Echo Isles.

Ok, so Logging into the Troll starting area for the first time, I am greeted to a non-narrated cut-scene. It basically is a tour around the Island, showing the unique architecture of the Trolls and an on-going battle between the Trolls and the Naga invading the Island.

Is your view when you first enter the troll area, you are sitting down, there are some drum beats in the background and you have your first quest Right In-front of you.

A few comments; The cinematic has no narration at the moment, obviously this will be added in a later build (presumably). I know this is already on live, but having no attack on the bar in the 1 slot is so awesome for newer players.

Anyway, the format for these entries will be All quests and a map all on the same shot, an example is in the following picture

I will Post video's aswell of "interesting lore/content", this is entirely of my opinion of what is interesting/worthy of a video. Regardless anything not caught on a video clip will be screenshotted and posted in a collage.

Here is a somewhat nice touch I think in video form, the guy by the fire stands up when you accept this quest and leads you towards your class trainer.

Basically this quest is like Hi, us trolls are going to make sure we keep our home here in the Echo Isles but the future of the trolls is going to be somewhat uncertain due to Garrosh Hellscream being a war-hungry leader. The quest is probably just follow up from the narrated cinematic one would have heard before and so it works.

Anyway, he tells you to start your training, and you set off after Zuni, who is a fellow initiate seemingly.

We get to our class leader, I like this part about this new starting area, your very first quest tells you to go to your class leader. It's very tutorial-driven and newbie-friendly. You even get this guy zuni to show you where to go, which is a lovely touch imo.

The next quest is a simple kill quest, your class leader instructs you to kill some practice targets all around the central part of the island to practice killing stuff, i like the name of this quest amusingly. I find this quest quite good though because I remember starting back in vanilla and being like AAAA melee as a mage, my first character, and this teaches you against that and to mostly cast spells, a nice touch: especially against pretty non-scary monsters. You also get to appreciate the lovely troll art used in this area, which I personally think is amazing.

I also like the comments the class trainer makes when you complete the quest, somewhat impressed and trying to spur you on, it's a generic kill quest, but hey it's wow and having cool reasons to do kill quests make them less of a chore.

Again, you move into another kill quest, this time against some cats. Obviously the trolls be wantin' there food for tonight so you better go kill these pesky cats, the in-game quest helping map is actually really unclear where these guys are imo. But regardless...

This quest was actually really nice though, and well timed tbh. The cats have the cool "Feral Charge: Cat" animation and so leap up to you, they kinda have an annoying habit of going behind you after doing this, probably reminensce of the actual move on cats, however I feel this is a good thing because it encourages mouse turning, which can only be a good thing. I also Dinged whilst killing these mobs, which is nice progression imo: GO KILL YOUR FIRST REAL THINGS --> LEVEL, it makes sense.

On the subject of levelling: you now get an awesome animation when levelling saying what rewards you get for levelling up. For level 2, there is nothing at all just GZ YOU REACHED LEVEL 2, but later you get moves you can learn at the class trainer, talent points, unlocking dungeon finder.. all that jazz.

After handing that in the follow up is like..

I personally find the Jailor's comments amusing, especially considering the hand-in, he is like "Nah, he's a pushover m8" and the druid trainer is all like "OMG UR A HERO" afterwards, which i find pretty entertaining anyway. The quest is kinda cool, so i made a video showing me spamming wrath O:.

Afterwards you get introduced to Vol'jin, and OMFG that quest is sick. The rp is, I guess, going to be a part of the pre-cata event, but being able to see it in the troll starting area at level 2 is pretty immersing, I am kinda at odds whether you should be able to accept the next quest after handing this quest in and seeing the rp immedietly or be forced to watch it, but I guess people rolling alts would complain if they *HAD* to see the awesome rp. Anyway, the rp is in the video below, I guess the sound could be added in a later build, considering it has some parallels to the nagrand questline which does have sound, I would kinda expect it to.

Regardless, that quest is awesome :D.

Now for the first time we get 2 different quests, the crab one seems a little *urgh* imo, since it takes you away from the main story of the area. Regardless, the crab "bubble" animation is awesome, it's kinda a pity that they pretty much die before they can do it. I actually dinged during this quest but forgot to take a screenshot of the new stuff before going onto the next area. I think this quest could work if it made u go back to your class trainer to learn your "level 3 ability", since I only did this quest at the end of the zone since there is no logical quest that takes you back to the class trainer area. I put in a picture of the kewt raptor cos its like MMFMGOMFOGMG kewt :(((.

After doing the somewhat sidetracking quest with the crabs you head off towards the bridge where...

... Zuni Reappears O:, he follows you over the bridge and again, I love his dialogue mocking how the class trainers tried to make him feel special but obviously he wasn't cos you progressed just as quickly.. Lovely touch really. My screenshot unfortunately cut off his second dialogue part he basically says "dis is prolly going to be easy but I" in the hidden bit.

Anyway for the first time you get a bunch of quests all in the same area, 3, a "quest item" type quest and you get to see the cool little level 3 animation i failed to include in the last part.

The quests tell you to go to the Island, basically to stop whatever is corrupting the raptors and stealing the hatchlings, kinda cool lore really considering raptors are the troll mounts and obviously they have to raise them from when they are young to be able to ride them later.

You get onto this Island and you kill some corrupted raptors and use your quest item to round up the raptors... cool. You then get to the centre of the island and bam.. You find a naga corrupting the little baby raptors, so of course you rush to their rescue and, in my case wrath him to death getting the un-implemented eclipse proc that does nothing. This killing is so awesome though, because all those raptors you rescued all jump on him and start biting his face, I don't think they do any damage but the animation is awesome. You go back across and hand in, and get your first new bit of kit. Personally I like this new kit looks, its sleak and much better than rag-tagged robes you were getting in the vanilla starting areas.

After handing in apparently there is a crazy-ass raptor running around called swiftclaw who you need to hop on and ride back to the pen. This is another cool quest really, catching up to the raptor is a little "urgh" though since he moves really fast. But it's not that bad, once you use the quest item you get launched onto the raptors back and OMG HE WONT STOP so you have to control him across the bridge and into the pens on the other side, not that hard really but a cool way to introduce you into vehicle/mount mechanics imo.

Regardless you go hand in, get a neat new belt and bump into Zuni again, right before being told to ride a raptor. Since this ride gives you a nice cinematicy look at the area again I included a video of it, along with another collage O:.

Oh Yeah I also dinged and got told I can learn Moonfire, although again no breadcrumb to go visit your trainer at this stage is rather disappointing, but it's a kinda minor point.

Anyway, after the awesome ride through the ongoing slaughter of naga vs. Troll, behind their lines you meet up with the captain who is like: Go into the cave and kill some naga. These 2 quests are really neat design though. Since there is great synergy between the 2. You put up these fetishes on these flag-sticks and this creates an aura around it which weakens the naga. Since almost all the naga in this cave come in pairs, its neat that you can reduce their hp and damage with this aura. They definitly should make more of these quests to make "kill quests" more interesting :D.

Onto the next quest, which is another AWESOME quest, it's amazingly awesome really. Basically, The leader of the Naga forces shows herself on the battlefied, Zar'jira. Basically she is a Sea witch that killed Vol'jin's father: Sen'jin on the lost isles where Thrall crashed when the horde evacuated Eastern Kingdoms before the BL invasion in WC3.

The lore is pretty awesome here, and the battle against her is pretty nice really. A lovely way to end the Echo Isles. The Battle is in the Video Below..

Basically The Sea Witch summons adds, which you kill and weaken her, as vol'jin puts the hurt into her. Around 50% she Ice blocks Zuni and the other troll female O: and you get an emote BASH THE BRAZIERS, when you interact with them and kill them she loses more health and vol'jin is set free, she does this again around 20% or so, but this time your good old buddy Zuni Tries to bash the braziers. The Sea witch decides to wtf kill him and then goes on to die herself.

It's a little mixture of a raid encounter into a simple kill this big boss guy quest and you get to fight with Vol'jin, which is just seriously awesome. Anyway, after you kill her you talk to the shaman girl who sends you back to vol'jin with some very "Jaina-esque" Teleporting. After, which you complete the quest, ding, and get to see some awesome new lore with Thrall and Vol'jin. Again showcased in the video below :D.

I mean, seriously this Starting zone is so good. I won't comment too much on that last video. But it is awesome lore, Thrall is like ye i left Garrosh behind because the horde needs a hero, somebody to put their faith behind. He admits it may not be the best "RIGHT NOW" decision, but in the future it will work out for the better. He is also like, hell I've got loads of work saving the world from deathwing yo, can't really talk much. Obviously Thrall going off to save the world is going to be dealt with in the pre-cata event far more, but it's cool to see his reasons behind giving Garrosh the reins of the horde, and they actually make sense. I would have thought however that Thrall was enough a hero himself for people to rally behind him, however I guess he means that if he put Vol'jin in charge of the horde that he wouldn't be the hero figure to the horde mass that Garrosh represents.

I don't know really, but this zone is amazing, props to this zone tbqh. You get a breadcrumb leading to Sen'jin Village, which I would kinda like a boat there or something rather than just walking and then swimming there, as it is quite a distance from Vol'jin's hut tbh. I finally learnt my level 3,4 and 5 Skills aswell and got the cool generic "LEARN YOUR LEVEL 3 SKILL FROM ME QUEST" from the class trainer. Again, I'm kinda saddened that there was no breadcrumb to this earlier, as it seems silly that the only logical place to learn the level 3 skill is at level 5 once you have finished the zone.

I was going to do the rest of Durotar today, but the beta went down for maintenence for a new patch, so was like "huh" oh well, ill do the rest of durotar after the patch.

The Character Creation Screen

Okay, Before getting onto my Troll Druid I wanted to talk about the changes to the character creation screen.

Besides from the addition of the 2 new races and added class combos we have the addition of a new animation when choosing your race. This is different for each race you scroll through, but the same for all races, albeit with their own unique animation for the said event.

For the Druid, it is the simple end cast animation of casting Wrath. This is actually one of the things I disagree with personally, and I will explain why.

Firstly, I believe it gives a wrong interpretation of classes. Most of these "low-level" changes are wholly designed around increasing the starting experience for newer players, to both the mmo, the rpg and wow genres. The animations given seem to show a pretty "static" role for each class. Running through the classes we have:

Deathknight: Blood Presence? (not sure what it is, it might be another animation but essentially that's what it is)

Druid: Wrath (Spellcaster)

Hunter: Auto Shot + Pet (Ranged Archer + Pet)

Mage: Fireball (Spellcaster)

Paladin: Auto Attack (Melee dps)

Priest: Heal (Healer)

Rogue: Mutilate/Auto Attack (Melee Dps)

Shaman: Thunderstorm (Spellcaster)

Warlock: Shadowbolt + Pet (Spellcaster + Pet)

Warrior: Heroic Strike 2 hander (Melee Dps)

I don't have a problem with the deathknight one or the pure classes, they do a great job for showing their specific classes role (I say deathknight because it is impossible for a new player to role one immedietly so you need some understanding of the game to role one) However the hybrid class animations give confusion imo. They all show one specific "specialisation" of that class, something that will eventually be talked more about at level 10 when you choose it (Note: Not active in the current build). However, I think some people may well be put off by certain classes, (mostly druid/shaman) if they think they "have" to be a dps caster when they want to role a melee character purely based on the animations.

I would say however the summary on the right is very good and gives good points for all classes, this is already implemented on live of course, however the animations are not. I do feel that the "Damage" should say they can be melee and caster for shaman/Druids.

Here's an example of the Druid Animation:

Cataclysm Beta Testing

Okay, so onto the "main" topic of this blog. Cataclysm Beta Testing. I will be embarking on an endeavour to cover every single zone/class/race through the new levelling experience of Cataclysm. This will take a long time, and will perhaps not even be completed by release: Hoping for a period of around 10 weeks with 1 Race/class combo done per week. This however may change with Blizzard releasing beta patches and changing the experiences dramatically.

Basically I am going to level 1 class from each of 10 races. I am not going to level a character that is Draenei or Blood elf. This is not because I do not like the aesthetics of these 2 races (Draenei and Blood elf are my 2 favorite races in WoW currently. I made this decision because a) Nothing has changed in their current starting areas, they were good before and are actually part of the "BC server cluster" or w/e it's called so I highly doubt they will get anything but aesthetic touches. B) There are only 10 classes, one of which is a death knight which sees no new content in their starting area, so having to repeat 2-3 classes twice is not something I really want to do.

First off a few "provisos".

1) My "main" so to speak is a Holy Paladin, I have dabbled with raiding as a fury warrior and a shadow priest however I consider my main to be my Holy paladin, I love the class and because I only had 9 classes to fit into 10 races I decided I will level a Paladin twice. This is not to say I won't regret that decision, however I will certainly be a little scared over embarking on it.

2) I have mostly been Alliance throughout my playing of WoW. I have levelled maybe 2 horde characters but mostly only have dabbling memories of some of "vanilla" questlines. Mostly I went to zones that I found efficient as Horde, so my knowledge of some areas pre-cataclysm as horde is somewhat limited, along with some aspects of Lore.

3) Posts on areas will be split up into separate quest hubs as to not overload a single post with billions of info.

4) This blog will include lots of screenshots of quest text, key characters, perhaps some short videos of awesome dialogue (maybe with personal commentary although my voice is eurgh D:). Annotated Maps with Questflows on them etc.

5) Opinions stated in this blog are entirely my own and should not be taken as fact or in anyway representative of others.

6) My plan is to write up on 1 particular zone a day. There will be some repeat of course when I level repeated factions, or perhaps even in similar zones. Mostly I will gloss over detail that has been explained in a previous blog and focus mostly on changes that have happened perhaps with a beta build and with the current class I am levelling.

Ok, with that out of the way we come to the order of my great endeavour. Using a random number generator function on a calculator I have come up with the following order for my endeavour.

1) Troll Druid

2) Night Elf Priest

3) Dwarf Shaman

4) Goblin Rogue

5) Orc Warrior

6) Human Paladin

7) Undead Warlock

8) Worgen Hunter

9) Tauren Paladin

10) Gnome Mage

Fortunately the Troll area is mostly complete afaik and the questing will take me through Kalimdor, which is also mostly complete according to Blizzard. I tried to choose classes for the races that were "new" or generally I hadn't played before. Personally I am a "Draenei/Belf/Human female or gtfo" type of leveller so yeh this a bit new. Anyway: Onto the Echo Isles.

Introduction to My Blog

Hi, my name is Koukalaka and this is my first experience with actually writing a Blog. The sole aim of this Blog is to capture my exploits in World of Warcraft, specifically Cataclysm Beta Testing, more of which in a subsequent post. I am also going to include Starcraft 2 exploits of a bad player trying to improve and get frustrated :D. Along with day-to-day goings on, I'm not sure how this will be organised, hell this is my first blog so I'm not even sure if this will even work: but hey I am giving it a go :).

More about me: Well I am a 19 year old, soon 20, student who has an avid interest in gaming and being as anti-social as possible in real life :D. My online Alias is Koukalaka, anyone wondering where that's from well it's from, albeit mispelt, Star Trek: DS9, yes I am a big Star Trek Nerd D: and DS9 is my favorite series besides the original, and is the name of Dr. Bashir's Teddy Bear. I personally love his character and seemingly have a fetish with the names beginning with K, idk I kinda like them. So I came up with this Alias, most people in my gaming community refer to me as Kouk as some sort of affection but ye that's probably a bit too much info.

This was just meant to be a somewhat introductory post about this Blog's Goals/Content though. More details in subsequent posts.