Az's BC Journal, day 7

It seems the beta servers will be down all day today, so I can't generate any brand new screenshots or research what's in-game for completeness. Instead, I'm going to recount an experience I had early on.

It's said that there are, in very general terms, four types of MMO players -- achievers, explorers, socializers, and killers. Achiever care about accomplishment, explorers look for new things to discover, socializers are there to enjoy the company, and killers are there to destroy it. I listed them in that order for a reason, since that's basically the order they exist in me -- I am an achiever first, but eventually my curiosity and restlessness as an explorer gets the better of my intentions to sit and power-grind out quests.

Such were my feelings on the fourth day of beta. After playing through Zangarmarsh, (remember my first three days were in Hellfire Peninsula,) I got a little tired of the same exact scenery everywhere I went. Rather than continuing to level that day, I decided I would see what lay over the next mountain...er, mountain range.

So at level 63, I rode north into a level 65 zone with the intention of trying to hit up every part of each zone, and fill out my map. The achiever in me said I was attempting to find all the points of interest for putting up on the site, which is why most of these screenshots are of "Discovered: XXX" or have the name of an area in the middle of them.

In short order, I rode through each of the following zones in this order:
north to Blade's Edge Mountains, normally the 5th of the 7 zones that you would enter
east to Netherstorm, zone 6 out of 7
hearth to Zangarmarsh, zone 2 of 7
south to Nagrand, zone 4 of 7
east to Terokkar Forest, zone 3 of 7
further east to Shadowmoon Valley, zone 7 of 7.
I tried to run around in Terokkar at the end of my second night at level 61 and got mauled pretty fiercely down around Auchindoun (where there are level 65 mobs,) so to throw caution to the wind and ride right into zones against +7 mobs in unknown territory would be an adventure.



Part 1 -- Blade's Edge Mountains
Level range: 65-70
Terrain style: Mountainous, but varied. Lots of tunnels and bridges leading into areas noticeably different from the previous.


What you'll no doubt notice initially about Blade's Edge Mountain is that it's very pointy. What you'll notice later is that it's very broken up into small sub-sections of terrain. Through the middle of the zone is a big gulch lined with ogres, raptors, and oh yeah, spiky rock projections.



That canyon was broken up into no fewer than ten points of interest, including about 5 ogre areas, an overrun Draenethyst mine, and Gruul's Lair. Gruul is one of the Gronn, and he's one big nasty mother-somethinger that is the focus of a raid instance like Onyxia's Lair.

Although I had very easily found a way into the canyon, I had to ride for a while to realize just where I could get out of it. There were a few stone bridges over top of the canyon, but I couldn't find any way up the walls. Turns out I really just wasn't looking hard enough because I was too afraid to get close to the mobs, and eventually I found my way into Ruuan Weald where the Cenarion Expedition has another camp.



That expedition was in an area called Ruuan Weald, and while I have no idea what a "Weald" is, I did find the source of the "Ruuan" -- nearby Veil Ruuan, home to an arakkoa tribe. (All arakkoa areas start with 'veil'.)



And just when I was wondering if those big stone "bridges" overhead were indeed bridges that I could cross, I found one. Mind you, entering this zone involved coming through one of two tunnels. When I make the map for this zone, I'm going to have to mark all the over/under sections or you'll never be able to navigate it.



On the other end of the tunnel was another area with light grass and some treants and arrakoa and a nasty tribe of cultists that I couldn't escape from. I died so far into a cave and so far away from anything I just hit the spirit rez and found myself in a completely different part of the zone than I had been to. Turns out I had a knack for missing the two Alliance outposts in the zone and went right between them. Had I entered through the other tunnel into the zone, crossed an initial bridge, or taken an early left out of that canyon, I'd have found my way to the Night Elf outpost of Sylvanaar.



In fact, overall, Blade's Edge was going to turn out to be my deadliest zone in this romp. Not that Netherstorm was particularly kind and Shadowmoon was pretty brutal itself, but this zone just isn't friendly to the underleveled and completely lost.

Shortly afterward, I crossed beyond my starting point up a nearby ridge and into a gnome outpost. Yes, gnome. (I don't have a good shot unfortunately.)

The plateau Toshley's Station was on was a bit different than the grassy areas I had been on previously, a little more like the canyon, but still somehow different.



And there were a few other hotspots I steered clear of, including a legion forge and a black section of the map called eath's Door that seemed to get me killed from either tunnel entrance. (I'd have been fine with two more levels, probably.)

What bothered me were two large sections of the map I simply could not find a way to reach, but a guildmate told me he was unable to reach those sections either, so I shrugged and located the bridge into Netherstorm.


Part 2 -- Netherstorm
Level range: 67-70+
Terrain style: Eerie dark purple wasteland located among various small floating rocks.


There are -no- Alliance or Horde outposts in Netherstorm. You rely on the kindness of the goblins in this area, and so while there is no PvP objective here, I'm sure the open fighting on PvP servers will be brutal here. My first clue to this neutrality was the entrance itself being controlled (built?) by goblins.



With lightning flashes in the background -- though I felt like I was running around on a bunch of asteroids -- the zone definitely had a weird vibe to it. If I didn't know Illidan was in Shadowmoon Valley, I might have assumed this was the last" zone.



But, while avoiding level 68 warp beasts and other monstrosities, I found myself at sanctuary at last...in Area 52. Check out the guards.



I rode around a bit more and found some strange lightning-y creatures I found out later were called Ethereals, and a series of Blood Elf posts, and then this thing called a Manaforge...



Now, I dunno what the heck a mana forge is, but there were these pink tubes all over the place. Some of them even had voidwalkers being sucked through them.

One legion camp, another mana forge, and a ghost town (complete with ghosts) later, I discovered Cosmowrench, the second and much smaller goblin outcropping, with absolutely nothing remarkable to look at.

What was rather remarkable, and regrettably I have no picture, was Tempest Keep. TK is a castle floating off the eastern edge of one of the "islands" I was walking along, connected by one of those big pink tubes. However, there was no land connection. Tempest Keep is a winged dungeon where every wing is intended for level 70, and you have to fly there. (Not that it's very surprising to find out there are places you have to fly to in an area that feels like the asteroid belt.)

And here's where I found out those lightning-y guys are called ethereals -- there's a neutral faction of them called the Consortium.



In some of the later parts of the zone, it was a little difficult to get around...



...but eventually I found my way to Biosphere 2...and 3 and 4 and 5. Note the mini-map.



In fact, the largest of these Eco-Domes had an entrance I found my way into, where there were large deer and other wildland creatures. What purpose this place served was beyond me, but there was an elevator here up to the Stormspire, an ethereal city that served as the third and final flightpoint in Netherstorm.



After walking through the Stormspire, I felt such a sense of arrival and perhaps relief from all the feigning and scurrying I had been doing that I forgot there was a corner of the zone I hadn't been to and hearthed away. Oops.

Anyway, now back in Zangarmarsh (which you've already read about by now,) I decided to turn southward to Nagrand.



Part 3 -- Nagrand
Level range: 64-68
Terrain style: Grassland and rolling foothills. Stranglethorn meets the Barrens in Mulgore.


I had absolutely no idea what to expect riding into any of these zones, so when I went a wasteland area to a dark purple glowing swamp to an unforgiving mountainous area to an outer space wilderness, I was a bit surprised to find my way in a grassy area that reminded me of Kalimdor...with a few floating islands to remind me this was Outland.



I was even more surprised to find a familiar face greeting me on the way in:



Hemet has another safari here, just like the camp in Stranglethorn. Hopefully with a bit less PvP involved, but I doubt it. At least nobody will have more than a six-level advantage on you when you get here, though.

After getting completely drubbed by a bunch of Horde guards while passing not-even-remotely-near their outpost, (watch out for opposing guards,) I found a lake with Stonehenge behind it.



There are a few strong themes to the struggles in Nagrand. Aside from the basic hunting aspect that the safari brings, the Horde and Alliance outposts both suffer from being pinched by ogre and Broken forces on both sides, and there is also a great deal of elemental unrest in the zone as you fight many an earth and air elemental.

Regardless of what's going on, this zone definitely gets the award for being the most scenic. It's a pleasure in this zone simply to look up.



There's also an ethereal outpost here where I suppose is where I should have found out who the Consortium were. They give hints in some of the quest lore that there's more of them in Netherstorm.



One of those quests refers to the biggest diamond you ever saw. Here's a small piece of it, being mined by a rival group of ethereals. The much larger circular object on the fringe of the minimap is the real deal.



And one of the final places I found my way into in Nagrand was the actual Alliance outpost, controlled by the Kurenai. If you recall from Zangarmarsh, I mentioned these guys start out unfriendly and you need to raise your faction with them. At the time, you probably thought, "why? There's only like 3 guys here." But when you get into Nagrand and the entire town won't have anything to do with you, it's a little depressing.



Also of note in Nagrand was an arena called the Ring of Trials, that I'm not sure of the purpose of, but I assume is a primary place for fighting arena battles, as well as the center part of the map being devoted to PvP. The stakes are a little higher in Nagrand than Zangarmarsh or Hellfire, however. In this zone, there is a fort in the center of a plateau called Halaa. Halaa can be either controlled by the Horde or the Alliance, and while you have it, there is the usual zone-wide buff, but also there are folks inside of Halaa that sell stuff to you as a result of quest rewards. So there are genuine reasons to want to hold Halaa.

The thing is, Halaa is held by 15 super-elite guards, so if the other faction controls it, retaking it isn't as simple as walking in and capping a flag. Surrounding the gorge that encircles Halaa are four Wyvern stations. You have to hop on a wyvern and bomb the crap out of the guards to kill them. Only then will you stand a chance at taking the fort. (And then you still have to overcome the opposing players.) The PvP reminder in the zone is always stating who has control of Halaa and how many of those guards are left.

Call that a footnote if you like, since I don't have any shots of Halaa, but I had more zones to explore!



Part 4 -- Terokkar Forest
Level range: 62-66
Terrain style: Bleak forest, and an even bleaker region than Desolace.

I had attempted to run through Terokkar on a previous night and found that this wild dash thing wasn't as easy as it seems. (Unless, apparently, you're a warrior with 800 +defense items and never get dazed.) However, this trip to Terokkar was a little less hazardous.

Terokkar is really two sub-zones. There's The Bone Wastes, and the not-The-Bone-Wastes which is forested.

The Bone Wastes are the southwestern portion of the zone, which normally you wouldn't see first, but because I was coming from Nagrand rather than Hellfire Peninsula or Zangarmarsh, it was what I got to see first. Not that there's much to see.



The Bone Wastes look like that through their entirety, although there's usually mobs around, spirits and skeletons, cultists, scorpions and buzzards, etc. The cultists are part of a large crypt in the center of the zone called Auchindoun. Actually, I'm not quite sure just what Auchindoun is yet, since I haven't been able to get a group for it, but it's a winged instance in the zone, having three separate areas each with their own theme.

Because the Bone Wastes, overall, are pretty monotonous, I'll just leave you with one more picture near the edge.



The only other thing that bears mentioning is that you'll notice in that picture "Time Remaining - 1:22" where the PvP objecting in each zone is. Periodically, a group of small towers in the Bone Wastes, encircling Auchindoun, become captureable. Until one faction claims all five of them at once, they're a free-for-all. If one side has all five, they remain in possession of that faction for the next six hours. Not only does this give you 5% extra damage in Terokkar, but 5% additional experience as well, and allows the collection of "Spirit Shards" from the bosses of Auchindoun, which are used to pay for some stuff from special vendors there.

Then again, the rest of Terokkar isn't exactly all that interesting to look at either. There's a lot of arakkoa villages and a few Broken tribes such as the one here at Tuurem.



The Cenarion Refuge is also here as well...sorta. Turns out someone blew the place apart with a mana bomb, and only this guy is left:



Part 5 -- Shadowmoon Valley
Level range: 68-70
Terrain style: Infernal ash

Imagine Burning Steppes, but the lava replaced with green gook, and the dragonkin mostly replaced with big nasty demons. Then make the entrance to Blackrock Mountain an impenetrable wall lined on two different sides by elite Blood Elves and cultists, and you pretty much have Shadowmoon Valley.

This place is not terribly forgiving, and aside from any exploration you want to do, I would not advise coming here before level 67. I actually rode through Shadowmoon several days later when I reached 65, and I probably spent more time on the ground (feigned or dead...mostly feigned) than I did moving about.

This place is so nasty even the Alliance and Horde strongholds are permanently under siege by infernals.



Make no mistake, this territory belongs to the Legion...or to Illidan...or maybe both. I'm not so sure that he would be affiliated with them, but it would seem fitting if you rode through this zone once. Dragonmaw Fortress (below) is right next to the Black Temple.



There's plenty to see to the Black Temple itself, but not much that one screenshot would do justice to. Let's just say it's interesting, and filled with nasties. Rather than give a commentary, just going to flash a couple quick pics.





And that's about it for a brief overview of the remaining outdoor zones of Outland. I'm still hoping to get that Shattrath City entry done, but I can't get the screenshots I need. We'll see. I have some random pics I can use for one more other article tomorrow if I have to.



And just a reminder, for the zones that are done, there are nice colorful maps of each of these zones indicating all the points of interest and the like under "Basic Information" on the sidebar.

Comments

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hehe star wars reference
# Jan 14 2007 at 6:38 PM Rating: Decent
Toshley's station=Tosche Station, thats where Luke Skywalker used to go on Tatooine.
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