The Fires of Nostalgia

The Midsummer Fire Festival is one of my favourites, purely because it pushes to me to get and about in Azeroth, visiting old haunts and finding new ones.

That’s one thing I miss about the revamped questing since Cataclysm, that sense of being sent from one zone to another and having to explore the world. Now you level so quickly, skipping zone after zone and it feels so much more instanced than ever before.

Favourite Places – Highmountain

Dalaran Day Care

I really hope Ms Liddie is not Challe mark 2.

The pet cemetery near by and her self admitted need for wine does not bode well.

Sunday Screenshots – Demon Invasions

It seems to rain a lot whenever those pesky Demons are doing a spot of invading, bringing a whole new meaning to “Acid Rain”.

Sunday Screenshots: Bad Moon Rising

The closer we get to leaving Draenor, the more it seems to grow on me.

Excitement builds

I’ve been testing things on Beta and on the whole, have found myself falling in love with the game again. Of course there are things I don’t like (Snow has massive class hall envy for example) but that was always a given. Unless I designed the game myself, I was never going to like every aspect and if I designed it, there would be a lot of very unhappy Ret Paladins, Death Knights, Arms Warriors and Frost Mages out there.

Anyway, here are three screenshots which highlight the completely random things I’m especially excited about.

 

Every Cloud has a Silver Lining

I’m a creature of habit. My first Onyxia kills took place in vanilla, before flying mounts entered the game. As my then Guild tag acted as a sort of red rag to a Tauren (Orc, Troll and Undead too), we used to meet in Theramore and then either ride through the Marsh or make our way across the water slowly.

Now whenever the urge to kill her crosses my mind, I still go to Theramore before flying off to her lair.

Things have changed somewhat since we used to gather, chatting by the main gate. An army of 40 players all in our glistening armour, looking more unified than we ever were (actually it was more like 38 because every raid had at least two players who needed summoning from somewhere…normally Gnomes). There is however still a beauty to be found amongst the ruined stone and gaping crater. I know it’s only a video game and yet, I can’t shake that feeling I have of loss whenever my character stands by what used to be the Theramore Tower.

This story however has a happier ending. Much to my surprise, wrapped up in the usual Onyxia loot (Hunter/Druid…somethings never change), I discovered a mount. For once those fickle Gods of RNG smiled on me.

On the Potential Selfishness of Selfies

As I ran through the Black Temple the other night, I realized that I’m grateful I no longer raid. The thought of trying to oversee people trying to do this whilst in combat would have got old real fast…. The sheer number of Hunters we would probably have had to kick for posting selfies of themselves hugging our corpses during wipes they avoided with feign death would most definitely have been over 9000 and that’s before we get to the wipes certain members of my old guild would have managed to create whilst trying to grab artistic shots of themselves with the next boss.

Doing on your own though… well that’s another story.

Dragon Age Inquisition – First Thoughts

Santa came early to the Harpy household this year bringing with him a copy of Dragon Age Inquisition. It’s a joint present and as we have with both incarnations of the game, we’re playing together sharing the decision making and taking it in turns to pilot our way around the stunningly beautiful map.

Naturally we’re playing a Mage as we have in every other incarnation of the game and spent around an hour playing with the character creation screen.

Visually the game has blown me away, it’s far too easy to stand around admiring the way the light falls through the leaves or the little details dotted around.

What has really sold me though is the scale of the game, we’ve played for around eight hours but haven’t really achieved anything at all. From puzzles, to little quests just to be kind along with the main story lines, the scope is immense.

My favourite thing so far however is this:

It might turn more like a  tank than a horse but the level of detail is amazing, from the difference in your position depending on your speed to the individual hairs making up the tail.

First Days of Draenor

Draenor.. it’s certainly been an interesting ride so far.

On Snowflower, despite the fact that she’s level 92 her garrison lies unloved and mostly untouched mainly because I daren’t set foot in it. I spent most of yesterday afternoon stuck to it, attempting to leave only to be ported back and told my transfer was aborted. Clearly Garrisons have rather strong gravitational pull. Sproutling, perhaps because she’s a Gnome and thus has lower mass has had a lot more success and might actually manage to develop hers beyond a Barracks.

Questing has been far more successful. Shadowmoon Valley is without a doubt beautiful and the quest chains fit together nicely.

I also love the sheer number of “treasure” dotted around the landscape, whether in the form of rares or just little trinket boxes hidden around the place. In fact I’d argue my biggest bug bear, apart from the Garrisons of course is the fact that half these items don’t seem to go into the Toy Box meaning bag space fills up just as fast. My favourites so far have to be this very fast and quite unpractical mount who drops from Shinri, a rare spawn in Shadowmoon Valley.

Shinri’s Ghost – a very fast mount only usable in Shadowmoon Valley which lasts for about 20 seconds

and my Ancient’s Bloom, a toy I fell in love with on the Beta and made sure to grab as soon as possible on live. It drops from Yggdrel and whilst also impractical in that you can’t move whilst tree’d, I love it’s look.

All in all, my experiences once away from the Garrisons have been fairly positive, although I see from Trade Chat that many don’t agree.