Results tagged “Northrend” from From the Abbey to Outlands

Below you will find a gallery of a few of the more spectacular sights I saw in the month or so between the launch of Wrath and when my paladin Medros dinged 80. Enjoy.

I dinged 72 tonight in Borean Tundra, over a dozen quests still left to go, and wondered to myself. Is there a benefit to doing both of the starter zones, Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord? On beta I did both, and found I was barely halfway through Grizzly Hills before I got the quest in Dalaran to fly out to Sholazar. That was also before I had a 20% jump start in xp from my previously mentioned daily plan. I am almost certain I could get by pretty effectively without having to do the Howling Fjord, and instead moving on to Dragonblight right away. The lore of that zone makes it even more tempting, I assure you.

The flipside to all of that, of course, is gold. Cold, hard cash. If I do all the quests available as I go along, Borean, Howling, Blight, Grizzly, Sholazar, Zul'Drak, Storm Peaks, Icecrown, well I should hit 80 by Sholazar or Zul'Drak, I would think. In Beta I skipped a big chunk of Grizzly Hills to move on to Sholazar, and hit 77 about halfway there. I am pretty sure I would have left Sholazar late 78, or somewhere in 79 if I had stayed in Grizzly. This means it wouldn't have taken much in Zul'Drak, or maybe an instance or two, to hit 80 in that zone, leaving me roughly 2-2.5 zones of pure quest gold plus dailies.

This will be even better on Telaan, who will be leveled third, cause he is doing 2 dailies every day, and is nearing on 71.5. I suspect he will be into 72 before I pick him up to level again. How all of this might hit Ameland or Arita I am not sure, while I am pretty sure Connroe will be hit hard since he has about 22 levels to go and a long road to go. I think I will take him in chunks. In the end, this leveling thing can be tricky. In BC it took me 3 70s before I perfected it for Telaan, and I just do not know how close I can get this time to perfection. I had time between my toons to evaluate, collect, prepare. I do not see any Unidentified Plant Part type items that are tradeable in Wrath, so that might be hard. Time will tell, I suppose. What do you all think?

I was surfing around a few minutes ago and found a thread posted in the US forums by the Blizz rep Crygil, stating the beta realms were down as of 12 am PST. While it is true that beta realms have been literally deserted since 3.0.2 hit, I am very surprised that they brought the beta realms down so far in advance of the expansion launch. I am both surprised and saddened that there was no final event, like both of the prior betas. Vanilla WoW and TBC betas both had huge end of beta events! Deciding to test the waters, since it was about 3:15 CST(1:15 AM PST) I quickly updated the last beta patch and tried to login.

That was the point when I got the screenshot the to the right, a final farewell to the beta realms. While the beta realms are not yet down completely, I trust the blue in that they will have the realms down, but it saddens me that they could not take the Wrath beta out with their traditional, and beloved bang. No raid bosses in Shatt, not Lich King in Dalaran, no Magtheridon in Dun Morough. Just... *poof*. /mourn You will be missed, Wrath Beta Realms!

[Update: Apparently the 10 PM posting last night was meant to say that beta realms will be going down at 11:59 on the 4th, not 12:01 on the 4th, so they are still up as of 12:30 CST, but alas nothing notable going on, other than people spending all their gold on stupid stuff.]

So we look to have a date for the upcoming 3.0.2 patch, which will bring in some of the features of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, so I thought I would give you the lowdown on the stuff that will make it into 3.0.2 based on the latest PTR builds, what you have to wait until the expansion for, and what won't be in until much later on.

The Patch - We know we will see the Barbershop feature in the patch, giving us the chance to finally change those hairstyles we've had for up to four years. Achievements will make it in, so while a few will wait for many of the Achievements that require Northrend to complete, we can get many of our desired achievements out of the way before we slag through the lengthy install process for the expansion. Inscription will be active, which is surprising a lot of people since Jewelcrafting was not available unless you had the expansion. A feature we will see that has many of my character's banks rejoicing is the Pets/Mounts tab, which will be in for the patch. Thousands of vanity pets will soon find a new home!

Hunters will get to customize their pets in a new talent style of ability system, with the old system of training points going the way of the Ghost Wolf. Hunters will also get Exotic pets, so expect to see Devilsaurs, Rhinos, Chimeras and Worms in your local bank. Stormwind Harbor will finally open up, and King Varian Wrynn will return to Stormwind, bringing a new era to the land of Azeroth. The patch will bring in new UI features like the Calendar system, built in threat meter, and many new emotes.

In the way of combat we will also be seeing several stat changes. Hit, Crit, and Haste will affect Melee and Spell attacks, while Spell Damage and Healing stats will be unified into a universal Spell Power, meaning more gear can be shared between the various casting classes. Lastly on this section, channeling and casting interrupts are changing, with any hits after the second no longer interrupting or stopping a cast bar, though I believe full spell interrupts like Kick and Counterspell will still work as usual. As you can tell, the patch will be bringing some big things for all players of the game.

The Expansion - As big as the patch is, the expansion is even bigger. Of course we get to travel to Northrend, which can be accessed from boats in either Stormwind Harbor or Menethil Harbor. There is also the leveling to 80 thing, which is a pretty important expansion-only feature to mention. From my travels in beta, this is going to be an area that is well worth the time to buy the expansion for. The mobs are interesting, and often unique. The zones are huge, and each has many quest hubs. Medros, one of my Paladins, has gone through all of Borean Tundra, Dragonblight, Howling Fjord, and part of Grizzly Hills before he hit 76.

I am in Sholazar Basin, have left a bunch of unfinished quests in Grizzly Hills, and I have yet to enter any Northrend instances. I haven't even touched quests in Zul'Drak, Crystalsong(quests Not Yet Implemented), Storm Peaks, or Icecrown. I feel it is quite possible Medros could ding 80 without even touching the top two zones, and on Live it would be even easier with guildies to run dungeons with. No need to worry, folks, there will be no lack of things to do when Wrath hits, even beyond the 80 Ding.

With reaching 80, you immediately have the chance to hop into the 10 man Naxxramas dungeon, which is followed by the 25 man, and the other three Raid dungeons, The Nexus, Eye of Eternity, and Ulduar. According to Blizzard's reps, you should be able to enter Naxx 10 man with just the quest and dungeon gear you have when you hit 80 or shortly thereafter, and the gear progresses naturally from there. While Icecrown Glacier the raid will not be in at launch, it should launch in 3.1, which can be expected a couple months into 2009.

While we have not seen any sign yet of the Dance studios, the Death Knight is definitely the biggest thing not yet listed, and it will require the expansion to create one. You too get to go through the Starting Experience, likely the first example of the implemented phasing technology Blizzard has made a huge deal of that most people will see. You will be able to Death Grip people from vast distances, summon ghouls from the bones of friends and enemies, and ride and walk on water using the Path of Frost ability given to our friends of the Ebon Blade.

Of course we have the little stuff, like new profession abilities, discovery for many crafters, and so on, not to mention the excitement of the culmination of 2 years of Blizzard's efforts. So while there is no doubt plenty to get excited about in patch 3.0.2 when it hits, expected to be on Octber 14th, there is yet more to get pumped about in Wrath of the Lich King, on store shelves, and online, November 13th.

As we are beginning to see the news and blog posts of people making preparations for the upcoming expansion, I felt it time to begin working on this planned series of articles. When you look down the path and see change coming, it is natural for us to look back on what has been, and to look forward to what will come. That is the plan for this series of articles of indeterminate length.

The next part in this series I wanted to look at was the zones of the upcoming expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. So far we have seen official video and screen shots of Howling Fjord, Borean Tundra, Dragonblight, Zul'Drak, and Sholazar Basin. We are missing the zones for Lake Wintergrasp, Icecrown, Azol'Nerub, Grizzly Hills, and Storm Peaks. From what we have seen, what is the one world zone you are most excited about? For me it's Dragonblight, with the place that virtually created the dragons we know in lore and history of Azeroth.

How about dungeons? Are there any dungeons or raids that have piqued your interest? I know we don't have any raid boss info yet, other than general stuff like Malygos being the end boss of the Nexus raid dungeon and Arthas being the big bad of Ice Crown Glacier. Even with that, I wonder what dungeons or raids you are most excited about? Utgarde? The new level 80 Naxxramas? Ulduar? Maybe Old Stratholme is giving you the push to travel back into the history of the world once again?

Or are you itching to take on our old friend Arthas and see if you and 24 friends will be able to best him for whatever Legendary or Artifact he might offer up, maybe even a newly reforged Ashbringer? For me, I still don't like the idea of Old Stratholme, though I suppose the Death Knight I am making the back story for could go there. For Medros I think Utgarde looks cool, but the Blue Dragon instance hub at the Nexus is the most alluring for me.

Medros has always been a friend of the dragonflights, other than black of course, but being a magic user, he will undoubtedly see the importance of stopping Malygos' attacks upon the magic users. He will set out to do his best to kindly bring the blue dragonflight back in line with the order of the world with the help of the Red Dragon Queen, Alexstrasza.


I look forward to your answers as to what zones and instances you look forward to in the next expansion, and also I would love to know what you think and want to hear or see next, maybe at the upcoming Worldwide Invitational in Paris. Look for the next installment of this series, covering the end game specifically in the next day or two.