sinnick
3481
Hmm, I didn’t check the board, I was just presented with one quest as a popup as soon as I arrived at Stormwind Harbour. Maybe I’ll nip back there to check. Thanks!
I had a lowbie Shaman that was in Barrens years ago and I came back to him after the revamp and just kept doing Northern Barrens stuff cause that’s where he was. I didn’t find it all that different from before though. He’s now 20 and I haven’t done any of the new stuff at Ratchet but from what I did do and from what I’ve heard Azshara is better. Barrens just doesn’t seem all that different.
I did 2 of these 3 zones with my 80 and both (Aszhara and Silverpine Forest) are amazing.
Silverpine is more epic though as you are directly serving the Banshee Queen! :)
Didn’t do Nothern Barrens yet but might today as my CE will only arrive tomorrow. :p
Don’t feel bad, I missed it as well.
JM1
3485
Ditto for me in Orgrimmar. I was pushed towards Vashj’ir. It was only I’d hearthed to pick up skills and mail stuff that I saw the quest for Hyjal at one of the boards.
I rolled a Tauren Paladin last week and took him through Mulgore to Orgrimmar to Azshara - the revamp of Azshara is highly recommended, even if you don’t recall what it was like before. One of the nice things they did was add a goblin rocketway transit system to help you jet around the zone. So instead of having to hoof it north, south, east, and west, you hop on a rocket and zip there. It makes getting around a lot more fun.
My general plan (over the next few years) is to try to level up some guys using different zones, so I can see all the new content. Fr’instance, I’m leveling a Dwarf Shaman with the Drop Bears, and he’s gone from Dun Morogh -> Loch Modan -> Wetlands -> Arathi -> Hinterlands (and from there, I don’t know!). But he’s going to stay in the Eastern Kingdoms until he goes to Outlands. That leaves a whole other continent revamp I won’t see until the next guy!
As to the directions to Hyjal. I had a Job Board thing in Org to take the boat to Vashj’ir, but I also got a quest (I thought it was by the flight master, but I’m honestly not sure) to go talk to a druid where all the Tauren are congregating. I looked in the water, saw a cutscene, and was told to take a portal to Hyjal. It was definitely a quest, and definitely not on the job board.
I also missed the midnight rush since I had more important things to do like sleep and work. ;)
I was able to get about four hours of playing time in yesterday evening, though. I finished 55 quests in Hyjal according to the achievement tracker and also did a guild run of Blackrock Caverns (we wiped to the third boss once because we didn’t know the mechanics of the fight, otherwise it went smoothly). That took me from 80 to 81.3. I don’t know if the leveling curve slows down dramatically, but at this pace, I can see myself being 85 by Saturday just from playing during the evenings after work.
First impressions: I hate to say it, but I’m not overly impressed with the quests in Hyjal so far. Maybe they get better as I come closer to finishing the zone, but they’ve pretty much all been more of the same from what I’ve experienced. Only the “climb a tree to rescue the bear cubs” quest felt new and unique.
Also, what’s the lore behind Archdruid Fandrel Staghelm being imprisoned by the Night Elves? Was there a memo I missed?
I logged in last night just long enough to create Tofudog, and I won’t be going back to him until all these people stop killing all the invasion targets, because if there’s one thing I hate, it’s standing in line to kill eight bears.
Later, however, I logged in on my new Warrior and found the Human starting area delightfully less full of people. Walking around in Stormwind was a festival of pop-in, but the rest of the world behaved itself well.
So how long until I can actually get my new Druid out of Gilneas without having to wait an hour for enough dudes to spawn?
sinnick
3489
The “Tame a Seahorse” quest was something I’d never seen before.
As to the directions to Hyjal. I had a Job Board thing in Org to take the boat to Vashj’ir, but I also got a quest (I thought it was by the flight master, but I’m honestly not sure) to go talk to a druid where all the Tauren are congregating. I looked in the water, saw a cutscene, and was told to take a portal to Hyjal. It was definitely a quest, and definitely not on the job board.
On the Alliance side, I logged in at the Stormwind Trade District Inn and got quests sending me to both Vashj’ir and Hyjal (via Moonglade) from the job board. The quest to look in the water and see the cutscene with Thrall was completely separate.
A lot of the quests in Vashj’ir have also been the same old ‘kill X of this, find Y of that’, but there’s been some nice little bits of mini-phasing to transition between areas, build up a collection of NPCs in one cave, and the seahorse mount taming was a bit unexpected.
And bah, my CE loot card only got me this silly limited-use rocking-tiger thing…
I’ll probably hit Aszhara on this character, then roll up a Forsaken for Silverpine. Even the old Silverpine was one of my favorite areas of the game. The changes to Tirisfall Glades look interesting enough that I’ll want to go through both together.
Since I don’t have Cataclysm I rolled up a Tauren. The Thunder Bluff area is as boring as I remember it being. I really need to check out some of the areas that got a bigger revamp.
Omg Cataclysm is already getting a hard rape by the top guilds.
http://www.paragon.fi/node/170
Paragon is already 7/12 on the 1st 25 man normal raid dungeon.
Ensidia is 3/12 or 4/12 in 10 man (not so clear yet)
Paragon has at least 25 people at 85
Ensidia’s last post on their website states 19 people having reached max level.
Edit: They have 25 now based on their last released screenshot.
Here is the actual progress tracking that has started:
http://www.wowprogress.com/
Simply crazy…
To each their own, but I don’t see the fun in blowing through the content that quickly.
Is this really the best way you could phrase that???
Andrew
3496
Molested? Diddled?
Anyways, I don’t know why you are so shocked intruder. The current design is clearly that the very best guilds blow through everything on normal and hard except the final boss in a week or two. They’ll probably have every boss dead on heroic by the end of January, if not by the end of this year. It depends entirely on how Blizzard decided to tune the last boss. Then they get to farm gear for 3 months. Yay!
I feel the same way. I decided to do Hygal first because I assume I will hate Vashj’ir. Best I can describe Hyjal, everything feels cramped. You go to a little area where they’ve neatly packed four or five quests. Then you progress to the next little area where they’ve packed four or five quests. Then you do it again.
Playing last night, it felt almost too streamlined. I even got a quest to kill monsters that were on the way from Little Area 4 to Little Area 5. The game was holding my hand every step of the way.
The bear cubs quest was different. Found out that if someone’s at the top, and you’re the next step down. They can’t get down and you can’t go up.
I’m shocked that they managed to get 25 people to 85 + raided 7 bosses in 31 hours total.
Seriously this is simply crazy.
Not sure I should admire or pitty this dedication!
And yes sorry for the choice of words though it’s pretty common in WoW chat to refer to a fast progression / bosses on farm / loot pinatas.
Didn’t want to offend anyone mb!
I sort of get the appeal of the hardest of hardcore guilds chasing after world first kills, but during the first tier of raiding in any expansion the challenge isn’t so much a measure of player skill or group coordination so much as it is getting 10/25 people to take time off work or school (assuming they even have day jobs) and race to the level cap as quickly as possible. Obviously Paragon and Ensidia have reputations for being the best of the best anyway, but I’m more interested to see who kills the final boss on heroic in the 4.1 raid (and subsequent content patches) when everyone is already level 85.
And I don’t know if this is going to be a general trend or not, but the caster gear I’ve been seeing so far is heavy on the stamina and int, but hardly any spirit. I’m losing mana regen like crazy with my new gear, but the gain in other stats is too big to not upgrade (I was mostly in ilvl 200ish gear to start with). Reforging might help, but then I’m going to have to give up a lot of those gains…
