Some Hate on MMO Cities

After the hundreds of days worth of playtime I poured into WoW, I told myself to stay away from other MMO's for a while. I've been doing so-so on that front, since there are a ton of them nowadays and some seem truly interesting and like there is a fun game there to play even for someone who has no actual multiplayer interest in it, like me. Eventhough I've hardly tried many - I've managed to stay clear of both Rift, Wildstar and Final Fantasy XIV so far - the ones I have tried have horribly failed to keep my interest. And it's turned out it's not for lack of social sphere like I thought it would be.

Funnily enough, the only MMO I've played other than WoW and actually really enjoyed I played while I was playing WoW - Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. The only reason I didn't stick with this one was the one I thought would be a problem for any MMO other than WoW, that I simply didn't have enough friends playing it at the same time. In the end, eventhough I had fun with it and managed to even get my then bf to play a bit with me, the pull of the social life on WoW turned out to be too great. Once WoW was over and done with for my part, I thought that I might be able to enjoy other MMO's uncrippled by this fact. In fact I was intent on it (the lack of social sphere in the game) not being allowed to cloud my judgement of an otherwise good game, because I always felt it was unfair towards other MMO that WoW would always have the bigger playerbase. Once WoW didn't have the social bit to keep me tied to it, I hoped I'd be able to enjoy other MMO's freely eventhough I feared the opposite.

Nothing fun to do here... - fragsandbeer.com

So I tried Guild Wars, admittedly this was also while I was still playing WoW, but this time the problem wasn't the lack of friends to play with. I got to some sort of quest hub, and I'm not even joking, I couldn't find my way out of it. I thought that maybe I was just being stupid for that particular game, but it turned out this would be a recurring issue for me with other MMO's I tried. Ok, so I wouldn't necessarily fail so horribly as to not even manage to make my way out of a city. But the city, usually a massive main hub with not only quests but anything the player might need in terms of interaction, crafting and general restocking is where I end up logging out for the last time.

I tried Guild Wars 2 because everyone said it was such a masterpiece of a game, some said it was really even better than WoW but most players just didn't realize because they had their noses too far up WoW's posterior. And it was quite fun, I actually played it for a couple of hours before I ended up in yet another darned city and just... lost interest in the game completely. Because I had professions, or tradeskills, or whatever Guild Wars 2 calls it, and I had things to sell and probably a lot of other stuff that the city could provide me with. But I just got utterly lost and the entire thing was so boring because running around for an hour just trying to find things is not my kind of fun. And I realized I would have to do this many times before I finally had it all in my head and didn't have to think about it or google names to find the blacksmith and even then I would still have to spend a lot of time just travelling around in the city doing all those chore stuff that is often required in any game that has all that gear and item tinkering going on.

Yet another vendor

I tried Neverwinter and ended up having the exact same issue. The game itself was actually quite fun, the battles were fun, but then I had to run around in the city talking to quest givers and finding vendors and all the fun I had just blew right out the window. I realized yet again that any fun I might have inbetween the city-visits would just not be enough to make me want to go through it over and over. (I also tried Star Trek Online but that was just weird).

It's the size of it. See, I have this issue with cities in any old RPG, not just MMO's, but most of the time they're fortunately not big enough for it to become big enough of a problem. It does happen though, Final Fantasy XII was right on the threshhold for what I can endure. I've realized I pretty much detest having to run around in a city or village and look for things. Maybe I enjoyed Warhammer so much because I don't even remember it having cities!

Just loads of characters I don't care about - squarehaven.com

I don't know if this is something that has come with age, or if it's the times - the instant satisfaction times. Maybe me not knowing exactly what to do and where to go frustrates me too much or maybe... it's because I remember the first time I stepped into Orgrimmar and I was completely blown away. Running in through those gates I pretty much gasped at the massive city that lay before me. It was something I had never seen before and I was amazed at everything there was to see and to do. Eventually I learned where everything was by heart in pretty much any city in WoW and barely had to even look to get where and what I wanted. The more I played the more the amazement wore off and everything just needed to be as effective and fast as possible. I lost interest in the exploration for explorations sake, something I loved to do in WoW, and just wanted to get to wherever would get me the next piece of gear or level as fast as possible.

But that was because I had done pretty much everything there was to do in WoW many, many times over. Somehow I've transferred those feelings over to other games I play and other MMO's are hit especially hard because you spend so much time in cities doing the tinkering and trying to find people to talk to.

There are still MMO's I am interested in trying however, like beforementioned FFXIV or The Secret World. We'll see if I get around to it and if I end up logging out in another city.

We Need More World-Events

In my line of work I often meet people (mostly teenagers) who share my love and enthusiasm for video games and we often end up both playing and talking a lot about them. The other day I got to hang out with a guy who was playing Runescape (among other things) and he told me a bit about it. It seems like a cool game in general although extremely grindy (apparently quests of the sort "kill 100 of these" are standard. Yes 100, that's no exaggeration) but one thing in particular stuck in my mind. He told me of an event that, if I understood correctly, happened pretty recently in-game as part of an update/expansion to the game. Players were asked to hand in buckets of sand (and possibly other things the kid didn't mention) and in the end an island (or possibly beach) emerged in the game that hadn't been there before - complete with new places to skill up different professions or techniques. Now if you happen to play Runescape and know I got that all wrong, what matters is that it got me thinking about inclusion in video games and that it is the one thing that really sets MMO's apart from your every day singleplayer game.

And they say WoW graphics are outdated (Runescape in 2007) - forums.zybez.net

It might sound weird to talk about inclusion when talking about video games, because in essence video games are all about inclusion. Their interactive nature naturally invites the player to feel included and feel like they affect what happen around them (more or less). But MMO's can provide inclusion on a different scale, one in which the individual (that is you) gets to truly feel like they are part of something bigger and like they made a difference in the world around them.

Looking at a game like World of Warcraft, Blizzard have always known the power of this and allowed players to feel included in every expansion they released. Instead of just telling players there was a new expansion coming, they allowed us to experience it and take part of it through special events in game. One of my favorites was the massive event that preluded the opening of Ahn'Qiraj. Back then I had just started playing and was far from a raider, so I had little understanding of what was going on other than that everyone, from a low level casual scrub like me to the hardcore raiders, regardless of faction, united to achieve a common goal. There was something to get for everyone, you didn't have to be part of a big guild or know a lot of people who played - you just needed to take part in the event. It just felt magical to be part of something as massive as that undertaking. The event included gathering a vast variety of items and hand them in, but everyone could chip in and that was the important part.

You had to be there - imagekb.com

And the events that lead up to Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King were similar huge folk festivals where everyone seemed to stop what they were doing and come together to achieve the same goal regardless of whether you were a pvp:er, raider or quester. My rose tinted goggles will allow me to ignore the fact that Blizzard obviously cleverly designed the events to entice these different groups to come together, but that is exacly what good game design should do.

I think this is different from multiplayer games in general, where you obviously also see a bunch of people work together (hopefully) for a common cause. Most importantly because these MMO events offer change - they allow the player to take place in changing the world that they live in rather than just repeating an action (like any multiplayer shooter for instance where the same goal is achieved or failed over and over without permanent change, similar to the seasonal events or pvp done in WoW.)

Party with the dead - wow-one.com

Could you implement something similar in a singleplayer game? Would we even want that? I am thinking both yes and no. On the one hand I always think it's interesting to see how you could develop new gaming experiences, on the other hand I feel like singleplayer and multiplayer games deliver very different gaming experiences and that's ok. Naturally there are things in multiplayer you can't do in singleplayer and vice versa and I doubt you could conjure the same feeling of scale in a singleplayer game as you could in a multiplayer, unless you somehow managed to hook up singleplayers making it a sort of inbetween like Dark Souls. Could you make multiplayer games other than MMOs adopt this idea? Could a game like Team Fortress 2 or CoD include this kind of gameplay? I am sure they could, in fact I would love to see it be done more often. Instead of just giving players a new map/arena/whatever, you could have an in-game event regarding it. Whether it would go down well or people prefer things to be as static and predictable as possible in these kind of settings I don't know - personally I would love a bit of gameplay diversity (which might be why I don't play those kind of games much).

And what kind of content should have these kind of world-events? Anything? Free stuff or pay for stuff? It worked in WoW to have everyone engage in a world-event that essentially preceded something that you still had to pay for to experience but I am not sure that works in any kind of game. But I am probably getting way ahead of myself here.

I haven't played enough other MMO's to know to which extent they incorporate this kind of gameplay, I can't recall anything like it in the few months I played Warhammer though. I do realize it is probably a huge undertaking for a game developer to try to achieve but the reward must surely be worth it. I can only speak for myself but all of the world-events I took part in in WoW, which was pretty much all of them from Vanilla to early MoP, became some of my fondest and best memories of the game.

My personal opinion is that the experience got watered down as WoW progressed, but it might also just be that every new world-event became less and less of a big thing for me. It was just another expansion with another world-event. I like to think that is not the case and I'm not that jaded, but rather that Blizzard included the players less and less. If I compare the level of player commitment required for the Ahn'Qiraj event with that of the Mists of Pandaria event... wait, did MoP even have an event? I can't remember it if it did. But Ahn'Qiraj wasn't even for an expansion, just another (or technically two) new raids. In Burning Crusade we got to work together to unlock the Sunwell Isle. I would've loved to see more events like that, that changed parts of the game, big or small. To me nothing else ever came close to making the world feel as alive, real and worthwhile as those all-player-including world-events ever did.

First Impressions of MoP - High & Low

We've finally got MoP guys. How does it feel? Do you enjoy it as much or as little as you expected? Well I doubt you would've paid for it if you didn't expect to have fun with it, but anyway. Let me tell you what I think of it.

Lowbie Pandaria
I had the choice of either nerding up my priest to max level as fast as possible or try out the new race and class. Since the former is what I normally do first, I decided for a different route this time, namely swapping between the two rather than just focusing on one. Said and done, I rolled a little Panda Monk, named by choosing random article on Wikipedia (quite handy that, this time it was a tiny island somewhere in the Pacific) and got to it.

At first the quests were pretty meh. By that I don't mean boring or disappointing, but not overly interesting or surprising either. Gather some of this, help some guy out with that, it was a lot like what we had seen already. In fact, when comparing to the Goblin starting zone I thought this was starting out a little bit slow. Obviously you will only enjoy the Pandaria zone, and the new Pandaren, to the fullest if you can swing with the whole Martial Arts and Kung Fu idea that they're all about. Fortunately, I am quite fond of that, and although I can understand and even somewhat agree with the critics who scream "Kung Fu Panda infringement!", I am actually liking the whole scenario.

It did start out slow, and up until level 9ish this post would probably have been more along the lines of "it's ok, but I expected more". But then something happened. Don't worry, this post is spoiler fairly free, unless you consider me saying that I had a blast a spoiler. Suddenly I started getting a couple of quests that were, to put it bluntly, awesomely good fun. Eventhough I am low level, they do require some skill to complete. For the first time since late BC I did not feel like my way was constructed with a newb player in mind. Doing and completing the quests actually made me feel like accomplishing something and I had a thrill doing them. Now I am not saying these quests were overly many, but they were there and they definitely upped the entire experience for me.

It's not just about the quests thought, I think Blizzard did a good job with most of the main-NPC. Some of them got pretty damn close to me feeling like I was playing with friends, and parting with them was a damn hard thing to do when I had to choose between going Alliance vs Horde. I really wanted to choose horde, I did, but unfortunately all my characters on that server are already alliance so having one little horde seemed like a bad idea. It was a choice that pained me however, and deep inside I probably deny regretting it.

I do like the Pandaren area, not as much as I did Northrend or Outlands, but it's still ok. It's beautiful and well designed. At one point a random NPC waves at me and asks me if I want to go listen in on one of the Pandaren telling stories for the kids. I think "sure, why not", run off my quest course and sit down among the kids. I get a song sung for me and a long scripted event telling me more about the lore surrouding the Pandarens. It has nothing to do with the quest I am on, but that's exactly why it makes the world feel alive and me feel special. I only wish there were more of these tidbits.

If I had to say anything bad about the Pandaren starting zone, it would probably be that the Pandaren are not half as peace loving and altruistic as their serene faces want to give impression of. A lot of the quests will have me do things I did not quite agree to, nothing that would compare to the Apothecary Society, but still out of the image I had about Pandarens.

85+ Pandaria
I barely even tried questing on release, for obvious reasons. Just trying to get the first couple of quests turned into a quest, with hundreds of people blocking the quest giver and 5-10 min lags. At one point hundreds of people were huddled together trying to find a quest giver that was actually 100 yards in another direction, but no one knew because we couldn't see what the heck was going on. I tried different things like /tar and binding my interaction button, it worked so-so. And even when I finally did get the quest, completing them seemed near impossible with glitchiness that had me pull my hair.

Trying to get into an instance did not prove to any easier. The first time I tried it I first got stuck in what easily was a 10 minute loading screen, only to disconnect. After a couple of tries however I did manage to get my first dungeon done. They're short and intense, quite simple on normal as to be expected and quite whacky. I am looking forward to see how they work in heroic (no, I have not got that far yet).

These issues were all to be expected, and eventhough even Blizzard should've (did) expected them I do not blame them or nerdrage on them for not making a smoother launch. This is what the launches have always been like, and since things vastly improved just half a day after launch I am still happy. Other issues like every quest area being swarmed with fellow players either tagging all your quest objectives or ganking (which has yet to happen to me fortunately) is something Blizzard can do less about. They have done a few things however, and I commend them for it. Most "boss" quest objectives can be shared, regardless of who gets the first blow, and most spawns have been cranked up extremely high, for better and for worse. I've been stuck a couple of times having to fight a flood of never ending mobs, but in essence, everything is like it usually is at the start of a new expansion.

I'm not sure what to think so far. I think my problems have less to do with the fact that the quests aren't that interesting yet (and I've only just dinged 86 so there is still a lot to come) and more to do with the fact that my gaming has changed a lot on a more personal level. Most of the people I used to play with have quit playing, or scattered off to other servers, and because of this this expansion is very different for me compared to other ones. Previous expansions I used to level together with a group of friends, people I've either known for a very long time in game, or actual IRL friends. At the end of the leveling, instancing and raiding with these people waited for me and I had that to look forward to. Eventhough I am in a really nice guild now, they can't remove the fact that I still don't know them that well and that I also overall have less time to play.

That has taken a lot of the fun out of the game, so much in fact that I seriously contemplated quitting just a couple of months ago. The guild I am in is the reason I haven't yet, as they have brought back a lot of the fun in the game for me. In the end it just means I will take things slower. Playing as disc is working ok, it's how I've tackled every expansion so far. It does require a lot of smiting (which isn't overly interesting), but I don't think it's that much slower than if I had gone shadow (or that is what I am telling myself at least).

On an ending note, MoP has turned out to be pretty much what I thought it would be, but with the little surprise here and there that upped the experience a notch. I am not throwing myself at it, but I am looking forward to exploring more of it and finding out more about the story surrounding the Pandas, slowly but steadily. All in all, woW is still the good old time killer it's always been.

Griefing aint no ganking

WoWInsider posted a post about how to best go about killing people while their doing their Molten Front dailies, fittingly written for the rogue-column (no prejudice here). It of course drew up a fuckstorm of opinons, ranging mostly from "people who enjoy this kind of behavior are complete assholes" to "why get so excited? It's all in good fun". First of all we have to acknowledge that there really are two different questions in this debate and they don't necessarily have the same answer.

The first question is whether it is ok to post a text describing, making fun off or otherwise explaining how to engage in this behavior.
The other question is whether the behavior in itself is ok.

I'm one of those people who think it is ok to make fun of just about anything. It's not so much what you say, as how you do it (and to some extent, why). There are plenty of cruel and tasteless jokes (but Love wouldn't allow me to post any because he'd be afraid you'd only get hung up on that) that still can highlight a problem, a line of reasoning or just be so satirical that you feel bad about yourself for even laughing at it. Most of the jokes in South Park work this way. A joke doesn't have to be all bad just because it is tasteless, it's not that black and white. So even if I completely disagree with the behavior of griefing, I think a column like Chase Christians could have values. But I of course have my limits. Mocking people who are being mistreated for pleading for help and/or understanding are the kind of jokes I'll never enjoy. Because I simply don't enjoy griefing myself I'll admit I didn't read Chase's column very thoroughly, so I don't know if it went that far, but I do know that the behavior he describes is based on this kind of amusement. Also of what I read I must say it was difficult to see that it was meant jokingly (I'm assuming it has to be that way).

Griefing is all about laughing at people for trying to save themselves in helpless situations. I know people who grief and gank mostly actually enjoy the feeling of having ruined it for another person. That is really what they're after. Not that they've won, because then they would've engaged in one on one combat with someone who can fight back. Not that they've succeeded with a difficult task, because then they'd go and try to kill Patchwerk solo. What they want is exactly the feeling of knowing that they've angered or saddened another person, without that person actually having done anything to them. I will admit that I love, absolutely farking adore, to be able to be a bitch to someone who's been a bitch to me. Ninja my purple and I will let you die, first chance I get. But that's about revenge, and revenge is a beautiful thing. Revenge is what gave us The Count of Monte Cristo and Wuthering Heights (and unfortunately, Moby Dick). But these people are completely unprovoked and do it because they can. Even real evil is motivated by greed or ideology, what this is is just pure spite. There is no money or feeling of greater good in it, they do it just for the feeling of being able to put someone else down. To me, that is the most despicable form of human behavior.

But you chose a pvp-server, you get to suit yourself!
Ah yes, my favorite argument. I don't know how many times I've cursed myself for choosing to play on a pvp-server. I can only imagine that the reason I completely neglect ever doing dailies is because of the frustration I've felt from being ganked somewhere way back. I hardly get ganked anymore since I rarely play in areas where people of the other faction play. Yes, I do get to suit myself for choosing a pvp-server. Eventhough I did choose it because my friends played there and before I even knew what it would actually mean, I completely agree with that. But that is not the same as saying - it's a pvp server, so we should act like total asshats. That my friend, is a reasoning below even a 5-year old. That is like saying I should accept people who ninja when I go into a pug. Expect, sure. Accept, no.

Just because the behavior is possible doesn't mean I have to like it, accept it or condone it. It comes down to whether we think world-pvp is about griefing or not. Let me tell you, it's not. World-pvp is as much about griefing as pugging is about ninjaing, afking, overpulling, name-calling or any other behavior that is completely unecessary to get the instance done. People who say "we should because we can" tend to forget what would happen if everyone engaged in their behavior. But I know people who love world-pvp, who love being attacked while questing just so they can get some ruthless retaliation going on. And I don't mind people who attack me while I quest, I don't mind people who run by my lowbie and just can't resist to gank me. I don't mind people killing eachother because they're fighting over the same mobs or resources. That's completely ok, that's part of the thing about being on a pvp-server, always having to check your back. Randomly killing someone of the opposing faction is what world-pvp is about.

I do mind people who just run around with nothing else on their mind but to ruin eachothers gameplay. It's still a long step from ganking to griefing. Killing someone who doesn't stand that you happen to come across is one thing. Seeking out people to kill who don't stand a chance is another. You might say that it all comes down to motivations and we can never truly know another persons thoughts, but you can definitely tell a ganker from a griefer.

World-pvp is built around trust, just as any other social interaction is. Blizzard can't go on regulate every little thing just because there are some people who think it is fun to abuse the system or who ultimately think only about themselves. Eventhough these people always are around, they're still only a minority (although in WoW sometimes I wonder...). That's why they won't change the need/greed system too much because it wouldn't allow for any flexibility. Same thing with world-pvp. Blizzard let the system be the way it is because the occasional gank, killing of other faction while questing or all the other clashes that happen when we meet in the world actually are what world-pvp are about. We wouldn't want them change the entire system just because a few people can't handle that freedom.

I'm not going to take this into a discussion about morale and ethics. This is an opinion, my own and shared by plenty of others. I'm not saying it's more right and better than anyone elses, like I said I know a couple of people who love the way world-pvp works, including the griefing. They love it because they know that if they can be griefed, they can do it to someone else too, and that is good enough for them. But most people don't enjoy griefing, whether being griefed or griefing others and would probably prefer that it wasn't a part of world-pvp, I belong to those.


If you've read the Isaac Asimov foundation series, and I don't just mean the Foundation books, but the entire World-Empire, Robot-series you'll know that (SPOILER HERE BTW) his robots finally decide that the best way to protect humans is to relieve them of any possibilities. Best thing would be to make them all vegetables. Because the more rights they have to make their own choices, the more freedom they have, the likelier it is that someone will abuse that right to hurt someone. Just because I accept that risk because I like that freedom, doesn't mean I accept the behavior. And it doesn't make the behavior any more right.

Burning Crusade still haunts me

Having alot of alts also means you sometimes find things lying around. Things that should've been dealt with long ago. 3 years ago? Yeah, that happens. The other day I was playing my lock and put her up for a random dungeon. Since the wait is some 20-30 minutes, I usually go read a book or something like it. But this time I thought I might do some quests while waiting, so I wanted to see what quest to do next. I opened up her quest log, and what do I see?

The Cudgel of Kar'desh. I remember you! Didn't I complete you back in Burning Crusade? Yes I did. I wanted to turn it in, but it meant doing heroic Slave Pens, and I just didn't feel like it. Not for just one quest. And then Wrath was released and I forgot all about it. My warlock was sadly neglected throughout Wrath, I just didn't enjoy her very much. I also wasn't very good at playing her, I think there is a correlation there. I would open up her quest log now and then and see the quest and think "one day... I'll fix that. But that day is not today", close it down again and do something else. And now I have also added the Frostmourne quest chain to my list of "things I should've done a long time ago". Turning this quest in in Wrath meant travelling all the way to Outlands and solo Slave Pens, because finding a group to help me out just for the quest wasn't very likely. I just couldn't find the motivations for it.

But then, the other day I thought "now damn it, I will finally turn the quest in!". I didn't want to leave my dungeon queue, so I figured I had ~25min to get it done. Would I make it? I started travelling.

First step of the journey - getting out to Outlands. Good thing there's this nifty portal.

Ohh, this brings back memories. I remember the Opening Of The Portal event where hundreds of players were packed outside this portal to kill mobs in order to get a cool tabard. Being a priest, I had no instant-instants (I'll explain below) so it was basically impossible trying to tag mobs. Back then just engaging the mob didn't mean you had tagged it like today. It wasn't until you had actually dealt damage to a mob that it was considered "yours". I could use Power Word: Pain all I liked. Since it took some 2 sec to tick it just didn't help. We didn't have Shadow Word: Death yet and I hadn't talented Holy Nova (which you had to do in order to get it back then) but I was seriously considering it. Love on the other hand spammed Moonfires all around and tagged mobs like nothing. I managed to get my kills in the end though!

Outlands is still beautiful. I remember when taking my first flight over Hellfire Peninsula, the feeling of epicness I got from flying over all those elite demons fighting underneath me. I had never been part of something big before, although I had played most of Vanilla I never really got to sense the tide of history in fighting Ragnaros and Hakkar. I never really got to be a part of that. Burning Crusade was the first time I really felt like I was a part of the lore of WoW.

One of my favorite zones in Outlands was, and still is, Zangarmarsh. I really loved the Sporeggar, the design of the zone and the quests. Whenever I level an alt I make sure that one of the zones I quest in is Zangarmarsh. Those quests never bore me.

Running to Slave Pens. I remember how this area used to be gank-zone #1 on our server when guilds from all across gathered to get ready to do SSC. Although some gankig occurred outside of all the raid instances, it just never got as bad as here. It was quite the scene with 3-4 25 man guilds getting violent and bloody on eachother in completely chaotic pvp. Pvp at its best in my opinion.

Soloing the instance wasn't much of an issue of course, since I outleveled the poor things by some 13 levels. Actually the tough part was making sure to tag all the mobs before my pet had killed them, so I could at least get some loot. I remember how horribly difficult these instances where back in Vanilla. Maybe not Slave Pens so much, but instances like Steamvaults *shudder* and don't get me started on Magister's Terrace. Some BC heroics definitely required more cc than most Cata heroics do today. Or so it felt anyway.

Time is running short! Now I just have to get up there and jump down and I am basically at my goal! Will I make it?

No, I didn't make it. I made it up the ramp and was fighting the mobs up there when I got into my random dungeon. Although I was so close to my goal I decided I'd rather take the dungeon than leave and wait another 25 minutes for a quest which won't give me anything anyway. Was it the right choice? Well the quest aint going anywhere. Now I'll just have to wait another 3 years until the motivation to finish it comes around again.

Field Report - Undead No More

Some more random thoughts, but this time a little more priest oriented. How is my disc priest faring in the new world?

So... Did you change race yet?
Yes I have! I decided to go with goblin. It was a tough choice between troll and goblin, but in the end the goblin won out because I think 1% haste at all times will be slightly better than a use. Well maybe not. Actually it's about even, so I chose goblin because I haven't played one yet. Simple as that. You get access to your bank every 30 minutes, but I was a little sad that that didn't include the guild bank, that would've been truly awesome. So far I love my little goblin though, she suits me perfectly. Do I miss the undead? Hmm... I liked her, but one needs a little change now and then. I had played undead for several years now and I was ready for something else. I did miss WotF when people started ganking me though. I would've died anyway so that doesn't matter.

Ganked you say?
Yeah, the first thing that happens when I log onto my goblin, happy to try out her new emotes and all, I get ganked by some pvp-happy alliance priest. A couple of times actually. He was pvp specced so he was clearly eager to kill off easy targets like me. I don't even have dps skills on my bars, not counting smite. Suppose I get to suit myself. Actually I want to congratulate myself for not going into a rampaging nerdrage as I usually do when someone is grief-ganking me. Or ganking me at all. I don't mind world pvp at all, but I always hate it when people kill me while questing. I do not want to combine those two worlds! "But Zinn, why are you playing on a pvp server in that case? Doesn't that seem rather stupid?" you might ask. Well don't. It wasn't my choice. And I never redid that mistake again. But this time I wasn't angry actually. I knew I didn't stand a chance and I didn't bother much about being killed. Sure I would've liked to be able to just continue my questing, but I wasn't infuriated. Maybe tanking all those pugs really did do something.

So how is instance healing working for ya?
Well, I've healed a couple of instances so far, Blackrock Caverns, Stonecore and Throne of the Tides. And they're not easy. I oom every other pull, eventhough I'm not doing this with mindless random puggers but with careful guildies. Actually I noticed something really interesting - the higher my level gets, the more trouble I have with healing the instances. My stats drop significantly with each ding. I had 30% haste at level 80. Now at 83 I have 13%, with basically the same gear. Same goes with crit. I had 45% at 80, now I have 25%. This does make a difference to my healing, especially the haste. You know when you laugh at lowbie disc priests because their penance ticks so slow you could take a shower while waiting? Well, that's where I am right now. Evenso it seems like Heal and Greater Heal is the way to go when instance healing. People take big blows, but are starting to get enough hp for me to be able to throw big heals like Greater Heal. Wait did I say big heal? On some people my GH is like a piss in the ocean. I don't even want to mention Heal. You'd have to spam that like crazy to even notice you're healing the tank. My Heal heals for about 6k and my tank has about 80k.

So I have learned something very valuable. Don't throw your heals until you really have to. Except with Heal, you can throw that at any time. But with shields, pom, flash heals and all those expensive spells, you better wait. I can't put up renew/shields/pom prematurely anylonger. I'll only oom when I do! I can't put shields/renews on the entire party just for fun anymore, now I really have to decide whether my target needs the heal or if I should do something else. If someone hasn't taken much damage, maybe I should use a Heal instead of topping off with shield/renew? I've seriously had to change alot in my heal style, but - I don't mind! Actually I love the new healing, it's extremely challenging without being too difficult. I get that lovely kick when I pull of a nice stunt like saving the entire party from certain demise by using the correct set of skills during a fight. This is what I love about healing. Not to say we didn't have our fair share of wipes. The main reason not being lack of healing, but lack of mana.

I am very eager to see what raidhealing will be like. There is a big difference in instance healing and raid healing in that you either have all the responsibility, or you don't. I tried both disc healing and holy healing and was happy to note they both seem to do about equally good (bad? ^^). Ooming was just as much a problem as disc as with holy, and the encounters were about equally challenging in either spec. I also played around a little with chakra and was also happy to note that picking the right chakra stance for a fight actually was a tough choice. There is no best choice, the question comes down to whether you want strong hots or the awesome instant heal given by Holy Word: Heal. I more often chose the latter - you really want that instant heal as a holy. As disc I've got penance and shields, but as Holy you're in trouble when someone goes down really low. Everything screams in your head if you start casting something like Heal or Greater Heal, but if you're in the "wrong" stance there isn't much choice. I think the aoe-chakra will suit better in a raid, and the heal-chakra seemed to work better in instances.

The same gear you say? You haven't got to replace anything?
I said basically the same. I have been able to replace a couple of things. A ring and both of my trinkets actually. It is funny because I had fought so hard for my Althor's Abacus and I even wrote a post about it when I got it. And then I go and replace it with a quest green. But that's the way the world works, and I'd be rather sad if I had to use the exact same gear all 5 levels. Getting new cool gear is half the fun in WoW! Or maybe at least like one third of the fun...

And you're leveling as disc?
Yes, and it is working just fine thank you very much for asking. I don't die, thanks to the constant selfheal from Atonement, and I don't oom. Eventhough Archangel has been considerably nerfed (7,5k mana return to 2,5k mana return) it's still a nice boost to my mana every now and then. Like a little pot all the time. Sure, it's not the fastest way to kill stuff. But I am happy with four shotting stuff instead of two shotting them too.

Riiight...
Yes, it's true! I don't mind going about things slowly at all. It has given an interesting side effect however. Last expansion I was among the first to ding max level in my guild (which is now my ex guild). Like I've mentioned before, I was one of the people with the most spare time so eventhough I didn't power level or anything, that's just how it turned out. And since I was among the first at max level I was also among the first to do heroics and hang with the cool kids at endgame and all that, you know. Well not anymore. My guild has about 10+ people at max level already and they're happily doing heroic after another while I am still at 83. Am I bummed about this? Well a little perhaps. But I don't want to speed up my leveling process either. Right now I am writing this post instead of leveling, for example. And that is how I like it. I'd hate the day I do something in WoW that bores me just because. Or skip something outside of WoW that I like just because. So I will level slowly. And it's not like all those things won't be there for me when I turn 85 either.

Good for you, miss Optimism.
Yeah, but everything isn't all peachy though. I haven't got a clue about anything at endgame. Rep, gear, raids... all the things I probably should've started checking out already, and I don't have the faintest. Who to get rep with or even how. Yeah yeah, I know I can get some tabard, but I haven't bothered checking out which or where. I'm just not that hardcore! I will do my best and always come fully prepared to a raid, but in some cases I am really lazy. This is one of those cases. I can always rep later...

Ok, so what now?
Well, I'll just keep on leveling won't I? And then we'll see. I have no idea what my guild plans, when we're going to start raiding and all that. I know plenty of people are very eager to get realm firsts, and it would of course be loads of fun to try that out. I don't think it'll take me more than a couple more days to get to endgame, even with my slow style of leveling.

Things I Liked About Wrath

There seems to be somewhat of a theme going around the bloggosphere to share thoughts about what one liked and disliked about Wrath. It's not a bad idea, and I'll jump on the train! I'll start out with some of the things I liked and continue tomorrow (or another day, you never know really) with the things I disliked. I can say at once that I definitely found more things I liked than disliked, and I'm very glad I did. Would've been horrible to have spent the last 2 years on something that overall was more bad than good.

Letting Discipline In From The Cold
One thing I really liked about wrath is how they made alot of classes more viable for raiding. They had taken steps towards this already in BC, leaving the clear cut roles everyone had in Vanilla behind, and continued on this track in Wrath. This meant alot of specs and classes suddenly found a whole new set of things to do. You didn't have to tank as a warrior and you didn't have to heal as a priest. I was the most happy about the changes made to discipline, making them a viable and awesome raid healing spec. Before Wrath, Disc was more of a pvp spec and I didn't play it much (since I never pvpd). Come Wrath I was eager to try it out and was really happy when it turned out to work beyond expectations. I mained disc for a long time during the beginning of wrath before I returned to holy, and then finally back to disc towards the end of Wrath. I'm not sure what I will focus on come Cataclysm, I feel like both disc and holy are at a pretty good place and both have some problem areas that need to be resolved. Archangel doesn't affect absorbs - fix nau! Holies have mana issues - please fix, it's affecting our entire healing throughput.

Grinding Rep Through Instancing
One thing I never did back in BC was grind rep. Rep has always been a fairly important part of the game, and I don't mind that at all. But I don't want to spend 50 hours grinding tigers to become honored with a certain faction to be able to enjoy the game. The way it worked in Vanilla sucked (as much else), the way it worked in BC, by getting rep through certain instances, definitely worked better but it still meant doing something really boring alot of times. In Wrath Blizzard went yet another step to make it a little easier to get rep with your favorite faction. See the thing I dislike about grinding is that it forces me (in case I want the reward) to do something I don't like for a long period of time. In wrath I could instead do something I liked to get my reward. Now I got rep by doing any instance, instead of a couple specific ones, which made the whole rep grinding thing less boring, less fast.

Dual-Specs
I don't like respeccing chars. Whenever I wish to play my class another way, like say shadow priest instead of healing priest, I prefer to just reroll another char with that spec. There are several reasons for this. I don't like having to learn a class at endgame. I feel like there are so many things you miss when you don't learn a class from scratch. And also I hate to collect a whole new gear. Collecting gear is honestly one of those things I don't love to do in this game. Especially not a whole gear at once. So when Dual-Spec came it saved me a lot of time "having to" level alts. And it also opens up a way for lowbies to be able to level as one thing, but play another in instances. It is funny to think about how Blizzard never initially intended for respeccing to be a big part of the game. In most rpgs, being able to respec at all is a big step. In Blizzards earlier games like Diablo 2 this isn't even possible without mods. In early Vanilla you were pretty punished by respeccing with the respec-cost being infinitely cumulative. But Blizzard quickly noticed how popular respeccing was among the players and made it more and more accessible. Hybrids enjoyed the idea to be able to switch between different roles, and others liked to be able to switch between pvp and pve. Love respecced a couple of times per week in BC, going between tanking, healing and dpsing as needed. I am extremely happy about Dual-Speccing, and would love Triple-Speccing of course. But maybe it would be kind of silly to be able to play all the trees of your class at any time. Or maybe not?

LFD-tool
I play alot of instances. Instancing is one thing that really has kept my interest throughout the years, since anything can happen really. Being able to log on and quickly jump into an instance (at least if I choose to tank or heal) is probably what I do the most in WoW at the moment. Quick leisure when I want it. Maybe "leisure" is the wrong word, pugging can be extremely tedious after all. But it is actually a big thing about what I love about it. Doing a nice run is extremely rewarding, whether I dps, tank or heal and I never bore of it. The only thing that wasn't much fun about pugging was for a long time to get a group together. I often never bothered. I stayed in the LFG-channel and whispered anyone who was collecting a group if it seemed interesting. That way I could play another char while keeping an eye out for something to do on another char. The only thing I dislike about the LFD-tool is how it forces me to be on the char I want to join with. Maybe it is too much to ask, but on some characters I really have nothing else to do but stand around and wait in Dalaran for 20 minutes before I get a group. I could fly around and gather something, but I don't even have that option on some of my chars. So I mostly join the tool with my tank or healer chars. Overall I am extremely happy with the tool however, as it allows for way faster access to dungeon groups. What took over an hour to accomplish before usually doesn't take more than 5-15 minutes today.

The Events and Immersion
Blizzard implemented alot of events into the expansion which made our actions feel more epic than ever before. Phasing became a regular thing, setting players differences in progression into more focus and emphazising your part in the adventure and your effect on the world. They implemented more scripts, cinematics and other things like this to make your actions feel more worthwhile. In a sense Blizzard have had this kind of features for a long time. Killing Onyxia made her head appear in Orgrimmar/Stormwind with a herald proclaiming of some guilds victory, already back in vanilla. But that is more about e-peen than sensing your place in the lore. In Wrath we had events like Wrathgate, Algalon destroying the world, Yogg-Saron destroying minds and tons of little things scattered all across Northrend that made us players more immersed into the lore of the expansion than ever before. The only other times I have felt this kind of immersion is between expansion when Blizzard threw in some world-events to prepare us for what was to come, like they are doing now with the Elemental Invasion. In Wrath we got to see these kind of events on a more regular basis, and it really made me enjoy my questing and raiding a whole lot more.

These are some of things I really enjoyed about Wrath. If you are doing a list of your own I'd love to check it out, so leave me a comment about it!

Die in a fire, Mr Quest Giver

I know we all sometimes wish we could just ask quest givers to shove it. I read a funny comic some year ago illustrating perfectly how frustrating quest givers can be at times - "Can you fetch me that book over there?", "... but it's right next to you...", "yeah, and I want you to give it to me", "but...". Yeah, there are actually plenty of quests like that. Quest giver A asks you to rely a message to quest giver B, who is standing 5 yards away. Wouldn't it be lovely to be able to just smack the quest giver over the head then?

There are loads of examples for when I'd like to such a thing, but I think one of the best examples is the quest Barov Family Fortune. Either you are a horde or an alliance, one of the brothers Barov (Weldon or Alexi) will tell you to venture into Scholomance to grab the deeds before the other brother can get his hands on them. Now, we're talking about the deeds to most of Tirisfal Glades (Brill), Hillsbrad (Southshore and Tarren Mill) and the island where Scholomance is situated, Caer Darrow. We're talking about the legal rights that show you own these lands. Owning these deeds means you own these lands. So I can definitely see why Alexi/Weldon is eager to get it before the other. What I don't get is how they can expect me to venture into Scholomance, one of the most dangerous areas in Azeroth (at the time), fight my way through the undead scourge with my life in the balance, gather these obviously extremely valuable deeds and then... just hand them over?

Wait a minute now Mr Barov... You want me to do what now? Oh don't worry though! The Barovs promise "vast fortunes" and "wealth beyond my wildest dreams"! Ok that sounds like a fair deal. You get rich, I get rich.

Sure, here are your papers, I nearly died five times trying to get them, but I'm sure you'll make it worth it - where are my riches? Where are my vast fortunes? And he hands you... 1g80s. Yes. You give him his family fortune, the legal rights to huge estates, which you got by endangering your own life and he rewards you with... not even 2g. Listen now Mr Barov! This wasn't much money even back in Vanilla! You think 2g is what lies beyond my dreams?! What do you take me for, a schmuck?!

But clearly we are, because people do this quest happily every day. I wish I could throw the coins in his head. And I just really wish I could keep those deeds and maybe become the mayor of Brill or build a house in Southshore. Screw you Mr Barov, I'm keeping these babies to myself.

Just to demonstrate just how little 2g is, even back in Vanilla, the quest for the Scholomance key recquires you to pay a greedy goblin 15g. So that Goblin gets 8 times more money for getting me inside the place where those deeds are in the first place. Getting those darn deeds for you cost me 10 times what you're offering Mr Barov! You better cough up a gold brick right now or you'll shit bricks for the rest of your life! 

*Due to explicit content the rest has been censored*

On the bright side, you can always take it out on the other brother Barov afterwards, since you get a quest to kill him.

What other quests can you think of that makes you wish you could ask a quest giver to go DIAF?

Something to do before Cataclysm - Discovering Eastern & Western Plaguelands

My feelings toward EPL and WPL are somewhat ambivalent. On the one hand the areas have a really cozy setting, with tons of lore and interesting quests, on the other hand you have this really gloomy and sad looking area with tons of extremely annoying mobs and quests that take forever. It might depend on the mood you're in. Or maybe it depends on what else there is to do? Considering we've got this Curse of Torpor thrown over us in the wait for Cataclysm, this could be the perfect time to seek out these areas, that will be completely changed when Cataclysm comes. Not only that, alot of the quests in EPL and WPL (and other old endgame areas of Vanilla) will have connections to quests in Cataclysm, which might make it worth to run them through one last time to know exactly what's happening when Cataclysm hits us. I usually feel an area or a quest is so much more fun to do when I know the whole story behind it so I can be more emotionally immersed with my actions. It's not just "kill 10 kobolds", it's making Auntie Petunia happy because her apples won't be stolen by those nasty Kobolds anylonger!

If you've just recently completed Loremaster or the Seeker, you might just have had your run-through of the EPL and WPL quests. If not, I seriously think you should consider taking a trip there in a close future. Take this chance to experience some of the oldies but goldies quests. Even if you were around back in Vanilla it might be worth doing them again (with another char though) just to freshen up on the story! Unless you hate questing and lore like like a napkin hates fire (in which case I feel sorry for you) you'll most likely have a really fun time. Since you can solo everything, if you're a level 80 char, you don't have to collect huge groups of people just to be able to complete one part of some quest chain, but can experience everything in your own pace. It is also a good opportunity to take a char within the proper level range 55-65 to do it, instead of the same old grind in Hellfire Peninsula (this is what I am doing). Most quests have been nerfed (mobs that used to be elite aren't anylonger, for example) and you should be able to solo most things anyway.

There are several good reasons to do this;

What's up with the Redpath family? There are many interesting quest chains in EPL, and many of them are about the Redpath. When questing in EPL you also stumble across many of them, some of them dead and some alive. The entire family consists of Joseph (dead), Jessica, Pamela (dead), Carlin, Marlene (dead) and Marcus (he's in Southshore however). Situated at various places across EPL, all of these Redpaths give quests, which all come together to help you puzzle together what happened to the family and thus to Azeroth some years before you were brought into the game. Through this family we get to learn how the scourge plagued the land and turned it into what it is today, the very foundation of every subsequent major event in the storyline of WoW thus far. Following the entire story, talking to each member of the Redpaths and puzzling it all together is a rather epic experience, with many fun and interesting quests along the way.

Another person we constantly stumble across on our adventures in Azeroth is Tirion Fordring. He too can be found in EPL, giving the player an opportunity to get a little closer to understanding this man. Considering what an important role he later plays in Icecrown Citadel, this could well be worth checking out. One of his quest chains includes finding out more about his son Taelan Fordring, Highlord of the Scarlet Crusade (dun dun duuuun!).

If you have any kind of gathering profession, like mining, herbalism or skinning, questing some in WPL and EPL could turn out to be extremely profitable. On most servers I've played on endgame herbs, ore and skins gathered in these areas easily sell for 3-4g each (yes each!!).
Even if you don't have any gathering profession you'll get plenty of nice stuff to sell from all the mobs you'll be killing, most importantly various types of meat which usually also sell like water in a desert.

The Cauldron quests in WPL are apparently some sort of war effort to take back WPL from the scourge. Kinda like what we did on Isle of Quel'danas in BC. This doesn't seem to be completed however, I wonder if this will somehow be re-implemented in Cataclysm?

Some of the funniest and most interesting gear pieces, especially trinkets, can be acquired through some EPL and WPL quests. One of my favorite is the Barov Peasant Caller! It will summon three servant that helps you fight, cook and clean. Practically useless of course, and all the more awesome for that.

And all these are just some of the reasons you should give EPL and WPL a run-through!

WPL and EPL might not look so pretty at a first glance, and probably not at a second glance either. But hidden underneath all those gloomy trees and annoying mobs are some of the most interesting quest chains in the game, especially now that they might actually turn out to be important for soon-to-happen events. I really recommend you go check them out if you want something to do, and you'll most likely have some hours of fun!
Bonus tip: Listen to music from Diablo and Diablo 2 while questing to really set the proper mood!

Did you get your Venomhide Mount yet?

Hello you!

When leveling my shaman I stumbled upon a really fun and interesting quest chain, or rather chain of daily quests - the quest to get the Venomhide Raptor Mount in Un'goro. I knew it existed, somewhere in the back of my head, but since I am no collector (unless you count collecting alts) I had just filed it away under information I wasn't really going to need or use. I actually tend to avoid Un'goro when questing all together, mostly because the quests require you to completely cram your bags full with quest items so that you can't go and do anything else (instances, quest in other areas) until you're absolutely done in Un'goro. But I generally like the area. It has a nice feel to it, and I don't even hate the Devilsaurs as much anymore. I don't know if Blizzard has done something to them, but I am sure that when I used to quest in Un'goro those huge bastards were following me around (just as the Fel Reavers in Hellfire Peninsula). Lately I've had no trouble with them (I still hate the Fel Reavers though).

So back to the Venomhide Mount. I might as well go and say this at once, before any of you alliance playing readers send me hate mail for having you run all the way to Un'goro for nothing - the quest (and mount) is horde specific. It was implemented in the game as a counterpart to the alliance quest for the Winterspring Saber that has been around since Vanilla days. Unfortunately for you alliance, that quest was designed when Blizzard still didn't know much about how to make interesting and fun quests and so it requires a whole lot of tedious grinding. So does the Venomhide Raptor quest in a sense, so what are the differences?

The biggest problem with the alliance quest chain is probably that you need exalted (yes you read that correctly) with the Wintersaber Trainers in Winterspring to take it. Becoming exalted with this faction requires weeks of extremely boring grinding of mobs in Winterspring. You don't need any kind of rep with any faction to start the horde-quest however, Mor'vek the quest giver stands by the entrance of Un'goro ready to give anyone of level 48 and above the first quest (and all subsequent ones too).

I asked Love if he had done this quest, since he actually is a collector of mounts. He has done about 50 runs to Sethekk Halls for the Raven Lord Mount (and got it the other day, I was just thinking he might go crazy in his efforts to get that bird...). To my suprise, he hadn't done this quest. I asked him why and he told me it was just too horrible. As I so far completely love this quest, and I'm the one who usually hate to do dailies (I never ever do them unless I really have to) except the fishing daily, I asked him what he didn't like about it.

The first part of the quest chain is to obtain blood from different venomhides in the area. As a level 50 ish shaman, getting this blood was extremely easy. Killing the mobs took some 15 seconds or so, and I usually got 2-3 splashes of blood on myself per mob. The quest took some 5 minutes to get done, tops. Love on the other hand had tried this on his main - a level 80 druid. To get any splashes of these raptors you will have to keep them from dying long enough to splash you with some blood. Not an easy task for a level 80, even when naked. Love had struggled to get some splashes, it had taken him far longer than 5 minutes and in the end he gave up since he thought that if this was the repeated daily quest he had to do for the next coming 20 days, he wouldn't bother.

Fortunately for him, I knew that he was wrong (this is very often the case actually). Getting those splashes of blood is just a one time quest to get your very own little Venomhide Hatchling. And now we're getting to why this quest is completely awesome. You're going to raise your own mount. Blizzard has actually managed to make a quest where I as a player feel a connection with the quest. After some start up quests you're handed a little Baby Venomhide, whom you have to raise over 20 days until he's big enough (and trusts you enough) to be ridden. The daily quests are ordinary enough and primarily focus on feeding the little thing, but since you engaged in taking care of that cute little thing, staring up at your with huge raptor eyes, you gladly do them.

I find myself actually looking forward to doing this daily quest each day!

The quests are done in Un'goro and Tanaris, and that is also the only areas you can summon your Baby Raptor (and Silithus for some reason). The mount can of course be used anywhere regular mounts can be used. As far as I know there are four different quests, of which I have done three so far and they all take about 2-5 minutes each. The real trouble is getting to Tanaris/Un'goro every day, but not even that is much of a hassle since you can take the teleport in the Violet Citadel that takes you directly to Tanaris. Or you can take the teleport in Scholazar Basin that takes you directly to Un'goro.

If you want something to do for a couple of weeks before Cataclysm, I can't recommend this quest chain enough. To quote Signalfirefly from wowhead.com
"If you're not in love with it by the time it's all grown up... well, I'm afraid there's just no hope for you."

Hmm, did you grow?

Gnomeregan vs Echo Isles

Seems like every WoW-blogger is doing a post on the Gnomeregan/Echo Isles event. So I must too, right? At first I was kinda annoyed that none of the blogs that I follow, and they're quite many by now, seemed to do a post on the horde side of the event, Operation Echo Isles. Heck even WoW.com picture a huge gnome on their post about it. Are all WoW-bloggers alliance? o.O Then Elkagorasa saved me from having to put my shoulder to the wheel and write one myself, although his guide is very straightforward about it. Instead I'll do another take on it and do a comparison between the two events, just for the heck of it. And also there will be pretty pictures to look at. If you don't want to know anything about these quest chains I'll warn you, this is a huge spoiler, so read no further.

I'll say right away that Operation Gnomeregan was funnier, but Operation Echo Isles was way better designed. And I've bet you'll all done it by now, but it could be interesting to know that you need to be 75 plus to complete the final part of the two quest-chains, the assault on Gnomeregan/Echo Isles. Otherwise the quests just end when you get the transform-item.

Echo Isles
EDIT 10/9: I realized not everyone knows how to get to Echo Isles! Just travel to Orgrimmar and then follow the road from the main entrance all the way south through Durotar. If you run through Razor Hill you're on the right track. Echo Isles are the small islands on the south-eastern coast of Durotar.

To help Vol'jin you first have to collect a bunch of frogs. The frogs are going to be used as very sneaky spies on the islands, to check out what Zalazane is up to, and has been up to the last 5 years. You seduce the frogs and then throw them out over the islands in an pass that seems to take forever.

The frogs quickly report back that they've seen a mysterious tiger spirit roaming around this island. Who is this figure? You must find out of course, and Vol'jinz lady friend Vanira turns you into a Kraven-like tiger person to go kick that tigers ass. As we all know the best way to make friends in WoW is to kick their asses. The mysterious tiger spirit turns out to be a druid troll, one of many who has been hiding on the Echo Isles for all this time waiting for Vol'jin to make his move. So that's where you've been! That explain perfectly why trolls can be druids in Cataclysm. They could all along they just didn't know it! Hah what would you know.


Vol'jin also needs more trolls to help him in the fight, so he asks you to go back to Razor Hill to help him recruit some more citizens for the task. This is easy since all you need to do is play some soft tunes on the Bongo-drums and the trolls are game for some fighting. Ride with your posse back to Vol'jins Champion Uru'zin (which almost sounds like the swedish word Ursinnig - furious).
Now everything is almost set. You just have to ask the spirits if the time is right for the attack. If it isn't then all your work would be for nought, so now better hope that the spirits are in a good mood. The spirits will tell you that you need the help of the überspirit Bwonsamdi to defeat Zalazane. And guess what? You're going to go kick Bwonsamdi ass too. After doing this Bwonsamdi decides that you're a really nice chap and that he will help Vol'jin in killing off Zalazane. I really did hate that bastard when leveling as a troll, so it was nice to see him gone and dead forever now (?). As a reward for dancing with the spirits you get a Darkspear Pride that transforms you into a Darkspear Warrior for 30 min (4 hour cooldown).

When you're all set you set off with Vol'jin to kick Zalazanes ass. On the way you kick Bwonsamdis ass (like mentioned above) and then Jun'do the Traitor before killing Zalazane. Victory to the Darkspear!

Gnomeregan
EDIT 10/9: In case you don't know how to get to Steelgrill's Depot, it's quite easy. Just travel to Ironforge, exit through the main gate and follow the road down, keep slightly to the left (east on the map) till you get to Kharanos. You should be able to see Steelgrill's Depot before you get to Kharanos.

Unlike Vol'jin, High Tinker Mekkatorque has decided to stay in Ironforge instead of going where the battle is. Might be as well since there are alot of gnomes over at Steelgrills Depot and trying to find one in the mass is one of the trickier things you'll do when doing these quests.
Mekkatorque will ask you to use his little Motivate-a-tron (side effects included) on various Gnome Citizens standing around to convince them to become pilots for the assault on Gnomeregan. You ride with your gang over to Steelgrills Depot and get to learn that you have to know how to express the proper emotions when Gnomeregan finally is won. You do this by going over to Drill Seargeant Steamcrank who will make sure you know how to /roar, /dance, /cheer and /salute.


You will also have to use a Radiageigatron to fly by Gnomeregan and measure the radiation levels. There are also some quests to learn how to drive and throw yourself out of Mecha-spider, but I'm not sure if they're part of the whole quest line or just for flavor because I can't see them listed on wowhead.com.

Then comes a really pesty quest. It's fun, but badly designed. Toby Zeigear has written a speech for Mekkatorque to say when Gnomeregan has returned to his hands and he wants you to find three specific gnomes to try the different speeches out on. Trying to find something one apple high among a throng of characters is extremely difficult. Sure you can /tar, but knowing the needle's in the hay stack won't make you find it any faster. This part of the quest included alot of running around and mouse overing all the npcs I could find.

The reward was the speeches given by the little Mekkatorque simulation. They were in fact hilarious. Bonus points if you can guess which movies these speeches were taken from. The answer is at the bottom of this post.

1. High Tinker Mekkatorque says: What I want out of each and every one of you is a hard-target search of every refuelling station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in his area.
Your fugitive's name is Mekgineer Thermaplugg
Go get him.

2. High Tinker Mekkatorque says: They may take our lives, but they'll never take..."
"... our INNOVATION!"

3. High Tinker Mekkatorque says:
We Will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight!
We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today we celebrate...
...our Autonomy Day!

(Thanks to Valdan at wowhead.com for collecting the quotes as I forgot to scribble them down when I did the quests).

When completing this you get the Gnomeregan Pride to turn you into Gnomeregan Infantry! After this I couldn't go any further. Unfortunately I don't have a level 75+ alliance char, I actually really would've been there to retake Gnomeregan :/ It's going to be an awesome place to be in the end!

Overall I really liked both quest chains. The horde ones were more fun to do, but the alliance ones has way funnier dialogues. If you can I recommend doing both, and you can be any level for all the quests except the last one. So you could just roll a level 1 dwarf and run there to do it! Or the other way around of course, roll a level 1 orc for the horde side. (EDIT 9/9: Apparently you have to be level 5 at least to do the quests :S)

They could've been a little longer, now they were like versions of the "retake Undercity" quest, but without all the questing before. Maybe we will get to rebuild the areas like we did with Isle of Quel'Danas? That would really be a blast.

1. The Fugitive
2. Braveheart
3. Independence Day

Discovering a gnome

Vroom! Actually I am standing still in this picture though...

Even after more than 5 years of playing, end game raiding and more alts than I want to admit, there are still things in WoW that I have never done or experienced. Many of these things include pvp or alliance. I have for instance never played a gnome or dwarf beyond level 15 (until recently), and therefor I have never actually ridden a Mechanostrider or Ram! This hasn't bothered me too much, but occasionally I wonder what it would feel like. So the other day I rolled the gnome warrior I have mentioned some times now in posts, and it dinged 20 recently. So off I went to get my Mechanostrider. Choosing one wasn't easy, I wanted to ride them all at once! But I finally settled with the Red one, for no particular reason at all since they all looked awesome and started to randomly ride around. So much fun! I noticed that I made vroom-sounds when riding around on it. It's not really as fun if you don't vroom.

The Mechanostrider isn't the only new thing my little gnome has introduced me to. I've never leveled in Loch Modan either. So I decided that now was the time to give that place a go. You don't have much reason to go there other than leveling, especially not as horde. As alliance you might want that flightpath by Thelsamar to get easier access to Badlands. when questing in Loch Modan I soon realized why no one does this area though, it must seriously be one of the baddest designed quest areas in the game, where efficiency is concerned. As for rp and lore, Loch Modan is a really nice area to start out if you want to feel all dwarfish (not so much gnomish unfortunately). In fact it reminded me somewhat of the starting area of Greenskins in Warhammer Online. The quests are few and extremely far apart, be ready to alot of running. Too many quests involve "get this for me over on the other side of the world". Alot of quests involve flying back and forth to Ironforge, not only the regular "talk to the flight master" quest line, but other quests as well. If you want to level fast and efficient, Loch Modan is the worst place to go. It is also quite far from other leveling areas, like Elwynn Forest and Dun Morogh. What's even more annoying is that there is a level gap between the starting area of gnomes and dwarves, and Loch Modan. So even if LM would be the logical next area to go to, you actually have to travel all the way to Stormwind and quest in Elwynn Forest unless you want to get your ass kicked in the high leveled quests of LM.

At level 10 I got a quest to kill some guy, that was red to me. So I thought well I'll just level a few levels and it might turn orange or yellow soon. At level 15 it was still red to me. I don't want to have to travel half across the world to be able to find decent quests my level, before I've even got my mount. Nevertheless, there are areas if LM I've never ever seen, so for me it was still fun in some way. I wonder if this is common, because it wouldn't suprise me if alot of people skip LM because of it's inaccessibility, sort of like Desolace (or am I the only one who always skips that zone?). Everyone should see it at least once though.

Suppose my next goal will have to be to level a dwarf to level 20 so I can try a Ram out as well. And then I have to think of new things that I haven't tried yet. Hmm.

Is there anything you'd like to give a go, that you've never done or seen before?

The most dangerous mob

A long time ago I read somewhere about which mob in the game had killed the most players. I think it was some official WoW-data, but I can't remember where exactly I found it. This was like 4 years ago though. before Wotlk and even BC, so maybe me not remembering isn't so strange.

The mob was one of the ghouls inside Stratholme, I think Fleshflayer Ghoul, but might also have been the Ghoul Ravener. I remember thinking "yeah that makes total sense, those bastards sure kill me everytime I try to do that damn instance". This was back when 60 was the best you could be, and Stratholme was one hell of an instance to try to get through. I'm still awe struck by those mighty people who managed to do a Timed Baron Run back then! I don't think there's much as difficult around in the game anymore. Lk hc perhaps. Stratholme still today comes pretty high up in my list on instances that contains the most annoying mobs, although the ghouls aren't the most annoying ones in that instance actually. I remember that back then they hit insanely hard, and that combined with every other annoying mob in there usually gave them the killing blow.

I think about those ghouls still today and wonder "what is mob is killing the most players today?". Surely not those ghouls anymore, very few people do Stratholme at all today, and even less "properly" leveled for it. I think that list included bosses, and those ghouls still topped the list on player kills. It's not that strange after all, a boss might kill more people at a time, but with longer intervalls, since not that many people did raid back then. Stratholme was a 10-man raid at first (or was it even 15?) but they eventually changed it to a damn hard 5-man instance instead. You really needed to be awesomesauce to get through that instance without 10 wipes and without it taking 5 hours. For anyone without a raiding guild or the time to raid, Stratholme and Scholomance was the next best thing. If you weren't there you can't really imagine how horrible it was. Look at me sounding like those old farts in Monthy Python! "When I was young we had to eat a beating for breakfast, and like it". Seriously though. If you want a feeling of how it was you could go there with a level 60 char, and some level 60 friends and complete it. No BoA gear allowed!

I've tried to locate that list since, a couple of time actually. No luck. If I were to tell you which is the most dangerous mob in the game today, it would be a total guess. So let's guess!
First of all I think there are probably plenty of midlevel mobs that are quite dangerous. At level 80 people tend to get better and better gear, and the mobs don't become tougher and tougher really. On the other hand people spend less and less time in mid-levels, leveling has never been so fast as it is today. Another factor to consider is that some mobs are dangerous not in themselves but in their context. Like the Scarlets in Scarlet Monastery. No single mob in there is any dangerous, but the fact that they easily run and pull more mobs make them very dangerous. The most dangerous mob doesn't have to be located in an instance at all of course, but that is usually where the slightly tougher mobs are, where overpulls are more easily done and more players available to be killed.

So let's consider the factors that need to be present - the mob probably has to be part of a pack, I doubt there is any one mob out there capable of holding the position of #1 without the aid of some friends. It also has to be somewhere where alot of people go, either an area for questing or an instance that is done alot. There are some tough quest mobs like the seal in Zul'Drak and the dragon in Dragonblight, but I just don't think people fight those often enough. Quests and the mobs you have to fight when doing them are usually only done once, and then never again. Daily quests are repeated, but Blizzard have actually tried to make most of the Daily Quests as easy as possible so that people don't have to spend all day completing them. Back in BC I can imagine Kazzak was one of the mobs that killed the most players. Remember him standing there screaming all day? That was from all the player aggroing him when they were doing the dailies in his area. I don't think the mob is from a raid, since the trash in ICC isn't especially tough. ToC doesn't even have any trash, and the Ulduar/Naxx is mostly just done for weeklys nowadays. Of course the bosses of ICC are done pretty much so maybe it could be one of those? But are they done much enough, compared to heroics? I think not.

Taking all this into consideration it probably has to be some level 80 heroic instance mob that kills the most players today. Taking it from there I would guess some mob either from PoS or HoR, the two most difficult heroics out there today. The caster mobs just after Ick are pretty tough, and people usually wipe on them when trying to skip them as well, so they're definitely nominated for the position. The waves in HoR usually wipe people too, but from personal experience I'd say the caster mobs in PoS are more troublesome. People seem to know what to do in HoR now so I actually have few problems with that instance nowadays. I think it's easier to get into PoS with bad gear than into HoR. I often wonder what some people do in PoS at all, because their gear is so bad, but I rarely get stuck with extremely undergeared people in HoR. As an example - my warrior has about 4500 gs, I've ended up in HoR once and in Pos like 5 times. Pure chance? Maybe, but I don't think so. And I do feel that the two instances are about as difficult when it comes to mobs, you just need slightly more skills for HoR.

So what is my conclusion? I think the Ymirjar Flamebearer is the mob killing the most players currently in the game.

Which mob do you think is the most dangerous?