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.

Do You Think It's a Bug?

I was trying to take some footage of Winklestein's Feign Death animation which really made me laugh out loud. As you can see, however, there seems to be a little problem with the video recorder in the new client.

One Word: "Stylin'!!"

Questgiver: Take this, a mighty magic helmet, to aid you in your struggles.
Winklestien: Hoo Yeah! 'Bout time one of you questgivers gave me a helmet with some stats.
Questgiver: And in addition to protecting your life, this helm shall strike fear into all who oppose you on the battlefield. Your visage shall be one of terror to your enemies.
Winklestein: Sweet!
(Winklestein puts on the helmet, stands a bit taller... for a goblin)
Winklestein: How do I look?
Questgiver: ...
Winklestein: C'mon! Spit it out!
Questgiver: One word: Stylin!


Winklestein is wearing the Spearhead Helm, available soon from questgivers all over the Southern Barrens.

My Hunter and Her Felsteed

After the Cataclysm, all hunters ride Felsteeds

I have to laugh sometimes at how things can break in beta. It is, from all accounts, a completely normal thing for stuff to break or be incomplete at this stage. You just wouldn't expect the weird ways this would happen.

Best example is my hunter riding her Felsteed there. At this time, the goblin racial mount does not exist. Nor is there a trainer for riding anything, and of course, at around lvl 30, she is not exalted with any other factions of note who could help her get mounted. A work-around was discovered though!

Goblins (and anybody else, I suppose) can train for Blacksmithing in Orgrimmar and right next to him is the Weaponsmith trainer. And the weaponsmith trainer will teach the spell "Summon Felsteed." Makes perfect sense, right?

Many of the other things breaking are really new things though. Winklestein specced into Survival Huntering and thus received Explosive Shot at lvl 10. Except that she didn't. The spell appeared when I allocated my first points and then disappeared for all time ever after.

I would write a beta feedback ticket about this. If you have never seen it, the beta and PTR clients have an extra mini-map feature to make reporting bugs and problems very easy. Except that two builds ago, the entire feedback system disappeared. It has reappeared since, but is still not functional.

Goblin Thoughts

The inevitable, untenable Winklestein

So, the big rule I set for myself entering the Cataclysm beta is that I didn't really want to spoil too much of the new content for myself. New content is new only one time around, and I would prefer it to be new when it is all nicely polished and I can hit the dungeons with my friends and not run them feeling like I feel now having done the LK dungeons about 300 times apiece.

So, with that in mind, my first big endeavor in the Beta has been a goblin hunter.

Some recurring themes in the story of the goblins:

1) Explosions- It always comes back to blowing stuff up. A favorite early example of this is when you go to rescue some goblin captives. You kill the guards nearby who drop keys to the cages, but your rescue plan involves attaching jets to the cages so that they fly away to "safety."

2) Environmental Devastation- Wherever the Bilgewater Cartel goes, the utter obliteration of the natural environment follows. Head on into the Valley of the Spirits in Orgrimmar that has now been labelled the "Goblin Slums" and see the tranquil waters turned into tar pits. Or, head to the Talondeep Path between Ashenvale and Stonetalon which has been turned into the Talondeep Vale since the goblins came by, blew up most of the mountain and widened it.

I'll be honest, this environmental theme leaves me a tad upset. Personally, I'm not much of a tree hugger, but with BP ruining my favorite beaches in the United States, images of oil derricks turning water black or strip mined mountains in Azshara feels like an intrusion of real world problems more than it seems like interesting color.

The Goblin starting experience is pretty sharp. It is extremely linear, telling a very established story in which you are the big hero. I think my only real problem was that, in a lot of ways, the beginning experience doesn't feel much like Warcraft. Some of those early quest involve entertaining guests at a party, shopping for "bling" and hitting pirates with your hot rod. There's a complete absence of any other Warcraft races and most of these quests involve doing things that it really doesn't matter what class you are at all. The bling is at the same friendly vendor for everyone. I think I was lvl 7 or so before I actually had to kill anything.

I think the ultimate motivator of a goblin is meant to be selfishness, so how that translates to the rest of the world seems dubious to me. The voices of all these goblins come straight from The Bronx in New York, which I think is going to get old rather quickly.