Far Future or Fantasy Universe - There is Always War

The latest patch for World of Warcraft, The Hour of Twilight (4.3) has been released. Besides three new 5-man dungeons, it also features a raid against the main foe of the Cataclysm expansion, Deathwing. And now with the new Raid Finder tool, I actually might have a chance to experience an expansion's climax for the first time. Just need to put in some time to re-acquaint myself with how to heal on my druid first. But between work, a dodgy internet connection and other distractions (see games below), I haven't played it as much as I'd have liked to.

Blood Ravens engage a small force of Orks

In the meanwhile, I've been playing Warhammer 40 000: Dawn of War 2, sequel to one of my preferred real-time strategy games. The main campaign, featuring the Blood Ravens chapter of Space Marines, plays quite differently to most RTSes. It's actually more of an RTS-RPG hybrid as you level up your commanders and equip them with loot, tailoring them to your preferred tactics. With no base building and this focus on small scale skirmishing, I could understand more devoted RTS fans being upset by this direction, but for me the blend works really well. With the end of the main campaign in sight, expect a review soon.

Blood Ravens Force Commander

And to indulge my nostalgia, I reinstalled Railroad Tycoon 3, the 2003 release of the Railroad Tycoon franchise. Its 3D engine is broken under newer operating systems and I had to hunt down a fan-made patch to get it working on my Windows 7 machine (available from the Hawk & Badger Railroad fansite). I've always enjoyed the train, business and stock management of the Railroad Tycoon games, and I was quickly back into the groove of the game, picking up scenario gold medals with ease. However, the game hasn't aged well, and the 3D terrain is more frustrating than beautiful. Still looking forward to a worthy successor; and no, Sid Meier's Railroads! isn't it.

Railroad Tycoon 3

Lucky for Some

After doing the Molten Front dailies every day on my main since the release of WoW patch 4.2 (Firelands), I've obtained the reward mount, the Flameward Hippogryph, and the meta-achievement title, the Flamebreaker, and am now sick and tired of these damn quests. I was hoping to get the companion pet random drop, a Searing Scorchling baby fire elemental (5% chance each day from a full set of dailies). But alas, randomness hasn't favoured me and I'll let this one pass me by.

So between dungeons, I've been playing more on my alts. Jahger, my Worgen Hunter spotted a rare (combat) pet introduced with this patch - Ban'thalos, an owl-like Spirit Beast flying high up around the entrance to the Molten Front. The tactic I used to tame it was to fly up directly from a tree, shoot Ban'thalos, land on top of the tree for minimal falling damage, immediately lay a freezing trap and then begin taming. Result: one awesome looking Hunter's pet.

Ban'thalos

Felqast, a level 80 Blood Elf Warlock, is my highest level character on a friend's server and I used him to give a couple low-level dungeon boosts for my friend's Hunter. The level 45 knick-knacks are of little interest to me, but I was happily surprised by the drop off the last boss of Stratholme - a 1% rare drop, Lord Rivendare's steed, Deathcharger. My Warlock is now the proud rider of this much-prized undead horse.

Deathcharger

Luck averages out in the long-term - here I'm more than happy to give up the Searing Scorchling for Ban'thalos and Deathcharger!

Thurgen the Flamebreaker

Still haven't had any serious time to devote to raids, but by chipping away at the daily quests introduced in WoW's 4.2 patch (Firelands), Thurgen was able to earn the Flamebreaker title.

Cataclysm's Veteran of the Molten Front meta-achievement

For now the title is rare enough and sufficiently novel for people to actually whisper me in-game about it. The last time that happened was when the Wrath of the Lich King expansion was still relatively new and I earned the Twilight Vanquisher title when our raid defeated the hardest version of the Sartharion raid encounter. The Flamebreaker title is a lot easier to get and almost all of the achievements can be soloed without difficulty. Only The Fiery Lords of Sethria's Roost achievement required a group, though I tried my damnedest to solo it :)

Cataclysm's goblin starting area

I also gave the Goblin start a go (level 1 to about 13) together with a friend who plays on a Horde server. It's got a very different feel to the Worgen start and is suitably Goblin-quirky. And you get some pimpin' looks early on - that's my new Goblin in the shades in the screenshot above. Both Worgen and Goblin starts are better than even the revamped starts for the other races, and as each should take less than 2 hours, there's every reason for those with Cataclysm to just play both.

Cities in Motion - bus stops outside a metro entrance

Finally, in the wake of the Steam summer sale, I've been trying out a bunch of my new purchases. So far the most interesting are Syberia, a 2002 adventure game that has you starting out in a remote French village whose livelihood depends on the creation of clockwork automatons; and Cities in Motion, a public transport simulation similar to the classic Transport Tycoon but focused on a single city.

Still too early to judge them - more thoughts to come as I get a chance to play some more.

Thurgen - The Journey Has Just Begun

This weekend saw me push on through the new Cataclysm content to have a second character reach the current level cap of 85: Thurgen, the Worgen Druid (typically specced restoration for healing).

Since most of my time was spent in dungeons, particularly at the higher levels, I had enough justice points (basic max level reward currency) to buy a couple of items and after spending a bit at the auction house, I now have decent enough gear to start on heroic-level dungeons.

In the medium-term, I plan to do some raiding with this druid, possibly when patch 4.2 comes out making the current (Cataclysm-release) raids suitable for pick-up groups and casual raiders.

Anyways ... some statistics on my experience getting to level 85:

• Played 107 hours, 45 minutes
• 138 dungeons completed - 41 unique dungeons; completed Utgarde Keep (lowest-level Wrath of the Lich King dungeon) the most, killing Ingvar the Plunderer 8 times
• 83 deaths (53 in dungeons, 7 in PvP)
• Killed 20094 creatures (including 452 critters, though I never meant to hurt them, I swear!)

The Blood Bowl Beckons and Other News

The Order of Darkness continues its progress and having won the Chaos Cup now has enough prestige to enter the greatest competition of them all, the Blood Bowl. Sporting a record of 43 wins, 3 losses and 3 draws and carrying a 20 match unbeaten run, I have one hand on the famed trophy already. Only problem is, some skeleton's chopped off the other hand! Star player (nearing on legendary), leading catcher and touchdown scorer, werewolf Simlarg Lowell was killed by a bloodthirsty Khemri team in the preliminary Chaos Cup games. I escaped with a scrappy 1-0 win there with less than half my players on the field in the end.

The Chaos Cup

Civilization 5 has received a new patch described as having made significant balance changes and AI improvements. I can't pretend I'm a Civ 5 strategic master, but I'm hoping for games where there are hard fought, evenly contested wars rather than the AI falling over whenever it doesn't have a huge numerical or technological superiority. I'll give the new patch a fair chance.

Finally, I haven't had a lot of time to spend on Jahger, my Cataclysm Worgen Hunter. But I've managed to do all the new level 80-85 5-man dungeons and acquire enough gear to do heroic dungeons. The new dungeons are all of a very high quality but they almost all have something about them that will annoy some people. My peeve is with Halls of Origination: it's fun with lots of boss fights and even some interesting trash but seems to be too long for the attention span of the average group assembled from the dungeon finder tool (I've only ever managed to finish it once).

Vashj'ir

As an aside, I've upgraded my internet connection and my earlier problems with Cataclysm lag and disconnections have mostly disappeared. It was likely this that caused the new undersea zone, Vashj'ir, to bug out on me as I have now started questing there with no problem. Since I'm max level, questing is mainly done for the gold and faction reputation rewards, but in the case of this zone, I'm just enjoying questing in a quite unique environment.

Alliance Ashenvale Leveling Guide

I'm away on an overseas holiday for nearly 3 weeks, so no more game time or blog posts until I get back. Just in time I've completed the follow-up to my Darkshore leveling guide with an Ashenvale leveling guide for Alliance characters from level 20-25 and has been submitted to WoW-Pro for inclusion alongside their other guides.

Ashenvale was more of a challenge to write a guide for since I wasn't as thorough with my questing here with Jahger as I was in Darkshore. So I had to rely on Wowhead and an army of alts to figure out the optimal route. I was finding shortcuts across the map as late as two days ago, so no guarantees that there aren't some other shortcuts there, but leveling in the zone feels pretty damn fast now.

Army of Alts: Shaman, Mage, Rogue, Druid

One of the biggest difficulties in the zone was the Dor'Danil Barrow Den. There's no in-game map for this underground area, only the portions you can see on your in-game mini-map. So the eventual map included in the guide was stitched together from a sequence of 30 screenshots taken during my 3rd run-through. I've included that section of the guide below and I hope you'll see how useful that interior map is for navigating the twisting tunnels that make up the Dor'Danil Barrow Den.

11. Head into the Barrow Den at 75,75. For the next two steps, make sure to kill any Severed Keepers and Severed Druids that you see and loot them for their Untainted Spirits - you'll need 7 of them shortly.

Follow the tunnel down and over the bridge straight in front of you, you'll find Taneel Darkwood. Kill him.

12. Leave the cavern by the western tunnel. Follow the tunnel until you reach the Forest Heart at 75,74.

You should have killed 7 druids by now for 7 Untainted Spirits (if not, find and kill some more druids). Use the 7 Untainted Spirits to create a Power of Nature. Right-click the Forest Heart then loot The Forest Heart.

13. Continue over the bridge and then follow the tunnel as it curves around to the left. At the end of the tunnel you'll find Mavoris Cloudsbreak on a balcony. Kill him.

14. Jump off the balcony to the tunnel below. Follow the tunnel to the left (north-east). At 77,74, take the tunnel branch to the left under the bridge.

At 77,73, just before the tunnel ends, you'll find Uthil Mooncall. Kill him.

15. Return under the bridge, and this time take the other branch up. Don't take the bridge to your left, just turn right up the tunnel at 78,74.

You'll pass under a bridge before hitting a fork at 76,74. Turn left, and then right up the tunnel at 77,75. Follow this tunnel out of the den.

Turn in Insane Druids to Gaivan Shadewalker.

Jahger - The End of a Worgen's Journey

So I finally reached level 85 (Cataclysm level cap) on Jahger, my Worgen Hunter. The new high level Cataclysm zones are really good with significant use of World of Warcraft's phasing method to present a world that develops as a result of your successful questing. There are also a lot of ongoing battles presented with actively fighting combatants on both side - unfortunately those areas really clog up my internet tubes, which means some areas were played at latencies of 5000 ms+ :(

Ding!

Although I can't give a proper review of the expansion, I'll offer some thoughts on the aspects added by the expansion that I have experienced:

• Low-level questing (1-60): Revamped and greatly streamlined. The style has changed to a more linear progression through each zone. I enjoyed it sufficiently that I've been inspired to write leveling guides for some of the zones. Not all of the zones have received the same amount of attention - Sithilus is just as crap as it always was.
• High-level questing (80-85): As mention already, I've enjoyed the zones I've played through so far, Mount Hyjal, Deepholm and Twilight Highlands. They are an evolutionary step forward from the level 70-80 zones in Wrath of the Lich King, mostly in terms of being able to sustain a clear narrative through each zone from beginning to end. Unfortunately the new undersea zone, Vashj'ir, was bugged for me upon arrival, so I haven't been able to experience what is likely the most unique zone in Azeroth at the moment.
• New races: The Worgen starting area is excellent and I hear the Goblin starting area is similarly top notch. After that, your race is largely cosmetic with racial abilities only having a minor affect on gameplay. The Worgen racials, improved critical hit chance and short-term speed boosts are nice to have. Not having a racial mount is disappointing.
• Revamped dungeons (1-60): Most low-level dungeons have been modified for better suitability with the new dungeon finder tool. Having the dungeon finder made it a breeze to do dungeons while leveling. As a DPS only class, wait times were typically over half-an-hour, but I'd just get into the queue and carry on questing until a group was ready. The changes are few and some dungeons, like Blackrock Depths, are still too sprawling to be suitable for random groups from the dungeon finder.
• New dungeons (80-85): Seven new 5-man dungeons have been added and I've played through 3 of the early ones - Blackrock Caverns, Throne of the Tides and Stonecore. Not all the groups I joined were successful since, unlike most older dungeons, boss abilities are actually significant, even if it just requires you to worry about extra spawned enemies or moving out of the fire. I look forward to trying the other dungeons and seeing the kind of challenges these dungeons might pose in heroic mode.
• New raids (10 man & 25 man): Three new raids (12 new raid bosses) have been added but you need to get better gear even after reaching level 85 before you should consider entering them. With an overseas holiday coming up, I'm not likely to see the inside of a raid for quite some time.
• New battlegrounds: There are two new PvP battlegrounds and one PvP "battleground" zone. Although I did a bit of PvP while leveling for variety, I haven't ended up in any of the new battlegrounds yet.
• Archaeology profession: Everyone can pick up the new profession of archaeology as it's a secondary profession. I put it in the same category as fishing - brain-dead and boring.

Deepholm, the Elemental Plane of Earth

So Cataclysm has greatly benefited World of Warcraft with a few bugs (the Vashj'ir zone for me) and disappointments (archaeology) keeping it from perfection. But WoW players of all types should find some part of the expansion to keep them entertained for many hours.

Darkshore Leveling Guide

I've really enjoyed the newly revamped early level (sub-60) zones for World of Warcraft that have been introduced with the Cataclysm expansion. Having previously written a leveling guide for a Northrend zone long after most people would have leveled past it, I've decided to write some leveling guides for the low-level zones that I enjoyed with my hunter, Jahger.

The leveling guides I'm writing and have read should probably be called questing guides or zone guides, as they are just a step-by-step guide to completing all the quests in a specific zone in the most efficient manner. Discovering all the quests (from sources such as Wowhead), their inter-dependencies and then optimizing the route to accomplish them all is a fun challenge. But after that is a lot of hard work - testing the route, writing it all down in a clear step-by-step way, creating the maps, retesting... overall I've run the Darkshore zone 5 times and can now reconstruct the optimal route from memory :P

The end result, my first completed guide for Cataclysm, is the Darkshore Leveling Guide for Alliance characters from level 10-20 and is part of the excellent collection of free leveling guides available on WoW-Pro.

Although the guide caters for the possibility that you're a first time player, I personally would recommend only using it when you're trying to level your umpteenth alt character to max level as quickly as possible. Newcomers would do well to just take their time and enjoy the upgraded, streamlined, leveling experience provided in this post-Cataclysm World of Warcraft.

Just for interest's sake, I've reproduced a very short sample from the guide. Personally, this is the most significant section for me as it details a quest that I never found on my first time through with Jahger.

To Cliffspring Hollow (9) and Maw of the Void (10)

10. Leave the cave, and jump down to the left of the waterfall. Follow the top of the cliffside and you'll see the top of a massive waterfall ahead of you. Jump into the water and swim over the edge of the waterfall. Go into the big whirlpool, Maw of the Void, at 52,31. You will be sucked down into Bashal'Aran's Collapse.

Follow the only path out up to Telarius Voidstrider. Kill him and loot him for Writings of the Dark Herald. Use it to get the quest Writings of the Void.

11. Use your hearthstone to return to Lor'danel. (If your hearthstone is on cooldown, return to Bielara Ivyshroud at the foot of the path and talk to her to return to the surface, then walk back to Lor'danel.)

Turn in:

• The Boon of the Seas
• Writings of the Void
• A Cure in the Dark
• The Corruption's Source
• Bearer of Good Fortune
• A Troubling Prescription

Get the following quests:

• The Final Flame of Bashal'Aran
• A Love Eternal
• A Lost Companion

Jahger Conquers Outland

So my new Cataclysm character, Jahger the Worgen Hunter, has reached level 70 (the current level cap is 85). With the revamp of the content for levels 1-60, the content released for levels 60-70 in the first expansion is now the oldest content and the most annoying to do. However, the hunter having a pet allows you to tackle content normally designed for groups. So, to make things more interesting, I've gone out of my to tackle all the group quests I've come across. This culminated in my hard fought victory over the ferocious gronn, Durn the Hungerer.

Durn the Hungerer slain

Level 69 unlocks the top talent in your chosen talent tree, which as a Beast Mastery Hunter is the ability to tame exotic pets. I've started by getting the striking looking core hound, the Kurken, from the Draenei starter area. The unique buff it provides, Ancient Hysteria, is one of the strongest in the game - equivalent to the much vaunted Shaman ability Heroism/Bloodlust.

Jahger, level 50 hunter, with his new, unnamed, core hound

Unfortunately it looks like Survival is by far the best talent tree to take for the current endgame content at the moment, so I guess I'll just enjoy my Beast Mastery while leveling and ready myself for having to relearn the class when I hit 85. Until then, though, I have the frozen lands of Northrend and the new zones of Cataclysm to explore.

Cataclysm Shatters Sales Record

So, according to a Blizzard press release, World of Warcraft's third expansion, Cataclysm, sold 3.3 million copies in its first 24 hours of release, making it the fastest-selling PC game of all time.

I'll count myself in that number and since I resubscribed I've been playing it a lot. Jahger, my Worgen Hunter has already reached the lofty heights of level 50. Leveling in this post-Cataclysm world is a real pleasure, streamlined and story-focused. If you have any interest in MMOs (or are a lapsed WoW player), you owe it to yourself to give this new world a try. You don't even need to buy any of the expansions to experience the changes.

Story-focused post-Cataclysm questing

Besides questing and doing group dungeons, I've picked up a fascination for animal collecting. You see, with the overhaul of the Hunter class for the new expansion, the class-defining Hunter's pets were all put on a level playing field (though you customize them with talent choices) except for a unique buff or debuff based on the pet's family - cats give an agility buff, hyenas increase bleed damage taken by the enemy, etc. By the time he reaches the new level cap of 85, a good Hunter should have a wide selection of pets to cover whatever buffs/debuffs are missing from the group. I've picked out the pets in each family that I want based on their looks, and seek them out to tame them as soon as I reach their level. My preferred pet while I'm leveling is Whitefang, a White Worg, which gives a bonus to one's chance to score critical hits.

Jahger and his faithful worg, Whitefang

The leveling curve does get steeper, but I hope to get on to the new Cataclysm (80+) zones in another week or so.

"Terrible, yet refined..."

With the release of World of Warcraft's latest expansion, Cataclysm, I've cancelled my Aion subscription with Armitage the Cleric having reached level 20. Although the questing has been fairly fun, I've yet to see any group content, which is a pity for an MMO. Regardless, I don't see myself rushing back with the amount of content to see in Cataclysm.

Armitage, Elyos Chanter (Aion)

For those who don't know, Cataclysm has reshaped all the Old World (level 1-60) content, making for a much more enjoyable experience. And with PvP battleground queues and the (relatively new) PvE dungeon finder, joining groups for multiplayer while you level is really easy.

To further tempt one to experience the new leveling content, Cataclysm has introduced two new races, Worgen (werewolves) and Goblins. I've created Jahger, the Worgen Hunter.

Jahger, Worgen Hunter (World of Warcraft)

The Worgen have their own introductory questline that runs along the timeline of the Shattering. As a human in the kingdom of Gilneas, you begin by helping to defend the capital from the constant assault of Worgen, before eventually falling to the Worgen curse yourself. Held prisoner by the humans, you're given a chance to prove that you have control over your bestial nature.

Can a Worgen be trusted?

What begins as a defence against an assault by the Forsaken (the undead of the Horde) becomes a desperate evacuation as the cataclysm sees the land sinking beneath the ocean.

Just this questline tops anything I've seen in Aion with World of Warcraft's phasing tech being used to give a real sense of progression of the timeline. Of course, most quests still boil down to kill X creatures or find Y items, but it is really worthwhile to pay attention to the story here.

I believe Goblins have a similarly excellent introductory questline and look forward to giving that a go, but meanwhile I'm pushing on with Jahger. I've already reached passed level 20, leaving Armitage's accomplishment as just a fading memory.

The title of this post is a reference to an oh-so-relevant Penny Arcade comic about Cataclysm and Worgen.