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The loose ends of Arko'narin
As the years have passed in the World of Warcraft, I find myself meeting more and more players who have no idea what I'm talking about when I mention some memorable quest or tiny hideaway in a level 50 zone. This is by no means unexpected in a game as old as WoW, but I find it quite tragic that those near and dear to me are missing out on things that once captivated me. So what do I do? Well, I grab my semi-interested guildmate and whisk him away on a field trip; I take on the role of an Azerothian tour guide. Sometimes I even wear a funny hat. I really enjoy the concept behind achievements like The Loremaster and World Explorer. It has a very "go see and experience the world for yourself" feel to it that I can agree with. The problem is I think those achievements are a bit overwhelming for the average person, myself included. I really can't imagine actively going out and doing the hundreds of "gather 10 berries/feathers/saliva samples" quests for fun. What I'd really like to see is an achievement system that focuses more on quality than quantity: Loremaster Lite, for example, or World Explorer's Top 20 spots. Kind of like Blizzard's way of saying, "Hey, here is the stuff we are most proud of. Go see it." Blizzard is busy, though. But hey! I'm here, and I even have a funny hat to wear in real life! It's not an explorer hat; it's a squid hat. (It looks like a squid is eating my head when I wear it.) As I sit here, allowing my brains to be munched on by this crocheted Cthulhu, I have to wonder: are all those things I love about the old world going to exist once Cataclysm comes out? Suddenly I'm stricken with worry. What if I never get to see those things again? Worse, what if some people never see them at all?! So today I'm going to remedy this anxiety with one tiny step in the direction of furthering Azerothian awareness, and I'm going to start with the beautiful night elf warrior, Arko'narin.
Time Is Money: Felwood's wildlife
Kebina Trudough here, offering you the best gold making secrets they don't want you to know about! I was like you once, poor and homely, before I discovered my patented system. Now you too can fill your pockets with the good stuff without ever breaking a sweat! Why spend all your time toiling when you could be vacationing in the Hot Springs? I'm not offering these tips for 100 gold, or 90 gold, or even 50 gold! No, not even 20 gold! My system is yours for FREE! Satisfaction guaranteed or I'll give you a full refund (handling charges may apply). After all, Time Is Money. Today, I'm going to talk to you about a way to make money skinning in Felwood, although similarly leveled zones work as well. This can be done with higher level characters or those who are at-level (50-60), although it moves more quickly if you have a character capable of chain pulling without having to stop to eat or drink or run back to your corpse all the time. If you don't have a skinner that is a high enough level, you really should get one. Leather sells consistently well, and is very easily gathered. In fact, you could get one today! Create a Death Knight, train skinning, and go on a rampage, starting with a low level starter zone and working your way up. Now that we've settled that, let's get down to the particulars.
Creating "special purpose characters" with the XP toggle
I love this, as I seem to love most of the things that Mania does. She's just posted that she's put together a whole guild of hunters, all with XP turned off at different levels, for one purpose: testing pets as they move up the leveling ranks. She says she cheated a little bit to do it -- transferred alts from other realms, and it's Alliance-only -- but just having the idea to put something like this together is super creative. We've talked about people who've leveled up one of every class before, but I never considered just how much the XP-off option changes the game in terms of what Mania calls "special purpose characters." Of course, raiding at level 60 is one way to use it, but you can go even lower than that -- want to farm Runecloth without it getting too boring? Roll up a death knight, and leave him in Felwood to grind on Furbolgs. Really love running, really running, Scarlet Monastery with your friends? You can all roll characters to 39 (or lower, if you're looking for a regular challenge), turn XP off, and leave them camped outside the instance. Turning XP off means you can create characters for almost any purpose, and having heirloom items (especially if you buy cloth, which any alt can wear, even if it means they take an armor hit in some cases) means that leveling them up doesn't take more than a few days of free time. Lots of interesting ideas to play around with there for sure.
Oh, what fresh hell is this?
Teech from Cenarion Circle penned a brief note on the forums today about the utter agony of farming Timbermaw Hold reputation at level 70. It seems like a lot of people are revisiting this particular rep grind in the interest of obtaining "The Diplomat" title and Achievement in Wrath, for which you need to be Exalted with Sporereggar, the Timbermaw, and the Mag'har/Kurenai. I'm giving some thought to doing it myself because I've already gotten to exalted with Sporereggar and the Mag'har on my main, but Timbermaw is...something else entirely. As a matter of fact, Timbermaw makes no sense. I can understand getting a Diplomat title for being an Alliance or Horde liasion to the embattled peoples of Outland no matter how bad their sense of tabard design, but someone's going to have to explain to me how committing genocide on behalf of a pissed-off subgroup of bears in loincloths does anything to advance the cause of diplomacy in Azeroth. Why are we so willing to believe the story being peddled by the first furbolg we see in Felwood? For all we know there's nothing wrong with the other furbolg tribes that some micro-lending couldn't cure. And let's face, it, there are other factions in the game for whom both the Alliance and Horde would be much better served by maintaining close diplomatic ties. Take the Consortium, for example. They ask you to lay waste to their colleagues all the time, but at least everyone concerned makes a buck off of it. What do the Timbermaw have to offer but a tunnel that you can fly over? Isn't the national interest of the Horde or Alliance better served by pursuing ties to factions with lots of money or weapons, or at least a massive grudge against things we already hate, rather than involving ourselves in some pointless internecine spat among NPC's whose death animation makes me squirm?Yeah, I might just be mad I have to kill so many of them. I'll grant that the dubious honor of most legendarily awful rep grind of all time still seems to belong to the Wintersaber Trainers (although the Cenarion Circle is also getting a lot of grief in the thread), but at least the Trainers' rep isn't linked to an amusingly ironic new title. Now if you'll pardon me, I have to go slaughter another several dozen bear men in the interests of social justice for...I'm not sure. Other bears who claim it's the right thing to do. But I get something out of it anyhow, and that makes me an ambassadorial hero.
Know Your Lore: The Scythe of Elune
In today's Know Your Lore, we're going to take a look at something that has been requested by a few readers(and a blogger). It's not a very well known topic, it comes from a quest line tucked away in the far corners of Ashenvale that sends you running all over the world as if you had absolutely nothing better to do with your time, much like any other quest line in Kalimdor. Regardless of the annoyance of the quest line, it is probably one of the more intriguing side stories in the Warcraft universe.It begins shortly after the destruction of the World Tree. Archimonde was gone, but a great number of demons remained. Like the Scourge, the Legion doesn't simply stop when you tear the head from the beast. Priestess and Sentinel Velinde Starsong was the Night Elf in charge of leading the forces of the Kaldorei in these regions, assaulting the Legion and pushing them back as far as they could. This held up well for quite some time, pushing the demonic hordes as far back as the borders of Felwood. Unfortunately, the Night Elves were only level 20-something at that point, and the mobs in Felwood are like level 50, so things stopped going so well.In all seriousness, the Kaldoreian advance was slowing more and more as they pressed into Felwood, their numbers being utterly decimated. Velinde grew desperate as so many of the Night Elves fell to the Legion, and called out to her final hope: The goddess Elune. She begged the goddess for strength and power, the ability to avenge her fallen comrades.
New cooking recipes for 2.4!
Ever since 2.3 went live, it's been a bit of a struggle to make the leap from the 260 cooking range to the 300 cooking range, as both my poor Paladin and Shaman can well attest. With recipes such as Tender Wolf Steak and Monster Omelet, once the mainstays of any aspiring chef's training, going green and gray much earlier than before (That is, gray at 275 rather than 300), It's been a bit of trouble getting the needed skill to start cooking up the buzzard and ravager meat that makes the mainstay of the early post-300 cooking grind. Luckily, the developers heard the cries of horror from all the cooks who thought they might have to grind up fishing to get the materials they needed to skill up, and promised us new recipes. And today, European CM Vaneras let us know the details. New cooks will need to head to Felwood and Western Plaguelands and start killing themselves a few bears. New meat drops from the bears will allow you to make either spell damage or attack power food, not only removing fishing as a requirement for skilling to 300 cooking, but also giving players in the level 45-60 range a nice stat boost while grinding, questing, or leveling. The recipes themselves will be purchasable from Bale of the Horde or Malygen of the Alliance, both in their respective outposts in Felwood. So put down your fishing pole and pick up your frying pan again, cooks. Salvation is on the way!
Breakfast Topic: Meanwhile, back at the farm...
Whenever I hear the phrase in that title, I think of one of my very favorite children's books.ANYWAY, this Breakfast Topic is entirely selfish. Lately, I've continued to try and build up enough gold to get my epic mount, as well as bring my alchemy skill up, so I've been doing lots and lots of farming lately.And I've come up with a few tips for doing it-- watch a movie while I'm at it, make circles around zones that have exactly what I want (Felwood, Un'goro, and Hellfire Peninsula have been great for Herbalism, but I've never done Mining or farmed for Tailoring items or Motes), and make sure to pick up bags meant for crafting items, so I have enough room to haul what I need.So what tips have you picked up for farming? Some people are crazy about it-- I know my guildleader has done it for hours, getting both mining mats and herbs for our guild-- and surely they know lots of inside stuff that us casual players take a long time to pick up. What would you recommend to someone who heads out into Azeroth and Outland looking for nature's gifts?
Around Azeroth: Irontree Woods
Reader Tony sends in this shot of the three ancients in the Irontree Woods in Felwood. I've always wondered about this particular scene, with three huge Ancients frozen in place around a pool. And, as usual, WoWWiki provides enlightenment, though not quite enough to sate my curiosity, offering only that these Darnassian Ancients have been petrified (presumably by the Burning Legion) and remain entombed in these woods.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! You can attach a picture file or send us a link to one -- and don't worry about formatting, we'll take care of that part. See more of your pics from Around Azeroth. %Gallery-1816%
Around Azeroth: Meet Arei
Flyv of We Know on Eitrigg sends in this shot marking the completion of one of the game's many interesting, but somewhat obscure quests. The giant tree fellow is Arei, a tree spirit that you're asked to free (by escorting him towards Ashenvale) at he conclusion of a lengthy quest chain initially given by Eridan Bluewood in the Emerald Sanctuary involving corrupted satyrs. And, yes, this one's on my list of quests I never quite had the patience to see all the way to the end...Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! You can attach a picture file or send us a link to one -- and don't worry about formatting, we'll take care of that part.See more of your pics from Around Azeroth.
