Previously, we have spoken on the topic of the new Player Achievements systems which will be coming out with Wrath of the Lich King.
To recap this new system ….You will be able to achieve a variety of goals in such areas as
- 1. excellence in professions
- 2. successfully completing a number of quests
- 3. completing world and seasonal events
- 4. reputation achievements
- 5. gaining tabards and other whimsical items
- 6. PVP and raiding
- 7. Most importantly to Off the Beaten Path is the achievement of "World Explorer".
Some achievements, including those that involve quests, items currently in your possession, skills (including professions), exploration, and reputations, will be applied to your character retroactively." For world exploration, that means the places you have visited and cleared on your world map.
PLACES TO SEE
So let's continue clearing those maps with more fascinating places to see in WoW.
Last week, I mentioned that Alliance players and Horde players may need to make a special trip to Azuremyst Island (the Draenei starting point) to sightsee and clear their maps. One of my friends mentioned that another often overlooked location for Alliance and Horde players to do some map clearing is Silverpine Forest. Many Alliance will have the road cleared due to heading up towards Scarlet Monastery or Shadowfang Keep, but there are several interesting places to visit in the zone as well.
Silverpine Forest stretches across Lordaeron's western coast was once a lush and verdant wooded glen. During the Third War, the forest was affected by the plague. The forces of the Lich King invaded the woods, setting fire to the crops and massacring its people. In the southwestern corner, the once Alliance town of Pyrewood remains almost in tact, as the humans of the village survived the onslaught of the scourge. They paid a terrible price for their determination. You will need to travel there after 9pm dawn to see what happened to the people there.
Farther south from Pyrewood is another interesting location called the Kingdom of Gilneas, which is ruled by Lord Greymane. The Lord never supported the Lordaeron Alliance in the Second War and after the war, he constructed the Greymane Wall to keep out horde and alliance alike. You can see the gate of the wall, but the wall is said to span the entire southern area, bordering off Gilneas permanently from Lord Daeron. There are humans outside the gates, which are hostile except for the one neutral weapons vendor named Wallace the Blind.
In the North eastern area of Silverpine forest, Lordamere Lake resides between the Forsaken lands of Tirisfal Glades and Silverpine Forest, and the contested lands of the Alterac Mountains. In the center of the Lake is Fenris Isle inhabited by gnolls, murlocs, and bog beasts. The ring of islands was to represent the rim of an ancient volcano. So, I took a dive to check it out.
North Tide's Run is on the North Western Shore of Silverpine. Being an Alliance druid, I had never been to this location before. Ashore, is a huge wrecked ship which is to mark the area where Horde Druids should swim out to and locate a quest item for their aquatic form. So, I challenge the horde druids to fill in their maps of the western shore of Westfall (near a huge anchor) and swim out to locate the area where Alliance druids get theirs.
UNUSUAL QUESTS
This next often overlooked quest comes from a listener email, thanks go to Bloodwyn from the Destromath server. I have mentioned this quest before briefly, but I think I will tell you more about it. Don't forget that in addition to player achievements in world exploration, there is also one for questing.
Blizzard includes all kinds of pop culture mixed into their original ideas into their world. They also tend to include historically based stories from real life. I think this encourages players to look up the information outside of the game and read it. As our listen put it, this quest is all about story and atmosphere, and shows just how much care is lavished on the story of Azeroth.
The Sully Balloo quest is based on an actual historical event. Unfortunaely, the quest is Alliance only and requires L25 to start. Hopefully, for horde players they have an alliance character around somewhere where they can do the quest.
If you swim to the bottom of the Thandol span and look around the major rubble and broken stones of the bridge, you will locate a small skeletal hand underneath one of the stones. In the hand is clutched an envelope which begins the quest.
Inside the envelope is a letter which begins:
My Dear Sara,I think I will save the rest of the heart wrenching letter for you adventurers to discover for yourselves. You follow the instructions in the quest which will take you back to Ironforge to his wife Sara Balloo.
The indications are very strong that we shall move to take watch over the Thandol Span in a few days. Lest I shall not be able to write to you again. I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.
This quest is based on the correspondence written July 14th, 1861 by a Union soldier in the American Civil War. The soldier's name was Maj. Sullivan Ballou of the 2nd Rhode Island Volunteers and was the final letter to his wife before the Battle of Bull Run.
In the the game, it is literally heart-wrenching to bring the letter to Sara, and the proceed with the somber tasks of notifying King Magni Bronzebeard. Afterward, you are involved in the construction of a memorial to Sully, the dwarf who risked his life at Thandol span.
As Bloodwyn notated, 'the comments from the various NPC's are wonderfully thought out and comment on love, war, and loyalty. "
Thank you for writing to us.
Role Playing Tips
Mary Sue
This next information will not only help you role play your Warcraft characters better, but if you are an aspiring author with novel ideas or action adventure films, this may help your characters there too. More recently, I have been reading and hearing about the term "Mary Sue." This refers to cliched characters that are unbelievable and stereotyped.
Wikipedia defines this:
The term describes a fictional character who plays a major role in the plot and is particularly characterized by overly idealized mannerisms, lacking noteworthy flaws, and primarily functioning as wish-fulfillment fantasies for their authors. In role-playing games, original characters may also be criticized as "Mary Sues" if they dominate the spotlight or are too unrealistic or unlikely in other ways.I keep thinking about Superman —He is almost god-like… he's tall, beautiful, flawless, he can fly, run fast, has x-ray vision, heat-vision, cold breath, stops speeding bullets, stop a locomotives, flies into space, flies underwater, and more. When you add all that up, it begins to make him sound beyond believable. He is too many wonderful things to be believable. Marvel comics used to think the same way, so Stan Lee introduced super heroes who were more flawed and had only one or a couple of extraordinary abilities. People were able to accept these heroes and identify with them more. In my opinion, the Spiderman character is the more believable than Superman because we have all gamed with or personally know someone who is much like Peter Parker. I can't say I know anyone like Superman. A great flawed character is X-men's Rogue, who has a tremendous power but is unable to touch people or express herself physically.
I know when we enter Warcraft and figuratively put on our Nightelf or Tauren costumes, our characters allow us to be heroic in many ways. The idea in Role-playing is to not be so heroic that we are too superman. As you craft your role-playing character, make sure your character doesn't slip into the Mary Sue mold. Using simple flaws that you can recognize is such heroes in Marvel comics, favorite novels, and movies can help you.
Special thanks: rpmadesimple.org on Mary Sue
Have fun everyone!
