Medivh Invades Gorefiend

Over the past week, I’ve been spending my time in-game on a little alt I’m working on. (Yes, another one.) Although, this isn’t so much an alt as it is a re-roll. (No, I’m not abandoning Lass, or Medivh.)

Some real-life friends of mine have characters, horde-side, on Gorefiend. They do have characters alliance-side on Medivh that they play frequently, but lately they’ve been spending a lot of time on Gorefiend, and I’d been asked to join them. It was something I fought against initially, because I’ve worked very hard to establish the characters I have on Medivh (particularly their network of professions) and I didn’t want to be without them. However, I finally caved, and paid Gorefiend a visit. And I coerced some online friends from Medivh to join me in my jaunt, so the leveling process wouldn’t be quite so lonely.

Let me just say right off the bat that I haven’t seen anything in-game recently that’s been quite as amusing as watching 4 newly minted belfs tearing apart Eversong Woods. If it moved… we killed it. No creature was safe from our wrath. It was really amusing, and oddly satisfying, if somewhat more chaotic than I would’ve liked (at least in terms of quest completion–which I’m very OCD about).

It all started innocently enough, really. My real-life friends had asked me to roll up a toon and play on their server so we could all hang out. Made perfect sense. So, I log in, head over to Gorefiend and roll my first toon there. As I’m creating the character, I’m thinking to myself, “Leveling another toon to 70, all by myself, again (I’ve leveled all three of my highest toons–Lassirra, Antherwina, and Bredyn–almost entirely alone) is going to suck!”

So, I conned Luke into joining me. (Because, amazingly, he’s just as big an–if not bigger–alt junkie as I am.)

Of course, I rolled a hunter. (Shocking, I know.) He rolled a paladin. We logged in, signed onto Vent, and began the questing process. Having rolled my toon the day before I suckered, er– asked him to join me, I had a bit of a head-start on him (Taena was level 8 by the time he rolled his pally), but it was extremely easy for me to run back and help him with the initial quests and get him caught up.

Of course, having already leveled a hunter (and spent the better part of 3 years tweaking and perfecting her), I had a big advantage. Before I even started my level 10 pet quest, I already had a few possible pets picked out. Once the quest line was complete, I insisted we run our wee little belf arses over to Mulgore so I could tame The Rake (who, at Luke’s suggestion, I named Aslan). After a bit of running around, I found my new buddy, tamed, and promptly *SQUEE!*‘d in delight. (I’m still psyched about him!)

Anyway, that was a couple days ago.

Last night, Luke and I returned to Gorefiend to continue questing. Later on in the evening, some friends found us on Vent, and we had ourselves some new recruits. Enter the 4xBelf destruction of Eversong Woods.

It was a blast!

And I realized something last night. For the first time in a long time, I genuinely enjoyed the simple things WoW had to offer. Questing was fun and carefree, and for once I wasn’t interested in the finish line, but the journey to get there. (Being a pretty hardcore player, the leveling process has always seemed to me more of an inconvenience and a means to an end.) I had absolutely zero responsibilities, zero accountability, and zero demands made of me. I just ran around, hopping from quest to quest, and my biggest concern was where my next Herbalism skill-up would come from, or where the next quest mob was.

I couldn’t help picturing my new belf in the beautiful gear Lass has worked so hard to get over the past year and a half. But the nice thing about it was that I didn’t feel any pressure to race to get her there. It was more akin to floating on calm seas, admiring the horizon but not worrying about getting there.

It was intensely refreshing.

Gorefiend, you rock. (Until I get ganked for the first time, anyway.)