World of Warcraft at Ten Ton Hammer

I wanted to start by mentioning that every time I log in I find more to like with WoW. It seems that many small things were thought of and added into the game to enhance the overall effect even if they do not effect game play. For example while wandering around the world you see rabbits, snakes, butterflies and more all just going about their existence. While not part of the game play I really find it adds to the overall effect of trying to bring you into the game.

One of the first things I did for this weeks journal is explore the flight system. I stumbled across it in Ironforge and decided to take a flight to Stormwind. Yet another fine example of why the acronym fits so well for this game, WOW! I could not believe the travel system, I flew out over the landscape and kept panning back and forth to see everything. As you fly you see all the people below you still moving and running around going on with their online lives. I was so blown away by it that as soon as I got to Stormwind, turned around and flew back and forth two more times just to see everything! It really is that good! On the trip I happened to see some really wild terrain in a place called The Alter of Storms.

Once I was done I stepped outside of Stormwind and snapped some pictures of the statues lining the entrance. Again the game and world just continue to amaze! I also checked out the Dwarf section of Stormwind and found the Dwarven Embassy, so fooled around and tried to look important for a while. Oh well enough touristy stuff, lets get down to some adventuring.

I had originally come to Stormwind to do a delivery quest for some guards in Loch Modan and once that was done, I headed back to Ironforge and Loch Modan for the quest completion. I got a nice reward both in silver and experience for completing the quest.

I now headed back to explore the country side around Stormwind having run out of simple quests in the Dwarven lands that I could handle. One of the first quests I happened upon was to take care of a pack of gnolls terrorizing the country side and to kill their leaded "Hogger". I noticed something strange about the "Hogger" quest though, it was different, it was marked as Elite. What did this mean? So off I went to find out....

Well I found the gnolls easily enough. And they were a little difficult to handle but nothing too bad. After a while of searching I found the main gnolls camp and spotted Hogger. Now I knew what the elite meant on the quest. Hogger himself was an elite creature. While only being technically level 11, he was probably more like a 14 or 15. I tried him anyway and had to run 4 times before being able to handle him on the 5th attempt. Off to cash in the reward for both gnoll quests!

Having completed a few other minor quests I felt it was time to go back to Stormwind to get some of my training done and see if there were any better weapons and armor I could buy. So I equipped myself slightly better and decided to search around the large city just a bit. While looking around I picked up a quest from the Cathedral to visit Tiza Battleforge in the Hall of Mysteries in Ironforge for a quest to prove myself as a Paladin.

Now having cleared up my other quests, I visited her to see what was up. She directed me to speak to her husband, who gave me a quest to travel and resurrect his dead friend with a magic item. I went of to rescue him and found his body near a troll outpost. The quests were at this point becoming difficult to solo and after a little while I completed it and returned to Tiza for reward. Having proven my worth she imbued me with the power of resurrection. I felt I was well on my way to being a Paladin now.

48 - 46 I was now at level 14 and could decently handle combat and take care of my self with up to level 14 or 15 creatures. Two things was becoming glaringly obvious about the paladin class though. It was very hard to deal with mobs as I had no mass damage spells or abilities and it was exceptionally hard to "pull" creatures away from mobs not having any ranged abilities. Due to this I definitely noticed quests and creatures getting a lot harder to complete on my own. I had to start to look for some groups to play and level with. More on this in the next journal.