The plan after last week was to get a group together… any group at this point… of characters that were at least level 10 and meet up in Elwynn Forest with an eye towards making our way into Westfall and down the chain of quests that leads eventually to the Deadmines.
WoW Classic – Season of Discovery
We haven’t really worked out who will be in what roles, but the group that showed up was:
- Radon – Level 11 Dwarf Priest
- Ikevink – Level 12 Gnome Rogue
- Hilts – Level 12 Human Warrior
- Imogen – Level 12 Gnome Warrior
- Droogie – Level 13 Night Elf Druid
We were all in various states of rune attainment. I think Radon, my priest, was at the head of the pack with four runes. Somebody had just one rune. It is a bit of a mess.
We were not the only ones in Elwynn Forest, naturally, or in Westfall. In fact, Stormwind seemed to be quite overrun with players relative to Ironforge. As I said back in the day, everybody comes to Westfall.
The bridge to Westfall
Or maybe the cap at level 25 is keeping the player base concentrated.
We also still haven’t formed a guild. The debate over the name has yet to end, so we haven’t even gotten to the horror of having to beg people to sign our charter.
But out in Elwynn Forest… well, Darkmoon Faire is on its way and the Feast of Winterveil has started.
Setting up things next to Goldshire
Our group got itself together slowly and we met up at the bridge between Elwynn and Westfall.
Gateway to Westfall
When we were all there, the first step of the plan was to head back into Elwynn Forest and defeat Hogger, an early stop on any group nostalgia tour.
I was a bit worried that Hogger might be a bit over-camped on a Saturday afternoon, but aside from one warrior who ran ahead of us and tried to solo Hogger… unsuccessfully, and none of us lifted a finger to help… we were able to down him so fast I didn’t even have a chance to get a screen shot. But that gave us a quest to all turn in and a reward.
I was too slow and only caught the Questie announcement
That done and feeling confident, we turn the quest in and move onward to Westfall, where the first stop is always Old Blanchy.
Here your Westfall Adventure begins
It is always a nostalgic journey, to return to Westfall. It is also a reminder of the somewhat chaotic design choices that some of vanilla WoW faced.
We were certainly in the the right level range. Even at level 11, a bit at the low end, none of the first quests were orange or red, warning me that they were above my level.
Some of the zone is quite appropriate for a group. Quests where you have a quota to slay, even a high quota, are good in that situation.
Harvest watchers on the Saldean farm
The group advances together and is done together.
Quest complete!
But then there are the quests with drops. So many drops. Okra and goretusk livers and murloc eyes and bandanas and stringy buzzard meat… everybody needs all of those but only one shows up per kill. And that does not even begin to appreciate the bag space issues at that level. We have a couple of tailors out of pack of characters so everybody has all the six slot bags they want, but with crafting materials and quest items and food and drink and what not cluttering up your bags, I always seem to be on the edge of needing to hit a vendor to clear out trash.
I could just pass on that or throw it away, but we’re also all dirt poor. I cannot afford to NOT vendor everything I pick up. I’m still on the edge when it comes to coin when training up skills.
So it goes.
And Westfall itself… well, there is that level 19 dust devil floating around among the level 12 boars that is more than a bit of a hazard.
The dust devil is on us… again!
I have the ground clutter turned all the way up, so it might be hard to see my corpse in the tall grass there, having been slain by the dust devil. The group had to run from him and were still running when I had released and returned and the damn thing went after me again. I was close to dying to the same mob twice in the same battle.
Still, it is a good zone, a memorable zone, and a zone that helped sell the early game to many players. You can get in over your head, sure… but by the time you’ve gotten there you’ve probably been in over your head in the Wendigo cave or the Fargodeep mine, where the sudden respawns will get you.
And it is the path forward to the first dungeon. We are on the path towards the Deadmines and, some day soon I hope, Gryan Stoutmantle will immortalize all of us by shouting out of victory, as he has done with so many noble heroes before us.
Just like the hero Pinkydoll
We’ll figure out who is in which role soon enough. It seems likely that my priest will be healing and with Droogie doing so much damage, Imogen will likely be our tank. But the group still has a whole second tier of alts, and a new group may emerge. With the level cap at 25 we could raise up any number of possible groupings.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 