So I know it's been awhile since my last post, but in my defense, it has been kinda slowgoing prior to Cata release, and kinda 'zomghurryupandlvlbrbeatingasandwichandtakinganapnotimetoplaywithlegos' since Cata release. So I reckon on this fabulous maintenance day, I'll put down my thoughts on Cata for general consumption.
In this first week I've seen 2 toons to 85, and experienced a ton of the quest content, not so much of the dungeon content. The quests are delicious, numerous, and pretty straightforward (most of them). The new redesigned questing method is, I think, awesome. They make the chains all link together, so one quest hub leads you to the next hub, and that hub leads you to the following hub, all the way through the zone. Gone are the days when you finish up a hub and go 'OK great, wtf do I go now?' Achievements for completion of all/most quests in every zone to make sure you don't spend hella time wondering if there's more quests in this zone and wandering around aimlessly lookin for that !.
So there's Vashj'ir (sp* on that?). Underwater paradise if you can stand very angry fish and some far-wandering patrols of naga. I was actually surprised we didn't see more murlocks here... but I'm not gonna look that particular gift horse in the teeth, ifya feel me. Blizz did an awesome job with this zone. It's multi-layered, excellent detail put into the underwater plantlife and varying kinds of wildlife (beasts, fish, and critters). All in all, I'd have to say this is my favorite of the new zones. Now, did it not include a water mount and underwater breathing..., maybe a different story, but I have chosen to start all the toons I'm lvling in this zone.
Then, Mt. Hyjal. I can't speak to this zone as I haven't gone out there to quest, other than to kill elementals for the new JC daily quest. Maybe one of you, my dedicated followers, can add your thoughts on Hyjal in a comment!, or not, whatevs.
So after one of the above-mentioned starting zones, there's Deepholm. They located this one in 'the maelstrom', nothing says good questing like starting a line by diving into a zomgbigass whirlpool, but you wind up in an underground (underground, underwater, under azeroth, under someshit, there is no way to fly up and out) cavern, all rocky and black and rocky and dark. The questline here is just rediculous, it makes one coherent story all the way from the first quest through to the end of the line. To make that even better, they force you to experience the entire line before opening up the Therazane reputation vendor/daily quests, which will almost guarantee everyone will finish up before moving on, since they are the new #1 place to go for shoulder enchants for all roles. And as a side note, awesome mining takes place here, no pyrite, but hella elementium, so yeah.
Next stop on your way to 85, Uldum. Sweet desert setup, really nice environment if you're into the whole desert thing, lots of cool pyramids around, the npc's are... funny lookin and whatnot. Kinda scattery in the questing, we see alot of different stories, not really a line from beginning to end as much as a group of smaller lines, but that's fine by me. Big highlight here : Harrison Jones! There's 3 (or 4, you can kinda split the last one into 2 pieces) questlines for Indy in this zone, he's in familiar territory, underground temples and crazy pyramid junk, and **spoiler** he even meets up with our old buddy Brann Bronzebeard ("You'll find me wherever the action is!" no shit.). Good times in this zone, and relatively fast an easy. Also, my new, all-time favorite quest is located here, toward the middle of the questing... the Crazed Gnome Massacre! For this quest you actually encase yourself in a sphere of awesome and go literally faceroll 1000 gnomes! Nothing beats that... nothing. ever. ever. I wish it was a daily... but sadly, it's not.
Lastly, there is Twilight Highlands. I've hit 85 both times in the middle of the line here, so I haven't seen the entire line play out and cannot speak to it's story coming together or not. What I can say is : who doesn't like helpling dwarves out. That whole Wildhammer/Firebeard thing is kinda crazy, there's a wedding, some trashed and burning dwarf holes (dwarf = hobbit?), and plenty of kegs of beer. Some dragon happenings, a funky upside-down octopus with flailing tentacles, and the new Ring of Blood (Crucible of Carnage I think they call it). This zone looks like your typical coastal land mass in my eyes, nothing exceptionally special about the environment detail, but definitely content rich, you can't go and inch without aggro'ing 3 things that just might kill you.
The new profession stuff is... at least interesting, at best a real PITA. The first couple days an enormous amount of money was to be made by people gathering and selling instead of trying to craft things off the bat. I definitely participated in some big money selling those first 2 days, which in turn, financed me to buy 10x the same stuff back to level my professions, about 4 days later. Wierd how that works, but anyway. I'm starting to realize that my professions don't match up... I was all set up when they were all lvl 80 to do things across all toons. Now I'm leveling my miner/alchemist and got no herbage to alchy with. So then I goto my herber/alchemist to balance that, but who needs 2 alchys off the bat? (small use though, in transmute cooldowns). Then I shoot for my leatherworker/jewelcrafter, so I have gems and ore for JC thru mining earlier, but no leathers. Then I realize that I dont even have a skinner! That won't do, so it's time to re-analyze my professions across the board. I really can't mine on 2 toons at once, so I don't need 2 miners is what I decide, and I drop mining on the paladin and switchin him to skinning to go with his blacksmithing. So the plan was to do the hunter next, but as he can do JC dailys for tokens and buy recipes while he's still 80, and he can't LW worth a damn without any leather... I'm going with the paladin first to provide skins, and a few hours a day mining on the druid will fund his blacksmithing, then, I'll be totally balanced. So after hunter, it'll be shaman for engineering, though I may go ahead and level his alchemy in the meantime, for an additional xmute cooldown.
Abit lengthy... and I left alot out believe it or not, there's just so much new junk goin on and all sorts of craziness. It is, as I'm sure blizz intended, going to be a long while before things get comfortable again. PvP is supposed to start today, Rated PvP next week, my raid is talking about starting up in the beginning of January. Overall, it's going to be an action packed few months, but I'm ready for the long and tedious gearing up process, bringiton.
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