Sunday, July 29, 2012

From the depths I emerge victorious.

Today was the first day in a while that Udderwin was not around to assist me, so I had the option to continue questing without him. However, this would throw our quest chains out of sync. I would be on a different segment of a quest than him and would end up just repeating it anyway when he gets back. Instead, I decided to get geared up and run some dungeons for nice loot. There were now new dungeons available in the dungeon finder that I had not explored yet.

The Scarlet Monastery
Starting off, I was sent to the Scarlet Monastery located in the Tirisfal Glades just outside of the Undercity. There I was joined by a colorful band of Horde players to fight against the corrupt Scarlet Crusade organization, a religious institution that is dedicated to the eradication of the undead, but ironically was itself being manipulated by an undead-possessed leadership. After clearing the first hallway, one member of our group, Traumatik, accidentally pulled too large of a force to fight and he died. Three of the Scarlet Crusaders then turned their attention to me, causing my health to rapidly deplete. I thought this was going to quickly turn into a wipe, but then I surprised myself with some quick theatrics I cooked up to evade the attackers. I cast frost nova, sticking the three of them in the ground and then moved to a safe distance. However, this still did not hold them long enough, as they broke free and began to chase me down the hallway again. Then, as they began to close the distance, I cast blink and teleported behind them several feet, giving me even more time to distract them. Finally, the rest of my group had finished killing off the other crusaders and came to my aid, saving me from what I originally thought was a certain death.

Using Evocation in the Courtyard
Moving forward, we reached the monastery courtyard and had to battle our way through numerous spirits. I noticed that my mana was draining fairly quickly now that my spells were getting more expensive at these higher levels. I was beginning to make use of my evocation spell, which allows me to quickly regenerate over half of my mana while in the middle of combat.

Fending Off Spirits
We didn't run into any further issues throughout the remainder of the dungeon, so we quickly dispatched of the undead boss, the Bloodmage. I thanked the rest of my team for a job well done and immediately queued up for another dungeon.

Defeating the Bloodmage
I now found myself in the Stormwind Stockade, a prison system beneath the human capital city. It's a rather short dungeon mostly consisting of a few quick boss battles. We first took down Randolph Moloch followed by Lord Overheat with little effort.

Lord Overheat
Then we finished off with Hogger the gnoll, albeit with our hunter dying at the last second. Short but sweet, as I got myself a nice new pair of boots before queuing up for my next dungeon.

Hogger
The last dungeon I ran for the night was Blackfathom Deeps. This particular dungeon has some fun aspects to it, as there is some platforming involved that puts your jumping skills to the test, as well as some underwater segments.

Blackfathom Deeps
The first boss we encountered was the infamous turtle Ghamoo-Ra, which I immediately got a chuckle from again thinking about how Jessicaloveu had managed to tame him earlier and aggravate her entire team.

Ghamoo-Ra
The next boss was Gelihast, a murloc with a lot of body guards to take down. He was eliminated with little effort as well.

Gelihast
In a hidden corner underwater, we found Old Serra'kis, a fierce thresher beast. Killing him yielded a secret quest item that we could turn in for a reward.

Old Serra'kis
Finally we made our way to the last boss, Aku'mai, the three-headed hydra beast. Turns out he wasn't so tough either, or perhaps I was just lucky enough to be in very competent groups today. Either way, he was defeated on our first attempt. With Aku'mai slain, that was a total of three new dungeons conquered for the day and some fine loot acquired in the process. I returned to Orgrimmar and logged off for the remainder of the night.

Aku'mai
Now it's time to get philosophical! There's been a lot of people I've met over the course of these three weeks in World of Warcraft so far. In my first week, I met Thelinddra, Damglorand, Aer, Danomiral, and Megarronoz. In my second week, I met Jessicaloveu, Udderwin, Thundurr, Pyraena, and Obscurez. This week, I met Fleeseveonen, Didurmomhard, Betrayal, Tastyface, and Mircat. Some people have come and gone, and others I have stayed in contact with.

For the most part, I've observed that everyone generally shares the same goals in World of Warcraft. Primarily, what they hope to get out of it is a sense of reward and fun from seeing their characters level up and evolve. However, that is not to say they are without any deviation at all. As noted with my previous experiences, some people like Didurmomhard were looking for closer companionships and friends, as he in particular tried to ask me out before realizing that I was a guy. Jessicaloveu, Udderwin, and even I as well didn't mind taking the occasional break from leveling just to have conversations with people either, so some people are more focused on building relationships than others. For many of the people I encountered this week like Tastyface and Mircat, there wasn't much conversation with them as they were more concerned with running dungeons than taking time to converse with the team. As for me, I can be a fairly competitive player, so one of my greatest motivations for playing is getting stronger in order to defeat other players in battle.

Generally I've been viewed very positively among my peers. I would crack a lot of jokes in guild chat, and I kept in touch with some people like Damglorand and Jessicaloveu. Thundurr complimented me just for looking pretty, and Obscurez continued to tag along with Udderwin and I for some more dungeons together because he we were good at filling our team roles. Discerning opinions from my other party members while running dungeons however is another story. Randomly-assembled groups don't tend to talk as much, but the general sense of it I got was again mostly positive for me, as I filled my party role well in most instances and only got myself killed when the rest of my group had already fallen anyway. That was enough to rarely if ever receive any complaints, and as long as no one is talking bad about you in randomly-assembled dungeon groups, that's usually a good sign as that is the best you're often going to get. This isn't to say that I was completely without enemies though. I wasn't on the best of terms with Pyraena after I scolded her a bit for stealing a robe that she had no use for. Beyond that however, attitudes toward me largely ranged from neutral to very positive throughout my experience thus far.

As far as I've noticed about "newbies" in the game in contrast to experienced players, newcomers are treated as nicely as anyone else provided that they act respectfully as well. There is a certain extra amount of admiration received toward more seasoned players with more customized avatars though; even I found myself complimenting one Blood Elf who had a nice set of gear that she had customized to look really cool. Generally speaking though, there didn't seem to be any upper class / lower class divide among players in the community. As long as you're a member of the same faction, or especially a member of the same guild, players are willing to lend helpful hands and assist each other.

This concludes my analysis of World of Warcraft for this week. Next time I'll be commenting on Warcraft's in-game economy and how it affects the players' experience. Bye now!

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Don't gamble with Gamon.

At level 24 now, Deedlitt has been continuing to level faster than the quest chains can even keep up with. Udderwin and I continued to quest in Stonetalon Mountains for a little while, but somehow along the way I noticed I had picked up a quest for Stranglethorn Vale, which is a jungle region in Eastern Kingdoms.

Crossing a Bridge in Stonetalon
We had barely jumped into any Stonetalon quests as it was, but we were itching to explore more of the world anyway, so we shifted gears and headed back to Orgrimmar to catch a zeppelin ride to Stranglethorn. Arriving at Grom'gol Base Camp along the coastline, our first quest orders were to start taking out some troublesome troll encampments.

Stranglethorn Vale
Later, as we reached the Nesingwary Expedition camp, we received orders to hunt various kinds of animals in the jungle. While hunting down these beasts, we encountered a rather large and rare tiger named Pogeyan, which we decided to take down just for the fun of it. As soon as we engaged him however, I was ambushed by a nearby panther, which kept me distracted throughout the entire fight while Udderwin was forced to battle Pogeyan by himself. Luckily he was able to survive on his own thanks to keeping a steady supply of heals on himself.

Pogeyan Slain
As the questing in Stranglethorn Vale continued, I started receiving messages from Jessicaloveu. She was now level 20, but she couldn't keep up with me because she had reached the level cap for a free trial account. Nonetheless, she told me she intends to buy the game sometime this week, so she was continuing to play for the time being to collect more items for her character before she upgrades. Interestingly, she told me that she was running through Blackfathom Deeps, a dungeon in Ashenvale, and she had managed to anger her entire team when she tamed the giant turtle boss as a pet, preventing the rest of her team from collecting loot and completing the quest objective. She ended up getting kicked out of the group and we had a good laugh about it.

More Fighting in Stranglethorn
After some further questing in Stranglethorn, Udderwin and I decided to return to Orgrimmar to finish up for the day and work a little bit on our trade professions. While there, we wandered into the inn and encountered a Tauren NPC by the name of Gamon. What was peculiar about this particular Tauren was that even though he was supposedly Horde-aligned, we were allowed to attack him. Out of curiosity, Udderwin decided to blast Gamon with one of his spells, but quickly found this to be a bad idea as he took a single strike from Gamon's axe and fell to the ground. At level 85, the Tauren clearly is well beyond our abilities.

Avenging Udderwin
But that didn't stop me from feeling the need to avenge Udderwin's death! Firing off a frostbolt, I missed my target and took a swift strike from Gamon's axe, quickly meeting a similar fate to Udderwin, and it was totally worth it. ;)

Bested by Gamon
That wraps up another installment in the adventures of Deedlitt. More to come tomorrow.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Close Encounters of the Strange Kind

A short update today. With the undead stronghold of Deatholme conquered in the Ghostlands, it was now time for Deedlitt to leave the homeland of the Blood Elves behind and begin her journey anew serving a greater purpose in representing the Blood Elves as part of the Horde. I used the Translocation Orb in Silvermoon City to teleport me to the Undercity, wherein I ended up running into several of my guild members waiting for the zeppelin to return to Orgrimmar. I received an invite to their group and promptly accepted.

Dancing on the Zeppelin
Not really sure why they invited me to their group, but I joined just to see what they were up to anyway. It turns out they were all going fishing for a little while, so I decided to pick up the profession and join in with them for a while. As I was fishing with them, a funny thing happened. Another member of our group who was not a part of our guild just out of the blue asked if I wanted to date him. It took me completely by surprise because I hadn't so much as uttered a word to him since I had joined the group. He knew absolutely nothing about me, but yet he was asking me out in a video game, not even caring to confirm if I was actually a girl behind the Blood Elf avatar. I told him I was a guy and had a good laugh.

Fishing in Orgrimmar
After fishing shenanigans were over, I received my orders from the Warchief of Orgrimmar to head to Ashenvale Forest where a fierce battle against the night elves was awaiting. Udderwin and I arrived at the Mor'shan Rampart on the outskirts of Ashenvale when yet another odd occurrence happened. We ran into a Blood Elf by the name of Fleeseveonen who we began to converse with for a little bit. As we were talking, Fleeseveonen kept remarking, "You're so cute!" which Udderwin and I both assumed he was referring to me. But then when I thanked him for the comments, he said "No, I'm talking about the cow," at which point we were both taken aback and I started cracking jokes at him. We snapped back and forth at each other in a tongue-and-cheek manner for a while.

All joking aside, I have no problem with homosexuality or Justin Bieber. :P
With yet more strange shenanigans put behind us, Udderwin and I battled our way through the Mor'shan Rampart into the heart of night elf territory in Ashenvale. Riding Brutusk the ruthless Kodo Beast mount, we crushed their ranks and made our way to Splintertree Post, a base camp for the Horde. We quested there for a while before ultimately deciding to do a dungeon run, this time taking the fight to Shadowfang Keep in Silverpine Forest.

Brutusk's Wrath
For the most part, the run went smoothly, but Udderwin had some problems with another group member again, as the other druid in the group, Mircat, was making it difficult for him to tank for us and as a result it was costing us some deaths.

Shadowfang Keep
Our first attempt at the boss of the dungeon, Lord Godfrey, was a complete wipe. However, after everyone recovered, we came back for round two and successfully conquered Shadowfang Keep. I got a new enchanting recipe to boot, which I used to give my staff a nice red glowing effect.

Lord Godfrey
At this point, Shadowfang had given us a significant experience boost, which as a result left us skipping the remainder of quests in Splintertree Post and leaving toward the Stonetalon Mountains to the southwest. While there, we got introduced to some of the oddest quests to date, one involving a pair of red shades that we were required to wear.

Questing with Style
But before we could continue questing any further, Udderwin and I were checking our maps for directions when my Internet connection suddenly experienced a huge slowdown and I was forced to disconnect.

Where are we again?
My latency remained extremely high for roughly an hour, causing us to give up on World of Warcraft for the remainder of the night. A strange conclusion for a very strange night in Azeroth.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Deatholme Falls

Now at level 19, Udderwin and I returned to the Ghostlands to finish up some loose ends. There were still plenty of quests there for us to complete, but after having done all that dungeon crawling, it was mostly unnecessary at this point. We just went straight for a couple of the higher level quests for the rewards, starting with one involving our old nemesis, Knucklerot.

Hunting Knucklerot
We tracked Knucklerot down in Goldenmist Village and disposed of him without incident this time, and shortly afterward we tracked Luzran down in the Dead Scar and executed him as well. With Knucklerot and Luzran slain, I had now reached level 20 and was eligible to purchase my first mount.

Vengeance at last.
Mounts in World of Warcraft are an invaluable asset. As the game world is extremely massive, it takes a long time to traverse. Mounts are one of many solutions to this problem. Your first ground mount you get becomes available at level 20, and it increases your movement speed by up to 60%. I made my way back to Eversong where the riding trainer was and picked up a Red Sunstrider mount for myself.

Deedlitt's New Mount
While making a quick visit to Silvermoon before I returned to the Ghostlands once more, I encountered a Blood Elf by the name of Thundurr who complimented me on my robe and asked me where I got it. I explained to her that it was from Ragefire Chasm, and offered to give her some free enchantments, but unfortunately I found out that she was using a free trial account which doesn't allow the use of trade windows.

Always a pleasure.
We were now ready for our final mission in the Ghostlands. It was time to strike the leader of the Undead forces there, Dar'Khan, who resided in the Undead stronghold of Deatholme. While battling our way through Deatholme, we encountered another couple of Blood Elves fighting to slay Dar'Khan. Both of them died while fighting him however, presenting an opportunity for Udderwin and I to snag the kill.

Welcome to Deatholme.
We defeated Dar'Khan effortlessly, but we were now feeling a little guilty for what was essentially stealing the kill, so Udderwin resurrected Nastassia and Hansonater to help them with a second chance. Dar'Khan respawned and we slayed him again, this time accompanied with our new-found Blood Elf companions.

Dar'Khan is slain.
With Dar'Khan defeated, the Ghostlands had been liberated by the Undead threat, and I got my brand new staff as a reward. It was time to journey back to the Orc capital of Orgrimmar, where I would receive new orders from the Horde to head to another battlefront.

Dar'Khan is slain. Again.
Now that I have been in World of Warcraft for over a week, I've noticed just how much my relationship with other players can really affect the experience. Playing along side Udderwin and Jessicaloveu greatly improves the experience and makes it more memorable. The unpredictability of what they might say or do next keeps the game feeling exciting even when you might be performing an otherwise mundane quest objective. As also noted from my previous experience in Ragefire Chasm, other players can likewise damage the experience when they don't cooperate or in some cases actively try to make playing the game more difficult for you. Players can surprisingly drive the majority of the entertainment value.

I asked my guildies why they like World of Warcraft to get a sense of what kind of people are attracted to the game. I received a response from Joilyn, a Blood Elf hunter, who replied, "I think its a blast! I love killing stuff!! and Get rewarded!" I suspected I would largely receive this type of response, as it coincides with what I observed about this game previously when I first began playing. The level up and item reward system is an attractive concept for many gamers. They like seeing their character evolve from a fledgling initiate into a powerful fighter. I don't think most people are attracted to World of Warcraft for its social aspect. That is, not at first anyway. What pulls players in is Warcraft's well-executed gameplay system that moves along at just the right pace and doles out the appropriate rewards for your efforts. However, what ends up keeping the players is the community they become attached to once they've familiarized themselves with the game.

Joilyn's Response
One final aspect of Warcraft I would like to touch on today is its economy. It seems even at low levels, trade goods can get pretty expensive. In order to afford any, you're likely going to need to sell some of your own goods first. Looking at just one stack of 20 wool cloth, it costs 25 gold at the cheapest and as high as 60 gold for some listings. I need this material for tailoring, but it's obviously far beyond my price range as I only have roughly 6 gold at my current level.

Wool Listings
I decided to check out some shoulder gear since I was now high enough level to wear some, and this looked more promising. It seems armor is much more affordable than trade goods, with the most expensive piece, Greenweave Mantle of the Eagle, only costing 3 gold. That's half my total wallet, but much more affordable than what I was looking at before.

Shoulder Listings
Investigating further, I took a look at some bags for sale. As suspected, since bags are a valuable good that everyone needs for storage space, they were much more pricey again. Netherweave Bags were going around for 39 gold. The cheapest bag on the list was still a whopping 14 gold, more than double of my current wealth.

Bag Listings
The last set of items I took a look at were some wands, which caster classes use for dealing damage when they have run out of mana. Since these are more class-specific weapons that are only useful to players at my level, prices were much more affordable again. Level 21 Dire Wands were only costing 1 gold, and even level 26 Firestarter wands which I couldn't even wear yet were still only 4 gold; still just barely within my price range. It seems clear that the more general the utility certain items offer, the much more valuable they become in this economy.

Wand Listings
That wraps up my analysis for this week. See you next time when I make my first trip to the new region of Ashenvale Forest!

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Dungeon Crawling with Leadlitt

With the passing of level 15, the dungeon finder had now been unlocked. This tool allows you to automatically assemble a random group for a dungeon. Dungeons in World of Warcraft require groups of players in order to complete because the enemies found within them are classified as elites, which means that they hit harder and pack a lot more health. However, the loot is typically much more rewarding than that of what you would find doing main world quests, so this makes them worthwhile to explore. Udderwin and I queued up for a dungeon immediately following our next login.

The first dungeon we were randomly assembled for was Ragefire Chasm, which is the lowest level dungeon in the game. I was designated as party leader for the group, while Udderwin was assigned as tank. We were joined by Allaunus the healer, and Pyraena and Killerice as damage inflicters. While running dungeons, it's important for different group members to follow their roles. As healer, Allaunus needs to make sure that he keeps the party alive with his healing spells. As tank, Udderwin needs to make sure that he keeps all the enemy attention on him so our weaker party members don't get hit. Following this strategy yields the most success while venturing into dungeons.

Ragefire Chasm
Everything was going smoothly for our first dungeon up until we defeated Taragaman the Hungerer. Once this boss was down, there were still two more to go, but our healer began to get careless. Udderwin started dying and the rest of our group would quickly follow suit. We still managed to take down the second boss, but then Pyraena decided to take a valuable cloth item for herself despite that she had no use for it. As a warrior, cloth doesn't offer enough armor nor any stats that are useful to her class. However, it was very useful to me as a mage, so I started to get angry with her.

Fighting Taragaman the Hungerer
Nonetheless, we continued onward, but Udderwin was continuing to die, and he started to get into an argument with Allaunus for failing to heal him. Eventually, Allaunus stopped providing resurrections for Udderwin, making him have to traverse the entire dungeon all the way back to our position. Luckily, he just barely managed to get back to us in time before the final boss had fallen, in large part due to the fact that I had stopped fighting with the group to slow them down and give Udderwin time to catch up. By this point both Udderwin and I were pretty disappointed with this group and were ready to move on.

Got Milk?
Pyraena and Allaunus quickly left, but Killerice remained with us. We decided to keep him for another dungeon since he was the only other person who was able to perform his group role properly. Now we found ourselves in the Deadmines, a dungeon located in the Westfall region of the Eastern Kingdoms continent. Udderwin was now healer while a new member of the group, Obscurez, was our tank.

The Deadmines
We battled our way through numerous bosses once more, including the "Lumbering Oaf" and his goblin companion, which ended up grabbing me and ramming me into a wall throughout the course of the fight. Udderwin was occasionally struggling to keep Obscurez healed up, but Obscurez was generally understanding of it since this was a much more difficult dungeon than the previous. On the second boss, Udderwin beat me on a roll for a valuable staff that dropped, but on the other hand I had already picked up some nice goods in this dungeon as well, so we were both pretty satisfied.

Carried by the Lumbering Oaf
On the way to the final boss, I got a surprise message from our old friend Jessicaloveu. She had now reached level 15 as well and was itching to join in on the fun. We dispatched of Admiral Ripsnarl without a hitch, but before I was about to start up another dungeon with Jessie, we got into a surprise fight with a silly mini-boss known as Captain Cookie, who began chucking rotten food all over the ground.

Admiral Ripsnarl
Captain Cookie
Another dungeon conquered, and another victory for Deedlitt and Udderwin. We weren't ready to stop just yet though. This time Obscurez decided to tag along with us while we grouped with Jessicaloveu for one more round. We returned to Ragefire Chasm once more, presenting me with another opportunity to snag that cloth robe I wanted from before. For the most part this time, the run went smoothly and I was able to receive my new robe, but then we ran into some snags. Jessie was killed, but she didn't know about Udderwin's ability to resurrect her on the spot, so she released her spirit and was now stuck in Orgrimmar, the capital city of the Orcs. She was unable to find her way back to the dungeon, and to make matters worse, Obscurez had suddenly disconnected from the game. With two party members down, we had to eventually give up on completing the dungeon. Having completed all the quests and gotten my robe already, this wasn't a big deal for me though.

However, Jessicaloveu was still lost in Orgrimmar and had no idea how far from Blood Elf lands she actually was. In addition, Udderwin and I couldn't get to her because if we tried to leave the dungeon it would teleport us far away and back to the Ghostlands where we originally came. We had no other choice if we were going to save her: we had to commit suicide, so we both jumped into the lava pits of Ragefire Chasm and watched ourselves die.

Finding Jessie
Releasing our spirits, we now found ourselves in Orgrimmar and immediately began hunting down Jessica. At last, we finally were able to catch up with her just outside of Orgrimmar's gates. After quick chat, we directed her back into Orgrimmar and traveled up to the zeppelin tower where we would have to wait for the airships to arrive.

Standing Outside Orgrimmar
The zeppelin took us to the Undercity, which is the Undead capital that is linked to Silvermoon via the Translocation Orb. Udderwin and I continued to guide Jessica until at last we found the Translocation Orb and used it to teleport us back to Silvermoon City.

Waiting for the Zeppelin
And once again Deedlitt's journies come to a close for the night. Many battles were fought and dungeons pillaged, but not everything went smoothly. This was the first time I encountered some friction with other players due to their inability to cooperate as a team. This is important to note, as the experience with other players can greatly affect the quality of the gameplay experience for World of Warcraft.

Monday, July 16, 2012

Udder Winning in the Ghostlands

When we last left off, Deedlitt had reached level 9 and made her way to the capital of the Blood Elves, Silvermoon City. She traveled there in the hopes that Damglorand's goods would be awaiting in her mailbox only to find out that Damglorand had misplaced the items. As luck would have it however, upon reentering the game during my second session, three bags and five gold had arrived in Deedlitt's mailbox after all. Damglorand had in fact spelled her name right despite that he had believed otherwise; it just took some time for the mail to arrive. I quickly wrote back a thank you letter and continued on my way back to the Eversong Woods.

Deedlitt and Her Water Elemental Pet
A couple more quests down and I hit level 10. Now my talent trees were unlocked and it was time for me to pick a specialization for my mage. In my case, I chose to go with frost specialization, granting me a new water elemental pet to fight for me as well as increased bonuses to my frost spells.

Meeting a New Friend
While finishing up the remainder of quests in Eversong, I ran into a hunter by the name of Jessicaloveu, and she immediately requested my assistance as she was being attacked by some wraiths. After I quickly dispatched of the enemies, she was impressed by my skills and struck up a conversation with me. It was clear that she was still feeling very new to the game, so I took the time to answer a lot of questions for her and help her get a better grasp of how to play. She told me I was a cool person and that I should add her to my friend list in the game. It felt kind of strange to be complimented for giving what to me was relatively basic knowledge about the game, but to someone completely new to MMOs I'm sure this information must have been invaluable, so nonetheless it also made me feel pretty good that I was able to lend a helping hand to someone. I added her to my friend list and we parted ways for the time being.

Meeting an Old Friend
My final quests in Eversong took me to a dangerous troll village on the southeastern edge of the region where I met up with a friend of mine who also owned the game. His in-game avatar goes by the name Udderwin; a pun I helped him pick out given that he was playing a Tauren, which is essentially a race of humanoid cows.

I believe I can fly!
Finally, it was time for me to leave the Eversong Woods so I could move on to not-so-greener pastures in the Ghostlands. This was the first time Deedlitt got to travel on a flying mount.

Welcome to Tranquillien, your friendly neighborhood ghost town.
We arrived in Tranquillien, a rather shady-looking town in the heart of the Ghostlands, and we snagged a few quests from the townspeople while we were there. As we made our way to the various quest objectives, we encountered a giant undead abomination known as Knucklerot, who turned out to be a force not to underestimate. As one of our quest objectives involved slaying this monstrosity, we figured we would take a shot at him while we had the chance. Between Udderwin and I, we thought we would be able to take him down together despite that Knucklerot was a full 8 levels above us, but it became quickly apparent as soon as we engaged in battle that it was a futile endeavor. I scrambled for the hills after I noticed my first two shots at Knucklerot were completely ineffective, but then suddenly Udderwin insisted I turn around and keep fighting. I knew at this point of course there was no way we could win the fight, but I decided to turn back anyway so that I could fire off some frostbolts and slow Knucklerot down. This would give Udderwin a chance to escape.

Or so I thought.

Unfortunately Udderwin kept fighting to the bitter end and met his demise. I turned around a second time in an attempt to escape again, but it was too late now. Knucklerot swiftly closed in on me and smashed poor Deedlitt into the ground.

Knucklerot smash.
Lesson learned for the both of us: level difference can't be so easily overcome just by teaming up. If we are to defeat Knucklerot next time, we're going to need that level gap closed first.

Meeting an Old New Friend
We returned to town so we could turn in the quests we had completed, and as it turned out, we ran into someone familiar again, Jessicaloveu. We ended up talking for at least a good fifteen minutes on anything from games to smart phones, and another Blood Elf joined in on the conversation named Stingeyarrow.

En garde!
I poked some fun at Udderwin, which then sparked a couple duels in the middle of town. I first tried to use my polymorph ability to turn him into a sheep, but it clearly wasn't working, so by the time I gave up on it, I was too late to start my counterattack, and I was defeated. I immediately challenged him to a second duel, this time going full force with my frostbolts and arcane missiles until I successfully brought him to his knees. An achievement was unlocked for winning my first duel.

Killing Zombies in the Dead Scar
After we had enough shenanigans in Tranquillien, Udderwin, Jessicaloveu and I all grouped up for some quests in the Dead Scar, a dangerous region full of undead minions in the Ghostlands. While we were there, a second large abomination stomped its way onto the battlefield; this time being Luzran, another target that we needed to bring down for a quest but were ill-equipped for. Udderwin and I scrambled out of the way and I tried to warn Jessicaloveu in the chat log, but she failed to get my messages and engaged in battle.

Run, Jessie! Run!
Sufficed to say, it didn't end pretty for her.

Finding Our Way Back to Silvermoon
After a few more quests, Jessicaloveu had to log off, and Udderwin and I decided to head back to Silvermoon City to improve our trade skills. With the aid of many stacks of linen cloth that Udderwin gave me, I was able to craft multiple items for myself and increase my tailoring skills, while in return I paid him back with some enchantments on his gear.

Tailoring Shop
And so ends another day in the life of Deedlitt, capping out at level 16 so far. Stay posted on more adventures to come.