U.S. side, Proudmoore is kicking ass, followed by Cenarius, Medivh, Lightbringer and Zul’jin.

Euro-servers, the ever-industrious Germans are leading the way: Lothar, Gilneas, Thrall, Madmortem and Khaz’goroth.

On my own U.S. server, we’re faaaaarrrrr behind Proudmoore, but the crowds at each quest area are crushing nonetheless. I can imagine on the high-population servers it might take most of the day to complete the new dailies.

Two things I’m looking forward to … a repair vendor and a goddamn mailbox. Screw the portal, that’s why we have mages and warlocks.

Because, apparently, we are people of very little ambition, my guild spent an hour of our pre-work/school time running the Headless Horseman script in the graveyard wing of the Scarlet Monastery.

Here’s the Pumpkin Shrine where you run the script — level 70s can easily bypass all the trash, except the lone patroller on the way.

Here’s a lucky fellow in Stormwind who scored the epic version of the flying broom, Swift Flying Broom. The tooltip is in error, by the way, you can use your broom many times for the next two weeks.

Additional info:
We four-manned the encounter with a holy paladin tanking — was a mild challenge because of the impaired tankage (plus, our warlock is … let’s say, not so bright). Later, another soon-to-be-late-for-work guildmate (mage) logged on and the 5-man party was E Z mode.

The rings and crappier brooms drop ALOT — the real prizes are the pet squashling and the epic broom, of course.

Details on the encounter and the loot table is on WoWWiki.

Summarized and clipped:

The first notable change was to simply reduce the amount of experience needed each level by approximately 15% between levels 20 and 60. Please note that when the patch is released, characters affected by this change will remain at their current level percentage.

Experience gained for completing quests (on average) between levels 30 and 60 is being increased. The increase becomes more substantial as you make your way towards 60. Additionally, many outdoor elite mobs will become non-elites …

We’ve also added approximately 60 new quests in Dustwallow Marsh. This should help players who find themselves lacking quests in the 30-40 range. The Steamwheedle Cartel is building the new town of Mudsprocket in south-west Dustwallow Marsh, so you’ll have to wait until construction is complete to learn more about these changes.

The level range for most every dungeon is being adjusted so that there is a much smaller range between the level of mobs found early in the dungeon to those found towards the end.

… we’re also upgrading all pre-bc dungeon boss drops to blue quality items.

Faster leveling and more experience is good. Not as easy as buying a character or inheriting one from a retiring player, but there’s something to be said for playing it straight.

(Ya, I went there.)

There were some hotfixes applied to the world event Brewfest, namely they disabled the Dark Iron Dirf script because of lag issues.

I ran some of the nonsense quests for this event last night while the guild was whiteboarding tonight’s raid. Here’s my review of Brewfest: STOP GIVING ME MORE QUEST PIECES TO CARRY AROUND, hell I haven’t had bag space available since pre-Onyxia. Resist sets, flasks, combat supplies, daily quest pieces, faction grind quest pieces, mounts (have to carry around two now) — thank god I’ve given up on leatherworking and thank god I’m not a buff class. Who do I have to blow over there to get some MEANINGFUL bag space? Why can’t we have a bottomless bag (a TRULY bottomless bag) for quest items? Do I have to buy the expansion for that?

Prediction: The expansion will offer a must-have semi-fix for bag space. And it will involve a grind of some sort. (Boy, I really went out on a limb there.)

Bonus: Screenshot of Kagetsu of the Dath’Remar realm and his (world first?) Brewfest swift ram. (Thread with his announcement.) And of course no one cares about the ram, but are very interested in the 30k gold. Several theories are floated: buy gold, no life, daily quests grinding (ya, right), rare pattern crafter, but I don’t think anyone theorized guild bank thief. Not accusing! Just saying.

Read: Serpentshrine and TK Attunements Lifted.

Tigole wrote:

After a lot of thought and deliberation, we’ve decided to remove the attunement requirements to enter Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep: The Eye. While many of our attunements in the Burning Crusade have been good progression checks, a few of the attunements have turned out to cause unnecessary stress on guilds either doing the content or attempting to do the content. With Black Temple and Battle for Mount Hyjal thriving, we want to encourage (rather than prevent) new guilds and raid groups to attempt Serpentshrine and TK. We are going to leave the current attunement quests in the game so that players can still engage in the challenge and the lore of those quests should they choose to. At a later point, we are considering adding a final reward step to those quests as well (that way those who have already completed them would not miss out on a *new* reward).

We’re listening to feedback from you guys constantly and your opinions are important to us. We want this game to be the best possible MMO experience for our players.

Enjoy Serpentshrine and Tempest Keep =)

(Please note: This change will go live later today — it’s not yet active)

You may attempt to revive your guilds now.

I think the heat thing is solved — it damn well better be or I know a computer nerd who’s gonna get sand kicked into his face — the ACTUAL PAID WORK thing will take some time, however.

To reward you for checking up on me and asking after my health (I’m fine, thanks!), I’ll relate a quick anecdote from Lord of the Rings Online last week.

I’m in this PUG (the dreaded Pick Up Group) to kill this elite boss in Garth Agarwen — Ivar. In the group is a level 39 hunter. I think he was a hunter, he didn’t really do anything as I recall. Anyways, as soon as he joined, he’s all full of advice cuz he knows it all.

One thing he didn’t know was how to get to Garth Agarwen on his own. So I showed him how to arrive safely at the zone-in, using one of those kinda exploit-y shortcuts. After zoning in, TWENTY minutes after everyone else arrived, he started up with his unsolicited advice again. Oh how I hated him.

He never set traps for huge trash pulls, never helped out the minstrels (the LOTRO main healers), never used assist to DPS the mob everyone else was focusing on. Three things he did do all the time, however: 1. He’d hit the crowd-controlled mobs much to our lore-master’s chagrin, 2. He’d run ahead into the next room and train the resting group with his aggro shit and 3. He knew what the rest of us were doing wrong.

So we were close to Ivar’s room and someone had a few hints and tips for the encounter — naturally, the hunter knew better, even though, I will remind you, HE HAD NEVER BEEN THERE BEFORE. We finished the last trash clear before Ivar, the minstrels were recovering power (that’s mana in LOTRO), etc. and hunter-tool runs into Ivar’s room and starts the encounter. So much for the last-minute strategy talk.

We wiped, of course. We run back and the group is yelling at the hunter for running in early. He denies it. Also, we don’t know what we’re doing. And we should shut up.

Ok, that’s when I’d had enough of his bullshit. Which is what I said. “I’ve had about enough of your bullshit and I’ll pay real money for you to shut up.”

He turned his character around to face me, with his back to Ivar’s room and asked me what the hell was my problem. I was about to say, “you’re my problem” but before I could, the idiot accidentally backs into Ivar’s room and starts the encounter again. Heh, he tried to run back out before Ivar would notice, but Ivar’s no fool — /begin encounter.

Graveyard visit #2.

I asked him if he was going to deny starting the encounter that time too. All he said was, “cya fuckface” and then he left.

Since he chose the singular “fuckface” rather than the plural “fuckfaces”, I assumed he meant me. Which I don’t have a problem with.

What I do have a problem with, what concerns me, is the “cya” part.

Why in the world would he think I’d want to see him again?

And kids, just because your computer is as hot as the sun, don’t use your graphics card to light a cigar for your friends’ amusement, because I’m pretty sure that would void your warranty. Here’s what I say: they can’t prove a cigar was anywhere near that card.

Anyways, I did pull a few screenshots off my demon machine to accompany a short guide to purchasing your very own horse in Lord of the Rings Online for 4 gold, 220 silver. (And what kind of a crazy world is Middle Earth, by the way, where 100 copper = 1 silver, but 1,000 silver = 1 gold??)

Sefarre has written a handy walk-through: How to buy a horse, including where to get the horse-riding quest and how to not fail in an embarassing manner in front of the 100 players at the horse farm.

Additionally, here’s the available colors, in both sizes — horses for the big boys and girls; ponies for the vertically challenged (dwarves and hobbitses):

(Clicky and All Sizes for larger versions)

Saddle and bridle are standard equipment. Reins, taxes, license, title fees, and insurance extra.

WoW players should keep an eye out for Chatterton’s creations: the rare, flame-shooting crossbow, a quest from a graying Tauren named Ahab Wheathoof and his frenzied dog, Kyle. Blizzard will add Ezra’s changes to the game in the next four weeks.

Best wish ever.

Antiarc’s WoW Armory Tools – My World of Warcraft guild is absolutely nuts for the sig generator, and more recently, we’re using the site’s Heroic Key Listing generator to apply peer pressure to the slothful among us. FCS, after four months, everyone should have their damn keys done, OR, be prepared to PUG it.

Here’s a sample of the sig generator output using one of my devoted fan’s characters:

Spoiler info is pretty hard to come by for Lord of the Rings Online at the moment, so Middle Earth Headquarters’ dynamic map is a must-use for those of us with shorter attention spans. I’ll spend SOME time exploring, but I don’t have all day to skip through meadows picking up twigs, hoping to run across the Black Fire Chest.

You’ll need to temporarily disable any browser no-script addons to enjoy MEHQ’s full ajaxy-java (whatever it is) goodness. If that’s too risky, there’s always the /advice channel, but I like to save /advice for charitable solicitations on behalf of the Buy Foton a Horse fund.