27/03/2023

Return to the Forbidden Reach

Retail WoW had a minor patch last week, which the husband and I went to check out over the weekend. Blizzard made it clear that they want to avoid any long stretches of no new content this expansion, and their way of doing this is by having minor patches between the major ones. So far this seems to be working out well! For a "minor" patch, 10.0.7 feels pretty chunky, with a few new quests and a whole new island to explore.

I say "new" but it's admittedly recycled, as the Forbidden Reach originally served as the Dracthyr starter zone. Now we just get to return to it in a different state, but even so it's been decent fun. I like that it just appeared on the coast and you can immediately fly across seamlessly. The constant chasing after rares and the bind-on-account gear token rewards you find everywhere gave me strong Timeless Isle vibes. It's one big gear catch-up bonanza basically, and particularly friendly towards alts.

There's also this thing called the "Zskera vaults" (though as SWTOR players we've taken to calling them the "Czerka vaults" which is easier to pronounce and amuses us). It's basically a personal little instance where you can collect some treasure every week by doing some really basic puzzles, such as using a fiery potion found in one vault to melt a bunch of ice in another vault. It's very chill compared to most of WoW's endgame - there are no timers and very few mobs, and you can go out at any point and come back later to continue where you left off (until the weekly reset that is). Considering that this is likely only meant to tide us over for a few weeks until the release of 10.1, I'm really impressed.

The only thing I slightly disliked about the vaults was that they can only be done solo as far as I can tell, which sort of makes sense but is still a bit annoying if you like spending a lot of your time in game playing as a duo. Also, the number of random items you find in there is insane in terms of the inventory clutter it creates. I don't know why Blizz does this - they made all these tabs for currencies, mounts, toys etc. in the past to declutter our bags, and then they give us all this other random stuff to take up space, like A Box of Rocks, or all those special gems for the new ring that's clearly modelled after the moddable Mechagon trinket.

6 comments:

  1. I thought they were pronounced the same way. Oh well.

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    1. Well, I haven't heard or read anything about the "intended" pronunciation, but I wouldn't expect "ker" and "erk" to sound the same.

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    2. You're correct, but I can't say "kera" without saying "erka" instead.

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  2. I still need to do the new content. Amusingly, I've been more focused on the retro Zul'Gurub content as I start to collect all the old ZG appearances and recipes I never got back in Vanilla. Nostalgia is a powerful motivator for me. ^_^

    Since my guild is taking a raiding break I haven't felt the need to chase after the new ring and gems. That said, I ought to take my fresh 70 through the zone to pick up any catch-up gear.

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    1. You're the second person I've seen mention ZG in relation to the patch, so I went to look it up now. What a peculiar addition, to return old inventory clutter in order for people to collect transmog! Needless to say that actively running ZG on era is enough for me, but still interesting to know that Blizzard did this.

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    2. Well, ZG in Dragonflight is the revamped 5-man Cataclysm dungeon so there's plenty of differences there from the Vanilla raid.

      Thinking about it more, I suspect my interest will fade in a bit and I'll have this as a 'back burner' project to do as I feel like it. I do appreciate these sorts of gaming palate-cleansers when I'm tired of the grind in a different game or activity *cough*Galactic Seasons*cough*.

      Kudos to Blizzard for putting removed things - if not removed content - back into the game, though. Wow has so much history it is sad when parts of it are needlessly lost.

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