Today I finished up in Sholazar Basin, finishing off pretty much every quest I could find and getting the achievement for it (usually I wind up a few short for these zone quest achievements). I sided with the fish-guy Oracles and unlocked their daily quests, with the help of a friend, and it shouldn’t take too long before I can buy the egg from them that can yield some new minipets.

I did a daily cooking quest in Dalaran and realized I could buy the Critter Bites recipe, so I went and did the achievement for charming 10 critters with them, and then the achievement for slaying 15 turkeys, since you can easily do them both in the same place (SE corner of Howling Fjord). And I also spent some time fishing in the fountain in Dalaran for the first time. I’ve actually caught most of the coins already, but with large collection quests like these, the tricky part is always that last coin…

Along the way I hit level 79, so pretty much all of Northrend is open to me at this point (aside from raids). I think I’ll head to either Dragonblight or Zul’Drak next though.

I will have to pop back in to Sholazar on a regular basis though, just to do the daily quests and farm saronite, at least.

WoW tonight was spent doing more quests in Sholazar, for both the fish guys and the Avatar of Freya. Nesingwary, of course, wants me to kill a zillion more animals yet again, but I’ll leave his quests for last.

As part of the Avatar’s quests, I got to control a big giant and beat up hordes of undead in one area of the map, and take on some really tough bosses. It took me multiple tries to kill each one, since each has a special attack that you have to watch out for.

And along the way I picked up a lot more saronite, though it was only enough to make three new pieces of equipment for myself (a shield, bracers, and a mace), though they are fairly nice upgrades.

Today in WoW, I finished off the quests in Grizzly Hills, though there wasn’t really too much of interest. It only had half the number of quests as in Borean Tundra anyway.

Next I headed off to Sholazar Basin, where I discovered tons of saronite ore (helping me get to 410 blacksmithing skill), a couple of nodes of titanium ore, and that damnable Nesingwary fellow again. Oh well, before long I’d hit level 78, and gone through some faction quests with wolverine-like people, one of which included surfing a crocodile.

Surfing. A crocodile.

It was a fairly productive day in WoW today, as I finished off most of the remaining quests in Borean Tundra, primarily in the North and Coldarra regions. There are still some quests left, but most of them are for groups or go into the Nexus dungeon.

Next I was off to Grizzly Hills, and started doing the quests on the eastern side of the map. Before long I’d maxed out my mining skill, found some saronite ore that I used to make a nice shield upgrade, hit level 77, and got my cold weather flying skill. As an extra bonus, a recent patch made flying mounts at this skill level even faster.

I’ve also been working on blacksmithing a bit, and am close to 400 skill now. It’s taking more and more cobalt to make things, but fortunately they don’t require the rare ingredients yet.

Not much exciting to report in WoW lately. I finished off more quests in Borean Tundra, mainly around the middle and eastern parts of the zone, and hit level 76 along the way. Just one more level until I can start flying again, and I’ve even gotten back up to 1000 gold again.

I’m still only about halfway through the quests in the zone though, with more to do in the middle and to the north at least. I’ll also have to check out the DEHTA stuff…

Tonight in WoW I quickly finished off the couple of remaining quests in Howling Fjord, and then I decided to head off to Borean Tundra, since if I put it off too long it’ll be too low-level and pointless. Going back and forth between the entry zones made it clear just what a huge difference in loading time there is with my new system parts. Before, by the time I finished the loading screen, the zeppelin would already be parked at the destination, but now the loading screen ends much sooner and I see nearly the whole trip in.

I hit level 75 fairly quickly and went back to Org for training, and while I was there I finally picked up a bunch of frostweave bags and a bigger mining bag. It was expensive, costing around 350 gold total, but it was well worth it as I was extremely low on space. That knocks me back down to around 750 gold, but I’ve still got plenty of time until I’ll need the 1000 gold for cold weather flying.

I did some miscellaneous quests around Warsong Hold, which is an annoying place since it’s surrounded by insects that make it annoying to leave or enter. The quests are at least interesting, though; I finally got a couple that involved commandeering vehicles. Controlling vehicles is a bit annoying in that it’s hard to see where you’re going, though — the camera just doesn’t go back or up far enough.

And along the way I hit honored faction with the Horde Expedition and the walrus-guys. But it doesn’t let me buy anything interesting yet…

I resumed finishing up quests in Howling Fjord tonight, mainly concentrating on the NW corner, and according to the achievement stats I’m almost done the vast majority of them. I’m sure there’ll be a few leftovers that need a group or instance, though.

I’m also pretty close to level 75 now, and broke the 1000 gold mark. Only two more levels after that before flying becomes useful again…

After setting World of Warcraft up again on the new drive, I spent a little while working on quests. There’s still more left than I expected in the Howling Fjord area, but it shouldn’t take too much longer to finish them off.

Dunno if I really want to start playing again in earnest, but it killed some time…