One of these is not like the other
From Vishanka, Jaws of the Earth:
Levelling like a very slow train
So far in Pandaria I have levelled my 3 85s to…85. I’m completely besotted with the scenery and so have spent the entire time just wandering around and /gasping. Pandaria is stunning, like an entire continent made of Nagrand beauty. So many nooks and crannies, sweeping vistas, and things to discover. This has been bad for actually getting anywhere, but so pleasurable to the eyes that I’m not fussed.
I parked my Rogue in Greenstone Quarry hoping to discover the Ancient Pandaren Mining Pick. Staking out rare spawns is a bit dull normally, but Pet Battles has made it entirely tolerable. Check the spawn spots, go into stealth mode to avoid the zillion mobs in the mine, then queue for a quick PVP pet battle. Excellent.
Meanwhile Angler, my ostensible Prot Warrior main, has just been wandering, gathering Ghost Iron, and fishing. Tonight he stumbled into Halfhill and may never leave. Can you tank with turnips and pumpkins, as it looks like that’s the only gear I’ll be getting for a while.
Which leaves Knive as my only hope. Being LFR geared means the mobs drop a lot quicker, and she’s less likely to get distracted by professions, so I guess she’s the one getting on the level 90 train. Although, gee, that escarpment looks beautiful, I better go check it out…
Spirit of Harmony - Bind on Guild
After upgrading my Engineering, I sent a guild call out to let any miners and herbalists know that I had a nice pair of Mist-Piercing Goggles waiting if they sent through the mats. Of course I’d neglected to take into account the fact that the new crafting mat Spirit of Harmony is BoP. Ugh. So no nice crafting for my guildies.
People have been asking for the SoH’s to be made BoA, which would be nice. Even nicer would be BoG - Bind on Guild. That way you would encourage guild stickiness, and give guild crafters some nice kudos.
Mana bombs and the problem with Goblins
Theramore was an obvious misstep by Blizzard.
As has been well documented, the problems are less to do with the scenario itself than with the story delivery, and more specifically with the expectations that were heaped upon it. We were all expecting a major pre-expansion world event, a-la the WotLK zombie invasion. I guess the ‘one week only’ news should have been an early warning, but really Blizzard could have hosed down expectations before making it available (rather than a meek blue post after the fact as spotted by The Godmother at ALT:ernative).
If it had have been promoted as a Scenario teaser, the grumbling might have been quieter - the failure to explain the lore would still have rankled, but who reads dungeon background details these days? Rades has the most positive take on it I’ve seen, using it as training ground for the Scenario runs to come. That’s exactly the right way to approach it, and how Blizzard should have sold it too.
When I played through Theramore on launch day I was completely nonplussed. Why were we here? What was going on? Are we the invading force? It was all over so quickly. As Horde, the last thing we did was rescue some kind of spy who proceeded to flirt with the players. Totally bizarre, especially not knowing who this spy was or why we were rescuing him. I guess this means we’ve taken Theramore for the Horde?
Then came the cut scene. I was horrified. We were nuking Theramore? Killing everyone and everything? I had no idea this was coming - why didn’t we invade, fight the honourable fight Orc vs Human? It reminded me immediately of the denouement to Stonetalon Mountains, where another Horde bomb is used for similar evil. I had the same sinking feeling, the same horror that I had participated in this act. But in that case it was severely denounced by Garrosh as dishonourable. His stance there was so strong that it made me rethink my previous Tauren-based hatred of the Warchief. Stonetalon set us up to think that honour is Garrosh’s saving grace.
In a masterful article at Stoppable Force, Stop nails it: Garrosh is “a jerk, but he’s a jerk who represents “old school” Horde values, such as honor above all.” Read his whole article - for Theramore background and deep speculation on the next Warchief.
Now, thinking back on it, I wonder, did he really turn a corner in Stonetalon? Or was it all just a show for the player? He knew there was a bomb. He knew we were trying to secure it. Maybe he didn’t want it set off just then, but he knew the potential. It was just a practice run for the Theramore monstrosity.
And behind all this catastrophic behaviour are the Goblins. The Theramore cut scene has them hooting about what they’re about to do with typical misguided enthusiasm - cheering about mass murder basically. Same in Stonetalon. And in every quest and every zone they’re in, they are basically strip-mining or deforesting or some other environmental depravity. I hope they never get to Nagrand.
Playing through the Goblin starting zone drives home the point - Kezan is ugly, polluted, the landscape riven with smokestacks and paved with hideous racetracks. Horde players are complicit in all their scheming, often assisting with promoting their profit-above-all agenda. I hate playing the first few quests in Azshara now, as it forces you to ravage and plunder before eventually slaughtering an innocent Talrendis Ancient in a Goblin engineered tree killing machine. Aborcide? Murder more like.
There was an excellent question buried in the recent Warcraft Reddit AMA which asked why Thrall would let the Goblins into the Horde given their history of slavery. The answer was enlightening:
Thrall’s vision of the Horde is a refuge for people in need. He’s a helpful guy. The Bilgewater Goblins just had their home destroyed, and they were refugees (he can certainly relate to that). They helped him in the Lost Isles, so he offered them a home. Presumably he’d put a stop to any slave trade (the player characters don’t remain slaves once they join the Horde.) Of course… afterwards he was no longer the Warchief. Garrosh was probably a lot more hands-off of the goblins, so long as they showed their usefulness - as they demonstrated immediately in Azshara.
‘Garrosh was…a lot more hands-off’. Let the Gobbo’s off the leash, see what happens. Mana-bomb development, I’m guessing. They’re the pits.
In a final indignity after all my Goblinish pondering, our guild is named after them. Kezan Cartel. Created before Cataclysm and inspired by Gazlowe, denizen of Ratchet and self-styled saviour of Orgrimmar (he dug the Ragefire caverns to deliver water to the parched city). We figured it was a fun semi-RP name before the Goblins arrived in force. And it was for a while, as we gleefully hunted for treasure under Gazlowe’s auspices.
But after Azshara, Stonetalon, and now Theramore, I think it’s time for a Guild name change.
WoW screenshot tweaking guide
Rades’ fabul(or)ous Guide to making your WoW screenshots look great. Always wondered how Rades (and the hopefully-only-temporarily-retired Cynwise - how great is that Deathwing shot) managed to make screen-caps look so good.