I swore to myself I would reach level 85 within 24 hours of release, which wasn't a very hardcore goal, since some players made it to 85 within _5_ hours. But still, I didn't want to be too ambitious. I also decided against joining one of my guild's instance grinding groups, since I don't like having other people depend on me for a long period of time, without knowing whether or not I would manage to stay awake long enough.
The first thing that went wrong was missing my pre-launch nap due to circumstances. This meant I'd already been awake for 16 hours before even beginning my 24 hour marathon. That sucked.
Then came the login server blues. I kept logging in for 59 minutes, before eventually managing to login.
When I finally did get in, I handed in the quests I'd been saving for an early boost, made my way to Orgrimmar to learn the new flying skill, and decided NOT to go to Mount Hyjal, which was completely zerged by lvl80s already, and instead took the boat to Vashj'ir, the underwater zone.
The boat was pretty full too, even after 1 hour of delays
I was headed for level 85, on my own, using the slowest possible method: Questing without a guide, or any prior knowledge of the zones I'd be going through.
The zone itself was very pretty, but, being an hour late, I joined the back of the questing queue which is enough to piss off anyone.
Eventually I managed to race ahead, and when I entered Nespirah I finally felt confident enough to think I might succeed in my goal, seeing as there were only like 3 or 4 other players in here, and any Alliance scum daring to get close to me was quickly dispatched anyway.
Look at your zone, now back to me, now back at your zone. Your zone is phased. I'm on a seahorse.
Designwise, Vashj'ir was definitely one of the prettiest zones I'd ever seen. Loads of epic-feeling quests really helped me feel like part of the story, which definitely wasn't the case in Vanilla, or TBC. "Go kill stuff, get XP!" - No, the zone was changing along with me. And that was cool.
A pretty long and engaging questline required me to play out the role of a Naga Battlemaiden
The new water graphics are reaaaally pretty
I'm on a submarine, bitch
Pretty colours!
Something I also noticed was that the new expansion uses cutscenes a whole lot more than the game did in the past. Not the CGI-Wrathgate ones, but still, really cool.
After finishing up in Vashj'ir, I went for a quick discovery in Mount Hyjal, where I witnessed too much epicness for 1 screen:
And then I headed into Deepholm, which is an underground zone, also pretty cool. By the time I was nearly done in Deepholm (~14:00) I was feeling pretty tired, having been awake and behind a computer for close to 30 hours, 13 of which was in WoW, and Deepholme's scenery just felt really cool, a bit trippy even.
Sup, Therazane, you sexy goddess you!
After I wrapped up Deepholm, I did a few instances, and started on Uldum. I managed to get lvl 84 around 19.00, and decided I'd do some tradeskill levelling, and just hung around in Orgrimmar for a while. By 21.00 I was really knackered and gave up.
I slept for 14 hours, blogged this, and I'm now heading back into the game to finish that last level. (Which requires 9.000.000+ xp btw!)
See you in a few hours!
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