Enter Outland

What a day! First my Wacom tablet dies (and refuses any form or resurrection) just when I started the project requiring lots of tedious rotoscoping. Needed to do all the work with the mouse. Yuch!

Then, as soon as the work is over, I head to the Blogger to update this page - and guess what? The Internet dies. I would guess it could be sysadmin's way of keeping me away from non-work-related stuff, but since I am a sysadmin, I blame it on my crappy ADSL provider. After some wait, though, I am through and here I present you you my brief encounter with Outland.

Quba entering the Dark Portal

I use my copied lvl60 warrior, fly to Swamp of Sorrows, quickly make my way through The Burning Steppes to the Dark Portal. I am not a very frequent visitor to The Burning Steppes but I seem to remember many more mobs around the portal. This time, there was not a single one there. My guess is that Blizzard decided to make it easier to access the place everyone will be going to anyway.

The first thing you will see once through the portal

The first thing to see is a completely different scenery. The familiar sky is gone, replaced by view of planets and some nebulae. Once you take a few steps forward, you are faced with what has been missing in WoW for a long time: the conflict.

The conflict on the Stairs of Destiny

The screenshot can nearly enough represent the scene that reveals itself on the Stairs of Destiny - a clash of two armies, both NPC controlled, with a non-stop rain of meteorites spawning wave after wave of infernals. Finally it does feel like world of WARcraft.

I did not dare run into the combat, and I don't think I was supposed to. On the right and left side, small Horde and Alliance camps are present with your first Outland quest (delivery) and first flight master.

The scene of the combat reminded me of the opening sequence in Half-Life 2, where you arrive at City17 and walk through the train station filled with tension between civilians and the combine forces. It truly serves as a perfect introduction to the new chapter in World of Warcraft and prepares you for the things to come.

Just as I was about to hop on a wyvern and fly to the first city (and major quest hub for Horde players) I saw a merchant selling something related to jewelcrafting. And just like that my first "adventure" in Outland was over. I logged off and created a Blood Elf mage :)

Disclaimer: Please, keep in mind that yours truly has a full-time company to run and quite limited time (especially on weekdays) to both play BC Beta and report in this blog. Some entries may be very short, just like this one, simply due to the time restrains.

FOR THE HORDE!