HAVING REACHED LEVEL 85 in WoW: Midnight, it was time to move to my next quest zone, Zul’Aman. Originally a 10-man raid in the Ghostlands introduced during Burning Crusade, it was converted to a 5-man dungeon during Cataclysm and now has an entire questing zone built around it. It turned out to be a pretty enjoyable zone, packed to the brim with quests.
85 -> 86: Most of level 85 was a blur to me. I spent it zipping around troll ruins blasting through quests while the game occasionally threw some lore and cutscenes at me that I couldn’t even pretend to follow. As I’ve said in other posts, WoW lore just isn’t my jam. It’s a mishmash of crazy names where NPCs switch sides all the time. I’m more focused on keeping the XP coming in.
86 -> 87: Level 86 in Zul’Aman was more of the same, but there’s something to be said when you look at the map and it’s loaded with quest givers with !’s everywhere. When you’re this deep into leveling and you’ve got a dozen quests in your inventory all in the same general area, it brings back the days of vanilla when you’d load up on quests in Stranglethorn Vale and turn in a whole quest log at once. Good times!
At this point, it’s become obvious that I’m going to hit level 90 long before I complete the two final zones, Harandar and the Voidstorm, which I haven’t even started yet. So I need to keep an eye out for gear upgrades or my gear will fall behind the curve and questing at the new level cap will get rough.
87 -> 88: I’m still in Zul’Aman, which should give you some idea how overloaded with quests the zone is. They’re EVERYWHERE. There are even quests for delves that I haven’t touched yet, and probably won’t until after I hit 90.
In the middle of all this, I made the mistake of accepting a quest to do the Den of Nalorakk follower dungeon. Follower dungeons are a recent addition to WoW, where the rest of your group are computer-controlled allies instead of actual players. I used them a few times in The War Within to get certain quests done quickly when you don’t want to wait for a queue, and by and large they were hassle free. But this follower dungeon took over a half hour and brought my leveling to a screeching halt.
Eventually, I reached the end of the Zul’Aman campaign quests. There’s a mini-boss and then a cutscene with a party as the trolls celebrate whatever you’ve been doing for the last few hours. But it was also perfectly timed that I dinged 88 just as I got the achievement for the zone, so that seemed like a good place to stop for today. Monday: Harandar!
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World of Warcraft: Midnight – Zul’Aman
HAVING REACHED LEVEL 85 in WoW: Midnight, it was time to move to my next quest zone, Zul’Aman. Originally a 10-man raid in the Ghostlands introduced during Burning Crusade, it was converted to a 5-man dungeon during Cataclysm and now has an entire questing zone built around it. It turned out to be a pretty enjoyable zone, packed to the brim with quests.
85 -> 86: Most of level 85 was a blur to me. I spent it zipping around troll ruins blasting through quests while the game occasionally threw some lore and cutscenes at me that I couldn’t even pretend to follow. As I’ve said in other posts, WoW lore just isn’t my jam. It’s a mishmash of crazy names where NPCs switch sides all the time. I’m more focused on keeping the XP coming in.
86 -> 87: Level 86 in Zul’Aman was more of the same, but there’s something to be said when you look at the map and it’s loaded with quest givers with !’s everywhere. When you’re this deep into leveling and you’ve got a dozen quests in your inventory all in the same general area, it brings back the days of vanilla when you’d load up on quests in Stranglethorn Vale and turn in a whole quest log at once. Good times!
At this point, it’s become obvious that I’m going to hit level 90 long before I complete the two final zones, Harandar and the Voidstorm, which I haven’t even started yet. So I need to keep an eye out for gear upgrades or my gear will fall behind the curve and questing at the new level cap will get rough.
87 -> 88: I’m still in Zul’Aman, which should give you some idea how overloaded with quests the zone is. They’re EVERYWHERE. There are even quests for delves that I haven’t touched yet, and probably won’t until after I hit 90.
In the middle of all this, I made the mistake of accepting a quest to do the Den of Nalorakk follower dungeon. Follower dungeons are a recent addition to WoW, where the rest of your group are computer-controlled allies instead of actual players. I used them a few times in The War Within to get certain quests done quickly when you don’t want to wait for a queue, and by and large they were hassle free. But this follower dungeon took over a half hour and brought my leveling to a screeching halt.
Eventually, I reached the end of the Zul’Aman campaign quests. There’s a mini-boss and then a cutscene with a party as the trolls celebrate whatever you’ve been doing for the last few hours. But it was also perfectly timed that I dinged 88 just as I got the achievement for the zone, so that seemed like a good place to stop for today. Monday: Harandar!