Outland: Think different

One of the things I forgot about leveling was how easy it is to die. I got used to being level 60 and pretty much owning all the mobs around. Death would be a less and less familiar encounter only experienced in high level instances and in company of freshly wiped guild mates.

After playing for a while with new races, it was time to head back to Quba and mess around the Outland properly. I don't know if I got used to low level areas with most of mobs being yellow, where character and opponent abilities are highly limited. Maybe it is the new talent tree which I have a suspicion I picked all wrong...

This was the sight I saw the most:

See Orc Run. Run Orc, Run!

Well... Stuff happens.

The most common enemy in the surroundings of Thrallmar are red-skinned Orc fellas, who look quite familiar to the possessed Orcs in Warcraft III campaigns. Fel Orcs is their name, I believe (I could be wrong though, I was never good with names).

Not all the deaths were on my side.

For me, one of the tricky elements of questing in Outland (or at list in Hellfire Peninsula) was pulling the mobs. I got completely unused to the concept of generating unwanted aggro, taking care of bandaging and health.

During raids, aggro is what warriors are after - you want the mobs to be concentrated on you. Apart from occasional potion and bandage (usually between fights), you forget about healing for most of the time, and concentrate on your rage bar and threat you generate, leaving your health in the hands of a skilled priest, druid or other healing class. Especially the hardcore raiders (whom I am not), raiding 5-7 days in a week may have a bit of adaptation problem going solo again for the first time in months.

From what I have noticed, Fel Orcs tend to pair up, and pulling one will most likely cause another one to run to you as well. Bad pull and you'll have four mobs to deal with. You will either need to run away till they leave you, or die and corpse-run. Either way, lots of leg exercise awaits.

Once you prepared yourself for frequent deaths and corpse-runs, it's time to rethink economy and asset management. I may be biased in this issue, since, as a casual gamer, I never reached the point in World of Warcraft where I could light-heartedly spend 1000+ gold, hell... even 100 gold is something big for me. My character runs on a normal mount, not an epic one, and does not wear all-purple equipment.

It was shocking, therefore, to see how fast the flow of money is in the Outland. It is not uncommon to get a couple of gold pieces for a quest, or nearly a gold from a mob. I'm sure these values are to rise much higher in virtually no time, since I am still at the area designed for leveling up from 60. Just imagine what level 65 earns on looting mobs!

It is not all income though. All skills have been extended beyond skill level 300, and training costs a lot. New skill levels, new recipes, ingredients, not to mention constant repair costs... The whole economy scales upwards very fast and I completely understand why some people were requesting Blizzard to include a new highest level of coinage that would replace extra zeros in gold prices.

Green dagger from 10-minute quest versus purple hand weapon from Zul'Gurub

On the positive side, loot and quest rewards help regain the balance of your monetary situation fairly well. Killing 12 Fel Orcs and turning in their blood rewarded me with a green dagger with the DPS much nicer than a purple hand-claw I obtained after days and days spent raiding Zul'Gurub.

In the future posts, I will write some more about the experience, mobs encountered, look of the place etc. For now I have one more thing that will make you think different: tilted terrain.

I noticed this both in Outland and in the Blood Elf starting area - there is a lot of tilted terrain on the map, making it tough to play for those who get dizzy easily. For me it is just pure fun - I love roller coasters, flight simulators and all that - but I can imagine how some players may feel uneasy with seemingly unstable ground under their virtual feet.

This thing is b0rked?!

The image above demonstrates the idea - the entire city, or rather ruins, populated by not-very-friendly undead army is located on a slope. It makes it quite interesting to run, turn and fight on such terrain.

I got no dizziness, I got no vertigo, I fought like a lion, but soon enough I was...

Dead again...