Worgen

When Cataclysm was released, it added two new races, Goblins and Worgen, each with their own new starting area.

I was going to check these out much sooner, but since Christmas we’ve really not been playing WoW as we used to.. a lack of interest in dungeons thanks to too many randoms spoiling the instance, maybe a little bit of disappointment at the lack of things to do at 85 as well, without more friends to actually try out raids.

I finally got around to creating my Worgen character.. well, human and Worgen character, as you start off as a human.  She’s a warrior.. I’m going to attempt to learn to tank, if we play these for more than the initial levels anyway.

Leveling with Jaysoon instead of the usual suspect meant killing a lot of extra mobs..

Rampaging Worgen just off to the side of my route back to hand in?  Attack!  Maybe unnecessary for XP purposes, but this allowed more uses of fun quest items such as the Gilnean Mastiff, which just threw itself onto lurking enemies from whichever direction 🙂

As per the storyline we were eventually bitten, and a little later changed into our furry forms..

The female Worgen has a better walking animation than the male; being a little more hunched over, she looks more sneaky and animal-like.  I was rather amused by the ‘sniff’ emote, which has had the relevant sound added.  Worgen can also roar, unlike other races.

There were more amusing quests outside as the Forsaken arrived.. one in particular involved shoving gunpowder kegs on the heads of Abominations which were too stupid to do anything about it!  I would have liked more than four to blow up between us, though 😉

Shortly after this, the land starts to be flooded.. thanks Deathwing.. and we end up rescuing drowning people and trying to evacuate people such as a little old Grandma who turned out to be anything but feeble when a Forsaken tried to steal her cat..

Near the end of the area came the Battle for Gilneas City, which was great as we got to play with catapults, but less good when we managed to run into a glitch; a missing hand-in.  It seems that somebody else started the section just as we finished ours, resetting the location of the NPCs.  More catapult action, though, so it worked out fine 🙂

As our lovely area of the world was fast becoming an underwater area of the world, we had to go and seek refuge with the Night Elves, but not before jumping on the back of a Hippogryph and destroying a Horde ship.. after playing Horde side for so long, this felt a bit weird.

While completing missions for our new hosts, Jaysoon discovered that this huge whirlpool leads to a secret cave..with a hidden quest!

By completing the quest in here we got a secret achievement: Ghosts in the Dark.  I absolutely love the idea of little extras being hidden for those who explore 🙂

Re-rolling Arithon

Arithon, an Undead Rogue, was one of my first characters, back when I first had my trial and didn’t have a clue.  I tried out a few different characters to get an idea about what I would like to do, and I ended up playing mostly with Kirria.

Consequently, I had an upper 20s rogue which I had no idea how to play, and who had spent the last few months sitting at an Innkeeper’s feet in Thousand Needles.  So I re-rolled him, and he was joined by Erinthor, a friend’s Paladin.  We started out in Deathknell, and so far it’s been a hell of a lot more fun than the previous early levelling.

In part, I think it’s because I know a lot more about how to play an MMO, what gear I should be picking up, all the basic stuff that just seemed so confusing when I first started out.  Also, as our Recruit A Friend XP bonus is no longer in effect, there’s not the same insane push to get to the next area as we out-level the quests.. and then.. there’s the new quests, which are awesome! 🙂

Some are just fun.. such as capturing a Murloc for a lonely guy.. while others have a hell of a lot more plot and character motivation in them.

Lillian Voss has cropped up a few times, firstly as a newly undead character who wasn’t adapting to her new situation, then as she tried to find her father, only to discover that he wanted her dead.  Harsh.

I’ve loved the quests involving the Worgen so far.. there has been rather a lot of phasing as events unfold.

One quest had us head to Fenris Isle to turn the humans into Forsaken, but we were beaten there by the Worgen.. who gave the humans a choice: become Worgen, or be turned by the Plague.  The humans chose to drink blood and become Worgen, and our Val’kyr escorts told us to run, then unceremoniously picked us up and flew.

Elsewhere when we’ve encountered the Worgen we’ve had plenty of fighting, and Stealth-Shadowstep-Ambush is starting to feel quite good! 🙂

This even extended to the Deadmines run just before bed last night, which was far easier to handle than I expected, despite not being completely confident with the Rogue.