Day one of Cataclysm
Well, I do indeed have a cold. Blargh. Stuffy head, sore throat, coughing, all that fun stuff. It did not, however, keep me from having a blast with the new World of Warcraft expansion yesterday...once I finally got my hands on a copy.
I waited in line at Wal-Mart from about 11:30 PM until midnight, only to have them sell the last copy of the collector's edition to the guy right in front of me in line. Had I been ten minutes earlier getting in line, it would have been mine instead. I was crushed. I had never bothered with the C.E. before partly because it's tricky to get, and partly because it's expensive. I got the artbooks from Amazon later, but otherwise didn't care that much. This time, however, it comes with an in-game pet called Li'l Deathwing. BABY DEATHWING PET! MUST HAVE!!!
So, in desperation, I went to the other Wal-Mart, 20 minutes down the freeway. It's smaller, not by the mall, and I had never been there. There it was, 12:30 at night, about 10 degrees out, I've got a cold, and I'm dashing across an unfamiliar Wal-Mart, trying not to get my hopes up too much. I got to the electronics department, which was full of employees unpacking cardboard boxes of new merchandise. I zig-zagged through the carts to the register and asked the college-age guy at the till if they still had any Cataclysm collector's editions. He was like, "Oh yeah, we've got a few left." I slumped against the counter with a deeply exhaled "Ohthankgod." He said they sold two to the first guy in line but only a couple others, and that they didn't have that many people who were there at midnight. Hallelujah! Hugging my collector's edition to my chest and grinning so my face hurt, I went home and got my account upgraded with a half hour to spare before they turned the big "Cataclysm content ON" switch at midnight Pacific time.
By that time I was too tired (and sick) to do much, but I did get all my professions upgraded, and purchased old world flying.
Which brings us up to yesterday, when I jumped into leveling with both feet. Having done most of Hyjal on the beta, I elected to level Skarlette in Vashj'ir instead. (Not that I won't go back and do Hyjal later...I'm a completist and loremaster, after all!)
Underwater levels are notoriously frustrating and awkward in video games, but I have to say Blizzard really did an outstanding job of making Vashj'ir as fun and natural as possible. The very first quest gives you a permanent buff that gives underwater breathing, and allows you to run quickly on the ocean bottom. About six quests later, you get a free seahorse mount that swims at 450% speed. Sweet! So the mechanics of being underwater take a little bit of getting used to, but are really relatively painless.
And Vashj'ir is gorgeous. It's like being in a gigantic reef, with coral, kelp, anemones, sharks, sea turtles (which are adorable and I practically had to close my eyes when I had to kill some! :( Poor things!), whales, fish, crabs (and yes they sneak in plenty of S.T.D. jokes), starfish, seashells, etc. There are giblins (mutant aquatic goblins), more naga than you can shake a fish stick at, and, yes, murlocs. I actually haven't encountered too many murlocs yet, which is disappointing, but there were some orange ones in one area, and the freaky-looking deepsea murlocs with the glowing lure on their heads later on.
The first week of a new expansion is always an exercise in controlling my urges to go capslock with annoyance at all the idiots in general chat who would rather type "where r teh helmets for [Quest Name Here]?" ten times than actually READ THE FREAKING QUEST TEXT. Sure, there are some which are a bit vague, but use your brain and figure it out! The quest tells you where to go, and there's a gold arrow on your minimiap. Follow it and look around, for pity's sake! Look for something that's sparkling, or which tells you that it drops your quest item when you mouseover it. There's plenty of handholding going on already, is it really so much to ask to use your brain just a little bit? Sigh...
Of course then there are times when a quest is buggy, so you have constant yet completely legitimate questions in general chat about that, too. The ginormous Cthun-looking creature that you go inside for several quests is currently bugged so that if you enter while riding your seahorse, you can't proceed to the next step of the quest. You have to go back outside, dismount, and swim inside. Once you know that, it's no big deal, but reading hour after hour of "Is this bugged? How come I can't do this?" and then either having to type out an explanation, or wait for someone else to do it, grates on one's nerves.
Heh, typical MMO fare...my main complaint is about the other players.
Anyway, now that that rant is out of my system... Skarlette is now level 82, and has replaced five pieces of gear already. That surprised me, since it was much further into previous expansions' content before I replaced more than one or two pieces of gear. I was in full ICC25 gear, but even my Sanctified Bloodmage gear is getting tossed in the bank already. Part of the problem was the huge stat overhaul they did with 4.0. Spirit used to be desirable for a fire mage since it increased my crit, but now it's a healer-only stat and utterly useless. I've Reforged away as much of it as I can, but when a new quest reward comes along that's got mastery on it, and zero spirit, it's almost automatically an upgrade. It's okay, though. The new cloak and helm I picked up yesterday are actually pretty cool-looking, and I even turned on the option to display them. I almost never display helms on Skarlette, but this one is kind of cool.
I maxed out skinning on the first day in the first zone, which is typical. Fast respawn times and a zillion people killing stuff means lots of unskinned corpses to scavenge. Herbalism is slower due to, well, a zillion people around. 468 is still respectable, though. That dragon alchemy mount is strongly tempting me to drop skinning and level alchemy, but we'll see. That'll be for when I'm 85 and have done everything else. I've barely gotten my feet wet in this expansion yet, so there's plenty of time. (Ha! Feet wet? Vashj'ir? Get it? *snicker*)
I leveled fishing a bit while I ate supper at the keyboard. First aid's at 466. Only 452 cooking because A.) I haven't taken the time to go fry up a bunch of Northrend fish, and B.) I haven't found recipes for the new fish yet. I guess you buy them with tokens from the new fishing dailies.
Lore-wise, the main thing so far is naga history, which has been interesting. We learn more about Vashj's roots, including her mother, who was apparently a revered priestess. Interesting stuff!
There's a quest series where you get to experience a flashback to a huge battle between the naga and the kvaldir, and you play as a naga battlemaiden. That was really fun, swooping around as a naga, pwning kvaldir with a badass trident. They did an awesome job making the highborne ruins look like they'd been underwater for 10,000 years.
Anyway, enough rambling. I have to go harvest my crops in FarmVille and then log back onto WoW. ;) I haven't touched Archaeology yet so I may work on that a bit before I dive back into Vashj'ir.
I waited in line at Wal-Mart from about 11:30 PM until midnight, only to have them sell the last copy of the collector's edition to the guy right in front of me in line. Had I been ten minutes earlier getting in line, it would have been mine instead. I was crushed. I had never bothered with the C.E. before partly because it's tricky to get, and partly because it's expensive. I got the artbooks from Amazon later, but otherwise didn't care that much. This time, however, it comes with an in-game pet called Li'l Deathwing. BABY DEATHWING PET! MUST HAVE!!!
So, in desperation, I went to the other Wal-Mart, 20 minutes down the freeway. It's smaller, not by the mall, and I had never been there. There it was, 12:30 at night, about 10 degrees out, I've got a cold, and I'm dashing across an unfamiliar Wal-Mart, trying not to get my hopes up too much. I got to the electronics department, which was full of employees unpacking cardboard boxes of new merchandise. I zig-zagged through the carts to the register and asked the college-age guy at the till if they still had any Cataclysm collector's editions. He was like, "Oh yeah, we've got a few left." I slumped against the counter with a deeply exhaled "Ohthankgod." He said they sold two to the first guy in line but only a couple others, and that they didn't have that many people who were there at midnight. Hallelujah! Hugging my collector's edition to my chest and grinning so my face hurt, I went home and got my account upgraded with a half hour to spare before they turned the big "Cataclysm content ON" switch at midnight Pacific time.
By that time I was too tired (and sick) to do much, but I did get all my professions upgraded, and purchased old world flying.
Which brings us up to yesterday, when I jumped into leveling with both feet. Having done most of Hyjal on the beta, I elected to level Skarlette in Vashj'ir instead. (Not that I won't go back and do Hyjal later...I'm a completist and loremaster, after all!)
Underwater levels are notoriously frustrating and awkward in video games, but I have to say Blizzard really did an outstanding job of making Vashj'ir as fun and natural as possible. The very first quest gives you a permanent buff that gives underwater breathing, and allows you to run quickly on the ocean bottom. About six quests later, you get a free seahorse mount that swims at 450% speed. Sweet! So the mechanics of being underwater take a little bit of getting used to, but are really relatively painless.
And Vashj'ir is gorgeous. It's like being in a gigantic reef, with coral, kelp, anemones, sharks, sea turtles (which are adorable and I practically had to close my eyes when I had to kill some! :( Poor things!), whales, fish, crabs (and yes they sneak in plenty of S.T.D. jokes), starfish, seashells, etc. There are giblins (mutant aquatic goblins), more naga than you can shake a fish stick at, and, yes, murlocs. I actually haven't encountered too many murlocs yet, which is disappointing, but there were some orange ones in one area, and the freaky-looking deepsea murlocs with the glowing lure on their heads later on.
The first week of a new expansion is always an exercise in controlling my urges to go capslock with annoyance at all the idiots in general chat who would rather type "where r teh helmets for [Quest Name Here]?" ten times than actually READ THE FREAKING QUEST TEXT. Sure, there are some which are a bit vague, but use your brain and figure it out! The quest tells you where to go, and there's a gold arrow on your minimiap. Follow it and look around, for pity's sake! Look for something that's sparkling, or which tells you that it drops your quest item when you mouseover it. There's plenty of handholding going on already, is it really so much to ask to use your brain just a little bit? Sigh...
Of course then there are times when a quest is buggy, so you have constant yet completely legitimate questions in general chat about that, too. The ginormous Cthun-looking creature that you go inside for several quests is currently bugged so that if you enter while riding your seahorse, you can't proceed to the next step of the quest. You have to go back outside, dismount, and swim inside. Once you know that, it's no big deal, but reading hour after hour of "Is this bugged? How come I can't do this?" and then either having to type out an explanation, or wait for someone else to do it, grates on one's nerves.
Heh, typical MMO fare...my main complaint is about the other players.
Anyway, now that that rant is out of my system... Skarlette is now level 82, and has replaced five pieces of gear already. That surprised me, since it was much further into previous expansions' content before I replaced more than one or two pieces of gear. I was in full ICC25 gear, but even my Sanctified Bloodmage gear is getting tossed in the bank already. Part of the problem was the huge stat overhaul they did with 4.0. Spirit used to be desirable for a fire mage since it increased my crit, but now it's a healer-only stat and utterly useless. I've Reforged away as much of it as I can, but when a new quest reward comes along that's got mastery on it, and zero spirit, it's almost automatically an upgrade. It's okay, though. The new cloak and helm I picked up yesterday are actually pretty cool-looking, and I even turned on the option to display them. I almost never display helms on Skarlette, but this one is kind of cool.
I maxed out skinning on the first day in the first zone, which is typical. Fast respawn times and a zillion people killing stuff means lots of unskinned corpses to scavenge. Herbalism is slower due to, well, a zillion people around. 468 is still respectable, though. That dragon alchemy mount is strongly tempting me to drop skinning and level alchemy, but we'll see. That'll be for when I'm 85 and have done everything else. I've barely gotten my feet wet in this expansion yet, so there's plenty of time. (Ha! Feet wet? Vashj'ir? Get it? *snicker*)
I leveled fishing a bit while I ate supper at the keyboard. First aid's at 466. Only 452 cooking because A.) I haven't taken the time to go fry up a bunch of Northrend fish, and B.) I haven't found recipes for the new fish yet. I guess you buy them with tokens from the new fishing dailies.
Lore-wise, the main thing so far is naga history, which has been interesting. We learn more about Vashj's roots, including her mother, who was apparently a revered priestess. Interesting stuff!
There's a quest series where you get to experience a flashback to a huge battle between the naga and the kvaldir, and you play as a naga battlemaiden. That was really fun, swooping around as a naga, pwning kvaldir with a badass trident. They did an awesome job making the highborne ruins look like they'd been underwater for 10,000 years.
Anyway, enough rambling. I have to go harvest my crops in FarmVille and then log back onto WoW. ;) I haven't touched Archaeology yet so I may work on that a bit before I dive back into Vashj'ir.