The Adventures of Neriad

[MongoJerry]

THE ADVENTURES OF NERIAD, THE NIGHT ELF PRIESTESS

For most of yesterday, Leme and I adventured together through the Night Elf starting area of Teldrassil. The previous day, the first day of the patch, we had each independently created Night Elf characters, because neither of us had ever played one and we were curious what the elven areas were like. When we hooked up, Neriad, my priestess, was level 5, and Lem, Leme's rogue, was level 4. We then spent the entire day completing nearly every quest in Teldrassil.

Along the way, Leme and I commented to each other on things that were new -- either new in this patch or new because we had never been in Night Elf country before. At the end of the evening, I thought, "Shoot! I should've been writing those things down!" So, I figured I'd start writing up the adventures of Neriad, my Night Elf Priestess in a way similar to the way I wrote up the adventures of several of my Diablo II characters. I don't know how much role playing I'm going to do with this or how fancy I'm going to get, but I'll try to make things as interesting as possible as I go along. Also, I know that there are some people who read this forum who are not participating in the beta, so I'll try to include tidbits for such folks as well.

So, where is Neriad now? She's level 12 and has just left Teldrassil, the starting area and home of the Night Elves. Teldrassil looks like a large island just off the coast of Kalimdor, but as many people in the general chat channel were quick to point out when I mistakenly used the word "island," Teldrassil is actually a gargantuan tree growing out of the ocean. This has an important affect on players in one aspect: there are no mining nodes in all of Teldrassil!

But herbs. Talk about herbs! Holy cow! Blizzard said that they had increased the number of herb and mining nodes in the game, but neither Leme nor I could believe our eyes about how many herbal nodes there were and how fast they respawned. Peacebloom, silverleaf, and snakeroot were everywhere! I don't know how much of this has to do with the new patch and how much this has to do with Teldrassil itself (maybe Teldrassil gets more herbal nodes to compensate for the lack of mining nodes?). I'll have to visit some of the other races' starting areas to judge the changes for myself. Either way, you can forget the idea of farming low level herbs and selling them at auction. The market's going to be flooded!



So what did I think of Teldrassil? Simply put: It's beautiful. The artwork for the area took my breath away. Different regions of Teldrassil had their own character to them, the mobs had a lot of variety to them, and yet the storyline and themes for the area bound everything together into a united whole. I may sound nuts by lavishing praise on a starting area, but I enjoyed playing in Teldrassil more than any other starting area I've played in.



So was it just the pretty artwork I liked? Nope. A lot of my enjoyment stemmed from quests that were (to borrow a phrase) "somewhat interesting." Years ago, when I played D&D, my friends and I had a code phrase called "Plan A" when we got to a dungeon door which meant, "Open the door, kill the monsters, get the treasure, look for secret doors." That was a signal that things were getting monotonous and it was high time the GM did something to spice things up. Often WoW has it's own version of Plan A: Talk to the NPC, get the quest, kill the X number of mobs to get Y items, return to the NPC, get the quest to kill the mob boss, kill the mob boss, return to the NPC again.

But Teldrassil had enough quests that didn't quite follow this formula that it kept things "somewhat interesting." Sure, there were some that followed the formula, but the number of items needed to be collected was small enough and the drop rates high enough that the quests didn't seem tedious. But a large number of quests were of the "Easter egg hunt" variety. That is, one wasn't required to kill X number of mobs. Instead, one merely had to find things and bring them back -- fel cones, water from various moonwells, and seedlings, for examples. That may sound like a small change to the usual collection quests, but it was much more enjoyable for me in that instead of my goal being to kill X number of mobs, my goal is to somehow get *past* the mobs to my goal. This adds a small but noticeable addition of tactics to the game (how can I kill the fewest number of mobs and still get to my goal?) and it involves a bit of exploration to discover where your goal actually is.

The best example of this is the Relics quest where one needs to find four relics in a twisting labyrinth with bridges, cubbyholes, small passages off to the sides, etc. I know that this architecture gets used in other elven areas (I had seen it briefly while doing the Test of Lore quest with my undead priestess), but since this was the first time I'd spent any length of time in such a structure, the maze was enjoyably mystifying. Leme and I frequently found ourselves circling back to the same places we'd been when we thought we were going in new directions. It was fun wandering through this three dimensional maze looking for the four chests that contained the relics. What's more, there are a couple of mini-quests you get inside the structure from a trapped elven druid. And all the time, there are mobs trying to stop you from getting around, so if you take too many wrong turns, you get "punished" by having to kill a lot more mobs to complete your task than you ordinarily would.



I also like it when there are quests that aren't given by the usual NPC's with yellow exclamation marks over their heads. Leme and I found three such mini-quests in Teldrassil. Two of them came from shining purple trees shown above. The third came off a named boss that we had not been given a quest to kill. In fact, we almost passed by him while completing another quest and decided to kill him on a lark. He ended up dropping a moss-covered heart that started a small quest. I like this kind of stuff where you get rewarded for exploring and trying things out. I hope Blizzard puts more such quests in the game. Also, Leme and I noticed that the pictures of boss mobs now have some fancy new artwork bordering them (shown above). I don't know, yet, if the artwork is just for show or if there is some meaning to the type of bordering a boss gets.



After finishing most of our quests in Teldrassil, Leme and I entered Darnassus, the main Dark Elf city. The first thing you see are a few new features Blizzard added to compensate for some of the new FvF capabilities -- namely massive level 90 guardians that protect the city in addition to the usual faction guards. The one shown above is called an "Ancient of War." There are several varieties of such guardians, and a level 90 "Ancient Protector" guardian patrols the smaller elven town in the center of Teldrassil (the elf equivalent of Goldshire, Brill, or Razor Hill). Inside the city, you see level 70 elven guards and some elite level 50+ snow tigers that could give invaders quite a surprise. Still, Darnassus is such a large spread out city, I have a suspicion that some weak points of entry could be discovered by some unscrupulous Horde invaders.

[MongoJerry]

Inside the city, the architecture is gorgeous. There's a large temple called the Temple of the Moon with an indoor park and moonwell. A small delivery quests takes you into the temple and you get a small quest there in return. However, I didn't see any priest-only quests there, and I understand that priest-only quests weren't added in this push after all, which miffs me to no end. Still, the temple was beautiful and there is a lot there to build on. I hope Blizzard adds a lot more features to the temple before release. Incidentally, for you mages, the teleport trainer is also inside the temple.



The centrally located bank is a tree with a trunk the shape of a tiger. Actually, when Leme and I first saw a tree like this out in the wilderness, we thought it was a bunny rabbit. :lol: But there seems to be a link between tigers and elves, so looking at the figure more closely, I can sort of see the resemblance to a tiger. The elvish mounts are tigers and panthers, by the way.



I've lavished praise on the city of Darnassus and the area of Teldrassil, but one quickly notices a queer feature of Darnassus. It's practically empty of players. Why is this? And why do elves leave almost as soon as they can? Simply put, there's nothing to encourage people to visit or return there. As far as I know, there aren't any human, dwarf, or gnome quests that send you to Darnassus. Meanwhile, there are several quests in Darnassus that send you away. In addition, unlike all of the other major faction cities, Darnassus doesn't seem to be a flight path hub of any kind, so even those elves who stay in the elvish areas of northern Kalimdor have little reason to return even briefly to Darnassus. What's more, Darnassus is out of the way. There's no direct flight path from Darnassus to Ironforge or Stormwind. To get anywhere from Darnassus, one takes the teleporter (pictured above) to Rut'theran Village, change over to a hippogriff which takes you to Auberdine on Darkshore. From there, you have the choice of taking a boat to Menethil or Theremore. From one of those places, you can probably find your way to Ironforge and Stormwind in one or two jumps (I'll have to explore a bit to find out). But one can easily see why dwarfs and humans hardly ever make the reverse journey to Darnassus.

If Blizzard intends that the faction cities to be "happening" places where people hang out, why on earth did they make Darnassus so hard to get to and with little or no reason to ever visit? Blizzard managed to balance the Horde cities pretty well so that all three of them (Undercity, Orgimmar, and Thunder Bluff) are similarly popular. But the alliance cities are broken in that Stormwind has become the central hub for nearly all alliance activity. I understand Blizzard redesigned Ironforge in this patch to make it more pleasant to be in. I hope they spend some time redesigning Darnassus to make it easier for people to visit there and also give them reasons to go there.

That's enough for this time. I was going to mention some things I noticed about tradeskills (including why is Neriad walking around with a fishing pole?!), but I'm going to leave that for later. I hope you enjoyed this first writeup!

[--Pete]

Hi,

Excellent write up and great screenies.

I love the Night Elves, the whole area has such a "different" feel to it. I've taken three to low teens. The next one I build (along with half the WoW population, I think) will be a huntress. The one combination I've wanted since Blizzard announced all this and it's the last to get put in.

Part of why I like the area is precisely because it is out of the way.

--Pete

[MongoJerry]

Part of why I like the area is precisely because it is out of the way.

You make a good point there, and maybe it should be difficult for other races to get to Darnassus. But I'm still puzzeled why it's at least not a flight hub for elven lands. It seems like they gave elves little reason to visit their own capital city! Oh, well, we'll see. Maybe it'll make more sense when I get a chance to explore more of elvish lands.

[lemekim]

The centrally located bank is a tree with a trunk the shape of a tiger. Actually, when Leme and I first saw a tree like this out in the wilderness, we thought it was a bunny rabbit.  But there seems to be a link between tigers and elves, so looking at the figure more closely, I can sort of see the resemblance to a tiger. The elvish mounts are tigers and panthers, by the way.

Nice write up =) Btw, I think it also kinda looks like a bear; and if you look at the tree trunk growing from his back (you can't quite see it here), it looks like an eagle sitting on the "bear's" back.

Btw, speaking of unorthodox quests (possible spoiler) - we met yesterday a level 13 Satyr, who spawned numerous minions at level 8 or 9 to protect himself when approached. As I had guessed, he was related to a Rogue quest, but not to kill, but pick his pockets (a rogue ability) =) Talk about variety.

[Ruvanal]

Yes this the starting area is very nice, but also very isolated from every other area of the game. If you pay close attention to some of the sub-story line plots you can see why and why there may not be very many pulls to bring the various characters into this area at least until much higher levels. Hint: Teldrassil is 'supposed' to be a replacement for the World Tree that was destroyed in the WC3 game; see the story line for why it is not.

... Also, Leme and I noticed that the pictures of boss mobs now have some fancy new artwork bordering them (shown above). I don't know, yet, if the artwork is just for show or if there is some meaning to the type of bordering a boss gets.

From what I have seen listed on the WoW boards those boarders do have meanings. The dragon encircling the mob icon picture is supposed to indicate a named boss that is part of a quest. As Pete would probably put it, this is just more of the leading the players by the hand to know what to bother with in the game rather than having to bother to figure out which monsters you really need to mess with. Some of the other types of border artwork have other meanings, but I do not recall what they were listed as.

After finishing most of our quests in Teldrassil, Leme and I entered Darnassus, the main Dark Elf city. The first thing you see are a few new features Blizzard added to compensate for some of the new FvF capabilities -- namely massive level 90 guardians that protect the city in addition to the usual faction guards. The one shown above is called an "Ancient of War." There are several varieties of such guardians, and a level 90 "Ancient Protector" guardian patrols the smaller elven town in the center of Teldrassil (the elf equivalent of Goldshire, Brill, or Razor Hill). Inside the city, you see level 70 elven guards and some elite level 50+ snow tigers that could give invaders quite a surprise. Still, Darnassus is such a large spread out city, I have a suspicion that some weak points of entry could be discovered by some unscrupulous Horde invaders.

Those level 90 guardians were there last push and from some of the descriptions I have heard they were probably there in the first beta push also. Someone that played a night elf in the first push could robably confirm this.

For the Horde players to somehow get into Teldrassil will require some way of their first crossing the ocean from the mainland. With the changes in how the game handles the characters swimming in the deep water (fast loss of fatigue), I am not even sure if there is a practical way for them to even reach the base of the tree. Then they would need to get to the top which would probably be very easy by comparison (die and spawn at the grave site in the centrally located town. This would actually then place them in a potentionaly better position to be disruptive than if they were situated near the capital.

...From one of those places, you can probably find your way to Ironforge and Stormwind in one or two jumps (I'll have to explore a bit to find out). ...

Menethil has a griffon transportation link to Ironforge. I not sure what the minimum required level is to access that "quest" for the flight path though. On the first push my dwarf paladin made it to Menethil at a fairly low level (~9) and could not access the tender to add the flight path, so he had to run all the way to back to Loch Modan and the Dwarven areas. My other characters that made there were somewhat higher in level and could readily access the 'flight path quest'. You may want to try checking on this to see what the character level requirement is if you can remember to keep checking back.

OT Rant:
As for my trying to check some of this out... more of the headaches like last push. I am currently getting crashes that lock up the computer and force me to manually shut down to reboot. This will happen anywhere from a couple of seconds of play up to 5 minutes of play. Talking to an NPC that has a "!" will result in about an 80% chance of immediate crash, being in the water will result in a an immediate crash and trying to click on a specific trade skill formula will result in an crash. There are undoubtably more causes but with spending more time running reboots and looking at the scan disk screens that actually being in the game there is no desire to push this much. P.S> I have made sure all the driver updates are in place and tried all the old stupid tricks that I had to do last push to get the game to run. It will like be several weeks before I can do anything else to remedy the situation (or wait for another path from Blizzard....HA!) before any of you will see me in the game for more that a couple of minutes.

[MongoJerry]

THE ADVENTURES OF NERIAD: THE SOLO RAID ON UNDERCITY (Teaser)

Whew! It's been a full and adventurous couple of days for Neriad, and I'll bring everyone up to date on her latest adventures tomorrow. However, I thought I'd give everyone this teaser screenshot:



(Note: This was done solo, without any deaths, and on the FvF server).

(Note 2: OK, there were two deaths, but they were in the Hillsbrad Foothills).

[Jarulf]

Those level 90 guardians were there last push and from some of the descriptions I have heard they were probably there in the first beta push also.  Someone that played a night elf in the first push could robably confirm this. 

Yes, they were there allready in the first push.

[lemekim]

Sneaking through sewers much, Mongo? =)

[MongoJerry]

THE ADVENTURES OF NERIAD: AUBERDINE

Where were we? Oh, yes! I said last time that I would discuss my observations about the changes to trade skills. I thoroughly explored most trade skills in the last push (the exceptions being leatherworking and blacksmithing), so I was eager to see what changes would be made to them in the current push. It turned out that trade skills were apparently a low priority item for this patch, since several trade skills had little or no changes made to them (tailoring, enchanting, engineering, survival, cooking, and first aid), and the changes made to the trades skills that were altered weren't earth-shattering. A long discussion of what's right and wrong about trade skills would be a pointless exercise at this point. There's no sense in analyzing something obviously unfinished that one knows Blizzard is working on. I see a lot of potential in the trade skills of various kinds, but we'll have to wait to see how well that potential is realized.

So, with that in mind, I'll simply say that Neriad will be focusing primarily on herbalism, mining, enchanting, and engineering. I'd also like her to learn some alchemy, lockpicking, fishing, and since this is on the PvP server, tracking skills. Skill points are obviously going to be in short supply for a while, so it's going to take some juggling to pick which trade skills to focus on at which point. My general plan is to focus on the gathering skills first (herbalism and mining), and then build up engineering and enchantment later after Neriad has gathered a lot of raw materials.

So we now rejoin the story of Neriad, the Night Elf priestess. She had just completed all of the quests she had found in Teldrassil and being level 12, she was ready to meet the greater challenge of the main continent of Kalimdor.



Neriad flew across the Veiled Sea on a hippogriff and landed in Auberdine, the main elf town in Darkshore, on a clear summer day. (I go to school in San Francisco, so this kind of weather seems normal to me). She strolled through the town, picking up quests and learning which vendors and skill trainers were there. At long last, she found a mining trainer. There had been none in all of Teldrassil, even in the main elvish city of Darnasus, so this was the first chance Neriad had to learn mining, and she did so. However, it was a little disturbing to find out that there was no engineering trainer in Auberdine. It seems that in order to get engineering training, one has to take the boat to Menethil Harbor and then switch to a gryphon to get to Ironforge where you can finally get engineering training. Once again, this felt like Blizzard, perhaps by accident, keeps subtilely encouraging elves to travel to Azeroth, while giving other alliance races little reason to go to elven lands.

Auberdine itself is very spartan. There is the usual inn with various general goods and food vendors. Also, there are mining, blacksmithing, and tailoring trainers with their related suppliers. But there are no class trainers and there is no bank in the town, so that forces elves to fly back to Darnasus on occasion. Mostly, Auberdine is filled with a large number of quest-giving NPC's, and as we'll see many of these quests are actually the start of quest series.



The first quest Neriad embarked on was fixing Buzzbox 827. Neriad had met a gnome named Wizbang Cranktoggle on the second floor of the inn who said he had built a series of "Buzzboxes" that allow people to talk to each other over great distances (essentially radio telephones). However, Buzzbox 827 was on the fritz, so Cranktoggle asked Neriad to collect six crawler legs from the pygmy crawlers on the nearby beach and place them into the broken buzzbox just south of town. As she embarked on this quest, a question came over the general chat channel asking, "Where is Buzzbox 525?" Clearly, Buzzbox 827 was not the only buzzbox Neriad would be asked to repair.

Neriad started whacking away at crawlers. This is good point at which to answer the question, "Why is Neriad attacking with a fishing pole?!" Short answer: It's cool. Longer answer: It's cool and does more damage than any mace Neriad had found. Full diatribe: Blizzard clearly had at one time the notion that priests would generally attack with one-handed maces and hold an orb or short staff or something in the other to give them bonuses to stats. In this way, they would look different than mages and warlocks. Unfortunately, Blizzard designers didn't take into account the fact that no one-handed mace will ever deal the damage per second (dps) that a comparable two-handed staff can. What's more, no one-handed orb is ever going to give the stat bonuses that a comparable two-handed staff can. Thus, it's impractical for any high level priest to use anything other than a staff (other than for looks). So I highly recommend that any new priests collect 50 skill points and learn to use staves as quickly as possible.

However, there is a problem. At low levels, skill points are at a premium and coming up with 50 skill points is hard, especially if you also want to skill up a little in herbalism and mining. But there is an alternative. Fishing poles! Stop looking at me that way and pay attention. During our adventures in Teldrassil, lem and Neriad found a Strong Fishing Pole, and my eyes boggled at the newly upgraded damage on it: 6.5 dps. My one-handed mace at that time dealt only 3.2 dps and the best mace I could buy in the area had a dps of 5.5. As soon as lem and I finished our adventures together, I spent the five skill points necessary to learn apprentice fishing and fished long enough in Auberdine's harbor to be able to equip the Strong Fishing Pole. Neriad was now ready to tackle Darkshore.

One more thing on this fishing pole business. The character screen lists one's attack rating as the same as one's fishing skill. I don't know if this is a character screen display bug or an intentional feature. I didn't notice any problems hitting mobs, but just in case, I fished in the Auberdine harbor until I reached a fishing skill of 30. Incidentally, Auberdine's harbor seems about the same fishing skill level as Ratchet, so it's not completely a newbie area. However, using a +25 to fishing skill lure, I was able to catch enough items to skill up a bit.



So, with a bit of whacking and spell casting, Neriad killed enough crawlers to collect the six crawler legs she needed. After a small search, she found Buzzbox 827 just south of town and a little away from the beach, and placed the crawler legs in it to repair it. She got a nice experience and cash reward for her service, and then Wizbang Cranktoggle's voice was heard through the buzzbox, asking if Neriad would like to repair Buzzbox 411 much further north along the coast. She agreed. Clearly Buzzbox 827 was just a warmup exercise for the repair of some much harder-to-fix buzzboxes. But I have to say that I really like this twist on collection quests. Sure, at the core, this is a "Kill X number of mobs to get Y number if items" quest, but it also incorporates a little "Easter egg hunt" in that one has to find the buzzboxes that one is supposed to repair. As we'll see, finding the buzzboxes can often be a quest in itself.

Having completed the repair of Buzzbox 827, it seemed time for Neriad to venture outside the friendly confines of Auberdine into the great unknown of Darkshore. Just in case, she took one more look around town to see if there might have been any quests that she might have missed. And it's a good thing she did!



When Neriad had done her first walk-though of Auberdine, she hadn't yet learned fishing, so Wizbang Cranktoggle hadn't shown her this quest. A Fishing quest! When I saw this, I just stuttered for a few minutes. I kept thinking, "You mean you're going to pay me and give me experience points just to fish? It's a deal!"

So, Neriad bought some more fishing lures at the general trade goods vendor and started fishing in the harbor again. About 1-in-5 times that she caught something, she also "caught" one of Cranktoggle's gaffer jacks. When she had collected eight gaffer jacks, she returned them to Cranktoggle and got some cash and 900 experience points (good exp for that level).

But Cranktoggle wasn't through. Oh, no! After turning in those gaffer jacks, he gave another fishing quest to fish up twelve electropellers from Darkshore's lakes or rivers. (He says that he was too drunk to know in which river or lake he had dropped them in). I kept thinking, "My God, this is the greatest deal ever! I get experience points and cash just for fishing, which I like to do anyway!" I highly recommend that any alliance player who is just starting their fishing careers to head over to Auberdine and pick up these quests. They're great! Incidentally, I've been told that there is a low level alchemy quest given somewhere in Teldrassil. I went looking for it much later after I had picked up alchemy, but I was probably too high of a level to see the yellow exclamation mark by the time I went looking for it. If you're a young alchemist, however, keep an eye out for it!

Well, that's a whole lot to say about a character who had never ventured out of town! Next up: The mysterious forests of Darkshore.

SPCA notice: Only 15 crawlers were harmed in the making of this report.

[DeeBye]

When Neriad had done her first walk-though of Auberdine, she hadn't yet learned fishing, so Wizbang Cranktoggle hadn't shown her this quest.  A Fishing quest!  When I saw this, I just stuttered for a few minutes.  I kept thinking, "You mean you're going to pay me and give me experience points just to fish?  It's a deal!"

Holy cow! I missed that. I'm totally going on a fishing quest right now.

edit: maybe after the server comes back up :(

[Bolty]

Unfortunately, Blizzard designers didn't take into account the fact that no one-handed mace will ever deal the damage per second (dps) that a comparable two-handed staff can.  What's more, no one-handed orb is ever going to give the stat bonuses that a comparable two-handed staff can.  Thus, it's impractical for any high level priest to use anything other than a staff (other than for looks).

This really drives home the fact that the priest is still a work in progress. As we beta testers know, there are no priest-specific quests in the game, and I think Blizzard's still trying to figure out how priests should be set up in the game compared to mages and warlocks. Probably same with Hunters - how to make them different enough from Warlocks and yet still have minion control?

-Bolty

[Ruvanal]

Incidentally, I've been told that there is a low level alchemy quest given somewhere in Teldrassil. I went looking for it much later after I had picked up alchemy, but I was probably too high of a level to see the yellow exclamation mark by the time I went looking for it. If you're a young alchemist, however, keep an eye out for it!

This quest is given in the town of Dolannar. I forget the name of the quest giver, but she stands across the the road from the inn at the base of the ramp leading up into the main tree there. If you have a good supply of the 3 basic herbs, you can probably make the potions that she requires on the spot without having to go out collecting (~10 potions iirc). All the potions required are the ones that you get when you first learn alchemy.

[DeeBye]

This quest is given in the town of Dolannar.  I forget the name of the quest giver, but she stands across the the road from the inn at the base of the ramp leading up into the main tree there.  If you have a good supply of the 3 basic herbs, you can probably make the potions that she requires on the spot without having to go out collecting (~10 potions iirc).  All the potions required are the ones that you get when you first learn alchemy.

ARGHHH! Now I have yet another trade quest to go on!

[Roane]

This really drives home the fact that the priest is still a work in progress.  As we beta testers know, there are no priest-specific quests in the game, and I think Blizzard's still trying to figure out how priests should be set up in the game compared to mages and warlocks. 

Regarding this statement from Bolty, I found this post from Katricia interesting:

The designers realize that removing sleep from Priests have made them very one dimensional. While Priests will probably never regain the Sleep spell, the team is looking at a variety of ways to add depth back to the class.

One way that they are doing this is by implementing Priest exclusive quests that will add racially specific spells to the Priest starting at level 10. This will give Priests of different races, distinct abilities.

The full thread is here, but it's long and kinda scary:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx...al&T=106025&P=1

[Bolty]

The full thread is here, but it's long and kinda scary:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx...al&T=106025&P=1

The original poster of that thread obviously never played a mage, and his/her opinion should be instantly discounted (as many in the thread already have). Most people claiming that mages are too powerful never played one.

Giving sleep back to priests would turn them into gods. What is that poster thinking?

I'm not so sure I like the idea of racially-specific spells for classes. It's not that I don't want to play 4 different priests; it's just that eventually it will be decided that one race-specific spell is better than the others, and thus every priest will will be of the same race. Bleh.

-Bolty

[lemekim]

Unless the "different" spells with be simply different looking versions of the same spell =\


Anyone else notice that most spells are really just different looking version of each other; I really would love to see some creativity in spells; just take diablo for example and how the various spells are different from each other.

[TheDragoon]

I'm not so sure I like the idea of racially-specific spells for classes. It's not that I don't want to play 4 different priests; it's just that eventually it will be decided that one race-specific spell is better than the others, and thus every priest will will be of the same race. Bleh.

True, but if they can at least get it close, I think it'll be a cool way to differentiate the priests. Similar to D&D where Clerics have different domains which give different abilities, if this gets in we'll probably see the same sort of thing but with racial differences.

Keep in mind, too, that Blizzard has talked about including racial differences into the talent system so this same idea could end up being applied to all classes.

[MongoJerry]

THE ADVENTURES OF NERIAD: GROUPING UP IN DARKSHORE

After completing a couple of fishing quests and fixing Buzzbox 827 in Auberdine, it was time for Neriad to venture into the unknown forests of Darkshore. Darkshore is considered Alliance territory on the PvP server, so technically Neriad was safe from attack from Horde players. However, unlike the relative safety of Teldrassil, Horde players can get to Darkshore fairly easily and mess around with the NPC's. (There is a way for Horde players to get to Teldrassil, but it's a little complicated and probably not worth the trouble, since the area tends to be rather empty of players to mock or grief). However, this was on the second day of the push, and Neriad was not far off the pace of the higher level characters on the server. It was likely that she would be able to hold up pretty well in a PvP situation, and there was some anticipation that she could see some PvP action at any time.

Neriad considered the quests she had been given. Lem had taken the boat east to dwarven lands (I think because he wanted to get and skill up in engineering quickly), so Neriad was alone in Darkshore. I had been warned several times prior to the push that people who solo on PvP servers are bound for trouble, and yet having to solo was the situation Neriad found herself in. In the previous push, I had built up a large network of people with whom I enjoyed playing. These were people I considered "good guys" who played their roles in parties well and who divided drops fairly. However, since Blizzard unaccountably allows one to add people to one's Friends list only by character name and not by account name, I had no idea how many of the people on my Friends list had moved over to the PvP server and also had switched to playing Alliance characters. (I played Horde characters all last push). Basically, I had to create my PvP server network from scratch.



So I considered the quests that sounded soloable and grouped them according to which ones could probably be done in the same trip. Three soloable quests sounded like they were in the same geographic area: One to trap a rabid thistle bear and bring it to town, one to fix Buzzbox 411 to the north of Auberdine, and one to investigate a strange blue light at the ruins of Bashal'Aran. I guessed that one would "investigate" the blue light by going there or getting something and that one would then have to go back to town to get the next quest in a quest series. I figured I'd go north along the road, quickly "investigate" the blue light, move west toward the shore to fix Buzzbox 411, and then trap a bear on the way back to town. It sounded like a good plan, but one of the things about multiplayer games is that one's plans are frequently (sometimes pleasantly) disrupted.

When Neriad got to the ruins of Bashal'Aran, she found them crawling with grells, skinny goblin-like monsters. She saw the mysterious blue light coming from a gazebo-like structure on a nearby hill, but to get to it, she'd have to work her way through several grells. Neriad was only level 12 at the time, so killing the grells wasn't an easy task. She could handle one grell at a time effectively, but she would get in trouble if she aggroed two or more at once. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened. She tried to pull one grell, but a second one came along, and while she was trying to see if she could beat two at once (answer: no), a third grell respawned and joined the fray. As she was dying, however, Neriad saw a rogue, named Rylee, run by with several grells in tow. Clearly, she wasn't the only one having problems dealing with the grells.

While running back to her corpse as a ghost, Neriad laughingly whispered to Rylee:

Neriad: Heya! I noticed you're having problems with the grells, too. lol
Rylee: Yeah, this is a tougher zone than I remember, haha
Neriad: Hehe. How about I join you?
Rylee: great
Rylee has invited you to join a group.



Once we grouped up, grells started falling left and right. A rogue-priest two person party combination is an interesting one. If you had asked me before what were the best two-player party combinations, I wouldn't even have considered the possibility of the rogue-priest combination. But with the PvP server crawling with rogues (many people had visions of ambushing members of the other faction), I've recently had the opportunity to play in many priest-rogue groups, and I've found it to be an effective combination. Rylee and I developed our system quickly: I pulled using Holy Bolt. While the mob was running toward me, Rylee backstabbed it both to do a lot of damage and to pull aggro off me. Then I kept Rylee shielded and healed while dishing out some modest damage with Holy bolt, and Rylee focused on dishing out damage while also providing some mild tanking services with his better armor. We worked well as a team, and even when respawns had us fighting four grells at once, we were still victorious.

But the most surprising thing of our partnership happened before we had killed our first grell together. While I was healing up after getting my corpse back, Rylee popped up a trade screen and placed a Magister's Vest (+1 spirit) into it and hit "Trade." Considering that this was the second day of the push, this was a pretty nice item that could've been sold for some badly needed silver, and he had every right to keep the vest for himself. And yet, he was giving it to me free before we had killed our first mob together.

There are some people I've met who would "expect" this kind of behavior. That is, they would say that he had something that he couldn't use, and that item should go to a person he's grouping with who can. Such people get all high and mighty about what people should be expected to do and get very upset when people don't follow their code of ethics. I don't. I expect people to be looking out for themselves for their own immediate gratification, and when someone does something out of courtesy for another player, especially for a player not in their current party, I take notice. It's like that variation of Murphy's Law, "It's impossible for an optimist to be pleasantly surprised." The amazing thing about this beta test is how often I get "surprised."

What do I mean by people "expecting" certain behaviors? Let's take the example of a chest guarded by several mobs. Let's say you're soloing and have killed some of the mobs near the chest. While fighting the last one or two mobs, another player comes along. If that player opens the chest, a person who "expects" people to behave would get really upset, go into a tirade, call the other player names, etc. I don't. I just think to myself "Bah, jerk," and move on. But what if the other player does not open the chest but instead allows you to open it after your fight or even helps you finish off the mobs you're fighting? A person who "expects" people to behave courteously will think little of the other player's behavior, because after all the player is playing "as expected." Rarely will such a person even utter a "Thank-you" or acknowledge the courtesy that was given him or her. For this reason, I consider such people as greedy as those who steal drops, and I will quietly refuse to party with them in the future.

In contrast, when I see a courteous act, I take notice. In our hypothetical situation, if the other player doesn't open the chest, I'll give the person a "Thank-you" and make a note of their name. If the situation warrants it, I'll offer to party up with them, even if I had been planning to do some other things solo. This gives me an opportunity to observe how well the player plays in a group, to see if we mesh well as a team, and to give me opportunities to demonstrate my own courtesy to him or her. If we mesh well, I'll add that person to my friends list and ask him or her to party with me later. In this way, I start to build a network of people who I know are skilled and trustworthy. And when I'm level 45 and need a fifth to fill out an Uldaman instance group, for example, those are the people I will call on first. And alternatively, if one of those people needs a fifth for an instance group or help with a quest, then I'll make every effort to help them. In this way, a person who courteously lets me open a simple chest may lose a chance to get some silver and an item or two, but gains a chance to get far more treasure and experience points (and fun?) by being able to call on me for help in the future. And what about the person who does open the chest? That person may get some silver, food, and perhaps an item that they'll stop using in a couple of levels, but they will unknowingly find themselves on a "do not party with" list. The game world is smaller than many people realize, and if someone behaves poorly too often, that person will find it difficult to get in a good group by the time they reach the higher levels of the game.

So, needless to say, Rylee's gesture impressed me. But there was one small problem. I didn't like the look of the vest. :lol: My Sleeping Robes were so pretty that I didn't want to wear the vest, even though it had better stats than my robes. But how can I tell a guy I had just met, "Thanks for spontaneously offering this terrific item, which has better stats than my own, but your item looks ugly." I just couldn't do it. So I accepted the vest, enchanted it with +10 health, and put it on. And I carefully placed my old Sleeping Robes in a safe spot in my inventory.

Ah heck, the vest didn't look so bad, as you can see in the picture above. It did make Neriad look like she was wearing a softball uniform, though, and when she cast her Holy Bolt, it looked like was winding up to make a pitch.

Once Rylee and I partnered up, we had an easy time moving through the ruins. It turned out that the blue light we were to investigate emanated from a magical prison, shown in the first picture above, that had held an elf for more than a thousand years. (Why no one had investigated the mysterious blue light during that thousand years was not explained). When you talk to the elf, he tells you his tale, and asks you to help him escape by collecting grell earrings, which have some special magical properties. When you give him the earrings, he then tells you to get something else from some of the bigger mobs at the center of the ruins. So, in essence, this is your typical collection quest series, but at least the NPC one must return to is right there, so you don't have to make a special trip back to town after each step. Rylee and I quickly finished the quest series and freed the elf from his prison.



At about this time, Rylee received a message from one of his guildmates who wanted to look for Anaya. An elf NPC named Cerellean Whiteclaw on the Auberdine dock asks adventurers to find and kill his love, Anaya. I missed part of the story, but apparently thousands of years ago some warlock or wizard said he could give the elves of Ameth'Aran their immortality back, but it turns out that what he really meant was that he would turn them all into undead. Whiteclaw asks adventures to free Anaya's soul. He says that he would do it himself, but he doesn't have the heart to lift his hand against his love, even in her undead state.

Rylee and I traveled south to the ruins of Ameth'Aran to meet up with Rylee's guildmate (whose name strangely was never caught in any screenshots I have. There are some screenshots that I know I took that I couldn't find in the screenshots folder for some reason). In some bushes along the road near the ruins is another NPC elf, named Sentinel Tysha Moonblade, who asks adventurers to go into the ruins and read two tablets that describe some of the history of the War of the Ancients and report back to her. Also, another Auberdine quest had asked us to collect seven Highborne Relics off the ghosts in Ameth'Aran as a way to reduce some of the corruption of Darkshire's forests. It's always nice to be able to complete multiple quests at once.

Our party entered the ruins of Ameth'Aran and by some incredible luck found Anaya almost immediately. Judging by the messages in the Darkshore general chat channel, it usually takes a long time to find her, since she wanders the ruins and is a shadowy figure in a dark area. It was probably helpful to be in a group with two people who had been there before and knew what Anaya looked like. In fact Rylee and Rylee's friend (also a rogue) found and killed Anaya before I could react fast enough to take a screenshot. We then moved practically in straight lines to each of the two widely separated tablets. Rylee's friend was in a hurry and stealthed past all the ghosts in order to read the two tablets largely unmolested. However, as a priest, I didn't have that option, and Rylee stayed with me and escorted me to the tablets and back out of the ruins. Along the way, we collected Highborne Relics off the ghosts we killed, of course.



Once back on the road, we reported our findings to Sentinel Moonblade and hearthed back to Auberdine. Once there, we turned in the Highborne Relics and then gave Cerellean Whiteclaw Anaya's pendant. The last thing Cerellean asks is to be left alone with his grief, so I turned to leave. But then, some grey text began appearing in my chat window and I turned back to witness the following exchange.

Cerellean Whiteclaw says: Anaya...? Do my eyes deceive me? Is it really you?
Cerellean Whiteclaw says: That the fates should be so cruel as to permit us only this after a thousand years apart...
Cerellean Whiteclaw says: Do you hate me, my love? That I was forced to destroy your living form, that your spirit be released from bondage.
Anaya says: Let it not trouble your heart, beloved. You have freed me from slavery, and for that I love you all the more.
Anaya says: Sadly, even this must be cut short... The ties that bind me to this world weaken and pull me away...
Cerellean Whiteclaw says: No! Anaya... Anaya! Don't leave me! Please...
Anaya says: Farewell, Cerellean, until we are joined once again...
Anaya's soft voice trails away into the mists, "Know that I love you always..."
How, my love? How will I find the strength to face the ages of the world without you by my side...

(Kinda gets you right there, doesn't it?)

After turning in the quests, Rylee and I left town to go north to trap a couple of Rabid Thistle Bears and perhaps to do the Mushroom Cave quest, but halfway up the road, Rylee stopped and said, "know what... I didn't even realize it's 3 am lol. I should get to bed." So, with an exchange of enthusiastic "G'night!"'s, Rylee and Neriad parted ways.

And Rylee became the first person I did not know beforehand to be entered into Neriad's Friends list.

And Neriad quietly slipped back into her pretty Sleeping Robes.

[JustAGuy]

Heh, that dialog between Anaya and Cerellean Whiteclaw is in Elven tounge, so when my Human Paladin, Ackland, completed that quest, he couldn't understand it. They were holding a conversation, and all I got from it was "Anaya's soft voice trails away into the mists, "Know that I love you always..."".

Thanks for writing it down. Now I know what they were saying!

I like the Elven lands the best so far. The scenery, the quests, the enemies, it's all superior. Being a human Paladin in Elven lands was a bit strange; nothing but Night Elves running around, and then me. I stuck out like a sore thumb. I was definitely a stranger in a strange land. The elves seemed to appreciate my auras and holy magic, though.

EDIT: Added a thought.