Trigamortis blues

I haven't played WoW in a long time, but I was thinking back on it today. What I liked most about it was exploring areas, looking for hidden secrets and quests, and the most fun I had was with my hunter because on top of exploring I could also look for rare pets.

Here's some of the rares I had at the time I stopped playing.

Collected these  beauties in less than 2 weeks.

And here are a few more. But my Hunter he had like every in game rare there was - and all the pets too. Including the fishing ones like the turtle mount and lobster pet.

I think my first two years of WoW were the best though. When my friends and I would explore pre BC lands over and over. I had a Druid back then and sometimes I actually miss him >_<

Silly I know - but back then the whole thing had a sense of wonder and magic to it. My fave spot was Feralas - used to spend outs on the shore line there just exploring.

Epic Screen

Omega in his Avatar state.

Ding!

Well about a week after Cata Omega dinged 85 today.

Though I have been playing a lot of WoW, I didn't think 80 to 85 would have been such a dash. Sure where were people dinging 85 only hours after Cata released, but I was kind of hoping to pace my self a bit.

A moment after dinging.

As far as quest progression goes, I've only just started questing in Uldum. Starting from Vashj'ir, I picked up and did every chain quest I fiund, following the story of Cata as closely as I could. I did all the quests in Hyjal and only this morning I finished all the chains in Deepholm, so I've still got a lot of Cata to see and a lot of gold pay-outs heading my way :D

Which is good cause all the gold I've been getting thus far has been used to get Trigamortis (my hunter) his damn epic flying skill and to level his Engineering.

He can finally make all the goodies Omega always wanted but never got to have, including his very own Turbocharged Flying Machine.

Death from above!

So now with the expectations of leveling behind me... I can just chill and enjoy the rest of what Cata has to offer. So far Uldum has been very interesting, and a lot of the quests here a lot of fun (Wait till you see what Bud has planned) so I guess for now I'm going to get back to that.

Epic Screen

Omega vs Chthulhu wanna-be

Epic loot!

I love gearing up in WoW.

I go through great lengths to get Omega the finest in gear, wither it be through raids, randoms or quests. But as with the other WoW expansions, stepping into Cata meant bye-bye to Wrath epics.

There's nothing more heart breaking than replacing a favourite epic with a green that kicks its ass in stats. In fact now Omega is decked out in quest rewards and dungeon blues.

I don't totally mind this though because I feel it sort of evens out the play field a little and leads to a fresh raid start when you hit the lvl cap. It's also pretty cool for people who will be leveling past most of the older 80 stuff and jumping into Cata like my hunter.

Omega even dumped about 1k gold on tailoring so he could craft himself some gear he could use. It cost 1k because the price of the new [Embersilk cloth] is so damn expensive right now in the AH. This didn't hurt too bad because he actually made like 2k gold simply questing and selling drops and non-usable quest rewards.

It did kind of burn though when I dropped a shit load of gold to make my self a Desthsilk Robe, only to replace it in the very next random I ran with another robe that was better and had the same model.

20,000 leagues under the sea.

So today Omega finally finished the massive quest chain that made up the story line in Vashj'ir which is the new zone where level 80s go to start their Cataclysm leveling.

And what an epic adventure it has been so far.


Right from the start as you enter into the underwater world of Vashj'ir you know that Blizz went out of their way to make things interesting not only for you the player, but themselves as developers. What really sets the beginning of this expansion apart form the others is that not only dose it look like nothing you've ever seen in WoW before, but the quests throw you into the deep end of an epic battle which lives up to your stature as one of Azaroth's mightiest heroes.

You're not out collecting wolf fur or fel boar poop... you're out to save an under water world and ultimately the rest of humanity.

"Life is much better down where it's wetter"

The dynamics of the zone are quit unique as well, because not only are you travelling back and forth, but also up and down as you swim to great depths and massive heights to reach quest objectives. Luckily through a short chain quest, you get yourself an awesome seahorse mount that makes exploring considerably large under sea land of Vashj'ir a lot easier.

References that might be considered spoilers

I'm not going to go into detail about the quests, but it was engaging enough to keep me in the zone till I was done with the whole thing. I will tell you though that it involves ancient beings and under sea gods tearing each other apart... with armies assembling to reap the benefits of this and you along with what little allies you have, trying to arrange a pleasant out come. The whole thing spans across the entire zone and ends with a massive battle in an area within the zone called the Abyssal Depths.


The quest line gets pretty heavy on the drama and such, but does manages to throw in a few fun things here and there through side quests you pick up along the way. One quest that was actually part of the main story line made me laugh out loud for realzies.

There's this one bit where you have to collect these little eyeballs that you get from under sea demons that look like miniature octopuses. When you hand in the quest, the quest giver asks you to see what happens if you place the creature on your head.

What follows is a hilarious cut scene which in Omega's case involved him being possessed by the creature and attacking the NPCs around him.


And as if that wasn't fun enough, as you hand in the quest for a second time there's this little option:

...hehe.

Another thing that rocks pretty hard with the expansion is the sheer number of cut scenes used to develop quests and story lines. It's a very cool and welcome edition to the game for me, and in the final quest that ended the chain, these cut scenes really nailed the grand scale of things.

Riding to battle on a sub :D

Needless to say that at the end of the first zone, I'm really looking forward to what ever else is coming up for Omega. I actually dinged 81 to 83 in Vashj'ir so now I have my pick of where to go next, but I think I'll follow what appears to be the game intended progression and visit Hyjal.

Peacebloom versus Ghouls

Today as I was exploring the newly done areas of Azeroth, I came across a quaint little farm up in Hillsbrad. Stopping by I met up with a goblin botanist named Brazie.

On Brazie's farm.

Now apparently Brazie has been having a bit of trobule with a undead guy named Warden Stillwater, and every now and then he sends a horde of zombies to attack Brazie's farm. So in good old quest giver fashion he asks me if I can help a goblin out and defend his farm against the undead.

When you accept the the quest your in for a delight as WoW turns into a little mini game of Plants vs Zombies which is a very popular take on tower defence games by developer PopCap games.

The quest is broken up into five parts with the first two being pretty much a little tutorial on how to play. It's not the steepest of learning curves, but if you haven't played the original Plants Vs Zombies then you might take a little bit of trial and error to find a wining combination of plants to smash zombies. But if you have played the original than there's plenty of smiles as you'll feel right at home, flower-powering zombies back into the dirt.

Peacebloom versus Ghouls

As you progress through the levels (quests) the types of zombies coming at you start to get harder and they also come in bigger numbers. But to help you along, new plants are added to your floral arsenal which range from exploding pumpkins to plants that freeze and slow the undead attackers down.

I wont lie to ya, it took me a few tries to take out the Warden during the last quest (Aptly titled Lawn of the Dead) , and because the game is a sort of instance where Omega's level didn't matter, this quest can be played at any level and will still be a challenge.

At level 80 the quest gave me something like 13 gold per chain bit, with a 29gold reward for the last part.


But more so than the gold the most valuable thing you get out of this quest is Brazie's Sunflower Seeds which teaches you how to summon a singing Sunflower, which to me is cutest non combat pet available in the game (not counting things you can buy outside the game), especially when it starts to sing. The Sunflower's singing voice is that of Laura Shigihara who sang the original Plants Vs Zombies theme song, as well as composed the games music.

You gotta love Blizzard for not just adding such a cool and fun mini-game to break up the questing, but also for teaming up with the smaller developer and giving them some much deserved exposure.

The only thing bad about this whole thing is that whenever the Sunflower sings it makes Omega feel all soft and gooey inside, which can't be good for his blackened soul.