Two weeks in

I've been too busy playing the game to actually post this update I made 16 days ago. ;-) I'll post "Four weeks in" tomorrow.

I have been playing A LOT since Mists launched. I've been very "Look at these trees! It's so beautiful here..." for two weeks straight. I haven’t had the time or desire to make an update here, but I think it’s time to gather my thoughts a little.

I started the expansion leveling my monk. I granted it levels to 80 through Recruit a Friend at launch, and by 5:30 am she was 85. I went to bed, excited about starting the journey to Pandaria when I woke up. Three days later I started leveling Lae as well, and five days into the expansion my monk was 90 and Lae 87. After eight days Lae was 90 too, which granted me the achievement [Dynamic Duo].

Before I started, during the leveling and now “after”, I’m more than aware that I didn't take the quickest way "there". I've split my attention between these two, and if I had done “the smart thing” and focused on Lae, I could have leveled together with my guildies, I would have been 90 on day 2. I would have been near to preraiding BiS, all my reputations would have been higher and I wouldn’t have missed out on the guild’s two first kills of Stone Guards.

Instead I have two maxlevel characters with gear of 450; not good enough for either Raid Finder or normal raids. I have been dividing my time in favor of my monk. She is maxed in Alchemy, Cooking and Inscription, and she does dailies for Golden Lotus, Tillers and Cloud Serpent. Additionally she does scenarios, rare hunting, fishing and just exploring. Lae does Tillers-dailies, Klaxxi on the days I feel I can tolerate bugtown (eww) and if I have more time after all that I might do Archaeology and Fishing dailies. I don’t really have regrets about how I chose to start this expansion, but it has made me a bit torn and confused.

I’ve been making Darkmoon Cards in hope of being able to make a Tigers Deck to hand in during the current Darkmoon Faire. I have been unlucky with this, and have made mostly Cranes and Serpents.

The monk has all four relevant trinkets from Brewfest, while Lae has her one trinket. And I killed Sha of Anger on both, so they got their boots.

Oh Lae... My keybindings are new and unfamiliar, I haven’t set my talents in either a way I like or a way that is recommended, I don’t like any of the level 90-talent abilites, I think the BM-rotation is boring at the same time as I think I have too many new buttons, I haven’t tamed anything new and my DPS sucks. My DPS sucks because of all the things I mentioned in addition to not enough practice, so it’s kind of a vicious circle. :)

I plan to do DMF with all characters for the 5 extra skill points in professions, when I get the time! And I wanna try to get Gate of the Setting Sun done every day for Klatith, Fangs of the Swarm.

There is a lot of content! It is only positive I think, but the afternoons just disappear in a crazy pandarian haze.

I really like my little Sunsong Farm at Halfhill. I like killing challenging rares and discovering neat little stuff. I absolutely loved being told stories by Lorewalker Cho when I did the Lorewalker rep. I like checking out the Black Market Auction House. I have a blast doing scenarios. And I’m almost never in the big city; I don’t even know the name of it yet! The quests have been delightful and funny and serious and rewarding, both the ones I did when I leveled and the dailies.

And the best thing is that I have a lot of things that I still haven’t tried. Raids, Pet Battles and Challenge Modes are still new to me. So when the feeling I have now of “everything is new and oh so nice” eventually passes, I can dig into new stuff. :)

Life is good in Pandaria.