That Time of Year Again (and beta stuff)

Very busy and stressed lately. Summer is winding down and classes start in a few weeks; looking for a new apartment and a job to afford it. It has left me with little time to go spelunking in the beta, but I did get a start in Vashj’ir and I did finish up the worgen starting zone.

Earlier in the month the worgen starting quest line was bugged at the point where you must enter Gilneas city and reclaim it from Sylvanas and her legions of forsaken. The final battle with Sylvanas wouldn’t trigger, so many were left idling about until a hotfix was implemented a little while ago. I logged in just as she was “defeated” and got the quest completed, but I didn’t get to see the entire battle that supposedly takes place through out the entire city. I read it was supposed to lead you through the different districts and have you encounter and defeat other enemies before you finally face Sylvanas herself. It is likely the bug prevented me from experiencing the entire battle, and I may reroll and try it again. I’m sure it is still in need of some fine tuning as well.

The rest of the worgen zone is super moody fun. Very dark and Victorian with definite undertones of the traditional werewolf. I truly enjoyed the atmosphere, but I felt the quests were lacking something that the goblin quests had nailed down. Explosions don’t really fit with the worgen genre, but I will admit they are fun. Overall the worgen quests lacked a little something special, a little bit of oomph I felt they needed. I understand that these quests are less finished than the goblin ones. It remains to be seen what kind of polish will be placed on them in further builds.

Vashj’ir is pretty trippy. Underwater things always annoyed me before, but I think the “Sea Legs” blessing you get really changes that. You can walk along the sea floor just as you would dry land, and it increases your run speed while doing so significantly. It also allows you to breathe underwater, which is kind of essential considering the entire zone is…underwater. You get this buff after a short quest right after you arrive in the zone (the means by which you do so are freakin’ cool) and it lasts…probably until you leave, I would guess.

The zone its self is beautiful. Gone are the triangle-fish that inhabit old Azeroth’s pools. Say hello to a vast and wondrous variety of fish from groupers to thresher sharks to massive eels. There are orcas and crabs and makrura (bleh) and seahorses and giant clams and all kinds of colorful non-targetable fish swimming in shimmering schools. I am impressed. The kelp forest feels alive. Really alive. Not just pretty plants, but an ecosystem. The 360-degree feel of the zone is refreshing, and quests require you to swim between all different levels of the ocean to kill various creatures. It feels very open and I felt immersed (or submersed…) in the environment. Fantastic stuff.

I will find time soon to dive in to the level 80ish dungeons and test them out.

Cataclysm Beta: Thoughts on Gilneas

I decided that I couldn’t wait to roll a worgen. I don’t care if that leaves me nothing “new” when Cataclysm first launches. I had to check them out.

Customization at this point is pretty poor, something I know will change as the beta progresses. As it stands, only male worgen are available to play. They have 4 or so hairstyles and about as many colors, as well as relatively few coat colors to choose from. In the future I would love to see more coat colors aside from grays and grayish browns. I think Blizzard has the opportunity to make some very interesting colors here and would like to see them jump on it. That aside, you cannot customize the human side of your worgen just yet, another feature I know will be implemented later on. Right now all men look the same: short black hair and beards.

The Worgen starting area is Gilneas city, a moody, dark Victorian-esque place. Right off the bat you are swept into the fighting against the encroaching Worgen attackers. The phasing is again seamless and very well done. You turn your back for two seconds to hand in a quest and when you turn around the entire city has changed. I was very impressed. The quests lead you all over the outlying farms and villages. You battle the Forsaken armies and eventually Sylvanas herself.

Questing went fairly smoothly until level 11ish, where a kew quest event is bugged. Most people get stuck here (unless you’re extremely lucky and it works for a brief moment). My worgen rogue is stuck at level 11 here, logging in occasionally to see if the event is working. It’s a downer to be sure, but it will be fixed sooner or later and I will finish my leveling experience there.

If I had to compare the goblin and worgen starting quests, I would have to say that in terms of sheer exploding awesomeness the goblins win by a landslide (triggered no doubt by their explosives). The goblin quests felt more urgent and more exciting. The scenery was also more engaging. However, the worgen quests are far moodier, and the atmosphere of Gilneas and its outlying townships is intoxicating. You really do feel like a werewolf. They are also obviously not finished, and I can’t pass judgment on either set of quests just yet.

A few more random thoughts: worgen look ridiculous in hats. The top hat you receive as a quest reward looks horrible on a worgen. On the human is looks fine. But when you shift to your worgen form, all the worgen’s mane gets pulled up into the hat leaving his unsightly thick neck exposed. It even covers his ears. It just looks terrible. Also, the stealth animation seems to not fit them. I would love to see worgen crawling on all fours while stealthed, more beast-like than sneaking around like a human. They crouch and touch the ground while standing still, and I think it would be amazing if they crawled instead of walked forward while in stealth. We shall see.

Thoughts on the Cataclysm Beta: Lost Isles

I got extremely impatient with the beta download and accidentally canceled it at 99%. It was taking so long to re-download I finally just went to sleep, woke up in the late morning to find it…still not finished. But at last, after bouncing around in my seat for most of a day, I’m in the Cataclysm beta.

I have an odd attitude about spoilers. I don’t mind hearing about the talent tree overhauls or the new features and spells, but I dislike having anything lore-related blabbed about. So I am going to avoid doing that here. I have also been planning on rolling a worgen druid (or perhaps priest) when the expansion actually launches, so I was wary of rolling them in beta and then having nothing new to look forward to later on. I rolled a goblin instead.

My first impression was that goblins are kinda ugly. The women have a sort of strange beauty that works for them, but the males just don’t appeal to me. There were a few hairstyles to choose from, a few hair colors, etc. I don’t know if more will be added later, or what is available through the barber shop, but eh. They could use a little more variety, in my opinion. I decided to roll a hunter because I would like to test out a few hunter pets.

Enter the goblin starting area. Wow! Talk about a dingy, grimy city. You really get a sense of atmosphere (you know, aside from the smog that shrouds the place). The starting quests are all about greed, extravagance, and money. You get a sport’s car right off the bat to drive around the city on these terrifying roads. I have no idea what the traffic laws are in goblin-land, but I’m pretty sure plowing into pedestrians and bashing in to other drivers is not allowed. I really got the feeling that I was actually a member of goblin society, not just another grunt wandering in for training. It’s a very industrialized society with a lot of emphasis on getting ahead and getting rich. Too bad it gets blown to hell.

After escaping you find yourself, along with the survivors of the escape, washing up on the beaches of the Lost Isles. This is where you meet the Horde, do some work with them, and ultimately escape yet again. The quests were really unique. Most had to do with blowing something to bits. You battle a host of brand new mobs in the game, including a race of indigenous pygmies who have the most hilarious vocalizations I have yet to encounter in-game. As a hunter I was scoping out the new beasts in the zone. I started with a crab pet (hunters start with pets at level 1 now) but I wanted something different. There were Outland-model raptors in all colors and black cats roaming the jungle. I tamed a cat, but sadly I didn’t get a chance to tame a raptor. If they are tamable, then your only chance to get one is if you roll a goblin character and tame one then and there. The Lost Isles are a beautiful zone…until they get blown to hell.

The phasing system is absolutely phenomenal. It’s also quite seamless, even in beta. The entire goblin starting zone is phased. Almost every quest you complete changes the zone somehow, and really makes you feel like you’re interacting with the environment instead of just passing through. I was very impressed with the implementation, and it’s everything I hoped it would be. It also helped cut down on competition between players. I encountered only a few people, and never had much trouble finding mobs to kill. That, or there really are only five people in the beta right now.

Considering it is the beta, I thought things went fairly smoothly. There weren’t a lot of glitches that I saw. A few quests “bugged” for me, but after some experimentation I was able to work around it. I reported them anyway, since I don’t think they were intended to work that way. I am fully aware that this is an ever-changing process, and things will continue to be improved and polished until Cataclysm launches. There were a few things, however, that stood out to me while leveling my goblin.

As a hunter, I needed to feed my pet. The starter pet doesn’t appear to lose any happiness from level 1 to 9. You cannot control it. It attacks when you attack until level 10, when you gain access to all of the spells needed to tame, feed, control, and train your pet. At level 10 I chose to tame a black jungle cat, who started out unhappy (75% of damage done). Up until this point I had not encountered a single meat drop in the game. Not off of any mob, and not sold by any vendor. I was unable to feed my cat. Hopefully this will be addressed during the development process. Perhaps not all the mobs have their full loot tables yet? I was also unable to learn fishing as a profession, which cut me off from a supply of fish to feed my cat.

When I tried to rename my cat, it glitched, and somehow renamed my crab. I dismissed the crab, tamed the cat, and then right-clicked the cat’s portrait and selected rename. I named it Naobi, but it never showed up. Her name said Unknown until I dismissed her, and brought out my crab…who was now named Naobi. Odd.

The last thing I noticed was the pacing of the phasing sometimes cuts you off from your class trainers, vendors, etc. There were times when I needed to learn new skills or empty my bags, but was in the middle of an “event” portion of the phasing that had none of these facilities available. Most of your time on the Lost Isles is spent in a hectic scramble to save your goblin friends and get the heck out of there. At times you find your base camp under seige and your class trainer has vacated with others to another key spot. There was a period of about 4 levels when I just flat could not find my hunter trainer. I eventually wound up in Orgrimmar and trained there. This isn’t something I think will be fixed as the beta progresses. It’s not a bugged quest, it’s just an awkward timing issue. It isn’t a big deal, but I would be curious to see if they will smooth it out a bit so you can access your trainers and vendors when you need to, not at random times.

Lastly, the new 31-point talent trees are available. You gain access to them at level 10, as always, but you no longer receive a talent point every level. I saw some issues where the leveling text was telling me I had a new talent point to spend, but I actually hadn’t earned one yet. I’m not big on talents, honestly. I tend to research what a spec before I do it and not panic too much over what is THE best spec or whatever. I’m not going to say too much on whether or not I like the new talent tree set-up mostly because I have barely used it yet. Whether or not it’s good or bad remains to be determined, but I think it’s interesting and I do like how we are given a new skill just for picking a talent tree to begin with.

So far it’s been a ton of fun. I think I will roll a worgen after all, because if their starting zone is anything like the goblins’…it’s going to rock.