Say hi to Naralie!

Hi, everybody!

Over in Betaland, there has been some shaking up going on.

A new build was released last week and it apparently became clear that something was wrong, because the presence of any goblin character in the realm caused the entire server to  crash.

As a result, all goblin characters have been "disabled."  There are some calling this The Great Goblin Wipe of Last Thursday, but since I can read and understand English, I know that "disabled" is not the same as "deleted." I'm taking a wait-and-see approach to this before I write Winklestien's obituary.

In the meantime, I decided to go visit the Eastern Kingdom a bit with Naralie the undead rogue here. I can say that Tirisfal Glades is not particularly special. There is a combination of some old quests with a few new ones, but it is sort of ambling. Silverpine Forest on the other hand... has gotten a complete and utter remake. The Banshee Queen Sylvanas is on the warpath against Gilneas and she is making face time with her loyal subjects.


Your first quest in the zone starts off with a confrontation between her and our all-time-favorite Warchief Garrosh and the whole thing takes us on a fun continued storyline. There are some massive lore implications going on here as well.

We could all use a "Carrying a Tree" buff

There is also an amazing creature walking around, a Forest Ettin (kind of a two-headed giant) that is just setting the  graphic detail for mobs to new heights. He has a buff called "Carrying a Tree" which refers to the club on his back, and he has a dead ram strapped to his back (for a snack, I guess) that flops around with every step. I had to follow along at a distance and just drink in all those details.

Alliance players are going to want to stay off the Silverpine Road.  The Forsaken have established a couple of new outposts along that way. A domesticated Forest Ettin pulls a cart as an alternate form of transportation up and down that road. I'm not sure what he'll do if he meets Alliance.  And I think it is in a phased moment, but Sylvanas herself travels that road as well, chatting with players and casually eviscerating some worgen by the side of the road as she passes. It would really suck if players in their mid-30s, heading to the Scarlet Monastery bumped into her going the other way.