blackrockdepths
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Things left undone
I've been farming a lot of ghost mushrooms and gromsblood lately in order to make Demonslaying Elixirs. My guild's farming trash in Sunwell Plateau at the moment and has taken a few half-hearted swings at Kalecgos, all of which ended in much hollering and arguing and waving of hands in the air. But despite the fact that Big Blue is likely to ride our collective ass for weeks, I like to think of myself as a long-term planner with a gimlet eye on Brutallus. So, a-farming I go. The materials for the elixir are fairly irritating to farm in quantity, and I find myself in a lot of areas I never even leveled extensively in when I was raising my Druid main. Desolace? Paid it a visit to get some fishing done. Blasted Lands? Uh...passed through it on my way to Outland. Maraudon? Did I do that? I want to say I did, but was brought up short at learning of the existence of a scepter that allows you to bypass two-thirds of the instance. I know for sure I've never set foot in Dire Maul North, much less a Tribute Run, I'd never seen the live side of Stratholme, and I hadn't so much as clapped eyes on the Emperor in Blackrock Depths.
"The Image of the Undercity"
Terra Nova has a fascinating read up about architecture in World of Warcraft, and to an extent, all videogames. In the latest Wired (which appeared on my doorstep yesterday), there's a Clive Thompson piece about Halo 3, and in there, he compares creating videogames not to creating movies, but to designing architecture. There are all sorts of challenges in dealing with the flow of self-driven players, and those are directly related to the forms and format of architecture, and you can see that kind of design all over Azeroth. When players grouped around the bank and mailbox in Ironforge, designers spread out both in places like Silvermoon and Shattrath. And as the article Terra Nova quotes makes clear, sometimes Blizzard wants the architecture to work for the players (as in Undercity, where everything is laid out in a circle, with lots of clues as to where things are), and sometimes it wants the space to work against them-- Blackrock Depths is a challenge to get through, which is fitting for (well, what used to be) a higher level dungeon.Just as we "learn" the places we inhabit in real life, we also eventually learn virtual spaces as well-- tell me you weren't confused the first time someone had to show you how to get to UBRS, and yet now you could probably get there blindfolded, right?Very interesting stuff. And it brings up one more question: Most players, by now, have learned pretty much all of Azeroth. But eventually (and we've seen this hinted at in the supposed "events" that will kick off the next expansion), the world will change. What if you entered Ironforge one day, and things weren't where you expected them to be?
WoW Moviewatch: Soloing Blackrock Depths
I find this video of a level 70 Paladin soloing Blackrock Depths to be fairly impressive -- but since we've already seen a paladin solo the Blood Furnace, perhaps it's not as impressive as I think. But as someone who's played through the instance a time or two, I'm pretty amazed to see someone soloing the Lyceum, an area of numerous mobs on an exceedingly fast respawn timer that's wiped many a full party. But what am I saying -- this is a video with aa Paladin, and the more mobs hitting them, the happier they are, right?Previously on Moviewatch...
Around Azeroth: Christmas in July
Reader Nell of Bronzebeard sends in this shot taken in the Emperor's throne room in Blackrock Depths. The snowman, though? I'm pretty sure he'd melt long before making it to the throne room -- but I suppose we have to give some leeway, considering we're talking about a magical fantasy world.Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! Or perhaps you'd just like to see more of your pics from Around Azeroth. %Gallery-1816%
Bug leaves Draenei out of the Alliance
It kind of boggles my mind that there are Draenei out there going through the Onyxia quest (not just because they're not supposed to be that level yet, but also because who still cares about Ony?), but apparently there are, and they're having issues. It seems the Draenei aren't yet considered to be in the Alliance for a few quests-- the note in A Crumpled Up Note isn't dropping for them at all. Also, the Flute of Xavaric, another Alliance item isn't appearing for them either. Drysc confirms it's a bug, and they're working on it.Which is a little strange, when you think about the mechanics of the game. One player mentions the Horde's experience with the necklace in Uldaman-- when Horde try to pick up that necklace, they get an error message (but at least it drops for them). Likewise, Blizzard was able to easily make Pally gear drop on all those Horde runs before the expansion, but they can't flag the Draenei as Alliance? Bit of an oversight, that.But here's hoping it'll be fixed soon, and the Draenei can be folded back under the wing of the Alliance forces for good.
