Nothing quite like exploratory ding sneaking up on you. After getting in good with Highmountain, I had Saintvache visit Suramar, since I wouldn’t mind a Nightborne. Once again failing to look up what is required bit me in the rump. I figured it would work the same as the Highmountain in that I needed to complete the initial group of quests. As you likely know, that’s not the case. But at this point, I’d now done two of the factions for “Uniting the Isles.” So it was off to Val’Ashar for some more samaritan work. It was while wandering about there the 50 happened. At this point, I’ll probably keep him up in that area to continue to unite the isles. That’s now the Paladin and Druid that are level capped for me. I think up next is someone on the Alliance side. The who is still up for debate.
There are a lot of quests of varying satisfaction in Classic WoW. One in particular many players manage to bypass. The quest has two requirements: Alliance and level 28. To start The Missing Diplomat, you need to pop in to the Stormwind Cathedral and talk to a young boy named Thomas. He tells you there is a bishop in Stormwind Keep that you should speak to. Over the course of the next dozen or so quests, you are going to follow the trail of some shady Defias activity and go from Stormwind to Duskwood and Wetlands to Dustwallow Marsh, where Jaina and company are thankful for your assistance.
Along the way it doesn’t take long to find out who has gone missing and it adds to the story that much more. It’s a quest chain that doesn’t require a lot of “kill x to get y.” A great deal of the quest chain involves talking to various people or cracking down on a few individuals. In the end you get a decent ring depending on your class and a great deal of xp along the way.
But none of it happens if you don’t come upon the start of the quest in Stormwind Cathedral. There’s a good chance the non-human races don’t come across it if they level in their race’s region. To say nothing of Horde characters. Honestly, I would definitely recommend rolling an Alliance character to experience this quest chain and a few other quite good ones. I’ll share a few more over the next couple of weeks. And don’t worry Horde, I will get to you as well. I just have to reacquaint myself with a few of them once more.
I never played the original Warcraft RTS games. To be honest, I would go so far as to say more than half the game’s population would say the same thing. A good percentage have also come in during later stages of the game. Maybe Burning Crusade when Demons were the focus, or Wrath when we were going after the Lich King. Possibly even this expansion. Regardless. Once you’re in the machine, you know full well it’s Horde versus Alliance.
Is it really? Mists of Pandaria was used to re-establish the line in the sand between the Alliance and the Horde, but that last for less than the whole expansion since we were working together again by the end in an effort to deal with nutjob Garrosh. Warlords was all about the orcs…the evil ones, not the Horde ones…and now Legion has been all about pushing them back. Yes, there were some cracks in the foundation (namely the scenario by which Sylvanas leaves with Vol’jin and pulls back her troops) but there is almost nothing that can’t be fixed (save for Greymane and Sylvanas of course). Aside from the PvP Battlegrounds, and servers, there is nothing that constitutes “war” anymore.
That the Alliance can understand the denizens of Highmountain, but not a Tauren, and the Horde can understand the elves of Suramar, and their own Blood Elves, but not a Night Elf is…well, silly at this point. Why can’t the two sides communicate in a general sense? Furthermore, we work together through every major bad guy in each expansion…but not at the exact same moment? Because the game wants suspension of disbelief in that you fight the fight together but when it comes down to the boss(es) you’re suddenly in parallel worlds or only one side is really doing the work. At this point, there’s no reason we can’t have mixed raids. None.
But that’s as far as it needs to go and you can’t easily get around it with the purists (for whatever reason) and have an optional filter to not group with the other faction. But at the end of the day if we can work together so much in the story, we should work together in the game. Heck, we are already sharing class houses.
Now I wouldn’t go so far as to say Guilds or the like. It doesn’t need to go to that extreme and obviously BG’s would be exceptions, but unless Blizzard tries to once more (and for much longer) restore the division between the Alliance and the Horde in the next expansion, the point really is lost at this point.
After a few delays and time away from Azeroth, Zarahi became the first of the Amateur Army to hit the new cap of 100. With much rejoicing I stopped to consider things thus far. As such, here’s 100 random thoughts about the new expansion: Continue reading →
Having decided Liouxpold needed a new look, I began puttering around with MogIt to see what I could come up with. Unfortunately I wasn’t having much luck, so I went off in search of some new Hunter pets for him which I found in the form of Vexxus, Gabriel, and Yrra. I then focused back on a transmog outfit and decided to start with a bow. Yes he has Black Bow of the Betrayer, but I was looking for something different. I settled on the Skyfire Hawk-Bow, figuring I could work on the rest as I go. I headed off to Shattered Halls and it actually dropped on the first run. A nice white cloak, Mantle of Vivification, also dropped so I decided these two pieces would be my starting point.
Thanks muchly. You shall only perish once this day.
When I previewed the two pieces in MogIt I accidentally had “current gear” in the view and realized the Barrel Stacker’s Mitts that he was wearing fit as well. Now it was a matter of off-setting all the vibrancy with a core that was darker. Initially I wanted blue, but that was before deciding on the gloves. So I just started previewing shirts to see what would come up within my current means. Shirts that required honor were most certainly out for now, as was anything 85 or 90 level raids. What can I say, I’m impatient and don’t like chance. I’d prefer to be able to build the outfit in the moment. I settled in on Savage Gladiator’s Chain Armor. I looked through the leg slot, but admittedly ended up cheating and going with the matching Chain Leggings.
Most of the time I don’t use existing set combinations, but once in a while it’s ok. Plus, in this build I stopped at two pieces. The shoulders and feet are both crafted, Vicious Dragonscale Shoulders and Tsunami Boots (yes, I could’ve cheated a second time and used the boots from the shoulder set but I specifically avoided doing that). All that was left was the belt. The one I ended up choosing had four versions and all of them were quest rewards in Twilight Highlands. I chose the Waistguard of Salvaged Happiness because it was a quest you could just fly into the zone and do. You need not have completed anything else first…and as an added bonus, it’s dirt simple to do.
At the start, I wanted the bow to be the focal point of the outfit. Having the gold in the gloves helps pull it in, and the cloak completes the accent pretty well. The core green managed to achieve the contrast I was looking for. Though I just realized the colour scheme is not that far off from Siori, I’m still happy with the end result.
Surprised? I know I am. Out of the two factions, I certainly knew this one was going to be the harder choice. A good portion of the decision making process was more about elimination than support. King Varian has certainly come around (a lot) since Cataclysm. He’s become a much better leader, but he just isn’t quite there for me. I also have zero connection to Velen. I never have, and I fully expect that to change in Draenor. For now though, he’s out. Tyrande I’m a fan of, but she’s never overwhelmed me all that much either -in part because her husband gets pretty much all the attention.
Without elaborating on the others any further the question is “why Moira?” To be honest, I always hated her. From the moment you got sent into BRD to save her pompous rump from Thaurissan only to have her say “no, I’m staying” (or if you aggro’d the fight right you could outright kill her), she made me eyetwitch. When Magni became one with the mountain and she snuck her way into power I was even more irate with her. Any time I went past the council for any reason, I wanted to stab her. Badly.
But the fallout from that is where things begin to change. She made genuine effort to integrate the Dark Iron Clan into the mainstream dwarves, though it didn’t necessarily go all that smoothly. However she learned something in all of it because she recognized what the other Clan leaders were doing and why and made similar sacrifice. Despite her past, Moira starts to show the Queen Regent title is starting to become more than just that. Blood In The Snow is where she takes her next big step.
If you haven’t done the scenario yet, I apologize in advance if you continue to read the spoilers ahead. Still, you can’t tell her story without it. Varian needs more help against the Horde and gets handed a nugget in that the Zandalari are going to help the Frostmane Trolls and attack Ironforge. So thinking he can warn them and offer aid, they’ll provide the support he needs in return. Only, there’s a hiccup. The dwarves don’t trust each other for a second and one’s not going to offer to help fend off the attack and leave the others in charge. Or that’s how it seems until Moira defies her male counterparts and offers the aid of the Dark Iron Dwarves and herself in order to defend the city. After they successfully stop the Trolls the king tells Moira the others should be ashamed for not aiding and that she should be proud. In a moment that is truly genuine she responds that she doesn’t want to shame anyone. She was simply trying to protect the city and prove herself loyal as well. Sure enough, the other two prety much hang their heads like scolded siblings even though no one suggested as much and the three Clans are pretty much unified now.
That’s right. The one dwarf that nobody, including myself, wanted in power was the one to truly and genuinely unify the three hammers. You really have to stop and think about it for a moment and realize the character transformation and growth of this woman (especially in a game that gets slagged for not having any dominant female characters). Granted, it wouldn’t matter if it was a woman or man, the task itself is daunting. At one point you’re in love with some crazy bastard down in Blackrock Mountain (sorry, but I’ll always consider Thaurissan as loopy), then you’re an iron fist over your entire race to the point people actually hate you, and now they genuinely love you and adore you for doing what a true leader is supposed to. So in the end, there really couldn’t be any other choice.
arcanewordsmith.wordpress.com 