Made my way up over the next mountain range and upon investigating the inside of a cave, accidentally find myself embroiled in a very long and entertaining quest series, most of which has me traipsing along in disguise as a giant blue warrior woman as she proves herself in combat to the village.
As I progress through a martial tournament, I find myself having to do side quests to progress through it. “You may have bested a few challengers—but you have no bear for The Pit of Fangs!” The diversity of the quests continue to mark this as an outstanding expansion. Flaming arrows while riding “bear back”, rescuing tethered drakes and flying away with villagers held fast in my mount’s talons, this arc has had it all. The culmination was the best killtenrats I’ve played to date.
Flying a drake on auto-pilot, circling just below a temple atop the tallest mountain peak, I was tasked with besting ten (of course) other riders in combat. This was accomplished by firing a HARPOON into the other drake, swinging over to the back of my prey, and nuking the hell out of the rider from point blank. After knocking her off the mount, the new drake was mine and time to lather, rinse, and repeat. After besting the last, a harpoon into the temple wall sent me sailing onto the floor before a giant throne, where a servant of the olden titans sat. After skimming through lore-filled diatribe, I’m supposed to do something Pretty Important next, maybe save the world or kill a few frost giants. I’m a little fuzzy on the details.
Knocked out a daily dungeon, hit level 78, and called it a very early night.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Wandering Around
Bound and determined to put Sholozan behind me, I focused on clearing out the Nesingwary hunter quests, as I’d have to complete them at some point for a certain achievement and honestly… Blizzard put serious work into the characters so I wanted to see the ending. I was not disappointed. The arc culminated with a hunt with Nesingwary himself, both of us on his mammoth. I’m steering and he’s riding shotgun…literally. I’m running the mammoth in circles while being attacked by a giant fire-breathing dragon. He’s screaming at the it (and me) while dropping traps and firing his shotgun at the fell beast. Good times! Victory brought a wonderfully scripted dialogue back at the camp as Nesingwary recounted the adventure to his party.
Finished up a handful of other quests and accidentally aligned myself with a faction of gnolls by playing along with them while trying to find a different group to ally with. In doing so, I made my potential allies my enemies and to ‘fix it’, I’m going to have to hunt down an elite lich. Terrific. Blowing off the rest of that misadventure, I flapped around and explored the rest of the zone from the relative safety of my gryphon.
From that point, it was “Eastward, Ho!” as I gradually crossed the continent, taking and finishing minor quests in the Borean Tundra, Dragonblight, and Grizzly Woods made stupidly simple with air travel. My goal was to ‘fill in’ the areas of the map I had not yet explored in those zones and I did so with ease.
Took a brief break when a random dungeon team was available and I found myself in some unpronounceable hellhole populated with golems. The prevailing party opinion was to skip as much of the dungeon as possible and get to the end boss quickly. From what I saw, I was glad we did. We picked up an NPC dwarf along the way and we had to defend him as he worked to disable “automated defense systems” that must have shared an AI with GlaDOS. The place was nightmarish and I had no idea what was going on half the time. Tonight I’m going to read up on that place because I just know I’m going to see it again and I want to be better prepared. Regrettably, the anguish brought no new gear, so the experience only rewarded experience…and gold…delicious gold. With under 400 gold until epic flight, I’m scrabbling for copper coins in the gutter.
Returning to Northrend, I turned my sights northward to the Crystalsong Forest, home to Dalaran, but finding no quest hubs through casual exploration, I continued north into a frozen mountainous region known as the Storm Peaks and was delighted to quickly locate a goblin outpost known as “K3”. Making it my new home, I undertook the various tasks required and notably wound up with several explosively fun doosies.
The first was retrieve some tools from the middle of a field. A minefield, that is. A large number of anti-air cannons precluded subverted the quest by just flying to the tools, so I had to pick my way through the field densely populated with proximity mines. More than once I found myself flying through the air from a mine that was a little too close, but in the end I made it out alive with my prize. I would soon get some of my own back.
Soon armed with improved mines, I got to deploy a minefield of my own and set traps for magnataurs (think buff ugly centaurs) that were more intent on storming a goblin outpost than hassling me. It was pleasantly fulfilling.
Finally, I got the most awesome quest ever and I was deeply saddened to know it wasn’t repeatable. It was so nice I considered never turning it in, just so I could KEEP doing it. The task? Get a bomb with a short fuse from a dispenser. From the time you pick it up, you’ve got less than a minute to get rid of it. The goal? Find a mammoth and strap the bomb to its side. When the mammoth blows, pick up chunks of meat that rain down on the nearby scenery. PETA would not approve.
I can’t wait to see what the rest of the zone holds.
Finished up a handful of other quests and accidentally aligned myself with a faction of gnolls by playing along with them while trying to find a different group to ally with. In doing so, I made my potential allies my enemies and to ‘fix it’, I’m going to have to hunt down an elite lich. Terrific. Blowing off the rest of that misadventure, I flapped around and explored the rest of the zone from the relative safety of my gryphon.
From that point, it was “Eastward, Ho!” as I gradually crossed the continent, taking and finishing minor quests in the Borean Tundra, Dragonblight, and Grizzly Woods made stupidly simple with air travel. My goal was to ‘fill in’ the areas of the map I had not yet explored in those zones and I did so with ease.
Took a brief break when a random dungeon team was available and I found myself in some unpronounceable hellhole populated with golems. The prevailing party opinion was to skip as much of the dungeon as possible and get to the end boss quickly. From what I saw, I was glad we did. We picked up an NPC dwarf along the way and we had to defend him as he worked to disable “automated defense systems” that must have shared an AI with GlaDOS. The place was nightmarish and I had no idea what was going on half the time. Tonight I’m going to read up on that place because I just know I’m going to see it again and I want to be better prepared. Regrettably, the anguish brought no new gear, so the experience only rewarded experience…and gold…delicious gold. With under 400 gold until epic flight, I’m scrabbling for copper coins in the gutter.
Returning to Northrend, I turned my sights northward to the Crystalsong Forest, home to Dalaran, but finding no quest hubs through casual exploration, I continued north into a frozen mountainous region known as the Storm Peaks and was delighted to quickly locate a goblin outpost known as “K3”. Making it my new home, I undertook the various tasks required and notably wound up with several explosively fun doosies.
The first was retrieve some tools from the middle of a field. A minefield, that is. A large number of anti-air cannons precluded subverted the quest by just flying to the tools, so I had to pick my way through the field densely populated with proximity mines. More than once I found myself flying through the air from a mine that was a little too close, but in the end I made it out alive with my prize. I would soon get some of my own back.
Soon armed with improved mines, I got to deploy a minefield of my own and set traps for magnataurs (think buff ugly centaurs) that were more intent on storming a goblin outpost than hassling me. It was pleasantly fulfilling.
Finally, I got the most awesome quest ever and I was deeply saddened to know it wasn’t repeatable. It was so nice I considered never turning it in, just so I could KEEP doing it. The task? Get a bomb with a short fuse from a dispenser. From the time you pick it up, you’ve got less than a minute to get rid of it. The goal? Find a mammoth and strap the bomb to its side. When the mammoth blows, pick up chunks of meat that rain down on the nearby scenery. PETA would not approve.
I can’t wait to see what the rest of the zone holds.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
DPS class, it's a blast, blast, blast
Abbreviated game time due to pulling waaaay too much spousal aggro—and that’s all I’ll say on that. In the meantime…
Began by immediately queuing up for a dungeon, then balked when I saw the average time to enter was hovering around half an hour. Not to be dissuaded, I started working the quests obtained at Camp Nesigwary that were mostly killtenrats, but included a few delightful things such as shaking tree vines to gather fruit, mixing up some booze from said fruit in a rapid random clickfest at a still, and disguising myself as a bush to lure a crocolisk to its doom.
At a second encampment I stumbled across the “Cold Weather Flying” trainer and made a note to book it there as soon as I hit 77.
All total, I was able to get in three dungeons and I’m getting very comfortable with a couple of them. No new gear dropped that would’ve been of any use to me, so I had to content myself with a couple of minor upgrades from quest turn-ins. The random group I got with number two was very synergetic: not the quickest run, but experienced people and we all worked well together. When it finished, we ran through another together—it’s always nice when you can do that with a solid group and avoid 10-30 minutes of ‘down time’. The end of the final dungeon carried me over into the next level (WOO!), so I sadly bade my random party adieu (they all wanted to run through another one) as it was getting late and I had one last thing to do…
Returned to the CWF trainer, plunked down a thousand gold, and flew away into the night on the back of my own gryphon. It was very liberating and I eagerly await exploring the whole of Northrend from above once my leveling quest is complete. Three more to go!
Began by immediately queuing up for a dungeon, then balked when I saw the average time to enter was hovering around half an hour. Not to be dissuaded, I started working the quests obtained at Camp Nesigwary that were mostly killtenrats, but included a few delightful things such as shaking tree vines to gather fruit, mixing up some booze from said fruit in a rapid random clickfest at a still, and disguising myself as a bush to lure a crocolisk to its doom.
At a second encampment I stumbled across the “Cold Weather Flying” trainer and made a note to book it there as soon as I hit 77.
All total, I was able to get in three dungeons and I’m getting very comfortable with a couple of them. No new gear dropped that would’ve been of any use to me, so I had to content myself with a couple of minor upgrades from quest turn-ins. The random group I got with number two was very synergetic: not the quickest run, but experienced people and we all worked well together. When it finished, we ran through another together—it’s always nice when you can do that with a solid group and avoid 10-30 minutes of ‘down time’. The end of the final dungeon carried me over into the next level (WOO!), so I sadly bade my random party adieu (they all wanted to run through another one) as it was getting late and I had one last thing to do…
Returned to the CWF trainer, plunked down a thousand gold, and flew away into the night on the back of my own gryphon. It was very liberating and I eagerly await exploring the whole of Northrend from above once my leveling quest is complete. Three more to go!
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
The Return of the PUG
Finished up as much of Zul’Drak as I could comfortably solo (Ding, 76!), and flapped my way back to the western edge of the continent to explore a new zone: Sholozar Basin. From what little I’ve seen, I already don’t like it. It’s very much like “Stranglethorn Vale: Part Two”, with giant rhinos, tigers, and crocolisks (oh my!). Nesingwary returns with another encampment… the Venture Bay Mining Company (an evil goblin mining corporation) returns… etc.
The quests so far here aren’t interesting and as almost a nod to Aion, this time we get a dose of killsixtyrats. After running a few odd jobs, I decided to park my butt in the encampment and look for a dungeon group. I hadn’t played any of the Lich King ones yet and heard they were “streamlined”. I was ready to see… and was impressed.
All total, I spun the wheel of fortune five times and wound up in three different dungeons: Drak’Tharon, the Violet Hold, and Gundrak. Overall, extremely positive experiences, even if my death counter did tick up slightly. Each time I entered a new dungeon, I told the party it was my first time through and someone was always kind enough to advise me to “Watch out for the black spots on the floor” or “This guy does AoE fears” or “GET THE F**K BACK!”, whichever was appropriate to the encounter.
In doing so, I cleared a few quests out of my log that had been growing stagnant, earned a half-level worth of experience and a few rare blues (2k Gearscore—woo! I’m no longer the least geared in the dungeon!), and had an absolute blast.
The highlight was the finale to Drak’Tharon, wherein a captured troll that was a major quest line in Grizzly Woods was revealed to be working for the Lich King the entire time. I had unwittingly removed “all of the opposition” to Lichy-poo’s expansion, and the Lich King appeared in the (rotted) flesh to reward his servant’s cunning. I politely stepped back. The troll got seriously buffed and after the King had left the building, he bade me seek him out—“Da lich king rewards all dose who follow him, mon.”
The Violet Hold was probably the simplest design and appealing if you like movies about gladiators. One big sealed off circular room with portals that appear periodically to rift in nasties. Every six waves, a boss would enter the arena. After 18 waves and three bosses, victory is attained. Designed to wear groups down, there’s no break in the action and it was a good spot of fun, if somewhat short.
The streamlining mentioned earlier cuts down dungeon size even moreso than the previous expansion. Now, a decently geared team (that doesn’t wipe) can clear a dungeon in about fifteen minutes. The thought of my old City of Heroes team crushing through 4-5 of these in rapid succession makes me smile inwardly.
The quests so far here aren’t interesting and as almost a nod to Aion, this time we get a dose of killsixtyrats. After running a few odd jobs, I decided to park my butt in the encampment and look for a dungeon group. I hadn’t played any of the Lich King ones yet and heard they were “streamlined”. I was ready to see… and was impressed.
All total, I spun the wheel of fortune five times and wound up in three different dungeons: Drak’Tharon, the Violet Hold, and Gundrak. Overall, extremely positive experiences, even if my death counter did tick up slightly. Each time I entered a new dungeon, I told the party it was my first time through and someone was always kind enough to advise me to “Watch out for the black spots on the floor” or “This guy does AoE fears” or “GET THE F**K BACK!”, whichever was appropriate to the encounter.
In doing so, I cleared a few quests out of my log that had been growing stagnant, earned a half-level worth of experience and a few rare blues (2k Gearscore—woo! I’m no longer the least geared in the dungeon!), and had an absolute blast.
The highlight was the finale to Drak’Tharon, wherein a captured troll that was a major quest line in Grizzly Woods was revealed to be working for the Lich King the entire time. I had unwittingly removed “all of the opposition” to Lichy-poo’s expansion, and the Lich King appeared in the (rotted) flesh to reward his servant’s cunning. I politely stepped back. The troll got seriously buffed and after the King had left the building, he bade me seek him out—“Da lich king rewards all dose who follow him, mon.”
The Violet Hold was probably the simplest design and appealing if you like movies about gladiators. One big sealed off circular room with portals that appear periodically to rift in nasties. Every six waves, a boss would enter the arena. After 18 waves and three bosses, victory is attained. Designed to wear groups down, there’s no break in the action and it was a good spot of fun, if somewhat short.
The streamlining mentioned earlier cuts down dungeon size even moreso than the previous expansion. Now, a decently geared team (that doesn’t wipe) can clear a dungeon in about fifteen minutes. The thought of my old City of Heroes team crushing through 4-5 of these in rapid succession makes me smile inwardly.
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