(Yes, I’ve still got that funny “fading” problem with my screenshots.)

When I returned to Dalaran I noticed that I had new mail, and when I looked in the nearest mailbox I found this:

Look at the title of this blog! Read about why I am a permanently lost Druid! And see why I rolled around laughing when I read this mail.

My friends already know who to ask for directions. And it’s not me!

It’s a pretty tabard though

Following the “Merrymaker” disappointment, I’m trying not to get too obsessed with completing all the World Event achievements, but I do feel that the Lunar festival is a very druid-oriented festival, and I think it’s appropriate that I, as a druid, bear the Elder title. I also think it plays to our strengths, with a lot of the achievements being made a lot easier by our ability to sneak. I hate PvP, but will quite happily sneak in and out of the Horde capital cities when the need arises

By the time I’d finished, it was almost bedtime, so I thought I’d head down into the Dalaran sewers and waste one lure trying to fish for the rat pet down there. I’ve been levelling my fishing in the sewers – I find it helps to have another goal, as well as trying to the pet. I’ve lost track of how long I’ve spent down there, but I’ve managed to get my fishing up to 440 so far, so it’s been quite a while. Anyway, with only 48s left on my lure I was amazed to see the thing I’ve been chasing for so long – yes, my very own giant rat pet.

I went to bed a happy druid last night

I wasn’t needed for the raid last night. The last few raid nights we’ve had enough people for two 10-man groups, but last night there weren’t quite enough, so only one group went. It was a bit galling when my husband was invited and I wasn’t, but my guild is really good at making sure everyone gets a fair shot at the content, and there were healers online who’d not been in Naxx as much as I have, so I was pleased that they got the chance to go.

So as I was at a bit of a loose end, I made a start on the Coins of Ancestry. I found a great list of all the Elders on WoWWiki, and decided to follow it through and see how far I could get. By the end of the evening I had completed the achievements for the Elders of Kalimdor, Elders of Eastern Kingdoms, and the Elders of the Horde. As a bonus I soloed my Strat key whilst I was in there as well I still need to get into a couple of old world dungeons (primarily Maraudon), and then make a start on the Northrend stuff.

At the moment I’m feeling more positive about this series of achievements than I did about the Winter Veil ones. I know some people will find getting into the opposite factions capital cities harder than the PvP objectives, so again, it won’t suit everyone, but I’m hopeful I can get to be “Elder Tiniane”

We’re both now about halfway through level 75, and have finished both Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord. We’ve done a couple of quest-hubs in Dragonblight, but there are still huge chunks of unexplored map for us to discover. We’re just over halfway to 80, and it feels like there is so much content still ahead of us, which is great because we’ll be able to carry on questing for money when we hit 80.

We ran the Azjol-Nerub instance this week, and it was great! I really hope this is a sign of things to come – a very short instance that we completed within 30 minutes. Very little trash, just three bosses. Well, it’s more like three boss events. And when we finished the first run, our tank realised he hadn’t looted the quest item off the final boss, so we reset the instance and ran it again for him!

I really like this trend towards shorter instances. It means you don’t have to commit large amounts of time to a run, you can get some questing and an instance or two finished in an evening. It’s perfect for me

Hopefully tonight we’ll make some good progress towards 76

I love the scenery. I have explored both starting areas – Borean Tundra and the Howling Fjord. I love how different they both feel. I love the way Blizzard have adapted things that were problems in the Burning Crusade – giving two starter areas with lots of quest hubs means that on the whole people are pretty spread out, and everything is playable, even though some competition for some content can be a challenge at times.

I’ve run through Utgarde Keep a couple of times, and I hope this is a sign of things to come – a nice, short dungeon, not too much trash, we completed it in an hour or less. Some interesting boss fights. It seemed pretty easy for well-geared level 70s.

I recommend everyone make a Death Knight and play through their initial quest line. It’s great. The phasing of the world is smooth and seamless, and there are glimpses of the new siege weapon interface (taking over a cannon to shoot hundreds of soldiers on the beach for example). The storytelling is great, and I think they do a really good job of introducing the class. I have yet to suss out how best to play my Death Knight – at the moment I’m still just frantically mashing buttons for each fight, but it seems to make stuff dead

I’m loving the fact that new content has rejuvenated my husband’s enjoyment of the game – he now can’t wait for us to log in in the evening and quest together. I’ve come to the conclusion that the best way for a Resto druid to level is duoing with a Warlock. Although I don’t feel quite as fragile as I did when levelling 60-70 – the changes to spell power have helped with that I think.

On the whole the launch was very smooth from my point of view. The EU servers did not experience the extended downtime that the US servers suffered from. Game delivered my Collector’s Edition the day before the release, and when I installed it I was delighted to see that it used the same patch files that I had already downloaded for the standard game – another learning point from TBC perhaps? I was all installed and ready to go when I got home from work on the evening of the 12th, and so when whisperings went around the server that Northrend content was opening up early (about 8pm UK time), I was poised and ready to go. I got my Frosty, created my Death Knight, and got a couple of hours questing in with my husband before bedtime.

As far as downsides go, there have been queues on my server – the longest being 30 minutes or so – which I have never seen before. I’m sure this is a sign of the popularity of the expansion, and Blizzard have another huge success on their hands. By last night the queue was down to 10 minutes or so – it’s inconvenient but I can live with it.

The only other downside I’ve seen is that there seems to be the same trend with quest rewards as in TBC – there’s no caster leather! All the quests seem to reward with caster cloth or melee leather. Where’s the Resto/Moonkin love? In TBC I didn’t replace any of my pre-TBC resto gear until about level 68 I think – I was hoping for something a little earlier in Wrath. It’s not that much of a big deal at the moment, as I’m in Tier 4/Badge gear, which should last me very well.

But those are two very minor niggles, and on the whole I’m an extremely happy Druid (with slight Death Knight tendancies!)

But I’ve had enough now. I don’t like PvP. I don’t DO PvP. I play on a PvE server for a reason. And I am SICK of being turned into a zombie and killed. And if I manage to avoid getting turned into a zombie the game is unplayable because the dratted zombies keep killing the quest mobs and flight masters.

This is non-consentual PvP. And it’s not what I signed up for. And I’m sick of it. I just want to play the game.

Game now lists the CE, and is taking pre-orders. This started at about 6.30pm last night. I got my order in about 7pm, so I’m hoping I’ll get a copy. No information as to whether Game know how many copies they are getting, or are just taking all orders and will let people know nearer the time if they can’t fulfil.

Amazon have a listing for the pre-order, with an “email me when this item becomes available” link.

I’m still watching the Play and Gamestation websites, as well as the thread on the official forums. I can’t decide whether I should pre-order from other places too, just to make sure all my bets are covered. At £50 a time, I don’t want to get landed with multiple copies. But then I guess there’s always eBay…

I love the World of Warcraft Collector’s Editions. I didn’t get the one for the original game, but did get the one for Burning Crusade. Due to the problems getting hold of US copies of TBC, I actually ended paying through the nose to get an EU CE off eBay after the release. Then when I re-rolled onto the EU servers I thought yay! I can get my CE in-game pets, and I have loved having my Lurky and my Netherwelp running around after me.

So I’m really keen to get the CE for WotLK. But so far it’s not been listed on any online store that ships to the UK, or available for pre-order in any of my high streetstores. Reports from other countries are that when the CE goes on sale, it sells out very quickly. At the moment I am checking amazon.co.uk, play.com and game.co.uk at least twice a day to see if the CE is listed yet.

An official Blizzard source has confirmed that there WILL be a CE in the UK, but we’re dependent on the retailers to get our orders in. There’s a very useful thread on the official forums here, which I am again checking a couple of times a day.

The latest news is that there is now a pre-order code to pre-order in your local Gamestation store. The Gamestation pre-order code is 127383. I, however,  am not impressed with our local Gamestation. I went in armed with that code to pre-order my collector’s edition. They were just writing names and phone numbers in a book, not taking any money. I didn’t get any printed receipt, and the chap who served me said that my pre-order was no guarantee. He recommended that I should try to order online from someone that would take my money at the point of order, as that would be more likely to guarantee me my CE. He also said that their store didn’t know how many copies of the BC CE they were getting until the boxes arrived with them.

I don’t have any confidence in this as a pre-order, and will keep scouring the online retailers in the hope of finding someone I can purchase my CE from there. But with the expansion a month and a half away, I’d really like to know whether I can get a copy or not…