Out for Christmas

Happy holidays to everyone!

I am off for Christmas in the land without Warcraft. Will be back at around 26th, and eager to post more goodies for you!

Bloodbath

Not a typical post on my account. This time I will talk, or rather rant about one particular quest which took me over 45 minutes to complete.

The quest name is Boiling Blood or Boiled Blood and the description seems fairly simple; kill some Bleeding Hollows (yet another type of redskins), collect their blood and boil it at the cauldron. The quest is recommended as a solo type, which I gladly accepted, since my guildmates are not present in Burning Crusade Beta and in such case I much more prefer one-on-one encounters...

...only that this quest definitely was not one-on-one, but instead more of a me-versus-the-world.

Bloody Bleeding Hollow Blood to Boil

First, a bit about the wording... Bleeding Hollow Blood??? Come on, you must be Bloody kidding me! Combined with my survival skills based on Bloodthirst skill... Too much blood for me. This is not Doom! It's The Bloody Crusade!... excuse me, BURNING one. You see where I'm getting at.

Anyhooooow, the fight takes place next to the encampment of Bleeding Hollow orcs, filled with patrols. All mobs are in level range of 60-61, with a few level 59'ers thrown in for a good measure. Patrols can be divided into two types: redskins on foot and redskins on a mount. And there are tons of them.

I believe it was dwarves that keep saying "Watch your back!" - hell of a good advice for this quest. You need to constantly turn your camera around (while fighting not-so-easy mobs) in order to avoid adds. One mob can easily take the health bar down to around 25% - two is a headache... and many, many times I had to deal with 3 or 4.

This peon was pulled just in time, before the patrol arrived

How you ask me?

First of all, there are so many patrols. Second, the patrols intersect their routes frequently, so while you are pulling your mob away from one it is very easy to move into another. Third, while the redskins on foot are pretty straightforward, the mounted ones will unmount and both the redkin orc and his mount (generally, a tough level 60 wolf) will start fighting with you.

Blood does not drop very often, either (bloodless mobs?), so it is good family fun for the entire evening. Or at least something in the range of 30 minutes, including good dozen of corpse runs.

The cauldron and its hosts

Once you are done with collecting 12 pieces of blood it is time to head to the cauldron. It is being guarded by a level 61 Necrolyte and its two level 61 skeleton minions. Fortunately the minions are quite manageable, although they can be pain in the ass, considering the fact big daddy is constantly hurling fireballs at you.

The cauldron has no less (and possibly more) than 5 different patrols passing by. Main problem here is the aggro radius level 60 character has. It is huge! You may think you're in a safe zone, and wham! here comes a patrol... and another one... and another one.

Needless to say, I didn't make it that time.

Had enough? Hell, no! There is also a green blob patrolling the area, named Eye of Grillok. If it sees you, you have few seconds to kill it (which is easy, provided you are not already engaged with tons of other mobs, who keep on dazing you and slowing you down). If not killed, it's owner, another nearby necrolyte, and his two skeleton minions are sure to join the party!

Once you eliminate all the patrols and guards you need to hurry. Respawn rate is pretty high and usually you will have around a minute to boil the blood.

Not that easy!

You boil the blood one at the time (12 vials needed total). It is a channeled action, taking approximately 2 or 3 seconds. Once you produce a vial of boiled blood, tons of little scarabs will spawn around the cauldron. They will all be yellow at first, and then randomly turn red and start attacking you.

Typical scene: 21 scarabs, 3 patrols and some extras, so you don't get bored.

Scarabs, although level 61, are not very tough and don't hit for much, but once they gang up on you, it becomes quite a challenge to stay alive.

After countless corpse runs, cleaning the area again and again I managed to finish the quest. All that for mere 89 silver and a follow-up quest.

Meanwhile, other simpler quests ask you to kill 20 mobs and reward 2 gold... Imbalanced? Definitely. I hope they will fix it before TBC comes out... Or actually, hell no! I went through this, why shouldn't the others?

On a lighter note, I noticed a very nice little addon to the interface. Apart from the fact (which I think I did not post) that the map by default displays coordinates now, the quest window reports how many people would it take to complete a quest.

Quest window recommends 3 players for the task

Of course, as you can guess from this rant, the recommendations don't always reflect the reality of some quests, but once polished up, this could be a really good one.

No ball on Caverns of Time

I decided to have a look at Caverns of Time today. In order to do so I had to travel miles and miles all the way from Thrallmar to Dark Portal to Swamp of Sorrows (fly) to Undercity to Orgrimmar (fly) to Tanaris to Caverns of Time.

It took... quite a bit of time.

There should be an easier way to get to Kalimdor from Outland, if you ask me. I noticed some portals to Orgrimmar next to the Dark Portal, but they were not clickable... maybe not implemented yet.

Eye of Storm envoys

In both Undercity and Orgrimmar I noticed Eye of Storm envoys. No ball here - you must be level 70 to enter this particular battleground. Well, that's what happens when you join beta as late as I did. I think I will pass on even attempting to level up to 70, since by the time I would the expansion will actually be released and I will have to do the same thing again.

Once I finally made it to the Caverns of Time I at least got some eye candy to share :)

Caverns of Time entrance from Tanaris desert

The dragons that used to roam around the area are all-but-one gone. It creates absolutely no problem to run into the place. The long spiral tunnel guarded by Keepers of Time faction (neutral, no aggression there) takes you deep down underground, to the main chamber.

The tunnel itself is filled with strangely positioned artifacts from all around Azeroth. Broken statues, lamps, fragments of architecture - all thrown at strange angles into the walls of the corridor. The setting really manages to establish a concept of time travel, where dimensions and places blend together in unexpected fashions.

The following four screenshots were taken during my journey down the rabbit hole.

Finally, I arrived at the main chamber, where keepers of time walk around the main pedestal. The pedestal supports a large dragon and intricate hourglass mechanism, undoubtedly powering the time travel.

Main chamber in the Caverns of Time

There is a number of smaller corridors leading away from the chamber - each "decorated" suitably to the mission it represents. Enthusiastically I have thrown myself on all of them, just to receive the following message: "You must first complete the quest Caverns of Time. You also need to have The Burning Crusade installed".

Access Denied :(

Frustrated after a long run all the way from Outland, I decided not to look for the quest and call it a day. Not a very productive one.

A little bit of exploration

Impatient creature I am. I could not just sit there in surroundings of Thrallmar and quest like I am supposed to. I decided, therefore, to travel a bit and do some sightseeing and screen-capturing for your enjoyment.

Don't ask me what is on the pictures. For most of the time I was just running for my life on my non-epic mount who does not fly. I did not get very far either. Just far enough to see there is indeed a lot of content to be explored and I better level up if I am to survive in higher level areas.

So, without much further ado, here are the screenshots:

Be careful, and don't fall

And look who's talking. I fell.

Blood Elf on a chicken (NPC)

How I endanger my life to bring you the best shots


A pass to the next zone


Cenarion Expedition cleaning up what I dragged behind.
My Heroes!


This zone is so pretty I did not even remember its name!


The creatures are amazing also...


One more shot, for a good measure.


Latest Draenei technology allows compression of your
flight masters into the size of Rubik's Cube.
(really: a missing model placeholder)


Neutral city, for grabs by either faction.
Could not figure how to do it,
but I was way too low level anyway.


Remember the rhino-like creatures chasing me in 4th screenshot?
They were guarding this.


Back to the relative safety of Blood Elves' Falcon Watch.