This week’s Shared Topic on Blog of Azeroth is from Jaedia of Jaedia’s Menagerie.
What are your initial thoughts about the Cataclysm expansion?
As I already leveled to 85 on the beta and explored almost everything there nothing was completely new to me, some might say I ruined the excitement but I don’t agree, I was as excited as anyone else to see everything live, explore it with my friends and guild, see and hear their reactions.
Cataclysm was released night to Tuesday here in Europe, most of the guild bought the download from Battle.net but I wanted a Collector’s Edition so I had ordered one but had to go pick it up at the midnight opening. So I went out around 10 pm and got to the place, not many was there and they weren’t supposed to give them out before midnight, but they did, so I got mine, happily I went back home early enough to relax, eat and install before midnight.
At midnight we all sat on vent talking and installing the game, but we couldn’t get online because the login servers were too busy, of course. Took like 30 min or more before I got into the game and could turn in the dailies I did earlier, when I did that I got half a level, but people who had gotten online early was already close to 81.
We had already planned to do dungeon runs all the way up to 85 with the same group, and we did that for about 5 hours but people got tired and I went questing on my own in Mount Hyjal. I did level in Mount Hyjal in when Cataclysm was in alpha but it was so different then and full of bugs, so I enjoyed leveling there now. It’s so beautiful and the music is perfect, especially love the Nightsong.
Later I went to Vashj’ir, Uldum and Twilight Highlands and did all the start quests to get the portals from Orgrimmar. Vashj’ir has to be one of my favorite zones cause it’s something totally new and different, it’s underwater, you get a seahorse mount, you have to be careful so the Whale Shark doesn’t eat you and I love the colors there and the Vashj’ir theme is amazing!
It’s so hard to choose what my favorite quests so far is, maybe the quests that takes you from Orgrimmar to Twilight Highlands to meet and get the Dragonmaw to join the Horde or the Harrison Jones quests in Uldum or the quests about restoring the World Pillar in Deepholm. I love how they have made those quests, how they tell the lore and the short cinematics.
Went back to doing dungeons again, Blackrock Caverns, Throne of the Tides and Vortex Pinnacle. Finally we get the quests at the entrance in most of the dungeons so we don’t have to run around the whole world to pick them up or do a long quest chain first, plus you get an introduction to what’s going on inside there. So we did all the other dungeons as well for the quests and extra experience. My favorite dungeons are Halls of Origination and Grim Batol cause they have many harder and fun bosses with new game mechanics and I love the design of the dungeons.
Wednesday around noon I dinged 85 around 36 hours after release, and I had a few breaks to sleep and eat. I didn’t rush it but took my time, enjoyed the game, but I’m looking forward to finish all quests I missed in the new zones.
Here are some of the many screenshots I’ve taken this week.
Syrco Owl 