Mordiceius' Gaming Blog Flying Away on a Wing and a Prayer

And So Ends the WotLK Beta

Posted by Mordiceius at 9:30 am

And so the beta ended. Not with a bang, hell... not even with a whimper. It got quietly taken out to pasture in the middle of the night while the world slept.

There was no warning except for a blue post that came quickly, quietly and with little explaination:

We would like to thank everyone who has participated in the Wrath of the Lich King beta test. We greatly appreciate all of the feedback and you have given us during this critical phase of World of Warcraft's development. In preparation for the launch of the game next Thursday, November 13, we will be bringing down our beta realms at 12:00 AM PST. Thanks again, and see you soon in Northrend!

I was somewhat disappointed by all this for a few reasons. I didn't get to say goodbye to any of my beta guild mates or check out any of the final changes before closing. What depresses me the most about it all is that this means no end of beta event. No twelve hours of chaos and fun with GMs. I wonder if the GMs are disappointed about this as everyone else. Ah well, last night I took the opportunity to go buy Fallout 3. I only got to play about two hours of it before going to bed, but I am expecting that this game will probably consume most of my free time until Wrath of the Lich King hits.

WotLK Beta Blog – Zul’drak

Posted by Mordiceius at 11:30 am

The image gallery for this post can be found here.

This is most likely the last post I'm going to be making about the beta (aside from the end of beta event of course). At this point there isn't much else to say about it now that most of the mechanics from beta are on the live servers and everyone is busy getting their achievements.

I hardly logged onto beta at all anymore. I didn't do all the instances but I did all but two zones. I didn't want to start instance or quest grinding only to redo it on live. There are those that are running heroics and raids daily on beta; I just don't understand that mentality. Plus, I've been busy leveling with Regina. Our characters are 68 now and I want to get her to 70 and get some Kara/ZA/whatever else runs in before WotLK so she can see a little of what I have always spent so much time doing.

Zul'Drak is the home kingdom of the Ice Trolls. While there are two really epic questlines, everything else is generally more of the same. You get the resolution to the Drakuru questline as well as a great questline that deals with what the Ice Trolls have been doing to their gods. The Argent Dawn and Knights of the Ebon Blade both have a large presence here. The Argent Dawn base is now also home to Eitrigg. This zone does have the Gun'drak instances so I don't expect this place to be completely forgotten, but like Grizzly Hills, I expect it will probably be one of the lesser talked about zones of the expansion.

WotLK Beta Blog – The Dragonblight

Posted by Mordiceius at 11:59 am

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.

WotLK Beta Blog – The Event That Sold Me on WotLK

Posted by Mordiceius at 11:39 pm

DISCLAIMER: If you plan on doing all the quests and enjoy being surprised by exciting events (like the Alliance Onyxia event or the Nagrand Thrall Event), DO NOT read the entry! This is going to be filled with spoilers of what I consider to be the most epic event in the history of WoW. This is the event Blizzard has referred to as the end of "Act 1".

I have made an image album for all the events if this questline that you can see here.

One major complaint people make about WoW is how static the world is. This event will be shocking for them.

Heroes rise. Battles are fought. People die. This questline has mystery, intrigue and betrayal.

Blizzard wants the encounter with Arthas to be the final culmination of WotLK. They want the fight to mean something. When Burning Crusade was coming out, all the hype surrounded Illidan, but he was mostly absent aside from a few questlines and finally the encounter in the Black Temple. Even then, many people felt that the whole encounter was shallow because we didn't get a chance to interact with Illidan much. It was made even more insignificant since his fight wasn't the final fight of the game. Instead, the Sunwell Plateau comes out with Kil'Jaeden. We've been told that the final raid of WotLK will be the Icecrown Citadel with Arthas. He is the focus of this expansion. The fight will have major impact on us because we will have seen him around the world, he will have spoken to us directly, beating us down every step of the way.

For the Horde, the event series is just a natural progression of the Forsaken's story from vanilla WoW. Ever since Sylvanas and the Forsaken broke free of the Lich King's grasp, they've been working on building a plague to wipe out the Scourge in vengeance (and if it wipes out all other life on Azeroth, oh well, vengeance is worth it). In Howling Fjord, we see the Royal Apothecary Society once more working on the plague and having both some minor successes and major failures (as usual, mainly failures).

Eventually this questline takes you to the Venomspite settlement in the Dragonblight. It is here that the Forsaken make a breakthrough. They finally stumble upon a blight string that seems to obliterate the Scourge (in the aptly named quest "The Forsaken Blight: How Not to Kill Yourself"). You take the Scourge blight to an apothecary in the main Horde settlement in Dragonblight, Agmar's Hammer. Overlord Agmar eventually sends you to the front lines to provide aid to Saurfang the Younger, who has now taken up the armor of his father and leads the Horde at the Wrathgate.

The Wrathgate is HUGE. It reminds me of the Black Gate of Mordor in Lord of the Rings. It is the barrier between Icecrown Glacier and the Dragonblight. The word is that it is infused with the blood of Yogg-Saron and the gate itself breathes.

For the Alliance, the questline is a progression of one of the Naxxramas quests in the Eastern Plaguelands. In the original incarnation of Naxxramas, once Kel'Thuzad was defeated someone got his phylactery to turn in for kill credit. The phylactery was turned in to Father Inigo Montoy in Light's Hope Chapel. The Argent Dawn never received the phylactery.

In the Alliance questline, the player finds out that Inigo Montoy was actually a lich in his own right, but more importantly, just another pawn of the Lich King. He brought Kel'Thuzad's phylactery back to Northrend to allow him to regenerate. You are sent to destroy Montoy in his lich form. After this, you are sent to the Wrathgate in support of Bolvar Fordragon and the Alliance forces in the area. Yes, Fordragon is leading the Alliance forces here. King Varian Wrynn has returned to Stormwind to rule his kingdom and has ousted Katrina Prestor. All of this transpires in the WoW comic book.

From here, both the Horde and the Alliance questlines are the same temporarily. Both sides go request the aid of Alexstrasza, the red dragonflight aspect. After gaining her favor, she tells you to return to the Wrathgate with the words that you will have the support of the red dragonflight.

At this point, words cannot even describe the amazing things Blizzard has done for this questline. So you should just watch this video and find out yourself.

Alexstrasza shows up to control the situation, but the damage is done. Here, the questlines split again.

The Horde take Saurfang the Younger's armor back to his father, who is in Warsong Hold in Borean Tundra assisting Garrosh Hellscream. You get to Overlord Saurfang and he warns you of an emergency. The city of Orgrimmar has been placed under martial law and a state of emergency has been announced. He orders you to report to Thrall immediately.

It was at this point in the questline that I started shaking with anticipation.

The Alliance take Bolvar Fordragon's armor back to King Varian Wrynn in Stormwind. He is thrown into a blind rage from the loss of his most trusted friend. He declares that it is an act of war from the Horde against the Alliance and the Forsaken have plagued the ruins of Lordaeron for far to long. He decides to muster the military in the region and march on the Undercity. Jaina Proudmoore arrives to ask what is going on and rushes off to go warn Thrall.

The Horde are teleported to the gates of Orgrimmar and the situation is grim. Armed guards are everywhere. As far as the eye can see, tents have been set up. Forsaken refugees are pouring into town from the zeppelin tower. In the center of town, all the trainers and shopkeepers have gathered, demanding answers to what is going on, but receiving none. You make your way to Thrall's chamber and Lady Sylvanas is standing beside him. Before he can debrief you, a giant portal opens up and Jaina emerges. She warns that King Wrynn has mustered the military and is planning aggressive action.

Thrall informs Jaina that it was not an attack from the Horde. The Horde was betrayed as well. The entire scheme was a plot by Varimathras and Grand Apothecary Putress. They reverse engineered the blight for the event at the Wrathgate. They have also taken control of the Undercity and almost killed Sylvanas in the process.

Yes, that is right, the Undercity is no longer accessible because it is FILLED WITH DEMONS.

From here, the Horde are sent to the front gates of the Undercity to meet with Vol'jin for the epic climax. The Alliance are sent to meet with the King's companions Broll Bearmantle and Valeera Sanguinar at the sewer entrance to the Undercity.

With seige cannons bombarding the walls, each side begins their charge into the city, not knowing the other faction is there.

The Horde, lead by Thrall and Sylvanas, begin their battle in the upper courtyard and head into the central city and eventually the Royal Sanctum. This is so amazingly epic. Due to buffs from Thrall and Sylvanas, every hit you make packs a punch and your health is boosted to about 50k. The battle is large. It is wave after wave of apothecaries, abominations and all sorts fo blight beasts. With each step of progress you make, Varimathras is there taunting you and sending giant bosses at the forces. The Alliance, lead by Varian and Jaina, head through the sewers, chasing after Putress. Battling through the bowels of the city, the fact the same type of attacks, only lead by Putress instead of Varimathras.

Finally, the Horde makes it to the Royal Sanctum and engage in a huge battle with Varimathras in which Varimathras falls. The Alliance catch up with Putress and slay him. But just before the Alliance can reclaim the city as their own, they hear the battle cry of Thrall and the Horde forces in the sanctum. Varian, determined to obtain victory, decides to now take the battle to Thrall.

Back in the throne room, the Horde forces are shocked at the arrival of the King and his forces. Varian, remarks upon how the "savages" have been allowed to remain in the lands too long and how it is now their fault that Bolvar is dead. In an effort to destroy them once an for all, he charges into battle with Thrall. Before the forces clash, Jaina acts. Mourning what has happened and what this means for the future, she flash freezes the Alliance forces and mass teleports them all back to Stormwind.

The Undercity once more has been taken by the Horde, but the day is not won. No longer is it a cold war between the Horde and the Alliance. No longer is it just proxy conflicts. By the hand of Varian Wrynn, the 4th War has officially started.

In the words of Thrall: "It ends like it began.... All that we have fought for in this world is lost. The hopes and dreams carried by my father and mother.... by Doomhammer... gone..."

Sorry, but I forgot to take screenshots of the gear you get as a reward, but you can see that at these two WoWWiki links: Horde. Alliance.

I apologize for writing this huge post, and to be honest, I hope very few people read this. This is such an amazing event though that I felt I just had to talk about it. This event resonated heavily with me because I guess that I had become very comfortable with the way things were. No matter how many times Lady Prestor was revealed to be Onyxia, the next day she was right back standing at Fordragon's side. No matter how many times the ogre leader of Brackenwall was scared off, he was always back the next day. I'm not used to the death of people having an actual impact on the world around me.

All of this is done through world phasing. None of it is from separate instances or anything. At one point, I had left the Undercity before the final quest to do some other things in beta and I forgot about the demons and accidently teleported back there through a Dalaran portal to respec and was instantly curbstomped by demons. Once you start the final part of the questline, both the Undercity and Orgrimmar are unavailable for services until you finish it.

I hate to sounds like a slobbering fanboy apologist, but this sort of event is just the kind of thing that sells me on the expansion and makes me forget any other complaint I could possibly have.

WotLK Beta Blog – World Phasing and You

Posted by Mordiceius at 4:50 pm

In two months, the WoW buzz is going to be all about world phasing. It is JUST that good.

World phasing allows multiple people to see the same part of the world in different ways. Through quests and events, you can change the world (Granted, it'll be only for you, but that doesn't change the impact). It is basically it is like every person has their own reality of the world game world but all realities are compressed into one, with each player able to interact with other players there but every player sees their own reality.

I never played more than a half hour on a death knight character so I didn't experience that zone's phasing so my first encounter with it was in Grizzly Hills. The first Horde town in the Grizzly Hills is Conquest Hold, lead by the merciless orc Krenna. After doing some quests for her and other NPCs in the zone, you realize how brutal she is. Someone lied? Break their legs! There's a group of human wilderness hunters passing through? Slay them all. While she may be brutal and quick to anger, her level-headed sister Gorganna assists you in circumventing carrying out some of Krenna's orders. At one point you even get a letter from Gorganna in the mail warning you that Krenna's wrath may soon be upon you.

In the center of Conquest Hold is a giant pit for a Ring of Blood style quest chain that awards some nice blue quality gloves. You fight a couple various different enemies including a bear, a stone golem and a gladiator orc. The final event, however, is a showdown between Krenna and Gorganna in which Krenna falls. We've encountered plenty of events like this before, so I figured that this event was nothing special. It reminded me of the questline in Dustwallow Marsh where you challenge and defeat the ogre leader of Brackenwall Village and he runs off, only to be back standing there 5 minutes later. This time it was different though. When I went back into the main hold, Krenna was no longer there. Her sister had taken up the mantle of leadership from where Krenna used to be. Imagine if when you scared off that ogre in Brackenwall, he never came back.

This is one of the things many people have been wanting for ages. It is a world that changes with us. While not a fully realized changing world, this is a major step in the right direction for WoW. It almost seems like phasing hasn't been getting enough buzz, I haven't but a few people in the blogosphere talk about it so I wonder why Blizzard doesn't hype it up a little more. While it would be nice to see world phasing retroactively added to the past content, I understand what a monumental amount of man hours that would take to do that and how in all honesty, it isn't worth it. Though this all does make me very excited for any future expansions and whenever Blizzard DOES make a new MMO so we can see a ground up implementation of things like this.

P.S.

There was a major event I recently encountered in my questing that heavily relies on world phasing, but I am going to put that into a separate blog post because it is filled with HEAVY spoilers since it is what Blizzard considers to be the end of "Act 1" of WotLK and I don't want to accidentally spoil it for those that don't want to know.

WotLK Beta Blog – Grizzly Hills

Posted by Mordiceius at 12:01 pm

The gallery for the Grizzly Hills images can be found here.

I know I haven't been blogging much lately and I really should write more. I would use the excuse that my work has blocked my website and because of that I've lost out on prime blogging time, but really it is just that I've been spending far too much time in game. I have all the content for a couple updates, I've just been too lazy to do them. Currently, I have completed all of Grizzly Hills, all of the Dragonblight and majority of Zul'drak. I'm just going to do updates of full zone now instead of partial ones just to get them out of the way.

With both Howling Fjord and Borean tundra being the 69-72 zones, Grizzly Hills and Dragonblight are the 72-75 zones. I figured Dragonblight would be more epic (it is), so I wanted to save it and headed to Grizzly Hills first.

Grizzly Hills is somewhat quaint. The zone almost seems far removed from the rest of the world. There is very little scourge presence and all of that is just at Drak'tharon keep, on the border of Zul'drak.

Within the zone there are four central storylines: the rise of Drakuru, the return of Arugal, the influence of Yogg-Saron, and the mission of the Iron Dwarves. Also, it is the first time that non-Death Knight characters will encounter world phasing. (I plan to write another entry to explain that and why it is so great.)

Of all of the questlines, the Arugal quest is probably the most minor. It's a by the books story of how Arugal was returned to life by the power of the Lich King and has been turning everyone in the zone to Worgen. This obviously culminates with you having to slay him once more.

For the Iron Dwarves, you finally get to see why they were taking control of the hill giants and sending them north. The giants in the region are locked in a war with the Iron Dwarves and have been trying to destroy the Iron Dwarf city of Thor Modan. This fight escalates and will hopefully culminate in the Storm Peaks.

As for the other two questlines, I wasn't able to the Yogg-Saron questline due to a bug with the world phasing at the time. If you do not know who Yogg-Saron is, don't worry, the name didn't immediately stick out to me either. Apparently it is the true name of the giant C'thun like Forgotten One that Arthas and Anub'arak faced in Azjol'nerub in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne.

I did however do the Drakuru questline, which... well, this one is too good to spoil. This chapter of the questline has a jaw-dropping climax in Drak'tharon keep that has far reaching repercussions.

Drak'tharon keep on its own is a fairly fun instance. It was a quick run for us (about a half hour for a full run) with some enjoyable fights. While two bosses are just generic tank and spanks, the other two (a lich and an ascended prophet in skeletal Hakkar form).

While the Grizzly Hills overall are nice, I think that it will be the most overlooked zone. It is not as compelling as the Howling Fjord or Borean Tundra and doesn't have the epic questlines that Dragonblight. It is not a bad zone. In fact, I enjoyed it, but other than the Drakuru questline, I think Grizzly Hills will be overshadowed by everywhere else in the expansion.

WotLK Beta Blog – Initial Dalaran Visit

Posted by Mordiceius at 7:18 pm

Just a short little blog post to tide everyone over before the Grizzly Hills stuff. As usual, all the images for the post are here.

Lady Sylvanas finally got her proper model.

I tried out the barbershop. My opinions are mixed.

A Kirin Tor agent in Howling Fjord had the quest for me to go to Dalaran. I assume this is the quest the one blood elf in Warsong Hold had that I could not get.

First impression of Dalaran: it looks freaking awesome.

A statue of Antonidas.

The Violet Hold (the instance in the city).

The new leader of the Kirin Tor: Rhonin.

This place really is beautiful.

My next couple posts should cover Grizzly Hills and my adventures there. Sorry I'm so slow to post entries. I'm just really, really lazy.

WotLK Beta Blog – Final Thoughts on Howling Fjord

Posted by Mordiceius at 9:48 pm

If I had to sum up the Howling Fjord in three words it would be “beautifully, tragically serene.” From the moment you step off the boat or zeppelin, you hear what I think is the most beautiful music in World of Warcraft to date. In fact, before you continue reading this, you should go here and listen to the track. The soft sound of the music reminds me of a land crying out in sorrowful mourning.

While Borean Tundra still felt a bit like a foreign war torn wasteland, Howling Fjord felt a lot more like coming home. It could be because I used to live in northern Idaho and Howling Fjord looks like it is a little land tucked away in the Pacific Northwest, but going to the Fjord roused me in a way Borean Tundra didn’t. I felt like the very land was crying out for help. However cheesy as it may sound, it was very exciting.

Within the Fjord, the main Horde settlements are lead by an offshoot of the Forsaken’s Royal Apothecary Society named “The Hand of Vengeance” and their work to create a new plague as well as a Taunka settlement. The Alliance have settlements from the Ironforge Explorer’s League, searching for remnants of Titan knowledge, as well as a human settlement where they have captured a goblin zeppelin and its captain for their uses. There is also a large Tuskarr village. Unlike the diverse looks and multitude of enemies that Borean Tundra boasts, Howling Fjord is a little more focused in its content. The main two enemies found in the region are the Vykul, (think of large Vikings) in a brutal crusade to try to prove themselves worthy of the Lich King’s favor, and the Iron Dwarves, a violent offshoot race of the dwarves, that’s mysterious mission is nothing short of nefarious.

While not quite as large as Borean Tundra (which stands at over 150 quests), Howling Fjord sits just over 130 or so quests per side. Howling Fjord also a much more focused zone than Borean Tundra. While Borean Tundra is filled with multiple enemy fronts, the main focus of the Fjord is obviously the Vykul. I do think that Borean Tundra will end up being the more popular zone than the Fjord, but not by too much hopefully. Both zones offer great Northrend lore.

I can't say anything to what the quests for the Alliance consist of, but the Forsaken are back and more evil than ever. They're here for the cause of creating that plague and will stop at nothing to accomplish that. (Though as you can imagine, like always, it results in failure.) Some of their best quests include controlling a combustible abomination to wipe out the evidence of failed plague attempts and the aptly named 'BRAINS! BRAINS! BRAINS!' which has you killing dwarves from the Explorer's League and removing their brain with a hacksaw.

The missions for the Taunka mainly consist of fighting back against the Vykul and investigating the Iron Dwarves in the area and what they are doing to the local giants. While all these are great, I think one of the most exciting quests was being sent to fight against the white wolf as it provided a great 'OH SHIT!' moment and lead in to the Grizzly Hills.

WotLK Beta Blog for 31 August 2008

Posted by Mordiceius at 5:18 pm

All of the images for today’s post can be found in the gallery album for today.

This blog post is mainly just going to be the highlight reel since I hope to finish my final thoughts on Howling Fjord post tonight.

Found some more dark rangers that had some tasks for me.

Stuff like this makes D.E.H.T.A. cry.

The scenery is still beautiful.

I encountered my first wendigo.

The dryads here are strangely attractive? And they have good taste in trees.

The iron dwarfs in the area have started a mysterious plot with the local hill giants. Even though we find out what is causing it, we don't know why they're doing it yet.

I also got to take a hill giant into battle. Twice.

The taunka basically asked me to take down an entire army.

I was shown what happens when you fail the Lich King.

BRAINS! BRAINS! BRAINS! (The best quest ever.)

My first encounter with the Lich King.

We got to call down and fight a frost dragon.

A grieving murloc.

One of my favorite quest lines for the zone starts with you having to cleanse your spirit. From here, I met with a worg who had lost his pack to a white wolf from the north. A few quests later, you must go face the white wolf... only to find out that it is not a wolf at all!