Shared Topic: Preparing for WoTLK

Wrath of the Lich King. How am I preparing for it? Hmmmm.

First, I expect that it will be whole lot like the California Gold Rush; the sheer anticipation of WoTLK will drive people bat-guano insane with all the nifty stuff it seems to promise. I have two 70s that need to prepare (the co-hosts here) and there is SO much to do right now that an expansion pack just breaks my head. Some of the issues/questions I deal with now are:

• Do I complete the Karazhan key quest because I want “Hand of Adal” next to my name?
• What about the Shattered Sun Offensive dailies?
• Shall I farm Clefthoof Leather to complete my Strength of the Clefthoof set?
• How about the former Rak’Shiri who was tamed long ago by the hunter and needs to level but only yesterday got brought out of the stable in over three months?
• What about running groups and instances with other Sidhe Devils? I love EoTS and Arathi Basin but have just blown off battlegrounds for almost half a year. Get back into those?
• I really want the pattern to Stylin’ Purple Hat from Blackheart and to hit 375 in leather working.

The point I am driving at here is that there are SO many things to do, right now, that I’m happy with how it is.

That said, I am hoping that we discuss this as a guild (note to self: post about this in guild forum). I’d absolutely LOVE to explore and level and quest with Sidhe Devils. I am not interested in being the first to 80; I want to level fishing, cooking, first aid, leather working and skinning while I level my ‘toons. In other words I want a deeper, richer experience of Northrend that requires a slower pace.

I especially hope this expansion does not cause the kind of rift that BC did. There was the race to 70 and Karazhan and many many players were left behind. I found that after three days off line that I was no longer a viable member in the group of guildies that I had been grouping with. That’s how frenetic the race to 70 was. As I write this I think it’s too much to ask that the race to 80 not occur; there are too many that want to climb the mountain because they can and it’s there. But what do they miss along the way? Perhaps what I’m really trying to say is that in some things it doesn’t matter when you arrive but how you arrive and the manner in which you conducted yourself on the way.

I submit the following and would welcome being disproved: I submit that even in top end raiding guilds there are several members that do not even have all secondary skills trained (especially fishing and cooking), let alone maxed out. I use the example of top end raiding guilds to point out that although raiding is a huge part of the game it is not exclusively about raiding.

If one charges straight to the top of the mountain in the form of leveling, one misses many many things that are not as sweet to experience when you come back down. Gnoshing on Ravager Dogs and Warp burgers you made at level 65 is a sweet experience because of the effort required to do so; I worked hard to kill the ravagers and warping critters when I was leveling and I really appreciated the well-fed bonus. Coming “down” the hill when level 70 to level cooking to learn how to cook Ravager dogs seems to me would be more of a task rather than a pleasure.

So how am I preparing? I am spending as much time as I can in the metaphorical field of red and purple wildflowers running hither and yon, splashing in the frigid mountain brook, gazing off to the horizon, contemplating the rocks, smelling the earth and listening to the wind rustle the leaves because all too soon begins another part of the journey. A part I hope to savor and enjoy as much as this.