Journey of the Holy Druid; Part 1

The idea was inspired by someone who hit his head in a cave this one time, but it's a good idea nevertheless - I thought that I'd do a small project on my 5 year journey in WoW. The long, arduous trip that, while could have been spent a bit better in the real world, has been a journey of great fun and enjoyment, with different wonders such as my first Deadmines run, bumping into Hogger, the great event of hitting level 60, and so on.

For those of you who don't know anything about who I am or what I do ingame, the title of a Holy Druid might seem confusing. There is nothing Holy about a Druid! They hug trees, when not already trees, and emanate green glowy lights from their hands (or bluey-white), not yellow light! It's quite simple really, for about 4 years of my time on WoW, my Druid has been my main, I've been class leader for Druids in 3 separate guilds, and have avidly stuck to them... Until my Paladin came along. And I know he's more Protection than Holy, but I just felt that it fitted more in the title, so shoot me and feign death.

I originally got the game way back in December 2004, and could have signed up for the EU beta. But being back in 2004 I was a mere 12 years of age. I didn't have a source of income to provide for this game, and I hadn't realised at the time there was going to be a subscription, I just thought it would be like WC3 but in a more RPG style, with a free section of it like Runescape had! I was young and naive! Don't hit me because I based it off Runescape. Anyway, now that I was 13 I could start a paper round and have responsibility. I started to earn, and it was actually in March that I thought I'd give WoW a go, now that I'd had a bit of surplus money. In the 3 months I had looked up around the game (from the little bible that you got with the original game), I felt that the way of the Paladin was the best way for me to go.

He could wear the best armor in the game, he was a "tough melee fighter" and "has a useful mix of healing and defensive spells". He seemed like the GOD of the different classes I looked up about. Besides, I always loved the Paladins from the RTS. And as of that moment, the Human Paladin known as Racako was born (I didn't really feel that the Dwavres were that idealistic as Humans were). I watched through the opening Human cinematic with jaw-dropping awe. This was going to be a helluva lot better than Runescape, I seem to remember thinking to myself. Eventually I zoomed into Northshire and my character, and I could move around.

As most other people in the zone saw first, was this guy in armor with a big ! over his head. I went over to him and right clicked on him, he told me to go round the corner to another guy who needs help with some wolves. I thought to myself "Ok, why couldn't the wolf guy just be where this guy is? Who cares this is friggin' AWESOME" and then went toward Peltskinner. I got scared of the level 2 wolves (as I was level 1) and made sure to keep my distance from them. Got the quest from Eagan and I had to kill those very wolves.

I edged up ever so slowly to them, and then realised "Hey! These guys don't actually attack me if I go near to them!" So I ran around in glee around them jumping all over the place without actually hitting any of them. And then I found out right clicking also make you attack things as well as talk to them. So I bludgeoned a wolf in the face, and a fair chunk of his health went down, especially in comparison to how much my health went down in comparison when he hit me. I felt on top of the world! I took on TWO wolves! Both level 1 though. I felt like challenging a level 2 if I was lucky. And then the best thing in the world happened to me. Gold flooded my character, a sound rang through my ears... And I was level 2!

I'd get to level 60 in no time at this rate! I had to kill, what, 8 mobs? That means I'd be 60 in around 500 kills, right? Little bit of a task, but I was sure I could do it. I just kept on killing thes- Oh, quest done. Handed it in as I saw some nice armor there from the reward. Then I eventually found the quest to go and kill Kobolds, and got confused as to why some Kobolds gave me parts of quest completion and others didn't. I hadn't realised at the time that Vermin was the type of kobolds, not something to generally call them. But I killed and I killed, and then I realised that I had a spell called Seal of Righteouness. I realised I killed slightly faster, and I had yellow numbers as well as my usual white numbers do damage.

I soon realised that every level takes longer than the previous, which annoyed me at first, but then thought it was logical really. Anyway, I was soon out of Northshire, and ready to take on the rest of Elwynn Forest! At which point I promptly died to one too many wolves just outside the gates. Back onto the road and I followed the path down to Goldshire.

This is where things start getting a bit hazy for me, but I do remember general noobishness such as running west instead of east for some quests (although through that, a very nice level 37 Warrior named Wallace helped me out a bit), pulling way too many mobs and finding out the hard way that healing is impossible when that happens (days of infinite pushbacks on spells) and spending most of the time trying to save up for the Tabar from the vendor to replace the shovel I'd gotten from the kobolds. I was scared stiff of Jasperlode mine in the "west", and then Hogger and the gnolls terrorised me in the "east". Going south and there were skull levelled mobs, so I turned around there, and I spent my days until level 13 in a small pocket of Elwynn Forest...

Northrend: Will It Return?

As much as seeing frozen wastelands with the occasional jungle bores people for two years, you'll probably have skipped over quite a few interesting tidbits that Blizzard could return to this frozen north in later patches or expansions. They're doing it now in Cataclysm by returning to Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms, so why not return to Northrend at some point? Or even Outland?

I'd definitely say we've exhausted the Scourge side of the story in Northrend - in terms of Arthas anyway. But who says that the Helm of Domination won't make Bolvar go slightly on the loopy side? Sure he emanated holy-fire instead of death-frost when he put on the hat, but wasn't Arthas's intentions initially for the good of his people? The Culling of Stratholme had reasons behind it that Uther and Jaina could not understand or see as Arthas had seen. Arthas may have killed Ner'zhul mentally from the Helm, but that was a mere metaphor. What if Ner'zhul realised that Arthas no longer needed him, or was becoming too reckless in order to take vengeance against the Burning Legion, so hid himself away as advisor, until the Helm received a new wielder?

Pure speculations, but it's the kind of plot twists that may come out with Knaak that Blizzard will integrate into their story line. The fact is the Scourge is still out there, but controlled. We'll have to see the story as to why the Eastern Plaguelands still have corruption inside of them, and what becomes of Scholomance and Stratholme, and find out lore behind them again. So a new Scourge could well be a possibility of bad guys, and we'll get to see Icecrown Citadel again (wouldn't you just LOVE Blizzard for sending us back there?).

Following on from the Scourge, whatever will happen to the Vrykul now? And whatever happened to that Utgarde raid that we were promised back in alpha? I guess technically, Utgarde Pinnacle was going to be the raid, Utgarde Keep was to be the high level dungeon, and Utgarde Catacombs was to be the low level dungeon. Oh how plans change, the Catacombs became a lot smaller and more... Worldy, in becoming just an area to quest in to get some trinket of the light while killing masses of zombies wherever you walked. And the Keep and Pinnacle were knocked down notches. In the return to Northrend, we could see the Catacombs being expanded upon, finding out more about the link between the Vrykul and early Arathi Humans.

Another place of interest (especially my own) is the Chamber of Aspects below Wyrmrest Temple. We've seen the Obsidian Sanctum since the start of Wrath, and the final patch before 4.0 will feature the Ruby Sanctum. Admittedly with current times, these two are the most integrated within the Warcraft dragon storyline - at least when in consideration of Deathwing, Malygos had his own raid to have fun in. It would be nice seeing the Emerald Sanctum opening up at least in the Emerald Dream expansion, perhaps fighting some form of the Nightmare inside there. The Blues might have an attack by Deathwing again, like in the Ruby Sanctum, thanks to the Twilight flight needing a lot of magical energy, so the Azure Sanctum would be a great place to siphon some off. I'd imagine that the Bronze Sanctum will open up more as Caverns of Time reaches its peak in the storyline of the Infinites and Nozdormu. I imagine Blizzard has big plans for Wyrmrest, unless it becomes like Gilneas in Vanilla...

The temple of Gundrak has also been a place that seems to just be looming in the shadows over Zul'Drak. What is Frost King Malakk doing in that complex? And of course, a question that's been asked for months now - what the heck is that snake's tail in Gundrak all about? Personally, it looks a little like Hakkar the Soulflayer (or Quetz'lun, who's a bit closer to home but might be lesser known) in terms of colouring. Some kind of wind serpent deity could exist past Quetz'lun for the Drakkari, however only the temple might tell us more. Who knows, in Gundrak we face against the prophets of the loas, in the temple we may be able to fight against the ice troll pantheon itself. With the Scourge largely gone, or at least not pressing as hard against the trolls, how will the notoriously most powerful troll race react? Expansion from Zul'Drak? Only time will tell.

Of course if the return to Northrend did become an expansion, we'd need a zone or two to help with it. Now the bonus of Vanilla WoW was that there were no flying mounts and there were gaps in the map where zones could be placed. However, what about Northrend? We kind of know of everywhere on the continent's surface. Hrothgar's Landing was added later on, but there's only so many islands you can stick onto the edge of the continent - and to make them zone-sized? So where could we go if we've seen the surface of the entire continent...

Azjol-Nerub? As much as we know for the moment, it spans as far north as the northern edge of Icecrown. How far east or west does it reach? What happened to the Nerubian libraries? Doorward? The Inner Kingdom? Surely the Upper Kingdom is larger than a few rooms? As for the Old Kingdom, well you can quite blatantly see that the place is spawling past what you can walk on. And don't forget that drop from Hadronox down to Anub'arak itself (as well as the drop to Anub in ToC), what's lurking between the layers of the lair?

I'd imagine the return to Northrend may see an increasing number of Twilight's Hammer too, admittedly Yoggy bear has been banished/killed, but that's never stopped the Hammer before (Master's Glaive in Darkshore), as well as any other Forgotten Ones and the rest of the Faceless. The only reason I see as to why these guys haven't had much plot to them in this expansion other than in Ahn'kahet/Descent to Madness in Ulduar is because of the Scourge threat. It's a bit more immediate. However, most of the Scourge have now gone, and the rest are under Bolvar's rule (whether or not he stays sane is another matter, don't forget), so more Twilights may flee after we beat them around a bit in the next expansion, to the cold north.

Another thing that's intrigued me is how empty zones like Crystalsong are. Crystalsong is excused slightly for the possibility of too much traffic, because Blizzard said they had plans for this zone (see the Sunreaver/Silver Covenant bases - it was the original place for the Argent Tournament) but the servers wouldn't be able to cope with the amount of data with Dalaran just above the zone. So it stands as a placeholder zone for the magical city to float above, with the occasional quest dipping into there. It also holds the fifth great tree portals into the Emerald Dream, so there's no doubt we'll be returning to have a quick entrance to the Dream from there.

Another "redundant" zone seems to be the resource glut of Northrend - Sholazar Basin. I would have loved to have a dungeon or raid in here surrounding the Titans' playground of Northrend, or some kind of PvP objective between the furries and big-tongues, instead of just a few dailies. My Druid gave up on the daily quests as, despite having different ones each day, quickly got repetitive. My Paladin's not even touched it. Having some kind of bonus, even just to the zone (for example, 2x return on skinning/mining/herbalism if your faction are winning, 0.5x return if you're losing) might bring more people into it. Although personally I'd prefer to see the Makers' areas or Stormwright's Perch have dungeons attached to them concerning Titan artifacts.

Final point about Northrend. Now I do have to say I did quite like playing WC3, especially the storyline about the race to Icecrown between Illidan and Arthas. My question is, where the heck did Illidan's bases go? Surely there must be some kind of outpost for Naga and Illidari Blood Elves. Or did they just de-construct everything and get everyone out to Outland? Not even ruins appear to be left behind of the bases that were conquered. Perhaps, with this new water technology in Cataclysm, on the return to Northrend we might be able to see where the Naga ran off to in Northrend.

All this talk about Northrend is all very nice as it's the current content. But what about Outland? Could we go back there? Easier to implement new zones on a shattered planet after all. But the main thing that would tickle my fancy are the portals Ner'zhul created. What would happen if some agent from the Burning Legion decided to reopen all of them? Would the ripping apart of the planet due to so many inter-dimensional portals have a knock-on effect onto Azeroth through the Dark Portal? Good enough reason to go back there alone, even if the foes through the reopened portals were Burning Legion agents trying to get to Azeroth through Outland anyway.

Attunements, Oh Attunements, Wherefore Art Thou Attunements?

If it's one thing I hated in Vanilla and Burning Crusade, but now miss in Wrath of the Lich King, it's actually those little quests and targets known as attunements.

They blocked you from reaching a certain area of content, sure, but sometimes, as seen in the many ICC and ToC pugs, might actually be a good thing for some. They ranged from:

• Creating resistance kits
• Grinding reputation up to a certain level
• Epic quest chains
  
• Looting something from inside the raids themselves, in order to progress to the next tier of raiding.

They were a nuisance at times, but they were in fact gems! If you ask someone their favourite questline from Vanilla, chances are it's going to be the Onyxia attunement line, along with perhaps The Missing Diplomat or whatever it is the Horde can enjoy. Prospecting these gems would uncover some utterly amazing pieces of lore, and actually have some kind of progression in terms of why you're heading onto the next piece of content, at least in the latter two types of attunements.


The first one however... Meh. It was the true blockade to halting progression. Gearing up people in shadow resistance gear for Mother Shahraz was bad enough for a 25man run, the fire res kit for Ragnaros for 40 people was a nightmare. Onyxia Scale Cloaks for the 40 people against Nefarian was no walk in the park either. If you had a 300 skinner, with the skinning enchant, and Finkle's Skinner/Zulian Slicer in the raid, you'd get 3 Scales of Onyxia on a lucky week, 1 on an unlucky week. That is if all your raid members hadn't /gquit by then because of the 50 DKP minus you gave them for standing in the whelp caves. These ones I don't mind saying farewell to, although it'll stop people whining when Paragon/Nihilum/STARS get their world firsts so quickly, because they'll have to spend a week or two just getting the resistance kits required. But then it'll whiplash and kick us in the teeth when WE need to gear up for those fights.

Perhaps make "optional" bosses require resistance sets? Optional as far as not needed to be killed to reach the end boss, or even unlock heroic modes. But they could be part of the "Glory of the ... Raider" meta-achievements. That way we get the best of both worlds - casuals can work their way to the end content with only tactics on their mind, the hardcore can unlock their heroic modes and work their way to the end boss in heroic mode, and the top few on each server can work on their Glory achievements.


The second one worked - to an extent. It really was amazing the change in the quality of groups when Blizzard changed the requirements for TBC heroics from Revered down to Honored. At least with the Revered requirement you had people that had done the instance at least once in normal mode. The expensive materials to Naxxramas 40man for people that were not yet Exalted with Argent Dawn yet also worked a treat. Chances are if you were ready for Naxx, then you'd most likely be Exalted with AD anyway, with the amount of Scholo/Strat runs you'd have been running for the game before. But reputations will be reputations - long, tedious grinds unless you happen to be a champion for that faction (which, for the most part, is not available).

What did work, I felt, and what will work in Cataclysm to an extent, is "attunement" to a dungeon from the Dungeon Finder tool requires you to have found it in the world - hence groups won't be spammed with "rez plz" when people don't actually realise where the hell they've got to go. The second part of what I feel will work, will be a requirement, like in Magister's Terrace, to have completed the dungeon once in normal mode, before being allowed in heroic 5man version.


One sidenote I do have to mention however. I hate keys. It encourages laziness enough for people to assume at least one person will have the key, and you end up with 4/9/24 people spamming the trade channel "LF tank last spot! YOU MUST HAVE KEY!!" Do it as you did with Karazhan's original plan - if you're going to have a key, make everyone need it! Although epic questlines do get outdated when people don't have the patience to do them, which means that for nostalgia raids you either have to depend on a Warlock, or just wait around for people to do the attunement. When a new expansion hits, drop the attunement, but keep the quest in as optional for the Loremasters.


I don't understand why Blizzard decided to do away with attunements in Wrath. All I can assume is that they wanted people to get into the content easier, and hit the end content like a freight truck. I'm not entirely sure what their plan is for attunements, but let's take a look at how it could have been done, raidwise:

1. Entry into Naxxramas would require for example the level 80 dungeon "Proof of Demise" quests - Collect the Locket of the Deceased Queen, Ley Line Tuner, Celestial Ruby Ring and Artifact from the Nathrezim Homeworld.
2. Entry into Obsidian Sanctum requires the raider to collect an item called Loatheb's Rotting Fur, and return it to Nalice atop Wyrmrest Temple.
   
3. Entry into Eye of Eternity already has the key from Sapphiron. But make it a raidwide drop instead of just one person.
4. Entry into Ulduar requires bringing Kel'Thuzad's Phylactery (Naxx), a Scale of Sartharion (OS) and Residue of Coldarra (EoE), and bringing them to Rhonin. He in turn grants you the Favor of Dalaran, which will allow the mages in Ulduar to shut down the magical shell at the base camp.
5. Entry into the Trial of the Crusader requires raiders to collect an item ([Keepers name]'s Sanity) from one of the Keepers of Ulduar. You then hand in said item to Tirion Fordring and he'll recognise you as being able enough to participate in the Trial of the Crusader.
6. Trial of the Grand Crusader's requirement can stay as it is. Kill Anub'arak in normal mode.
7. Icecrown Citadel's entry is the same as ToGC's. Represent Anub'arak's Claw to Tirion, and he will tell you to meet him inside Icecrown Citadel for the final blow against the Lich King.
8. Icecrown Citadel's heroic mode can stay as it is, killing Lichie on normal mode.

Now before people moan at me by saying "What happens when we get a new 80, either new member or alt?" I'll just say that these bosses aren't particularly hard to reach, PUGs can reach them within a matter of hours - get the new recruit a couple of speedruns or attunement runs (no doubt people in Trade will be advertising them too) in the pre-requisites, it can be on an off-raiding night as you're already past that content. Hardcore players that are fed up of going to the old raids most likely won't need to do them, as their raiding force is tight-nit anyway, and won't have many leavers. Casuals I've noticed love to just piss around in easier content, or are much more likely to put on their nostalgia goggles.

Blizzard's plan for WotLK was for people to see all the raid content. A fair few people that were late into 80 now have the hardest time finding a group willing to go all the way through Ulduar, Naxx, go to EoE, find out how OS is without drakes up, hell, even fight Archavon in his own Vault.

Sure they get to see the end content, unlike in Vanilla/TBC, but Blizzard still worked damn hard in the other raids, just for them to rot. I see more MC and BWL runs than I do to Ulduar to fight up to Vezax or Yoggy.