28/05/2015

Kalimdor Calling... and Other Travels

There's one thing no recreation of Vanilla WoW can bring back, no matter how faithful it is, and that's the ignorance of being a truly new player. I recall that when I started playing the game back in 2006, Elwynn Forest alone seemed huge to me. Then I realised that it was just one zone of many. Then I realised that there was a whole other continent waiting for me... well, you get the idea.

This time around, I know almost exactly where I need to go. I say "almost" because while I achieved Loremaster pre-Cataclysm, I "only" did so on Horde side, and even that was several years ago by now. I haven't been truly surprised by any of the content I've encountered on Kronos (yet), but there were definitely a few "Huh, I'd completely forgotten about that" moments.

For example, it had been quite a while since I last had to buy a book from a special vendor to train my secondary professions past 150. It was quite a trek over to Ashenvale to get the Expert Cookbook. With what little money I had, I bought a spare to sell on the auction house and I managed to sell it with a markup of 100%. Yay, arbitrage! A similar scenario played out when I had to wander up to the Arathi Highlands to learn expert first aid, and again I was able to make a tidy profit off the journey.

I also encountered my first Horde player while travelling. As I was making my way along the mountain road from Loch Modan to the Wetlands, I was suddenly faced with a "skull level" tauren druid in travel form coming my way. I froze like a deer in the headlights, but he just looked at me for a moment and then moved on. I don't know if he didn't want the dishonourable kill or just didn't care to gank either way. One mustn't forget that not everyone on a PvP server is necessarily out to kill the opposite faction non-stop.

Quests feel like they are all over the place by this point. There are half a dozen zones that contain mobs of the right level somewhere, but there only ever seems to be a small handful of quests that are in the right level range, so I'm constantly travelling round and round.

Finally of course, I'm dealing with the absolute insanity that is the paladin class quest for a levelling weapon. (This being Vanilla, I can't currently see my reward, but I've been reminded that it's Verigan's Fist.) Its instructions are so long that I received a "note" item in my inventory that's six pages long. Do you remember when quests used to give those? For this class quest, a blacksmith that works in Ironforge asks you to bring him supplies from the elite ogre area in Loch Modan, wood from the Deadmines, tools from Shadowfang Keep and some other thingamajig from Blackfathom Deeps. Considering that an instance run takes about two hours, and that's without even taking the travel time to places like SFK into account, wanting to complete this quest means that you're looking at about 6+ hours of play time just to finish what is essentially a single task.

It feels insane... but of course there is a certain pride to be had in completing your class quests. What kind of paladin would I be if I couldn't gather some simple blacksmithing materials? So far I've managed to get the stuff from the ogres and the wood from the Deadmines. (For my second run I healed and it went much more smoothly... just don't tell anyone that I stood at the back wearing a dress; it's very un-paladin-like.) Shadowfang and Blackfathom worry me a little because they are both in fairly remote areas where people don't often go - but on the plus side, levelling being fairly slow means that there is plenty of time for an opportunity to present itself before I completely outlevel the content.

(On a side note, I have now outlevelled the "real" Isadora - my first ever WoW character, whom I tried to recreate here - because back then I switched to playing a night elf priest on an English server fairly early on. Now there is definitely something very new about this journey.)

9 comments:

  1. The gem you need from BFD drops from the elite nagas outisde the instance itself. They are soloable (although adds are dangerous), and the droprate is good. So that part can be soloed.

    Just Remember to pick up the actual quest for the gem in auberdine as instructed in the note you mention, as it wont drop otherwise. I forgot that part at first and had to go back to auberdine for it after grinding a bit at BFD... My vanilla memory isnt flawless it seems :-P (which i ought to have realized after quiete a few episodes like that by kow :-P)

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    1. Thanks for the tip! I was wondering about that actually but didn't want to just start taking on elites without knowing for sure. Then I can do that naga brain stem quest at the same time!

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  2. I remember having to trek out to Stromgarde in Arathi Highlands in order to get a book to train First Aid. I'm... I'm actually glad you don't have to do that anymore.

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  3. I'll never forget the first class quest I completed when I was able to rez as a Blood Knight. The guy who was killed (by me, IIRC) said something to the effect of "I'm never volunteering for THAT again!!"

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    1. My memories of my own blood elf pally's levelling are oddly fuzzy, but that does ring a bell...

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  4. I have so many happy memories of early WoW. I was talking about it with two friends last weekend in fact. The amount of time spent travelling, the stuff you found at random out in the world (quests, vendors selling rare stuff etc). That was the World of Warcraft I will always remember fondly. In particular everything that required a bit of extra effort, like the class quests you mentioned and the crafting recipes you found in certain dungeons (repair bot etc). Happy memories but not something I want to relive on a private server as I don't want them spoiled! ;-)

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    1. Your happy memories would only be spoiled if you didn't enjoy coming back to it! Otherwise it's simply more of a good thing. ;) I don't think everyone would feel like me, but I'm genuinely enjoying going back to Vanilla. No, it's not exactly the same, but it's still damn fun!

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  5. It’s simply amazing how similar our experiences (still) are. The class quest(s) that you (have) to do (for your weapon) on your Paladin, I have to do on my Warrior ... and man do I want that Whirlwind Axe!

    I also agree with your statement that one can never fully recreate the exact feeling of stepping into the *WORLD* of Warcraft for the very first time and discovering its astonishing vastness, but that the feeling of nostalgia is only ever so slightly diminished.

    Oh, and I’ve been ganked several times already. :(

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    1. That Whirlwind Axe was wicked cool. I got to do that quest on a warrior alt pre-Cata and it was definitely a rite of passage.

      It feels like in Vanilla, most of the classes had a couple of quirky experiences like that which made you feel more connected to your class. But that might be a post for another time...

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