"Hardcore" Casual

Welcome to the Argent Stand, the ongoing struggles of a World of Warcraft "hardcore" casual. Is that an oxymoron or what?! I've never really fit in the categories very well. It's hard to say that I'm strickly casual, as I've been playing WoW since pretty consistently since Vanilla. I've taken small breaks here and there, but I've pretty much played a few times a week for an hour or so and maybe a few hours once a week for over six years now.

Mostly I've leveled/quested with a variety of classes. I think I've pretty much tried them all, except maybe the Shaman, but have pretty much leveled with my melee DPSers. My main has been my Blood Elf DK, but I've leveled a Paladin, Warrior, Rogue, and Hunter into the 70's or higher. Mostly I've leveled them until I've kind of plateaued, then occasionally I've come back to them and given them another shot. In Wrath, when the LFD tool came out, I did my first regular dungeon runs, and was able to get my two 80's, my DK and Paladin, pretty well geared up running Heriocs a couple nights a week.

Since Cataclysm, I've been doing a few things to keep busy and have been playing a little more than usual. I've been leveling my all the professions on my older alts. I just picked up Balcksmithing and Engineering on my 72 Goblin Warrior I'm using as my current Bank Alt. I really want to level my three higher level alts up to at least 75 so I can level up their professions too, but there's only so much time in the day! Mostly, I'm leveling myDK up as 2H Frost, currently an 83 finishing up Deepholm quests before I move on Uldum, and running a Worgen Fury warrior on the Alliance side, my first higher level Alliance alt, currently at 75. I'm also playing the AH quite a bit. My main profession has been Inscription, which has been very lucrative since the Shattering and contrary to some blogs I've read, still printing money for me. I've made several hundred thousand gold on my server in just a few months, but I also have been dabbling in some other professions as well, trying to branch out for when the gravy train comes to an end.

I've got plenty of thoughts on the state of WoW and what I've seen that I'll be sharing. I hope that you all have some good thoughts to share as well. Once thing I've learned in all my time playing WoW is that it's a very big game, and for those of us who have a life outside the game, there's way more out there than we could possibly learn or keep up with in the few hours a week we have to play. Hopefully your've got some thoughts to help myself and others out.

For the Horde!