Wow, you know?
The world of Warcraft is very different. Since Blizzard released patch 4.0.3a, I have had a great time exploring the changed world, collecting flight paths on Ascanius, creating low-level Alliance characters to experience the new 1-5 starting zones, and even starting up a few Horde characters on the Kirin Tor server to play with the folks from RPGnet. Troll druids and tauren paladins are a lot of fun, and I especially appreciate the way that the tauren starting experience has been seriously improved even though Mulgore itself hasn't changed a great deal post-Shattering.
Obviously there isn't much to say about my experiences playing Ascanius since the patch, because collecting flight points is about the only thing he has been able to do. I'm really looking forward to levelling in Vashj'ir, working on Engineering and Archaeology, and getting to fly around in the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor . . . but these are all things I've said before.
Therefore I shall provide some quick capsule reviews of the Alliance-side starting zones. I literally only played these characters from 1-5, deleting them once they reached their first inn in the newbie town.
Human Hunter: The first thing I noticed was that there's actually a good reason for killing wolves as one of your first quests now; whereas in the classic game you were collecting wolf meat (really?) and then the pelts of diseased wolves once Blizzard did their small-scale revamps to the starting zones several months ago, now the wolves you're killing are Blackrock orc-trained creatures, representative of a real threat to Northshire Valley. Following these quests up with fighting skulking Blackrock spies and the marauders who burned the old vineyard, culminating in the execution of the Blackrock orcs' leader, really helps sell that classic "orcs vs. humans" Warcraft conflict. My favourite touch: the use of female orc models alongside male orcs for the Blackrock jerks, which is something that hasn't really happened before except in the case of Horde-aligned NPCs.
Gnome Warrior: The gnomes (like the Forsaken, actually) have a new backstory for post-4.0.3a player characters; where classic gnomes were drawn from the ranks of those who had managed to flee Gnomeregan before it became contaminated and overrun with leper gnomes and troggs, new gnome characters are rescued from the afflicted population and sent to the surface after they recover. There's a lot of cleanup work to be done up there, too, culminating in an interesting fight alongside High Tinker Mekkatorque where you direct his battlesuit's special attacks against Razlo Crushcog, a minion of the hated Mekgineer Thermaplugg. My favourite touch: the warrior quest to learn and practice the Charge skill rewards your gnome with a Very Light Sabre, which is exactly what it sounds like.
Dwarf Shaman: Probably the least-changed zone, perhaps neck-and-neck with the night elf area. You're still fighting troggs and recovering a gnome's tools from frost troll camps. There are some fun additions; you have to recover dwarven artifacts from troggs (who throw them at you in anger when you attack) and eavesdrop on frost troll shamans speaking prophecies to their people. Still, it's pretty familiar stuff. My favourite touch: when you're about to head through the tunnel from Coldridge Valley to Dun Morogh proper, it collapses - and you're instead flown straight to Kharanos in a gyrocopter.
Night Elf Mage: Not radically different, but still significantly improved. You're still killing grell and spiders, but there is less pointless running around. There's even an escort quest where the NPC is the one escorting you, in a way. There wasn't a great deal of reaction from the NPCs to the fact that I was playing a mage, which was a slight disappointment, but I did appreciate the fact that the "get me some water from this moonwell" quests spawned an NPC spirit that gave a little bit of backstory regarding the history of the night elf race when I approached the moonwell. Favourite touch: it's a tie between the fact that the one quest that sends you to the top of Aldrassil gives you a Slow Fall buff to help you get down without running down the ramp, and that I passed that damn satyr Zenn Foulhoof on my way to town, proving that night elves are still too dumb to get rid of a guy who's been tricking newbie adventurers for six years.
Next time, which will probably be this weekend before the actual launch date for Cataclysm, I'll post some thoughts about what I've been doing Horde-side since the patch. See you then!
