I finally had the mind to screenshot my adventures in private servers. I've played so much, all over the place, and have nothing to show for it. Well, now I do! These are the adventures of my Night Elf Rogue, Orangesoda, on the WOTLK private server ChromieCraft. It's a great little server, with a sub-500 population mostly, that is slowly progressing brackets of content (it is currently at MC and BWL with a level 60 cap). It is an open source server that makes any changes to the core public so future wow emulation retains it, which most private servers don't do. They make any bug fixes private so that "comptetition" doesn't copy it (ruining their player draw for quick money), so nothing gets fixed long term. Well that should change with AzerothCore.
Orangesoda goes to Ragefire Chasm
The population is fine so far but I haven't hit 60 yet. BGs seem to be popular for at least 12 hours of the day and dungeons are probably okay. I will definitely need a guild to do farming of content. The reason I chose Rogue is because, although I mained a Mage in WOTLK (when I first started), I had a Rogue alt named Crustslap. I struggled a lot, being a stupid noob, but I made it to around 54 or so when the cata patch hit and ruined the levelling. I had logged her off in Felwood, at the southern Deadwood furbolgs, farming those feathers for Timbermaw rep. I plan to at least get to there, if not farther!
Orangesoda hits level 20 in Westfall
The journey to level 20 was unremarkable but pleasant. I did a mixture of Darkshore, Loch Modan, and Westfall of course. The Horde are lucky in these levels because the Barrens are so easy, but I like the feel of Alliance zones more. Darkshore has some great quests, like all those collectible sea creatures, Bashal'aran, and the buzzboxes. Loch Modan is my favorite of these. It can be a pain sometimes (god damn Troggs) but I love it. I have very fond memories of being a new player on my Gnome Mage Crushkist, grinding Loch Crocolisks (I call them Lochalisks) and skinning them. I think I was listening to the Rush live album "A Show Of Hands". It was after school in 10th grade, probably late 2009.
Orangesoda admires the Wetlands sky
27 is a lucky number for me and I was 27 when I noticed the sky in Wetlands. It was beatiful! The drop rate on this private server are a bit too high (I prefer low drop rates because the game was balanced around it at 1x exp). I got Sida's Bag in just a dozen ooze kills and haven't struggled with any drop quests at all.
Orangesoda hits level 30 in Ashenvale
How did I get to level 30 so fast? Because the private server had 2x exp for quest turn-ins, just for the weekend, so I took advantage of it. I've been playing vanilla servers for years now so this was really jarring, almost like retail.
Orangesoda grinding rep in Desolace
In the Shimmering Flats, I queued up for a dungeon and got RFK. This netted me 2 insanely good daggers, which made the quests in the flats so much easier. Orangesoda is a subtlety rogue, by the way. I may go combat if it gets bad, but so far, it's smooth sailing. Ambush often chunks close to 50% HP, and hemo is a monster.
After that, I ended up in Desolace, my... 2nd favorite zone. Most people hate it but I love it. It's desolate but full of beasts and demons and centaurs! I did the quests, then settled down for a comfy grind. I chose Gelkis because I like their cave area, so that meant genociding the Magram population. It took about 7 or so hours but I made it to 11,999 out of 12,000 rep honored and with the quest at Nijel's point, it took me to 249 into revered, which most people wouldn't get without grinding first. I've done this so many times, on so many characters, it's insane. I don't know why, the mid 30's levels simply mean: time to grind!
If you're curious, here are some numbers I recorded:
Orangesoda gets kitty at level 40
I got my swift stormsaber at level 40 and can now zip and zoom! I have to say, as nice as that is, I still prefer vanilla balancing. It really made mounts feel special. It's a bit too cheap and easy. At level 40, I am deciding where to go next. I finished some Hillsbrad quests up and am in STV. After that, I don't know yet. I can't wait to get to Felwood, though! And Winterspring, my favorite zone.
I... lost all the screenshots from 40 up to the 50s. It's sad. Oh well, I had fun. I went to pretty much every zone you could go to. I finished up STV, did Feralas, Tanaris, and Searing Gorge, and at about 50, decided to grind early Felwood with Timbermaw rep. That got me up a level and a half with the Deadwood furbolgs. In the 50s, I ran around Un'Goro, Burning Steppes, Western Plaguelands, and realized I was overlevelled for the Blasted Lands, which is where I got screenshots back.
Normally I like to ding 60 in Winterspring but I exhausted the quests there and didn't want to grind yetis or whatever so I realized there were (and still are) tons of higher level quests in WPL. I pretty much finished the cauldron quests and...
Orangesoda dings 60 in WPL, in front of Chromie!
Of all places to ding 60, it was the Chromie quests in WPL (on the Chromiecraft server). I had so much fun getting to 60. By this point, I still had very low LW (maxed skinning ages ago) so I got to work farming leather since some leather types are overpriced on the server. Strangely enough, thick leather is cheap so I won't be farming that one at least.
Orangesoda farming leather in Hillsbrad from yetis
After that? I'll try to get T0.5, get enchants, and find a guild I suppose. Oh, and max out fishing/cooking. There's another 2x exp weekend right now so I am considering levelling my hunter up while I have an easy opportunity. Stay tuned for her! I lost most of her screenshots as well...
Orangesoda finished Leatherworking
Orangesoda fishing up a storm!
It was a decent grind, farming my own leather. I took a few months break and finished it off. Rugged Leather was easy because of the sheet abundance of yetis but the Thick Leather yetis in Feralas were too quick to die and I had to wait for respawns sometimes. After that, as you can see, I also got my Cooking up to 300 and was about to get Fishing there too when I got a dungeon for BRD. It was quick and we decided to do UBRS after which was really fun. Big boy pulls were had, and my rogue AOE was useful!
But then... the Discord menace struck. I was invited to raid on his guild, Limbo, and they require Discord. No thanks! I have my dignity. I won't subject myself to your spyware. I can't get rid of all the spying but I can do my best to minimize it (I hope to move to Linux sometime in 2023, when I'm done using RPGMaker). Sorry, Bloo, you're a cool guy who helped me out but I'd rather not hassle with it. And if I try to argue, as a new guild recruit, they'd just kick me out and talk shit on the server most likely, so if I play any more WoW, it will be on a new alt. Goodbye, Orangesoda the Night Elf Rogue! So long. It was a pleasure to play with you.