Unfortunately life at 60 is all about repetition.  Your choices are rep
grinding with Cenarion/AD/Timbermaw/TB etc, endgame PVE raiding which is all
about routing and running the same raid instances in the same way several
times a week (trust me when each one is on farm status, you'll wonder if
anyone could be more dull) or PVP.. and if you have any aspirations of a
high rank in PVP, prepare to devote most of every day to it.

After 18 months, 5x level 60s (and one more about to hit it), endless
MC/Onyxia and someBWL runs, I have reached the end of my patience for PVE
endgame and I doubt PVP will keep me entertained for much longer.
Personally, I('m just pissing about until something new arrives.

Now enough from me and perhaps someone who still enjoys endgame will come
along and give you an entirely different viewpoint :)

Congratulations.

I dinged 60 with my dwarven hunter some time last october. I finished some
of the easier quests and then parked him while I started a priest and - a
little later - a druid alt.

I took out my hunter some time in march again, and when p1.10 introduced the
gold for quests I put some emphasis on finishing the quests in my log.
having joined a more mature guild also helped me getting into various of the
55+ - 60 instances (BRS, Strat, Scholo) to get some more gear and I have had
a quick glance at Zul (downed 3 bosses on a only visit) and Ony+MC (downed
Ony and Luci, then had to leave for RL). I have grinded for the Darkmoon
necklace just a few weeks ago (for the July faire visit) and have now once
more come to the point where the following things remain to be done with my
hunter:
- finish the LBRS quests (including UBRS key) as nobody - not even in my
 guild - seems to be eager to do LBRS in 5man runs
- get some missing t0 pieces (head, shoulders, chest, feet), then it might
 be worth attempting the 45min baron run
- get another bone slicing hatchet from scholo (i have one, want two, each
 with +15 agi)
- finishe a couple more elite quests (broken amulett & Rakelith)
- do some AD rep grinding and token farming for the 18 slot bag

The big raid instances are not an option due to my time budget.

Good. When life at 60 starts being tedious, take another break with your
alts. That did wonders for me!

It takes a while. When it does, spend some time with your alts. Then come
back!

Definitely, I didn't have that at the start.

Never saw much reason for it, though I am casually working on AD rep,
not with a specific goal, though. Grats on the Timbermaw rep, though.

Do that. It's fun, especially, if you are in a good guild, that supports you
with it.

Another good move. If your rep is not above 2500 into friendly yet, try
getting some virbant plumes from the harpies in 1000 needles and hand those
in first. and while armour kits are a good way to get tickets, i found out
that getting thorium widgets (buying the ingredients from the AH, having a
friend make them if you can't) is faster, provided you can spare the cash.

I was in WSG once when I was 35ish, lost the match but got private from it.
never been in a BG or a PvP fight since.

Can't really tell, others will be able to fill you in.

No need to, until you tire of life at 60. When I revived my hunter in March,
I first alternated between him and my two alts but for the last 2 months or
so I felt no inclination to play my alts at all. But now, I am again at a
point where my 60 gets a break, I just spent the weekend on my priest alt
and loved it again.

It's up to you. Do what you like and what you find fun. Do not let others
dictate your game. If you have the time and feel like the raid instances, go
for it. If you try BGs and like, go for it. If neither appeals to you, let
it be. If gear gives you satisfaction, work for it. If it doesn't, let it
rest. There are so many ways to have fun in Azeroth, and from your post I
have the impression that you are pretty good at knowing what you like doing.

Cheers
Urbin

Grats. :)

Well, for one I would suggest trying a few more instances - BRD,
Lower/Upper-BRS, Strat, Scholo. Or any of the lower level ones you
skipped on your way up. :)

Well, it takes a bit to sink in. But now that you are 60 you can't
look forward to the next level anymore - as you leveled items were
nice but not more, they got replaced every few levels or so, so they
were somehow lost in the big picture. Now however new, better items
are the only advancement you can look forward to.

That pretty much sums up the pre-60/post-60 difference as I see it.

How hard you feel it depends very much on what your focus is - eg. if
all you want is to explore, talk with your friends, and go quest then
it likely won't affect you much. But if you are going for advancement
and making your character stronger, then it will hit you hard.

It is, ofc, also very individual if you like the post-60 shift or not.

What? Stop that at once, get out there and start killing! :p

Or more seriously; try it, see what you think - you might like it, you
might not. Go find out...
In any case, if at all you can then go with a group of friends and/or
guildies.

Well, it is the easiest BG to get rep in if you can tolerate it...

As a hunter you have the advantage of being able of sitting in the
middle of your sides raid and plinking away at the enemy - +1 rep per
person you helped kill, plus some extra every time your side completes
a task.

Sounds good, have fun. :)

Snippety doo-dah

Depends on how much you play it. I've been Av'ing for a while with my rogue,
but since I injured my foot at work and have had to spend (so far) 3 weeks
at home, I decided to do BG's with my Hunter. I earned 20k honor the first
week, 115k the second, 105k the third and I'm at 100k so far this week. I'm
currently a Sergeant Major and my standing was 96 last week. I am currently
revered, 3/4 of the way (16k/21k) to exalted with the Stormpike Guard
(Alterac Valley), though I am only *just* friendly with Silverwing Sentinals
and League of Arathor. Interesting since I haven't been concentrating on AV,
and taking whatever BG pops first.

The Ice barbed spear is a quest reward for one of the easiest quests in AV,
go to the harpy cave and retrieve the banner. The harpy cave is set out
almost exactly like the yeti cave in Winterspring. You get the quest from an
NPC inside the Dun Baldar keep.

As I describe in
<URL:http://groups.google.com/group/alt.games.warcraft/msg/9fc4e199913c535f>,
I made one half-hour visit to Alterac Valley out of curiosity's sake
very soon after it opened up in June 2005. Within a half hour I
received the Ice Barbed Spear as a quest reward. I haven't been inside
another battleground since!  (Patch 1.8 made receiving such rewards
much more difficult, anyway.)

snip:

Find T. Fordring along the river that divides EPL and WPL.  Do the
three killtasks he assigns you (BEFORE EPL becomes open pvp).  There is
a wonderful questline that involves a live strat run.  The rewards are
worthwhile and the quest is even better.  Thotbott Fordring, you'll
find it.

Congrats on making 60.   I got my first char to 60 about 3 months ago,
and I'm still having fun with the end-game content.  Ironically my
first (and as of yet only) 60 was originally an alt.  I started out
with a hunter that I leveled to 34 before I got absolutely bored of
him.  After that I started a mage which I leveled to 60.  I've gotten
my druid alt to 27 and my warlock alt to 14 but still haven't touched
the hunter again :).

Personally, I'm really enjoying the raids in particular.  Our guild is
still growing so we haven't done any 40 mans yet (we are teaming with
another smaller guild this weekend for our first stab at Molten Core),
but I'm really liking Zul Gurub and AQ20.  The ammount of teamwork and
coordination required to down the big bosses in these instances is
amazing, and it presents a very real challenge.  My own personal
crusade (being a DPS character :)) is to do my best to stay up there on
the DamageMeter, which means I'm always on the hunt for better and
better +dmg gear for my char.  I've completed all of my Tier 0 set
except for my pants, and have converted the first 3 parts of the set to
Tier 0.5, though I only actually have the gloves and belt equipped.
The rest is random UBRS, ZG, AQ20, & high-end crafted stuff.

If that doesn't suit your fancy, there is always rep farming which can
be a good way  to get difficult trade-skill patterns which can net you
some extra income.  One neat factor about this is that often you can
combine instance runs with rep farming and kill two birds with one
stone.

There's also PVP content.  I'm personally just not very into PVP so I
can't give much advice there, but a lot of people do seem to enjoy it.

And finally, there's alt leveling.  Not only fun as the play style will
be different, but also useful, as we've all had situations where a
group needs a player of a certain class to fill a group, and nobody can
seem to find one.  It's nice to have a fully leveled alt that you can
hop on in order to fill a gap in the raid group.

Mike Gaskins

I've done Alterac Valley a total of 5 times, and am about 100 reputation
short of honored with them. Unfortunately, the last time I did it, there
were only about 8 Horde and 9 Alliance, so the battleground ended. I'm
hoping the cross-server BG's will help keep the AV's alive longer. On the
other hand, of those 5, 4 ended with Horde winning (in 3 of the cases with
no trouble, 1 of the 4 took a great deal more effort, which was a lot of
fun). I've also yet to do any of the AV quests (other than the initial quest
of turning in the honor marks), so no, it's not difficult at all to get to
honored. However, expect an AV to last no shorter than 45 minutes and could
last as long as 3 hours (the short and long in my limited experience). But,
expect to have lots of fun! And don't kill the wolves! Just the rams! (I
know, you're probably alliance based on the rest of your post, so switch
that advice around...was just trying to give my side a bit of an advantage!)