Tag Archives: BfA

Battling The Questlog

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Portal Room Boralus

About to zone into Nazjatar, one of the banes of my existence

Coming back to WoW, and especially on a character that I haven’t been playing since the launch of the latest expansion, has been a bit of an overwhelming ride. And that’s putting it mildly.
I kind of forgot how much content there is to catch up on when you haven’t played for a while. Even on my Rogue, who I’ve been diligently playing for most of this expansion, I suffered from getting fatigued with everything that was going on. Trying to keep an empty questlog, doing tons of dailies to get Exalted with certain reputations. Work on leveling up my Heart of Azeroth essences. It was all a bit much. Atleast on my Rogue I finished all the zone quests in both Kul Tiras and Zandalar and the War Campaign. On my Warrior I had to do it all over again. And that’s not even counting all the other random quests that you get from picking up items or leveling up your professions…

I guess it comes with an MMO like World of Warcraft that has been around since forever, but sometimes it’s so hard to catch up on content. Even when it’s only the most recent stuff. To give an idea of what I’m working towards right now:

  • Daily Quests: Doing them for four factions right now (Nazjatar, Mechagon, Rajani, Uldum Accord). Mostly so I can get my reputation up and buy fancy things from the vendors aswell as being able to upgrad my Heart of Azeroth essences.
  • Heart of Azeroth Essences: A thing to get in their own right. I need to do dailies, Visions of N’Zoth, raid, do dungeons, do Island Expeditions and PvP, all to just get the right essences to the right ranks.
  • Emissary Quests and Assaults: At four Emissary Quests per day and three Assaults per week that takes up a lot of time.
  • Raiding and Mythic+: Raiding is two nights a week. Mythic+ is another night, depending on how far we want to push.

And this is just the endgame stuff! Next to that I also want to tackle all the zone quests on my Warrior, level up Blacksmithing (I’m on 155/175 skill points), do the weekly events, hunt for mounts and pets. Basically do all the things. Oh and did I mention I’m doing a lot of this stuff on a few alts aswell? Yeah, I know I’m insane.

With all of this stuff going on it’s easy to see how an MMO completely swallows up your time, especially when trying to catch up on content or when new content is released. I guess I will get a bit more breathing room when I’m Exalted with all the factions I’m working on, since it means I can drop doing dailies for them, aswell as stop doing the assaults in Uldum and Vale of Eternal Blossoms. The Emissary quests can be done in 10-15 minutes when you just do them every day. At some point I will have obtained and ranked up all my essences so there’s nothing to do there anymore either. The Visions of N’zoth also have an endgoal and when I can get to doing a Mythic+15 on time I’m done with that aswell. Raiding wise I think we will be aiming to clear Heroic Ny’alotha and then call it a day there.

So as overwhelming as things may seem to me now, there is some light at the end of the tunnel. I’m taking stuff one thing at a time. Setting priorities and choosing what to work on, on a daily basis. Right now I’m prioritizing catching up on the Nazjatar and Mechagon zones and their associated quests and dailies. Assaults and Rajani/Uldum Accord dailies are things I do on the weekends when I have a bit more time. The same goes for running Visions and Island Expeditions. Excellent stuff to do on the weekends where I have more than a few hours to spend.
Slowly but surely I’m getting there. And I’m doing it without driving myself nuts in the process. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to kill some Naga on their home turf.

This post was the 5th of Blapril

BfA: The Landing

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Bwonsamdi and Rezan

With Battle for Azeroth out for a few weeks now I figured it’s time to start writing down my thoughts on the expansion so far when it comes to the things I have experienced, what I like and what I dislike. I could write an entire essay about this but for now I want to focus on three points. The best thing of the expansion, the okay/good stuff and the major disappointment so far.

From what I see around me the general opinion of Battle for Azeroth seems to be a mixed bag, as is usual the case with newly released content. People either seemed to love it or hate it from the get go but as time goes on opinions get more nuanced and as hyped up as people may or may not have been there are most definitely elements that are done good and bad in the game. So let us start with what in my opinion is the selling piece of this expansion launch:

The Lore
For me the story of the expansion so far has been overwhelmingly positive. I like how Alliance and Horde get their own continent and their own stories. It encourages people to take a look “over the fence” to see how the other faction fares because if you don’t you’ll miss out on roughly half of what Blizzards’ lore team has created so far. Obviously some things could have been done better, like the dungeon introductions for opposite factions. So far though the zones have been great with Drustvar as the big standout to me. That was just the perfect zone story with the perfect zone vibe. The only one coming close is Nazmir but it just misses this bit of oomph that Drustvar has for me. The only zone I feel is a bit disconnected in a way is Zuldazar, but that has more to do with not really following a “road” through the zone but instead getting sent all over the place.
As far as the whole Horde vs Alliance narrative goes, it’s less present than I thought it would be. Then again I opt to play with Warmode turned off. The War Campaign itself is rather interesting, especially since we get to team up with some people that deserved more spotlight like Lilian Voss and Shandris Feathermoon. All in all I’m liking where that story is headed aswell so the lore is the one aspect I’m absolutely positive about.

The okay
So Blizzard opted to take a few things from Legion and implement it in BfA. I’m okay with most of it. I prefer doing World Quests over dailies and the Mythic+ system is really nice aswell so I’m happy they have brought this along. There are still some tweaks to make here and there, like also implementing the paragon reputations again, but overall I’m happy that these elements remained in the game.
I’m also quite pleased with how the dungeons look. Even though some are a bit more hectic than others, Blizzard undeniably succeeded in making some dungeons to remember, again. One of the best ones in my opinion is Freehold, simply because one of the bossfight encounters starts out with having to catch a greasy pig and it’s hilarious. Underrot is at the bottom of the barrel for me, but that’s mostly because of the aesthetics of the dungeon itself. I can’t comment on the raid yet because I’ve not stepped foot in it, but I will definitely poke my head into LFR as it comes out just to experience the story.

Machinist lvl 70!

I’ve purposely inserted a picture of me getting my Machinist to level 70 in a post about WoW? Why? Because I’m going to discuss the final point I mentioned earlier: the big disappointment.

Alting
I could have picked numerous things here because I’m also disappointed with Island Expeditions and the Warfront stuff but my biggest disappointment of the expansion is once again how people who like to play multiple characters are treated. The biggest selling point FFXIV had for me was that I could play every available job and have every available crafting and gathering profession on one character. In WoW this means having to level alts. And where in Legion there was an incentive to level alts, because of the Order Hall stories, Class Mounts and Mage Tower challenges, in BfA I’ve already found out that I don’t feel like leveling anything besides the two characters I have at level 120 right now. Even though I miss my Warrior and miss my Hunter and even want to poke my head back onto a Demon Hunter, the idea of having to work my way through the zones again and then stall out on the same World Quests I’m already doing with the same endgame grind to get gear and to get your Heart of Azeroth leveled up is just the biggest turnoff ever. And I do realize it’s only a few weeks into the expansion and I will probably level something up at some point when I’ve done the big “start of expansion” grind it just feels so lackluster compared to Legion it’s not even funny.
I sincerely hope Blizzard will implement something that will want to make me level more than the one Horde and Alliance toon I have right now, besides Allied races and their associated achievements, or I will see myself walking away from WoW again sooner rather than later.

As I said at the start there are more things I want to nitpick on than just the stuff I mentioned here. Warfronts, Island Expeditions, Azerite Gear. It’s all things I think could be improved one way or another. Even though the faction fantasy is okay I miss the class fantasy from Legion and I miss my Artifact weapons and the quests associated with them. All in all though I’m still having more fun than frustrations so I will keep on playing for a while to come.

What do you guys thing about Battle of Azeroth so far?

My first BfA Mythic + A new Gameboy!

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After Siege of Boralus meeting

I realize just now how many screenshots I’ve posted that have been taken at night, thus making them a lot darker than the daytime versions would be. Alas it is how it is because I play this game mainly during the evening so dark screenshots will have to make do.

I finally tackled Siege of Boralus, the Alliance Mythic only dungeon, yesterday. I really wanted to see through to the end of the Kul Tiras story and I felt comfortable enough item level wise to start tagging along with PuGs. Due to most of my friends playing Horde I will be probably doing most content on my Rogue in PuGs but that is okay. It gives me time to get to know the dungeons and improve my Rogue play while chilling out to some music in the background. All in all the dungeon itself was fine, even though my dps sucked a bit and I went into mega brainfart mode on the last boss and got myself killed, but I did it to get closure on the Kul Tiras story and man closure I got. I really enjoy the scenes with Jaina and having Kul Tiras officially join the Alliance again was a very satisfactory end to the Alliance story for now.
All that is left for me on my Rogue when it comes to the bigger story is finishing off the War Campaign, something I hope to do this month.

On the Horde side of the fence I’ve been slowly gearing up my Paladin and trying to tank the odd dungeon here and there. It’s quite unnerving to step into dungeons you don’t know that well yet and having to take the lead but so far I feel like I’ve been doing mostly okay. I hope to be able to tag along with friends when the Mythic+ shenanigans open up tomorrow as soon as possible because I really want to take part in that Mythic+ season! Also I’ve heard that people actually got caches on accident so I’m kind of hoping that Blizzard will roll those back or it would be terribly unfair for the rest of us.

Now for the other part of my title…
My custom Gameboy Advance arrived yesterday! I’m very happy with my purchase. The console itself looks as good as new and the backlit screen really makes a difference on these retro games. Even though I loved my SP to bits and played a lot of hours on it the shape of the GBA coupled with the backlit screen has made it my favourite Gameboy hands down. The first game I popped in to play was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. According to my old save file I was almost at the end as a kid but seeing as I have zero recollection of the game I had no issues starting anew and saving over my old file. I’ve been mostly playing it on the train to and from work so far but the game does stand the test of time. It has an average playthrough of about 10 hours so I’m quite confident I’ll finish it this month. It’s also become the single player game I will be blogging about for this month so there’s that atleast. I have another handful of games itching to be played on the Gameboy but I’m taking them one at a time. Further updates will follow together with some pictures of the handheld in action and maybe a few pictures of the games I am planning to play/finish on it.

Sunday and chores

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It’s a bit of an odd day today. As I realized that I hadn’t post anything since Thursday I figured I’d get back on the Blogging horse. I had set a goal to write a post everyday during Blaugust but unfortunately real life has gotten in the way and I’m okay with that really. I may schedule a few extra posts to see if I can make up for the days that I’ve missed but I’d have to check how many posts I actually have up so far and I’d have to come up with ideas for posts and well… My brain seems to be a bit too tired for that to happen right now.

I’ve been spending most of the morning going back and forth between World of Warcraft and cleaning the bathroom and my bedroom. I usually do my “chores” on Sunday because I like having a clean room when starting a new week on Monday and every now and then I add the bathroom to my routine aswell. I’m guessing as I move out and really have my own space I’ll clean a bit more often but for now I’m happy with my weekly dust and vacuum sessions. It also makes the day not completely about gaming, which is nice. I feel the need to “descreen” a lot these days and cleaning helps do just that. It lets me zone out and relax while also getting important stuff done. It may not be a favourite pastime but atleast the bathroom smells like lavender now, my sheets are fresh and clean and there is no more dirt and dust on my bedroom floor.

I mentioned swapping between gaming and cleaning and as far as gaming goes I’m making some strides on my Rogue to finish up the Alliance side of the expansion story so far. I’m finally doing the “Pride of Kul Tiras” quest chain after finishing up the last two chapters of the Stormsong Valley quest achievement yesterday. I’d expected to be dumped in a scenario of some sort but so far I’m actually in the middle of a gigantic questchain that spans all the new zones and three separate dungeons before leading up to the final dungeon, which is apparently a Mythic only one. With my item level being only 303 I’m still far away from clearing that one but atleast I’m making progress!

I’ve also dipped into FFXIV this weekend to complete the Moonfire Faire event before it would go away today. It was a nice short questchain and rather fun to do. I know a lot of people did the extra jumping puzzle to get on top of the event tower but I passed on that one. I was only interested in getting the new emote and the new outfit on both my characters so I did that and logged back out.
I did make sure to visit my house on my Moogle character since there has been a bug going around that you lose your house way faster these days. It would be such a shame for me to lose my home now that I was finally able to buy a small plot after borrowing money from a friend. I hope to get a bit more time into FFXIV the coming months (preferably until the end of the year) and start decorating my house and level my remaining classes. I’m so close to getting Machinist to 70… I really should hop back into this game again.

Fate is sometimes kind

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I found this a very striking picture to start off my post with today. I was planning to do a post on the FFXIVxMHW crossover event but that will be postponed untill tomorrow.
Some stuff at work has got me thinking about where I am today and how I’ve got there. We are finally finishing off a huge automation project that will probably take a lot of the pressure off our department and get people off edge. It was fun partaking in this project and it’s so nice to finally see the fruits of everyone’s labour. For me personally it gave me an opportunity to learn how to program a robot, even though I can only do simplistic stuff, and to see the enthusiasm of people when they realize what this project means to them. If I hadn’t stuck around at my job this year I would’ve never had this opportunity. It must’ve been fate.

I can slowly feel the stress from work fading and it makes me more focused and happier when I’m at home. I’m also learning when I hit my wall in WoW after a week of expansion madness. I’ve been making small “quest logs” of my own in a notebook with all the stuff I want to do in game (and in real life) for the evening and I try to stick to it. So for today that meant I completed all my open emissary quests on my Rogue and finish off the Daelin’s Fort questchain in Stormsong Valley. On the Horde side of the fence I’ve finished off the Krag’wa questchain in Nazmir and some Herbalism quests to start getting my two star skills. I try to keep my goals small and realistic and I try to not do too much in the way of WoW because I don’t want to burn out like I did in Legion. For now my plan is to do a small bit everyday on my Rogue and Paladin and try to switch it up by either playing a bit of FFXIV, read a bit of my book or watch a show on Netflix. I’m not in the race for world firsts so I’m not in the race to gear up like mad.

Next to my gaming shenanigans I also want to pick up my courses in programming/IT again. I’ve been letting them fall to the wayside due to the stress at work and me just wanting to relax and sleep at home. Now that I have a bit more energy, and time, I want to see what I can learn and add to my skillset. Seeing as I’m 29 and my resumé isn’t that impressive I need all the extra skills I can get these days. So next to building robots with Automation Anywhere I want to be able to show off that I understand databases aswell as basic webdesign. I’m not sure when or how this will come in handy but having a bit of knowledge about how things work will never hurt. And who knows, maybe I’ll end up somewhere great because of it. And then I’ll look back and say “it must’ve been fate”.

Nazmir is okay

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So I’ve spent more time on my Paladin than I thought I would today. I’m currently sitting at level 112 and am starting the first leg of the War Campaign from the Horde POV. Even though I stated I wouldn’t want to play Horde as main I enjoy playing my Paladin much more than I do my Rogue. Maybe it’s because I’m less squishy. Maybe it’s because I know I will be going Tank when I hit max level and thus have no real queues to worry about. Seeing as trying to queue for dungeons on my Rogue has been an absolute nightmare and all my friends are over on Horde side, I feel the pull to main Horde after all much more now that the expansion has launched.

As I mentioned in my previous post I’ve started off in Nazmir. I picked this zone because it gave me the creeps when I did the War Campaign stuff on my Rogue and I figured I wanted to get this zone over with first so I would be done with that. I guess I grossly overestimated how creepy this zone actually is. Okay, the Blood Trolls ARE creepy but I’ve also seen some really pretty sceneries so far and I’m really in love with all of the dinosaurs that populate this zone. Plus the swamp vibe isn’t that bad.

Story wise it can’t really compete with Drustvar, which is hands down the best zone this expansion. As far as atmosphere goes it can’t compete with Drustvar either. I’m probably fangirling like mad here but Drustvar was such a joy to quest through that I completely forgot time and didn’t want to take a break untill I saw the story from start to end. I’ve not had that with any of the other zones yet and Nazmir is no exception. I do like encountering the Loas, I made contact with Bwonsamdi and Hi’reek and am now on my way to Torga, the turtle Loa.

I guess I need to be a bit careful though because I don’t want to burn out on my Paladin like I did on my Rogue. I expect to swap between the characters as it suits me but I think I will be spending more time on my Paladin than on my Rogue as I reach 120 on her. Up untill then though I can enjoy the scenery. And the dinosaurs!

Ding! 120 reached

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Yesterday morning I reached level 120 on my Rogue. I was about 10 quests into Stormsong Valley when this happened and with it I unlocked a whole lot of new things to do. The biggest one being World Quests which are popping all over my map, on both sides of the world. I was really happy to hit this milestone but I also notice that I’ve burned myself out quite a lot leveling this character up. Even though I hadn’t done a “one day race” like some of my friends did, it has taken me one full day, 3 evenings and one morning to get to this point, I do feel the new content burn quite heavily. Blizzard has managed to pack so much lore into this expansion so far and with my determination to do every quest I can possibly get my hands on things get rather exhaustive quite fast. I’m about halfway done in Stormsong Valley as we speak but I’m not making a lot of progress. I’m taking breaks every time I’ve tackled a sidequest or mainstory line because I just can’t play for much longer than that. I’m trying to break things up by doing Worldquests and leveling up my Engineer but I guess I’ve just spent a bit too much time focused on getting to 120 to really enjoy it now that it’s there.

In other news, because I’m so burnt out on my Rogue at the moment I’ve decided to take baby steps into the expansion on my Paladin. It’s the class that I originally wanted to play in this expansion and I notice that I’m having a much easier time on her than I had on my Rogue while leveling up. I decided to start out in Nazmir and the zone so far seems to be okay. I guess going to the Blood Troll capital at night on my Rogue was a bad idea because it seriously gave me the creeps. Now on my Paladin however I’m just enjoying the swamp atmosphere while picking a lot of herbs along the way. Maybe it’s because the pressure to level to 120 is off or maybe I just enjoy Paladin more but I think I’ll spend a bit more time on her than on my Rogue in the coming week.

Also, Bwonsamdi is great!

BfA: Zoning in on Drustvar

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Today I want to take the time to talk a bit more indepth about Drustvar. The first zone I’ve completed in Battle for Azeroth. This post will be rather spoiler heavy so if you’ve not yet done the zone or do not want to be spoiled please stop reading after this paragraph. I feel the need to write up this blogpost because Blizzard, in my opinion, has done such an awesome job with the zone stories in Battle for Azeroth so far that I just want to gush about it. So without further ado, I present you: Drustvar.

Let me start off by saying that I’ve gone into Battle for Azeroth mostly blank. I did spend a few hours one night on Beta leveling through like the first ten quests in Stormsong Valley but other than that I was a complete blank slate. I wanted to be surprised and charmed by what Blizzard had developed for this expansion so I wanted to experience everything fresh.
The above screenshot is part of the introductory town of Drustvar. You are sent on your way because there are issues and no one has heard from Lord and Lady Waycrest, they rule Drustvar, in a while. As you arrive in the zone the first village you pass through is abandoned and overrun by wild creatures. There is still a little girl around however who sends you on a wild goose chase finding people and things for her. It’s clear from the second quest or so that she’s probably not the nice little girl you think she is. The questline culminates in her summoning a Wicker creature with a satanic ritual for which she killed her cat (poor Smoochums) and one of the few surviving villagers commenting on how the girl has been dead for a while. Yeah, I guess the tone for this zone has been set nicely.

I see a lot of people comparing Drustvar to Duskwood but then in autumn colours and way bigger. I get the sentiment here but Drustvar is so much more than that. The overarching story becomes quite clear very early on: they are having issues with a powerful Witch Coven that is calling themselves the “Heartsbane” and who are cursing every village in Drustvar, making sure the people in town suffer one way or another.

A big part of the Drustvar experience is helping villages cleanse the local curses and kill the local witch of the coven responsible for it. The story really kicks into gear though when you come across Lucille Waycrest who is about to be hanged as witch. She is the daughter of the Lord and Lady Waycrest and she’s gotten herself in a bit of a pinch by being at the wrong place at the wrong time. A part of the questchain to help her escape involves taking control of your very own Wicker construct and clearing out a more powerful Witch that has been terrorizing the village. Let me tell you, it was awesome. Running into a mine full of mobs and just completely obliterating them with my Wicker body had me cackling. I mean just look at how I looked? It’s an amazing theme and I loved all the Wicker looks in Drustvar.

Anyway, after you’ve cleared Lucille’s name and rescued the villagers of the village that wanted to hang her you set out on a journey towards Waycrest manor with Lucille and Marshall, who is the commander of the Waycrest troops. Lucille knows a large part of what has been happening in Drustvar and seeks to revive an ancient Order that used to fight the Drust as the Kul Tirans were settling down in Drustvar. I guess this also leads to big plotpoint number two. The Drust are forest creatures that look kind of like the Wicker creatures you see everywhere in the zone. When the early Kul Tirans settled there was a war between them and the Drust that the Kul Tirans won. Their final victory was a Waycrest stabbing Gorak Tul, the leader of the Drust, to death and claiming Drustvar for the Kul Tirans. It also becomes clear that not all the Drust were against Kul Tiran settling in their homeland and they have remained on friendly foot with the humans untill this day. They call themselves the “Thornspeakers” and are the amazing Wicker themed Druids that the Kul Tiran humans can become.
As you advance into the zone it becomes clear that Gorak Tul may not be as dead as everyone thought he was and that he is probably the mastermind behind the relatively recent forming of the Heartsbane coven that terrorizes the land. As you rebuild the Order of Embers and work your way through the zone you are treated to a beautiful landscape with many sidequests. The atmosphere in Drustvar is amazing to say the least. The background music is superb and it’s really worth doing every single questline you can get your hands on. Next to the Witches and Wicker creatures you get to fight Yetis, wild beasts, Stone Guardian constructs and even a small patch of mutated mushrooms. You help a Goblin retake a town from pirates. You help create alchemical fire that will make all the Wicker constructs burn. You stop a Wicker construct army from being built and marching through the zone. On the way there are a ton of rare creatures to kill and special treasure chests to find. I personally enjoyed the Runebound Chests because they forced you to look around you to crack the code that keeps them locked. You learn about the history of Drustvar and Kul Tiran as a whole and you get to know a lot of interesting characters. One of my favourites is the falcon master that you pick up somewhere in the middle to become an Inquisitor in the Order of Embers. I like the whole “old England” look and feel that’s tied to the entirety of Kul Tiras but Drustvar just portrays it the best with it’s woods and villages.

The Drustvar zone story culminates in Corlain and Waycrest Manor. As you arrive there it seems like the coven has taken over the town and the manor and it’s up to you to clean out the mess and figure out who is behind all of this. And more important, what has happend to Lord and Lady Waycrest?
This is also where the story kind of splits in two. As you make your way through Corlain it’s revealed that the Waycrest Manor went on lockdown and nobody really understands why. It also becomse clear, from diaries that you find in Corlain, that the girls of the town have been sneaking out during the nights and supposedly went to Waycrest Manor. After that the disappearings started.
The other part of the story takes you to a chapel where you encounter the ghost of Lucille’s dead fiancée. As he shares with you his memories of what happened during their wedding it becomes clear who the culprit of this zone really is. The whole wedding scene was a nice nod to the “Red Wedding” in Game of Thrones, proven by the dead “Red Hand Assassin” in my above screenshot. As you help the ghost find peace you make a final push into Waycrest Manor where it is revealed what you’ve already known: Lady Waycrest is the head of the Witches’ Coven. She is responsible for all the Witches that have been making life hell for the people of Drustvar. She has killed and revived her husband to serve her as a grotesque individual for eternity and she is the one responsible for murdering Lucille’s fiancée at their wedding day. As a final act of cruelty she turns Marshall against you and you then have to kill him while her and her husband flee into the Manor.

Officially this is where the zone ends. You’ve figured out who is behind the Coven and you’ve waged a war to get to there. Lucille takes over as new ruler of Drustvar and sends you back to Boralus to declare Drustvar’s allegiance once more. However she also gives you a quest to chase her parents into the Manor (which is a dungeon) to deal with them once and for all. The dungeon itself is a bit confusing but no less fun, I can see this one being quite a challenge on Mythic+. You kill her parents in the end and then Gorak Tul pops out as final bad guy, bragging about how he was able to influence the Lady Waycrest to do his bidding and be his way back into the world of the living. As you beat him he retreats in what he calls “the Blighted Lands” and issues a final threat.

All in all the zone was an epic experience for me. The story buildup was amazing, especially with all the added cutscenes Blizzard seems to be doing this expansion. I’m guessing they stole that idea from FFXIV’s book. Some of the quests were downright hilarious, like the one where I had to prick peole with a Silver needle to figure out if they were Witches. Or the one where I pick onions to deter them, because obviously onions are nasty and smelly and no one wants to come near those. Now that I’ve finished the zone and won’t be back untill endgame I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume the WorldQuests in Drustvar will revolve around clearing out what remains of the Coven and helping villagers rebuild. I wouldn’t mind doing those quests at all because it will take me back to a zone I fell in love with. I really hope Blizzard can keep up this level of storytelling throughout the entire expansion, but that’s something only time will tell.

Bonus screenshot: I keep finding pairs of boots in weird places…

BfA: Almost There

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Another day and another BfA themed post. I want to say I’m sorry but I’m not. I’m spending all my free time playing through the expansion and I’m getting close to some important steps.

My first “almost there” is Mining. I’m currently sitting around 137 Kul Tiran skill. I’m enjoying the fact that I get quests from my trainer instead of from random drops from nodes. This means I already have a ton of things at the two star level. I probably will get to max level Mining tomorrow as I finish up Tiragarde Sound. Which brings me to the second “almost there”. I’ve been running around Tirasgarde Sound for the past two evening and bar some sidequests I only have two main quest lines left for the zone achievement. I’ve also worked my way through atleast half of the rare encounters throughout the zone and earned the exploration achievement, so there’s that. I’m kind of curious to see how things will tie together in the end. I know who the big baddie is for this zone, it wasn’t that much of a surprise, but I’m curious to see how we’ll unmask her.
Also Flynn (who is clearly taken from Cpt. Jack Sparrow) is hilarious. Plus I got to drink milk from a skull mug, as you can see on this screenshot in the upper right corner.

The last “almost there” is me being halfway to level 119. I’m kind of expecting to be 119 as I finish up Tiragarde Sound which means I’ll ding 120 fairly early into Stormsong Valley. Seeing as I’m not really in a rush to gear and start doing tons of dungeons I’ll probably opt to finish off Stormsong Valley before I dive into the amazing world that is endgame.

On the first character I level through an expansion I try to do every available quest and I don’t think this time will be different. I love sucking in all the lore and quirky sidequests that Blizzard offers us. I also notice that I’m wandering off and exploring much more stuff than I did in Legion. It’s how I’ve been killing all the rares and finding a lot of treasure chests and hidden sidequests. Nothing punishes me for just going where I want to go while also completing all the main storylines. Although with unlocking my last foothold in Zandalar (the one in Nazmir) I tried to shy away from exploring and just getting my quest objectives done because man, that zone is hella creepy. Drustvar was “horror tropes witch covens” creepy but I enjoyed that. Nazmir is “cannibals in a swamp” creepy and I’m not digging the vibe at all. Which will be interesting when I level up a Horde character through that zone… I can already imagine the nightmares.

BfA: Day Two

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A part of me wants to go to bed and a part of me feels like I should atleast write a short blog about Bfa day two. Yesterday I’ve done all of Drustvar in one day and I wondered how long it would take me to finish up Tiragarde Sound. It seems to be an overall smaller zone with less quests and less space to cover. However I’ve already discovered tons of sidequests and finished off a few of the amazing mainquests the zone has to offer. All in all I think Drustvar still has the edge when it comes to storytelling and atmosphere but Tiragarde introduces us to many unique characters aswell. We also get a taste of the Old Gods influence and I got to perform in a jousting show on a horse.

The best part though was this adorable little hunting dog that was bringing me the birds I shot out of the sky during one of many sidequests Tiragarde has. I imagine it’s sort of modeled after a Jack Russel Terrier although I’m not quite sure. He was kind of difficult to get a good screenshot off, especially because it was rather dark in game when I did these quests but the one above should give you a decent indication.

The darkness thing is something that caught me a bit off guard aswell. I don’t think any of the zones get as dark as the ones in Kul Tiras have been getting. I think Blizzard may have amped up the weather or, and that’s more likely, I’m noticing it more now that we are running about in zones that are more open and feel more natural than the Legion ones.

All in all I’m still having a blast and I’m starting to find my way through Boralus as city aswell. I’ve been completing a few Mining quests, I’m really happy these come from the trainer now instead of randomly dropping from nodes, and I’ve been pouring all the ore I’ve been mining into leveling up my Engineering aswell. Although I’m only on 25 skill level at the moment. There’s so many little details that I could go on and on about but honestly it comes down to the fact that Blizzard once again made an amazing zone with beautiful landscapes and good lore. Even the War Campaign makes sense next to the questing in Kul Tiras. I’ve established two camps over at Zandalar right now and I’ve unlocked my Island expeditions. They seem like mini scenarios where you race the opposing factions to get to 500 Azerite per island first. Unfortunately I’ve not really gotten the time to figure that out yet but I will. For now I’m going to focus on finishing off Tiragarde and moving on to Stormsong Valley the next few days and hopefully ding 120 around Friday evening.