You folks decide on hitting the Howling Fjord or the Borean Tundra first?

I'm going to bet that the BT will be pretty crowded, since the boat from Stormwind goes there. To get to the Howling Fjord, you'll need to take the boat from Menethil (the old Darnassus dock).

HF I guess, depending on how crowded it gets in the first few days. I'm not getting my expansion pack until 1-2 days after launch day (Gamestop is shipping it ON 11/13 with 2-day shipping), so I guess I'll wait to see where everyone goes first.

...but man, it's gonna be sweeeet :)

Not sure which aspect I'm looking forward to more: questing, or fishing! For those of you that are into fishing achievements, I can now proudly say that I'm the owner of a Magical Crawdad Box! I fished up Mr. Pinchy a week ago. You get 3 wishes... with a 2 day cooldown in between. There are 5 possible wishes granted, with the desired one being the crawdad box (which is a pet). My first 2 were duds, but the last one came up aces! So if you see that rascal hanging out beside me, please note that it was not without drama! :)

man, could this day drag any worse?! Mr. Pinchy and I are fiending for some game time! anyone up in the mix with news to report? also, did anyone rock the midnight launch? i have a fond memory of the previous x-pack launch... it was a peng party! we even slammed some brews whilst waiting in line! that was a blast.

I've got a College of Ed senate meeting, so I couldn't pick up my copy this morning. I brought my laptop and everything!

Well, I think I might not have enough space anyway, it looks like I have some DVD burning in my future before install. boo...

I decided to level Takifugu first. I think he will be more useful since he will be a tank. Once I get to 70 I may repec for tanking and level that way since it is also a decent dps/aoe leveling spec. I'll level Varah from time to time to be able to switch things up.

Taki is currently 342 Inscription. If anyone needs any glyphs, let me know.

I should be leveling TBear Monday sometime, after I get up. Vacation ftw.

P for Penguins (good)... Q for Queues (bad)...

How insane are the Queues these days?! I seem to remember queues here and there when the first xpack came out, but nothing even close to this craziness. I almost want to find a bot program somewhere, just to keep my char logged in 24/7. It's tough to jump in when I'm out of the house a lot... The estimated queue time is often longer than the amount of time I have to play :P I'm sure the madness will die down in a bit, but right now, deeeeyam. I've barely been able to play :(

Ok, that all said, been enjoying the game thoroughly when I'm actually in there. Both starting zones have a cool look and feel. The Nordic style of Howling Fjord is awesome. Neat quests too. Also, as an avid cooking/fishing fan, the food buffs are pretty nice; it's great that they last an hour now. Really feels like it's worth it to cook up some goodies now. The tailoring skill to find more cloth off of mobs seems cool; but since I have nothing to compare it to, I'm not sure just how much extra frostweave it has netted me so far.

A note to all mages: Arcane is AWESOME. I am currently specced 61/0/0, and loving it. I never realized just how useful the Slow talent spell could be. I basically do an Arcane Barrage, cast slow, do an Arcane Missiles, then if the mob isn't dead, another Arcane Barrage. Keeping mage armor up at all times, and with the occassional evocate, you pretty much never have to stop and drink. Plus, unless the mob has a ranged attack, you will hardly get touched. Good times.

EDIT: I was browsing glyphs last night, and noticed there is a "20% mana regen while mage armor is active" one... That, coupled with the normal 30% mage armor regen, plus 30% from arcane talent... and you're looking at 80% mana regen while casting. Clearly, an AWESOME amount! I'm considering regemming for spirit. I still have a ton of spellhit on all my PvE gear, which is basically completely wasted since the arcane talent already gives you the max +3% to hit. But then again, I figure in a few levels, green items will replace all my current epic gear anyway :P

Here's to hoping the queue is less than an hour when i get home today...

.n

For all you herb pickers and mine diggers out there, I HIGHLY suggest downloading the node import data off of wowinterface.com. This might be old hat for some/all of you, but I only discovered it this past weekend. I've always used the Gatherer add-on, which has helped me compile a decent array of nodes via my own efforts, as well as data transmitted from guild members; but that PALES in comparison to having what is most likely EVERY possible resource node pre-marked. I was having a hard time getting my herb skill up to 400 (finshed all the BT quests, starting up in Dragonblight), so I thought I'd try out downloading node data to help me get over the hump. Man, I soooo wish I would've done this earlier. Granted, they haven't yet made WotLK data available yet, but i'm sure it's just a matter of time. I jumped back into outland, flew around for 15 mins or so, and easiliy gained the 18 or so skill points I needed.

Long story short: Download gathered + node data if you want to rake in herbs and ore!

.n