In The Midnight Hour

The most popular features of the new expansion appear to be The Tillers Farm and Pet Battles. The Godmother is fan of both, but I sensed a little cooling of her enthusiasm for the endless battle against weeds and Virmen. I have yet to reach exalted but at revered you get help in the war against nature with the addition of a pesticide machine ("Thunder King" Pest Repellers), and watering system ("Jinyu Princess" Irrigation System). Looking up Gina Mudclaw's vendor items, it appears that I am still missing the ("Earth-Slasher" Master Plow). In order to keep the farm going for the whole expansion it may require a fully automated system for removing weeds and Virmen to complete the set, with a possible UI change which would show the 16 slots on one side and the available seeds on the right, similar to the Glyph system and you simply allocate the seeds to the correct slot. After several weeks of tending the farm, we deserve a life style enhancement.

My game time at the moment revolves around the Realm midnight reset, with the European servers being set to CET or Paris time, it means that I get 2 hours play, before logging through all or some of my characters for the farm harvest and replanting. This works quite well for me, with the intensive levelling or grinding dailies (could also include Heroics or scenarios) before the midnight curfew. After midnight I can do some of the following:

1. Tiller dailies, plant and harvest the crops.
2. Craft new gear for characters or level professions.
3. Enchant or gem my new gear.
4. Auction House activities.

This way I can slow down my gameplay before bedtime, rather than doing PvP, clean teeth and jump into bed with my head still swimming with classic victories or more likely demoralising defeats.

Last night was slightly different in the fact that I pushed on with levelling my Shaman long after my bedtime. The reason is down to Titan Panel, which displays the estimated time for completing the current level, based on the amount of XP gained in the current session divided by the time spent playing. I find it about as reliable as what I refer to as "Microsoft Time", this is much better explained by the comedian Eddie Izzard.

"Would you like a software update? And you go, Yeah. Yeah, I'd like one of those. Its like a latte thing. Yeah, why not? And then time becomes a different thing. Time becomes weird as it downloads. 5 minutes to download. 4 minutes to download. 3 minutes to download. 9 minutes to download. 2 minutes to download. 7 hours to download. 6 seconds to download. A light-year to download ."

That tantalisingly close number in Titan Panel, persuades you to keep going, even when your body is saying no. The problem with dinging 90 or any max level for that matter, is that you want to setup all the gizmo's. There are 2 rings and a necklace for starters and you can at last get rid of all those Lorewalker items clogging up the bags, and in order to that you must purchase flight training. The list is endless but you must stop somewhere or risk not making it into work.

I have now got 2 level 90 characters and of course the choices and demands on my time get worse not better. It also seemed quicker levelling the second time around, but does this match the reality?

1. 25th September - Release Date
2. 16th October - Ding 1 (22 Days)
3. 8th November - Ding 2 (23 Days)

The statistics look bad, but I have taken a 7 day vacation in the middle of the 2 dings and I am still actively alternating levelling and rep grinding so I am relatively happy with the time scale. I still believe that I can further refine the tips provided by The Grumpy Elf, based on the fact that the XP rewards for Kun-Lai Summit are so much greater than Valley of the Four Winds and Krasarang Wilds.

Steroid enhanced Space Monkey with a rather fetching umbrella