In Which Kia Gets Her Groove On

So, after whining extensively about the difficulties of leveling, I realized this evening that I should have saved up. 'Cause seriously, even though the forties are my favorite vanilla WoW leveling times, there's one thing to bemoan, at length.

Baby Kia is currently sitting at 45, sitting pretty, actually:

Dude. Those pants? Totally hot, aren't they? My legs are Seksi For The Win in them, I thinks.

Sorry. Moving on...

As I was saying, Baby Kia is sitting at 45, and as I was perusing my quest log to determine the next course of action, I found myself saying to Jake (since it would be stupid for me to talk to myself; talking to a CGI cat is much preferable),

"Jake, I have quests in Feralas, Tanaris, Stranglethorn Vale, and the Hinterlands. Plus a couple random turn-ins in Darnassus."

...

Let me examine my world map for a moment here.

...

It seems I was correct... those quests are located in the four corners of the Old World. The only way for them to be farther apart would be for me to be Horde. Sigh. Do you KNOW how long it takes to get from Feralas to the Hinterlands?? Huh? HUH?? Or from Darnassus to Tanaris? That flight's over 11 minutes, but it thankfully doesn't mean taking a boat. I always seem to Fail at Boats, for whatever reason.

But vurry vurry far apart quest zones aside, I really do like leveling in the forties. There's lots of cool stuff. Like taking pictures of turtles. Seriously, how much fun is that? And I've always been a fan of pirates, so killing them by the dozens in Tanaris is no hardship. Although, this particular time, I happened to be trying to kill the pirates at the same time as a group of five Horde. It wasn't pretty. At least, not for me.

That brings up another thought. (Me?? Scatterbrained and unfocused? How could you even say such a thing!)

I was flying to Hinterlands, and these messages popped up in my chat box:

And I grimaced. Not for myself, because as previously mentioned, I was going to the Hinterlands. Southshore was simply a layover, kinda like flying through O'Hare. Naturally, nobody in their right mind actually STOPS there. In this case, my grimace was purely for the poor mid-thirty alt that actually WAS in Southshore, most surely being killed over and over and over and sweet mercy over again, simply because there was some kind of jerk Horde (probably a rogue) who just couldn't restrain their enthusiasm for corpse-camping and griefing. It made me sad, even in the midst of the relief I felt for not being the one getting it in the rear this time.

Oh? I haven't mentioned my EPIC FAIL AT PVP? Forgive me. I'm an Epic PVP Fail. I suck. Big time. I mean, major suckage. Anyone and anything can kill me at any point. And partially because of that, I HATE PVP WITH ALL THE FIRE OF A THOUSAND SUNS.

"But Feathers!" you say, "You're a hunter! Hunters are pretty good at PvP!"

Sure, hunters might be good at it. I'm totally lousy. Rogues kill me, paladins kill me, druids kill me, warriors kill me, baby murlocs with rattles kill me. EVERYONE kills me. I usually don't even realize I'm being attacked until I'm already at half health and then it's spam a thousand buttons in the hopeless attempt to at least deal a bit of damage to the stupid rogue that's sapped me to death.

(It's true. I don't like rogues. Not at all. Let it go.)

So I hate pvp, and at times, I hate Blizzard for those times that I'm forced to do it. I usually avoid it like the plague, but there's those rare occasions that I can't and then I moan and grumble and whine.

Anyway, Baby Kia is cruising along, spending most of her time flying about trying to get to the places where she's supposed to do quests. It is at this point in the game that hearthstones become a strategic advantage. I clutch at mine with all the terror of a small child left orphaned in a big, cold world. Currently, said hearth is in the Hinterlands. No doubt that four quests from now, it will be reset to Gadgetzan. And four quests after that, Feathermoon. And after that... tune in next week for the conclusion!

But at least I'm out of Southshore. /shudders

In Which Kia Faces the Terrors of the Thirties

Ladies, back me up here.

At some point in your life, probably about your mid- to late-twenties, you came to a sudden and terrifying realization...

You are nearly thirty.

/shudder

"But Feathers!," you say. "It's just a number! It doesn't mean anything! Everyone faces their thirties, and almost everyone survives it! Besides, Thirty is the New Twenty!"

/sigh

First of all, I reserve the right to smack you upside the head if you ever again say that something is the new something else. I won't hit you hard, but I will hit you. Something is NOT the new Something Else. That statement is so illogical it makes me cringe.

Second, I don't care that almost everyone gets over the Terrors of Thirty eventually; my point is that for however briefly, Thirty is a ridiculously scary proposition. It means your not-single friends are starting to have kids and buy houses (actually, some of your single friends may also be having kids and buying houses, but I make no judgements here) while you are still cruising bars trying to find A Decent Guy who isn't a psychopath or an insurance salesman. Good luck with that. It means a great deal of angst as you contemplate your lack of a career direction and your dead-end job that you only manage to drag yourself to every day because That Guy In Marketing is a hottie. Which is a stupid reason to go to work, but if it means that you make it there so that you can make enough dough to (hopefully) pay the piper, we'll live with it. It means that you are forced to endure, at great length, your mother, grandmother, various diverse aunties and half the rest of the world querying you at great length about when they might expect you to Settle Down and Have Grandchildren. It is a horrible, horrible time, and for those of you who got through the Terrors of Thirty quickly, my hat is off to you. For those of us on the edge of the abyss, looking down into the empty darkness, give us a chance to catch our breaths. We'll get over it eventually.

...

"FEATHERS!"

...

I'm so sorry. Got a little caught up, there. Moving right along...

So the thing is, WoW isn't any different. RL or WoW, there is no difference - the thirties are full of terrible, horrid things. I always like leveling, until I get to about 27ish, maybe 28. 29 if Ashenvale is good to me. However, once you get to 30, the world grinds to a slow, freakishly awful stop. It means the barren, sunken miasmas that are Dustwallow Marsh, the Badlands, Desolace, Stranglethorn Vale, and the Swamp of Sorrows.

Seriously, I HATE leveling 30-40. The zones are ugly, save for the one saving grace that is Hillsbrad. However, Hillsbrad has its own personal hell in Southshore. Come on, people! It's been FIVE YEARS and you STILL can't find anything better to do than to go to Southshore and one-shot toons fifty levels below you, and then just for good measure, kill the Gryphon Master so that they can't get away?

(Yes, as a matter of fact, I was ganked last night. At length. By an 80 in Ulduar gear. Yes, it was a rogue. Rogues suck. The proportion of ridiculously big jerks is SO. MUCH. HIGHER when it comes to rogues then in the rest of the population that it makes me cry. What is it about playing a rogue that is so attractive to the jerks among us?)

Anyways, so besides the fact that the surroundings are deadly depressing, the quest lines are also deadly dull. There are no epic quest lines in the thirties. There aren't even any reasonably good quest lines. Hit 30, and you're looking at rep grinding in Desolace (good thing that Centaur Ears have such a low drop rate; you have to kill them by the score), getting smeared with some seriously Nasty Stuff while going fishing, and spending days and days killing stupid trolls. Oh, yes! And let's not forget all the Really Terrific Guys you meet... like this one. And him. And of course, this sadistic, kill-happy tyrant.

Fortunately, like all things in life, if you are willing to push through, the thirties do eventually come to an end. Baby Kia is sitting just under 39 right now. 70 or 80 thousand more xp, and I'll be able to do all kinds of fun things like wear shiny mail! And go to the Hinterlands! And after about 45, the road to Outlands is all but done! Things get better after 40, I really believe it. I'm holding on to that.

Until then, I'm still cruising the bars, looking for Centaur Ears.

In Which Kia Epically Fails

So, I haven't been playing Big Kia very much, having been concentrating on leveling Baby Kia, but I logged on tonight during LOKI's regular raid time so that I can run some Oracle dailies and flirt with the LOKI boys.

(No, not really. I mean, yes, I flirt with the LOKI boys, but not during raid times. At least, not with the ones in the raid. After all, my schtick is to be distractingly cute and so forth, but I'm not stupid, either.)

Anyways, so I runs over to the Basin and starts shooting up Frenzyhearts and so forth. And as I'm running around the Basin, I starts to frown most seriously. Something is amiss.

No Ferocious Inspiration? Hmm. Where's my Kindred Spirits buff? Why isn't the Big Red Condom popping up above my head? What do you mean, I can't go BigAndRed??? I LIVE TO GO BIGANDRED!! WHAT'S THE DEAL, HERE?

I wrap things up and hearth back to Dalaran to repair, because there's something fishy going on and I'm starting to think that it might be more than just a really, really, really laggy server. I'm not killing things nearly as fast as I should be, and I'm taking like serious damage and so is Jake and stuff is breaking on me. And as I'm repairing, going through bags and so forth, an accidental key smash brings up the following image:

Captain, I believe I have tracked down the problem.

I seriously, SERIOUSLY need my WingWoman back. Sigh.

Cataclysmic Events

I suppose that in order to preserve my claim to WoW bloggerhood, I really ought to comment on the news coming out of BlizzCon.

Here's my comment:

...

See, I know that they're posting a tentative 2010 release. But at the earliest, that's still AT LEAST four months away. In my opinion, that's more than long enough for the world to end, much less for the wiz kids at Blizzard to change what they've announced. While I'm really excited about some of the things that they've announced (retooling Azeroth, anyone?), I'm not gonna hold my breath until I can see an end in sight. Like, right around the time they announce the date of the release.

Okay, one more comment. Is it just me, or are Worgen totally slanted toward Huntery-types? Specifically, hunters that do skinning? Good heavens, about three minutes after Cataclysm is released, all the Alliance starting areas will be swarmed with new Worgen Hunters. Provided, of course, that making Hunters use Focus like bloody Rogues, damn their eyes, and that making our shots cost 30 to 60 Focus doesn't completely nerf Hunters into oblivion. It's possible.