In which I now feel prepared for the Cataclysm
After a couple of days and a few thousand words, I came to the realization that I simply wasn't enjoying writing my NaNoWriMo novel. So, rather than push myself and end up in a spiral of self-loathing, I chose another random goal for myself.
I decided to get Loremaster on both an alliance and horde character before Cataclysm comes out.
Now, the decision to get Loremaster on my main horde character was pretty much a no-brainer. She's the character I love the most, the one I get all my achievements and stuff on, and I already had Loremaster of Northrend and Outland on her. I've leveled so many horde alts in the past that it wasn't much of a challenge honestly. Being able to one-shot everything with Ice Lance was helpful of course.
Of course, I have to have some silly plan involved in everything I do. Doing these Loremaster quests was no exception.
I'd never done the Green Hills of Stranglethorn quests on Tearless, because even as a babby WoW player in vanilla I recognized that it was a poorly designed piece of shit. What better way to complete Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms than with the worst quest series in the game? (Originally I'd worked Loremaster of EK up to 545/550 and then swapped to Kalimdor with the intention of turning in GHoS for my final Loremaster quests, but when it became clear that I couldn't finish Kalimdor without doing some EK quests, I bit the bullet and went for the next best option.)
Test of Lore was actually a quest series I'd never, ever done. While much of alliance questing is steeped in lore ("go talk to this man! now go talk to this man!"), horde quests are mostly of the "go place, kill thing" variety. This quest series, though, is pretty much the benchmark for Awesome Horde Lore quests. So I picked it to finish off Loremaster. Because I'm a woman like that.
Now, doing Loremaster on Leptantha was a whole other can of worms. I quested her through vanilla during vanilla (so, when I largely had no idea what I was doing), did the first half of BC with her, and then went back to level her to 80 in the doldrums of Wrath. I leveled her from mid-60s to 80 almost exclusively through dungeon finder, so I wasn't anywhere close to Outland or Northrend completion on her (and I'm still not). But the goal of this exercise was to complete the old world quests before they change.
I'm not nearly as well-versed in alliance questing as I am in horde, so I didn't have a plan for finishing Kalimdor. I just systematically went through each zone from north to south and ended up in Silithus for the end. There is some poetry in finishing Kalimdor on my druid with a Cenarion Circle quest, though.
I had a couple criteria for finishing Eastern Kingdoms, and therefore Azeroth. First, I didn't want to leave off in the middle of a quest chain. Secondly, and more importantly, it had to be a quest that was distinctly alliance in flavor. So I became a horrible traitor and murdered Nathanos Blightcaller. (I'M SORRY ;_;)
Overall, I think it was a fun exercise. I got to see, if not all, then the large majority of every quest in the game before they all go away. I still have Outland and Northrend to do on Lepta, but there isn't anything there that's changing (with the exception of needing to do the alliance Battle for the Undercity before they remove it).
And somewhere in all that obsessive-compulsive behavior, I managed to get myself a new job. It's the opposite of getting fired! Relieved that my earlier grim prophecy did not come true.
I decided to get Loremaster on both an alliance and horde character before Cataclysm comes out.
Now, the decision to get Loremaster on my main horde character was pretty much a no-brainer. She's the character I love the most, the one I get all my achievements and stuff on, and I already had Loremaster of Northrend and Outland on her. I've leveled so many horde alts in the past that it wasn't much of a challenge honestly. Being able to one-shot everything with Ice Lance was helpful of course.
Of course, I have to have some silly plan involved in everything I do. Doing these Loremaster quests was no exception.
I'd never done the Green Hills of Stranglethorn quests on Tearless, because even as a babby WoW player in vanilla I recognized that it was a poorly designed piece of shit. What better way to complete Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms than with the worst quest series in the game? (Originally I'd worked Loremaster of EK up to 545/550 and then swapped to Kalimdor with the intention of turning in GHoS for my final Loremaster quests, but when it became clear that I couldn't finish Kalimdor without doing some EK quests, I bit the bullet and went for the next best option.)
Test of Lore was actually a quest series I'd never, ever done. While much of alliance questing is steeped in lore ("go talk to this man! now go talk to this man!"), horde quests are mostly of the "go place, kill thing" variety. This quest series, though, is pretty much the benchmark for Awesome Horde Lore quests. So I picked it to finish off Loremaster. Because I'm a woman like that.
Now, doing Loremaster on Leptantha was a whole other can of worms. I quested her through vanilla during vanilla (so, when I largely had no idea what I was doing), did the first half of BC with her, and then went back to level her to 80 in the doldrums of Wrath. I leveled her from mid-60s to 80 almost exclusively through dungeon finder, so I wasn't anywhere close to Outland or Northrend completion on her (and I'm still not). But the goal of this exercise was to complete the old world quests before they change.
I'm not nearly as well-versed in alliance questing as I am in horde, so I didn't have a plan for finishing Kalimdor. I just systematically went through each zone from north to south and ended up in Silithus for the end. There is some poetry in finishing Kalimdor on my druid with a Cenarion Circle quest, though.
I had a couple criteria for finishing Eastern Kingdoms, and therefore Azeroth. First, I didn't want to leave off in the middle of a quest chain. Secondly, and more importantly, it had to be a quest that was distinctly alliance in flavor. So I became a horrible traitor and murdered Nathanos Blightcaller. (I'M SORRY ;_;)
Overall, I think it was a fun exercise. I got to see, if not all, then the large majority of every quest in the game before they all go away. I still have Outland and Northrend to do on Lepta, but there isn't anything there that's changing (with the exception of needing to do the alliance Battle for the Undercity before they remove it).
And somewhere in all that obsessive-compulsive behavior, I managed to get myself a new job. It's the opposite of getting fired! Relieved that my earlier grim prophecy did not come true.