Not sleeping, just grinding

Having a two weeks off work for the Christmas holidays has been an interesting experience. The first week was a lot of traditional family stuff, but the second has seen a lot of WoW play and some noteable milestones for Andro.

She began the holiday season having just hit 80 and achieved her Seeker (3000 quest) achievement and pottered about for several days getting the various Winter Veil quests sorted - they were amazingly mobbed in the first few days but very quiet when my associates Buliwyf and Vhail ran through them. Andro completed (I think) her Winter Veil pet collection (thanks to the fact they're BoE and could be traded between alts) and also picked up the tailoring pattern she was missing (the hordeside green one) in a late night run into Ogrimmar. The BG quest was problematic as there weren't many horde going into the BGs (AV kept shutting due to lack of opposition as they were 35 v 5; I did get the Blitz achievement out of it though).

Andro finished off several zones too, notably Storm Peaks, Zul Drak and Sholazar Basin (as well as a last few in Borean Tundra) leavign her just Icecrown in Northrend. More significantly she spent several days combing every last inch of Kalimdor for quests she'd missed as well as researching Wowhead for drop-started quests. She finally got it done after what seemed like an age, meaning that when Icecrown is completed (probably in the next week, group quests permitting) she'll have her Loremaster achievement. Yay!

Several faction grinds progressed nicely too. Having become something of a fishing addict since the launch of Wrath, she wanted the Tuskarr fishing rod and made it to Exalted with them. She also got to Revered with the Sons of Hodir and made good progress with Knights of the Ebon Blade and Argent Crusade.

The Sons advancement allowed Andro to purchase an Ice mammoth for her mount collection, and the quest rewards funded the puchase of several more outland flying mounts. Finally, yesterday, her tailoring reached 425 and she spent a small fortune on materials (okay, only about half what the mammoth cost) and bought a Magnificent Flying Carpet. This was Andro's 50th mount and so she gained the Leading the Cavalry achievement and received an Albino Drake.

Her other collection (pets) also got some loving over the festive season - she hooked Giant Rat in the  Dalaran Sewers and also aquired a Mr Pinchy in Terrokar (though sadly he didn't furnish a pet so that quest continues). Good Progress was also made on Higher Learning, with just one book to get for the set (and the associated pet!).

Some general thoughts:

1) When doing Loremaster, the "low level quests" map option is your friend, but it can still be tricky to find them all. Also, some Kalimdor instance quests count, but others don't. Hard to judge really. Wowhead is your friend in all of this, but having quests completed number for the continent is quite unhelpfil (compared to the Outland/Northrend regionalised ones)

2) When grinding Sons rep, the daily quests are fine and generally straightforward (excluding the damned spear which I've only managed once). It's also worth keeping an eye out for Everfrost Chips which are the Sons' equivalent of Netherweb eggs. They spawn at various points in the valley (and even within the Sons' base) and seem to share nodes with various herbs.

3) Wintergrasp can be fun, and gathering crystalized earth, water, fire and shadow can be profitable (Life is a pain though). Watch out for the horde (usually troll rogue in my experience) ganksters though ...

4) Why oh why is there such an imbalance on specialist cloth crafting. For Spellweave, you go to the Nexus (and point will do) and bob's your uncle. Moonshroud you have to go to the Emerald Dragonshrine, but again pretty safe. For Ebencloth (which Andro wants for the hit gear) you have to go to a cave deep underneath Icecrown citadel (which can be a pain to find the first time) and have to fight a number of mobs (okay, not a challenge at 80, but more of an issue for low levels and pretty much impossible without a flying mount).

UPDATE: From the notes posted yesterday, it looks like this is changing in 3.0.8, with all the Northrend specialist cloths being created at locales in Dragonblight

5) There's enough dailies to drown a battleship; a guildee was asking about a Northrend equivalent of the Shattered Sun for grinding cash, but across the Sons of Hodir, Eben Blade, Kalu'ak, Frostborne, Argent Crusade, Wyrmcrest and Sholazar factions (Frenzyheart in my case) there's an abundance to choose from. The Daily-within-a-daily (and the timed bonus element) of the Argent Crusade dailies in Zul Drak were notable.

6) The sense of narrative in Wrath is stunning. Every zone has its storylines that build to a conclusion, and many threads cross zones. I really liked the way phasing gives you a sense of influencing the world, whether its the Wrathgate, opening up Dun Niffelheim or building/capturing bases for the Alliance in Icecrown. There's an epic feel to the whole thing (even if Blizzard do seem fond of repeating some of the ideas). For the most part is solo-friendlly too. There are a fair number of group quests, but only occasionally does that gate your progress.

7) Blizzard still retain their sense of humour and love of pop culture in-jokes: