Wild did get to visit Mount Hyjal and collect the first series of quests there. However, Wild spent about 80% of his questing time in the underwater zone of Vashj'ir, and more specifically in the area of Vashj'ir called Kelp'thar Forest.
After being left stranded by the giant octopus attack, Wild swam around the area until he located a sunken ship that was being used as a base of operations. There were rooms where air pockets provided a little dry comfort. The first set of quests began with "A Personal Summons" which is picked up in Orgrimmar or Stormwind (for alliance). You don't actually get wet until the fifth quest, "Sea Legs." At that point the real challenges started. Wild doesn't like the three dimensional air combat, and I didn't think I'd care that much for three dimensional underwater combat, either. Actually, it was a bit easier in the water for some reason. The area was packed with players, and we all had to fight over getting quest objectives done. There was a LOT of killing, both sea creatures and various hostile groups, primarily naga and murlocs. Despite the large number of players in a rather constricted area, there were no shortage of hostile mobs. Wild nearly broke his neck trying to see in every direction - and I mean in every direction, a full 360 degrees. The good news was that Wild, dude'ed out in his moonkin form, heavily outmatched the level 80/81 mobs - the mobs died pretty quickly. The only potential concern was when multiple mobs began stacking up against Wild. I wasn't sure what was going on, but sometimes no sooner would Wild kill one mob than a new one would spawn right on top of it. With Wild usually already engaged in more than one mob, Wild found himself having to deal with half a dozen mobs at once, with a stream of new mobs constantly spawning to take the place of those killed. Wild was never in any serious danger of dying, but it was frustrating, particularly when I had already completed the quest requirements and wanted to move on. After seeing it happen enough times, it seems like there is a respawning bug that causes it to happen. It occurred most often when Wild was standing at the bottom. When Wild elevated up a few feet and hovered in the water, it seemed to happen less often. Wild also learned to kill and loot quickly, then move a few feet away. Even if a new mob spawned immediately, Wild got far enough away that it wouldn't automatically aggro on him and it broke the string of chain spawning.
Another thing to learn about the way new quests have been set up is that anything more complicated than kill or collect quests were designed to be almost infallible - unless you are Wild of course, who has to complicate even the simplest of tasks. The coolest part of the early questing was getting a seahorse mount. I'll use that quest as an example.
Wild had to ride a "wild" seahorse and tame it for his mount. He failed three times and was getting pretty miffed about it. The quest offered Wild tips - "Lean Left!" and "Hold Tight!" and things like that, emphasizing the tips with little arrows that would show up on the screen. Well, the dang thing couldn't be steered - it went where it wanted no matter what Wild did. I even tried clicking on the little arrows, which was one suggestion that I'd read. Same thing. The beastly thing ignored Wild and eventually bucked me off. The answer was simple. When mounting the seahorse a bar with three buttons popped up that I finally saw. Each button had a little arrow on it. The seahorse still did whatever it wanted to do, but whenever it said "Lean Left!" or whatever, Wild clicked the button for it. Wild was soon getting loud praise from the trainer for taming my mount, and I completed the quest and got my mount.
Proud Rider of a Seahorse Mount
Related to the seahorse escapade, I did start to have a bit of a beef with just how many quests were sort of like that. These quests take complete control of your toon, or give you just one simple task to do, and then the rest of the quest is a scripted result that you have no control over. It makes for some entertaining and interesting lore based accomplishments, but the reality was that Wild wasn't doing anything to earn it.
Another thing Wild learned was that the names of the various areas on the map had little to do with knowing where to go to get quests and accomplish them. Scattered throughout the zone are a number of caves with quest givers and in some cases even flight masters. These caves all have names, but you won't see those names on the map. The cave entrances can be tough to find as well, although the game does help with that, as all the cave entrances have very bright blue and yellow foliage that I haven't seen growing anywhere else. Just be careful when exploring a new cave. Wild almost swam right into an Alliance camp when checking out a new cave. The faction camp caves do display the faction flag, but the blue Alliance flag can get lost in all that foliage.
And that foliage is gorgeous. I didn't get a pic of the cave entrance, but here are a couple of pics of what the underwater environment looks like.
An underwater city
Growing things
Speaking of caves, Wild brought a friend into one cave. Reminded me of the movie x, where sharks brought their little fishy friends to their meeting. Not that this is NOT underwater. No, the shark wouldn't let me ride him.
There were some quests that had Wild pulling at his pelt. There was one that talked about the HUGE clams that decorated a lot of the underwater surfaces, when in fact what Wild was supposed to be looking for were tiny snails that meandered about everywhere and had nothing to do with the clams. Another one having to do with dropping little tornadoes on snakes drove several of us crazy as there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to it; sometimes the thing worked, and sometimes it didn't, and it took a very long time to do it the thirty times that was required. Wild would have abandoned that quest because of the time it was taking, but it was the last quest in a link and Wild had no idea how to find the next quest (or if it would even appear) if Wild did not complete the quest. That's another thing to remember. Completing quests opens up other quests, and in some cases opens up whole new phases in an area. I wouldn't skip or abandon quests since you may very well miss out on a whole string of other quests. I have a sneaking suspicion that the game is using the scripted quests as a way to transition to a new phased area.
Here is one pic of a scripted scene that provides some lore about Cata and the maelstrom.
I know what you all really want to know, though. What's the loot like!? Wild's first piece of Cata gear was a pair of leather leggings called "Shipwrecked Leggings." Let me remind folks that pre-Cata gear pretty much topped out at i264, assuming you weren't doing Heroic ICC. Most of the MM guild raiders had a good collection of i251 gear which mostly came from ICC ten man. A few, like Wild, were mostly in i264 gear. So, when those leggings dropped, and they were rated i272, Wild got pretty excited. However, Wild's i264 leggings are Tier 10 and were in fact better than the Cata i272 leggings. Wild would discover over the course of the night that not a single piece of quest gear, no matter what ilevel it had, could match up with the top end gear Wild already had. That didn't bother Wild so much, because that just showed how well geared Wild already is. However, the quest gear selection really did start to annoy me. Almost every gear reward that offered something Wild could equip was made up of cloth healing/caster gear and leather feral/tanking gear. Wild gets bonus stats for wearing only leather gear, yet there was almost no leather gear tailored for either healing or for DPS casting. This has been a long time problem that dates back to prior expansions. I thought that was being addressed, but the early gear showed the same lack of consideration for druids, who need leather caster gear for ranged DPS and healing. Wild got pretty sick of seeing all that +agility leather gear. Sure, Wild will use some of it to play cat or bear, but neither are his main spec.
Back to the level of gear in Cata, I think that most casual players (ie, those that haven't spent weeks and months in Icecrown Citadel) will see awesome upgrades right off the mark. Wild saw a lot of eye popping plate gear, DER. And some truly "to die for" cloth caster stuff that will have shadow priest Lao drooling (so level up girl!). Some of the stats on the modest level green gear is stunningly good. Players like Wild, though, will have to wait for the higher level zones to start seeing major upgrades. What that really means is that a toon like JB, who hasn't acquired anything but the most basic of level 80 gear, can go quest in Vashj'ir or Mount Hyjal and come out of that with gear almost as good as what Wild took literally more than a year to acquire. It's a great equalizer, but once players reach level 85 and start raiding, all that will change again.
So, what about Cata dungeons? I thought you'd never ask. We got some face time with the likes of Bonecrusher, Steelbender, Lord Obsidius, and others in Blackrock Cavern. Let ya know how that turned out in the next post.
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