Preparing for Pandageddon

The guild mentioned in the previous post disintegrated due to leadership failures.  Another one I tried after that was pretty much the same.  The one I'm in now is a great group of people, it's very well organized, and is successful and growing.

It's not a retro guild, but it has a different trick - level caps.  Currently we're at a L60 level cap, meaning that we can't level past that until the cap is lifted (about two weeks, from level 45).  Some people might think that going from level 45 to 60 in two weeks would be just enough time, but for us more experienced players it takes no time at all.  There's at least 20 of us now who are at the cap with a week and a half to go.

But being unable to level (you are required to turn your xp off so as to not hit L61) doesn't mean that there isn't anything to do.  In some battlegroups having your xp capped doesn't interfere with your ability to join battlegrounds because there are a lot of people who lock xp at your level - ours isn't one of these groups, unfortunately.  If this is important for your reroll, do some research first to see which battlegroups are the most active.

But in spite of not being able to level and not being able to pvp, there is a whole bunch of stuff to do.  Many of us are preparing our gear by hunting down BoE pieces or doing enough Hellfire quests to get quest rewards (without xp) to upgrade our gear at L60 as much as possible.  There are a lot of good enchants available, and the average player can get their stamina above 5000 (12 or more for tanks) to group up and do old-world raids with.

Our guild has a preliminary date set for tonight for Molten Core, with BlackWing Lair to follow sometime after.  Our main tank is a Death Knight with about 12.5k health.  I'm playing a rogue, and I'm decked out in full L60 PvP gear with the HWL daggers.  I don't usually run anything but subtlety, but I'm considering working on an assassination or compat spec for raids.

But aside from the main focuses, a funny thing happens when you work with level caps.  First of all, everyone gets hit with the "just don't have time right now" real life bug from time to time.  If you're not able to keep up this week, relax.  Next week you can put in some time and catch up easily.  If you like to "race" to the cap you'll have several chances to compete, in the different content expansions.  If you need all the time you can get to level, there's plenty.

And then there's the really cool benefits.  If you have extra time on your hands you can flush out your character.  Do professions, achievements, exploration, role playing, and grouping with your guildies.  There's lots of incentive for people to be online, but nothing on the schedule that maximizes their time, so people have time to chat on vent, get to know each other, and on a pvp server, prowl around in groups looking for fights.

I've done some pvp runs and they're fun, although we're limited at the moment because any terrible player at 60 can wipe us all out pretty easily.  What I've decided to do that takes up most of my time is to pursue the Loremaster achievement.  Between Loremaster and Battlemaster, those are the two achievements in the game that I can really respect because they require dedication and persistence, and mean something.  There's always The Insane title, but there's a reason why it's called The Insane, and I don't think it really has the worth of the effort required to get it.

Last night I finished the Eastern Kingdoms portion of the Loremaster achievement.  This morning I finished up the Bloodmyst Isle Quests portion of Kalimdor, and it was easily the worst zone I've done so far.  This content was built during the Burning Crusade, and it's quite creative, but at the time it was made there wasn't the same incentive to streamline the questing process for ease of play, and the quests have you jump all over the zone, and a few times you're making trips back and forth to the same place, sometimes across the water.  Not fun.

It's not much easier to do at level 60 either, since a lot of the quests have drops you need to collect, and there is no flying on Bloodmyst Isle, so you're running everywhere.  It was painful, and I had to hunt down hidden questgivers and dropped items that started quests, and barely scratched out the minimum 50 quests needed for that zone.  If I had done Bloodmyst first I probably wouldn't have continued with the achievement, it was just terrible.

But with that one behind me I'm sure the rest will get easier - and more interesting, since the Cataclysm has touched virtually every zone and created new things to see and do.  And when the level cap goes up in two weeks I can continue with Outland, and I know that there's content out there that I haven't touched in at least 5 years - and possibly not at all.  Good times!  And some day I'll be able to walk around Stormwind with my Loremaster title, proclaiming to everyone that I've been there, and done that.