Stay Classy WoW: I am a real hunter now! Part 2

In part 2 of the I am a real hunter now! article I want to tell the story of how I got my pet and where I went to level after that.

So as I mentioned in the first part I wanted a white or polar bear. The reason for that is I remember that being a rare sight when WoW came out originally. So I wanted to get the full nostalgia trip and go ahead and get one of those again this time around. Only to realize that I didn’t get one when the game first came out, but much later into the release of WoW. The way I learned that is by going to the place I thought the white bear was located, which was not the original place it was first placed when the game came out. It took me a little bit of research to learn that in the original release there were two bears, one was a rare roaming spawn Bjarn, and I think that’s the one I got originally. But that one is super hard to tame, because once it is tamed or killed by someone it takes about 30 minutes for it to respawn and then if you fail to get it, it will kill you. Doesn’t help the fact that it is roaming around the area, so it is never in the same spot. 

The other low level white bear goes by the name of Mangeclaw, and this one is a quest mob, so it spawns in the same spot every time and has a pretty quick respawn rate, for the quest. The problem with this one however is that it is a level 11 bear, so you have to be at least level 11 to tame it, that’s assuming it doesn’t kill in the process. Both of these bears come with a move that can stop your taming cast, and because both of them damage you pretty hard, you don’t get a second chance to tame them. Your options are to run away or die. The first time I went up against Mangeclaw, I died, which in the retail WoW, wouldn’t be a problem because the graveyards are all very logically placed and are close by. Not so much with Classic, I ended up having to run all the way from Kharanos, which is almost at the very beginning of the zone. So that didn’t feel good. 

I decided to enlist the help of a healer, to tame that bear.

Luckily one of my guildmates was leveling in Loch Modan and met me at the bears spawn location, healed through the damage and I got myself the bear. 

You would think the story ends there wouldn’t you, but you obviously don’t know how well I am able to screw things up… I have a talent and a gift for it.

So I figured all is well and done, and decide to go back to the Inn in Kharanos again and go afk. Remember this is during the extremely long queue times, so I didn’t want to log out just in case I wanted to keep playing that night. So I went away for about 40 minutes to an hour, only to come back to my hunter sitting in the Inn, by the fireplace, all cozy like, but completely petless… At first I thought I must have sent the pet away… so I started checking and found out that my pet got hungry, than angry(hangry), and just left me. I was really upset, and no I didn’t forget to feed it, I fed it all the way up to happy green face. I guess when their loyalty levels are low they get hungry faster or something. But that is just the way Classic is. You have to be on top of those things all the time.

I remember when my little brothers just started playing the game back when it first came out, they started playing as a hunter, and couldn’t figure out how to feed the pets, and me being a terrible older brother I never bothered to show them either. So they would put the pet in the stable and get a new one… Needless to say their experience was of misery in WoW as hunters, one of the easiest classes to play. I feel bad about that to this day. Fun stuff.

So anyways, I am again really far for the spawn point, I start running back there, feeling extra embarrassed at this point for bothering someone to help me tame the pet and then losing it. But I needed help again, and I asked again, the person who helped me the first time was far away, but still agreed to help. While I was running up there I met a paladin, and asked if she would be able to help, and thus saving my guildmate a trip. She agreed and I got my pet for the second time. This time however I kept a very close eye on that happiness meter and proud to announce still have the pet to this day!

So with that out of the way I needed to pick a new area to level myself. I didn’t want to go to Loch Modan, because I did that several times before I was a little to low level for Westfall and I did that area several times too. I also didn’t want to go where the majority of players would go, because it was a little crowded in the beginning. I did some research and settled on Darkshore. This is a Nightelf area, and a pretty cool looking one, a lot less of purple stuff and more of dreary foresty things, that reminded me a little bit of Duskwood.

It also helped that this time around there are weather effects in the game, so it would rain adding to the atmosphere of the area. All in all, I liked the atmosphere and the design of the area in general. However the questing was a pain in the butt. I did not enjoy it all. The area is long (shaped like the state of California), and the same quest line would send you back and forth from going really far north to grab something just to bring it down to the far south border of the map. A ton of running back and forth. Not a fun experience. So after a couple of levels there, 5 to be exact, I decided I have seen enough of the area to say that I did it and got tired of it.

It was at that point that I decided I was ready to go to Westfall, hoping it was a little less crowded and I would be able to complete quests there, without the hassle of racing against people for the mobs. 

Westfall in general holds a very special place in a lot of the Alliance players hearts. It’s the first area with a really cool storyline that spans the whole zone, and then takes you to new zones as well, but the coolest part is this is where you get to experience your first instanced dungeon by the name of Deadmines(DM for short… screw you Dire Maul, Deadmines was here first).

This dungeon has some of the best beginner gear, for a lot of the classes and it’s a great challenge for a group of 5 people.

For me personally it hold a lot of nostalgic memories and was just a good place to finally arrive at after Darkshore.

But I would like to mention that even after two weeks of playing in Darkshore and coming to Westfall, I still had to race for the mobs… I can’t even imagine what it must have been like here 2 weeks before. As much as I am for the most authentic Classic experience, I am glad layering was available for those people during the first couple of weeks.

So that’s the story there. Now I am level 17 in Westfall, hunting those Defias scum and doing my best to bring justice to Westfall and its citizens. I have not had a whole lot of time to play lately so I am taking it slow but am still enjoying the game and the nostalgic feels that it brings up in me.

Hopefully I will hit 20 soon and will tell you all about that in the next article in this series (Stay Classy WoW).

See you guys in the next one!