More questing in Chaos Wastes!

...and not only did Kipling end up with a massive 80% towards level 38 via questing alone yesterday, but I got my very first bestial unlock! I was having a poke along the foot of a mountain range and found a named Bray Shaman that naturally, I had to kill, and resulted in the unlocking of said tome. This is the easiest way that I've found to get a bestial trophy in the game, short of going back to the lower level areas and killing champions. But your mileage may vary.

(When I went to the Library to pick my trophy, I chose the Ceremonial Dagger and was instantly disappointed that it was so tiny. They could have made it at least half the size of a regular dagger! Meh. Maybe I can pick my teeth with it or something.)

I unlocked a lot of tomes while I was running around yesterday, as well as meeting Dragon Ogres for the first time:


Talk about a beast! I don't want to know how they came into this world.

In conclusion: I like Chaos Wastes a lot - creepy landscape, new types of mobs, more space to move. I hope Mythic does something to make the mobs less clustered in the Tier 4 Elf lands, because I just can't be bothered with the level of difficulty there at the moment.

Things to do next: work on Kipling's renown level. While it's not pitifully low, I'd like to see the gap close between rank and renown before 40 for efficiency's sake.

Time to Get the Book Out

So if there's one thing I'm good at in MMOs, it's getting lost. If there's another, it's falling off or getting stuck in things, but that's another story for another day. Having dinged level 37 today via Keep taking (1) and a scenario, I was a little stuck. Another level to churn out. So I took myself to Praag - I had a few "I'm tired of looking at you, go and annoy this NPC in this camp" quests. Riding around there is straightforward, despite the clustered landscape - which may I say, I love, it's so dense and realistic. It reminded me a lot of the ruins of Eastern Plaguelands, only far more advanced.

But then I got to the south of the Chaos Wastes and nothing seemed to make sense... the maps showed a path that didn't exist. Was there a tunnel? Was the path a lie? After having a poke around for a few minutes, I gave up, not wanting to risk being the next snack for the nearby Champion, and booked it back to Dragonwake. Sometimes things aren't what they seem.

Once I did get back to the Chaos Wastes, I found a nice selection of quests - one LOLworthy chain taking me into the RVR zone - accidentally found Bastion Stair (thus clearing two spaces in my quest log!) fell off a cliff and logged out at the camp in the middle.



It seems to be quite a small zone, so I'm going to have more of a poke around in the next few days. That is if I get a chance - I'm emigrating to the US next Wednesday, so I have plenty of packing to get on with!

(Dark) Elf Land

Scenarios refused to pop this afternoon, so I weasled Petroleum, my new Archmage, into the Dark Elf side of the Blighted Isle and had a poke around. I managed to get all the way to their starting ground without being shot in the face. Not really sure that's a good thing... but whatever!

Pestilent Soul, Level 19 Hero

Found this horrible thing near Icefist Warren in Troll Country, surrounded by trolls. Having beaten down a level 19 Champion, I figured this would be difficult, but not that difficult. After all, Kipling dinged level 35 and has a shiny new cloak leftover from the Heavy Metal live event! Um. And then it beat me down to the floor, and I fell off a cliff and died. Fail.

Troll Country Exploration

Last night I finally got to game with my boyfriend, but instead of doing productive things like scenarios or quests, we went out in search of a few unlocks and to see what we could see in Troll Country. I'd spotted these Yetis a week ago, and wanted to kill some. So we did:


Close to the Destruction warcamp, we saw an AFKer. Aside from a band of RVR flagged Destro, this was the only other person we saw in the two hours it took to traverse the landscape.



Hung out in some water. I took all my clothes off to see if we got an unlock for skinny dipping. Alas: no. So back on they went.


You have encountered a Wareagle!


Take a look at this monstrosity, it had an eerie "trapped souls screaming" soundtrack emanating from it:


After this, we moved west into what came across as a very unfinished, barren landscape of trolls and icy caves:


I was a little disappointed, because I was hoping to find some history & lore unlocks, or something a little more random, but only came out with encounter/world/25 kill unlocks. And then we found Coldsnap, the champion that would provide the unlock for "It's a Snap!"...


...but only to the person with the killing blow. My boyfriend isn't as bothered (ie: he has a sane mind) about completing his tome. So you can guess who got the killing blow right? And he's a Rune Priest! Dammit! He has the best luck at the moment for drops and whatnot.

I'll be back Coldsnap! Don't you think I won't! And after blitzing through a quest cave (ie: mobs only, nothing interesting at the back) our journey had come to an end. This chap lies beside a large rock outside the cave to the south of Coldsnap:


Would have been nice to have an unlock telling his story, do you think he's a Slayer? And what's a Dwarf doing so far from home?

Through a door, down some stairs...

...hit some red-level Destro NPCs, turn around and run for your life. But stop to take screenshots, because it's a beautiful game. All in the Troll Country oRVR area.

Altdorf Scenery

No bones about it: Tier 4 is frustrating for me at the moment, I can't find my groove. The level of difficulty has been ramped up, the ability to group for oRVR is lost on me at the moment (all the action was in Tier 2 last night), and doing scenarios all the time is not how to play Warhammer.

So! I went back to my Tier 1 Knight of the Blazing Sun and ran through all the quests in the city. This is my third time doing them and it's still not boring. Since I bought the game, the city has changed. NPCs are in different places, say different things, wear different clothes. New quests have been added. But I love the way the city is constructed, from the makeshift pen of rats watched over by the Ratcatcher's Wife to the detailing inside the Sigmar chapel. The Emporer's Palace is my ultimate tourist destination - you get to meet Karl Franz himself! And you get a fat chunk of XP for doing so too!

Take a look at the stained glass:


And if you take yourself through one of the doors on either side of Emperor Franz, you'll find his level 48 flying mount Deathclaw:


According to HammerWiki, he " joins the Emperor (reputedly by smashing through a stained-glass window) to fight against Destuction players should they reach the King fight in Altdorf." Which, to be honest, gives me goosebumps. I can't wait for the day Monolith's Destro launch an attack on Altdorf.

Isle of the Dead

I was about ready to go to bed tonight when I saw a portal in an area of Tier 4 where there were lots of level 40s. Encourages by guildies, I ran as fast/smart as I could and managed to get through - and discovered the Isle of the Dead. Creepiest place in the Warhammer world, beautiful landscape, a purple vortex thrust straight through the centrer, the bones of ruined buildings sticking up through sand like ribs, twisted mobs, tormented spirits, the ghosts of Shadow Warriors staring out to a desolate sea.

Unfortunately, none of my screenshots worked*.

:-/

*Screenshot keybinds were reset with patch 1.1a