Expansion Reaction Thread

[Icebird]

Gained a few levels, explored a few more zones.

Nagrand was (relatively speaking) a pleasent zone to quest in. It's very green and wide open compared to Zangarmarsh and the forest parts of Terrokar. And unlike Terrokar, not *everything* is automatically trying to kill you.

One of my favourite questlines in Nagrand was for the half-orc Lantresor of the Bounderfist ogres. The draenai in Telaar send you to talk to him to see if you can "peacefully co-exist". He says "sure - if you help me deal with my enemies". He hatches this plan to start a war between the Shadow Council and Laughing Skull ogres, so you go around killing one side or the other, and planting war banners. It finished with a bunch of Boulderfist ogres infiltrating the Laughing Skull camp pretending to be Shadow Council orcs (in typical subtle ogre fashion).

I did some PvP at Halaa, and it was a heck of a lot of fun. Bombing runs and ganking - what else could you ask for? (Its always fun to finish a bombing run to find 5 horde waiting for you at the wyvern...). I thnk there would be more epic battles if the Horde-Alliance ratio on our server wasn't so bad.

Chris

[Monkey]

What has struck me is the tight, integrated feel of the zones in Outland. They are so disparate in appearance and tone but the stories and quests are crosslinked among multiple chains. If you run the Cenarion Expedition questlines out fully from Hellfire through Zangarmarsh and Terrokar, you'll see what I mean. When I finished the major CE line in Terrokar this past weekeend, my thought was, "Wow! that's a fairly significant (if somewhat unsurprising) revelation," and it gave me a fair amount of satisfaction.

Taking a step back in subsequent days, I'd like to gesture wildly at Azeroth's unfinished zones (Azshara, Winterspring, etc.) and forgotten questlines (the Missing Diplo-what?) with one hand and Blizzard's Money Bin ("Now 30% More Visible From Space!") with the other hand. Blizzard needs to drop the cash on cleaning their cruft and finishing what they started. It would also be nice (although a much lower priority in my mind) if they'd fix Azeroth for flying mounts while they were at it.

[fractaled]

Warrs are slowpokes because they bandage after every kill. Even so, questing 60 - 70 is nowhere near as hard as getting to 60. Speccing back to DW fury from protection smoothed the process considerably. Seeing skills increase was a forgotten pleasure.

Not sure which skill increases you're talking about, but I don't like:
1) having to re-skill 10 different weapon types -- at least dual wielding I got most of the one-handed types up without too much trouble
2) paying 10g for the new bloodthirst, which does 45% of AP still, but +10 more healing now -- in fact a lot of the new ranks were like this, gold sink upgrades for the secondary aspects of skills.

[ima_nerd]

2) paying 10g for the new bloodthirst, which does 45% of AP still, but +10 more healing now -- in fact a lot of the new ranks were like this, gold sink upgrades for the secondary aspects of skills.

Then don't buy it<_<

[WimpySmurf]

Not sure which skill increases you're talking about, but I don't like:
1) having to re-skill 10 different weapon types -- at least dual wielding I got most of the one-handed types up without too much trouble
2) paying 10g for the new bloodthirst, which does 45% of AP still, but +10 more healing now -- in fact a lot of the new ranks were like this, gold sink upgrades for the secondary aspects of skills.

The worst part of skilling up weapons is the fact that warriors are sooooo stupid. When I hit 60 and started skilling up weapons that weren't maxed I'd do a couple of things.

1) Pop an Int potion
2) ask for AI and MoW from anyone nearby
3) Find the lowest dps weapon of the right type and use it. Increased the longevity of the mob. (If I got low on health just swap in high dps weapons and kill the mob)
4) Find a mob immune to bleeds and rend it to death. Yes, there is a use for rend:) You get a chance to increase weapon skill on each attack that requires a weapon, since rend requires a weapon it's the perfect combo. Plus you get refunded a portion of the rage from the ineffective rend you tried. I used the rock elementals near kargath a lot of the times.


The rank ups for BT are 18s, 25.2s, 27.9s, 29.25s, 29.25s = 1.296g
So I'm not too sure where 10g comes from unless you're talking about your re-spec cost

WimpySmurf

[Ynir]

Skilling ranged weapons can take a while, for a warrior.

I go to Winterspring and shoot at Winterfall Pathfinders. They don't charge, but stand their ground and shoot back.

Eventually you will finish one off and have to start on another, but you will get off a lot of shots on each one.

[Flymo]

What has struck me is the tight, integrated feel of the zones in Outland. They are so disparate in appearance and tone but the stories and quests are crosslinked among multiple chains. If you run the Cenarion Expedition questlines out fully from Hellfire through Zangarmarsh and Terrokar, you'll see what I mean. When I finished the major CE line in Terrokar this past weekeend, my thought was, "Wow! that's a fairly significant (if somewhat unsurprising) revelation," and it gave me a fair amount of satisfaction.

I see you didn't mention Blade's Edge, which has a map that looks like a Disneyland queuing system. If you're Alliance and you die in Raven's Wood, you go to the (geographically closest) Sylvanaar graveyard at the other end of the "queue". It takes 9 minutes to run back to your body from there. This has more Cenarion Expedition quests than anywhere else, but apart from the quest that took me to Sylvanaar I haven't noticed any integration with other zone quest lines. In fact I only found the Cenarion town by accident.

[Arnulf]

I see you didn't mention Blade's Edge, which has a map that looks like a Disneyland queuing system. If you're Alliance and you die in Raven's Wood, you go to the (geographically closest) Sylvanaar graveyard at the other end of the "queue". It takes 9 minutes to run back to your body from there. This has more Cenarion Expedition quests than anywhere else, but apart from the quest that took me to Sylvanaar I haven't noticed any integration with other zone quest lines. In fact I only found the Cenarion town by accident.

There are in fact two quests leading from Zangarmarsh to Sylvanaar. Both are available in or near Orebor.

[Mirajj]

There are in fact two quests leading from Zangarmarsh to Sylvanaar. Both are available in or near Orebor.

I believe he meant leading from Zangarmarsh or Sylvanaar to Evergrove. I could find no quests leading to Evergrove either, and found it by exploring.

[Arnulf]

I believe he meant leading from Zangarmarsh or Sylvanaar to Evergrove. I could find no quests leading to Evergrove either, and found it by exploring.

Oops, you're right. Misread the part. It's a bit of a stretch here, but one could say that killing the Bladespire ogres will lead eventually to Evergrove. On the other side there is a quest-link from Toshley's Station to Evergrove. Although there's no quest leading from Sylvanaar to Toshley's Station... by the way: Toshley's Station with the numerous Starship Troopers references is just great!:D

Then again I didn't find any links leading to Netherstorm (or Shadowmoon Valley for that matter). Probably I just missed them.

Blade's Edge Mountains is uncanny, anyway.

[Monkey]

I see you didn't mention Blade's Edge, which has a map that looks like a Disneyland queuing system.

I get the feeling that each successive area in TBC is meant to increasingly taunt the player with the need for a flying mount:

Hellfire Peninsula: Bombing runs from floating Islands
Zangarmarsh: The Telredor elevator (for Alliance), mob density
Terrokar: Shattrath's elevators, Getting down into Auchindoun, mob density back again
Nagrand: Soaring Floaty islands, Bombing Runs on Halaa
Blade's Edge: Disneyland System Queue System
Netherstorm: Broken floaty land, Instance unreachable w/o flight, etc.

And of course, it seems like there's never a direct flightline to where I need to go from Shattrath.

[Watto44]

I did some PvP at Halaa, and it was a heck of a lot of fun. Bombing runs and ganking - what else could you ask for? (Its always fun to finish a bombing run to find 5 horde waiting for you at the wyvern...). I thnk there would be more epic battles if the Horde-Alliance ratio on our server wasn't so bad.

Chris

I've been PvPing on and off in Halaa for the last couple of days, and I'm really enjoying it. It reminds me so much of Crossroads PvP, just with bombs! :w00t: It's not just the scenery either, but the similar layout of the town, rushing from one entrance to another, the way attacks come in waves. I'm having a blast!

So far this is my favorite of the world PvP objectives. Hellfire is fun, but fairly trivial. Zargarmarsh isn't that hotly contested on my server. I've yet to make it to one of the Terokkar towers before they've all be captured by one side or another. Halaa has a nice "old school" feel to it.:)

Edit: How on earth do you misspell "on"?!