My war(craft) journal #2 - the wander years

So If you read yesterdays entry , you'll know I'm playing World of Warcraft at the mo...whats that? Warcraft? ...sigh, right go read this and come back as I'm not typing it all out again.
Up to speed? good.

Are you experienced..

So on day one I'm a fresh out of the box new player (commonly reffered to as a newbie if you're nice and a OMGUFuckinN00b! if you're not),I'm shaky on my legs and if anything so much as sneezes at me I'm dead.My first aim here is to toughen myself up .How do I do this?Well in most RPG games you start off as a pissweak level 1 character...you cant do much damage to anyone, you definitely cant take much damage before dying , and you're not really useful to have around yet. However as you play the game you gain experience,(known herafter as XP) .When you gain enough experience you gain a level .With each level you gain your ability to actually hit things goes up , as does your ability to take damage, plus if you're playing as a healer type guy (like I am ) you gain new abilities that other people find useful such as healing them , or adding to their armour , or knowing where to order a decent pizza,(one of these may not be true).
So how do you get XP? , well by killing things , but also by running errands for in game characters .These are actually called Quests , but lets face it , for your first few weeks quests will consist of killing chickens, finding lost grannies and delivering parcels, which are more errand boy than epic hero. Lastly(and I like this) you get xp for finding new areas , not much but enough to actually make a bit of a difference for your first few levels.

So I spent my first 5 or 6 hours exploring the local area.Mulgore (as the region is known) is, I suppose, based on native american culture , with teepes , totems ,and lots of those Dreamcatcher type things .It's (compared to other parts I've seen since) actually the kind of place you wouldnt mind walking around in real life (except for all the rabid wolves) .You start out in the south west in a sheltered valley , and as you wander around on quests and exploring , come to a camp overlooking a lake ,(called bloodhoof) , keep heading north and eventually you come to a winding mountain path that takes finishes with a weird open wooden elevator that climbs vertically up the mountain.Take this to the top and you come to your first big city , Thunderbluff! Spread out in to several sections , each one sperated by a gorge spanning rope bridge , you can spend a few hours just wandering around the different shops and buildings.Dont assume , however that you cant fall off the bridges ,by the way , I managed it about three times, falling to my death got me a great view , but was it was a pain in the getting back to the city afterwards (more about dying next time, believe me I did enough of it).
Exploring is a pretty important part of the game at lower levels .I know after a while I'll have seen everything and will be solely a merciless killing machine , but right now its fun .One of the biggest thrills I got was when I made my way a few miles to the east and found my way into a desert town (called the crossroads , its in the slightly threatening looking "barrens"area), and was able to hire a griffen to fly me back to thunderbluff.It took about 3 minutes , but I got an amazing view of the area as I flew "home" on its back .It would have been easier to just program it so you magically teleported to the area you wanted to go to when you did this , but the fact that you get the scenic route is something I'm enjoying right now..

next time :something about the other players , oh and some action , no more about the scenery I promise