Made it to 70, gotta keep on trucking.

So much finished in so little time. Rytes left for Alaska so I haven't had much to do except hang out with our son and play WoW. I finally got my mage to 70, which was completely unexpected. It actually happened inside Ramparts, I was running some people through and didn't eve notice I was close to leveling and suddenly the achievement popped up. From there I headed out and got my flying mount, which is kind of disappointing. Not only because my gold savings took a significant hit, but because now I'll mostly be in Northrend where I can't use the mount anyway. I could have skipped buying it but it's one of those things you just HAVE to do when you hit 70.

Northrend is awesome and Howling Fjord is by far my favorite out of the two new starting areas. For the first time in nearly forever I'm actually reading the quests and getting into the story. Being on the front lines with my fellow Forsaken is great, I love getting to see the continuation of the whole new plague storyline that started way back in Brill.

I ended up getting invited to take a stab at Utgarde Keep about thirty minutes after I hit level 70. We ended up wiping about ten times, but that was mostly due to random puggers rotating through our group. None of us had ever been inside the instance before and had NO idea what the boss strategies were. While it was frustrating it was actually pretty cool. A nice change from knowing everything like the back of my hand, knowing when to stand where and so on. Having to actually learn the fights was fun, despite 15 gold in repair costs.

It is strange and kind of frustrating hitting 70 as the expansion comes out. Everything I've known or read about being 70, the rep grinds, the gear I should go for, the dailies... it's all changed for the most part. It's just ten more levels before I get to settle in and fine tune my character. I also have to start playing my wife's character so it doesn't end up too far behind, I hope I'm good at healing.

It's Like Christmas For Dead People... Well Undead People Anyway.

Hallow's End is here and I've been pretty busy trying to get those achievements checked off the list. Sadly I won't be able to get the "Hallowed" title because the new characters my wife and I are playing are only level 52 at the moment. We can't exactly spend our days farming the Headless Horseman. That little disappointment aside I've been having a lot of fun.

The best part so far has been the candy buckets. Funeral and Rytes started off at level 48 and after getting all the buckets in The Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor we hit level 52. This recruit a friend bonus xp is awesome, giving us between 9300 and 10500xp for each one we did. We've been doing the dailies but haven't had a chance to check out the wickerman or do the rotten egg quest yet. We'll probably get to it tonight.

It's pretty cool running around all over the world and seeing the decorations and people populating areas that are usually ghost towns. It's a pretty massive celebration for what is essentially the Forsaken independence day, which makes me wonder why any race of Alliance would celebrate it. Heck, it doesn't even seem like the rest of the Horde would, but the Alliance? Yeah sure, I know it's your traditional "harvest festival" but let's be serious... jack-o-lanterns, ghosts, the trouble coming out of Scarlet Monastery... it's all about us Forsaken baby. Remember to thank us the next time you're gobbling up some treats.

What It Means To Be Forsaken And What Not To Do.

David Bowers over at WoW Insider posted a nifty introductory article on RPing an Undead. Reading it got me thinking about my history and current choices when it comes to roleplaying in WoW. It's safe to say that the only race which captures my interest beyond aesthetics in WoW is The Forsaken. It's a mixture of their (our?) painful history bringing about a powerful thirst for revenge as well as a desire for the destruction of all living things that really tugs at my heartstrings.

There are some that say Undead are the Horde version of Night Elves. What that implies is that people who take little interest in lore and just want a character that "looks cool" or fits into some typical fantasy archetype (although you'll encounter a lot less Undead erotic roleplaying than Night Elf). I won't sit here and deny that The Forsaken does draw in a certain type of person that tends to annoy the crap out of me. The people I'm talking about tend to be freshly out of puberty who select this race for a couple for either the hair, the fact that they are "lol zombies", and the "rocking out" dance.

First off this hair is out of control. The fact the spiked hair seems to be modeled after a member of a horrible band like Mudvayne makes it even worse. I mean come on, we're undead, soulless rotting shells of our former humanity (actually kind of like Mudvayne). I'm not sure if people realize it or not but haircuts like this and the mohawk take a lot of effort and upkeep to stay looking foolish. It's just not the kind of thing a member of The Forsaken should be concerned with. Every time I see an Undead with either one of these hairstyles I instantly dismiss them as being those kids that hang out at the mall being obnoxious and begging their parents for money to buy more stupid clothing from Hot Topic.

Then we have the "lol zombies" factor. In the past few years there has been a surge of zombie fandom. I recognize that there have been some great horror movies, of which I'm a fan, and the concept of becoming re-animated after death is pretty interesting. However having the detailed history of origins of The Forsaken reduced to someone walking around saying "braaaaaaains" gets on my nerves. I'm not the RP/lore police by any means. You can play however you wish, but that means I can also criticize you as I wish. Maybe it's that it was funny the first fifty times I saw someone doing it like four years ago and now it's more worn out that any Chuck Norris joke you can think of (are those even jokes?).

Finally I come to that horrible dance. I need to clarify that I'm speaking about the male Undead dance. The one where you hop around like an idiot throwing up the horns more often than Ronnie James Dio. The female dance is actually kind of pretty and seems to fit with the characters just fine. The male dance though is just out of place within the lore and setting. Overall it just adds to this general image that is available and annoying when creating an Undead character. I mean as Forsaken we've been recently freed from the grasp of the Lich King, we're bound to a curse which prevents us from enjoying the world as we did our entire lives, and our lands are corrupted and we've been forced to move into the sewers of our former city. Sounds like a perfect time to act like a spazz and hop around head banging... or not.

Although after looking at it... Dio does kind of look like an Undead Priest:

All I'm really saying is that The Forsaken (in my opinion) have one of the most interesting storylines in the WoW universe. We even have a leader that people take actual pride in (have you ever seen how tenaciously people from all Horde races will rush to defend The Dark Lady), and a wonderful opportunity to enjoy the game as a character who doesn't really fit with The Alliance or The Horde. Please take advantage of these things, for all of us, I don't want to see another mohawk.