It took me almost a week, but my priest is level 90 (finally). I found leveling MUCH slower than previous expansions, although others I’ve spoken to have said that they found the experience quite quick. I felt that 87 was the ‘hell level’ and the last 50% before 90. It took me almost 2 hours to get the last 20% I needed.
Once I dinged I was in for a surprise. A map covered in blue ! because there are so many daily quests to complete. With the removal of the traditional ‘wear a tabard in a dungeon and get xp’ method of gaining faction we’re now expected to complete dailies. There are dailies for everything, some of the more popular factions you’ll want to work up are the Golden Lotus (lots of gear and neat recipes), the Cloud Serpents (very neat mounts), and of course, the Tillers.
Tiller faction is quite different from regular faction. First of all, you get to garden, which is really neat and fun. It works almost exactly like Wizard101. You have plots that require tilling, and you plant seeds. Once they’re in the ground you’ll probably get a random event like the need to weed, spray bug spray, or kill vermin. Leave the seeds to grow for 24 RL hours, and when you return you’ll be able to harvest the plant. I’ve been growing carrots (pictured above) to use for my cooking. In fact I’m at 595 cooking right now, tomorrow I should finally reach 600. You start out with 4 harvest plots and as you work up faction you’ll gain more plots. An NPC came by to weed a portion of my garden today to reveal another 4 plots, and I can now plant 8 different plants a day. I believe the max is 16.
You’ll occasionally harvest a ‘gift’ item to give to an NPC, or you’ll find one while you complete your daily quests. These can be turned in for a bit of faction with a particular person. As you earn faction with them they become more friendly with you and you’ll get some more rewards and you’ll open up more quests. It’s quite interesting and I can’t help but think that if WoW simply gave us all our own personal homes along with this garden method, players would be incredibly happy. Well, some of us in any case.
I also managed to get my archaeology to 600. It went a lot faster than I had expected, especially once I could fly. A lot of areas where archaeology opened up were phased portions of zones, and there were no mobs around. Needless to say, I’m having a blast in MOP so far. There’s a LOT to do, and if you’re not much for dungeons or raids you can always try a smaller 3-person scenario. There are neat rewards for each as well as achievements. Between dailies, gardening, crafting, dungeons (regular and heroic), scenarios, pet battles, and then all of the other little tid-bit things that capture my attention, I can see that my alts may be taking a back seat for a bit. I have 4 other level 85 characters that I’d like to level up some time (if for no other reason than to allow them to access the panda city) and I haven’t really felt an urge to.
What do you think of the latest WoW expansion so far? Let me know in comments!
As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!