After my post on Monday using my old D&D game experience of having the players captured by slavers with no choice in the matter, (and all the bad gameplay that that entails), it was somewhat ironic when I stepped into Uldum last night for the first time and … was captured by slavers with no choice in the matter in a giant cut scene. My wife asked me what I was laughing so hard about. I said there was a funny looking gnome …
I sat through it and then watched while the chick in the cage with me picked the lock, (I suppose I could have offered to help but it wasn’t an option), and then I was told to talk to the funny cat guy. Oh gee, here we go again. Step onto the giant railroad. At that exact moment I got jumped by a horde mage who was shooting me with ice arrow thingys from a great distance, a truely astounding feat of bravery. With the stamina health pools as big as there are now, I literally had time to scratch my bottom and pick my nose before I casually cast Cloak of Shadows and vanished. The mage did what all stupid players do when a rogue vanishes – they run over and start casting AoE spells where you had been standing. Any rogue worth their salt has immediately moved a few meters to the left or right in a random alignment direction. It’s fun to watch them jump around, (why do they always seem to have to jump when casting an AoE spell in this way?), while we sit to the side doing our hair. Then he got bored of this so I moved in and game him a nice little sap. This is a brilliant thing to do because once the sap wears off they start the jumping AoE game all over again in the very same place.
Except I discovered that there is a very nasty bug in Uldum, particularly for rogues. Every minute or so you enter combat for about 3 seconds and then you leave combat again. Which as a rogue breaks your stealth. I hadn’t killed the mage due to the other 4 horde that were standing around the quest-giver. Then suddenly I found myself in combat and knocked out of stealth in the middle of them all with vanish still on cooldown. For some reason the mage didn’t see me and I managed to hide beind a piller and go back into stealth. Only to be popped out of stealth 30 seconds later by suddenly going into combat again. I jumped on my flying mount and took off. I didn’t feel like being rail-roaded so I went to see if I could find another quest-giver. I discovered the 5 man entrance in a city in the clouds, but of quest-givers there was no sign. And as I was still suffering this combat bug I decided that I had had enough of Uldum for the evening. I took off for Twilight Highlands as everyone in guild chat had been saying how awesome it is. Except that I am still level 83 and Twighlight Highlands is a no go area for me. I can’t believe that they have designed every single quest zone in this rail-road style. The only choice I had was to level by archeology or go back to the Outlands-reject of Deepholm which I hate. I put in a ticket to a GM explaining that Uldum is fucked and then I logged.
Our guild, The PuG, now has over 150 seperate accounts and we’re usually seeing about 40 players online. I’ve never been in a guild with so many top class players as this, it’s quite astounding at times. I strongly recommend you to come and join if you’re having trouble finding a good guild, particularly if you’re on a server offering free transfers at the moment.
December 15, 2010 at 10:37 am
I would have jumped at the chance to join the pug however being alliance is a deal breaker for me unfortunately.
I did laugh at your mage story and note that Ive been getting knocked out of stealth in low level areas even when nothing is near to me its pretty strange stuff.
December 15, 2010 at 10:48 am
I never tought about it before but you are absolutely right about the mages aoeing where we where a few secs ago and jumping all over the place.
As for your questing problem, well if you dislike deepholm so much you are stuck in uldum since there is no other area to level. I reckon you can level by doing instances, but unless you have a guild group you are going to be stuck on the LFG for quite a while as a DPS.
Also i have to warn you, if you dislike the rollercoaster feeling you wont like Twilight highlands either. The whole game is a rollercoaster ride.
December 15, 2010 at 11:07 am
You can also complete Vashij’ir and Hyjal. Slow, but give good rep and surely push you to 84. Also, like Deepholm or not, if you want better shoulder enchant than Son of Hodir can give, you can either complete the WHOLE Deepholm questline or start leveling inscription.
December 15, 2010 at 11:48 am
You won’t like Twilight Highlands any better than the other zones. They’re all the same; boring, stupid and dumb quests which can be completed by morons.
I suggest you complete Deepholm (because of the shoulder enchant as gevlon already said). Then head for Twilight Highlands and get out as soon as you’re 85.
Then get your factions to honored, buy the blue gear, and start running heroics; currently they’re a lot of fun and very challenging.
Last night I’ve beaten Corborus and Slabhide in the Stonecore heroic with a guild group, and it was awesome. We’ve even extended the “raid” lock so we can continue with the other bosses later 🙂
December 15, 2010 at 3:02 pm
I was thinking you need revered atleast for most of the faction gear. As for the heroics i still have to try them since my char dinged 85 2 days ago and as such i only have 2 or 3 ilvl 333 pieces. But so far im enjoying it. Bit concerned tough since im unable to get past the 8k dps mark. Anyone else having the same issue?
December 16, 2010 at 9:42 pm
I’m afraid WoW’s questing is entirely on rails now. It’s that way in all the new zones, and in all the revamped old ones I’ve visited so far. However there seem to be a couple different types:
1) Railroading because they’ve decided people don’t want to explore on their own. The quest content is as scattered and nonsensical as ever, now with more needless dependencies and “go talk to X” quests. This is the type where you end up asking “Why are you sending me away when I just got here five minutes ago?” and generally feeling like an errand boy/girl.
2) Railroading in order to drive a story arc similar to a single-player RPG. Later quests represent later moments in time, so that your character’s actions actually seem to impact the zone, and the whole thing is much more coherent. (Think DK starting zone.)
If the latter has any appeal to you, I’d recommend sticking with Uldum. 🙂