Horde Leveling Addon Speed - Chapter 1

After consulting with Jame, I have decided to do my own series on leveling speed with the new addon, but for the Horde side.

Today I tested Zerinj's Durotar guide on an orc shaman, who happens to be named Mokrana (Mokra, my usual shaman name, was taken >.< ). While leveling, I'm also following Trollvink's Shaman Leveling tips. The end result:

Zerinj's Durotar Guide 1-12: 4h 14min
= 21min/level

I was actually within a few XP of dinging 12 at this point, but so close that someone could easily have made it to 12 had they killed a couple more mobs. I tend to avoid non-quest mobs like the plague, so I figure it's okay to assume level 12 at that point.

After seeing Jame's results, I was actually very dissapointed with this - it took over an hour longer than the human starting area. There are several possible reasons for this:

• The human starting area may be simply a better place to level. I know there are some pretty irritating quests in Durotar, such as the Echo Isles, Dark Storms, and the Skull Rock quests.
• A Paladin may be easier to level from 1-10 than a Shaman. I did take about 15-20 minutes to do some shaman quests, but the paladin probably had paladin quests to do too.
  
• Jame may just be a better player than me!

Like Jame, I tried to make this character as realistic to what someone would actually be playing as possible, but also a "worst case" sort of character. To this end:

• I started on a fresh server, with zero twinking of any kind.
• I purposefully logged out outside of an inn, so I had zero rested XP.
• I played like a reckless noob! I actually died several times, mostly during the Dark Storms and Skull rock quests.
• I leveled two gathering professions as I went, and also cooking. I actually want to use this character someday and I don't want her professions gimped! This seems reallistic enough as well, and probably added a decent chunk of time to my leveling.

Here are some screen shots of Mokrana in her journey to level 12:

Level 6 - Valley of Trials Complete
38min

Level 10 - Achievement
2hr 32min

Level 12 - Durotar Guide Complete
4h 14min

All in all, this isn't bad, but it isn't really as good as I had hoped. I disliked the bit of grinding that was required by the guide at certain points, and I know there is a little of that in the Barrens guide as well. We'll have to see how that goes.

I hope to do a speed test of the Barrens guide next, but that won't be for another couple weeks.

Horde Leveling Guide Testing, Part 2

So, if you read my previous post about my plans to test Jame's Leveling Guide Addon, you probably thought I was being pretty ambitious. I had originally planned to test, revise, and then speed test all of Jame's leveling guides in order from 1 to 80.

I since realized that this is sort of a waste. I have lots of alts at in between levels that I am really interested in leveling. There are also a LOT of people at WoW-Pro to help out with testing. I think it's probably a better idea to just level my alts normally and test and revise the addon as I go. At the end, if Jame hasn't already gotten around to it, I'll probably try my hand at speed testing the guide. But for now I think I'm going to be focusing on leveling my paladin Deedlet, who I hope one day to make a kick ass tank.

However, I'll go ahead and post here when I do make progress on the addon. My google site is already linked on this blog, and you can check it to see my most recent revisions.

Since my last post, I've updated two guides:

• Arathi Highlands (35-37) - Added coords when needed, added missing turn-in, various small note fixes.
• Desolace (37-38) - Added coords when needed, fixed some broken notes and other broken steps, added some notes and details for clarity (particularly when NOT taking a follow up to a quest).

I'll continue to post here when I update guides, and especially when I start speed-testing.

Durotar Guide Revamp

I've finished my first wave of revisions for the Durotar portion of the WoW-Pro leveling guides. It can be found here, on my google site. I'll be uploading all my revisions to this site as I do them, for Jame to put into the next release of the addon as he so chooses.

Summary of major changes:

• Added lots of coordinates where they were missing, even when it was sort of obvious where to go - the idea is completely streamlined leveling where all you do is follow the arrow
• Added all class quests from level 1-10. Some will be continued in the next guide, if they take players into the Barrens.
• Clarified and updated a few notes, added notes if it seemed pertinent.
• Rearranged a couple of things for more streamlined questing.
• Corrected mistakes in spelling of a few quests, and a few wrong quest IDs, which were causing auto-complete, coordinate, or quest gathering issues.
• Added a couple missing steps, where quests were not turned in.

I do want to thank and give credit to Clearasil, who did the original coding for this section. While it needed some revisions, it was overall very nice and a great backbone to build off of. I am NOT looking forward to starting from scratch in some of the later guides.

I'll be speed testing this section again later, but that's it for tonight. Hope you folks enjoy it!

Horde Leveling Guide Testing

I've decided to help Jame (of Jame's Leveling Guides) out with his new addon by testing (and writing, where guides are missing) the Horde side of the addon. Following Jame's example, I'm going to first revise a section, then speed test it with a fresh, non-rested character. Since Jame is using a Human Paladin on the Alliance side, I'm thinking of using an Orc Shaman for Horde - that matches the traditional achtypes nicely :)

Here is a tentative order by which I will test the guides:

• Durotar - Zerinj's Orc/Troll Starter (1-12) - Revisions - Speed Testing
• The Barrens - Hosho's Barrens (12-20) - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide (21-31) - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide (31-41) - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide (41-51) - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide (41-51) - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide (51-60) - Writing - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide - Hellfire Peninsula - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide - Zangarmarsh - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide - Terokkar Forest - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide - Nagrand - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide - Blade's Edge Mountains - Writing - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide - Netherstorm - Writing - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide - Howling Fjord (70-71) - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide - Borean Tundra (71-73) - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide - Dragonblight (73-75) - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide - Grizzly Hills (75-77) - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Shinke's Tauren Starter (1-12) - Writing - Speed Testing
• Snowflake's Blood Elf Starter (1-12) - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Snowflake's Ghostlands Guide (13-21) - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Manovan's Undead Starter (1-12) - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Sinvelknight's Silverpine Guide (13-21) - Writing - Speed Testing
• Jame's Death Knight Guide - Writing - Speed Testing

Note that some of these may be done by other WoW-Pro people before I get to them.

I know this is quite a hefty list, and I don't have any dates set for when I will be finishing each one. I have a pretty busy schedule as a college student, but hopefully I can get a good chunk of them complete for Jame while he works on the Alliance side. The final version will of course still be subject to Jame's approval, but by making sure these guides are up to his standards, I hope to streamline this process so he can get back to writing the guides we all love!

Slight Revamp

As those who have read this blog in the past can see, I've made some changes to reflect my recent in game transition. I think it's looking pretty nice around here now, and I've managed to incorporate the meaning of both Fianna and Fian in the layout as well. Now, off to some WoW-Pro work and then to play!

Guild Upheval

Well, it's time to change the name of this blog. Yesterday, I finally decided to leave my guild, AEAE. A good friend of mine left with quite a few of his friends to start his own guild. While I did not choose to join him (his raid times just didn't work for me), I also decided to leave. Several of the folks who had been running Naxx10 with me are coming with me, and we are starting our own little guild.

I tried to minimize the drama of leaving and to make the transition as smooth as possible. While it came suddenly, at the same time this had been building for quite a while. I know I've vented a bit here with some of the frustrations I've experienced with the guild politics and tension AEAE. When Pat left the guild, and my raid group began talking about leaving as well, I reallized that it would probably be very good for me to leave as well. As I've also mentioned here, I'm incredibly busy this term with school and stressed out about grad school preparations. Getting out of that added stress of large guild drama should be a load off my back.

The Naxx group that broke off are planning on starting a little guild. One possible guild name we are looking at is Fianna:

"semi-independent warrior bands who lived apart from society in the forests as mercenaries, bandits and hunters, but could be called upon by kings in times of war"
-Wikipedia

I really like the imagery of this, and I hope it is the name chosen. However we are still looking at some others. While this is going to be a very small guild, and being GM would not be much of a stress, I'm planning on leaving that job to the couple who came up with the whole idea.

I'm hoping we can occasionally team up with some of our old guild mates for instance runs and the like. I plan to create a private channel and give it out to all my friends, so that we can stay connected and "PuG" from that channel rather from the general masses.

While I'm happy about being stress-free and excited about new possibilities with this new guild, I am also feeling rather down. I helped build AEAE from the ground up - I was in it since it's inception. It's a bit embarassing to admit it, but the feelings I have right now are a lot like breaking up with a boyfriend/girlfriend - even though it may be for the best, it can be really depressing and make you sad to think about all the memories you built together. Even if you broke up on good terms and will stay friends, something is still ending and it hurts.

My friend (who does not play) seemed shocked when I told him this story. He never suspected that WoW had drama. I laughed when he said that. Guilds have drama galore - as a guild leader you just have to try to minimize it and keep it between only those involved. Hopefully in a smaller guild where all are good friends and where I am not an officer, I will see less drama from now on!