Playing A Game World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Mac

I promised myself I wouldn't become slavishly devoted to the game like I once was, and I may already be losing this battle. Now I am in a race - against no one, except perhaps time itself - to reach level 70 within this coming weekend. Previously I have upheld a rate of a level per day, but I do not know that I can keep it up.

The first zone in Outland is Hellfire Peninsula, and is perfect for leveling from 60, or even the late 50s. I decided I was too cool for this zone and utterly skipped it. I started in Zangarmarsh, a slightly higher-up zone that has the trappings of the Swamp of Sorrows but the charm of Stranglethorn Vale. After sucking all the sweet experience nectar out of this zone I moved on to Terokkar Forest, which has a bunch of stupid bird monsters running around and some dumb blood elves building a magic bomb, but the main feature of which is a giant, dead crater produced by the explosion of, I'm not sure, but I think "evil." This started out alright, but what with an infinite supply of ghosts and unfriendly vultures, the Bone Wastes wore on me by the end.

Now I'm questing around in Nagrand, which is very reminiscent of the Tauren home zone of Mulgore, but much huger and much more interesting. There are some elemental dudes for whom I'm fighting the good fight, most notably a giant earth fury who requests that violent justice be dispensed upon invading rock monsters. Also in this zone is Hemet Nesingwary, the hunter chief from Stranglethorn, who is now interested in the bigger game in Nagrand.

One of the other cool quest hubs in Nagrand is populated by Ethereals, which are probably the coolest things to happen to WoW since conjured sliced bread. Here is a short list of characteristics of your average Ethereal:

  • Lives in another dimension
  • Is made of magic lightning
  • Cares only about making profitable trades and expanding business
  • For obvious reason, is primarily interested in Engineering
  • Upon death, explodes in a super awesome burst of light

If they were a selectable race I would totally be one.

In the Engineering arena, I started arranging materials for some Destruction Holo-Gogs the other day - only to, 150 gold later, abruptly discover that one of the reagents (a Primal Nether) is only acquirable by being in a level 70ish dungeon run. Blast!

One thing that bothers me about my new engineering possibilities are that they require absurd amounts of metal. Whereas most pre-expansion ore could be smelted into a bar at a 1:1 ratio, and most parts required maybe 3-6 smelted bars, now all smeltings require two ores per bar. Then there's Felsteel, which requires several bars of both Fel Iron and Eternium (a rare ore), and Hardened Adamantite, each bar of which costs 10 regular Adamantite bars (yes, 20 ore for one bar), and each pound of which weighs over ten thousand pounds.

But I digress. I am really enjoying my time back in the game, and look forward to even more of it.

Progress: Level 66

Rating: Awesome