Finally, Some Decent Temperatures! And A WoW Introspective.

It has finally gotten to be a decent kind of temperature around here. Yesterday, I walked outside to go to class, and I felt for the first time in months that bite in the air that meant summer was ending and fall was beginning. It was a beautiful thing, let me tell you. I mean it was amazing. I was elated, and full of vim and vigor. The whole day, I was in a good mood. Then I discovered that my girlfriend goes the exact opposite way I do in this scenario, becoming depressed during winter and happy during summer. So her mood is going to steadily decline. Oh well, I'll figure something out.

This week has been particularly interesting, as you heard from my last post. Lots of stuff going on. Thursday I was planning on going to the mall, but I decided to sleep in instead and just rambled around on World of WarCraft. Speaking of which, I am very nearly at level 70, the max level in that game. I'm at roughly 90% of the experience I need to get to the last level, and for those who know what I mean, I have only two rested bars to go. So I'm in a good mood there, as well. I believe it is evidence of my dedication to this concept that I'm writing in this online journal (see, not blog! I can watch my words if I'm prompted to!) instead of feverishly killing enemies and completing quests in WoW, like I really want to be. So consider yourselves lucky that I'm even writing all this down at all.

Boy. Nearly level 70 in WoW. I remember when I was first starting off with my character. His name is Warsmasher, he's a dwarven Warrior on Lightning's Blade, if anyone wants to know or send me a letter or something. I started off in Dun Morogh, the snowy area where all dwarf characters begin. Killing boars and bears to get past those first few hardscrabble levels...boy oh boy, I remember it all. I went to Elwynn Forest to get my first weapon for the big first warrior quest, and I remember wandering around for hours because I couuld not find the stupid guy I was supposed to kill to complete it. But the weapon I got was cool.

Leveling...I went to Westfall and ran Deadmines until I knew it by heart, which I still do. Miner Johnson, Rhahk'Zor the Foreman, Sneed's Shredder, Sneed, Gilnid the Smelter, Mr. Smite, Cookie, Captain Greenskin, Edwin Van Cleef. Hell yeah, that's all the bosses, even the unimportant one in the beginning nobody ever goes to. So after Deadmines I went to Duskwood, this really creepy dusky place in a haunted forest with undead every which way. I hate the undead. Hated 'em then, hate 'em now. I didn't stay for too long, just long enough to team up with nine other people to bring down Patches, this enormous elite flesh golem made up of like twenty-seven corpses sewn together. We were all low 30s and high 20s, so it took ten people, but we got 'im.

I went to Desolace for the 30s, which I profoundly hated and still hate, because its name is very descriptive. It's desolate. There's nothing there except dirt, dust, rocks, a few dead trees, and a freaking metric ton of enemies per square foot. I had to ally myself with one of the two centaur clans in the region in order to mercilessly slaughter the other, I believe I took the side of the Gelkis clan. The Magram clan experienced a severe population deficit shortly thereafter. I don't know why I don't just go down there now, that I'm thirty-five levels ahead, and lay a serious smackdown on all of them. Then I ran Scarlet Monastery until I thought my brain would boil out my ears, which it very nearly did. I'm getting damn sick of SM, and even now will only run it for money or if a friend of mine asks me to. (Even with level-appropriate characters.)

The haze of leveling in Azeroth finished, I went to Outland. Hoo boy, that changed my character's life. Hellfire Peninsula was fun as anything, except when those twelve-stories-tall Fel Reaver robots ran me over. Must have run Hellfire Ramparts twenty times, trying to get those damn Ironsole Clompers, these boots that only dropped there. I never did. It aggravated me. Then there was Zangarmarsh. I hate swamps, I've always hated swamps, but this place was kind of cool. The huge lakes were nice to swim around in, especially after I got those special Potions of Greater Water Breathing from a quest. So I bummed around there for a while. After Zangarmarsh came Terokkar Forest, very briefly. I don't believe I stayed there for more than half a level. Didn't really like the place, that much. It was just a little too far off for my tastes.

Nagrand...Nagrand was awesome. I've always thought of Nagrand as a cross between the plains of Africa, the hills of Scotland, just a touch of the forests of the Amazon, and throw it all into a blender and add a pinch of outer space. That's Nagrand. I liked it. Leveled for a long time there, especially near Oshu'gun, a diamond the size of a mountain. You can only imagine why I liked being around there. Blowing up the two camps that were vomiting forth a near-endless supply of demons was only icing on the cake. I spent a while in Nagrand. Then I went to Blade's Edge Mountains, but I didn't like that place at all. Too spiky, and too freaking difficult to get around in. Everything's either infinitely high up or infinitely far down and you die in the fall. I can't be having with that, not before I get a flying mount. After Blade's Edge came Shadowmoon Valley, briefly. That place has the same blasted look as Desolace and Hellfire Peninsula, but without any of those places' charm and decency. I don't like it much, myself, but there were many valuable quests to be had, so I went there and did them.

Finally there was Netherstorm, which is where I am now. It's pretty cool, a bunch of disconnected floating islands in space. There are these enormous shimmering domes which, when you go inside, turn out to be biospheres that hold little pockets of forest life. So that's awesome. The place is dramatically unstable, though, and will explode in a matter of months if nothing is done. So I went and did things, smashing the mana-forges that were siphoning energy out of the ground, which was what was going to trigger the explosion in the first place. Stupid jerk blood elves think they know everything, including how not to destroy the world. They're wrong, of course, which is why the goblins there are feverishly working on a rocket ship to take them away from it.

So I'm nearly 70. I probably will be 70 by the time most of you read this. It's been a great run, and I couldn't have done it without my friends, so thanks to you all. And sorry to any non-WoW-players for this, but I really felt like saying it.

RESPONSES.

Steve - You SAY you have shaved, but I just can't find myself believing it. Maybe you trimmed occasionally, but you? Clean shaven? I have to laugh. Yes, Sonic looks like he is going to be incredibly awesome, but the whole GAME looks like it is going to be incredibly awesome. Shame about it being delayed to February 10th, 2008, though.

Vic - But I do not want to take Sanskrit. It seems difficult, and tiresome. If I'm going to take a language at all, it'll be one that actually uses the Germanic alphabet, not lots and lots of squiggly little symbols. And yes, I would have been a little upset, but I would have given you the spot, because I love you and I wanted you to be happy.

Mom - I'm glad you liked the piece on music so much. I did think it was pretty cool, while I was writing it. And yes, I plan to play a game of TOON when I get back home next weekend, so that promises to be entertaining. Sure, you can join. But be ready, it's a wild and wacky game. As for the 1st ed D&D, it's just that the system itself seemed to be openly hostile and difficult for people to customize their characters. Why would anyone do that? It'd take a mighty DM indeed to make something good out of that. And fourth, I will call him. Soon.

Jake - I've thought you were crazy since the day I met you in Personal Fitness. Which is why I started talking to you. I like crazy. And you have no knowledge of the awesomeness quotient of the Death Knight class, you haven't played it yet. Now, the Mountain King class, if it exists, can only be a pillar of complete and total awesomeness. There's no other way for it to exist.

Bye.

Edit: Ding.