the quests - don't rush through. It's well worth taking your time and savoring the experience.

Last night my priest Kattina had a quest to take a picture of Gammerita (hopefully I'm spelling that right), a giant snapjaw sea turtle. Getting there on the east coast of the Hinterlands wasn't too bad. Luckily I had a horse to improve my travel time. I got the snapshot easily enough - and then the turtle smited me. I wasn't too upset. At least I had my picture. I ran back to my body easily enough and luckily the turtle had ambled off and didn't interfere in my return to life.

My larger journey begins here. I had used Levitate to jump off the cliffs down to the beach. For the return trip I couldn't seem to find my way back up the cliffs. I checked my Hearthstone and it still had 30 minutes of recycle. Ouch. Since I hadn't been further north before I decided to swim up the coast and see what I could find. (Just a couple of side notes: A guildie did tell me that there is a way up the cliff, but I was way past that point by the time I mentioned my problem in guild chat. I did try to see if a mage could summon me somewhere but we didn't have any mages on at the time.)

The next area north was the Eastern Plaguelands. It was kind of odd to be swimming along the coast and suddenly have a little display of Alliance vs. Horde goals and a buff against undead. To the best of my searching, there is no way to get into the Eastern Plaguelands from the East coast.

As I passed out of the Eastern Plaguelands, I discovered that I had moved off the detail world map. I was now seeing the continental map and my tiny arrow moving north. I passed through an area called the Forbidden Sea, then into an area called Quel'Thalas, bordered by the Great Sea. If I looked on my world map, the area highlights as the Ghostlands. That fits. I didn't see anything alive on land or sea.

As soon as the coast turned I continued to follow it west. By this time my Hearthstone had recycled but I now wanted to continue and see what else I might find up here. I reached the northwest edge of the coast and turned back south. Eventually I did find a small area of land that held some ruins. I wondered if I was the first person to have seen this place in a long time.

As I traveled on the west coast, I got to observe moon rise. Here is my view from the area that had the ruins.

After my rest and look around the ruins, I re-entered and sea and continued south. Finally I reached an area of known civilization and found I was just north of the Scarlet Monastary. I decided to have some fun with the Scarlet Monastary denizens as long as I was in the area. Thus ended my oceanic voyage while the slaying had just begun.

When I woke up this morning, I saw the 159MB download but no download happening yet! So, I left the PC running the whole day and when I came back from work, it was completed. Phew!

And lo and behold, the entrace to the Dark Portal. Actually, it's been there all these while but minus the mobs. There's a quest reward currently and literally people are clamoring for them. Well, probably around 15-20 people in the server I'm on. And all for a simple tabard that looks exactly like the Argent Dawn tabard. People are clamoring here just to see what it's all about and to get a good look at the Highlord Kruul Dreadknight.

Big guy, ain't he? This was the closest I could get to before getting disconnected. With 2K-4K ms lag, it's amazing that I could even stay online at all. All the demons don't drop any loot at all. They are in the range of level 57-58 so if you're lower level, prepare to go in a group then. They will whack you hard if you go there solo.

Having lag wasn't too bad during dinner time. After that, the lag got worst. I had to stay in Dire Bear form just to survive and somehow whack a felguard by luck before someone else did. That tabard costs 6 Felguard lives. Ah well. Got it out of the way so that was pretty good. Didn't do it for the tabard though. The 4G reward was a nice touch.

Warning: This blog should be considered PG-13 for off-color content and drinking. :-)

The holidays were a lot of fun for my various people living on Proudmoore. Father Winter (looked a lot like Santa) had presents for all. Gingerbread cookies, eggnogs, and other strong spirits abounded. Some lucky folks (ages 20 and up) got pets from under the holiday tree. The little green or red gnome helpers are kind of cute. The snowman, while cute, is basically like getting a pet rock. He wiggles around and waves and all, but what good is a pet that can't follow you around? At least the dang thing could hop or something. Oh well. I have to admit that I adore the Winter Reindeer. They're so cute and snuggly.

For those age 40 and up, you got a mechanical Greench that would fight for you. It was only three times, but boy did those three times save Kattina's bacon. That Greench was an unstoppable pint-sized killing machine. Yes! (I'm sorry, I don't have a picture of him. I was kinda busy not dying when I was using him. Picture a tiny little yeti about the size of a mid-sized dog.) Kattina did get a snowman costume after rescuing a kidnapped reindeer. It looked kinda cool when she donned it in Shadow Priest form.

This is a picture of Zhahara playing around with one of her engineer thingamajigs.

As we continued through the week, New Year's Eve finally arrived. It was Aelinora's turn to come out and play. Who knew my previously reserved mage was such a party animal. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of her dancing naked with Zhahara in the rain. She was a little too drunk at the time and I didn't feel right taking advantage of her. Here is her picture as the party in Stormwind was getting started.

Notice her little pet reindeer watching the festivities.

Finally, Aelinora had partied enough. She got back into her robes, somehow, and crashed out in the Stormwind back. I'm sure glad I don't have to share her hangover. I didn't even ask her to come out and play today for longer than it took her to check her mail.

I've been having a lot of fun during the Harvest festival. I think the tricks from those wild and crazy innkeepers are almost better than the treats. So far I've gotten to be a cat, a frog, a bat, a pirate, a leper gnome (ewwww), and a skeleton (ewwww). It's still a lot of fun, and you can take the costume off whenever you want. Yay!