Subversion

Began by cleaning out every quest I could in Grizzly Woods, leaving me with two of the three I mentioned last time. Capturing the ice troll was ludicrously easy, once I realized I had to take the NPC with me, but “The Getaway” and the “Kill the Big Bad” had left me with a couple of deaths each.  (Side note:  according to Armory, I’ve died 133 times so far—I note with amusement that total would’ve been a LOT lower if I hadn’t done all of the Capture the Horde Flame quests during the last holiday.)  After diligent forum reading, I decided the best way to knock these two out was by subverting the intended way to play.  Not –quite- cheating…well, at least not moreso than bringing a gun to a knife fight.  This isn’t my “normal” style of gameplay, but by gods… these were non-group quests that were giving me headaches and  I wanted them done.

The Getaway still took a few tries to get it right, but it was possible to jump on the back of the prisoner’s horse to start the ride, then hop back off, then ride your own mount and ‘escort’ him that way for 90% of the trip.  In doing so, none of the worgen spawn to attack, but you have to jump from your mount to his before you get to the destination.  I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me feel a little bad, but in the end, I still slept soundly that night.

Killing the Thane was substantially less fiddly and only took two more attempts—and that was only because I managed to fall off a tower and down a cliff.  For about the billionth time, Slow Fall saved my life.  The Thane stands watch outside the top of a tower, you see, and the trick to beating him was to land on the back of the tower on a small ledge, scootch around to the side and obliterate him with my Blizzard AoE attack.  He never raised a hand in defense and another quest was wiped from my list. 

By the time I had knocked out the last solo quest I could find, I had earned an achivement for knocking out a hundred quests in the zone (“Fo’ Grizzle, my Shizzle”, or something like that) and was ready to pack up camp and head north.  Although the group quests look nifty (Kill Ursoc, the god of bears?  Rahr! Yeah, that was one of my “133” right there.), I don’t feel compelled to do them—I can always come back with a few more levels under my belt.

And thus, I made my way to Zul’Drak—a zone I would learn to despise over the course of the weekend.  As a general rule of thumb, I dislike playing in areas that are depressingly dreary and that was the main theme there.  Most of the area was ruined and overgrown temples or corrupted land with appropriately matching sky and atmosphere.  Zul’Drak is a land of undead, spider-things, and trolls… lots of trolls.  There’s about a half dozen tiny Alliance ‘safe spots’ with soldiers fighting against the encroachment by the tides of darkness.  A couple of these are major quest hubs with flight paths.

The troll’s story is that the evil tribe(s) in a mad quest for power captured their own animal totem-gods, killed or imprisoned them and are using their energy to destroy all who oppose them or just patrol around ten foot areas of space until I get there, whichever comes first.

To Zul’Drak’s credit, I’ve had a great deal of fun with the zone’s super-mega-awesome-thirty-part quest chain, which is Rescue or Avenge the animal spirit gods, which had taken me from the depths of murky pools to the spirit world itself as each spirit, good or evil, has its own agenda and means for dealing with the transgressors. 

Over the course of my adventures, I dinged a couple of times (woo! 75!) and am closing in on another level.  When the Animal God plotline wraps up, I’ll be off to another zone and will be glad to leave a few challenges in Zul’Drak unanswered.

Right now, a new decision looms.  I’ve nearly 4 kilogold in the bank now, from my very aggressive questing and auctionhousing.  At 4250, I’ll be able to buy ‘epic’ riding and travel at a much faster clip on land, but if I do so, I won’t have the funds (another 1k gold) when I get the option to buy “cold weather flying” when it becomes available at level 77.  My gut instinct is to hold off on the epic riding until I have the flying skill, but we’ll see.