Warlords - My Impressions

   I'd planned to blog a lot when the new expansion came out, but there's been a lot going on at the moment with my shop at the forefront, but also an abrupt trip to the Netherlands to attend the cremation of Seeg's grandmother.

   Seeg and I have been playing together, which is nice since the only other games we play together together is Pokemon (don't judge us) and Lego Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit (again, don't judge us!) Otherwise I just watch him play, or play other things by myself. So it's been great to play WoW with him. Unfortunately, it does feel sort of wrong to be anywhere in Draenor without him except within my garrison.

   But, my impressions: it's awesome. The intro was great, and when we did it it was just the two of us. On my second run-through, with my shaman, there were other people there, but it was awesome with just the two of us. Frostfire Ridge was also quite awesome, and having read little to nothing about the content of this new expansion, I was surprised to see how big a part your garrison plays in the zone's levelling and questlines. It was cool, though, to have my own little place and gradually build it up with what I need, and to have such awesome individuals joining me along the way.

   We hit 100 in exactly a week. We started playing Friday afternoon, the day after its release (Amazon decided to take forever to deliver the game, so I didn't get it until 3pm, half an hour before which we agreed to start the next day instead since it seemed it wouldn't be in with enough time for us to actually use it and get stuck in), and we hit 100 on the morning of the following Friday. So that was quite cool.

   I really liked the Spires of Arak, and it's actually my favourite zone. I liked all of the stone and all of the dark forests, plus it was great to get more info on the Arakkoa. Plus there's a Hobbit reference, three Gronn sat around a fire with a chest containing Dwarven Beard Rings and a Burgler's Vest.

   I also learned mining on Daeaye instead of skinning - you'd think I'd have had mining with my engineering, but you'd be wrong. I'm glad that the mining works the same way as it did in Pandaria, it's nice to not have to fly around mining copper ore to reach just 50, and while mining fragments isn't much use, I'm really glad that you mine full ore in the garrison's mines.

   I also like the way rares work, though only to a certain degree. The fact that they drop their best loot on the first kill kind of makes them pointless to farm, and while farming does suck, being given everything to easily and quickly is a bit...anticlimactic. I can't be the only one who enjoyed the excitement of looting them in the old world, though admittedly the disappointment kind of sucked, but now it feels as if it's as easy as buying them from a vendor, and I don't really like it.

   It's true that not all of the rares spawn so easily, though, and I've yet to see any of the mount-dropping rares. There were a few we found that required 'summoning'. The first we encountered was within Deathweb Hollow - upon entering the back of the area, there were prompts of noises heard nearby, a sense of tension and being watched, and when you moved through the spider eggs, you squished the young ones. After messing around and doing this for a while, there were more prompts, one of which was that something was moving closer. We kept it up for a while, and eventually Taladorantula, a giant, rare spider spawned. That was pretty awesome. As was finding the four blood elves caught in the cocoons and being rewarded by them upon returning to the camp.

   I'm still really busy right now, which sucks because I really want to get stuck in and level my Shaman, who I decided to put the level 90 boost on from level 63 rather than my level 60 rogue (being level 60 also boosted professions), but the business is at least for good reason now. Curse my own success!

   I wanted to start Atherya's diary back up from where I left off, but since I've not had the chance for quite some time, I fear that where I pick it up from will seem a little out of place. But, I really enjoyed writing it and never had the intention of stopping, just taking a break, and it's about time that break was over. I wrote a catch-up diary entry a few weeks ago with the intention of posting it once I'd written three or four more, since they don't take too long, but I ended up getting swamped with other things and The Wyvern's Tail has seriously taken a back seat. Something had to, though.

   I will be blogging off and on about Warlords, both with exploration and screen shots, but I will also be bringing the diary back. I like to write several entries at a time so that I can make sure that I never post just one and then let it die again. At least this way, if it does die, there are several entries lined up to spark it again that will also give me the chance to write more in between. Fingers crossed I find the time. My book has priority when it comes to creative writing, but it's always good to have a more whimsical, less important project on the go to direct my creativity elsewhere and keep things from getting stale.

   So...I'll be back eventually.