I can’t believe it’s been a month since I last wrote here! Where do I begin?
First off, some status updates. Moosikal is now 76 and firmly entrenched in Northrend and has been since he hit 70. I decided to skip Nagrand and the rest of the Outlands content, which also lead to some soul searching about my WoW playing habits and my desire to get Loremaster. Realistically, I’ve got enough on my plate at the moment that Loremaster probably isn’t in the cards before Cataclysm. The idea of spending all of that time going through old content began to feel like work. I may pick at it here or there in the context of getting other achievements (like Ambassador for instance), but it doesn’t seem to be something that I want to spend the time and energy to achieve.
With all that said, one of the things that I recently completed were all the quests that Varimithras gave out, because I knew that once I completed the Wrath Gate quest line he wouldn’t be available again. This meant trips to Ragefire Chasm, the two Razorfens, and a quest chain involving Nathanos Marris Blightcaller. This last one was interesting for me to do because it involves some mass slaughter of Quel’dorei elves to get a registry and is directly referenced in the Blizzard Creative Writing Contest winning entry In the Shadow of the Sun which I had read before doing these quests.
I’m not an RPer (full disclosure: I spent some time on a RP PVP server and it wasn’t my thing), but I do get into the lore aspect of the game a lot. I love the sheer amount of history involved with some of the quests that we do as WoW players and the things that we accomplish to have your character become a hero to your respective race and faction. One of the things that I’ve wanted to accomplish with this blog is to write about my take on the lore as it stands and where I think it’s going.
Running around and being Varimithras’ bitch isn’t the only thing that Moosikal has been up to. What’s amazing though is that I’m at 76 now but have only Toured the Fjord and disovered that there’s Nothing Boring About Borean. Let me tell you though, if you can get the Tome of Cold Weather Flight early on, DO SO. Just like in Outlands, being able to fly in Northrend makes things so much easier for you. In the process, I’ve done my first group instance quests in Northrend getting through Utgarde Keep, The Nexus, and Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom. I’m still waiting for a group for Azjol-Nerub and will probably end up enlisting the help of some guildmates for that. I’ve also gotten on Saurfang’s good side, watched Garrosh go from emo bitch to GARROSH SMASH! while bringing the Taunka into the Horde. Now I’m in Dragonblight and ready to take out the Scarlet Crusade, help out the various dragonflights, and have a showdown with the Lich King/Arthas, rebel Forsaken, Varimithras, and Varian Wrynn himself.
The other time sucks that I’ve been working on while getting to this place have been doing the daily cooking and fishing quests. Doing the fishing dailies has inspired me to raise my fishing skill and do fishing related quests, including (as a first step) getting Nat’s Lucky Fishing Pole from Nat Pagle, as a nice change of pace from the usual grind. The highlight though was grinding through the Tuskarr dailies and finally reaching Exalted a few days ago so I could get my Mastercraft Kalu’ak Fishing Pole. Not only has fishing helped me level my cooking skill, but fishing itself is actually pretty profitable if you throw a couple stacks on the Auction House. Personally, I’ve had the best luck fishing Glacial Salmon in Grizzly Hills, because there are a ton of schools along the big river.
The other bonus to getting Exalted with the Tuskarr is getting access to Pengu, which dovetailed nicely with another series of side quests I set myself to doing which was expanding the amount of vanity pets I had. This meant finding deals on the AH, visiting Dealer Rashaad in Netherstorm, killing sprite darters in Feralas, and even visiting Blackrock Spire for the Worg Pup and Smolderweb Hatchling. And yes, I did plunk down the $20 to get the new pets from the Blizzard pet store.
My current goals are to continue to level fishing, get my Inscription shoulder enchants, and start grinding rep with the Oracles while I continue to level up. I also have been saving a majority of my gold to get epic flying and as soon as I have that, I’ll be working on getting my Explorer achievement. As a bonus, I bought myself a new gaming oriented laptop as a part of a black friday deal.
I live in two places right now and have been using my business laptop to WoW with. This laptop is designed to use MS Office and show powerpoint presentations, not to game, so playing WoW in an even passable way is painful. The new laptop should arrive sometime next week!
Northrend has been the most fun I’ve had since starting this character. All in all, I’ve been having a great time and been taking a ton of pictures along the way, no doubt thinking that I’ll do a comprehensive picture post at some point. I still want to make this blog a focus and I obviously haven’t been doing that. I have a ton of ideas (there’s a post about Garrosh that’s been brewing in my head for a few weeks) and will hopefully be willing to share those more than I have been.
Last I wrote, Moosikal was almost at 62 and I was debating when I’d enter Northrend. I was right that I would be in Nagrand by the time I got into Northrend, but I’ve only just finished Terrokar. I haven’t even started a Nagrand quest yet. Part of the reason that I didn’t know which way I would go has to do with my experience in Zangarmarsh and Terrokar. Compared to the rest of Outland, I really love these zones because (with the exception of the area around Auchindoun) they’re pretty and the music in them is great. I’m not a big fan of desolate zones and I like the ones that have real character them. It’s the Desolace effect – we play it because we have to, not because we like it. I like Nagrand too, which is why I’m still not sure what my next steps will be. At the moment I’m feeling like I just want to go to Northrend, but on the other I want to get 
I respec’d to Blood from Unholy for survivability reasons (self-healing is a beautiful thing) and because, through playing my Druid, I had gotten over my need to always have a pet around. Keep in mind my other high level characters on the Horde side are both pet classes - a Hunter and a Warlock. When I made a DK, it made sense to always keep a pet by my side. Now it’s no longer necessary. I started playing some dailies such as doing things for the Oracles and the Grizzly Hills PVP quests. I also did my daily fishing and cooking quests and was lucky enough to snag a Porcelain Bell in one of the fishing bags. I decided to try out the Argent Tournament because I hadn’t really done anything there before. It was interesting and fun in a very different way. It also reminded me that if I’d been spending a lot of time there on my DK, I could’ve gotten Moosikal some heirlooms to run around in. Not that they really would’ve been able to help the entire journey as just a few levels ago, Agility was my primary stat. I also got to fly around Icecrown and pick up Titanium to smelt into titansteel. In just a few days I had enough for the Tome. 
As soon as that battle was over, I hit the trainer in Moonglade and got all my new level 60 spells, including FLIGHT FORM! This is the first time I’ve had Flight Form as a druid and it’s incredible. It’s already gotten me out a few sticky situations, I’ve been able to fly and harvest herbs, and collect the many pieces required to fix up the 
As I state in my