Ah, Tranquillen, will I ever tire of you? I think not, but our time together grows shorter by the XP bubble.
While I was in town for repairs, I picked up a new quest, having turned in !Greed. Finding heads is a theme here, believe me. You go from finding live things to finding live things and making them dead. A creature tip here, please note the Shadowpine have this horrendous run away thing right as they’re about to die. This is fantastic if you’re a caster (pewpewpew laser time), but otherwise, keep your running boots handy (stab-stab-jog!). Some folks would say, “kill them faster”, but remember we’re working on the newbie level here and that’s not always an option.
From there, I wish I could fluff this up and say level 18 is interesting, but it just isn’t. I’m sorry. You’re pretty much chilling out with the entirety of the Shadowpine trolls. On the other hand think of all the quests you can consolidate. First you must kill a lot of them to get what you need for !Shadowpine Weaponry (move between camps, here), probably complete !Attack on Zeb’Tela around the same time, and then go back and do the !Assault on Zeb’Nowa. While you’re out there, you’re going to run into !Kel’Gash, and since you were smart and picked that up in Farstrider Enclave (the wanted sign, remember?), go ahead and tear him down too. If you don’t hit 19 doing all this, trust me you are doing something incredibly wrong. You shouldn’t even have to think about it.
Apothecary Venustus is cool. This quest is actually not too hard, chances are you’ve passed all the racks of food you’re going to poison but just in case you don’t remember quite, I’ve made this handy set of locational screenshots.
I also took the time to finish up some old quests, so over to Dawnstar Spire!
There’s nothing difficult about this quest, just find the book on top, really.
The twin zigs are astonishingly easy. One mob each at the side, one in the middle, and one up the ramp where the chest is. Do this twice, there you go.
Once you have done all that it is time to take your War on Deatholme and !The Traitor’s Destruction and hike it on southwest. Protip: Start looking for a group before you head out there.
EPL is on the other side of Deatholme. I cannot help but think there was influence here.
My thanks for the PUG. Beta community on Hellfire rocks the house!
You’re also going to get this quest below, but save it until later. The other stuff is more interesting, as you will see. Go to Silvermoon instead.
He’ll send you to visit Sylvanas. That’s always fun.
The following is a gratuitous epic mount picture since I saw so few people riding them. Please feel free to gaze, let your eyes glaze over, and move on.
Speaking of transportation, there is something awesome about flying around Azeroth that sailing cannot provide. This is one place where the Horde win, by the way: transit. The layout of the main cities is – how do we say it – suboptimal for both Horde and Alliance apparently. Oh they look great, don’t get me wrong. Intuitive and friendly takes a backseat to sheer ambiance though and that’s just not right. Now on the other hand, whoever was in charge of transportation? Kudos to you.
While I’m on this topic, do you know what makes sense, city planning wise? Shattarath makes sense. Ironforge makes sense. The rest, I have no idea how people manage. And these are the sort of things you think about as you’re flying across continents. Back to Orgrimmar, though since it didn’t take that long to get there. Trivial fact, as faithful readers know, I’ve played alliance and thus I’ve never been inside Orgrimmar; I had no idea where to find Thrall. After some wandering, I did manage to find him but I think it took me too long. Why don’t the NPCs tell you were Thrall is? Or Sylvanas, or perhaps any “head” NPC? It’d help the newbies, you know.
When you report to Thrall, you will most likely hit 20 if you haven’t already. Then you realize there was no grinding involved that wasn’t quest related – all that leveling was done through questing. Not only that but you are decked out in a full set of greens, and probably even have your first blue. Your reputation with Tranquillen is going to be Revered at minimum, and Exalted if you’ve really been working those quests. You’re level 20, and you’re no longer the newbie. Congrats!
Now we’ve met Thrall and he puts it all into perspective on what we’ve done. It was pretty cool.
From here, the choices are up to you on how you want to explore the rest of the world:
Report to Splintertree Post (From Orgrimmar)
Report to Tarren Mill (From Undercity)
Either way, good luck!
As for me, I reported back to the log in screen and hit exit to explore the real world for the evening. My personal journey in Outland will resume next week with everyone else… but as a level 60 Alliance character! For all you up and coming blood elves, have fun.
Conclusions, favorites, and other notes.
Dislike: Any series of newbie quests that results in “kill this, now go back to the same area and kill more of this”. Grinding is not fun, Blizzard, no matter how you dress it up. Also please spread out the mobs just a tiny bit.
Like: The sheer amount of quests. I’ve always liked this, even if I don’t always like the quests.
Favorites: The Lady’s Necklace quest chain. Poisoning Meat.
Least Favorites: Windrunner Spire, Wavefront Medallions
Other notes: Fans of Duskwood will love Ghostlands. At least Tranquillen is somewhat central this time.
That’s it from me, so thanks for coming and see you in Outland!
