Wednesday, September 2, 2009

First Aid and Eastern Kingdoms - Level 35


Location: Shadowpray Village, Desolace
Level: 35
Latest Achievements: "Expert Cook" + "Blackfathoms Deep"
Total Quests Completed: 254



Yesterday I wrote about the Eastern Kingdom Capitol of Undercity, but there are so many other important Eastern Kingdom Cities we haven't talked about yet.  In northern Eastern Kingdoms, so far, at level 35, I have encountered two very important stops. TarrenMills and Hammerfall.  Tarren Mills is an important flight path to grab.  A lot of the travel quests which send us this way have ending points around here.  You wont want to run that far every time.

Hammerfall is the second important flight path to grab in this neck of the woods, mostly for the first aid training you'll be doing here.   I found this out when I ran down here for my mageweave first aid training.  

It's a fun little quest which sets you up inside a small room with 6 beds.  One by one, you are tasked with bandaging the wounded.  Some will die before you get to them, but you need to save 15 before 60 die (I believe, it might be a smaller number, I've forgotten)  After you succeed, you can train in the higher level first aid.
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Sunday, August 30, 2009

Welcome to .... Undercity

It has been a long while since I've done a city guided tour. By this point, I'm currently level 35, you might have already ventured here and found your way around. I'd still like to give a guided tour though, because I seem to learn a lot more about the city when I do.


Undercity is, well, confusing! It took me a long, long time to figure it out. After a while though, Undercity, like all other cities, starts to develop it's own pattern. To find Undercity, you first need to find Ruins of Lordaeron and navigate it's courtyard and entrance way. It's not hard, there is only one way to do it. You'll know you've found the right place when you see two undercity guards around a doorway, the elevator.

The elevator lets you off into a circular room. At its center, and down one set of stairs, is the bank. Around the top row, you find the Inn Keeper, barber, and flight master, as well as various other vendors, for weapons, armor and misc. items.

Around the bank on the lower level, you find guild masters and cooking trainers, one on either side. Notice the pattern of steps and how between each there is an entrance to the second ring.

The second ring holds only auctioneers. Not much to say about that.

Continuing on to the third ring, and this is where it gets tricky. I'll be jumping back and forth between what I consider third and forth ring. As you can see by your map, blizzard has divided undercity into quarters. Each quarter has the river running through it. For simplicities sake, I consider the other side of the river ring 4.

So, starting on the northern connection and heading clockwise we enter the Magic Quarter. In magic quarter ring 3 you have trainers for tailoring and vendors for warlocks and mages (cloth armor and wand vendors). In magic quarter ring 4 are their trainers (warlocks and mages), but not much else.

The next quarter is rouge quarters. Here, in the 3rd ring, are the first aid, leather work and skinning trainer, as well as their vendors, various rouge centric vendors and the bag vendor. In rogue quarter, ring 4, you have the rouge trainers. Finding the pattern yet? The Engineer trainer is also in this area.

The next quarter is the Apothecary with Enchanting, Inscription and Herbalism trainers and vendors in ring 3. Ring 4 is a bit of a maze. Downstairs you find the Alchemy trainer and mainfloor is the alchemy supplies vendor. Yes, you do hear crying. This area is a big gruesome.

In the center of Apothecary ring 4 is a raised area which leads to a long tunnel leading to the battlemasters area.

Last area, the War Quarter, ring 3, finds us with the mining trainer and blacksmith trainer, and their vendors, as well as various ranged and fist weapons vendors. Ring 4 has a mage, priest and warrior trainer.

As you can see, no Druid trainer here in Undercity. This is much the same as Orgrimmar. Only Thunder Bluff has a Druid trainer because only Tauren are able to roll a Druid. For some reason there is also no hunter trainer here. Possibly undead cannot be hunters.

I think that's all for the tour. If there's something I've missed, let me know please.

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Wednesday, August 26, 2009

My New Favorite Addons

I wanted to take a break from my leveling blogging to talk about my new favorite addons. Those being ArkInventory and Outfitter.

A few weeks back I wrote about addons for questing. The two new addons I have discovered also make your life easier, but in a more individual way.

First one that anyone may find helpful. Ark Inventory. How many times have you been sent on a quest for items only to spend just as much time hunting through your bags for the items. Have you ever accidentally thrown a valuable item out of your bag because you were out of space and needed to quickly make room.

Arkinventory, pictured above, will turn your blizzard bag into one giant bag. From there you can designate pockets and set automatic or custom rules for each one. For example, in my personal bag, as pictured above, I set a bag to automatically pick up and hold anything craft related, another automatically holds anything health related. But where this addon is particularly helpful is in custom rules, and especially so for classes that might carry more than one wardrobe change. You do have to personally address each and every item you want effected by a custom rule, but now that I have taken that time, any time I switch clothes, the unworn items automatically return to the bag I want them in.

Which brings me seamlessly into my second addon, Outfitter. This was recommended to me by my guild leader, and I love it. Especially helpful for Druids, or any other class that shifts instantly between casting and meelee, this addon allows you to preset articles of clothing to pair together into outfits. No longer do you need to fumble about your bags to switch out when you want to cast or change to a druid form. The changes are automatic. You can even give yourself special outfits for any other situation you choose. Preset a fishing outfit that automatically equips your fishing line, or automatically switch to amore light when running around capitol cities (I especially like this option.. I hate looking all jumbled while banking)

Two downfalls, each time you wish to upgrade an outfit, you now need to change it in outfitter. This takes only a second or two, but you need to remember to do it. Otherwise, when you sell your old pants and then switch into an outfit that used them, well, you'll be without your pants for that outfit.
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Sunday, August 23, 2009

Onward to Desolace


Location: Shadowpray Village, Desolace
Level: 35
Latest Achievements: "Scarlet Monastery" + "Explore the Barrens"
Total Quests Completed: 242


After completing all but the highest level of quests in shimmering flats, I had enough levels on my to run a quest a little further out. One of the residence of Freewind Post wanted me to take a letter to his family in Desolace. I had been putting this one off incase my quest line brought me into the zone below Shimmering Flats, but with my quests at a standstill, I decided to go and run the quests in that zone. Desolace is a zone you can reach by flying to Sunrock Retreat in Stonetallon Mountians, and then running down through the Charred Vale.

Desolace is a very very dull area. Very dry and gray. Much like the Barrens. If you're running through before you're high enough to tackle some of these animals, stay to the path, you should be okay. My delivery quest brought me to the first village on the path - the little village above the Kodo Graveyard. It was there that I picked up several different quests.

One of which gives two options ... Pick which side of the feud you want to play on. So far, in my travels, I have not come to a quest that asked me to actively drop my rating with a fraction in order to increase my reputation with the other, but that is exactly what this one has asked. You can do one quest or the other (or, if you had about four times as much time, I suppose you could complete both quests by flipping sides at the end). I haven't made my choice yet, but I picked up both in order to read about them and see which has the most perks and least cons. (for all I know the rewards are unique to each quest, or persons choosing to side with one fraction will not be permitted to participate in another quest later down the line)

After picking up the quests and running a short "bring me the non agro kodo" quest (easy as pie) I continued along the path to Shadowpray Villiage, where I picked up more quests and found an Inn to set my home point and rest for the night.
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Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Shimmering Flats - Level 34


Location: Shimmering Flats, Thousand Needles
Level: 34
Latest Achievements: "Scarlet Monastery" + "Explore the Barrens"
Total Quests Completed: 240


In my previous post, I made reference to the lack of quests in Freewind Post. I decided to continue south to see about tackling the one quest, several levels higher than the level I was currently working on, I had for the shimmering flats.

When I walked through, I found this race track, and several quests surrounding it to boot. Apparently the locals place bets and the quests you do in the area all tie to the protection or improvement of the track. Several deal with helping the gnomes make their race cars run faster.

For the most part, these quests are completed in the area. They seem to be layed out ok, Though they could layer better. For example, when asked to kill Turtles for their shells, you also end up killing a few of the dragons because they are in the area. Once you turn in the quest, you get a quest to kill the dragons. (In Blizzards defense, it is *possible* I missed the dragon quest the first round, it's sort of out of the way.)

You'll also be doing a lot of running for the gnomes. Running to the two major gnome strong holds that we have already visited - Rachet and Booty Bay. At this point, you should have your flight paths in order, so the travel was nothing more than a bit of a run... several times back and forth. I also found the quests reach into higher levels the further you have to run. One part of the quest, for example, was to find blue prints. After some running and speaking to NPCs, they sent me to an area I was not ready for. The end of that quest will have to wait until I reach a few levels higher.

For now though, my questing in Shimmering Flats is over and I will need to travel in the opposite direction to continue the story flow.
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Sunday, August 16, 2009

Am I missing something? - Level 32


Location: Freewind Post
Level: 32
Latest Achievements: "Explore Barrens" + "100 Fish"
Total Quests Completed: 214


This post will take on two meanings. Am I missing something works as a subject for both, so now's a good time. First topic up for discussion, my lack of quests in log and second, lack of substance on this blog.

A few weeks ago, I made a post saying I could hardly keep up with the quests in my log. It's true. They would turn green before I could get to them, just by sheer speed of leveling. Starting at Thunder Bluff, in starting this blog, I believed my path would progress linear. I wanted to follow a story line, follow the lore and see how the story progressed.

And, in progressing to Crossroads, it seemed to do so. That is to say, until my quests sent me into Ashenvale, Thousand Needles and Stonetallon Mountians -- All at once. That is when my quest log filled to over flowing and my linear path branched into many story lines at once. So I completed quests for Sunrock Retreat, jumped back to SplinterTree Post, and flew down to Freewind Post ... Keeping the storylore straight in my head.

For a blog writer, who intended to write my way through the levels and lore, this is most frustrating. How to write about experiences that will be different for everyone who reads. And so, my writing began to slow and I started feeling less than joyous about writing each day. And I began to believe that readers, should there be any in the future, will decide to abandon my writing in favor of a more interesting and detailed account of daily life. In my defense, it's hard at best to write daily about quest lines completed when quests completed represent 3 different lines. How very disjointed.

Now, at level 32, It seems I have completed all of my quests in Ashenvale. I have been all over the map and cannot find a quest giver who will propel the story further to the north. Perhaps northern story lines are designed for Alliance Elves? Who knows, having never played one, not me. On the bright side, all of my quests now bring me south into Thousand Needles and I can continue my blog in a linear fashion. Or they would and I could, if my quest line did not jump from 29 to 35.

Am I missing something? No flow in the story line. We start learning about Darkcloud Mesa and then, poof, wait until level 35 and run down to shimmering flats to continue. Maybe I really am missing something, or maybe I will need to continue killing random mobs until my level 35/36 bell goes off. In either case, look for this blog to be a lot more linear now that my quests deliver me in the same direction.
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Wednesday, August 12, 2009

And Now We Run - Level 30


Location: Freewind Post
Level: 31
Latest Achievements: "Giddy UP" + "Level 30"
Total Quests Completed: 206


I have been waiting to reach level 30. Running everywhere, slowly, by foot, really stinks. Especially if you're like me and have quests spread over 4 zones spread from north to south. As a Hunter, you receive "aspect of the Cheetah" at level 30, as a Druid, I received Travel form.... Or, in other words, I get to become a cheetah. The Cheetah form speeds your travel to +40%. At Level 30 you can also pick up your first mount.

You should, in any class, receive a piece of mail that tells you where you can buy your mount. For a horde druid, a Tauren, you buy your first mount, all of your Tauren mounts, from the vendor in Bloodhoof Village. First you'll need to get the riding training, and an achievement for the choice to do so. Then talk to the vendor and pick your favorite color. I don't believe a mount can be returned, so choose carefully, because you'll be seeing a lot of this one. Especially check out the backside, cause that's what you'll see the most. :-P

At this point in the game, you can only buy a mount from your home city. You have received enough praise to raise your reputation to exalted. Once you have done enough quests for other races, orc's or undead for example, you will raise your reputation enough to buy a mount from them. For the time being though, Tauren get Kodos.

And now we run! So much faster. You buy a mount from the vendor, learn it from your bag and then can use it any time you wish by clicking it in your character/pets window. You can also drop the quick key into your bar for easy access.
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