Hoo boy. 500+ battle pets and I have no idea what they are after more than a half dozen years away. Some quick Google-Fu taught me it’s an apparent Guild Bank issue that’s been around since about November of 2024. Disappointing to say the least and since it likely shows no sign of getting fixed, this is going to be tedious. It’s also not going to be done any time soon. Oof.
After spending some time familiarizing myself with the start to the Dragonflight expansion, I decided instead that I wanted to see what it took to unlock the Void Elves. However, I saw several races could be unlocked in the same manner: be at least level 40 and go to your faction Embassy. So I was already on Zarahi and did the Horde ones first. I already had the High Mountain Tauren, so I was one step ahead. I then did the Alliance ones with Liouxpold. Overall I think Blizzard has done a very good job of making them more accessible now that they are “old content.” I was able to unlock all of them over a span of several hours and here’s my thoughts on each. Again, I don’t know what the High Mountain one is now so it isn’t included. And of course there are spoilers here if you haven’t done it and want to be completely surprised.
1. The Zandalari
Being there to witness Talanji’s coronation was a good narrative way to do it. You have a total of 17 quests, five of which are Loa-related. Getting turned into a bug and having to fly away from chasing frogs was entertaining. There are a couple of times where quests are grouped together as well, so it flows together well. The story is pretty well done and it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome. OVERALL: GOOD
2. The Mag’har Orcs
I’m getting this one out of the way. There’s only 10 quests in the line for this one. You’re thinking, “hey that’s even less than the Zandalari one, sweet.” No, no. It’s anything but sweet. Not since the days of Onyxia Attunement have I felt so discombobulated and all over the world. First you go to the Caverns of Time. Then to the Blasted Lands. Okay now to the Temple of the White Tiger in Kun’Lai Summit. Then to Orgrimmar. And then to Draenor. Don’t get me wrong, I like the lore of pretty much the entire quest line, but bloody hell. Even with all the portals in the game now that was a bit unnerving. OVERALL: BAD
3. The Nightborne
In game I actually did this one before the Mag’har and maybe that’s why the Orcs left a poor taste in my mouth. This chain is four quests. One involves a fight at the Sunwell. No really, that’s it. I think at one point one of the NPCs even says it was easier than expected and that was my thought too. Felt like it was over before it started. OVERALL: GREAT.
4. The Vulpera
This one took the longest on the Horde side, and from the moment it starts you know what you’re in for. Three different Horde groups are having issues and the Vulpera decide to help with each (using you) to get in good with the Horde. There are 25 quests in all, and yet somehow this still felt better than the Mag’har. Admittedly I made the first part of this questline more difficulty for myself because I didn’t completely read it. Pro tip: When doing “A Little Good Will” make sure you’re using the totem so you get more ingredients per kill! Otherwise the first 2/3 of this chain feel like your standard WoW romp and ends with a fun little bit of wine making in Suramar. OVERALL: GOOD
5. The Void Elves
On paper this seems easy. Two quests. Unfortunately it isn’t quite that simple as the first one is a romp all over the Ghostlands. Fortunately it’s not that large of a zone so it only takes a few minutes to get to each stop along the way. The second part after you hop through the void portal is more combat involved for several stages. So while there’s only a couple of actual quests, getting the Elves isn’t necessarily any easier or faster than most of the other Allied Races – except for the Nightborne. OVERALL: GOOD
6. The Kul Tirans
This is one of the ones that takes a little longer. 20 quests in total and traversing around the place. Narratively it’s on par with the other Allied Races in that the story is a good one. I really came to like Dorian Atwater. What I didn’t like, was dying in Drustvar and taking Rez Sickness because I couldn’t figure out how the heck to get back to Ulfar’s nest area. Otherwise this chain was fine for what it was. There was a fair bit of travel, contained to one continent and three zones. Too much more though and it might have slipped towards bad. As it is, it was not. OVERALL: GOOD
7. The Dark Iron Dwarves
So, any excuse to go to Blackrock Depths has always been a good one by me. Even back in Classic I was one of the few people I knew who knew their entire way around that dungeon. So this was going to be good. Maybe it’s because I’m just coming back and I’m learning things. Maybe it’s because I’m not a good Beast Master. But Sweet Merciful Illidan did this drive me bonkers. Between the initial wave, to having to fight through all the goblins, I died. And died. And died. The end wasn’t even in sight and my armour looked like Iron Man with all the yellow and red damage. I will say once you’re done the first two quests, the line becomes far more enjoyable and saves this one from being ugly. OVERALL: OKAY
8. The Lightforged Draenei
This one is three quests and that includes the start one and the finish one. However, the main quest in this trek has seventeen stages to it. I don’t say that as a bad thing. You basically follow along as T’paartos recants his past to you in a third person that doesn’t quite overstay its welcome. This one had a bit more combat to it, much like the Void Elves, but you get there and learn a lot about the Lightforge process as a whole. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad. It just kind of…was. OVERALL: OKAY
9. The Mechagnomes
I left these little bastards to the end on purpose. I’ll be up front, these guys interested me the least. I like to have one of every race but making one of these and wanting to invest in it will be tough. Getting that out of the way, I was still intrigued to do the quest line. Some parts of the quest line are crazy easy. It’s “turn, pick that up and place it” or “turn, activate the thing.” The first couple of quests in Kul Tiras are quick and smooth. Once you’re on the gnomes’ island there are a number of run around quests. However, it’s “The Current Schematic” that nearly ruins this romp. Of the 12 quests total, this one nearly had me quitting. I was yelling at my screen at one point. Why? Because the drop rate of the two items you need to collect, Machine Parts and Ooze, is beyond frustrating. You need 6 and 4 respectively and I spent over half an hour just trying to get these…and yes, I was killing the appropriate mobs to do so. An uninteresting race (though I did appreciate the narrative of Gelbin) and a quest that nearly made me quit did these guys no favours. OVERALL: BAD
And that’s all of them. Let’s recap for the TL:DR version of this list.
Now obviously this is taken in context of how the races are acquired now. They all get a good or great rating compared to the time it initially took to get them – much like the Earthen are now. However, within the modern window of each there is certainly a range of experiences, difficulty, and time involved.
Perhaps cashing this quest in while in Bat Form wasn’t the most ideal means of capturing the moment. Still, for the second time in Azeroth I’ve gotten a character to 80 for the first time. For some I know that sentence won’t make sense. However, once upon a time level 80 meant you reached Wrath of the Lich King endgame. But we’ve gotten level squishes a couple of times now so here we are, with Zarahi hitting the magic number of The War Within.
It’s funny, I didn’t even realize basic subscription included TWW, but given Midnight is the current expansion that tracks. Not sure why I would have thought any different, however it wasn’t until I hit 70 in Dragonflight and still had an XP bar that I realized it was the case. But it was at that point I decided I needed to go see how the 10th expansion was.
I’m not going to go into great detail, but I will say I think War Within starts off fantastic. The Dalaran invasion really gets things going and the rest of the intro cinematics and questing capture the true feel of the moment. Admittedly I didn’t shed a tear over Khadgar. As far as the rest of the main story, I’m in the Ringing Deeps and thus far it is…ok. Kind of a “take it or leave it” feel. The Earthen Allied Race quests have been better, I’ve found. The “Remember Me” quest line in particular is very well done.
I will probably finish the steps to unlock the Earthen. Then I’ll have all the Allied Races available to me. I obtained all the other ones one day earlier this week and will be sharing my thoughts on those very soon. However, I think up next I will celebrate Zarahi being 80 with a long overdue reward: Glyph of the Cheetah!
Early impressions can make or break something. People say “first impressions matter” for a reason. I won’t lie, I came back with a bit of excitement and anticipation. For one, I was returning to something new and at the same time familiar. I’ve missed the people and I’ve missed my toons, not going to lie. Even more…I had optimism. Given how negative I’ve been towards how World of Warcraft is run, that wasn’t an expected feeling. But would it last?
The first thing I saw was the Midnight load screen, which looks fantastic. Then came a confusing moment. My account was nothing but lowbies. After some quick panic I realized I was on my old trial account. I quickly fixed that and logged back in to…a campfire? Okay that’s pretty cool. It’s purely cosmetic, but I’m all for it. Of course I quickly set up my main one with Siori, Tumunzahar, Saintvache and Zarahi since those are my top two from each faction. I then logged in on Elcombe and had the opportunity to choose between “Catch-Up Experience” or straight to the game. I chose Catch Up only to login and see my action bar empty except for something flight related and something Warband related. I quickly set the bar up the way I wanted, but didn’t finish the experience. I left it.
Old habits die hard and I went to the Auction House with the pets that were in his bags. Then it was time to get my Warband setup as I knew there was a quest, or a few, that required it. Off to Gadgetzan for that, which included some combat. Hrm, Frost Mage feels a bit different than it used to. Felt a bit less powerful. Could be rotation, could be just game change. But I persevered (not the last time you’re going to hear that) and finished the chain.
I like how the Warband and its bank are set up. It makes things very easy, just as it was in Guild Wars 2. However it’s far easier to get a decent amount of space in World of Warcraft. But that’s Blizzard. They often take other ideas and improve on them. Often is the key as I will get to in a bit. But for now it was time to move on. I cycled through bank alts and started putting gold into my bank and deleting any unnecessary toons. Thus far there’s only been one, but I know there will be a couple more once I settle in further.
Finally it was time to actually played. I grabbed Zarahi and this time did the catch-up in its entirety. A simple series of quests in the Arathi Highlands that people definitely should be doing, if for no other reason than it grants you four 24-slot bags. I didn’t realize this when I went in with Elcombe. I just saw the bag icons and thought they were the old 10-slot ones. So going forward, pretty much every character that can will go through just for those. As far as the experience itself – it was good. Nothing too challenging and a reasonable story.
Oh to be Feral again. While Frost Mage felt a bit out of place, Cat form was that warm and cozy blanket you’ve always loved. It felt like nothing had changed and it was glorious as I headed into the Waking Shores. I played here for a while before I decided to look at what it took now to unlock Allied Races. Of those available to me the process is much easier than it was when the content was the active expansion (though I did remember I played long enough to unlock High Mountain Tauren). So I decided I was going to do that for both sides.
Zarahi did the Horde and then it was time for the Alliance ones. While Tumunzahar is usually the emissary for such things I really didn’t want to put the recruitment quests in the hands of a Holy Priest. I feel that would take a while. Eventually I settled on Liouxpold as I felt a Hunter would allow me to succeed at a pretty good pace. I clearly am not that good with a modern day Beast Master. I died. A lot. Particularly during the Dark Iron Dwarf questline. But I persevered through it all and eventually I wrapped things up with the Kul Tirans and Mechagnomes.
I have thoughts on the process for each race but I will save that for another post so this doesn’t get too much longer. But after the Mechagnomes I got the quest for the Draenei Heritage Armor, so I decided to wrap up my evening completing that. It was enjoyable and I learned some of the new mechanics like having to stand in a certain place to trigger an action button. I felt so silly when someone explained that to me.
After all that, here are a few additional thoughts:
So there’s the initial “feels” as it were. As it’s been half a decade there are probably more things I am forgetting. But it’s all fresh and mostly fun…except for Beast Hunter. Dying was getting very frustrating but it just means there’s probably research to be had.
That’s it for now. Up next will be checking out The War Within while getting Zarahi to 80.
Well this is interesting. As recently as two weeks ago this post wasn’t even on my radar. Heck, the game itself was in the loosest of ways. Yes, in my absence I’ve still kept tabs on a lot of things Azeroth, but that doesn’t mean I’ve been raving to come back. In fact, I’ve made it very clear over the years I wasn’t going to as I couldn’t justify the monthly fee versus what I felt the game delivered to me. And yet, here we are.
Now, how did we get here? A combination of things really. It’s no secret over the years away from retail I’ve played on a few private servers and been quite happy with them. Heck as recently as Thanksgiving I was playing Ascension. Quick aside, the devs of that game deserve all the credit in the world for where they went with the game and all the content that is custom. And class free WoW was definitely fun (you could still just choose and play a Classic class if you wanted). But I’m going to admit there was a common theme between those servers I was on: it really wasn’t the same.
So, we have the knowledge that I never really left Azeroth. I was just in the private sector. What else? Well, as I mentioned I have kept tabs on the game in my 7-8 year absence (I left retail during Legion, coming back to Battle For Azeroth for not much more than a cup of coffee). I’ve followed other bloggers (including Tome and Kamalia) and what they have been up to. And I watched BlizzCon when Metzen returned. I know, I still haven’t explained what changed in just a couple of weeks.
I don’t know how or why, but I dreamt I had come back to retail WoW. Not just once. Five nights in a row. To me, it was the most random thing, but maybe it was my subconscious hard at work. I’ve been so busy with the Echoes of Ages live-play podcast for the last five years in terms of both time and creativity that retail Azeroth wasn’t on my radar until those dreams. With those in my head and lingering more, I remembered back to The War Within announcement and its inclusion of Warbands. They were meant to make things better for solo players or Altoholics, of which I’ve been a long standing member of. I was pleasantly surprised when I learned you didn’t have to buy the new expansion for the Warband feature. That perked my interest some more, and so I looked into it even further. Account-wide sharing on a number of things? You mean like in Guild Wars 2, only improved? Oh my. And there are no faction restrictions? Well now you really have my curiosity and excitement.
And then there is the content. One of my beefs with Blizzard was that I couldn’t justify the monthly sub because I didn’t feel the game offered enough to justify the fee of nearly 20 bucks a month. I’m aware you can get that down by several dollars by subscribing longer at a time, but it still didn’t change my belief and I can still say that. However, when you haven’t played in 2-3 expansions there is a lot of content to play around in without even having to buy Midnight.
Which is what brings us all the way back to how we got to this post. Dreams, content, people. I’m not saying I’m fully back. I’m certainly going to give it a try for a bit. Whether that’s a month or two or longer we will see. I certainly know how much I have been enjoying the game since I reinstalled on the weekend, and you’ll see posts over the next few days supporting that.
Will this be Nov-Dec 2020 with a few posts and then gone again? On the surface, I don’t think so. Does that mean a lot more posts? No, it just means that instinctually I feel like there won’t be as quick of an exodus like there was last time. Whether it’s rose coloured glasses or just that everything feels fresh and exciting, I already feel like I’m more “in” than I was the last time. You know, after which I swore I would never return.
There’s Fireflint, off helping Kul Tirans as he levels up. He took some time to partake in a hunting party, and moments later I was literally having flashbacks to Hellfire Penninsula and the characters I took through there…probably Tum the most. Back then, that early entry into Outland, it was quest away and kill boars. You had to, because the bastards just kept showing up. Sometimes you’d get real lucky and end up with a few of them at once. All the healing in the world couldn’t save me. And it only got worse because Illidan forbid you were on a quest for a drop item (or multiples), because half the time the stuff wouldn’t drop. This place? SAME DAMN THING. Six expansions later and I have to suffer like this again? Is this the thanks I get for coming back? Ugh. Thank Illidan Fireflint has some durability and damage output otherwise I’d have probably lost my mind. Suffice to say I doubt any of the other Alliance toons will be visiting these yahoos. For shame Blizzard, for shame.
I’ve been waiting with breath held for this one. Unfortunately it isn’t World of Warcraft related. Instead, I’m going to use this time on my own blog to promote my own venture. Along with several friends, we’ve decided to run our new Dungeons & Dragons campaign (with yours truly as the Dungeon Master) as a podcast! If you have the time, please give a listen and let me know what you think. Admittedly there were a few audio hiccups in the first episode but hopefully that doesn’t deter you. If you have a podcast service, just look up Echoes of Ages!
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