It’s all about the Hunters this week. I’ve got two. I’ve left the Atheren version sit under a tree till things settled down on the server. Here she is, ready to hunt. I thought I could tell a mini-story since the game has speech balloons (something I never knew about Classic). Even in Rut’theran Village, people kept running by and even swimming by, so I had to wait for them to get off screen. The nerve.
(It turns out I was tired when I named him the night before)
I released Snuggle and got a new cat properly named Snuggles.
This Hunter will stay in Kalimdor. The second Hunter has Engineering. There is no Mining or Engineer Trainer in Darnassus. Also, bizarrely no Blacksmith Trainer, fyi. Good Grief.
I decided to either work from Loch Modan onward into the Wetlands with Hunter 2, or go ahead and go to Westfall. I’m just more comfortable in Stormwind, plus I have a Gnome Mage and Dwarf Priest who will do the Loch Modan plus route. As a bonus to my Engineer, there seem to be Malachite and Tiger’s Eye drops from a variety of creatures in Westfall. Those awful Harvesters drop all manner of Engineering parts.
Hunter is very good so far, and I think she’s the only character I have who has never died. Pets are pretty great! Hunter 2 has a bear. I have a weakness for bears.
My Warlock finally got in a dungeon! Deadmines or bust. Somehow a level 21 Warrior who pulled the room like mad handled everything with the group and nobody died the whole way through. Honest to God I know that dungeon by heart, but the Classic version is way different. The last area where the ramps on the ship just keep going up and up and up…yikes. This was my first encounter with Edwin VanCleef. He was kind of a fun boss. Lots of sass talk from him. And as promised, you go out the dungeon and come out that mine like entrance you see all the time in the hills just above the Lighthouse. Quite the adventure!
Blizzcon
Blizzcon finally is incoming! My nephew is going! I’ll have to get all the scoop from him when he gets home. I did not buy a virtual ticket. From what I could see, not much is on World of Warcraft, and I only care about that game, none of the others. From all the rumors it seems the “mystery panels” will be on Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4. Everyone can be wrong, of course! If they want to finally make player housing available, we can talk.
Outer Worlds
Outer Worlds is getting a huge positive response from players. I didn’t realize it was first person only, all you ever see of yourself is a gun sticking out of the bottom of the screen. That’s a game killer for me. How are you supposed to be immersed in a world you never see yourself in? Too bad. I really had high hopes for the game. Sixty bucks still in my pocket 🙂
No big Class Quests this week. I decided to concentrate on my Warlock and Druid. Only four boxes to go on the Druid for level 25.
Duskwood
I was happy to see she was the right level to quest in Duskwood, one of my favorite areas.
The Raven Hill graveyard! I haven’t done Duskwood in a long time, but it made a big impression on me back in the day. I’d run along the fence line pulling skellies and ghouls outside of the graveyard to have a better fighting chance. I tried a bit of that this time around, but competition is fairly fierce for mobs, so you have to go on in there to have a chance at what you need. There were some nice drops in the cemetery, a wand, a ring and a staff in particular.
I had forgotten about wandering Mor’Ladim in this place. Man, my Warlock was level 23 going in, and he’s got a huge aggro radius. I stayed well away, but I saw him chasing others.
Another peril of the boneyard I don’t recall at all were two Grave Robbers that would just pop up out of nowhere. Run, run!
I had not been so lucky earlier with Stitches. I knew he wandered the road, but I was on autopilot heading to Raven Hill from Darkshire, and saw him ahead too late. I ran off the road thinking I’d be safe, but he’s another guy with a huge aggro radius, and he just ran over and one shotted me. Then, of course, anytime I was on the road to Raven Hill I was paranoid. He engaged some players right at the juncture of the road to Stranglethorn, at one point, and as they tried to run, he chased them, and I just kept backing up and backing up because he was getting into my area of the road. I could have been in Stranglethorn in another few steps, I had to back up that much, but finally he defeated everyone and headed towards Darkshire. He was always scary in the regular game, but never quite like this.
Hallow’s End
It’s Hallow’s End in both versions of the game. I’m not doing anything in the current game version, but in Classic, where every single thing that can keep you alive is highly desirable, I Trick or Treat at the local inn anytime I’m nearby, and I always bob for apples. I love those dancing skeletons.
In Classic, everyone seems to be in the holiday mood. Everyone wears their masks, everyone keeps on their costume when they get one.
My Feral Cat as Bat:
My Night Elf Hunter as Human Defias. I thought it was such fun to be an apparently human Hunter in Elwynn Forest, in a game version that doesn’t allow Human Hunters. I was also surprised to get several blind guild invites on my Hunter. Nobody ever invites a Hunter to a Guild, in my experience.
Pants of Power
Why don’t clothes ever look anything like their icon? My newest pants for my Paladin, yikes. Nice stats, though.
This makes me appreciate my BFA characters and their opulent clothing.
All I do Is World Quests
Still plugging along on rep, just doing whatever the Emissary of the day is. I actually really like most World Quests. Most of them, in any case.
There was one tonight where you had to hit a gong and then fight one hundred trolls. They just kept coming and there was no damage taken, and it was odd and slightly boring. They did not disengage one I hit one hundred, but they didn’t chase me out of the area, either.
In another, you ride this behemoth Fire Monster and kill 200 goblins. I am not a fan of these quests, because of the bobbing up and down motion being a bit nauseating. The bad thing here is he would not let me leave him behind after the fight and quest turn in. He was attached. I had to log out to get rid of him.
My Classic server is still “layered” so there are indeed plenty of people still playing in Classic. I like having people around, and people to group with, and people to help when they need it. It’s kind of ideal.
Characters in Play this last week were my Paladin, now level 18 and my Druid, now level 21. Most of the Paladin’s time was in Loch Moden. It certainly is an easy place to get groups. I noticed in several encounters that people are seeming a bit desperate for nice loot drops, and there was a Wand I personally Greeded on since it wasn’t for my Paladin. I have zero luck on rolls so I didn’t get it, but I was a little horrified to see I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The person I was working with pretty much won all the rolls, but I only cared about that one. Not good. Rule 1,2,3: Don’t Obsess.
The Druid worked in Darkshore, but I sent her to finish off a couple of Westfall quests. I never picked up any of the Redridge quests, because as I always suspected, I really dislike Redridge and can’t bear to do the area if I don’t have to. The Darkshore area gives you potential quests to Menethil, Astranaar, and the Stonetalon Mountains (which seem very far away).
I like to do all the quests in an area before moving on (it was an odd circumstance that sent me to Westfall in the first place, I just thought herb drops were better there than in Darkshore but I was wrong.)
After recent experiences with other Classes, I feared some beastly quest line to get the Feral Cat form. Luckily, all it took was all the money I had to buy the skills from the Trainer. Prowl! It is so nice to be in Cat Form. I was fond of Bear, somewhat, but I’ve played hundreds of hours in Cat Form and it is just more comfortable. And the cat is pretty, blues and dark purples for her fur colors.
It is awkward to have to keep shape shifting to talk to NPCs or use any item–foods, drink, interactive quest items. The only things you can do in shape shifted form are fight and pick Herbs. It can get dodgy mid-fight trying to take a potion.
In BFA my 120 Druid struggles on, working in Drustvar for rep, getting the Emissary quests as they pop up. Except for the Match Game, the Tortollan quests are so annoying. Ok, Make Loh Go is cute. I kind of hate Magni. Should have flying sometime next year.
I’ve still done zero Island Expeditions. Hmm. Maybe sometime.
Clever of me to schedule a non-post this morning so I could obsessively meet my daily posts at 7 am. All are usually written the night before and scheduled. I did a post a day on all four of my blogs in July, 28 posts a week as my spouse kept reminding me. After that marathon, I devised a new post schedule so each blog gets at least one post a week, all on different days, so there’s something every day of the week, somewhere. It has worked out pretty nicely, and I have not missed a day since I began the schedule in August. Can’t miss that post! So here’s today’s post, late in the day, but still on the day, and it counts. Like you care, la la la.
I’ve been happily playing the SWG Emu again, and have been talking with people in GenChat, unlike me, but if time is limited there, and it looks like it is, I want to get to know the people and enjoy my fellow Galaxies fans.
By chance, I looked at the subReddit for the emu, and there was a recent interview by Mobyus1 with one of the lead developers, LordKator. It was fantastic, and revealed so much about the Project, where it is, where it is potentially going. The EMU is now working to finish the ground game which includes the Imperial Crackdown and some other details, then when that is work is complete, they’ll wipe Basilisk and open the permanent server, usually referred to as Suncrusher. The space game will not be implemented before this happens. They hope to find people who are “passionate” about the space game and have particular skill sets that are required to bring that to life. The end of the test server era is at hand.
It was always my plan to not move to the new server and start anew. I plan to do all the things I wish to do and try out before Basilisk ends. Then my Galaxies time would be done.
Listening to LordKator’s enthusiasm about what the new server might be like, and hearing how his wife also loves the game, and would like to offer new quests, and just all sorts of possibilities, I found myself thinking, OK, if I can only have two characters (the number you can have is in no way decided.), what would I have. Ranger first. Then split a crafter with character two. Tailor and Architect? Tailor and Armorsmith? Maybe.
There’s a ton of new content incoming. See the Icy Veins link above for detailed information.
I find the Assaults and Horrific Visions intriguing, and almost would like to go on the PTR to to try them out. No time, though. I’ll have to read what others think. Without having experienced it, I like the story flow of the new content. Using Uldum and The Vale of Eternal Blossoms to stage some of these events is a great idea, I love both areas and am glad to see them using the Old World, as it used to be called.
The part I’m whiny about is the Vulpera Allied Race going to the Horde. It’s the only new race I would really have wanted to play, and Alliance has only the Mechagnomes, a bit carelessly recycled from Mechagon.
Note: I keep forgetting to look, but I see all three of the realms I have characters on still have layering in effect. I think they should just take it off all realms and be done with it.
World of Warcraft Classic
All my characters need potions as they advance, and they haven’t money to buy any. My Druid/Alchemist has been this week’s main character. In fact, she was in a good group quite late last night knocking out quests galore, which is why this morning’s post wasn’t there, in truth. If you get a good group, you gotta stick with them for as long as possible.
I do have a couple of characters in a guild, and once they have potions, I’ll try to get them in dungeon runs. I can’t send them in helpless though.
My Druid’s level 16 quest to get the sea lion form was quite an experience. For the first part, Trial of the Lake, she had to find a Shrine Bauble in Lake Elune’ara in Moonglade. It’s a large lake, essentially featureless except for a few mounds underwater with two air bubble locations to help you stay underwater where you could search and search. I finally found the bauble, way flat on the floor of the lake, so easy to miss.
I feel it was a fair quest that made me really really want to get the sea lion form. Really bad. One you find the bauble, you have to scoot on a timer (what fiends they were for timers!) over to the Shrine of Remulos, use the bauble then turn in the quest with the quest person being snippy the whole while about you running out of time. All I could think about was how bad I’ve always been in timed tests, and anything I ever knew would go out the window as I watched the clock tick down and my mind was frozen.
Next, for the Trial of the Sea Lion, you’ve got to find two parts of a pendant and put them together. One part is in Darkshore and the other in Westfall. By now, I just wanted to finish the dang sequence. So I looked at Wowhead’s often useful comments section. This is a case where, for the Darkshore quest, there were many unnecessarily conflicting bits of advice. Do not, for instance go to the Cliffspring River mouth then swim west into the ocean.
Go to the mouth of the river and swim due north to two little islands you see on the map. My cursor is right on the spot.
Look for these island outcroppings. The chest is on the backside of these and down in the water. There are a manageable number of Threshers level 17 and 18 swimming around. I only had to fight one of them.
The second half of the pendant is in Westfall. Luckily, I had spent time with my character there trying to gather herbs, and get my Herbalism and Alchemy skills up. All I needed to do was take the boat to Menethil, fly to Stormwind, fly to Sentinel Hill. Go to the Gold Coast Quarry, head straight out into the water (there are a fair few Murlocs, no surprise). Not far out there will be a continental shelf type drop off, with a sunken ship and another bubble breathing rock thingie.
The chest is right there, and away you go, back to Moonglade, back to the Shrine of Remulos to put the halves together. Inconveniently the quest turn in is in the farthest up and right building in Nighthaven. Not over! Go to Darnassus now and talk to the second floor Druid trainer who gives you the Sea Lion form and a nice belt.
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