With much trepidation and a slight delay (no thanks to you Amazon) I started my path to 85. First up, Blizzard have done an amazing job with the new expansion. After grabbing Flight Master’s license and doing a few laps of Oggrimar and beyond I pondered where to go to first Vashj’ir or Mount Hyjal? In the end I opted for the underwater world of Vashj’ir. The quest lines are really well designed and thought out. The Sea Legs ability is heaps of fun and actually reminds me of those movies you see of people walking on the moon. The water mount is also great little touche that just help with the immersion into this watery world. The 20,000 leagues under the sea themed quests often made me smile and progressing through the Naga themed quests was really awesome. I really enjoyed this zoon, though somehow I missed I seem to have skipped over some quests as I am ten or so shy of completing Sinking into Vashj’ir. Just running around this zone got me to 82, those two levels just seemed to fly by, 83 was more painful, 84 with it’s 5 million xp requirement looked daunting, but nowhere near as intimidating as the 9.2 million required to get to 85!! The Throne of Tides instance was also a refreshing experience (always nice to learn new encounters), but I only got to run it once. While I could have moved onto Deepholm, Uldum or Twilight Highands, I opted for Mount Hyjal. Progress was a lot slower in terms of levelling, but the story line was once again well superbly constructed and I found more engaging than the Vashj’ir one, but maybe that was just because the characters were more familiar. Things certainly are more linear these days, and you don’t seem to get lost quite as easily, though the number of people asking for advice still remains at ridiculous levels - shame they can’t read the quest text eh?? You come across the second starter dungeon much sooner in Hyjal (and don’t make the mistake I did in flying to Blackrock, just click on the little turret thing behind the quest giver). I really liked this dungeon and the encounters, so much so that I’ll end this post for now with a little video of my run through it.

Blackrock caverns from Greg Stewart on Vimeo.