The reforging of the Horde city of Orgrimmar was pretty cool. The shell of the city remained intact, with all the same sections of the city and some additions such as the Goblin slums. But everything else had changed dramatically. The city on rolling hills became a city of deep canyon cuts, high peaks, and water channels and waterfalls I would not have believed possible. In addition, the city took on a more industrial look, with massive zeppelin towers squatting atop high ridges within the city proper instead of on it's outskirts, and concrete and metal bunkers housing elevators to get from one level of the city to another. For days Wild family toons struggled to find their way around a city that was at the same time familiar and alien.
The pics below show some of the many changes to the Horde's main city of Orgrimmar.
Water where none existed before
The Zeppelin tower has been fortified
A long, high ridge supports two zeppelin towers and the Flight Master
A view to the ground level
A new, deep rift in the Barrens split the zone into Northern and Southern halves. The cut was deep and filled with volcanic fire. Once one large zone, now there were two smaller zones.
There were more new wonders of the world to explore, but to be honest most of the world of Azeroth remained just as it was before the Shattering.
For a couple of days everything was turned upside down. Then, for a couple more days there was the expected pause for real life events such as Thanksgiving. And then a kind of normalcy began reassert itself, and despite only being in game for short periods, the Wild family gently settled into ... well ... the same routine as before.
The dramatic attacks and disruptions that was expected haven't happened yet, and there has been no sign of Deathwing. That is all still coming, I'm sure, but for right now business as usual has taken hold once more. Part of that business as usual are preparations for Cata, but for the most part life just goes on as always. Wild is coming out of his funk. By the time Wednesday night rolls around I think he will be ready to tilt at the Lich King windmill once again. And unless some new event from the Shattering interrupts guild plans, I do believe we will be raiding this coming week.
For the most part all that the Wild family has been doing is participation in the Pilgrim's Bounty celebration that has been going on all week despite the other distractions. Wild encouraged everyone to participate because there is a lot of cooking to be done, good for skilling up that secondary profession, and because the many quests deliver of a lot of experience points to help with leveling. The Pilgrim's Bounty quests are very easy, but they also require a lot of traveling between the city's of Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff, and the Undercity. That's for the Horde. On the alliance side Java and Chaitee haven't gotten their chance, yet, but I'll bet it will include the city's of Stormwind and Ironforge. I'll guess that Darnassus is the third alliance city. Java will confirm that one way or the other.
The Auction House is in considerable disarray as buyers and sellers can no longer depend on consistent pricing. Speculation on what items will be needed in Cata and what items will become useless is causing major price swings both up and down. For a day or so Happy was looking at miniscule profits as buying practically stopped on the horde side. Strangely, alliance players kept buying and even now prices are much higher on the alliance AH than on the horde AH. Happy has had to move a lot of goods over to the alliance side, which vexes him greatly, since Lost will be the one raking in those profits, not Happy. Enchanting mat prices keep rising, though, particularly the low level materials that are needed to level the profession. That has increased profits for both Happy and Lost, at least for as long as their stock of goods holds out. Buyers and sellers are still trying to make a profit off of the AH in these uncertain times.
To wrap up the week, I had thought that the expected massive upheaval would dominate all my in game time for many days. But once the initial wow factor of the terrain changes wore off, there wasn't really anything new to do associated with the Shattering. It's now wait and see until and if there is more to come between now and the actual expansion.
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