Joining the War in Outlands

You wondered what happened? No i did not get eaten by a giant Ogre.. to be honest i was busy exploring the Outlands. I made tons of screenshots and looked at the strangest things, which I'll try to share with you over the coming days/weeks.
My copy arrived a day late, after i installed it i moved through the Dark Portal. Coming to the other side, i ran down the stairs to kiss the new earth under my feet... but WAIT! What the HELL is going on?!? I nearly stumbled directly in a warzone. I knew it was bad... but *that* bad? I made a mental note to be more careful (haha!) in Outlands. The Pit Commander did not lay hands on me btw, i was faster.

My first impression of Honor Hold was rather poor: It was like Ironforge (the lag) and Barrens (general chat and looks) together. Bummer. It was not much fun to move around the hold, so i decided to get out of there quickly.

During the first two days I mainly explored the new areas - as much as that's possible with lvl 60. I managed to get the flight-points from Stormspire to Wildhammer Stronghold. Exploring and running around, while basicly nearly *everything* can kill you is great fun. :P
While having a quick look around there was a lot of OOH and AAH involved. The new areas are beautiful - beside Hellfire which i really don't like.

I also worked a bunch on my professions and either maxed them to 375 (herbalism, First Aid) or worked as much as it made sense. For Alchemy i skilled up as much as i could train all the to me available recipes. I could go higher with all the herbs i collected, but i have no space at all for all those potions. So I'll skill the rest slowly or when the need occurs as i get my hands on more recipes. I got a handful of new gear as well, very nice. I spend half the time questing and the other half in instances. So far Thulf is lvl 64 and i saw Ramparts, Blood Furnance, Slave Pens, Underbog and Mana Tombs. I'll try to write more in detail about my adventures soon.

As final words for today, here is a useful tip should you have problems with your chat windows disappearing from time to time, like it happened to me. It is annoying as hell! Blizzard says they'll fix it with the next patch, but until then i suggest you read up here for a solution. The checking/unchecking solution worked well enough for me so far.

See you in Outlands...

In the Lab

Thulf is a high-end alchemist and I already do trade business with many, but there is still room for more. Especially with the new introduced discovery system for alchemy I have the interest to brew as many potions as possible until i discovered them all. ;) So you'll find me very flexible to brew you the needed potions, should you provide all necessary materials (incl. vials!). If you are a regular reader of my blog, you can just send me the mats per mail and include "Totally Blootered" and the names of the potions you want somewhere, I'll brew your potions when I look into my mailbox and send them back to you. With the new alchemy lab, this is no problem for flasks as well. The easiest way for fresh drugs...

This list will be updated regularly with the available potions, etc. For ease of use I also included a link to the right. There are no BoE recipes i lack anymore.

Potions

Flask of Relentless Assault

Major Arcane Protection Potion
Major Fire Protection Potion
Major Holy Protection Potion
Major Nature Protection Potion
Major Shadow Protection Potion

Adept's Elixir
Destruction Potion
Elixir of Camouflage
Elixir of Empowerment
Elixir of Healing Power
Elixir of Major Agility
Elixir of Major Defense
Elixir of Major Firepower
Elixir of Major Frost Power
Elixir of Major Mageblood
Elixir of Major Shadow Power
Elixir of Major Strength
Elixir of Mastery
Elixir of the Searching Eye
Fel Mana Potion
Fel Regeneration Potion
Fel Strength Elixir
Haste Potion
Heroic Potion
Insane Strength Potion
Ironshield Potion
Onslaught Elixir
Sneaking Potion
Super Healing Potion
Super Mana Potion

Flask of the Titans
Flask of Distilled Wisdom
Flask of Supreme Power
Flask of Chromatic Resistance
Flask of Petrification

Greater Fire Protection Potion
Greater Frost Protection Potion
Greater Nature Protection Potion
Greater Arcane Protection Potion
Greater Shadow Protection Potion

Major Rejuvenation Potion
Major Troll's Blood Potion
Living Action Potion
Greater Dreamless Sleep Potion
Mageblood Potion

and all other potions as well, which are lower in skill req then the listed ones.

Misc Items

Primal Might
Earthstorm Diamond
Skyfire Diamond
Mercurial Stone
Gurubashi Mojo Madness
Ghost Dye

Update 240107: Sorted the new TBC potions alphabetically and changed them into links. Marked recent additions with "new". Added the new learned Recipe: Elixir of Major Mageblood.
Update 310107: Added new recipes Heroic Potion and Major Arcane Protection.
Update 090207: Added several new potion recipes, changed the new tag only for the latest additions.
Update 100207: Added the different Fel potions as new recipes.
Update 190207: Added Elixir of Major Firepower and Elixir of Major Shadow Power.
Update 160307: Added the Ironshield Potion as new recipe.
Update 020407: Added Major Nature Protection Potion.
Update 090407: Added Elixir of the Searching Eye.

Outlands, here we come

Soon it's time to install the expansion and enter the Outlands. All major cities were buzzing with activities of players getting ready, sorting their bags and buying or selling last-minute. Over the last one and a half weeks i got the impression some people sold their last shirt at the AH for absolute cheapo-price to free up space. Some raid communities sold their entire bank as they did split up to regroup in smaller communities in TBC. That the expectations are high is not only shown by some morons yelling in IF that they can't await it anymore or the flash countdowns you can see on all major WoW fansites, but also at the frustration & concerns of players after the last two mini-patches, which broke more then they fixed. Do i expect the expansion launch to run smoothly? Hell no! That's why I'm rather relaxed about what will happen. I won't get my copy before tomorrow afternoon, as the store by accident ordered the wrong game version. They ordered a German version, but i play with the international one. Luckily, how it looks now, they could fix it.

If all hell breaks loose, here are two links you might want to keep handy:
Expansion Account Upgrade
Account Management

If you did not really bother yet about what and how things will happen, you could also read the official Burning Crusade Expansion FAQ. So what more to prepare for tomorrow? Are you already choosing which Flying Mount
you should choose at 70? BTW, isn't it lame that all epic gryphons look the same? Couldn't they at least have some different basic colors, like the normal ones?
Here are more links i found to Outland maps, which might prove handy for orientation:
Complete Outland Overview Map (with flight paths)
Zone Maps with POIs

I also saw two small videos you might find interesting. The first one is a preview for the Exploration The Escapade, a long awaited exploration video by Fanatik. Watch the Preview here. The other one is a small vid that shows how to enter the "stages" inside the AH and how to climb various buildings in Everlook, not really new stuff, but some might not know that. Check it out here.

So see you in the Outlands! And if you should find dropped alchemy recipes, contact me ingame, I'll pay premium prices for the ones i don't have.

PS: If you are a fan of ItemSync, like I am, here is the good news... finally the new version is out!

The Dark Portal becomes porous

Yo Thulf! Where have you been? That's a question i was often asked over the last days. But you know how it is.. xmas & NY, some holidays, good food and such. I reloaded my batteries for the upcoming expansion. So yes, I'll be here with you for the new adventures to come.

The last patch brought us the "opening event" for the Dark Portal. Tons of demons coming through.. but boy, what a disappointment. Again a situation i ask myself why i pay a monthly fee. Such a lame implementation... even if they would have revoked the undead invasion again that would have been more fun. So what do we get? Only one quest and Kruul (raid boss) roaming around as Kazzak left through the portal. The quest tabard is just the standard AD design - yay for time invested in cool new models Blizzard. *rolleyes* Then i rather play a warcraft inspired flash game like Tower Defense instead of crappy new stuff. /rant over

The last patch broke a few mods and also gifted us with a bunch of bugs - like not correct working raid promotes, etc. - which result in players asking Blizzard "Are you prepared?", referring to the expansion. I'm not sure yet how well it will be handled with the storm of players.

In preparation for TBC, here are links that might aid you for the start:
- Burning Crusade Maps with Locations
- Noob's Guide to Outland
- Reputations FAQ in BC

There are tons of pics and movies out from the beta server, most are rather bad or boring. I'm still waiting on teh final exploration movie... but in the meantime you can drool over Warrior T6 models
or check out this movie: Karazhan (Unskilled) [416 Mb]

On a final note, i updated my addon list to the right again. Minor changes like link fixes to new versions and such mainly. The most interesting new mod i installed is PartySpotter, which adds visibility for raid members with group numbers on your map. Some more features, go check it out. And for all fishermen, you can rejoice: The new Fishing Buddy beta brought the EasyCast function back.