Shared Topic – Azeroth’s Hidden Gems

Over at Blog Azeroth, the shared topic this week is:

The secrets of the World of Warcraft

Suggested by Syl of Raging Monkeys.

I love this topic so much, I’m going to share a couple of my favourite hidden things with you. First of all, the best location in the whole of Azeroth. Up high, where the mountains touch the sky, you can sit, relax and look down on the world spread out beneath you. When I first started playing, I was so in awe of this world, I talked to every NPC I could find. Some with better results than others, for example Sergra Darkthorn really wasn’t happy to see my little human warlock wandering through Crossroads looking for polite conversation.

We were heading through Feralas on our way to Feathermoon Stronghold for the very first time, I think so I could learn the next alchemy recipes when we spotted this female nightelf standing by the way side.

Being the type of heroes who rush to the rescue of people in distress, we naturally left the path to ensure she was alright. However instead of asking us to retrieve her lost luggage or kill some marauding bears for food, she wanted to send us up a mountain. A little dubious as there were no ladders or any other visible means of ascending, we accepted her quest. Whoosh, one minute we were standing with both feet firmly on the ground and the next… it was as if some whirlwind had picked us up.

“The land of Feralas has been through much, human. The earth, the trees, the creatures; they are all changing what Feralas is and will be.

The Twin Colossals above us remain constant, though, throughout all that has happened here…”

 

The perfect picnic spot

 

Here I am sitting at the top by the pool and watching the sky. Once you are up there, the only way is down but you don’t just have to hurtle to your death, unless you want to of course. A nightelf gentleman will sell you a parachute for a few silver, however don’t deploy it too soon as it doesn’t last long at all and those rocks hurt if you hit them head on. For mages, priests and engineers you can descend at your own pace taking in the view.

 

The Colossus in all it's glory

 

Trust me, that’s a long way down. Also if you hit the rocks half way up, it can be tricky to resurrect without someone else managing to land next to you to res you or taking res sickness, so be careful.

Possibly my favourite disguise is that of a Dark Iron Dwarf which comes from the best watering hole in the Eastern Kingdoms, The Grim Guzzler itself. Home to Coren Direbrew (some of the year), some of the best bar snacks in Azeroth (all the time) as well as the Tauren Chieftans, I love the bar. Especially now I have my direbrew remote, it’s my hangout spot of choice whilst forum reading. Whilst I’ve never managed to play a Dwarf beyond lv 5, I love their animations and so this is my substitute.

Standing at the back of the Bar is a gentleman called the Dark Iron Brewer. He’s neutral to both factions and has a couple of pages of dialogue for you  to work through.

Once you’ve read it all, he drops a flagon of beer on the ground. Drink it and you become a Dwarf. Unfortunately they don’t stack so you’re limited to one in your bags at once but you drink one and pick another up for later. The disguise doesn’t last after death either. From a spot of experimentation, it seems as if the Dwarf you become is down to armour specialisation rather than anything else. For example every caster I’ve tried, regardless of class and faction ends up looking like my Priest above.

Druids and I think rogues get this model and so on.

Finally, my favourite item of clothing tends to be a bit of a secret too, at least if you only play the Alliance. The sleeveless t-shirt only drops from Alliance corpses (includes players) inside Alterac Valley. The flavour text reads “On the inside collar it reads, “Inspected by Earl Z. Moade.” All my characters wear them with pride even though they’ve been around since the early days of AV, when you could argue that the Horde possibly had a slight advance over the Alliance as they could jump into the Dun Baldar bunkers and their choke point was considerably more choking than the Alliance version.

Here you see my Priest modelling a sleeveless T-shirt and a ripped ogre loin cloth. I’m guessing there must be a lot of safety pins around the back holding it together as there is a bit of a size difference between a Bloodelf and an Ogre.

This is one of the reasons I’m really looking forwards to Cataclysm. Exploring and hunting down new quirky things is up there with killing a boss for the very first time.

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