Burning Crusade still haunts me

Having alot of alts also means you sometimes find things lying around. Things that should've been dealt with long ago. 3 years ago? Yeah, that happens. The other day I was playing my lock and put her up for a random dungeon. Since the wait is some 20-30 minutes, I usually go read a book or something like it. But this time I thought I might do some quests while waiting, so I wanted to see what quest to do next. I opened up her quest log, and what do I see?

The Cudgel of Kar'desh. I remember you! Didn't I complete you back in Burning Crusade? Yes I did. I wanted to turn it in, but it meant doing heroic Slave Pens, and I just didn't feel like it. Not for just one quest. And then Wrath was released and I forgot all about it. My warlock was sadly neglected throughout Wrath, I just didn't enjoy her very much. I also wasn't very good at playing her, I think there is a correlation there. I would open up her quest log now and then and see the quest and think "one day... I'll fix that. But that day is not today", close it down again and do something else. And now I have also added the Frostmourne quest chain to my list of "things I should've done a long time ago". Turning this quest in in Wrath meant travelling all the way to Outlands and solo Slave Pens, because finding a group to help me out just for the quest wasn't very likely. I just couldn't find the motivations for it.

But then, the other day I thought "now damn it, I will finally turn the quest in!". I didn't want to leave my dungeon queue, so I figured I had ~25min to get it done. Would I make it? I started travelling.

First step of the journey - getting out to Outlands. Good thing there's this nifty portal.

Ohh, this brings back memories. I remember the Opening Of The Portal event where hundreds of players were packed outside this portal to kill mobs in order to get a cool tabard. Being a priest, I had no instant-instants (I'll explain below) so it was basically impossible trying to tag mobs. Back then just engaging the mob didn't mean you had tagged it like today. It wasn't until you had actually dealt damage to a mob that it was considered "yours". I could use Power Word: Pain all I liked. Since it took some 2 sec to tick it just didn't help. We didn't have Shadow Word: Death yet and I hadn't talented Holy Nova (which you had to do in order to get it back then) but I was seriously considering it. Love on the other hand spammed Moonfires all around and tagged mobs like nothing. I managed to get my kills in the end though!

Outlands is still beautiful. I remember when taking my first flight over Hellfire Peninsula, the feeling of epicness I got from flying over all those elite demons fighting underneath me. I had never been part of something big before, although I had played most of Vanilla I never really got to sense the tide of history in fighting Ragnaros and Hakkar. I never really got to be a part of that. Burning Crusade was the first time I really felt like I was a part of the lore of WoW.

One of my favorite zones in Outlands was, and still is, Zangarmarsh. I really loved the Sporeggar, the design of the zone and the quests. Whenever I level an alt I make sure that one of the zones I quest in is Zangarmarsh. Those quests never bore me.

Running to Slave Pens. I remember how this area used to be gank-zone #1 on our server when guilds from all across gathered to get ready to do SSC. Although some gankig occurred outside of all the raid instances, it just never got as bad as here. It was quite the scene with 3-4 25 man guilds getting violent and bloody on eachother in completely chaotic pvp. Pvp at its best in my opinion.

Soloing the instance wasn't much of an issue of course, since I outleveled the poor things by some 13 levels. Actually the tough part was making sure to tag all the mobs before my pet had killed them, so I could at least get some loot. I remember how horribly difficult these instances where back in Vanilla. Maybe not Slave Pens so much, but instances like Steamvaults *shudder* and don't get me started on Magister's Terrace. Some BC heroics definitely required more cc than most Cata heroics do today. Or so it felt anyway.

Time is running short! Now I just have to get up there and jump down and I am basically at my goal! Will I make it?

No, I didn't make it. I made it up the ramp and was fighting the mobs up there when I got into my random dungeon. Although I was so close to my goal I decided I'd rather take the dungeon than leave and wait another 25 minutes for a quest which won't give me anything anyway. Was it the right choice? Well the quest aint going anywhere. Now I'll just have to wait another 3 years until the motivation to finish it comes around again.