It’s a Whole New Game

December 9, 2008 at 10:15 am (Meanderings)
Tags: 80, Ding, Guild Family, Hunter, Hunter Gear, Kara, Leveling, TBC, WotLK

So, I’ve dinged.

Somewhere this weekend in between being horrifically ill and sleeping so much I thought I was a teenager again, I managed to hit 80 with my hunter. It was, in my opinion, the Perfect Ding.

I remeber when I hit 60. I was in Silithus, farming the Twilight Cultists for rep. I knew it was coming and every kill came faster than the one before. This was long before pets had any real tanking abilities, and I asked so much of Crisavec the Tallstrider as we killed more, and more and more cultists.

And then I dinged.

It was kind of shocking, I wasn’t really expecting it quite at that moment. The purple bar had buried itself under the nose of the little gryphon on the right, so the exact time I hit 60 came as a small, but deeply satisfying surprise. Most of the guild I was in at the time was online, and after I announced “DING 60!” over guild chat, I recieved a gratifying flurry of well-wishes. It was, in all respects, very nice.

I also remember when I dinged 70. I was in Netherstorm, doing the Kirin’Var ghosts quests. I had a friend of mine with me, who was helping me pound out the last few quests. I turned one in and the Magic Moment happened. I also happened to be standing in a small circle of people who were questing there as well,many of them who I knew just from being around on the server. It gave me a nice warm glow to have all sorts of caring people standing around me and /cheering and /applauding.

And on to 80. This time, I was counting down every one of the last few ‘bars’ of xp I needed. “Two more bars!” “One more bar!” I was announcing it over guild chat and recieving cheers and well wishes and encouragement from everyone. I finally dinged turning in a quest to the Bone Witch in Icecrown. There wasa few random folks there who cheered me, and because it was announced over guild chat via the Achievement system, everyone who was on sent me congratulations. I had been chatting with a friend of mine over whispers, and he must have been doing a /who oriniwen every few minutes or so because he knew right away and also sent his warm wishes.

I prefer to quest and farm and do everything but instances and raids by myself, so I was happy to just be puttering around the Vrykul village all by myself. It was nice to have the contact with my friends via whispers and guild chat, though I had logged off vent to focus on what I was doing. I felt warm and happy and comforatbly nestled in the collective bosom of my guild family. It was so nice, so much the epitome of the moments that I log in for. Perfection.

However, it’s a whole new game now. I bounced into 80 with the bow from Kara, a few trinkets from Brewfest and some odds and sods of TBC rings that need to be replaced. I have been to maxdps.com and planned out my gear map. Looks like I’ll be grinding Knights of the Ebon Blade rep like mad, and King Ymiron from Heroic Utegarde Pinnacle is basically a hunter loot pinata.

It wearies me a little, looking at all those rep grinds and all that badge farming and endlessly running heroics. I feel like I didn’t get to experience enough of the WotLK quest and lore content, even though I took my sweet time leveling and questing. I feel a little out of sorts, a little disoriented now that I’m 80 and looking at what basically amounts to starting the game all over again. I’m a raider, first and foremost, and all the leveling and gearing and badges and (ugh) farming is just sort of the ‘training ground’ for the real deal, the game that counts, which is played out in the instances.

However, my first few heroics this weekend have taught me I am still that level 8 hunter piddling about meleeing things while I wonder how long I have to wait until I can get a pet. Maybe it’s because I was falling asleep at the keyboard, or maybe some of my lolkara gear needs to be replaced now, but I wasn’t keeping up with the Big Boys on the dps metres this weekend, so as much as I am loathe to, I have to get my pointy elven ears out there and farm primals and rep till my mouse clicky fingers go numb.

I might be 80, but I still have a lot of Warcraft yet to play.