Shelley and Kelley returned from New York today, after spending a week there with family.

While they were gone, I accomplished quite a bit. None of it productive, all of it fun!

Yeah, I played WoW 'til my eyes bled. It wasn't just the same-old, same-old grinding or quest-completing solo adventures. Instead, it was all multi-player group quests or dungeons, and even one 40-player raid in to Molten Core, one of the pre-expansion hard-core areas that I'd never seen before.

Myz accomplished seven five-person instances (Old Hillsbrad, Botanica, Mechanar, Shadow Labyrinth, Arcatraz, Steam Vaults, and Black Morass) as well as a Molten Core run, and helped with and was helped in quite a number of group quests. All the instances were done in pickup groups with random people with nary a problem.

The funnest part of the weekend, though, and the funnest bit of WoW in a long time for me came when running the Dark Portal instance, also known as Black Morass, in the Caverns of Time. I tried this with two different groups, and succeeded only on the fifth attempt. Wave upon wave of dragon invaders appear out of different portals, and you and your four companions have to stop them before they go on to take down an important person. This proved to be quite challenging, but also quite enjoyable. I plan to return to this event just for the entertainment value.

The journey into Molten Core expectedly turned out rather tame, simply because so many of the 40 people doing it had advanced well beyond the capabilities for which the adventure had been designed originally. I'm glad to have seen the place (the last boss is awesome) but don't plan to go back as there's no reason to be there any more.