Wrath of the Lich King

[Gfted1]

Thanks, Ill check it out.

[Calax]

WoWwiki is generally up to date and has the lore from Warcraft's 1 and 2. (I didn't know the swamp of sorrows actually played a role in Warcraft 1 until I read that site)

[alanschu]

Yeah I enjoy a lot of the lore in WoWWiki. It actually made me really enjoy WoW itself a lot more.

[Gfted1]

Got in lots of WoW time over the holiday. One little niggle I have is that due to the kickass phasing its slightly harder to get groups together for the "group" quests as everyone has to be on the same page or they wont even be able to see the enemy (or other party mambers) once they get to the quest location. Im also not a huge fan of all the quests that involve me riding something. The war machines and mounts are cool but every time I have to ride a giant the view really gets blocked by the giants body and I have to scroll the view all the way in just to be able to see around him.

[Aristes]

There are a lot of "mount" quests, and some of them require the player to essentially go it alone. For example, the quest in Grizzly Hills where the character sits on the back of the horse on the ride to Amberpine Lodge was really tough for my brother to do. That quests requires the player to use flaming oil, gallop, and thunderclap to defeat the enemy and safely return to the Lodge. We couldn't figure out a way to do the quest simultaneously, so I jumped off my horse and managed to take the heat off of my brother at the point where the largest number of enemies ambush. Even then, he BARELY made it.

 

Another one that I find irritating is the one in Dragonblight where you find the munitions and then man a cannon. You call out for survivors to make a run for safety while you cover them with the cannon. Sadly, your speech bubble obscures your view of the survivors and the throng of undead that jump out to attack. I didn't have any particular problem finishing the quest in short order, but trying to look around the bubble was frustrating anyhow. Did it cause a huge problem? No. ...But it did cause irritation. I mean, I could have changed the settings to remove the speech bubble. For one quest, though? Nuts! So, I end up having to do a lot of these damned vehicle quests for guildies and there's really only so much I can do. Many of them are phase quests, so I can only help folks as long as I have a character at the right step, which means I have to choose four folks to help. Some of them, I can't help at all. For my wife, I'll just run over and do them for her, which she appreciates on one hand, but resents on the other.

 

I think WotLK did a good job, but some of the mount/bombing quests just suck. I loath the "Disneyland" quest where you're stuck on a slowly moving sky boat while you bomb pirates and cannons. That's in Howling Fjord and I'm far too impatient to wait while we slowly move along on the quest. It's a million times worse than the flying bombing quest in Quel'Dannas. Heaven forbid that you miss one of the cannons or a sailor. You're stuck waiting on the boat for ANOTHER long arsed trip. It's not a problem to get all your targets unless there's a competing player or two on the boat. Best to group up and hope for the best at that point.

 

Let's not forget the huge number of feces related quests. What the hell is wrong with the designers at Blizzard? It's just ridiculous to diminish the creative and literary value of your work by including quests that require you to walk behind animals picking through their droppings, eating a bunch of weeds in order to look through your own droppings, or any number of odd and quirky quests that fixate on defecation. Okay, I can see one or two for effect if you're REALLY into that kind of humor, but there must be more than a handful (forgive the pun) of these crappy quests.

 

Nevertheless, these are relatively small issues for me. By and large, I really enjoy the gameplay. WotLK is what BC wanted to be when it grew up.

[Gfted1]

Huh, I dont remember a poop quest since BC. Also, I dont remember even one of those quests you just described and Ive gone through those areas to the point of getting the quest completion achievements. Are they Alliance side only?

 

But yeah, thats the stuff Im referring to. The Horde has a bunch where you wind up enlisting some giant for help and your avatar rides either on his shoulder or in one hand and its really hard to see whats going on. In one quest I had to scroll the view all the way in and when I got there the perspective was from between the giants legs. Thats right, I was a giants nut sack.

[Aristes]

That was rude, borish, and totally hysterical! hahaha Good Lord, Gfted! lol

 

Anyhow, now that I think about it, the quests I've mentioned all come from alliance flagged npcs. I DO remember the quest you're talking about, though. That's the one where you have to grab the thunder cloud things to get your health up? My res is set at 1600x1200, so I didn't have to swing between the giant's legs, but you have to kill three elites on that giant and a boatload of undead uglies. The one is Zul Drak, right? I loved picking up bad guys and heaving them at their friends.

[Gfted1]

Zul Drak is a nasty one yes, I died 3-4 times before I could get it right, but the one Im referring to was out in Storm Peaks where you ride the King out to the field of frozen warriors. You dont even have to fight, just go for the ride, but I couldnt see around him at all. I didnt even consider it could be due to my resolution. I have an old rig with a 17" LCD set to 1024 x 768, so that may be part of my problem.

 

Also, I wish there was a method to see which quests you're missing. Ive kinda become an achievement whore and I have two regions that I havent gotten the quest completions for. One areas is missing two quests, the other only one quest. I spent about an hour flying around Storm Peaks various quest hubs last night and I couldnt find the two I need there.

[Aristes]

I'm not exactly an achievement whore, but I enjoy getting them. We managed to luck into the Northern Exposure achievement. We were questing in Grizzly Hills near the coast when I saw one of those hunter chics like you find in Howling Fjord. I'm thinking, "I don't recall seeing those vrykul hunters up here," so I go take a look. Sure enough, she's a rare, so I run as fast as I can, sure someone else will nab her. I managed to charge her and we minced her in short order. Found blue leather leggings that fell far short of my badge leggings from BC, and a blue sack that was choc ful of crafting mat goodness!

 

I've done hardly anything in Storm Peaks except mine ore for crafting. I'll have to look into that giant thing there and report back how it worked for me.

[Hurlshort]

Smells like murder to me Aristes. What did she do to deserve that?

[Aristes]

Hey, you know how it is in WoW. If the name bar is red, it deserves death no matter what! Seriously, if we could just identify folks who want to harm us so easily in real life, self defense in advance would be a legitimate defense.

[Calax]

Huh, I dont remember a poop quest since BC. Also, I dont remember even one of those quests you just described and Ive gone through those areas to the point of getting the quest completion achievements. Are they Alliance side only?

 

But yeah, thats the stuff Im referring to. The Horde has a bunch where you wind up enlisting some giant for help and your avatar rides either on his shoulder or in one hand and its really hard to see whats going on. In one quest I had to scroll the view all the way in and when I got there the perspective was from between the giants legs. Thats right, I was a giants nut sack.

the alliance have a quest where you search through wolves poo in order to get somthing. I've had a problem with a few of the giants (the sons of hodir quests to unlock them are a PAIN, but you get some awesome shoulder enchants so Meh)

 

Zul Drak is a nasty one yes, I died 3-4 times before I could get it right, but the one Im referring to was out in Storm Peaks where you ride the King out to the field of frozen warriors. You dont even have to fight, just go for the ride, but I couldnt see around him at all. I didnt even consider it could be due to my resolution. I have an old rig with a 17" LCD set to 1024 x 768, so that may be part of my problem.

 

Also, I wish there was a method to see which quests you're missing. Ive kinda become an achievement whore and I have two regions that I havent gotten the quest completions for. One areas is missing two quests, the other only one quest. I spent about an hour flying around Storm Peaks various quest hubs last night and I couldnt find the two I need there.

For alliance at least there's K3, Dun Niffilheim, Frosthold (for the BRONZEBEARDS!), and a little place in the north west. Horde doesn't have frosthold or the other place but there is a crash site that seems really out of the way for the horde.

[Gfted1]

Thanks for the help Calax but Ive been to the ones you mentioned. I dont think Ill ever get that Northern Exposure achievement unless it stumbles into my crosshairs. You see, Im rubbish at reading people/NPC names. I just click and fire never bothering to notice if they have the silver dragon around thier portrait. Its so bad Ive frequently found myself standing right next to a guildy and not acknowledge them until they do something, like talk to me.

[Matthew Rorie]

I got to 80 and stopped playing that character (protection War) immediately. For whatever reason, I get very bored at max level in Warcraft and always have to switch to another character right away...I wound up with five 70's by the end of WOTLK (six now if you include my Death Knight), but not one of them ever set foot in any raids, or even did many dungeons. I like soloing but I need that experience gain and new spells/talents to feel like my character is progressing. Gear alone doesn't really do it for me.

 

So I cancelled my account today! I've done it before, and I have no idea if it'll stick or not, but we'll see in a couple months when the subscription runs down. All I know is that I have a pile of books that aren't getting read because I spend 1.5/2 hours a day playing WoW.

[Aristes]

For me, it's the social aspect. If it weren't for my guild, I'd be spending the time I play WoW playing LotRO. lol Seriously, though, I was barely playing BC by the time WotLK shipped. As it is, I spend a lot of my time online helping my guildies with stuff. I've run Zul Farrak at least 8 times for folks since the latest xpac shipped. I'll have to see, but I don't see myself jumping ship unless my brothers and sisters stop playing. Voice chat playing a game together beats long distance phone calls any day.

[Matthew Rorie]

For me, it's the social aspect. If it weren't for my guild, I'd be spending the time I play WoW playing LotRO. lol Seriously, though, I was barely playing BC by the time WotLK shipped. As it is, I spend a lot of my time online helping my guildies with stuff. I've run Zul Farrak at least 8 times for folks since the latest xpac shipped. I'll have to see, but I don't see myself jumping ship unless my brothers and sisters stop playing. Voice chat playing a game together beats long distance phone calls any day.

 

If I had better guilds I'm sure I'd be more into it. As it is most of my friends are spread across multiple servers, and the guilds I wind up joining are full of people who say nothing but DING! all day long. Or there's a flood of "GRATS DOOD" whenever someone gets an achievement, even if it's for catching five fish or clearing out the deadmines or something like that. Signal to noise ratio is a bit whacked, I guess.

[Calax]

For me, it's the social aspect. If it weren't for my guild, I'd be spending the time I play WoW playing LotRO. lol Seriously, though, I was barely playing BC by the time WotLK shipped. As it is, I spend a lot of my time online helping my guildies with stuff. I've run Zul Farrak at least 8 times for folks since the latest xpac shipped. I'll have to see, but I don't see myself jumping ship unless my brothers and sisters stop playing. Voice chat playing a game together beats long distance phone calls any day.

 

If I had better guilds I'm sure I'd be more into it. As it is most of my friends are spread across multiple servers, and the guilds I wind up joining are full of people who say nothing but DING! all day long. Or there's a flood of "GRATS DOOD" whenever someone gets an achievement, even if it's for catching five fish or clearing out the deadmines or something like that. Signal to noise ratio is a bit whacked, I guess.

I got really lucky, I'm in quite possibly the oldest and largest alliance guild on my server I think we can if we had every toon active field 450 characters +, people we're closer to 200 (I think, Might be alot more) but that's still pretty big all things considered.

[Aristes]

I'm in a tiny guild. Probably some 20 players altogether. I have to say that, although I enjoy the company of my guildmates, I still feel your pain, Matthew. First of all, the reason I stay is because of the people in the guild, virtually all of whom I know in real life. On the other hand, I most often feel like jumping ship because of the people in the guild. That's how it is, right? If you expect a close personal relationship with the other 19 or so folks in your guild to innoculate you against petty infighting, guess again!

 

I also feel your pain when it comes to achievements. Like Gftd1, I enjoy achievements, but it's ridiculous to congratulate a level 75 character for getting an achievement for exploring Elwyn Forest. Wha? During the holidays, when we had somewhere around 10-12 people online, the cheers for grand achievements such as opening a present transcended ridiculous and went straight to sublime. Some of us even laughed about it. ...But you feel compelled to congratulate folks for achievements because we've become so accustomed to it that it's something akin to a snub when you don't say anything! ...and some achievements are noteworthy. Finishing an instance at level warrants a "huzzah!" Getting your first character to 80 warrants a "congrats!" Trick or treating at an inn? Not so much.

 

One of my guildies is my ten year old nephew who will not shut up to save his soul. He's a good kid, but he'll give us running commentary for the last three bubbles of each level. It was total comedy because he said he was going to level any minute and then yelled "HURRAY!" a few minutes later. When we all congratulated him on gaining a level, he explained that he hadn't leveled. He was just celebrating reaching the Menethil boat in time.

 

So, as you can see, being in a close knitt guild doesn't spare you from some of the more egregious pains of guild interaction. However, at least our inane chitchat has personal relevance for us. We can keep each other apprised of health, visits, and other news. It's much better to have a guild where you all know each other and have a vested interest in each other's lives. It deepens my enjoyment of the game immeasurably to share it with family and family friends, even if I do have to remove guild from my chat log for a while every now and then.

[Gfted1]

90% of my WoW gaming is solo. Im in a humungus guild but I really dont chit chat with anyone. Im not anti-chit chat, I just tend to be too focused (oblivious?) to pay attention to the goings on in the guild chat. Im really only even in a guild for the benefits it affords my toon. Im much more conversive with random passer by's and almost all of my instances are done with PuG's.

[Hurlshort]

I'm in a large kin (guild) for LotR Online, but we have a private chat room for the small group of folks I play with the most. We all joined the kin together so it's nice to keep that group tight, while still being able to take part in the big kin events and raids.

[Gfted1]

So I was over at Blizzard's site to look for a forum, which apparently doesnt exist, or Im blind, when I stumbled across this:

 

WORLD OF WARCRAFT

[Morgoth]

Two questions:

 

1) Do I need Burning Crusade installed to play WotLK?

2) Is there a 30 day free subscription included with WotLK?

 

Thanks.

[Gfted1]

1) Im not 100% positive but Im pretty sure you do need BC.

2) Yes.

Edited February 3, 2009 by Gfted1

[Morgoth]

Wow. That surprises me. Because BC didn't have 30 free days included IIRC.

[Mamoulian War]

1) To play WotLK you have to have in your account linked Classic CD-Key, BC CD-Key and obviously WotLK CD-Key

2) I do not know if it is included, but there is free trial... So if you have Classic and BC enabled, you can download the trial key and later play wotlk after upgrade with same characters afaik... It's not 1 month though.

Edited February 3, 2009 by Mamoulian War