I haven’t had much about the group in WoW Classic recently. In part that was due to some interest in the Shadowlands pre-patch… and Skronk and Ula moving… but most recently it was because Moronae’s computer died and he had to put together a new one. And some of us like to take their time researching before they throw together a new rig. But his new Ryzen 5 powered system was up and running this past weekend, so we were able to get back to it.
We last left off in September when we finished our final Sunken Temple run. From there the path headed to Blackrock Depths. But one does not just walk into Blackrock Depths, as they say. BRD is another one of those multi-week events, and the first step is preparation. There are many quests to grab and lead-ins to find. The fist on the list was in Ironforge, where we spoke with the royal historian who stands off to the side of King Mangi Bronzebeard.
Listening to the historian
She has a quest, the first step of which is to listen to her tale. Then she wants you to head out to Searing Gorge. But for us the next stop was Kharanos, down the road from Ironforge, to update another lead-in quest for the instance.
That was a quick round trip, after which we headed to the flight point to fly off to Loch Modan. There were no quests for us in Loch Modan, but it is the nearest flight point to Searing Gorge and the flight path at Thorium Point. That is the closest flight point to the instance, so we rode around into the Badlands and through the gap into Searing Gorge.
Path from the Badlands is here
We rode to Thorium Point and picked up the flight path and then took the bird to our next destination, Lakeshire in the Redridge Mountains. That is the nearest flight destination to Morgan’s Vigil, the Alliance encampment in the Burning Steppes, which is also where Blackrock Mountain is, home to several instances including Blackrock Depths.
The Burning Steppes, squeezed in between Searing Gorge and Elwynn Forest
We arrived in Morgan’s Vigil, a sleepy little Alliance outpost.
A flight point, a barricade, and a few tents
There we picked up basically all the quests and headed out to work on them. Some were going to end up in BRD. There was a vital quest up in a cave in the northeast corner of the map with
Cyrus has a quest for us
The problem with the quest from Cyrus Therepentous is that completion is not shared with the group… it is a drop from an elite mob he summons… and the quest mob can only be triggered every 10 minutes. Once again, we were probably better off with a party of four, as it would only take us 30 minutes to run through each of us. In the mean time we went along the north side of the zone.
There is another quest hub along the north wall, up a ramp over some lava. More quests to grab, and one to update.
The other quest hub
There I had to drop some quests as my quest log was filling up.
Those quests had us running around a bit in the ruins just south of the cave.
Out in the ruins
Then it was back to one quest hub, then the other. We made our way around the eastern half of the zone pretty thoroughly.
Oh the places we’ve been
Strictly speaking we didn’t have to go do the quest with the ogres in Deadmaul Rock and over past the Pillar of Ash, but screw the ogres.
And then there was a series of trips to be made as one quest chain sent us back to Redridge then to Stormwind where we had an encounter with Lady Kartana Prestor. I’m sure we won’t run into her again.
Katrana, young Anduin, and Bolvar Fordragon
Prince Anduin looks so… badly rendered. His feet are huge. And then there is Bolvar, most recently seen in the Shadowlands cinematic. He looks better here… though maybe not as good as he did out in Northrend.
Bolvar and Dranosh and their smoldering look
Then it was back to Redridge and back to Morgan’s Vigil to finally cement that quest line.
We also had to go back to Ironforge to update the royal historian. Doing that got us a quest from King Mangi Bronzebeard himself… well, all of us save Moronae, who forgot to do the “listen to the historian” part of the quest, so we may have to catch him up a bit on that. There is no “party sync” in WoW Classic.
But after our running around, we now have a list of quests ready to go for the instance.
The list so far
And those are just the ones from outside of Blackrock Mountain. There are a couple more to pick up there, including the one from Franclorn Forgewright, which you need to be dead in order to obtain. I might need to delete a few more quests.
But next time we should be able to head in and at least get started.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 