Amazing! Awesome! Stupendous! Blizzard has truly made something special this time around. I had purchased, downloaded, and installed the digital version of the Cataclysm expansion pack a week ago. Cata went live at Midnight Monday night. All of us night owls started attempting to login right at the stroke of twelve. I was on vent with about a dozen or so guildies who were also still awake. Several attempts at logging in later, I was no closer to logging in than getting the message "You have been disconnected from the server."
But a couple of guildies made it in game, and at ten minutes past midnight so did Wildshard. Wild had cleverly positioned himself close to the Orgrimmar flight trainer and his first order of business was to pay the 200 gold required to get his Flight Master's License. That license enabled Wild to use his flying mount in the old world of Azeroth, including the city of Orgrimmar. Of course, several hundred players had that same clever idea and it was like Black Friday and a horde of shoppers trying to get at the big discounts. The flight trainer was swarmed so thoroughly it took several minutes before Wild could get enough of a glimpse of him to make the transaction.
What was so stunning about this release is that the servers held up under the barrage of players logging in. Unlike every other expansion release, it did not take hours of attempting to login, and once in there were no server crashes despite the crush of players. There have also been remarkably few bugs, and no major issues with play at all. A major software release doesn't get much smoother than this.
[Quick note - Lao attempted a login early Tuesday morning, and it appears the time to download, install, and login to the expansion is approaching those long wait times we are used to seeing in big releases. I thought the crush would come at midnight, but maybe Wild got lucky and a lot of players decided the game would not be playable and waited until the morning]
Wild's plan, once he had taken care of flight training, was to head for Mount Hyjal to begin questing in the new zone. However, he was kind of waylaid by a new feature of questing. When Wild logged in a quest immediately popped up in it's own little window that would eventually lead Wild to the new harbor outside the gates of Orgrimmar. Wild hadn't asked for the quest, it just appeared all on it's own. There was also a very well done script included. Scripted scenes have a much larger role in questing than I'd seen before, and it's pretty cool.
A series of short, easy quests later Wild found himself on a boat headed for the new zone of Vashj'ir, along with an overcrowded deck of other adventurers. Well, thought Wild, looks like it will be Vashj'ir first before Mount Hyjal.
The boat reached it's destination, which as far as the rest of us could tell was the middle of the ocean with no land in sight. We were promptly attacked by a gigantic octopus and our ship was crushed and overturned. Cold, wet adventurers clung to top of the capsized craft and wondered what to do.
Wild, knowing that the "land" of Vashj'ir was at the bottom of the ocean, shifted to aquatic form, slipped into the water, and went exploring. There was a LOT to see.
Wild's questing in Vashj'ir lasted long enough for him to get his "sea legs," which taught Wild how to breath underwater without having to shift into his aquatic form. It also increased his swimming speed. Both are critical in this underwater world. It's beautiful, but also deadly, with creatures of every sort not just in front and behind, but above and below as well.
Wild would have been content to stay in Vashj'ir and continue questing, but Wild's friend Bk had already started asking in vent if anyone had located the entrances to the new dungeons. No one had, and no one quite knew how to find them. Wild did. Sort of.
Wild swam back to the surface and scrambled back aboard the foundered ship. Wild shifted to flight form and started a long flight to the southwest. Wild's boat had left Wild in the Vashj'ir zone of Kelp'thar Forest. Wild was leaving that area and heading for Abyssal Depths, the second of the three mini-zones in Vashj'ir. It seemed to be a long flight, with nothing but ocean beneath him. Wild was looking for Abyssal Breach, a great whirlpool of immense size. However, from the air Wild could not tell one wave from another. So Wild plunged in. And was met with the deep, deep blue of the ocean, and not much else.
It was kind of scary swimming around with no landmarks or points of reference to refer to. All Wild knew was that he was supposed to go DOWN. Wild kept swimming, going deeper and deeper, and the ocean water turned a deeper and deeper blue. A faint outline started to appear far below Wild. Was Wild's eyes deceiving him, or was there something down there? Wild recalled the great sea creature that had destroyed the boat. Whatever was down there was likely even bigger. Then the vague outline took on a more solid shape. It was a maelstrom of water, a huge funnel of churning froth tugging harder and harder at Wild as he continued to swim ever deeper.
Wild tried to put away a thought that if this was not where he was supposed to be, he could be very near death right about now. Chasing that thought was a warning: Wild was starting to get fatigued, and could be in danger of drowning. If panic was starting to set in, Wild hid it well, even when the maelstrom took full hold over Wild and sucked him down. Wild had no choice now.
When it was all over Wild washed up inside a deep cavern with a pocket of air keeping the ocean out.
Wild had reached Throne of the Tides, one of the two starter dungeons for level 80 players. Wild made sure he'd gotten credit for finding the entrance, which would allow him to port to it directly in the future. Wild most definitely DIDN'T want to have to take the maelstrom path the next time he came there.
Bk was ecstatic at Wild's find, and we started thinking the unthinkable - do we want to get a group together and explore the place? There was too much going on at the moment, though. Too many sights to see and new things to do and ...
Well, Wild decided that since I'd been the first in the guild to find Throne of the Tides, I might as well hunt down the other starter dungeon, Blackrock Caverns. This one was an easy one. Blackrock Caverns is part of a huge complex of dungeons and raids built deep inside Blackrock Mountain. The mountain saddles the zones of Searing Gorge and Burning Steppes. Wild knows the area well, having spent a good part of his level 60 life battling the denizens of that place at Blackrock Depths, Upper and Lower Blackrock Spire, and of course Molten Core.
It had been a long time since Wild had entered into the mountain, though, and once he reached the inner ring which circled the deep well of lava that burned and flowed deep into the bedrock, Wild felt that familiar twinge of awe and fear. Here is the place of the greatest foe of the early days of WoW - Ragnaros. Here is where, each week, Wild had to cross a narrow chain stretched between the inner ring and the central core - a long, slippery trek that raiders fell from with regularity. Getting out of that lava pool after a fall like that was desperately difficult, even in death. Here is also the place where Wild had to learn the tricky jump from a jut of rock to a narrow ledge that fronted the entrance of Upper Blackrock Spire (UBRS). Missing that jump was embarrassing, and it took a lot of practice to perfect it.
On this trip Wild made a surprising find. Not only could Wild fly outside of Blackrock Mountain (BRM), he could fly inside as well! Wild couldn't resist soaring up and perching on the ledge that had sent many a raider tumbling to the rocks below, the hoots and jeers of raiders from both factions following him down. Wild didn't fly over the lava pool itself, though. Wild "knew" it would be safe . . . but still.
The entrance to the new dungeon, Blackrock Cavern (BRC), was down the same corridor where LBRS still stood since the beginning of time. Partway down that corridor a new tunnel was cut through the mountain. Wild made a right turn and entered that tunnel, and a short way down was the entrance to BRC. Wild had found the entrances to both starting dungeons, the first in the guild to do so.
Bk was more determined than ever to run a dungeon, and with Wild guiding them in, we soon had a five man group standing outside BRC. We knew we would get slaughtered. But we just HAD to see it!
More to follow . . .
MOAR PEASE NOWE!!! DURIDS IZ 4 FITE!!!
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