If there’s one thing that a Beta test can never fully “test”, it’s server load.

They can try to simulate high-load situations, and they can catch a whole lot of show-stopping, server-crashing bugs that way, but really - it’s only on release of the software to the community of real users that true load testing begins.

Stability has been a lot better on Zul’jin tonight - we had the rolling restart that many others had, and then crashed two times after that within a half hour, but then from that point on, there was a bit of lag here and there but it wasn’t too bad at all, in the Outlands where I was hanging out.

I got my 60 Hunter into a 60s guild that a bunch of cool ex-guildmates joined over the past few months, and went out hunting with a guy I originally met when I was level 31 and he was a level 9 noob on a trial account. He’s 60 now and has way better equipment than I do :) We headed into the Outlands and started the trail of quests in Thrallmar which lead us to Splinterbone Post which had a whole bunch of quests to pick up.

I read somewhere that for the release, while there’s high competition for world mobs, Blizzard has altered the respawn time so things spawn a lot faster than normal. I definitely noticed tonight that things spawned a lot faster, but I also noticed that sometimes areas I’d been camping for a while suddenly don’t reset much anymore… I don’t know if that’s reality or just a coincidence however.

Working on gathering the blood to be boiled in the Boiling Blood quest was interesting with the fast respawns - my buddy (also a 60 Hunter) and I had to keep on our toes and each died 3-4 times because things just kept spawning and aggroing around us and we couldn’t get them all down before the next fireball-hurling orc and his skeletal minions (who hit remarkably hard for how small and skeletal the buggers are) would attack us.

I got about halfway to 61 before logging off, and I replaced my bow and two of my armor pieces with better stuff. I’ll link them in a later post, too lazy to do it right now…

Last night I also extended my Enchanting and Leatherworking skills to 375 at the trainers in the Outland. I haven’t found the Fishing, Cooking or First Aid trainers yet, however. Any clues as to where to find them? :)

I’m such a WoW nerd…

Today’s like a “Friday” for me, in terms of work. Meaning, I’m on days off after this. And how many days off? Five. Five in a row.

These days because of Real Life changes, I’m working 3 days a week. Normally that means I’ll get a 4 day weekend, but because of flexiblity with my schedule, this week I worked slightly different days and now have 5 days off coming up.

Expect a fair number of entries to pop up here during that time! I normally try to keep it to one entry a day, but I won’t worry about that with all the new things to experience!

I found this post that I thought was funny and thought to share. Originally written by ThatGuy on alt.games.warcraft:

1. All animals can breathe underwater.

2. It is possible to shoot bullets or arrows through huge trees, rocks and even small hills without changing their trajectory or even slowing them down.

3. It is impossible to eat or drink while standing up.

4. Banks store your items, not your money; and they use teleporters so you can instantly access your stuff from any bank in the world.

5. If you drink a magic potion that heals you or gives you some special ability, you won’t feel thirsty again for 2 minutes.

6. All (human) women are totally hot, and all (human) men look like they spend about six hours a day working out.

7. Don’t walk, always run. You’ll get there faster. Even if you’re only going two steps away.

8. You can not only send mail from mailboxes, you can receive mail from them as well.

9. If he’s had enough experience, a 35-lb naked and weaponless midget can totally whip ass on a guy who’s seven and a half feet tall, 275 lbs of solid muscle, wearing full battle armor and wielding a battle axe in each hand.

10. An entire gold bar costs only a few small pieces of gold.

11. If an animal attacks you, it will hit you, then stand there looking at you for about a second, then hit you again, and repeat until either you or the animal is dead.

12. Ghosts can walk on water, but they can’t go through rocks or trees.

13. It is possible to get temporarily stuck on a door frame, fence post, tree, rock or other such object.

14. If you have something that’s basically crap and want to sell it, you can sell it to anyone, but if you have something good that you’ve used, you can only sell it to a shopkeeper.

15. Death is only temporary, but it’s hard on your armor.