I've been playing - not blogging

Cataclysm hit.

It was always my intention to be one of the 1st lvl 85s'. I didn't think i'd hit server 1st.  As a clothie I knew I'd have to rely on at least 1 other person with me to do it and there wasn't too many peeps in the guild dedicated to getting there ASAP.  Colangus (Norm) was the only other real hardcore one, and then others followed.  I think I hit 85 within 40 hours.  I did eventually sleep for a few hours after playing for like 24 hours straight. 

I loved the experience. I was maybe the 20th person on the server to hit 85, and the 3rd of 4th priest to do so. I'd totally do another marathon session. Having coffee handy is a good idea, though eventually the coffee would get cold, so i'd ice it down and keep going to town.

I stunk around 11am the next day.  Stayed in my funk until around 4pm when I took a shower. I took a smoke break every 4 hours just to stand up and stretch.  By 8pm I was already unfocused. I kept dying, and rule number one of powerlevelling is DONT FUCKING DIE. I'd been up for nearly 40 hours and it was clear that I wasn't going to hit 85 so I slept.  I woke up a while later, quested and hit 85 around 7pm the next night.  Soloing Twilight Highlands in a T-Shirt is difficult, especially as a shadowpriest with no real BOOM power.

Since then the guild has many level 85s. We have a good amount of peeps already running heroics, which is crazy. Me?  i've been too busy that I've not even run all the regulars yet.  I've bought myself 3 epic pieces, however.  And I also maxed out enchanting and tailoring and cooking and fishing. spent a lot of gold doing that.

My initial investment of 15k in gold towards glyphs has paid out in multitudes.  I dare say I've made damned near 300k in gold, but have spent a lot of that on mounts, giving it away to friends, training skills, etc etc etc.  The coffers are now beginning to run thin, and it may be time to start evaluating the best methods to start banking in on this expansion.

The guilds a pride and joy right now.  We have over 300 members, with at least 20 online at the same time usually.  We've hit up to 33 at times, and thats huge for us.  Considering at least half of those are bad asses that are gunning for endgaming, that makes me happy.  As of this writing we should be a level 8 guild already, which is I guess what all real hardcore guilds should be at if we're all hitting the daily cap, so thats a good thing.  It separates us from the scrub fly by night guilds. Why would anyone want to join a guild that doesn't have repairs, 10% mounted speed, 10% bonus rep, and 10% bonus XP? 

Xmas and New Years have put a crunch on my time, and I've not run as many hardcore things, and I'm halfway OK with that. Levelling Professions has been OK, because I know that I'll be running heroics and regulars for MONTHS anyways for JPs and VPs. As a healer, I'll admit its hard and I've not been wanting to go full force head on just quite yet. Is it a lil residual burnout from the daily constant Lich King?  Probably. Leading a guild, leading raids, trying to be as cutting edge as time allowed took its toll so I've slowed down a bit after the initial burst to 85. But the guilds filling up with hardcores, so I don't feel TOO guilty about slacking off a little bit.  I DO have every intention of going into the raids come January, however.  15 days of heroics should get me and a few other peeps ready for those.

Thats it for the update!  Regular articles will resume in the next few days!  Thanks for reading!