Stepping into the Light

I recently transferred Mirsh, my main, back to Jubei'Thos, the PvP server where I originally levelled her to 60. I strongly disliked that server, (and still do) but went back because I have two brothers who both play there, and very occasionally I am able to interact with them, when their raid schedule allows.

However, that still left me alone for the majority of the time that I play, and forced to deal with the extreme elitism and toxicity of that server. Seeking a solution, I browsed the forums, and discovered a number of glowing reviews of player experiences on Moon Guard, a non-Oceanic RP realm.

I'd already had a previously deleted Horde alt on Moon Guard before, and found it a very positive experience. (If a little intimidating; I've written a lot of rp pieces here before of course, but being continually in character for more than probably 15 minutes at a time can be a little strange)

I had, however, grown tired of elitism and playing WoW primarily alone. I had read that one of the differences of the Alliance as a faction (and certainly this was always my observation of them in game as well) was a much higher degree of social cohesion and community than the Horde, so despite what I've written in the past, I decided to try it.

The decision was made much easier by a strange coincidence; during my first night on Moon Guard, in the Goldshire inn I actually ran into my guildmaster on Jubei'Thos, who it turned out had a casual roleplaying, but Druid only, guild on the server.

So that decided my new class; a Night Elf Druid. I'm only at level 9 with him at the moment, and it's been close to 10 hours /played, I will confess.

I think it's partly because I really don't know the ground at all as Alliance, and also because the genuinely fascinating conversations I've been having are a continual distraction to levelling. You might not believe this, but I entered Darnassus, to discover a conversation about chaos theory, quantum entanglement, and whether or not the human race was going to survive the next century, being held on Trade. I was amazed, and this was followed by probably an hour long private conversation with someone who'd been on Trade after I left Darnassus, as well.

I'm in the process of reading levelling guides in order to discover the most rapid way to level this character. I'm not levelling it fast because I am planning to raid, at all; but the main reason why I want to get a fair amount of levelling out of the way is so that I can both spend most of my time at the inn, or in Darnassus or Stormwind, but also catch up in order to run at least a 5 man with the guild occasionally if they want to.

Doing an instance partially in character could be a lot of fun, too, although I don't really know anything about this toon yet; all I do know is that he is, of course, very different to Mirsh.

I'm planning on levelling Feral, and then being Resto at the cap, with Balance as farming/offspec. I don't particularly like cat form, (due to the comparitive lack of survivability, primarily) and would prefer to level Balance, but I've read Feral is usually considered fastest.

I'm also currently reading about something which I'd only recently started to experiment with on my Horde alts; multi-zone quest stacking. That is, going to one race's starting area, and doing all the quests there, then going to a second zone and doing all of them there, etc.

In the Horde territories it had a major, positive impact on my speed, but with the Alliance I think it's actually going to slow me down, simply because the Alliance zones are generally so remote and far apart. We will see.