Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Redridge Fox

I got a Redridge Fox for Brieanna yesterday. I saw someone else with one and figured, why not? The Foxes, tamable as hunter pets, are new with patch 4.0.3. I am not sure if I will use it, but it only took me a minute to run over to Lakeshire and tame one.

**I mistakenly called this the Redwood Fox in the original post, it is a Redridge Fox.

The Shattering - 11/23/10

It took some time to get logged in today between maintenance running over then the problems people had logging in but I finally got in. Of course there were the mandatory disconnects following that but after an hour or so it stabilized and I was able to take a look around.

The first thing I went to see was the Park in Stormwind. That was a total wash, gone. It looked like it got blown off the face of the world. I also noticed that Stormwind got a face lift. The cobblestones in the street were much more defined and had a pattern to them. The outsides of the buildings were crisper and cleaner. The colors were more vibrant. Then I got to the center of town, the Trade District. There were some more changes there too. The fountain outside the bank has water in it now. The auction house moved to a new location, across from the bank. It is now bigger and less crowded.

When I went outside Stormwind to the Valley of Hero's I saw where one of the statues got knocked down (into the water I assume) and now is on a sled to be brought back up. You can see the feet still standing on the pedestal where it once stood. Looking back at Stormwind from the main gates you can see damage to the towers. There is already scaffolding up so I assume they are already fixing it?

I didn't notice any real changes in Ironforge.

From there I headed to Westfall. I got a surprise when I got there. Sentinel Hill is now a fortress. It has walls around most of it and a lot more buildings. They moved the flight point up next to the original tower now. All of the original buildings are still there, they just added a lot more to it. There was really a lot of content in this patch even though the expansion is not out yet. I noticed a lot of homeless people around Westfall and other areas as I explored them, I guess some of the ones in Westfall used to live in the park in Stormwind as they are labeled as Stormwind refugees.

From Sentinel Hill I noticed a vortex of some kind throwing trees and rocks up into the air. I decided to go over and see what that was all about. What I found there was a glowing hole in the ground. It is called the Raging Chasm. I didn't spend too much more there and these were the only 2 things I found.

I headed to Blasted lands from there as I heard there were going to be some changes there too. I found Nethergarde Keep to be pretty much the same as it was although I ran into some mobs by the mine. I headed south east from Nethergarde Keep and eventually ran into Shattershore. This is all new territory in Blasted Lands. I headed west along the shore and found the Red Reaches. There I found the Bloodwatch Shrine. Continuing west I ended up in the Tainted Forest. As soon as you enter the Tainted Forest from the Red Reaches there is a tiny village called Surwich right on the shoreline. There is a dock there that looks like it is set up to receive a boat, another sailing point? Surwich had an Inn and a couple houses and is dark like Duskwood. From there I headed deeper into the Tainted Forest which eventually lead me back to the Blasted lands I knew. I headed back to the flight point and took a flight to Arathi Highlands.

When I got to Arathi Highlands everything seemed to be the same. My real destination was Southshore as I noticed there was no longer a flightpoint there. While heading to Southshore on the road I noticed a new road (31,54), right across from Stormgarde Keep, with a sign that said Hinterlands. I followed that and found they had put in a tunnel from Arathi Highlands to Hinterlands. I think this is a great idea. When I was leveling up my first toon, Gomorra, I looked all through Arathi Highlands to find a way into Hinterlands from there, there is none. I went through the tunnel to Hinterlands and found that there is a road right from the tunnel to Aerie Peak making that a lot easier to get to.

Continuing on my way to Southshore I noticed a lot of Horde (PvP) mobs everywhere. I even got flagged when I stopped to help out a Rogue that was fighting some. When I got to Southshore I found total devastation. The place was taken over by someone (Forsaken?) and was deserted of Alliance life. I went into the Inn and it was deserted. It looked like they had just packed up and left a few minutes before I got there. There were still fires going in all the fire places but there were no people or furniture. It reminded me of the abandoned Inns you find in places like Moonbrook in Westfall and Raven Hill in Duskwood except this place was still clean and not falling apart.

I headed up to Chillwind Point to catch a flight to the Wetlands to see if anything happened there.

When I got to Wetlands I couldn't believe it. Menethil Harbor was flooded, the docks were all warped and busted up and houses on one side of the keep were under water. The whole place had 1-3 feet of water in it. They had sandbagged to keep the water out of a lot of the buildings. I took a quick ride around outside of the keep but didn't notice anything straight off. It was getting late so I decided to call it a night. I will do some more exploring tomorrow and see what I find.