As probably most of you that have any interest in WoW already know, the new patch 2.4 went live yesterday.

One of the first things I noticed is the wide spread abuse of being able to link abilities and spells in chat. Leave it to the players to find every possible rude or sexually suggestive way to use this new feature in conversation.

I deleted a bunch of older quests that I don't intend to finish at this time (pre-BC stuff I was messing around with) so that I'd have room for the new quests.

I went out to Silmyr Lake to get the new fishing daily. The first thing that gentleman had me do is go to Stormwind and fish a baby crocolisk out of the canals. That one was pretty easy. It only took about 10 casts to get it. On the return I got a random back of goodies plus some cash. I have 2 new potions of waterwalking and I got a sharp fillet knife that vendored for just over 4g. I can't wait to see what he wants next.

Some of the initial Sunwell quests had me collecting materials in the Outlands. I had to collect this nether residue through mining - which took an absurdly long time. I also had to kill Sunfury elves in Netherstorm until someone dropped their secret battle plans. That part I enjoyed quite a bit. I've never seen so much blood elf carnage at one time before. Both of these quests are dailies.

I had a few one time quests sending me to talk to folks at the new island - no I can't spell it. Let's call it Sunwell island. I portaled to Ironforge and then took a gryphon to 'Sunwell Island'.

The place was mobbed and there was definitely mass confusion. It totally felt like being dropped into the middle of a war zone. My husband and I did the first couple of modified kill quests and wandered around the city a bit. We still have to do Magister's Terrace and find this missing magister for another quest. We have no idea what we're doing, but I'm enjoying seeing and doing new things. With so many current instances, everybody knows which pulls in which order and everything is very scripted. Now we need to figure it out as we go along.

Let's see, what else. The quartermasters have some new rep items you can buy - at least some of them do. I'm hoping that at some point we can get to the new place without going to Ironforge first. I'm also hoping I find stuff in the new place that drops the motes I need for my cloth runs. I did get 2 motes of mana off of something, but I had 2 bodies there and am not quite sure which one dropped it. Oh well.

All in all, I'm excited about the new patch and so far having a good time. I will ignore my lonely alts for now as I explore the new stuff.

The vast majority of my time in WoW is playing Kattina, my shadow priest 70. For the last few weeks I've spent quite a bit of time doing the quests for Netherwing reputation. Finally, last night, I reached exalted. I have to say the quest ending was amazing. I don't want to spoil the details for someone still working their way through the quests - but it was awesome.

When I arrived back in Shattrath, I was taken to Lower City where all those netherwing beauties have been standing around for the last several months. I looked at each one carefully and then spoke with my chosen one. In this case, I am not buying a mount, I am choosing a companion that willing joins me. Sure, my ray is nice, but she's just a mount.

I chose Zoya. I think we're going to be a great team.

One of my guildies asked what I'm going to do now. I pretty much don't need to do dailies anymore unless I go on a wild spending spree. I think I'm going to work on battlegrounds so I can upgrade to more of that epic gear, keep honing my arena skills (they need a lot of honing, trust me), and putter around. And finally, fly around with Zoya and look cool.

I've done two guild runs to Karazhan now with my shadow priest. It's different. The mansion is really detailed and the battles are challenging, but I'm having a hard time feeling that it's worth the effort.

Our guild finally has enough people to do a full 10 man group. We were at it about 3 hours. We finished the stable on our second try. There were two blue drops (some piece of metal armor and the reins to Midnight). We had numerous goes at Moroes but did not triumph. I know I spent over 15g in repairs. My husband spent over 22g in repairs. I think I got one green drop. I don't know if he got anything. I will probably go again when we do it again (we're trying for once a month) but cash for time - it's like shoveling gold into a volcano - a lot of work and disappearing gold.

I've done a few heroic runs in Mechanar now and those have been a lot more satisfying. Generally everybody gets something. I generally have a few gold in repairs - but don't die nearly as often as Kara.

Lately, even when we lose, I've been enjoying our 3v3 arena team. You aren't paying for equipment repairs in pvp and it's some fast and furious battles against wily human opponents (usually).

I always look forward to three-day weekends with the expectation that I’ll have a day of guilt-free gaming and a day of productive activity around the house. And I’m really good about getting in that day of guilt-free gaming. Often I wind up getting in a couple of good gaming days and promise myself to be productive later.

Falkon was sitting out at the Zeppelin crash site this weekend, pulling beer out of his drinking hat and talking to the gnomes when he got a message from another Ranger that she was in the area and looking for a hunt. Since she was a powerful warlock, Falkon was more than happy to grab the help when it was offered and start running quests. As the two of them went from point to point working on Falkon’s list of objectives they were able to enjoy the time together as well as the success of their efforts.

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As with anything in a MMO game you have guilds. These groups of players either flourish or die out depending on a number of different factors. This was the case with three guilds I had different characters in. All three folded their doors due to either the favorite guild master quit, or members felt there was a lack of leadership in a direction that they were looking for.

Follin ended up being a guild master due to the previous leader wanting out so he could switch to a raiding guild. The leader before that, quit for personal reasons. This has caused a general exodus of member from 59 to 33 at last count. Most of the hold overs haven’t played these characters for weeks or months. So you can see where the guild is right now.

I will probably wait till I’m sure everyone is out that wants to be out and then transfer the job of guild leader over to any member who wants to try and resurrect it.

I finished Kattina's dailies last night (my shadow priest) and decided my other characters haven't gotten any love since Kattina got to the Outlands (a few months ago). I set them up with some bags and then logged in Rilladana my gnome warlock/alchemist. She's had Fuzzy the Felhunter for quite a while now and had never taken him outside of Stormwind.

Given that it's been a while since I took Rilla for a spin, I decided to go to Lakeshire to warm up. Rilla is level 31 and most things there are in the 20s, so minor strategic mistakes would not be instantly fatal.

Fuzzy is actually a fairly decent tank, and by the end of the evening I was getting back my 'Lock groove. I ended up with a little pick up group doing some of the Lakeshire quests I hadn't finished before. We had me, 2 mages and a shaman. We were a little light on muscle and healing for sure, but things went better than I'd expected. We only had a couple of party wipes and I only died 2 or 3 times. I like that my gear repairs are much cheaper than Kattina's. I'm pondering the best place to go at 31 for more solo hunting tonight. My short term goal is getting Rilla to 35 so I can go to Feathermoon Stronghold and take care of that pesky 225 cap on her alchemy skills.

Warcry did an interview with WoW lead designer Jeffrey Kaplan and one particular questions and answer got my attention!

WarCry: Having leveled both a blood elf and draenei character, I've found the leveling process in both the new starting zones to be much smoother than in the launch starting zones. Was this a specific concern in designing them? Were there any lessons you learned after launch that you applied to these new races?

Jeffrey Kaplan: The more time you spend doing anything, the better you get at it. We've been continually developing World of Warcraft for a number of years now, and over that time we've learned quite a few lessons about how to make a better game. Since the launch of World of Warcraft, we have been able to see our theories in action. Certain elements worked well, others didn't. We realize that we need to constantly strive to evolve as a development team. The content we make today needs to be better than the content we made five years ago.

I tried WoW when it launched and just couldn't make myself do it. Come Burning Crusades, I found it playable. Of course, no game can stand still in this medium. Good to see that Blizzard is, as always, on top of their game with new content!

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.