WotLK Beta Blog – The Dragonblight
Screenshots for this blog post can be found here.
The Dragonblight is a continuation of both the storylines of Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord. The amount of quests is huge, rivaling that of Borean Tundra, and stories are tragic. For the Horde, the main storylines are a continuation of the blue dragonflight and Taunka stories from Borean Tundra and the Forsaken stories from Howling Fjord. The Alliance mainly the Stormwind army's story as well as take vengeance on the being responsible for resurrecting Kel'thuzad after his death in level 60 Naxxramas.
In the center of the zone is Wyrmrest Temple, the central meeting place of the Dragonflights. The Wyrmrest Accord is located here, led by Alexstrasza, the Red Dragonflight aspect.
There is a lot going on here and this is probably the most exciting zone so far I have come across. You get to interact with central lore figures and see world sweeping changes (including the event that will not be named).
The Forsaken are here still working on the their plague and they make major breakthroughs. While they work on the plague, they're also working to cause some trouble with the Scarlet Onslaught (the reformed Scarlet Crusade). The Scarlet Onslaught quests are great fun and hint towards much larger things. High Admiral Westwind hints towards greater things at Icecrown.
On the other side of the Dragonblight, the Taunka refugees try to deal with the situation at Icemist. As an ambassador of the Horde, you personally swear in their people as members of the Horde. In the area is also the Agmar's Hammer stronghold. Here, Overlord Agmar sends you on aggressive strikes against targets in the area (mainly the Nerubians at Icemist and the Blue Dragonflight in the area).
Each Dragonflight has a shrine in the Dragonblight which is unique them. When you finally reach Wyrmrest, you speak with representatives from each dragonflight and get sent on missions to support the defense of each shrine. One quest that I found unique was given by Chromie, representative of the Bronze Dragonflight and our friend from Andorhal. She sends you to go fight alongside your future self at the Bronze Dragonshrine against the Infinite Dragonflight. She gives you an item that will eventually reveal the leader. When you complete the questline, instead of revealing the leader, all of the sudden, Nozdormu, the Bronze Dragon Aspect appears. When you return to Chrome, she simply assumes that Nozdormu appeared because he's engaged in the battle against the Infinites. Could there be more to this?
The events at Wyrmrest Temple finally culminate with the events at the Wrathgate that I wrote about previously.
Other quests in the area deal with the Scourge pouring out of Naxxramas, the corrupted trolls outside Zul'drak, the Magnataurs in the area, and the Frost Giants to the north.
I also got a chance to run the second Azol'nerub instance as well as the Violet Hold. The screenshots are in this update, but I'll talk more about both of those places in another blog post.
All in all, Dragonblight is Blizzard at it's finest. They've really poured their heart and soul into this zone and I can't wait to see where the story goes from here.