I have two level 60s. An Undead Priest and an Orc Warlock. I was torn as to which to play in the beta. The priest is my primary character, but the warlock is much easter to level with. I decided upon the priest and transferred my priest to the beta pvp server (yes, pvp).
Now, my priest isn’t horribly geared. She has the full tier 2 and a lot of the AQ40 healing/mp5 gear as well as an augur staff. So, I make it to the beta server and begin the long journey from an incredibly dead Orgrimmar (Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Orgrimmar so empty. Not a soul to be found.) to Swamp of Sorrows and The Blasted Lands to journey through the Dark Portal.
Now, I noticed something outside of the Dark Portal. All of the alliance names were blue as if they were neutral entities and I wouldn’t be able to attack them. I’m unsure if this is permenant, but it’s not looking like we’ll see the entrance of the dark portal to be a pvp gank fest.
As soon as you enter the Dark Portal, the first thing I noticed was the huge infernals fighting right at the entrance. The second I noticed was the sky. The sky is amazing. It is full of planets and auroras and is quite beautiful.
Once my awe of the sky passed, I noticed a quest in front of me. “Hey, why don’t you go talk to the wind rider master over there,” it says. So we have our basic noobie wind rider quest. This really got me thinking: I sure don’t remember those quests when I was first leveling my priest. Anyway, I make my way over to the wind rider master and he tells me to buy a flight to Thrallmar, the first horde town in Hellfire Peninsula.
Thrallmar is huge. First, Hellfire Peninsula is a world PVP zone, so there are your traditional PVP quests. Second, everything is neutral to me. You have Thrallmar reputation to grind up. Third, all of the master profession trainers are here. I trained my herbalism and alchemy up from 300 to 375 immediately. It cost 10g each to do, but is well worth it. 
Well, now that I’ve hit Thrallmar and I’ve loaded up on quests (the quest journal limit has been upped, by the way. You can now hold 25 quests at one time.) it’s time to go kill something. I find a level 60 boar (heh, just like outside of Orgrimmar), and wow. I suck at killing this thing. Little do I realize, all of my talent points got reset in the copy. So once the boar finally dies, I quickly respec and on a whim I spec 41 points in Shadow. All the way down to Vampiric Touch. Mind you, I haven’t played my priest as a Shadow Priest in 2 years and I’m in full +healing gear. I have no +dmg gear so it really is quite the hilarious experience.
Now, I can kill. But I’m quickly distracted. Much to my dismay, there is a raid boss that wanders Hellfire Peninsula. A Fel Reaver. He’s not very nice, and quite scary. The new Arugal’s Son, yes. The new Devilsaur, yes. He seems to be magnetically attracted to me or something, because I’m always “running into” him. 
“What’s next?” I ask myself. Quest, after quest, after quest, after quest. 10 or so quests in and I’m only about 4 bubbles into level 60. It takes 415,500 experience to go from level 60 to 61. The journey to 70 is going to be a huge grind, however mobs have a tendency to give (unrested) 470-600xp and quests are worth 6700-7000xp at level 60.
Blizzard has added some new quests in. You can go on bombing missions, you can chase a ghost wolf around, you can burn down alliance cannons, but don’t forget you can still do kill and collection quests as well.
If I’ve noticed anything at all – Hellfire Peninsula is huge. Very huge. I hit level 61 last night, and I still have a full quest log of Hellfire Peninsula quests. So what’s next for Teleios? More quests and the journey to 70.
Stay tuned for more episodes in Teleios’ Journey to 70 and a complete Horde side leveling guide for 60-70!
Published: Oct 18, 2006 12:49 pm