Monday, November 17, 2008

Northrend...

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...is BEAUTIFUL.

Outland is like a burnt, stale piece of toast, while Northrend is a fresh, warm, evenly toasted new-york style bagel with lots and lots of cream cheese. Outland is like when you wake up from a nap and have nap-taste in your mouth and wish you could sleep longer; Northrend is like sleeping in on Sunday, waking up, having a fabulous stretch, and then doing the New York Time's crossword while drinking delicious coffee. Outland is like losing 50DKP for not killing many whelps or not killing things very hard and very fast or something, and therefore not being able to get that rare drop off the crazy hard end-game boss your guild just downed, whereas Northrend is like rolling a need roll of 100 and beating out that other douche bag priest in your PUG who rolled a 99 on some sick druid gear that he can't even use but wants because he "can sell this for alot of gold and stuff!" after he completely ignored the tank's failing health and his own role as a primary MT healer, thus causing multiple wipes, huge repair bills and creating sizeable sads for everyone involved. I'm never doing another instance with you again, random pug priest!

In short, I love Northrend.
The layout is spectacular. Everywhere you look, there's some epic landscape with some epic tower or dragon castle or crystal tree with some epic sunset/sunrise/sunsomething. And it's so well done, so *tastefully* done, that you just kind of sit there and think, wow. This is gorgeous. The flowers falling in Dragonblight, the sun glinting off the snow, the creepy crawly scourge who leap after you - it's all just awesome.

The music is fantastic as well. Dalaran's music is pure EPIC WIN. It helps to immerse you in this land of epic awesomeness. The music in Outland, and some of the music in Azeroth are just too atmospheric, and not engaging enough. Northrend's music really picks you up and puts you in the world you're playing. I love it.

And the quests are SO neat. I don't know if it's because I'm reading through them more and taking my time, or if they're actually more interesting, but I'm definitely more drawn in by them this time around. Instead of just killing those 15 plagued ogres and turning it in, I'm stopping to ask myself, "Why the hell are these guys plagued? There's probably some reason, right?" And by following the quest chains and really reading them through, it's easier to see how and why things came to be. The new cutscenes that Blizz has implemented are also pretty awesome sauce, and help propel new plot lines and twists (I could go on, but - no spoilers here - don't worry!)

I'm really glad that I'm not all levellevellevellevel to 80; it's letting me take my time and smell the roses. You only get to level from 70-80 the first time once. I want it to be good! As of now I'm about 20% of the way into level 73, and I'm liking the pace that I'm going.

So far, I really have nothing bad to say about Northrend at all. Blizz: well done. You may get a lot of shit for a lot of things, but I think you really got it this time. Granted, there are many kinks to work out, sure. But hey. Overall? Well done. Sit back, have a beer, and when that priest QQs about some insignificant class imbalance, tell him to shove it. You deserved it. =)

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2 remarks:

Serk said...

So, do you like Northrend?

Averna said...

Rofl.

Nah, actually, it's kinda meh. whatevs, man, I'm gonna go play Everquest now.