This week we killed Horridon for the first time!
I think I’d look good riding on a Horridon. Sadly, the mount didn’t drop. It would pretty nice to have one day.
It only took us 13 wipes to down Horridon for the first time! That seems like a lot, but I guess it wasn’t so bad. I think it was only two nights. We put some attempts into the Council of Elders as well but didn’t get far. Maybe we’ll progress more next week!
The Isle of Thunder is now fully unlocked, and I recently defeated Shan Bu in the solo scenario, Fall of Shan Bu. It was a relatively simple scenario with a few plot development points of interest. The Horde and the Alliance almost clashed but focused on defeating the Mogu and Zandalari first. However, once Shan Bu was defeated, things escalated.
Regent-Lord Lor’themar Theron demanded that Lady Jaina Proudmoore free the Sunreavers. She responded that they were led an assault on an Alliance city from her own city. Lor’themar said that the Sunreavers didn’t know about that. What I particularly enjoyed was Aethas Sunreaver’s emote at this time. “Aethas Sunreaver shift uncomfortably.” No mention of this by the characters, and if you weren’t looking at the chat, you would have missed it.
After Taran Zhu told them to break the cycle and walk away, Lor’themar told his rangers to stand down. Soon after, Jaina told her followers to leave as well. I just want to point out that the Horde forces put their weapons down first, leaving them vulnerable. That’s because not everyone in the Horde are jerks!
The scenario ended with Nalak still waiting. We couldn’t just let her live, so Mooglegem and I hunted her down. Unfortunately, as she fell out of the sky, her open mouth landed around a terrified Mooglegem!
Last week we broke through the walls of the Thunder King at the end of Isle of Thunder’s Stage 2 in the scenario Tear Down This Wall!
This week, we continued our assault. At the end of Stage 3, we mounted an aerial assault in the solo scenario To the Skies! We now control of the Thunder Forges!
I love the use of these scenarios to progress the story. However, I believe that they should be repeatable some how in case we want to see the story again. The stages are unlocking at the perfect pace. I still have time between stages, but they’re unlocking fast enough that they make me want to do dailies another couple times to see what’s changed.
We might be a little late, but we recently completed tier 14. In the screenshot above, we’re standing next to the body of Grand Empress Shek’zeer, our last t14 boss.
Previously we had finished Mogu’shan Vaults, gone 4/6 in Heart of Fear, and entered Terrace of Endless Spring a grand total of zero times. We started off our new adventure with Terrace of Endless Spring, skipping the end of Heart of Fear. Protectors of the Endless were pretty easy, and I didn’t even take any video or screenshots.
Tsulong was a fun fight, but maybe I’m biased being a healer. I’m glad to see Blizzard incorporate healing in odd ways. Hopefully these types of fights become a little more common than Valithria Dreamwak and Tsulong.
You can watch our kill above.
Lei Shi is my least favorite boss of this tier. She’s so annoying! Does Blizzard want certain bosses to have terribly annoying voices? I don’t understand.
And here’s her kill video.
Here we killed what’s supposed to be the final raid boss of the tier, the Sha of Fear. It was a fairly simple fight, but I still enjoyed it. As an aside, it’s one of the more enjoyable LFR fights as well because there’s something to do.
We actually posed in this one, but the body had already despawned. Oh well. I don’t have a video because I forgot to delete a large number of old videos, and my HDD filled. Whoops.
We moved on to Amber-Shaper Un’sok. This was a surprisingly difficult fight. I think the main problem is that everyone can’t practice at the same time. You might get the hang of being in the construct, but then you might not get put in it next time.
Once again, our kill video is here.
You can see our kill video for Grand Empress Shek’zeer here, and our kill shot is at the top of this post. This was a fun fight. This was going to be our final attempt whether successful or not. In fact, we had already called the raid but decided to give it one more try. I won the pants on a bonus roll, which I’ll only use once I break this tier set, and I won the mace, Kri’tak, Imperial Scepter of the Swarm, off the boss herself. Good bye, tier 14!
Earlier this week, the Horde completed phase one of the Isle of Thunder. I enjoyed what I saw of phase one, but the Horde needed a base on the island itself! When I showed up for my dailies that day, there was a single quest instead of dailies. This quest queued me for a solo scenario that tasked me with flying to the island, locating a Zanadalari outpost protected by a magic barrier, slaying the Zandalari inside, and taking down the barrier. It was a great of telling a story! You can watch me go through it in the video above.
With the Zandalari threat removed, Lor’themar was able to set up an outpost in the northwest section of the Isle of Thunder called the Dawnseeker Promontory. My favorite part? Well, my good friend Uda the Beast!
Uda the Beast was the Sunreaver innkeeper in Dalaran. I spent a lot of time with her during the War in Northrend because I loved her two wolves! I helped her evacuate with many other Sunreavers during the purging of Dalaran, and luckily she escaped with her wolves! Now she’s the innkeeper in Dawnseeker Promontory on the Isle of Thunder! You can see Mooglegem and me spending some quality time with her and her lovely wolves!
After checking out the Isle of Thunder, I decided to pay the Isle of Giants a visit. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I knew that a bunch of dinosaurs sounded like fun. The Isle of Giants is an island off the northern coast of Pandaria. Unlike almost everything else in World of Warcraft, there are no quests or hints telling you visit the island. You can’t fly on the island, but you can fly to it, and there’s a flight path on the island. What else is on the island? Dinosaurs, of course.
The dinosaurs are all large. The hatchlings look to be normal size, and the adults are huge. To take an adult dinosaur, you’ll likely need a group. I can solo the hatchlings, but I wouldn’t want to take on a group. I spent most of my time there with Mooglegem, which made it easier.
There are Zandalari on the island who have a chance to drop new raptor pets. They don’t drop them every time, but they do drop them regularly. If you spend the evening farming the Isle of Giants, you’ll probably end up with all four. In addition to pets, enemies drop Giant Dinosaur Bones. Zandalari drop one each, and dinosaurs drop multiple. The bigger the dinosaur, the more bones they drop.
You can turn the bones in to Ku’ma on the island for some neat rewards. For 10, he’ll give you a Mote of Harmony, and for 100, he’ll give you a Spirit of Harmony. You’re probably wondering why I said “neat rewards” but then talked about boring motes and spirits. There’s more. If you turn in 999 Giant Dinosaur Bones, you can get the Spectral Porcupette pet. It’s adorable, and I want it. Unfortunately, I won’t be saving for it; I’ll be saving 9999 Giant Dinosaur Bones so I can purchase the Reins of the Bone-White Primal Raptor. I want it!
Normally I’m against grinds, but I love the Isle of Giants. Consider Valor Point capping, my most hated grind. It has quests, story, and varying situations. That all sounds good, but it’s also needed. If I’m not Valor capping, I’m letting my raid team down. There are weeks during which I don’t quite cap, but I get close. Valor Points are tied directly to rewards that help me excel in raiding. In addition, a weekly cap gives me a set goal I have to make lest I don’t reach my full potential. If there was no cap, I wouldn’t feel the need to cap it. Yes, some people would get thousands in a week. I would probably say “I can always get more next week” and do less overall. Back to the Isle of Giants. No required PVE reward is tied to the grind, so it’s a grind I can do whenever I want. There’s no feeling of obligation. There’s just slaying enemies on a lost island filled with dinosaurs – a fun fantasy trope that fits well in World of Warcraft. I love it, and I hope Blizzard puts more content like the Isle of Giants into the game.
I managed to find a Key to the Palace of Lei Shen recently, which allowed me to access the Troves of the Thunder King. I like Blizzard’s use of the scenario mechanic here. Going forward, I think it’ll be a cool system.
The idea behind the Troves of the Thunder King is a good one. You have a limited amount of time to open as many chests as possible. It’s a simple enough concept. You’ll see in my video that I had a bit of a problem. Since 5.2, when I receive currency my game locks up for a few seconds. This wouldn’t be a huge problem, but the Troves of the Thunder King is timed. I lost a significant amount of time due to this bug. I need to do some troubleshooting to learn what’s causing this.
Despite that problem, I’d consider my plundering successfully. I got a decent handful of Elder Charms of Good Fortune, which were what I was really after. I plan on running Terrace of Endless Spring LFR repeatedly using my charms on Lei Shi and Sha of Fear so I can finish my tier set. I might need to do the same on Will of the Emperor in Mogu’shan Vaults LFR for my trinket. Additionally, it’d be nice to be able to use a charm on every 5.0 raid boss kill that has poor I need. I’ll be happy when I don’t need to worry about any of this old gear!
We managed to kill Garalon last night! I have a lot of videos of us failing, but near the end of the raid night we managed to kill him. Hopefully we have the strategy and skill to continue killing him in the future. We actually did a quick attempt on the next boss too before calling it.
You can see our success above! Funny that I just posted about Garalon, too. I’ll consider this a birthday present from Blizzard and my guild.
On Saturday we decided to raid Mogu’shan Vaults because our normal raid nights are now only Heart of Fear. When we got to Elegon, we decided to try to earn “And… It’s Good!” for flying through the rings. We got it, and now you can share in our joy by watching the above video!
Afterward we went to complete “A Change of Command,” a quest for the second chapter of Wrathion’s quests. If you’re worried, the video doesn’t have any spoilers. It’s just a fight, but it does take a group of people. We did it with 10. It was a pretty fun fight especially considering it’s a mob out in the world!
Last night was the second time we saw the Will of the Emperor in normal mode. It was a pretty easy fight, and we downed it quickly! No gear from this, although last night while clearing through Elegon I got a raid world drop trinket, Jade Magistrate Figurine (replacing a Coren Direbrew DPS trinket, actually), and necklace, Zian’s Choker of Coalesced Shadow from The Spirit Kings.
You can watch our kill above! I hope we didn’t chatter too much or say anything stupid.
Last night was then our first time entering Heart of Fear (not counting Raid Finder). On our first attempt of Imperial Vizier Zor’lok, he glitched and didn’t despawn after our wipe. We ended up resetting the raid, which means we had to clear trash again. Bad news, right? Wrong! I got a raid world drop, Gleaming Moth Cuffs. They replaced rare quality wrists, so this was a huge upgrade.
The fight wasn’t too bad at all! Again, you can see our kill video above. I apologize again if we say anything stupid… such as me thinking my raid leader gave me loot when it was actually from the Elder Charm of Good Fortune I stupidly used. But I did win Gloves of Grasping Claws! I also used valor to upgrade my Kri’tak, Imperial Scepter of the Swarm (raid finder) once. Lots of good upgrades this week.
You can see our World of Logs report here.
It’s been released finally, and I have to admit that I’m a bit underwhelmed. It looks good, and I enjoy the bits of comedy, but it doesn’t compare to the Wrathgate cutscene for example. I want a trailer that I’m going to want to watch over and over again. I still watch the Wrathgate video (and Summergale and Cranius’ Ulduar video) all the time.
The fight between the human and orc should have been shorter, but we should have seen more of an epic battle between the Horde and Alliance that was hinted at the beginning. I also think there should have been more focus on the wonder of Pandaria. The trailer makes it seem like it might simply be about one orc and one human who are fighting and then notice a pretty city. This expansion isn’t simply about a small fight between the Horde and Alliance; It’s about the escalating war between the factions reaching its peak, and we should see that. I want to see the Horde war machine in full gear, and the Alliance finally showing that they’ve had it. It’s about a place hidden for thousands of years, and the wonder of rediscovering it.
This isn’t new, but I wanted to share a few of my favorite WoW videos. Unlike most WoW music videos, this one seems basic enough but is very fun. Strangely, it gets me excited about Stormwind and makes me want to play as an Alliance character.
Also, the druids are cute.
It took until patch 1.6.0 for Blizzard to release another raid. As I mentioned in an earlier post, this isn’t because Blizzard wasn’t releasing content. They were just more lenient about what constituted a full patch number. In the last post, I talked about the 1.5.0 – Battlegrounds trailer. It was bad.
If you watched the Assault on Blackwing Lair trailer, you’ll see that this is bad as well. I’m positive that Blizzard knew how to make good trailers at this time. They did it for previous games, and they did it for the launch of World of Warcraft. Why does this one look like amateur machinima? Why is there a jerky camera? Everything’s in-game; there’s not even any voice work. It’s probably worth noting that this patch also introduced the Darkmoon Faire, although the trailer doesn’t address it at all.
Of course, maybe it’s redeemed by the character jumping around randomly around 0:15 to 0:17 on the left! Blizzard also uses this raid to reinforce the importance of the Black Dragonflight. In fact, having multiple Black Dragonflight raids so close together probably contributed to them seeming more important than they were, because they did take a backseat for a while afterwards. It was also interesting that the first three raids (and a few dungeons) were all within Blackrock Mountain. That was an incredibly important place for a long time. Besides PVP, it was the location of endgame World of Warcraft.
In Vanilla, Blizzard wasn’t matching patches to story progression yet. Some progressed the story, but many did not. Patch 1.2, Mysteries of Maraudon, brought holidays and the Maraudon dungeon. I was low level at the time, so I don’t know what it was like when it was first released. Next came patch 1.3, Ruins of the Dire Maul, which brought the dungeon and player caps on dungeons. It seems odd now to think that there was a time when there weren’t player limits. The more mind-boggling aspect is that at one point Maraudon and Dire Maul were new and, presumably, people were excited about them. Those dungeons are terrible. Is that just me, or do other people agree?
Patch 1.4, The Call of War, brought the PvP honor system, Children’s Week, the Gurubashi arena, and the elemental invasion. These are all good parts of the game I think (or at least on the right track). However, I still can’t imagine being too excited about this patch. It’s not real, full-fledged content yet.
Patch 1.5, Battlegrounds, brought Warsong Gulch and Alterac Valley. Here’s some actual content finally. However, it’s still only PVP content. Don’t get me wrong; I’m fine with that, but I think the vast majority of players are PVE-oriented. I couldn’t imagine the game without battlegrounds. Yeah, I enjoy some other aspects of the game, but battlegrounds are my favorite. Without them, I never would have reached endgame. I’m sure of it.
The trailer itself is terrible. It seems odd that Blizzard could make such a great trailer for the game itself and then release this. It’s bad. It’s really bad, actually. I would say it looks like a fan made it, except I’ve seen excellent fan videos. This is clearly recorded in-game withsome zoomed to first-person perspective. The camera work is shaky, and most disappointingly, there’s no voice-acting at all. At this stage of the game, Blizzard seems to be promoting mechanics more than the world itself. There’s no sense of getting into character and really making the universe come alive. Maybe it wasn’t needed back then because World of Warcraft already had the most undeniably “alive” world of any game.
Next we’ll see Blizzard gets any better with the Assault on Blackwing Lair.
I’ve been wanting to view and comment on the trailers for a while now. This is the original cinematic trailer for classic World of Warcraft and is still one of the best. In vanilla, there was no central bad guy. There was no world-threatening problem. What this patch introduced was the world itself and the peoples that inhabit it. It does an excellent job. Rather than showing off locations, spells, or story, it highlights the differences between the races and the hostilities between them. This was the first Warcraft RPG. Before then, you were controlling armies. Now, you were controlling a hero. It makes sense that the trailer would detail individuals, because the goal was to hype people about becoming one of these heroes.
Note the iconic way each race behaves in the video. We see the dwarf as a toughened hunter. The night elf is a druid and connected to nature. The forsaken spreads undeath just with his existence. The tauren is shown as thoughtful and, like the night elf, connected to nature. The human wields magic. And of course, there’s a lack of trolls and gnomes. Apparently, they’re unimportant.
Mists of Pandaria Beta: Watch the Horde intro to Pandaria from WoW Insider.
User Medievaldragon on Youtube updated the in-game cutscene featuring the introduction to Pandaria for the Horde.
Not only do we see Garrosh physically abusing his men (because they lost some sort of precious cargo), but we see him beginning to crack down on the debt of the other races of the Horde. This is pretty interesting. The Alliance was always, well, an alliance of multiple nations. They weren’t as unified as the Horde. The Horde was not just an alliance of nations. They were a single, unified nation led by the Warchief. However, he says “The realms will carry their weight or crumble beneath mine!” Obviously he’s been divisive, but this is much worse. Since when are Thunderbluff, Undercity, and Silvermoon different realms? They are as much members of the Horde as Orgrimmar… or at least they were.
The cutscene is very informative and interesting.
Then there’s the Alliance introduction. It’s a lot less interesting until after the cutscene, when we find out more about the Alliance’s missing cargo, The White Pawn – Prince Anduin Wrynn. I’d love to see more of him, because he’s a fantastic character. Anduin is the hero the Alliance needs because I can’t see how Horde players could dislike him!
I realized I never posted kill shots! Oh no! Here we are after having killed Morchok.
And now you get to see an off-center kill shot of Yor’sahj the Unsleeping. He must have been tired.
This is our newest kill shot from Tuesday! We killed that dumb Warlord Zon’ozz!
And another video from Zaghar! Woo!
Zaghar has recorded our first kills of Morchok and Yor’sahj the Unsleeping! Watch as they fall before the might of Carpe Flux Capacitor!
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