WHAT I’VE BEEN UP TO:

- Getting 100 mounts has been an ongoing goal for a while, so most of my WoW time has been spent grinding for various mounts. At the moment I’m 99/100 mounts collected! Once I complete Brewfest, I will have completed What A Strange Trip, will get the Violet Protodrake, and have 100 mounts!

- 4.1 introduced new heroic 5-mans, but I have yet to do them. I definitely want to try out the brand new ZG. I did the original ZA back during Burning Crusade, so I don’t really need to do the 5-man rehash, aside from there being some decent loot in there. That said, I don’t really need better gear since I don’t raid (and don’t miss it at all).

- 4.2 introduced the Firelands dailies, which overall I liked, but they got a little tedious by the end. I have both the mount and the title. The Druid of the Talon quests were way more annoying than the Shadow Wardens, btw. Some of the achievements, namely Death From Above and Ready For Raiding II, were annoying because they are completely RNG driven as to what mobs spawn on a given day. Death From Above wasn’t too bad, and I think they just hotfixed it so that three mobs spawn a day, so that should help for players still trying to get that. Ready For Raiding II was horrible, took weeks for certain mobs to spawn.

- I’ve finally got back to leveling alts through the revamped 1-60 zones. This was what I was supposed to be the most excited about for Cataclysm! I’ve gotten my Goblin Shaman to Level 56, taking her through most of Kalimdor (the only zones I haven’t done post-Cata are South Barrens, Dustwallow Marsh, Winterspring, and Silithus). Highlights were Azshara and Thousand Needles. For the most part, the zones quest flows worked nicely, although by the time I was done with Tanaris I was only Level 43, and that was with 20%+ XP gain, so I had to hop up to Felwood and do that zone as well! I’ve now moved back to my Level 29 Troll Druid to do South Barrens. I’ll also probably do WPL again on that char to experience that zone from the Horde perspective, since they win the battle in that zone. After that, I may just breeze through some zones on my 85 Draenei Warrior to experience them from the Alliance side: Ashenvale, Stonetalon, South Barrens.

THE FUTURE

The only thing coming up in the future is the release of 4.3. We’re just starting to get all the details on the 3-new five mans and raid in 4.3, which actually sound pretty cool! We’ll see if I do them, though. Expansion #4 will be announced this October at Blizzcon 2011, and rumors point to a mid-2012 release date. In the meantime, SWTOR is slated to come out this holiday, and I’m sure that will distract me from WoW for a while (not to mention Diablo III this holiday, and several other titles).

I expect when Xpac 4 comes out, I’ll probably play it even less than Cataclysm: Level my warrior through the new high-level content, roll and alt to experience potential new low-level content, and then probably put the account (back) on hold until a new expansion or meaningful content patch rolls around.

BUCKETLIST

That said, I have a Cataclysm bucket list much like I did with WOTLK:

1) Finish playing through 1-60 zones: Ashenvale (A), Stonetalon (A), South Barrens (A), WPL (H)
2) Brewfest, finishing both What A Strange Trip and Mountain O Mounts
3) ZG remake
3) 4.3 5-mans: End Time, Well of Eternity, Hour of Twilight
4) Darkmoon Faire revamp

Possible bonus stuff:
5) ZA remake
6) Level Hunter to 85, hunt for rare pets
7) Continue questing through low-level zones on Warrior for Loremaster title
Archaeology (still haven’t gotten Zin’rokrh!)
9) Profession changes: Drop Hunter’s Skinning + Leatherworking for Mining + JC, drop Warrior’s Mining for Blacksmithing

- Finished all the quests in the 80-85 zones, and hit Level 85 along the way.  Uldum and Twilight Highlands were probably the best, Deepholm probably the most forgettable.  Overall, had a good time doing the quests, and there were some real gems in there.  I wasn’t totally blown away by them, though.  There was a bit of a disconnect between all the zones, with them being all spread out across the world.  They could have done a better job tying it all together.  There was also no real OMG moments like Wrathgate in these zones, nor any pre-rendered cutscenes like Wrathgate.  The in-game cutscenes are a nice addition, though.  To be honest, I think some of the revamped 1-60 zones were better.  Which is more of a compliment to those zones than an insult to the 80+ zones.

- Started gearing up for raiding, although I’m not sure if I’m going to raid, or as what spec.  Currently my tanking set is at iLvl 338, DPS 336.  Trying to get to 342 for raiding.  I’ve been doing guild runs and LFD pugs as both roles.  I was really rusty with tanking at first, but have gotten back into the groove of things.  Just cleared my first heroic PUG in its entirety last night (Heroic SFK) without many major issues or people yelling at me.  Tanking in a pug has its pressures/annoyances, but it’s nice having an instant queue time.  My guild also runs heroics on a very regular basis, but I usually go DPS for those.  The loot gods have been very kind to me, and I’ve gotten a lot of drops from dungeons, so at this point I could probably round out both sets via rep rewards and justice point gear, so it’s just a matter of grinding out some more dungeons.

- Hit 525 in Archaeology, and so far have 6 rare artifacts, working on the 7th.  Got the clockwork gnome pet, the fossil raptor pet, the BOA lvl 70 shaman helm, and some other gimmicky things.  Still grinding for the epic 2H troll sword and fossil raptor mount.  It can be boring at times, but I usually do it when watching TV.  Haven’t started on any Tol’vir stuff yet, because I haven’t started doing any digs in Kalimdor yet, and the reason for that is because I’m waiting to finish leveling my Horde toons through those zones first.

-  I’ve decided to make 100 mounts a long-term goal for this expansion.  Started farming Heroic Sethekk Halls and Magisters Terrace for the rare mount drops.  Got the Raven Lord mount two days ago!   Also managed to buy up all 7 PvP mounts last weekend when Tol Barad wins rewarded 1800 honor points.   Still have a long while to go, but it’s a good solo goal to have.

- All this time on my Alliance warrior has left me really slacking on my shaman (18) and druid (29).  I plan to focus on those toons for a while, now that my warrior is getting to be in a good spot.

So, Patch 4.03a came out a little over three weeks ago, and Cataclysm a little over a week ago.  In that time, I have:

1)  Rolled and leveled a Human Priest through Eastern Kingdoms from 1-58.  Took about two weeks at an average pace.  Highlights included Westfall, Redridge, WPL, EPL, and Badlands.
2)  Leveled my Warrior (Alliance main) so far to 83 1/2.  From an XP standpoint, I’m only about 45% of the way to 85!  Did all of Mt Hyjal, and about 75% through Vashj’ir. Also started working on Archeology, which is a good activity to do while watching TV.
3)  Rolled a Goblin Shaman, so far at Level 11.  I’ve finished up Kezan and Lost Isles.  The plan is to level through Kalimdor on a PvP server, so this should be interesting.  Ganking galore, I imagine.  Depending on how I like playing a Shaman, this could become my Horde main.
4)  Rolled a Troll Druid, so far at Level 15.  Finished up Echo Isles and Durotar, and then flew over to Eastern Kingdoms to check out Silverpine and Hillsbrad.
5)  Race-changed my Night Elf Hunter to be a Worgen.  His new name is Tracyworgen, and the plan is to make all pets based off of 30 Rock characters.

Clearly, there’s a lot going on, and often have a hard time choosing what character to focus on!  I consider this to be a good thing.  It’s a bummer this game had to come out so close to Christmas, as I will be going out of town for a week.  Thankfully, I do have a laptop capable of playing WoW, but even at the lowest graphics settings, the framerate is pretty choppy.  Not sure I want to experience the new content this way, so I might focus on leveling alts, professions, etc.  Or maybe, you know, do things other than WoW

Being that there wasn’t much going on in 4.0.1 besides stat/talent changes, boredom finally got the best of me and I rolled a Worgen hunter on the beta, who I ended up leveling through both Gilneas and Darkshore to Level 20.  Gilneas was fun overall, but it loses steam very quickly.  I actually thought Darkshore was a better zone!  Having played a Worgen through Level 20 or so, I’m not sure if I necessarily want a Worgen toon when the game goes live.  If I do, it will be an alt, I don’t know if I’m going to shell out $25 to race change an existing character.

The pre-Cataclysm world event also kicked off a couple weeks ago.  It started off slow, but I think we just hit the climax yesterday with elementals invading major cities.  I have yet to participate in defending against an invasion, but I did get to fight the Level 80 version of Gahzrilla last night, which was nothing more than a loot pinata.   Not as cool as WotLK’s launch event, but I suppose it’s something.

4.0.3 went live this week, which had a hefty 800 mb download, but doesn’t introduce anything new until they flip the switch or patch in 4.0.3a.  It’s looking very likely that 4.0.3a will go live this Tuesday!!  Only two more days until Azeroth changes forever, can’t wait!  Plus we’ll have a 4-day weekend to play it

Given how close we are to 4.0.3a and Cataclysm’s release, I’m getting my affairs in order with other games.  Let’s be honest, Cataclysm is going to suck up a lot of my free time for the next couple of months, so I don’t expect I’ll have much time to play other games.   A couple great games have come out this Fall, but I’m saving them as Christmas gifts that family can give me.

~57 hours to go!

4.0.1 is when all existing PvE badges will be converted to Justice Points (and PvP currencies to Honor Points).  They’ll also be substantially be marking up the costs of existing heirloom gear, so buy any heirloom gear you want in the next two days!  I went ahead and used up my remaining badges and stuff to buy some heirloom chest pieces, and the heirloom PvP trinket.  The idea is that once everybody’s 85 and running Cataclysm heroics, the heirlooms should be fairly simple to obtain again, but until then they will be near  impossible to earn once 4.0.1 goes live.

Once 4.0.1 goes live I’ll buy Cold Weather Flying for my Hunter, who’s now just a bubble shy of 71.  Leveling seems to be going really slow with this guy, even with two heirloom pieces on.  I should hit 80 by the time Cataclysm comes out, if not 4.0.3.

I will be out of town next week when 4.0.1 goes live.  I’m going on vacation, and I’ve felt unprepared for this trip for the past week or so.  I even considered canceling it.  But now I’m pretty excited about it.   Worst case, I’ll just sit around and catch up on a back log of DS games and Netflix instant queue.

First of all, the end of Season 8 has been announced for October 12.  We can safely assume that 4.0.1 will go live this same exact day. It was also announced that Season 9 will start a week after the release of Cataclysm.  MMO Champion just datamined that Season 9 is set to start December 14, so it’s looking  like a December 7 release for Cataclysm!  Sometime between these two dates, 4.0.3 will go live, probably split the difference at November 9 if I had to bet.

Given that Blizzard typically likes to give at least two months notice of a release date, we’re already looking at an early December release date at this point at the earliest, following that trend.  If they can’t get Cataclysm out in that first week, we’re probably getting too close to Christmas at that point, and they would probably need to hold off until 2011 to release it.  If they’re trying to get this game out in 2010, December 7 is about as late as they can probably go.

While December 9 seems a far ways off, 4.0.3 should offer a great deal of new content that should keep players occupied (as long as they’re cool with rolling a new toon) until Cataclysm is released.  Looks like I have about 5 and a half weeks to get my Hunter to 80, before all my attention goes to rolling new alts!

Cataclysm Beta: I chose these zones because I don’t see any of my new Cata toons going through these zones (strikethrough means I’ve done them):

Night Elf – Teldrassil
Undead – Tirisfal Glades
Tauren – Mulgore, Northern Barrens
Gnome – Dun Morogh, Loch Modan, Wetlands, Arathi Highlands, Hinterlands

3.3.5 and 4.0.1 – Continue leveling Night Elf Hunter to 80 (currently Level 65).  Contemplating putting leveling on hold once I get to Level 68 until 4.0.1 goes live to get lowered price on Northrend flying, but I may end up just ponying up the cash and/or just leveling on foot (paws?).  500g is relatively easy to save up.

4.0.3 – Roll a new Human Priest, begin him on this leveling path: Elwynn Forest, Westfall, Redridge Mountains, Duskwood, Northern STV, Cape of STV, WPL, EPL, Badlands, Searing Gorge, Burning Steppes, Swamp of Sorrows, Blasted Lands.  I expect I’ll only get through the beginning of that path initially.

Cataclysm Launch:  I haven’t figured out if there’s going to be any particular order for any of this, but here’s what I’m going to level:

- Continue leveling Human Priest
- Roll a Goblin Shaman, begin him on this leveling path: Kezan, Lost Isles, Azshara, Ashenvale Forest, Stonetalon Mountains, Southern Barrens, Feralas, Thousand Needles, Tanaris, Un’goro Crater, Silithus
- Roll a Worgen Druid, get through Gilneas and Darkshore, probably put on hold for time being
- Roll a Troll Druid (yes, two druids), get through Durotar, Silverpine Forest, and Hillsbrad, probably put on hold for time being
- Level Hunter to 85, possibly race-change to Worgen

Eventually, I’ll continue leveling those toons through the classic zones, and probably level the Goblin Shaman to 85 and make him my Horde main.  If not, then I’ll level my Warlock