Darkshore: The Shattering

Dear Readers,

please forgive me, for I have sinned. I promised posts, and gave none. I suck.

Anyhow.

As with many of us, the Shattering has reinvigorated my love for WoW and for everything related to it. I welcome you to my first post about the new world we live in – Darkshore: The Shattering.

I’m just going to talk through my experiences of some of the new zones as I encounter them, and I hope you enjoy it. Thank you for sticking with me, those that have

Darkshore is the first zone Elsen really felt at home. It is here that I remember questing first, and after seeing the cinematic (remember, I’ve seen no visual spoliers) or Auberdine’s destruction, I decided this is where I had to go first.

Welcome to my visual tour through Darkshore, after the Shattering.

I’m absolutely in love with these new snail models. I think they’re amazing. They’ve got the movement right and the speed and everything, and they’re awesome little things.

Huge chunks of the land have just been ripped away – as far as I can see all of the gaps are jumpable and there are little slopes up for if you miss the jump everywhere – one of the most irritating things in the world (of warcraft…) is that “oh fuck, I’ve dropped off something and can’t get up the other side” – I didn’t have that once in Darkshore – and I fall off things a LOT. The un-reachable humps have gone and everything’s got slopes.

Starting to see the destruction now – what used to be just flat land is full of naga and little slabs of land. Actually lots more open wildlife, including more full families of male, female and babies. S’quite cute really. They’ve also integrated the Northrend thing of animals interacting with the land – the bears – which you loot for fur, rather than having to kill, which I also think is awesome seeing as we’re trying to preserve the wildlife – drink the water rather than just patrolling a space.

Maybe it’s just me but I love the fact that as part of a quest I used a horn to call ents out of naga bodies. Awesome – tree power!

Interacting with dryads et al, entering the spirit world and interacting with bears, stags etc gives me an awesome zone wide buff that (I think) always gets reapplied when you enter the zone!

Cerellean still stands and watches over the water, however when you do kill Anaya’s “body” and his spirit returns to him, they don’t interact anymore, she simply looks at him and he stares into the distance. Now this is either a bug (always a possibility), or this is a Cataclysm change – referencing the fact you’ve killed her before and it’s more of a token thing than an actual thing. If that makes any sense? I don’t know.

What you see here, is me on a quest to find a gnome called Gary. Gary’s that pink haired chap on the top of that little rock.

I’m afraid there’s scrolling battle text on here (sorry!) because I wanted one with the robots text – you navigate with him and blow up murlocs. Other choice lines include, “hey, murlocs, I’ve come to take your treasure!”, which cause them to attack you, and then you blow yourself up. Marvellous stuff!

This epitomised darkshore for me – elemental versus ancient.

One of the quite awesome things about this zone is that they help you out with mounts – you can “catch a ride” on a nightsaber from Lor’danel north, and then north again, and whichever way you want between the three points. I think this is a great addition because even with the changes, it’s a long zone!

The changed troll area…

I’m loving this portrait thing they’ve got going on. It’s a lovely addition! The added flavour of text, the little silver border, and the 3D, animated thing – it’s awesome!

The Tower of Althalaxx was hell when I was levelling. I remember full out needing a posse of people to kill the last guy on the quest chain. Now, it’s destroyed, and there are “looters” around, grabbing what they can and scrabbling in the muck – awesome little touch.

I think this is meant to be done differently at low level – he shoots big balls of blue lightning at you which have to be avoided. I tried avoiding them for a while but he didn’t come down off his tree trunk, so I moonfired him. Sorry

Yes, I am a great big purple tree and I will stamp on you trolls! Unfortunately this isn’t the new tree form gone bad, you just get to ride one of these guys for a quest!

Save darkshore, get a mini tree – hello Withers!

Action shot!

The Auberdine refugee camp – all that’s left of the town’s inhabitants.

GOD DAMN COWS, SUMMONING ELEMENTALS, KILLING THE ELVES! bastards.

Working with spirits to defeat the elementals

I saw this and genuinely stopped in my tracks – not just the elf hippogryph master dead, but the poor birds too. Devastating.

Hollie, a remainder from Auberdine, is trapped in the old inn. Protect her as she escapes and she discovers her dead friends.

Bring it. I can take you on, you horrible thing.

My first glance of Malfurion since he returned…as a druid, this is an epic moment to see our leader, returned from the dream, battling the elements when we need him most.

What a difference…another case of stopping and just being horrified by the destruction.

I genuinely feel bad for Aroom and the dying owlkin.

Saving the souls of the lazer chickens.

Riding the green dragon to escape the dream and save Darkshore from the vortex!

Fighting the twilight cultists, riding a green dragon, in the middle of a vortex. AWESOME.

This is what is known as “the team of win”

The elves of Auberdine strike back and create something beautiful midst the debris

The Master’s Glaive has become so much more…

Embody the power of the bear…I’m loving how much true nature and druidic stuff there is scattered throughout this zone.

one feels the need to “lol”

No ways has there always been massive pink fish in this sea.

The titans are everywhere!

What I’m doing right here is building a house for some baby murlocs. Hell yea.

What I’m loving about the presence of these guys is that from Elsen’s perspective, she encountered the faceless ones for the first time in Northrend and now they are starting to pervade her homeland – this is a big deal for her and she recognises the threat.

And then now we encounter Queen Azshara – a sign of things to come perhaps???

Some big ass tentacles right there.

And here ends my scenic trip through Darkshore.

Hope you’ve enjoyed it