As I posted earlier my Prot Pally made it to Outland. He is now level 63 and I’ve gone through Ramparts, Blood Furnace and Slave Pens. I can say for sure that they made those instances easier, especially the final boss of Ramparts. Back when Burning Crusade first came out I remember pug groups wiping dozens of times on him until they gave up. If you stood in the dragons fire for more than two seconds or so you were dead, didn’t matter if you were healer, tank or DPS. Add to that the fact that it is really two bosses, and you have no drinking or eating time between the last trash pull and the boss, and it used to be harder to do that at the appropriate level that it was to do some Heroic Dungeons later on.
Now though I don’t even move out of the fire. Neither does my wife. We kill both bosses easily and her renew keeps anyone in the fire at full health. Let’s be clear though, I don’t think that this change is a bad thing. The simple fact was that very few pugs of the right level beat that boss. Like the Crystal Entity in Star Trek Online it simply requires far too much coordination to expect out of a pug group. Content like that is great for heroics or level cap dungeons or raids, but let’s keep the insta-death stuff out of the lowbie pug area.
On another note I got my Death Knight’s Mining and Herbalism to 300 by traveling all over Azeroth. My Death Knight is basically my bank alt, since he starts with nice bags and some money, plus an epic mount. I’m also using him to help out my Pally, who is Blacksmithing/Enchanting. One of us HAD to go enchanting since we were running all these instances, so I did. The wife went Jewelcrafting/Mining but I don’t like to take her ore.
On a final note my “free month” for both EverQuest II and Fallen Earth are up and I’ve got some decisions to make. Out of those two I would probably still with Fallen Earth, but those are not the only two options. I already own Age of Conan and I’m thinking about resubbing for a month just to see how far it’s come and if it’s for me. I’m playing through the endless Tortage trial now to see if I even feel like coming back. The graphics of the world are still as amazing as I remember, but at least for me the character textures seem…poor. Especially where the neck meets the body.
Of course there is also Vanguard (Now available through Steam) though I would have to buy that one before I could play it. Finally (and the one I’m leaning more toward) is DarkFall. I had a blast during my two week welcome back period and I’ve really missed the whole “skill based” system. I’m not a fool though. I know there are “levels” whether the game wants to call them that or not. You cannot really help as a newbie. Sure you can be a distraction, but I could do that in WoW at level 1 if I wanted, doesn’t mean it’s really participating. I’d have a several month grind until I could really enjoy the game as intended, but they are changing the health and a few other things soon that would help that.
At the moment I am leading toward DarkFall, but nothing is set in stone. I’ll finish Tortage at least once and then figure out what I want to do. Wish me luck.
Manifest Pixel 
LOL at that first picture. I have a screenshot of my druid doing the exact same thing, as I’m sure thousands of other people have as well. It’s like, ooh a throne! Must sit.
It’s almost a necessity. Like having a big red button that says “Don’t Push”.
I would recommend checking out AoC – especially if you feel like picking up the new expansion – because it’s come a long way and is a refreshing break from all of those cliché fantasy MMOs.
I’m at about level 10 in the Tortage trial at the moment. We will see if I like it enough to sub again. I never played melee at release so I am trying that first.
Melee is crazy fun. My Barbarian and Herald of Xotli love bashing in skulls.
Tortage is fun, but it sounds like you’ve tried to get through it before and didn’t. That’s too bad. I was worried that the quality of the game would drop off after heading out to the world beyond, but that has definitely not been the case.
I made it to level 42 the first time I played, when the game first came out. At first it stayed great but, at least back then, the content dropped off drastically the higher I got. I haven’t been back and out of Tortage yet and I’d have to be convinced things had changed enough that I could really enjoy it to make me sub again. It’s sucks they aren’t doing the “Welcome Back” weekends like LOTRO. It’d be nice to play my original character a bit.