Beta Testing 8/17/08 - 8/20/08

As you might have noticed, I went from tracking days in the beta to actual dates. I'm having some trouble remembering how many days I've played and I don't want to have to keep recounting. Also, thanks to everyone who's mentioned they like hearing about the beta and are pushing for me to keep blogging.

The past few days have been a little busy. To start, last night I didn't log in at all to the beta, instead choosing to split my time between the Olympics and Live-side, doing ZA. It was nice to see my friends, and spend some time with my hubby. Well worth the time not spent in beta.

Two days ago, the 19th I worked on a few quests in Grizzly Hills and did a lot of exploring of that zone. It really reminds me of the California Redwoods. I saw lots of Grizzly bears, a few imperial eagles and quite a bit of stag. Most of the zone seems like it would have just a slight breeze, and be around 60 degrees, except where it butts up against the Howling Fjord. There, you will find snow covered trees, ground and mountains.

I found the dwarven city in the Grizzly Hills. It's very dwarven looking, standard stone buildings, but the shapes of the buildings, with the stone columns and the glowing runes on the front of the city make this one of the most unique settlements I've seen. It seems to be defended by runic dwarves, from the attacking runic golems.

I also found a troll city, with the coolest skull torches lining the path up to the city. It's near one of the stair cases up to Zul'Drak, and as you get closer to the stair, there seem to be hundreds of trolls running around the stairs. The main town, Amber Lodge, sends you to an outpost near there to deal with their threat, although I haven't done the quests yet.

I also did a quest chain that took me to a very nordic looking settlement. I was ordered to kill many of the fighters, and obtain some of the flame-binders proto-drake talismans. Once I had enough proto-drake talismans, I was ordered to use them on the leaders favorite proto-drake to take over his mount, and slay the leader. Once again, Blizz makes clever use of the "taking over" of an item to be able to use it's abilities. The thing I found funny here was that I stealthed to the dragon, so when I took it over I was in cat form, and I ended up in cat form on its back. It looked most hilarious to see a cat riding a proto-drake. One of the benefits to these types of quests is that you are then able to solo elite mobs. This makes you feel a little more powerful, but adds a very interesting dynamic to the game.

I also found an entire settlement full of daily quests. I have yet to try any of them, but the first time you do them they award cash, and decent xp, so I'll probably give them a try at the very least. Cash seems to be no problem, as just with the quests I've done, I've made about 1200g. Unfortunately, everything on a beta server is 100 times as expensive as it should be, so for now, I'm just waiting to hit 80 and sink my money into a Dalaran teleport ring.

This weekend, as I was wrapping up quests in Dragonblight, I decided to have a go at Azjol-Nerub. It was one of the most well done instances I've encountered. Very short and sweet. The whole instance is ~9 pulls long and a well organized group can do this instance in about 15-20 minutes. I've heard tales that a group experienced with the instance can do it in less than 15. Should make this one a highly sought after heroic, even with only 3 bosses. It is nerubian based, and the packs you fight are quite large, meant to test your endurance. The boss fights are intriguing and the instance has a very "Journey to the Center of the Earth" feel, complete with a jump down a very deep hole. The mushrooms are rainbow colored, and overly large, and you run on both the ground, and spider webs, which makes things even more interesting.

After Azjol-Nerub, we traveled over to Zul'Drak and visited Drak-Thol. This 5 man tooks us roughly an hour to complete. One of the boss fights is very Vashj like in that when you engage the boss, he goes immune under 4 crystals and starts spawning mobs. As you kill mobs, the crystals break, and when all 4 break, you can dps the boss. The last boss of this instance, a dragon, turns you into a skeleton for about 30-ish seconds, every 30-ish seconds. Transformed, your main action bar changes much like it does when you take over a piece on the chessboard of Kara, or turn into a ghost at gorefiend. You then use the skellies abilities to kill the boss.

During both of these instances, I was specced Resto. (I know, unheard of for me). While I wouldn't want to spec resto permanently, I certainly didn't mind it and found it a new type of challenge. Flourish seems like a good spell for the mana cost and talent point. And trees got a little boost, being able to keep up with the main party speed wise, and being able to cast all their healing spells in tree form, including the previoulsy excluded Healing Touch. I would say trees are no longer gimped in their use, but will probably be a little more widely used, with a wider range in spells.

I do plan on logging in to the beta tonight, I'll update you tomorrow on what new things I find in Grizzly Hills.