No love for UPS
So UPS finally delivered my copy of Cataclysm yesterday while I was in the shower. Luckily someone was around that could take it. I got my account all upgraded and going around 9. I logged in only to realize I was in the middle of doing Westfall quests. So instead of trying to figure out all the new and shiny I finished that.
I think I like the directed way they're going with the questing now. It's more cinematic and full of story and stuff. Vanessa Van Cleef is as much of a villain as her father was. oh I guess I should say *SPOILER* or something.
After finishing off the zone I decided to go through regular Deadmines. The scripted way quests can just pop up without even talking to an exclamation mark is kind of nice. The graveyard right outside, the repair person right inside and the addition of teleporters is a nice touch. Streamlined indeed. I'm going to have to poke around the other old dungeons to see how they've changed as well.
So after that I went around Stormwind and asplored a bit. I ended up buying all the current skills so I can grind my way to 525 in them. The way people are all crazy and sniping nodes for the dailies is silly especially Druids who are op in that they now don't even have to leave flight form to interact with the world. So they swoop in and take all they need and swoop out again lickety split. I did the two dailies in SW (Fishing and Cooking) and then remembered to train flying and archaeology.
Flying in the old world is... interesting. It's definitely fast especially when you have a 310% mount with the guild perk of +5% on top of that.
After fiddling for a while I decided to look into the whole Archaeology thing. At first it is horrible, not so much as a tutorial or anything. If I hadn't looked on wowhead ne tankspot video I'd probably still be here scratching my head over it.
Basically to start 4 "nodes" across each pertinent continent pop up and you can go to each to search for artifacts. so 1 could be in EPL, 1 in Burning Stepps, 1 in Swamp of Sorrows and 1 in Stranglethorn. It's obvious to me that this shit is for 80s+ cause I'd not want to even try doing it without a fast flying mount. Even with a fast mount you could spend 10-15 minutes just flying from one node to another. After you're done one node another pops up somewhere on the continent. It could be in the same zone or it could be on the opposite side of the continent.
Once you land you can "survey" the area. What happens is a surveyors' telescope pops up with a blinking dot. If you're close it blinks green, if you're far away it blinks red. The business end of the telescope points in the general direction of the artifacts. Once you narrow it down the artifact pops up instead of the telescope and you can click on it for artifacts. You can do this 3 times per dig site. It's pretty much a Marco Polo mini-game.
Once you have enough artifacts you can research them for more archaeology points and eventually some pretty nice rewards. (gear, mounts, pets).
I can see myself getting into Archaeology more and more. The ironic thing is that it forces you to fly around the world looking for stuff; when I have more time I can gather from all the mining, fishing and gathering points around Azeroth. Now that you can have multiple types of stuff show up on the mini-map sometimes I'm surrounded by yellow dots that nobody seems to care about. The OCD part of me goes nuts if I let it.
On the plus side archaeology is not bad xp, probably not as good as questing and dungeon delving but decent enough. They've also added xp from gathering and mining but I'm told that the competition in the new areas is fierce. I'm probably going to putz around and not bother much in the new areas much yet. I can still do that shit at 85 especially when things cool down some and the assholes can go back to pestering the SW AH or Crossroads or whatever assholes do when they're not leveling. I've also got 525 levels of archaeology to do. I hear you also can only get skill points from researching after a point so it'll be a bit annoying later on.
I won't have much time to explore before the new year but I definitely want to get to 85 by January cause I know some guildies are itching to raid again. I don't want to get toooooo far behind.
I think I like the directed way they're going with the questing now. It's more cinematic and full of story and stuff. Vanessa Van Cleef is as much of a villain as her father was. oh I guess I should say *SPOILER* or something.
After finishing off the zone I decided to go through regular Deadmines. The scripted way quests can just pop up without even talking to an exclamation mark is kind of nice. The graveyard right outside, the repair person right inside and the addition of teleporters is a nice touch. Streamlined indeed. I'm going to have to poke around the other old dungeons to see how they've changed as well.
So after that I went around Stormwind and asplored a bit. I ended up buying all the current skills so I can grind my way to 525 in them. The way people are all crazy and sniping nodes for the dailies is silly especially Druids who are op in that they now don't even have to leave flight form to interact with the world. So they swoop in and take all they need and swoop out again lickety split. I did the two dailies in SW (Fishing and Cooking) and then remembered to train flying and archaeology.
Flying in the old world is... interesting. It's definitely fast especially when you have a 310% mount with the guild perk of +5% on top of that.
After fiddling for a while I decided to look into the whole Archaeology thing. At first it is horrible, not so much as a tutorial or anything. If I hadn't looked on wowhead ne tankspot video I'd probably still be here scratching my head over it.
Basically to start 4 "nodes" across each pertinent continent pop up and you can go to each to search for artifacts. so 1 could be in EPL, 1 in Burning Stepps, 1 in Swamp of Sorrows and 1 in Stranglethorn. It's obvious to me that this shit is for 80s+ cause I'd not want to even try doing it without a fast flying mount. Even with a fast mount you could spend 10-15 minutes just flying from one node to another. After you're done one node another pops up somewhere on the continent. It could be in the same zone or it could be on the opposite side of the continent.
Once you land you can "survey" the area. What happens is a surveyors' telescope pops up with a blinking dot. If you're close it blinks green, if you're far away it blinks red. The business end of the telescope points in the general direction of the artifacts. Once you narrow it down the artifact pops up instead of the telescope and you can click on it for artifacts. You can do this 3 times per dig site. It's pretty much a Marco Polo mini-game.
Once you have enough artifacts you can research them for more archaeology points and eventually some pretty nice rewards. (gear, mounts, pets).
I can see myself getting into Archaeology more and more. The ironic thing is that it forces you to fly around the world looking for stuff; when I have more time I can gather from all the mining, fishing and gathering points around Azeroth. Now that you can have multiple types of stuff show up on the mini-map sometimes I'm surrounded by yellow dots that nobody seems to care about. The OCD part of me goes nuts if I let it.
On the plus side archaeology is not bad xp, probably not as good as questing and dungeon delving but decent enough. They've also added xp from gathering and mining but I'm told that the competition in the new areas is fierce. I'm probably going to putz around and not bother much in the new areas much yet. I can still do that shit at 85 especially when things cool down some and the assholes can go back to pestering the SW AH or Crossroads or whatever assholes do when they're not leveling. I've also got 525 levels of archaeology to do. I hear you also can only get skill points from researching after a point so it'll be a bit annoying later on.
I won't have much time to explore before the new year but I definitely want to get to 85 by January cause I know some guildies are itching to raid again. I don't want to get toooooo far behind.