Welcome to Alterac Volley

I’m on my second stint with World of Warcraft. My first time playing was pre-Burning Crusade and I didn’t make it beyond level 35 or 36 on my hunter main. I found the level grind to be incredibly frustrating (particularly as someone who predominantly played solo) and I hadn’t quite figured out the economics of the auction house so gold was also an issue. I ended up suspending my account a few levels shy of my first mount.

It was until the beginning of January this year that I re-activated my account again to give WoW another shot. My friend and I were looking for a game we could play together now that he had moved across the state and we settled on WoW because it was one of the few computer games I could play on my Mac and he could run on his PC.

Even though I came to the party in Outland very late compared to everyone else I was having a much better time. With the help of my friend I managed to hit 60 without much of a problem and I was starting to really master how the auction house worked. Unfortunately, I really hit a wall leveling the final grind to 70. Instead of giving up again I decided I would give PvP a try and I became a battleground addict overnight.

Battlegrounds eventually motivated me to reach level 70 and solved a growing concern I had over getting decent gear as someone who spent most of their time playing solo. It was painfully clear I wasn’t going to get high-end gear for my hunter without running raids and instances, but the idea of PvP Honor rewards solved that problem entirely. By the time Wrath came out I had all of the PvP trinkets and the Merciless Gladiator’s Pursuit set with over 10,000 gold in the back.

That’s great. But why another Warcraft blog?

I started Alterac Volley so I could have a place to rant and rave about World of Warcraft. It seemed like a better option than having my thoughts drowned out on a random WoW forum or buried in the comments of an obscure page on Wowhead.

I’m going to offer my take on WoW from the perspective of a casual player, with an emphasis on the hunter class as it pertains to solo play, PvP and maybe some light dungeon running. In addition, I’m going to talk a lot (probably too much) about ways to make easy gold in the game by using your smarts at the auction house.