While I wasn’t one of those standing in line for the midnight release of the expansion pack, I was one of the many in line the next morning right after the gaming store opened, to purchase my copy.

When I got to the counter to buy, the cashier asked me the same question twice (about their special in-store card, about which I always respond “no thanks”) and then corrected herself on the second time, saying that some of her co-workers had called in sick that day and they were going to be short-handed.

I asked her if her co-worker played World of Warcraft, but she didn’t know. Obviously she’s not a player herself, or she would have caught my reference … sick on the day of the Xpac release…

My First Views of Northrend

By the time I got on with the expansion at about 10:45 AM, there was already a level 60 Death Knight in my main’s raiding guild. Nobody had hit level 72 yet (in our guild), but considering it’s 1.5 MILLION experience points to get to 71, that wasn’t superbly surprising.

I hadn’t been in the beta myself, and hadn’t watched any kinds of videos, so I didn’t have a clue about where anything was, except for the Zeppelin towers that had been introduced before the xpac released. I chose to enter Northrend for the first time via the Zeppelin outside of Undercity.

Before the flying boat left dock, however, I saw a familiar call-out on the LookingForGroup channel (which I’m always subscribed to by using the addon AlwaysLFG) - LF1M (looking for 1 member), healer for Nexus and g2g (good to go). I whispered right away, saying how I was just entering Northrend for the first time and had no clue where I was going, but I was a well-geared healer ready to rock the new dungeons.

So it turned out that I landed in Northrend and was able to grab the flight path, and then the summon came in for one of the first new instances… and that summon took me to the other side of the map, closer to where the Orgrimmar Zeppelin would have landed me.

The Nexus - Utgarde Keep - The Nexus

My first dungeon run was with a PUG, because guildies were already involved in everything they were doing when I logged in. Shortly after I started my PUG, five guildmates completed Utgarde Keep and got the achievement for it.

The second and third runs I did were part PUG, part guildie - 2 DPS and myself as a healer from our guild picked up a DPS Warrior and a Warrior to tank for us, and we headed into Utgarde Keep and then stayed all together for the time it took us to get our butts over to The Nexus for a second run with the same solid group.

The dungeons themselves were easy for us, as expected… considering I’m wearing 2 pieces of Tier 6 gear and my guildmates are better geared than I am, and we were effectively in a “regular” dungeon when we were very much used to Heroics. I’ll eventually venture in with my lesser-geared toons and will be able to better judge the true “difficulty” of the instance for people who aren’t all decked out.

The most difficult part was even taken care of for us, because the tank, or in the case of the second and third runs, the DPS Warrior, were already familiar with the routes through the instances, having played in the Beta test. For Utgarde Keep this wasn’t a big deal, but The Nexus was twisty and turny with many hallway options at some points, so I was very glad to be the healer and just play Follow.

Gear Quality From Starting Instances

As expected, the gear ROCKS in these new instances. I was looking at the first blue drops and wondering if it was an upgrade from my gear that was picked up in Mount Hyjal and Black Temple back in Burning Crusade. The off-hand I picked up had better stats for sure, and the rings that were quest rewards were about equal, too.

This gear will be a BIG upgrade for most players, a fact which will provide great joy!

Despite the niceness of the gear, we actually disenchanted a couple of blues… mainly because we were three clothies and two plate-wearers and mail and leather kept dropping!

Training Up Professional Maximums

This was expensive. I came into Northrend with over 300g and spent it all, and had to send myself more money to finish the job. There were a billion new recipes in all but First Aid and Fishing (as expected) and I was glad I had money saved up.

…

But for now it’s time to get back to leveling! I’m less than a bubble away from 71 :)

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Tags: cooking, first aid, fishing, gear in new instances, inscription, jewelcrafting, nexus, nexus drops, northrend, utgarde keep, utgarde keep drops