WoW Loremaster.

 Haki completed Ashenvale and is now nearly done with Stonetalon. I'm kinda worried that my shot at Loremaster is already fubar, since Haki is 69/70 in Darkshore and I can't find the last quest. I found that hidden Sentinel below the Grove of the Ancients before I crumbled and checked the internet and what do you know, the hidden Sentinel is the culprit for most people going Loremaster. Since Loremaster is about doing a number of quests in a certain region without specifying which quests you need to do exactly; it's free-form because many regions hold way more quests than Loremaster needs, I'm now waiting for a world-event that has regional quests. For the time being, Haki is moving on.

I thought the new questlines in Ashenvale made the region thousand times more interesting to quest in. In the old WoW, Ashenvale was a contested area too, but Horde stayed in Splintertree and kept to their own mostly, while the quests did their best to instill some urgency in the player to protect Ashenvale from the all mighty, if invisible, Horde. Like Darkshore, Ashenvale holds many quests where you control animals, spirits of animals and elementals. One quest I particularly liked is the one where you get to control a huge spiritcat to lay waste to the Horde-army besieging the retreat where the Laughing Sisters hang out.

The real surprise is Stonetalon. I have always been partial to Kalimdor to powerlevel alts. The Eastern Kingdoms are cool, but everybody goes there which means that usually you have to share grinding-spots  and resign yourself to spawncamping for your turn to kill Hogger (is quicker than whoring for an ad-hoc group for efficiency). When you stick to Kalimdor, you have the luxury to milk grindingspots and harvest your minibosses with little obstruction. Anyway, Stonetalon has gotten the most awesome work over I have encountered so far. Fellow Kalimdor fans will agree that the old Stonetalon was nothing more than a small stop over to grind the last two levels needed to migrate to Desolace. You quickly made your way to the peak and collected the quest to clean out the Charred Vale. Stonetalon now is an experience. You man cannons to break the back of the Horde Airforce, utilize jetpacks, flamethrowers and ride a war-griffon to rescue young druids. And to top it all off, you commandeer a tank and destroy the Horde's ground forces and collapse a mine, burrying Chief Hellscream's elite force of assassins in the process. I'm a bit sad that I'm done in Stonetalon. I played through it in one sitting, having an awesome good time. I wonder if Desolace can meet  Darkshore, Ashenvale and Stonetalon in way of awesome quests and content!

The change I dislike the most is the implosion that happened on the Auction House. It is now the playground of high level, large bankroll players. I needed an Iron Buckle and I could get one, if I was willing to pay 1000 gold for it. Yeah, that's not going to happen. It used to be that the Earthern Ring Auction House had well over 300 pages to it. Now it has like 150 pages and everything is 150 times more expensive, provided that the item you need is even available!

So, now I'm kinda forced to halt my Loremaster for a bit, while I level alts who are specifically meant to support Haki the Huntress. I wouldn't bother if the prices on the Auction House were sane. I'm looking at leveling a tailor/enchanter, miner/engineer, miner/blacksmith, herbalist/scribe and a herbalist/alchemist. Granted, the engineer is not really needed, but I am not ready to pay 40K for a Mekgineer Chopper, while I can level an engineer (leveling just for the saltshaker would be stupid) and with time and effort can craft it myself. I need the blacksmith to support the enchanter and the leatherworker, I need the scribe to make my own glyphs and I need the alchemist to make the mats for recipes that use alchemy in the other professions.

Not that I mind it though, I have always toyed with the idea to level several alts to support myself. Cutting out the moneygrubbers in a MMO-experience really adds to your fun and helps you keep your sanity. Nothing is more frustrating to need something basic and having to pay through the nose for it. Paying for convenience is one thing, willingy dropping your pants to get brutally butt-raped is another. I wouldn't do that IRL, so I see no reason to do it in a game.

Now I'm needing to do some planning. What do I need first, what item do I need the most of and what class is best suited to the gathering/craft I need to get it together? Do I level just to the point where I can get the stuff I need, or is it wise to overlevel a bit so I can build up stock? Another thing is that professions need other professions to progress. Say that if I decide to get my enchanter going, then it stands to reason I level a blacksmith first so I can make the rods the enchanter needs to rune for the tiers of enchanting. Luckily, my leatherworker is pretty far advanced, so leveling a blacksmith won't be meeting much resistance.

I'm actually looking forward to go ahead with an idea I have tossed around in my head for some time now. It also takes away to tunnel-vision of just going for Loremaster. Now it's more like an experiment!