The Burning Crusade
I took last week off of work so I would be able to get BC and play it immediately and at legnth, and I did.
It started with a camp out in front of one of the four locations where Blizzard would be doing a midnight release and signing. It was at a Fry's, which was really awesome, and we camped out for about 30 hours, having left Sunday evening at about 6.
Upper Deck people were there and gave out some free cards and gave demos, and Blizz people came later and had dance contests and stuff.
We got a few free things, and got our Collector's Editions at midnight and were home by 1am ish.
I installed and patched before I went to sleep so when I woke in the morning it would be ready to go.
I have a level 19 Blood Elf paladin and Aeyris is halfway through level 63. Originally, I had intended to play my paladin up to 30 by the end of the week, but this was going under the assumption that everybody would be leveling their mains. When I saw that at least four others were leveling Blood Elf paladins in earnest, I tossed that and just went to play Aeyris. I was dying to get my hands on some of those new spells.
And let me tell you, I was ECSTATIC when at level 62 I trained Shadow Word: Death. It marked the end of having to wait for SW:P to tick and kill stuff. Now for 200 mana I can end the fight with an instant cast. It also marks the second spell I get that can crit (Shadow only, I dont use smite or holy fire) and can crit for a LOT. At 62, my mind blasts would crit for between 1500-1600, and my SW:D was critting for 1400-1450. Now that I'm 63 and with +70 more spell damage than I used to have, my mind blasts are critting for 1600-1700 and my SW:D is critting for 1500+.
I was farming for Flasks of Mojo to skill up my jewelcrafting and I was two-shotting those level 43 trolls when mind blast would crit on the opener. Mind Blast crit, SW:D, dead. That's a feeling I've never had before.
Not to mention the Dwarf hunter I fought in Zangarmarsh last night. Let me tell you, I felt that hunter nerf. He took me to 50% before I really got in the fight, though. I was running by the pvp objective that the alliance had and just passed by to take a look. The dwarf tracked me and saw me approach, and I rode up to meet him and dismounted to begin the fight. SW:P and devouring plague took him down while I just tried to stay near him and prevent him from unloading the big shots on me. When he was at 40% or so, I stopped and Mind Blasted him (it critted) down to 13% and then took a chance and SW:D'd him to kill him.
My jewelcrafting is at 260 or so, I've hit the rough part to level.
So far I'm loving just about everything I see in outlands. The quests are so well put together, and even though the instances are somewhat shorter, the bosses (and many mobs too, actually) require some actual strategy and that your group does not play like morons.
We wiped many many times on Nazan, but I refused to just look up an exact strategy on the net. I wanted us to do it ourselves, which we did, and I recalled what Roc had told me about learning the raid encounters rather than following the coattails and tactics of other guilds' methods.
Vacation is over and I'm back at work, but it was a good week for Warcraft.