Woke up in the middle of Shattarath(sp) City—the central hub for Outlands. Located in Terrokar Forest, it is fairly large and houses everything a swaggering adventurer could possibly need. After shaking down the locals for loose change and taking a small tour of the city, accompanied by some dude’s pet demon, I got a rough handle on things. Blah, blah, blah…lore, lore, lore…. Two factions of blood elves vying for political control or something and pick one to ally with. The Internets said that as a mage, I should probably choose the “Scryers” over the “Aldor”…so I did. Insert your own joke about the collective wisdom of the Internet here.
One thing I note is that the with the exception of Hellfire Peninsula, the zones in Outlands are really quite pretty to look at. They aren’t Aion-lush, but they have more of a polished look to them than the ‘classic’ WoW zones and the high-fantasy elements fit well into the scenes. Terrokar, for example, would be an intersting forest in and of itself, but the eye is quickly caught by scattered colonies of birdfolk (we aren’t allowed to call them ‘birdmen’ anymore) living in very elborate tree villages connected by suspension bridges. Zangramarsh’s theme is “fungus” and the landscape itself is mostly comprised of 15-story mushrooms with glowing monsters abounding. It was “Avatar before Avatar”, in a sense. The zone’s large lakes are being pumped dry by naga manning pumping stations and discovering why is key to the main plot of the area.
Cherry picked quests in both Terrokar and Zangramarsh and ran around for a bit of time ripping parts off nagas and spiders for no reason other than some guy asked me to. To be fair, I probably would’ve culled the spiders anyway—that’s just the way I roll.
Between running the quests and a couple of random dungeons, I reached level 65 and I note the xp to level is increasing dramatically. What was once 250 critters to level is now about 750…or about 48 quests ‘on level’ completed. I’d done all I felt like doing in Zangramarsh, dropped the rest of the quests and sought out a slightly tougher zone and ended in Nagrand. This zone is quite pleasant with sloping grassy hills and scattered trees—good hunting grounds for big game, which was made patently clear with a familiar face: Nesingwary—the hunter from Stranglethorn Vale has set up an encampment with his expedition adding a wonderful flavor to the normal killtenrats quests. After knocking out a few of those, I headed over to the local village to set my new home location and sleep in the inn—only to find I couldn’t: the village was “unfriendly” to me. Terrific.
After figuring out I had to kill a few ogres to bump up my reputation a little, I did so and, in the area has now lit up with quests. I’ll check them out some other time, for now I’m content to be able to sleep under a roof.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
Going Outlandish
Succumbed to my desire to “just do it, already” and ran a few quests in the Eastern Plaguelands to hit 58. As my gnomic gnomad levels, there are certain points that redefine the way I play… 20 for mounts, 50 gave me Steve, and now at 58, I can easily access the Outlands, the areas introduced in the Burning Crusade expansion. The foes and quests there are generally much more rewarding, in terms of both experience and loot.
I strode through the portal in the Blasted Lands and found myself in Hell, proper. “Hellfire Peninsula” is the entrance zone and has been designed to “make it look as badass possible”. The terrain is broken and along with various demons and orcs and such, giant Fel Reavers (super-mecha-demons) stalk the land. To my credit, I only got squished by those twice.
After finishing the introductory quests and telling myself that no matter WHAT any questgiver says, I am not buying a timeshare here, I find a person willing to teach me flying lessons. I took him up on that in and in short order I’m lazily flapping around on the back of my own golden gryphon. It’s a little on the slow side and I usually have to re-summon Steve whenever I get somewhere, but my quality of life has greatly improved now.
Knocked out nearly every quest anyone would give me and levels 59 and 60 ticked by quickly. The final tally for level 1-60? /played said 5 days, 10 hours. I really don’t care how long it takes me to get the last 20 levels. (possible lie!) By the time I hit 61, I had exhausted Hellfire completely, save for a few group quests.
Moseyed over to the Zone Next Door, Zangramarsh, and just settled in for a little marsh-fun and as I’m collecting a few insect wings or killing 10 (marsh) rats, I get a hail from Brian, inviting me on a dungeon adventure.
Dungeoneering will likely get a more detailed post in the future, but for now, know that I’ve avoided all dungeons like the plague in WoW to this point. The reason being, aside from my general disdain of pickup groups, is the length of time they take. For all the time I play, I usually don’t play large blocks of time straight: someone always needs something and I often have to logout at the drop of a hat. That’s usually no problem solo, bigger issue if you’re in the middle of a 4-hour dungeon crawl. I’d heard things were ‘better’ these days—well, now I’d see for myself.
I partied up with Brian (his Death Knight being my level) and he joined the queue finder and almost instantly we were teleported inside a level-appropriate dungeon. Sparing you the utterly cool narrative of what transpired within, I found that they really had made dungeons fun! It took about a half hour to run through to completion and the experience rewards were quite nice indeed as we rolled through the encounters quickly. Now that I had a handle on the mechanics and a little experience with How to Mage in a dungeon (spam Blizzard or frostbolt, repeat as needed. In this game, “crowd control” means AoE the fuck out of something), after Brian dropped off, I tried one on my own (Ding! 62), then another and another.
The dungeons were not all positive experiences, as not all pugs are created equally, but they provided not only a welcome change of pace for me, but a source for delicious rare gear. I made the mistake of acquiring an addon called “Gear Score”, which assigns people a number based on their gear’s level, the enchantments on them, and possibly witchcraft. I used it to compare my relative score to those that I teamed with and found myself…lacking. This isn’t that surprising, given that I’ve been mostly ignoring gear aside from quest upgrades and the rare AH purchase, but it drove home the fact I REALLY needed more rare drops. That meant more dungeons….
By the time I reached level 64, I had replaced much of my gear and now had a score on par with a number of people I was teaming with, but I’ll be turning off this add-on soon: I see the trap clearly and I’m going to avoid it…for now. There’s still some things I need to replace and I’m getting a handle on checking to see what dungeons I should be queueing up for. As time goes on, I’ll be splitting my time between above and below ground expeditions.
Tomorrow: the Seven Types of People You Meet in a PUG (more or less)
I strode through the portal in the Blasted Lands and found myself in Hell, proper. “Hellfire Peninsula” is the entrance zone and has been designed to “make it look as badass possible”. The terrain is broken and along with various demons and orcs and such, giant Fel Reavers (super-mecha-demons) stalk the land. To my credit, I only got squished by those twice.
After finishing the introductory quests and telling myself that no matter WHAT any questgiver says, I am not buying a timeshare here, I find a person willing to teach me flying lessons. I took him up on that in and in short order I’m lazily flapping around on the back of my own golden gryphon. It’s a little on the slow side and I usually have to re-summon Steve whenever I get somewhere, but my quality of life has greatly improved now.
Knocked out nearly every quest anyone would give me and levels 59 and 60 ticked by quickly. The final tally for level 1-60? /played said 5 days, 10 hours. I really don’t care how long it takes me to get the last 20 levels. (possible lie!) By the time I hit 61, I had exhausted Hellfire completely, save for a few group quests.
Moseyed over to the Zone Next Door, Zangramarsh, and just settled in for a little marsh-fun and as I’m collecting a few insect wings or killing 10 (marsh) rats, I get a hail from Brian, inviting me on a dungeon adventure.
Dungeoneering will likely get a more detailed post in the future, but for now, know that I’ve avoided all dungeons like the plague in WoW to this point. The reason being, aside from my general disdain of pickup groups, is the length of time they take. For all the time I play, I usually don’t play large blocks of time straight: someone always needs something and I often have to logout at the drop of a hat. That’s usually no problem solo, bigger issue if you’re in the middle of a 4-hour dungeon crawl. I’d heard things were ‘better’ these days—well, now I’d see for myself.
I partied up with Brian (his Death Knight being my level) and he joined the queue finder and almost instantly we were teleported inside a level-appropriate dungeon. Sparing you the utterly cool narrative of what transpired within, I found that they really had made dungeons fun! It took about a half hour to run through to completion and the experience rewards were quite nice indeed as we rolled through the encounters quickly. Now that I had a handle on the mechanics and a little experience with How to Mage in a dungeon (spam Blizzard or frostbolt, repeat as needed. In this game, “crowd control” means AoE the fuck out of something), after Brian dropped off, I tried one on my own (Ding! 62), then another and another.
The dungeons were not all positive experiences, as not all pugs are created equally, but they provided not only a welcome change of pace for me, but a source for delicious rare gear. I made the mistake of acquiring an addon called “Gear Score”, which assigns people a number based on their gear’s level, the enchantments on them, and possibly witchcraft. I used it to compare my relative score to those that I teamed with and found myself…lacking. This isn’t that surprising, given that I’ve been mostly ignoring gear aside from quest upgrades and the rare AH purchase, but it drove home the fact I REALLY needed more rare drops. That meant more dungeons….
By the time I reached level 64, I had replaced much of my gear and now had a score on par with a number of people I was teaming with, but I’ll be turning off this add-on soon: I see the trap clearly and I’m going to avoid it…for now. There’s still some things I need to replace and I’m getting a handle on checking to see what dungeons I should be queueing up for. As time goes on, I’ll be splitting my time between above and below ground expeditions.
Tomorrow: the Seven Types of People You Meet in a PUG (more or less)
Friday, July 9, 2010
Winterspring
Arrived in Winterspring and immediately found myself with a number of tasks that wanted me to do absolutely anything except fight in Winterspring.
NPC1: “Go to the Plaguelands and deliver this MacGuffin”
Me: “No.”
NPC2: “Go back to Felwood and kill a few—“
Me: “No.”
NPC3: “Grab me a few Plot Coupons from Tanaris?”
Me: “*stab*”
NPC4: “HOLY CRAP! You just killed that guy!”
Me: “Yeah—got anything for me to do?”
NPC4: “Go to—umm... that hill right there and kill 10 yetis?”
Now we were in business. After some hunting around I found a couple more quests to do after exterminating the yetis, mostly dealing with killing more yetis, furbolg (furry humanoids), and avoiding certain death from Frost Giants as I stole crystals from under their noses. All in all, it was not a bad time.
A little back story: I visited Winterspring originally during my Festival runs, but before obtaining the flight path, I had to cross over from the only adjacent zone (Felwood) using a tunnel system heavily populated by a furbolg clan, the Timbermaw. There are two commonly accepted means of doing this: kill all the damn furry things in your path and never go back or take the time to impress them by killing rival furbolg clans and improve your reputation from “Hated” to “Worf on a Good Day” so they wouldn’t attack on sight. I’ve never been one to make enemies arbitrarily, so I opted for the latter. It was starting to pay off in spades.
Each of the furries I killed in Winterspring raised my reputation with the Timbermaw by a sliver and every now and then I’d get a curious trinket that began a quest—which required me to chit chat with a furry in the tunnels. Well, they wouldn’t talk to me unless I was on at least “Neutral” terms, so I knocked out a few furbolg quests that could be viewed by an outsider as “racial purification” and after a short bit was able to turn in a solid chunk of quests taking me to level 57.
I did wind up revisiting Felwood to tidy up a couple of loose ends and it was with slight sadness that I returned to the frozen village. With Winterspring’s quests now nearly dry, I knew my next stop was going to be the Eastern Plaguelands, but first one last fun quest. After acquiring various yeti parts for a local goblin, she revealed her Master Plan to me: a small mechanized Yeti to scare the crap out of a few of her friends. I’d have to carry it around the world (literally), but it was for a good practical joke and was thus worth it. Goblins screaming and running around while being chased by a miniature yeti? Comedy gold.
NPC1: “Go to the Plaguelands and deliver this MacGuffin”
Me: “No.”
NPC2: “Go back to Felwood and kill a few—“
Me: “No.”
NPC3: “Grab me a few Plot Coupons from Tanaris?”
Me: “*stab*”
NPC4: “HOLY CRAP! You just killed that guy!”
Me: “Yeah—got anything for me to do?”
NPC4: “Go to—umm... that hill right there and kill 10 yetis?”
Now we were in business. After some hunting around I found a couple more quests to do after exterminating the yetis, mostly dealing with killing more yetis, furbolg (furry humanoids), and avoiding certain death from Frost Giants as I stole crystals from under their noses. All in all, it was not a bad time.
A little back story: I visited Winterspring originally during my Festival runs, but before obtaining the flight path, I had to cross over from the only adjacent zone (Felwood) using a tunnel system heavily populated by a furbolg clan, the Timbermaw. There are two commonly accepted means of doing this: kill all the damn furry things in your path and never go back or take the time to impress them by killing rival furbolg clans and improve your reputation from “Hated” to “Worf on a Good Day” so they wouldn’t attack on sight. I’ve never been one to make enemies arbitrarily, so I opted for the latter. It was starting to pay off in spades.
Each of the furries I killed in Winterspring raised my reputation with the Timbermaw by a sliver and every now and then I’d get a curious trinket that began a quest—which required me to chit chat with a furry in the tunnels. Well, they wouldn’t talk to me unless I was on at least “Neutral” terms, so I knocked out a few furbolg quests that could be viewed by an outsider as “racial purification” and after a short bit was able to turn in a solid chunk of quests taking me to level 57.
I did wind up revisiting Felwood to tidy up a couple of loose ends and it was with slight sadness that I returned to the frozen village. With Winterspring’s quests now nearly dry, I knew my next stop was going to be the Eastern Plaguelands, but first one last fun quest. After acquiring various yeti parts for a local goblin, she revealed her Master Plan to me: a small mechanized Yeti to scare the crap out of a few of her friends. I’d have to carry it around the world (literally), but it was for a good practical joke and was thus worth it. Goblins screaming and running around while being chased by a miniature yeti? Comedy gold.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Silithus
Ah, Silithus!
If it creeps, crawls, or has an exoskeleton, a stinger, or pincers, it will be found here. Tucked away in the far southwest corner of Kalimdor, it is regarded as one of the hardest regions in the 'basic' game. Outlands, I shall claim you for my own within a week! Muhahaha. Err...sorry.
Again, my persistence at the Summer Fire Festival reaps rewards as I had a flight path to a small outpost near the zone's border. I was greeted by a bevy people with things bugging them (literally). Casting a glance across the landscape, the sky was thick with writhing swarms of insects, adding a distinctly alien feel to the area. Everyone wanted something dead and in vast quantities. That, I could oblige.
Venturing gamely into the deserts surrounding the area, I was immediately struck by how many adversaries there were. Exploring anywhere would mean carving a path through the nightmares of children. Spiders, and scorpions, and sandworms, oh my! After I cleared out the first round of tasks and picked up round two, I found a tiny refuge manned by a dwarf (as opposed to being dwarfed by a man) with a mission: obtain unobtainium (or whatever) from local geysers.
This is apparently a PvP mini-game for the zone. Each faction can bring back MacGuffins one at a time to 'home base' and score a point for their team. Holding a MacGuffin flags you for PvP-combat, slows your move speed, and getting on a mount will cause it to be lost. Lovely. Each turn in grants reputation, a token amount of honor, and a 30 minute 5% damage buff. As I discovered, the first turn in grants all of the above plus a chunk of xp. Still, it's something to do and honestly... there aren't that many players wandering around this zone. The 'goal' is for your team to be the first to 200 turn-ins. Doing so grants your entire side a debatable bonus to reputation earned in the zone. The score stayed at 0-1 for over two hours, so you can see how popular this mini-game is.
Completed all of the quests for the zone, save for a "Kill the +4 Elite Scorpion with Two Bodyguards" group quest, but not without trying and losing violently. Twice. It was vaguely reminiscent of Clash of the Titans (the Harryhausen version, not the PoS they foisted off on us earlier this year) The closest I got was burning (icing?) down one of the bodyguards and getting the Big Bad down to just under half health. I may revisit this one next week just out of spite.
By the time I finished questing, I had leveled (Ding! 56) and was itching to try someplace new. Deep within the Silithus wastes, I discovered Steve and I could handle +5 creatures at great mana costs, so I felt more comfortable taking my happy butt to Winterspring a level earlier than planned. Initially I was reluctant to hunt Winterspring because of fears the bulk of the critters in an ice zone would have high frost resistances, but after a few owlbeasts and yeti were felled it looks as though my fears were unfounded. There's some damage reduction going on, of this I am certain, but not enough to be...prohibitive. Well, yet.
If it creeps, crawls, or has an exoskeleton, a stinger, or pincers, it will be found here. Tucked away in the far southwest corner of Kalimdor, it is regarded as one of the hardest regions in the 'basic' game. Outlands, I shall claim you for my own within a week! Muhahaha. Err...sorry.
Again, my persistence at the Summer Fire Festival reaps rewards as I had a flight path to a small outpost near the zone's border. I was greeted by a bevy people with things bugging them (literally). Casting a glance across the landscape, the sky was thick with writhing swarms of insects, adding a distinctly alien feel to the area. Everyone wanted something dead and in vast quantities. That, I could oblige.
Venturing gamely into the deserts surrounding the area, I was immediately struck by how many adversaries there were. Exploring anywhere would mean carving a path through the nightmares of children. Spiders, and scorpions, and sandworms, oh my! After I cleared out the first round of tasks and picked up round two, I found a tiny refuge manned by a dwarf (as opposed to being dwarfed by a man) with a mission: obtain unobtainium (or whatever) from local geysers.
This is apparently a PvP mini-game for the zone. Each faction can bring back MacGuffins one at a time to 'home base' and score a point for their team. Holding a MacGuffin flags you for PvP-combat, slows your move speed, and getting on a mount will cause it to be lost. Lovely. Each turn in grants reputation, a token amount of honor, and a 30 minute 5% damage buff. As I discovered, the first turn in grants all of the above plus a chunk of xp. Still, it's something to do and honestly... there aren't that many players wandering around this zone. The 'goal' is for your team to be the first to 200 turn-ins. Doing so grants your entire side a debatable bonus to reputation earned in the zone. The score stayed at 0-1 for over two hours, so you can see how popular this mini-game is.
Completed all of the quests for the zone, save for a "Kill the +4 Elite Scorpion with Two Bodyguards" group quest, but not without trying and losing violently. Twice. It was vaguely reminiscent of Clash of the Titans (the Harryhausen version, not the PoS they foisted off on us earlier this year) The closest I got was burning (icing?) down one of the bodyguards and getting the Big Bad down to just under half health. I may revisit this one next week just out of spite.
By the time I finished questing, I had leveled (Ding! 56) and was itching to try someplace new. Deep within the Silithus wastes, I discovered Steve and I could handle +5 creatures at great mana costs, so I felt more comfortable taking my happy butt to Winterspring a level earlier than planned. Initially I was reluctant to hunt Winterspring because of fears the bulk of the critters in an ice zone would have high frost resistances, but after a few owlbeasts and yeti were felled it looks as though my fears were unfounded. There's some damage reduction going on, of this I am certain, but not enough to be...prohibitive. Well, yet.
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