The Journey to Orgrimmar and Ragefire Chasm

It could be a three-parter, called ‘Ruler of the Bracelet’. The first part would be called ‘The Brotherhood of the Bracelet’, followed by ‘A Couple of Towers’, with the climactic ending called ‘Hey, the King’s Back!

-The end of the best joke from the /silly command

Like the vision in that joke, this too will be a three-parter, largely because I started writing about the beginning before we had reached the end, and the end ended up being further down the road… both in time, events, and words written… than I expected.  But it all started with a plan.

Yes, we had a plan.

It was a flawed plan, based on incorrect information, assumptions, and some blind optimism, but it was a plan none the less.

In its most simple form, the plan was to get together and run the Ragefire Chasm instance.

We were still fumbling to get ourselves organized, and Earl was still getting set up in Japan, but we were also getting a little tired of just hanging around, working on alts, and holding ourselves back to the first half of Westfall so as not to get to strung out in levels.

In that regard Ragefire Chasm has an advantage.  In the ranking of dungeons by level RFC, as I will call it from now on, comes in before the Deadmines, being rated for levels 13-18.  We figured we could get in and do that and not spoil the level spread.  So I put up a a target in the guild MOTD for people to be levels 13-14 in anticipation of running RFC this past weekend.

That was the simple plan.  The actual requirement to accomplish this was somewhat more complex.

RFC is in Orgrimmar, a Horde city, home of the Orcs and Trolls.  RFC is located fairly deep in Orgrimmar, so getting there is a challenge… and all the more so if you want to get there at level 14 or so.  Still, we had done it before so naturally assumed we could do it again.  Piece of cake, details to be worked out later.  The target to do this was this past Saturday.

Skronk, Ula, and I were on early to start scouting things out.  One of the items that came to mind the night before was one we had overlooked up to that point.  How do we get to Orgrimmar?

A bit of discussion shook out three possible routes.

Routes to Orgrimmar

We were starting from Stormwind, and the first that came to mind was to take the boat from Booty Bay to Ratchet on Kalimdor.  From there is it just a short run up to Orgrimmar.  The problem is that getting to Booty Bay requires running/swimming the length of Stranglethorn Vale.  At levels 13-16, the level range of possible characters in our guild, that was going to be tough.  Not impossible, but the likelihood of dying a few times was high.

The second option was to take the boat from Menethil Harbor over to Theramore.  The run from Theramore to Orgimmar is about twice that of the run from Ratchet, but that still isn’t all that far.  That had two obstacles.   First, there is the need to do the reverse Wetlands run to get to Menethil Harbor.  That isn’t so bad at our levels and once you get there you get the flight point that connects to Ironforge, so you need never do it again.  The second problem was the run through Theramore, which is a higher level zone that Stranglethorn Vale, which to my mind made it more problematic that the first plan.

After hashing those out for a bit, the third route was hatched, to take the boat from Menethil Harbor to Auberdine in Darkshore and run the length of Darkshore, then through Ashenvale, into the Barrens, and finally to Orgrimmar.  That had the Wetlands run again, but as I said you only have to do that once.  But it also had the longest run through Kalimdor, much further than the other two options.  However, I figured it was also the safest.  Darkshore is about Westfall in level range, and Ashenvale is the next zone after that, so not a big jump in levels.  Plus, Ashenvale feeds Alliance players in at one end and Horde players in at the other, so the lowest level mobs are at the ends, with the high levels spread out across the middle, reducing exposure.

While nobody was happy about the longer run, it did seem the most viable path.  We set about scouting it.  Ula and Skronk made the run to Menethil Harbor and then took the boat to Auberdine, taking a side trip to search out a quest for a staff for Ula.

I chose my character for the venture.  Having had another week go by I had run up another alt.  This time I rolled up a human rogue on something of a whim, giving me one each of all the non-cloth caster classes for the Alliance.  I named him Chadwicke, looking for some variation on “Chad” I could roll with, since rogues have something of a reputation so I thought I might play on that with some of the “Virgin vs. Chad” meme stuff.

Honestly, the real reason I made a rogue was that we got a couple of the Defias mask drops in Westfall last week, which is about the first bit of head gear you can get in WoW.  There aren’t many options until about level 26 or so.  For whatever reason, I wanted to wear that mask, but it is rogue only and bind on pickup.  So I had to roll up a rogue to get one.  And once I had one I was in the level range of the group.

Chad Masked

I wasn’t too sure how far I was going to go with Chad.  Rogues have been problematic for me in the past.  But once I did his class quest at level 10 and trained him into dual wield he was destroying mobs one on one. (I was doing that during the Reavers entosis op at one point.)  That sold him for me, so I decided he should go on the run to RFC.

I stripped him down… you put all your gear in your bags to keep them from being damaged if you die, and this trip was going to see a lot of deaths I figured, so I was down to my skivvies the whole way… and sent him on his way through Loch Modan and through the Wetlands, a run made easier by his rogue abilities.

I’ll just stealth by that orc thank you

He was into the Wetlands and on his way, saying the tagline I had picked out for him, for which I made a macro.

Roll on brother Chad

That won’t get old I am sure.

He made it to Menethils Harbor without incident and was soon waiting on the dock for the boat to Auberdine.

Mask bros at the dock

I took the boat, passed by Ula and Skronk, who were headed over to Darnassus as part of a quest or something, and started the run to Orgrimmar.

Darkshore is, as the name implies, rather dark, but the sun began to shine through once Chad made it to Ashenvale.

Sunny days again for Chad

Ashenvale was a hoof, but there wasn’t much in the way of danger.  There were a few ?? mobs off in the distance, but nothing came to get me.  I picked up the flight point at Anastaar, then realized I had forgotten to get the one at Auberdine.  Something to go back for later.  I just stuck to the roads and followed the signs.

This must be the way

Once you get to the boarder between Ashenvale and The Barrens, the road veers right and leads straight into a Horde fortification with guards and such.  Dangerous stuff for a low level Alliance player.

Horde customs and immigration check point

Fortunately, there is an obvious path off to the left that leads to a hole in the ramparts.

They built a wall and tried to make the Alliance pay for it

From there I just cut across The Barrens towards Durotar… dying once because I got a mob on me and forgot I was without my gear… running up to the back door of Orgrimmar, which is across a bridge over the Southfury River.

Bridge to Orgrimmar

Up until that point, everything had been going great.  We had been on for a couple of hours, Bung and his son were set to log in and join us to round out the group.  Ula was swapping out to her warrior alt Scscla to tank for us, Skronk was a dedicated holy priest set to heal, and Chad was there to help DPS.  We just had to get everybody out to where I was to begin the assault on Orgrimmar.

That is the topic for tomorrow’s post.

I Know Why the Night Elf Runs

As I mentioned on Tuesday, I have been working on three characters, with one going through each of the starter areas.  The third of these… the only one I didn’t roll up on opening night… was a night elf druid.

None of the starter areas are new to me.  I ran through them all at least a few times before Cataclysm hit and changed everything.  But of the three Teldrassil, the home of the night elves, has always been my least favorite, so I wasn’t sure I was going to roll up something there.  But I did want to make a druid, I like healing as a druid more than as a priest or pally for whatever reason, and a night elf is your only choice for druids on the alliance.

But starting in Teldrassil doesn’t mean you have to stay there.  The joke that isn’t a joke has always been about the run across the Wetlands that young night elves make to get to the other starter areas.  The snowy Dun Morogh of the dwarves might be a bit chilly for night elves showing up in their form fitting elf shorts.

Such muscle tone and such tight shorts

But Elwyn Forest and Westfall, that is where everybody wants to end up.  It is a nice zone, your friends are probably there already, and it starts the quest line that culminates in the Deadmines.

So my early plan with the druid was to get a few levels and then try to make the run across the Wetlands.

And then I started thinking about where I might find a druid trainer and whether or not I had to be around Darnassus to get my class quest and the Moonglade teleport skill and decided not to be in too much of a hurry to get out of Teldrassil.   Instead I decided to stick it out to level 10 so I could get my animal forms and all that.

So it was time to get to it.  The first few quests around Shadowglen are fine.  I had done them during the load test and, since opening night had passed, there wasn’t a huge crowd with which to contend.  A quick group in the spider caves was the only time I really had to work with anybody.

But then it was time to go to Dolanaar.

I don’t know what it is, but almost every quest in Dolanaar brings out this low level sense of dread in me, a voice in the back of my head that says, “Oh no, not this quest.”  Only it is for almost every single quest.  I’d pick one up and think, “Should I just run through the Wetlands instead?”

The first guy you run into you end up tricking

Which is odd, because the actual quests… well… aren’t so bad.  Mostly.  The ordering of the quests and the locations of the quest givers are probably not sorted out in the way a modern game designer would do it.  But that goes for all the zones.  There is a theme of having a low level quest that send you into a high level area now and again just to keep you on your toes.

There is, however, a lot of running in Teldrassil, and it feels like much more than the other two zones.  I started to work on a map with a series of arrows to show all the back and forth a young night elf has to do… including trips back and forth between Dolanaar and Darnassus which take a while… but I ended up with a blur of lines on the page obscuring the locations.

Here I am on the road again though

My working theory on why people leave Teldrassil began to include the idea that making the dash to Ironforge might actually involve less running than just sticking around.  You certainly start to feel that hour long cool down on being able to use your hearthstone.  If it were 20 minutes like current WoW you might be able to short cut some of those trips.  But with an hour timer, you save it until you need it and just make the run yet again.

And, of course, there are a few brutal quests.  Running into the Ban’ethil Barrow Den is a challenge, to the point that I wonder if they considered making it a real instanced dungeon at one point.

Looks welcoming on the outside…

You have to run in, find a few objects, get a drop, find a guy, and so on, all while in constrained tunnels and dealing with the sudden waves of respawns that mean you have to continually clear where you are and the path to where you want to be.

It was a good place to group up and I was happy to find a random group invite waiting for me before I had made it too far.  I returned the favor by clarifying how the quests down in the hole worked.

I didn’t say it was difficult, I just knew the answer

But I got through all the running and the tunnels and the various quests in Teldrassil, hit level 10, and ran off to the druid trainer in Darnassus who gave me the Moonglade teleport spell along with the usual “go talk to a guy” instructions.  I figured I was set.  I would go there, do a thing, get my updates, and move on.

But I have forgotten so much about the druid path.  It has been a long time.  While you go do a thing in Moonglade, you then have to travel to Auberdine in Darkshore to pick up the class quest thread.  What to say about Darkshore?  The locals are a bit of a pain.

Just another day on the beach

And it doesn’t measure up to Westfall or Loch Modan in my mind, but it wasn’t completely empty.  Not every night elf makes the run through the Wetlands.

The word of Poncho reaches to Auberdine

The more annoying thing was that I had used my hearthstone to cover yet another run from Dolanaar to Darnassus and then was stuck in Moonglade with a 40 minute cool down still ticking.  That meant finding the flight point in Moonglade… sort of where I remembered it, but the last druid I did was horde… and then take the bird to Auberdine, which runs 8 silver and 40 copper, a steep price in these early times.

Thinking to make the most of the trip, I grabbed a few of the other quests around town, just in case I could do some in passing, as I headed out to find a cave.  The right cave turns out to also be the closest cave when it comes down to it.

The right cave for the druid class quest

I think you can see the stone in the cave from this angle, the one you need to sprinkle the dust on.  But this cave looks quite a bit like a number of nearby caves, so I do not doubt there were some lost druids about.  Also, skeleton from a player death.  They are everywhere.

I got that then went off to knock out a couple of the nearby quests.  They fell into some of the common tropes.

My service can be bought for pants… but anything to replace those shorts!

After a bit of that, enough to recoup my air fare, I took the bird from Auberdine to Darnassus… which is free, so you don’t even have to take the boat if you’re a cheapskate like me… turned everything in and got… bear form.

Again, it had been a long time since I had done the druid starter, but I was a bit surprised to walk away with bear form as my only upgrade.   Oh, and a note to come back when I was level 14 for the next round.

We will mete this out slowly

That out of the way and not overly enthused by the Darkshore quest lines… as with the quests around Dolanaar I would read the quest text and get that feeling of dread as past efforts flooded into my mind… I decided to take the boat out of Auberdine to the Eastern Kingdoms and make a run for Ironforge.

Out into the Wetlands

I almost made it too.  Being level 10 meant that not everything in the zone had such a huge aggro radius… aggro radius being a function of the level difference between you and the local mobs… that I was able to slip through the main areas of the swamp unmolested… though the skeletons on the path showed others had been eaten along the way.

It wasn’t until I got into the pass through to Loch Modan that a level 21 Dragonmaw Grunt caught me.

Caught in the tunnel

But that was far enough into the run that my wisp appeared in a Loch Modan graveyard.  So I floated on back down the path to my corpse and left another skeleton behind.  I got a bit of cover at the next orc gathering as there were some people on them for a quest.

After that it was into Loch Modan and then through the tunnel to the chill weather of Dun Morogh and on the way to Ironforge.

Good thing I ditched those shorts

Ironforge was just a waypoint though.  I went in there, got the flight point, then took the tram to Stormwind with an eye to picking up in Elwyn Forest and eventually Westfall and its warm fields, clumps of quests, chickens, and dungeon.

On the Darkest Shore

Unlike a lot of places from vanilla World of Warcraft, I do not have much in the way of fond memories of Darkshore.

I wouldn’t say it was horrible, but it occupied the same level range as Westfall and Loch Modan, both of which were better zones. (Reality check on leveling speed: Back in vanilla I used to finish up Westfall and then go do Loch Modan, finishing that zone up while quests were still green.)  Westfall stood out especially, not so much due to the quality of quests… oh, there were a few horrible “kill many of thing x, y, and z” in there… but because it had a central story that integrated with the Deadmines instance.  You were officially done with the zone only when you turned in the final quest and had your name shouted across the zone by Gryan Stoutmantle.

And Westfall was a reasonable size.  You had to run around as much as in any other quest chain, but the square-ish shape of the zone.  Likewise, Loch Modan was also squared off, though it had that lake in the middle.

My memories of Darkshore though, they tend to center around running up and down the length of that zone over and over for this quest and that quest, along with a couple of quests with rather vague directions that ended up with me lost as to where to go and what to do.  But mostly running.

Darkshore’s length today

The one flight point was in Auberdine (one flight point per zone was all a you got most of the time back then) and hoofing it back and forth for progressively more distant quests, first to the north and then to the south was wearing.  I tried running the zone a couple of times way back when as an alternative to Westfall, which I had done so many times, but ended up with the impression that it was much better to just repeat Westfall.

And then came Cataclysm, which brought changes to a lot of the old world of Azeroth.

While I still grumble about the changes to Westfall… though in truth, aside from some awkward phasing and the death of old Blanchy, whose blanket we used to wear with pride, isn’t all bad… and remain unconvinced Loch Modan is better for the change, Darkshore is another story.

And Darkshore was one of the zones hit hard by the events of Cataclysm, so there was a chance to make it a better zone, or at least one that flowed more smoothly.  Or maybe just some more interesting scenery.

Like a huge tornado thing…

I know I have run at least a bit of Darkshore post-Cataclysm.  The worgen starter zone dumps you in Darnassus and points you towards Darkshore as the next zone to run.  But that might have been back during the Cataclysm beta.  Right now I only have a single worgen character on my account, and he ran through Westfall with the instance group during our Cataclysm re-roll.  I could have deleted a character (possible), or ran it on another server and have lost track of him (slim, but possible), but beta seems like the most likely answer.

Now, with my Loremaster summer project under way, I have the chance/opportunity/obligation to run through the zone again, in full.  So I took my new night elf rogue, fresh from the starter zone and finally wearing long pants.

More after the cut.