So Much To Do

Can’t get enough of the good stuff.

Mists of Pandaria. Woof. Girl, you’ve been kicking my ass like it’s an Olympic sport.

Don’t let that intro confuse you. I’m not complaining. I’ve already gotten my money’s worth out of the expansion, and it’s only been out for just shy of two weeks. Needless to say, this expansion has kept me busier than any expansion has yet. Any time I decide I have time to burn and I log in, regardless of the character or their level, there’s something I could be doing. I’ve already accomplished a manly portion of excellence in my short time in MoP, but it feels like MoP just thumbs its nose at me twice before dropping into a low Kung Fu stance and mocks me for being an underachiever. What have I been doing? Well let me tell you…

Hitting 90 for the first time. I feel pretty good about this one. I had a few characters to choose from when I decided to start on the road to 90. It came down to my Alliance DK because a) he was the best geared which meant nothing after a level or so in Pandaria, and b) he was on a low pop server. This meant I could level without having to worry about bumping into people, fighting over quest drops, and all that good stuff. By the time he reached 90 and spent a few days running dailies and dungeons, I could start thinking about leveling up a character on a higher pop server because the initial rush of people had gone by. Smart!
Pandaren. Yes, I made a Pandaren. No, he was not a monk. I rolled a Pandaren Warrior because I dug his 2H combat animation. As good a reason as any. When I started, I was two-boxing and running a Recruit-A-Friend combo. This had its own share of Pros and Cons.
- Pro: Faster leveling. My combo was Warrior and Hunter, and the Warrior had an Heirloom weapons. This meant that he exploded pretty much everything he hit. Watching the blade dance in his hand was like watching a ballet / snuff film. The Hunter’s pet would barely reach the target in time before the target perished. They would have been more effective if they’d just followed behind my Warrior and threw flower petals at his feet. Also, I gave my Warrior a Portuguese name: Toquinho, with means “little tree stump”. A little more original than the other eye-bleach worthy names floating around on the servers.
- Con: Faster leveling. Because of the mechanics of the Pandaren starting zone quest line, you cannot leave the starting zone until your Panda selects Alliance or Horde. Therefore, you are in the zone for the duration. Normally a character would be around Level Ten before leaving the zone. With RAF I was more like 15. Towards the end of the quest line, the mobs were all grey and gave zero XP. Quest XP was fine, but I probably would have been getting bigger returns from running Level 15 quests rather than Level 10.
Professions. It was stupid easy to level up my main professions. Sure I had some gold to work with, but the leveling cockblock were high level recipes which were only obtainable after unlocking a zone through a quest at level 87. In fact, it was harder to level up COOKING than it was to level Blacksmithing or Enchanting. What helped with the cooking was –
Farming. Literally, farming. The damn Tillers had me growing vegetables, and now I’m dancing around with various members of the faction to increase my rep with everybody. Why? Why do I care if I’m Best Friends with these people? I don’t have Best Friends in real life, what the shit do I care if these Pandas like me? Perhaps some research is in order.
Pet Battles. This ate up almost an entire day before I even knew what was happening. Quests are fun, battles are interesting, and my first rare was a Squirrel. Exciting stuff there.

Now that I’m going back to work, I have less free time. Well, okay not as much free time. I’m also going to be leaving town to go to University for two months (which, for an old guy like me, is a gong show waiting to happen), which will grind almost all playtime to a halt. So with what little free time I have left, what do I do? Level another character? Run dailies? Dungeons? Pet Battles? Work on professions? What?