v-s.net v0.6

Tuesday, 10:15 pm in World of Warcraft

So today Dad finally fessed up to the fact that he’d managed to score a Beta Key to Burning Crusade; apparently one of the guys in his guild’s brothers (!) works for DehBlizz, so the Wardens of Fate managed to score keys.  Lucky bastards; where’s my damn key?  Anyway, tonight when Dad was cooking dinner I did what every good daughter would do, and totally snuck onto his account, rolled myself a Blood Elf Priest and a Draenei Mage and levelled them both to 6.

So, impressions?

The most important thing first; roughly one year of in-game time seems to have passed since the ‘start’ of the original WoW (which in turn is four years since Warcraft III and two since Frozen Throne).  This is based on the opening narration for the BElf flyover movie (and yes, the original narrator got the voice in before he died; rest in peace, narrator guy) which mentions ‘five years’ have passed since the Scourge levelled Quel’Thalas.  Blood Elves speak Thalassian, and Draenei speak, well, Draenei.  Personally, I was always under the impression they spoke Eredun (aka. ‘Demonic’ in WoW)… but that’s pretty fucking nerdy.

Anyway, I rolled my Draenei first; no real surprises there, everyone’s seen one before.  The general story with the Draenei is it’s been one month since the crash of the Exodar, and the little pocket of noobzone NPCs think they’re the only survivors.  It’s up to you to fix the transmitter and make contact with the other Draenei survivors a hundred meters over the hill.  Hey, no-one ever said the Alliance were smarties.  While all this is going on, there’s also some lovey-dovey touchy-feeling story about how everyone is concerned that the Exodar’s shattered power crystals are mutating the local fauna and flora.  The first thing I noticed about the Draenei starting area was that it was really fucking easy.  Like, wow.  I mean, starting zones are never particularly taxing, but there’s usually always The Cave; WoW players will know what I’m talking about.  The Draenei have no real equivalent and neither, for that matter, do the Blood Elves.  I didn’t even come close to danger of dying in either zone.  The second thing is that you seem to make rep really, really fast.  Moreso than usual, though in this the Alliance (as usual) get a head start; everyone likes the Draenei, but only the Forsaken are big fans of the BElves.

The two new starting zones are both excruciatingly beautiful, have some awesome new mob models (Unstable Mutation FTW) and have great ambient scores.  There are a few ‘more different’ quests, too, than the usual “kill x mobs”; the Draenei have a cute fishing quest, and the BElves have a quest relating to the use of their racials.  There’s also a quest in both zones that will net you a four slot bag; all before hitting level 6.

The BElf zone is bright and very floaty… and somehow just not quite right.  I mean, there’s just something about a giant glowing green crystal with huge burning demon eyes trapped inside that says Things That Elves Were Not Meant to Know.  The capital seems cheerful… until you notice that the first NPC you walk past is Joe Random Citizen getting harassed by the Thought Police (and, yup, the wandering golems do indeed sprout propaganda).  There are also a large quantity of huge statues of Prince Kael.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I loves me some KaelxIllidan as much as the next fangirl… but so many statues is just a wee bit weird (especially since Illi is a raid boss now).  The layout of the BElf zone is also a little different from any other in that there is no ‘transitional’ town between the capital and the starting area; you walk straight off the island and into the ruined part of the capital, which consists of a few quick quests before moving out to some more decentralized outposts.

The new racials are quite a bit the pwnpwn at lower levels, though I’m not sure how well they scale.  Nevertheless, the BElf AoE silence has the potential to be the most annoying PvP racial since War Stomp.  Plus there’s just something gratifyingly cool about slurping up other people’s mana like a crackfiend.

There have also been a few visual improvements to the game’s art and effects; Hunter’s Mark finally has a decent-looking graphic (thank gods), and the visual for Windfury is now also a bit flashier.  The maps for the new zones all seem to be somehow subtly better than those for existing zones, though it’s difficult to pin down exactly why.  The Outland/Azeroth ‘Cosmos Map’ has a cool light-up effect which, while pointless, is nice eyecandy.  Oh, and (unsurprisingly) the login screen now shows the Dark Portal from the other side.

… speaking of which.

So after cleaning up the kitchen Dad came back and I handed him back his game so he could show me a bit of Outland.  There’s now a little joint-faction encampment around the base of the Portal (where those stupid demons used to be), and the swirly-stars graphic has been ritzed up and the blue glow replaced with green.  Walking through the Portal is an interesting experience; the first thing one sees on the other side is, I kid you not, a gigantic fuckoff Pit Lord (you know, like Mannoroth) and his army of Infernals (that come raining down out of the sky, no less) and fel guards.  The gist is that the Burning Legion is trying ‘hard’ to over-run the Portal and break back into Azeroth, but luckily there are an endless supply of Horde and Alliance NPCs fighting them off.

Luckily, there’s a flight master right on the doorstep of the Portal, and you can cruise on over to the nearby Horde outpost.  While flying over Hellfire Peninsula (which looks a lot like Durotar only, like, more evil and with more giant bottomless ravines) I also noticed that the area seems to be patrolled by Level ?? ‘Fel Reaver’ mech things.  There’re huge, and just looking at them gave me nightmare of devilsaurs from Un’Goro.

That was pretty much all I saw of Outland, though Dad did tell me there’s a Cenarion Circle encampment sitting at the entrance to Zangamarsh, and there are three contestable PvP towers of some kind clustered just behind Hellfire Citadel.

Almost hilariously, dad pointed out that the world map has been moved.  It’s been replaced in the microbuttons by the new LFG interface, which looks like it might actually be good, and instead moved up to the minimap.  that button I thought was Atlas?  Yeah, that’s the world map now.

The character screen has also had some improvements, specifically the addition of two dropdown menus that give a more user-selectable set of stats to display in the two little stat frames.  Good for the Theorycrafters out there.

Oh, and Jewelcrafting looks fucking godly.  Newly trained, it allows you to make not only two different rings with nothing more than some copper bars (minimum character level 10), but it also lets you turn Coarse Stones into what is essentially a single-use healing totem.  Um, okay.  Oh, and because I’ve heard people be unclear on it; the gathering skill it’s linked to is Mining.

I think the itemization in BC is also going to be… interesting.  Dad was showing me some green BoE axe he bought off the auction house; it had something like 40 points of Strength and Stamina, and a 40+ bonus to Attack Power.  Now, I don’t know much about melee weapons (or, in fact, any weapon that doesn’t help me cast Lesser Healing Wave) but that seems to be a fucking lot of stats.  For a green.

I think that’s about it; I’m moving house somewhere between tomorrow and Friday, so it’s unlikely that I’ll get to sneak on again.  Not that I’d really want to; my curiosity may be considered satisfied, so I guess it’s time to sit tight and wait for Release.

… now if only EB would take my fucking CE preorder.  Grr.

• Tags » beta, burning crusade, gaming, world of warcraft
• Mood » wowcaftian
• Music » Razing Eden, "Eden Ugly"