In Deep Shattarath

Woke up in the middle of Shattarath(sp) City—the central hub for Outlands.  Located in Terrokar Forest, it is fairly large and houses everything a swaggering adventurer could possibly need.  After shaking down the locals for loose change and taking a small tour of the city, accompanied by some dude’s pet demon, I got a rough handle on things.  Blah, blah, blah…lore, lore, lore…. Two factions of blood elves vying for political control or something and pick one to ally with.  The Internets said that as a mage, I should probably choose the “Scryers” over the “Aldor”…so I did.  Insert your own joke about the collective wisdom of the Internet here.

One thing I note is that the with the exception of Hellfire Peninsula, the zones in Outlands are really quite pretty to look at.  They aren’t Aion-lush, but they have more of a polished look to them than the ‘classic’ WoW zones and the high-fantasy elements fit well into the scenes.  Terrokar, for example, would be an intersting forest in and of itself, but the eye is quickly caught by scattered colonies of birdfolk (we aren’t allowed to call them ‘birdmen’ anymore) living in very elborate tree villages connected by suspension bridges.  Zangramarsh’s theme is “fungus” and the landscape itself is mostly comprised of 15-story mushrooms with glowing monsters abounding.  It was “Avatar before Avatar”, in a sense.  The zone’s large lakes are being pumped dry by naga manning pumping stations and discovering why is key to the main plot of the area.

Cherry picked quests in both Terrokar and Zangramarsh and ran around for a bit of time ripping parts off nagas and spiders for no reason other than some guy asked me to.  To be fair, I probably would’ve culled the spiders anyway—that’s just the way I roll. 

Between running the quests and a couple of random dungeons, I reached level 65 and I note the xp to level is increasing dramatically.  What was once 250 critters to level is now about 750…or about 48 quests ‘on level’ completed.  I’d done all I felt like doing in Zangramarsh, dropped the rest of the quests and sought out a slightly tougher zone and ended in Nagrand.  This zone is quite pleasant with sloping grassy hills and scattered trees—good hunting grounds for big game, which was made patently clear with a familiar face:  Nesingwary—the hunter from Stranglethorn Vale has set up an encampment with his expedition adding a wonderful flavor to the normal killtenrats quests.  After knocking out a few of those, I headed over to the local village to set my new home location and sleep in the inn—only to find I couldn’t:  the village was “unfriendly” to me.  Terrific.

After figuring out I had to kill a few ogres to bump up my reputation a little, I did so and, in the area has now lit up with quests.  I’ll check them out some other time, for now I’m content to be able to sleep under a roof.