Day two and Ding 25

Yesterday's work day ended shortly after completing the last post. I went home, got the mail, left a leak, got some candy from the halloween leftovers and tossed my cat on my shoulder for his 60 seconds of attention as I walk upstairs and into my "office". This was all accomplished by about 4:15 or so.. I then sat down and played for 6 hours with only a few smoke and bio breaks. My new habit is to just log thru my "mains" and check my mail then get on my rogue and fire up a movie on my workstation (2nd computer with the monitor next to my gaming rig). Yesterday I watched.. 2/3s of Pirates of the Caribbean (stupid 2nd disk was unreadable), the Devil Wears Prada and some South Park episodes. I still need to watch Spare Change but that will require a bit more attention than I should devote while playing WOW. One or the other will suffer.

During this time I did a bunch of Duskwood quests.. allow me to say this here: I wont grind. Its just not in my nature. I need a short term goal to be striving for that is easily obtainable. The closest I will get is doing quests that require me to get x of something that doesnt drop off every mob. Some of these I have termed "Level Quests" - the drop rate is seemingly determined to get you right up to the next level if you do nothing but work this quest. On my Druid the one i remember most was Skullsplitter Tusks - I was barely into the level and was about 1000xp from the next when I finally got the 18th tusk. It knows man.. it does. Yesterdays experience was not much different - tho much short. 10 ghoul fangs doesnt sound that bad.. but the mobs were 24-27th level and I was 24th. But I got them all.. and ding'd deep into 25 with the quest turn ins.

I figured it was time to go shopping as I was still using Cookies Tenderizer and a mediocre green for my main hand. I picked up a nice new broadsword for the big numbers and a quick dagger with decent stats to keep the stream of numbers going up / getting the procs of the poisons. Additionally, I did the Ravenholdt quests for no good reason. This involed

1. Noticing that my trainer had an additional line of text in my choices
   
2. getting from stormwind to southshore (its a long ass run)
3. finding ravenholdt manor (its hidden in the hills behind the Syndicate keep in Hillsbrad
4. walking up to a chest and not opening it (thank you thottbot!) - this quest is kinda silly now that detect traps is a passive skill. before you had to activate it and notice that it was trapped to progress the quest. Now you have to walk up to it and .. thats it. just walk up to a chest in a tunnel. If you happened to open it, a 32 elite pops out and kills you apparently. I think Im gonna go back someday and cream him.. just cause. or not.
   
5. talk to a few folks in the manor (PS: Theres an NPC labelled "Landscape Architect" in there. Im easily amused.
   
6. pick pocket 30 markers off the syndicate folks in the zone. this was fun and easy. Ive also found out that you can pickpocket mobs that are in combat! some horde folks were trying to do the quests in the keep and were pulling mobs from under me. heh.. I still got the stuff and they got the kill - fine by me
7. turning these marks in for reputation with the faction and that gives me... nothing it seems. the faction appears to be useless.. but I will swing by every 10 levels or so and see
   

it was fun to do the quest chain however mediocre or useless the rewards might have been - it was some good practice on using distract, vanish, pickpocket and such in a crowded, hostile environment. getting all the money off 4 mobs in a room without alerting them that Im there is kinda exciting and reminded me of the fun I had playing my Shadowblade in DAoC.

So all told, I spent several hours last nite and then a few more this morning playing this damn game. I did spend some time with the wife when she got home and we watched CSI while she fell asleep. All told, it was an okay day.
The next few days look to be very full - but fear not faithful reader(s), I will find time to play WoW. I have my "Obligation" saturday nite running Molten Core with my alliance.. the wife will be out most of tommorow and that will give me some time to play WoW. Plus, I think Im going to go play with Dolls in the afternoon - assuming I can make it back in time for the raid. Tonite - probably not so much. Charity dinner tonite and unless she falls asleep rather early Im guessing no wow for me. perhaps from the laptop to just check mail or something. I dont know. But Sunday we will be gone all day - so im SOL there too.. probably a few hours Sunday nite.. I should easily be 26 with my Rogue before monday morning and maybe even get a bit of time in on my Druid (rest XP is building as I type).

Next topic: Mods and my UI. Probably next post. Maybe thats what I will do on the lappy while we watch Forensic Files and whatever other True Crime crap is on Court TV.