I'm going to punch that dragon in the face! New quests after the Shattering.

It's been an interesting week! The Shattering has come at last and I must say, I've been really impressed with the results. I've been checking out some of the revamped zones, both on alts and on my main, and the new quests are really impressive (not to mention the landscape changes!).

The levelling experience has been improved dramatically. Certainly it seems to have sped up a lot (that or you really do just get caught up so don't notice the time going by!). Each zone feels much more coordinated now - story and quest lines all flow together, leading you logically from one area to the next. There are still some little quests around which you can either skip or come back to later, but the majority seem to be interconnected, often starting with one or two quests to introduce you to the zone which develop into a whole host of additional quests.

For those who will be working on Loremaster in this expansion, the new zone objectives will make it a lot easier, and it's also very easy (and fun) to get all the quests in each zone to get them. Many friends and myself checking out the new zones on alts found it very easy to get the achievements by simply following all the quest lines, completing the zone and moving on to the next.

The quests themselves are a ton of fun. There's a mix of old and new quests as far as I've seen - most all have been revamped in some way, but there are still ones that are unchanged (the two children in Redridge are still losing their necklace in the Lake, for example). The quests are really interesting and fun, and though there are still the 'kill x amount of creatures' and 'collect y amount of items', they're mixed in with a lot of unique tasks and mechanics and just all around fun. I highly recommend reading the quest text! You're definitely missing out if you don't.

I haven't had a chance yet to check out all the zones (some guildies I know have been working quite quickly through all the Loremaster achievements), but I've really enjoyed the ones I've seen so far, and thought I'd share some (...many) screenshots of some of the highlights so far!

Spoiler alert: The screenshots and text below may contain some spoilers if you haven't yet done the zones. I'll try not to give away too much, but just in case, read on with caution!

More treants!

I'll start with Darkshore, as that is where I went to first. I was particularly keen to find Withers, who is a new quest reward (I believe he's also available via an NPC purchase for horde). At first I was a bit disappointed that the quest wasn't available right away, but I'm now very glad it wasn't, as it gave me a chance to do all the Darkshore quests. It was incredibly fun and felt like a great place to start on my druid, who likely would have been home in Teldrassil following the long adventure in Northrend and would of course go to help his fellow Night Elves following the devastation to Auberdine and Darkshore.

Surveying the ruins of Auberdine.

The opening quests have you helping the survivors and plunge you straight into the aftermath of the Cataclysm. You begin closer to Lor'danel, the new base, and gradually expand outward into the zone. Eventually you'll be sent all the way down to Auberdine. The devastation to the town is quite staggering and many of the quests are tinged with the tragedy that has befallen the Night Elves and other inhabitants of Darkshore. I think the saddest thing I picked up was this: Broken Timepiece. It's earned a permanent spot in my bags as a memory to those lost. There are some very sad quests especially in Auberdine, and those familiar with the zone may recognise some of the NPCs lost in the wreckage. It's not all sad, though, and there are plenty of funny moments as well (in particular a rather senile Dwarf).

I was very excited to find Shan'do Stormrage in Darkshore, who had not yet travelled to Mount Hyjal. There are some fun quests as you travel around gathering help for him to repair the land.

A very sad Moonkin.

Assistance from the Green Dragonflight.

Protecting Darkshore from trolls.

If the new Tree of Life form looked like this, I might not have glyphed Treant form.

Finally I returned to Lor'danel and got little Withers.

I really enjoyed questing around Darkshore. The new quest lines really get you wrapped up and involved in the stories. It takes a little bit longer when reading all the quest texts but it's definitely worth it (and for those levelling, XP rewards are really quite good, so it shouldn't slow down your actual levelling too much). There are a lot of new mechanics too, of vehicles and disguises and tasks (don't assume you need to just kill mobs, some require that you don't kill things!), but they're all done very well so they're fun rather than annoying.

After Darkshore I made a quick swing by Alterac Mountains to check out one of the other new pets, the Singing Sunflower. There's also Mr Grubbs from the Eastern Plaguelands, who's not as long a grind as I had first thought (I found him quite quickly). The Sunflower is from the Plants vs Zombies game and quests, which was quite a lot of fun. I'd never played PvZ before so it was an interesting experience!

I then went to the Badlands. There were a ton of great quests here, including a nice long chain involving dragons and some fun little riddles and games. By far though the best quests were the three 'The Day that Deathwing Came' quests. They take place just by Dragon's Mouth at the Scar of the Worldbreaker.

As you can tell just from those screenshots, this is an amazing quest! One of the best quests I've done. I won't include the screenshots from all three of the quests here, as they're definitely best as a surprise, but if there's any quests you make sure to do, these three are it. The only thing I'd change is to implement an option for you to go back and speak to the NPCs and ask to see their stories again, so that you could repeat the little quests over and over (without any XP gain though). I'll be going back on all my alts! I'll include this last shot as the red sky just looks amazing behind Deathwing.

That is really just the smallest sample of some of the amazing new quests out there, and even just those two zones there are a ton of great quests. I've gone through all of Westfall and Redridge now as well, and Alliance (and even Horde who wouldn't mind levelling up a toon 1-20 Alliance-side) should definitely check these zones out.

Playing in the tornadoes in Westfall.

Epic battles in Redridge.

I was also lucky (or unlucky) enough to get the following:

Unfortunately I don't have a good screenshot of that as it was incredibly unexpected! I was running through the Burning Steppes to Blackrock Mountain, so the sky was already quite red, and had just noticed something large in the sky in the distance and was thinking 'What is that?' when BAM. Dead druid.

I'm looking forward to checking out all the other zones and working on Loremaster. I'm very glad I didn't bother trying to complete it before 4.0, as going through all the new zones is going to be great. I'm also looking forward to levelling a new toon, though I think I'll be waiting for Cata to land so I can roll a Worgen warrior. I just might even level another druid at some point (troll perhaps?) but we'll see!

Also, for those who don't play with the in-game music on, I definitely suggest turning it on! The new music is really great and definitely adds to the atmosphere in the zones.

I'll leave this here for now. Just over a week now until Cataclysm arrives! I can't believe it's almost December already. I'm working on getting the guides updated so they'll be ready for the launch and the push to 85. I imagine they'll be getting many little updates over the initial weeks and months of Cataclysm as well, as I'm sure Blizz will be making adjustments and changes as everything goes live and much more data than they had on Beta starts to flood in.

Happy questing!

Scar of the WorldBreaker.

I survived the Shattering! Quick update post-4.0.3a

Thought I'd do a quick post with some updates from the 4.0.3a patch.

- I finally found out how to train Glyph of the Treant - it can be learned through a Minor Inscription Research discovery. Rather less convenient than learning it from a trainer, especially now when very few will know it (and with the long cooldown on the Research), so Auction House gouging will likely take place over this week. It only requires 3 Jadefire Ink and a Common Parchment, though, so cheapest would likely be to find someone who's learned it and see if they'll make it for mats+tip.

- Nitro Boosts are now a belt tinker (rather than a boot tinker), so be sure to update your items. As far as I know this is an intended change (I'd seen a post asking if it was or was not). They will overwrite the Frag Belt and other belt tinkers. The Nitro Boosts seem to be bugged, though, and are malfunctioning much more frequently than they used to, including in raids. A large portion of our raiders are engineers and all last night they were exploding in every fight. I had a rather nice one during HMLK, at least I had my parachute at the ready.

- Meta gem requirements for some gems were changed to 'require more blue gems than red gems', however, Blizzard has already said they will be reverting the gems to their original requirements. This cannot be hotfixed, though, so will be addressed in an upcoming patch. (source)

- There are some new quests which reward pets, one is the Plants vs Zombies quest which rewards a flower. Another is the Remembrance of Auberdine quest which rewards a withered treant named Withers. I'll be setting to work on that one, appears as though you need to do most of the zone to open up the quest though! There's some info on WoWhead on how to get to the quest - check out the comments for the quests you need to complete to open it. Here. Should be a nice way to see the new Darkshore though. The opening quest regarding the destroyed Auberdine is quite sad as you search for survivors. ETA: Been working on the quests in the zone, and am very glad I did! The new quests are brilliant, loving Darkshore. Think this will swing it for me in which race to level a mage, nelf! Looking forward to checking out all the new zones... may give a go at Loremaster.

- The change in Rejuvenation mana cost does seem noticeable following a night's raiding, my mana bar was actually moving all tonight! Cata has landed officially. Though I do wonder whether a little bit may be due to me opting for Purified Lunar Dust over my Solace of the Defeated, as I believe Solace still returns better mana (I switched for the spellpower gain), however it was too large a difference from last week to be solely a trinket swap. You have been warned!

- I was very happy healing Valithria Dreamwalker last night now that the revamped Empowered Touch was on live. Throw on a Rejuv, Swiftmend her for Efflorescence, 3 stacks of LB and Healing Touch away! No longer wasting GCDs refreshing the stack after each cast, it was great. Some nice throughput doing that throughout the fight, though I'm undecided just when and how to use Tree of Life best on that fight. It would seem saving ToL for the end with max stacks is best for the additional healing boost. The instant-Regrowths seem like they edge out Healing Touch at that point, as you're getting two Regrowths out in about the same time as one Healing Touch cast (assuming 2 GCD's ~ 2 seconds for 2 instant Regrowths, vs ~2-second cast time HT), which tends to end up about being the same amount of healing done in that time frame. Nature's Bounty may be what pushes it, as the increased critical effect, especially then with the bonus to heals from portal stacks + ToL increased healing really adds up. I'd be interested in hearing what some other's strategies are. Though I suppose it doesn't matter too much at this point! Still, interesting.

- I was disappointed to find that my Mimiron's Head mount seems to be bugged, he makes noise when he's sat on the ground idling, but when I try flying forwards or strafing he goes silent. The little chopper-y noises the mount makes is one of my favourite things about it so I'm hoping that gets fixed soon!

- For those who don't know, there is now an Auction House and Bank in the Dwarven District of Stormwind (so you can avoid the more congested area in the Trade District). There's also an Auction House by the Justice Point vendors in Dalaran.

That's all for now! Enjoy the new zones and do some exploring! There are lots of new flypoints and tons of new quests to do. The new class/race combos are up too, along with the new starting zones for gnomes and trolls.

For Gnomeregan!

The time has come to take back Gnomeregan and the Echo Isles!

This week saw the implementation of the Gnomeregan and Darkspear Trolls pre-Cata events! It almost feels like it snuck up on us a bit - for me, at least, I was so distracted by beta updates and changes that I had forgotten this was due. The events are a ton of fun, I highly recommend checking them out! The quests are pretty quick and definitely worth the time (not to mention they give a couple of fun rewards), and if you're level 75+ you can participate in the final event to recapture Gnomeregan or Echo Isles too.

Some screenshots and highlights below! Just a note, they do contain spoilers! If you haven't done the events yet, you may want to check them out before reading on.

The Gnomeregan quests begin in Ironforge, where you have to recruit some gnome citizens for the battle.

There's a series of fun quests to do after you deliver the recruits, the most fun of which being able to test out the spider-bot vehicles. Especially fun as a tree!

The main quest line will reward you with an item which will allow you to wear a gnome costume (or a troll costume for the Horde questlines). The cooldown is long (four hours!) but the costume lasts for 30 minutes, so not too bad!

After you finish up the quests (and if you're level 75+), you can participate in the battle to retake Gnomeregan. The event is similar to the Battle for the Undercity quest in that you run with the leaders and gain a buff which boosts your damage immensely and heals you.

Gnome King Mekkatorque has a particularly funny line when trying to disarm a radiation bomb left by Thermaplugg, asking for some Refreshing Spring Water, Handful of Copper Bolts, and Dirty Trogg Cloths to fix it!

The bomb does go off, but we do reclaim the surface of Gnomeregan! I'm guessing there may be some more to come yet. Cool explosion though!

I recently moved my hunter horde-side, so I do have some screenshots from the Echo Isles event! (Though not as many).


As with the Gnomeregan quests, you need to get some recruits for the battle!

The quests are a little bit less humourous as the gnome quests (reflecting the different cultures, really), but a lot of cool troll lore is mixed in, and connections to the spirits. There's also a very interesting introduction to the troll druids!

The troll costume is also incredibly awesome! Much cooler than the gnome one I think.

That's all I've got! Definitely go check out the quests and events, they're a ton of fun! I'll be going through on all my alts, well worth it! After the battles too you get a cool Darkspear or Gnomeregan cloak. It looks like they took out the 'overcloak' option though and they're just normal cloaks now. Oh, and for those of you working on your Loremaster achievements, the quests do count!

Have fun!

Life-Binder... preserve me...

'Dragonqueen... Life-Binder... preserve me...' -Keristrasza

Moonra from RestoDude got me thinking with his post on Favourite Dungeons about some of my favourite dungeons and quest lines in Wrath.

There are tons of great quest chains which have great depth in their storylines. Icecrown and the Storm Peaks in particular have some great chains. The Sons of Hodir quest line is an interesting one lore-wise, particularly as the completion of the chain explains much of what is happening in the Storm Peaks and sets up much of what you see in Ulduar. Icecrown has some amazing chains as well, from helping the Argent Crusade gain a foothold, to taking back the Shadowvault for the Knights of the Ebon Blade and, in particular, the plight to save the soul of Crusader Bridenbrad. The Guru of Drakuru chains are also fun ones which take you through the history of the trolls in Zul'Drak and Grizzly Hills.

One of my favourites is a questline out in Coldarra in Borean Tundra. I love most of the storylines involving the different dragonflights (I love all the quest chains from Wyrmrest Temple), even moreso when connecting the quests and history to the book trilogy War of the Ancients).

This one in particular is picked up as you go around Coldarra to help the red dragonflight (you'll be sent to Coldarra after assisting on Amber Ledge in Borean Tundra). Eventually while fighting the mages and drakonid you'll pick up a fragment of a strange prison, which is actually holding Keristrasza prisoner. Through the quests, you help to free her and eventually set up a trap for Malygos. Unfortunately, Malygos takes Keristrasza prisoner, forces her to be his consort and attempts to turn her into a blue. It is then we are asked to venture into the Nexus and 'do whatever is required to spare her this fate'.

After doing this questline, it always strikes me as sad when we have to slay Keristrasza in Nexus. It's a tragic fate for the dragon, and another of the many captivating tales strewn throughout the quests in Northrend.

Are there any quests that have had particular meaning or memory for you? Which have been your favourites? Share your thoughts!