Northrend: Day 1

[Muljaque]

Stood in line at store, about 100 people eventually but I was around #20 or so from leaving to it around 11. It went pretty orderly. They had everyone who hadn't paid full amount yet pay in advance, get a stamped receipt, then just file through and get their copy at midnight. I got a scratch off to win some thing in game that I didn't win.

Anyway, install and patch smooth, and logged in.

I had logged out at Stormwind Harbor, which I thought was the only way to get to northrend. WHile patching though I finally read up some content and noticed you could also go from Menthil. I reasoned that more people would travel from Stormwind since the attack event happened there plus it was an easy hop from shatrah. So I went to Menethil and boarded the boat. Plus, it may just be me, I like Fjords. Been to Norway once, trust me its worth going.

Upon arriving, after a lengthy boat arrival trip through said fjord, dropped off at a rudimentry landing area, with a quest giver waiting. My main goal this night was to get past early choke-points of everyone trying for the same kills or spawns or drops or objects. It wasn't bad, the spawn rate on the attackers just outside Valgarde seemed more than enough to quickly get the needed kills.

Quests lead to a series of quests in Wyrmgard (I think, from memory here) village, which is run by some dragonoid types. Pretty easy to kill. Eventually that lead into Utgard (again I'm getting the names wrong I'm sure) keep, which I gather is the first instance on this side. I didn't go in there yet. There are some non-instanced catacombs that have a number of quests, including one neat one where you have to run through a massive amount of undead with a buff that repels them, its pretty easy actually.

There I encountered first choke-point... collecting some tablets (10) that spawn in the catacombs and had a lot of people running around waiting for them to appear. It wasn't that bad though and I got through it.

At which point I encountered the first bugged quest, Stunning Reversal at the Ring in which a mob (Oluf the violent) didn't spawn. A lot of people waiting and not getting it before we definitely concluded it was bugged.

It was late so I returned to Valgarde, which I did by swimming, where I saw a questgiver underwater and a bunch of people looking for crates using some kind of airhose to stay underwater. Droods need no such tricks and it was a pretty easy quest, able to get chests faster than the other people out there anyway.

I turned in my quests, took a few stab at killing 15 turkeys (I thought i had it but no achivement), then went to the Inn. The Inn was large and impressive, a step up from our older inns. It was home to a bunch of profession trainers, who mugged me in an alley behind the inn and robbed me of around 100 gold.

3 hours before I had to get up for work, I called it a night. Which got the standard Chao farewell to everyone who signed out, "pussy". I imagine he's still on....

[Death Dealer]

cool, thanks for the post.. chumps like me that cant get in yet will prolly enjoy these posts.

graphically is it cleaner, better looking?

[Terekronos]

Valgarde was way better in terms of the number of people, from what I saw. Definitely would recommend going there first. (You go there from Menethil.)

The boat ride is better anyway.

And yes, the Vrykul spawn rate was unbelievably high. They did an excellent job there; I never felt lacking for things to kill no matter how many other people were there with me. Drop rates for things like keys seemed higher than in beta, too. There ARE choke points, those tablets and the harpoon launchers spring to mind, but it's not anywhere near as bad as Hellfire was.

The graphics are however you want to set them, it's still the same basic engine but with a WAY longer draw distance and a nice shadowing engine. My computer is crap, so I turned that off, but even without that it looks great. Valgarde/Grizzly Hills essentially look like British Columbia; all rocky with giant redwoods and whatnot. It looks great, and even better when you see Utgarde looming over you.

(And as for the Nexus, well... let's just say you really, really need to see the Nexus.)

[PurpleVixen]

Luna and I stood in line at GameStop for about 45 minutes. I listened to music while he played Brickbreaker on his phone. Thankfully it wasn't snowing out.

We didn't win on our scratch off cards either. Which honestly doesn't surprise me. :)

[Bek]

Hehe.. Lyn and I went out at 12:05 and got to Best Buy at about 12:15. We lined up at the checkout for about 5 minutes, bought our copies, got back into the car and was home by 12:30. :) With almost every electronic store open for this event, there was almost nothing happening where I am... which is fine by me. By the time we got through, the store was virtually empty...

[Kinjite]

I went into Wal Mart on my lunch break at 12, got 2 copies and was back at work at 12:07 to eat lunch! :)

Got home and Allison (Inocent's) copy had 3 instruction booklets and NO disc. :(

Back to Wal Mart.

1/2 hour later had good copy and we're currently installing.

Cya soon!

[FionaPendragon]

Got my copies... ETA soooooooon :D

[RageKage]

There's a queue now!! 8-10 minutes!!

[Wolf]

Went to EB Games for the midnight release, lined up with the great unwashed masses (man some people who play WOW are really weird, not me of course, i'm normal!) Got a free poster, WOOT (not). Got home, installed, patched played for 15 minutes and fell asleep :)

[FionaPendragon]

Wolf, you are truly a trailblazer. huzzah!

[Zymun]

Well I had a fun day playing, got to level 71 without trying really. Tons of quests, no lag, lots of instancing fun, especially watching Necro and Mai duo a spider boss in the Azjol'Nerub when we got bored of the baby instances and went somewhere more fun (more fun meaning that the rest of us watched it from face down on the floor...).

Now I see a 40+ minute queue on Stormrage :( Off to find a server with a small population, experiment with a DK for a few...

EDIT: Blizz really does annoy me sometimes... can't create a DK on a realm on which you don't already have a level 55+ >.< Thought they were going to allow you to create one anywhere... Fuck it, guess I'll watch the Pats instead.

[Kail]

Ath and I were messing around in Borean Tundra. There are way too many annoying assholes...I mean players...running around at the moment. I have no patience, so I'll try again tomorrow. =)

I must say though that I already like the atmosphere; picking up where WC3 left off. =)

[Trumanheart]

I didn't buy the game, so I sleep all night. Wake up and go to work the next day. Didn't encouter any in-game bug.

Enjoy the game guys :) glad to see you all still do.

[Malachor]

Kail

Ath and I were messing around in Borean Tundra. There are way too many annoying assholes...

Yeah but Sudac should be moving out of Tundra soon. I hear from General chat that Sudac is a ninja!

[Melic]

Not a ninja, but THE ninja. :)

[Kail]

Malachor

Yeah but Sudac should be moving out of Tundra soon. I hear from General chat that Sudac is a ninja!

Haha

[Muljaque]

Day 2:

Due to various things I didn't get into game until around 11pm.

I wrapped up my business in the UK Catacombs (different than UK proper) with the quest now working, which was good. To help alleviate choke points, when the mob dies a ground drop appears that anyone in the area can loot, whether or not they took part in the fight. From there got side quests to Explorer's Outpost, Westguard keep and some other fun place up the fjord wall, near a village called Nifflevar, all with free one time gryph flights to them to save you the trouble. The spot up the fjord wall had a few fun quests including another spirit journey in which you witness act 2 of a storyline of the sure-to-be-tragic history of the Vrykul. Also fun quests involving using harpoons on them and culminating in being shot by harpoon back into Valgarde, very stylish entrance. For added effect drink some kind of firebreathing potion just before boarding.

Westgard seems to be a bigger town than Valgarde, and seems likely my new quest hub. I tied to that spot but then headed back to Valgarde and down the coast to some walrus-guy town that I'd heard had passage to the Borean Tundra, to accomplish a long-delayed achivement. I took passage by turtle to a walrus village in dragonblight, then to another village in the borean tundra. Picked up flight pt at each one for future use. From the last one I went overland through some steam and geyser areas and in short order located my quarries, the elusive Steam Frog and the Borean Frog. After a quick expression of affection, I now had my goal, "To all the Squirrels I've Loved Before". Near by there I ran into the D.E.T.A.H. encampment, a group of druids dedicated to opposing Nesingwary's hunting expeditions. I did a few of their quests before moving on.

I continued on to valiance keep long enough to get that flight pt then went back to the middle town. I'd heard you needed to be a certain level to reach Dalaran, but wanted to test that. I rode north across the Dragonblight, ignoring monster eventually finding a large ruined highway heading towrds a giant tower, that was not inhabited by hostiles, but neutral-types. There was an inkeeper here, and a flight pt. Great. ALl the quests were beyond my level, but I'll be back. I pressed on north on the ruined highway, called the Titan Road or something like that.

Eventually this road lead into a giant-inhabited crevice, but I got by them and into a non-frozen area of immense beauty, crystalsong woods, which had an autumnal look to them (think Azshara) with crystaline trees. Most of the fauna there wasn't hostile, and I noted some trees almost large enough to rival Teldrassil. Also there was a familiar looking purplish dome, home to several mages of Kirin-Tor, and a crystal which gave me a gear icon. Eagerly i clicked on it.. .and was told I cannot use it until I'd used the one in Dalaran first. I moaned about this in Gchat to which Chao replied "give me 10-20 more minutes". I had to go to work (I should note that between the start of this narrative and this point I slept for about 4 hours). I hearthed back to westgarde and called it a morning.

[Death Dealer]

well shit...

Uncle Sam has bent me over again. we were supposed to pull in today around 11am. well.. the weather was bad enough to prevent that. we have turned back out to sea. with plans to pull in tomorrow morning. HOWEVER i have duty saturday so i will not be able to get off the ship till sunday morning. weeee....

PS. did i mention we go back out to sea Monday... hahaha well i guess i will look at this way, the newbie zones should be fairly clear while i level up the DK.

/sigh

[Ooberhause]

Well, my brother and I went to the closest Gamestop and picked up a copy of WotLK. Since he worked at Gamestop for a bit, they shared some war stories, and we got a few extra scratch off cards.

Twenty six to be exact. Didn't win a damn thing.

[ProPyro]

I went to Futureshop and sat on the floor reading some books from school from 10:30 to about 11:50, then I stood up and almost fell over from lack of sensation in my legs and cold feet.