Hello Dalaran - Horde side!

Sassi dinged 74, and received the invite quest to head to Dalaran. (I know I'm weird, but no early ports - they have to earn in the hard way!)

So, off she went.

I was very intrigued to see the 'Horde' digs, as the Alliance side are a but austere and boring. Well the Horde's seem much larger and grander - even the bone strewn main hall with the African themed music.

The inn keeper even titled 'The Beast' was very Horde! I don't think I'd try to get past her - since when did Orc's come in Super-size?

Sas, took the tour picking up her first cooking and fishing daily (both in Dalaran ftw!) - Infused Mushroom Meatloaf and Jewel of the Sewers, so knocked those out quickly. Earning a couple more Achievements with Jewel being her 1000th quest completed. Considering she's NOT exalted with any races there are a whole bunch of quests to still do!

Off to Silvermoon for training her new skills, and a few Battlegrounds before heading back to Warsong Hold in preparation for the next leveling session.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this in a past post or not, but I'm following Jame's Horde Leveling Guide over at Wow-pro.com. I've used parts of his leveling guides before and one day I'm going to role a new character on a new server and follow the whole thing completely through. Jame does a great job of combining quest circuits to maximize xp and minimize travel back and forth.

Check it out, lots of useful guides for leveling and instances.

More screenies

Blizzard's never ending love of poop quests.

Dig through it in Hellfire Pennisula. More poop digging in Borean Tundra. Now in Grizzly Hills - it's your own fecal matter that needs to be examined! You actually have to 'give up' some seeds that you gobble up. Mmm Amberseeds
starts this quest chain (three parts.)

Blackroot Stalks are transform into a purgative. Master Woodsman Andorhol, will send you to the outhouse for 'recovery'. This is complete with animation and sound effects - oh my!

Found a potion on the ground in the Sewers of Dalaran, stuck it in my bags. When I saw it last night, I of course being daring, drank it - ah life as a winged insect!

Fluttered a bit. Not bad. Until I tried to move off the lawn in Dalaran. A warning came up that I was not in a suitable flying zone - ROFL!!! But I'm a bug!

Turned back in to an elf very quickly. Thought it would have been fun to fly around with my wolf and vanity pet out! (The addon Livestock is fantastic if you have a ton of vanity pets. It will do the same for mounts.)

Dalaran at last!!!

Sithi's finally in Dalaran. It's been a long six months waiting to go, but I wasn't going to have this new city adventure ruined! I've been avoiding all things Northrend, as I wanted the surprise and fun exploring a new area without commentary!

Shattrath was so anti-climatic after having my hearth there for 40+ levels. But I didn't know any better, the guild were helping me - a total nooblet. Now as irritating and as slooow as it can be, all characters take the boats/zeps/birds around until they can go through the portal at level 58!

None with hearth in Dalaran until they do the quest either. I know weird, but that's the way it will be!

Travel will be a moot point soon since patch 3.2 there will be a direct route to the dark portal from Org/SW with a direct flight to Shattrath on the other side.

Personally, I've enjoyed that heart-thumping ride though Outlands as a new level 58. I would have loved to go through the portal for the first time when Outlands was fresh and new - it would have been fantastic! Now it's a maniac ride -

• Hoping the flying gankers don't notice me.
• Hoping I don't aggro ever beastie on the way and get dismounted.
• Hoping not to get stepped on so many times by the Fel Reaver this time

It's such a relief to finally reach Shattrath - but oh so fun!

The downside to Dalaran - lag and d/c time! My PC froze every time Sithi took a step. Four freezes later, I went to the forums. Delete your cache, move the WTF and Interface files. Try again. No joy! I finally deleted off all the games I'm not playing (backed up to external HD), did a disk cleanup and defragged and that seemed to work.

Tried it on low settings, with the standard UI - all works. Relog with normal - a bit choppy down to 22-25fps at times, but at least I have my UI!!!!

As for Dalaran! Wowzers! I really like the city. Pretty, easy to get around and the layout is great. It's all there but some things are hidden so you're forced to explore. If Bliz can get it to be a bit more stable it will be perfect.

So Sithi is at home in Dalaran. She's already working the daily cooking & fishing quests. She's closing the gap to cold weather flying (short on cash at the moment so being industrious!! Level 77 will bring artisan and cold weather flying along with the albino drake! I'm so excited for that!