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Long, exceptional, and hidden questlines
A query on the forums for what the longest questline in the game might be brings up this amazing page over on WoW Wiki-- a great collection of "long, exceptional, or hidden questlines" in the World of Warcraft. We've covered pretty much all of these quests before (including this cool compendium of quests you've got to do if you haven't done yet at 70), but this is a great and well-written guide to (mostly) higher level quests that have to be done to be believed.As for the actual longest questline, it appears to be the "Fallen Hero of the Horde" line (that Alliance can do as well)-- it starts around level 50, and rolls all the way around the world and up to level 60. But I actually agree with some of the other posters in that thread-- while Fallen Hero is actually a great quest, the longest, most annoying questline in the game is probably the Dungeon Set 2 quests (also known as the Tier 0.5) armor. Back in the days of 60, Blizzard wanted to give players a way to obtain Epic armor without raiding, so they invented a long, grueling questline (with multiple branching paths) that would let you upgrade your first set (Tier 0) armor, piece by piece, into an Epic, eight piece set. I never made it any farther than the bracers, although I know for a fact that lots of folks got the whole thing done (and this was after completing the eight piece Tier 0 set in the first place). As long as the Fallen Hero questline is, I believe the Tier 0.5 questline wins, if only because it seems so much longer.
Tons of runs, for not a lotta loots...
An interesting forum topic has popped up on the World of Warcraft general forum today. It reflects on the amount of time we spend trying to gain one or two specific pieces of loot, only to have the gods of random drop-rates look unfavorably down upon us. It is a vicious cycle of farming that has eaten away at hours upon hours of our lives, but we still do it. We still go after that one elusive item that taunts us from the virtual nether. "I have a 25% drop rate, but you can run this place a hundred times and never see me! Mwahahaha!..." Players are recalling their 50+ runs for class chest from Upper Blackrock Spire, or their class helm from Scholomance. Mindtap Talisman seems to be a recurring theme, as well as the Tidal Charm. My worst experience was on my 67th run through UBRS for my Lightforge Shoulders from The Beast. They finally dropped, everyone congratulated me, and then the fury warrior rolled need. Ah well, water under the bridge as they say, especially since in my first Botanica run, I received the Spaulders of the Righteous.
A second chance at top-Tier gear
I wrote this post about "Dream Gear" way back in October when my Shaman was obsessed with the Pauldrons of Elements, the Tier 0 shoulders that dropped from Rend in UBRS. I just love the way they look, all hooky and Shaman-y. Unfortunately, despite a huge number of UBRS runs, they never dropped for me, and when the Tier 1 shoulders fell into my hands in MC, I abandoned my dream to wear the Pauldrons, I thought, forever.Until now. A fellow Shaman friend was running the Mana Tombs, and announced in guild chat that he'd grabbed the Lightning Rod Pauldrons, a terrific set of mail shoulders that drops from Tavarok in there. I drooled over the stats, and then CTRL-clicked to check out how they'd look on my Shammy, and lo and behold, I'd found my shoulders again! The devs had reused the Tier 0 skin, in new and cooler colors! Now I've got a new goal to run an instance over and over again for.And a lot of people are living the same dream. Cearrdorn over on LJ really likes the Judgement set, but his guild never made it long enough in BWL for him to get the whole thing. Fortunately, it looks like almost the whole set is findable in different colors in Outland, most of it in 5-man (both regular and Heroic mode) instances. I can't wait to find a Bloodfang lookalike for my Rogue, too-- for those of us who were never able to get all the cool-looking high end gear we always wanted (for whatever reason), it looks like the devs, by laziness or design, are giving us a second chance by reusing the old skins.
Dungeon 3 Set information, pictures, and video
Stalwart reader and advisor Wreck sent me scurrying over to World of Raids this morning to see what's going on with the Dungeon 3 Sets. Dungeon 3 are the rare 5-piece sets you'll be gathering from dungeons until you're ready for Tier 4 and 5 gear at level 70. It seems like the pieces are actual drops, rather than requiring tokens or pieces, so these are the true heirs to your Dungeon 1 and 2 (formerly known as Tier 0, Tier 0.5) sets. Here are the names of the sets, but click on Read below to head over to World of Raids and see tons of stats, images, and a movie:
