#lady vasj

[breadknight-likes-things]

Bread’s Game Journal 06/18/20: Through The Dark Portal, An Outland Retrospective, Part 2: Zangamarsh.

Zangamarsh is probably just about the last thing anybody adventuring into Outland expected to see, and it shows up a lot earlier than you’d think:a place of thriving life.  Sure it’s a swamp, but the very presence of organic life growing anywhere on this planet comes as a surprise after you’ve just spent hours leveling in a blood red fire wasteland.  Dominated by giant mushrooms and various large lakes, Zangamarsh is probably the single most alien feeling zone in Outland, due in large part to it’s array of strange creatures and glowing flora and fauna.  Not to mention all the killer snake people who will just not leave you alone!

I have a....complex history with Zangamarsh.  When I first came upon it, like all the times I start in a new zone, I was fascinated with it.  By the end of my adventures there, I wouldn’t say I didn’t like it, but I was sure ready to move on.  In subsequent visits on new characters, and most recently while leveling through all the old content.....I can’t stand the place.  It’s really through no fault of the zones design, and more on the issues, again, that a lot of the archaic quest design causes in an era where Vanilla WoW’s deliberate pacing simply doesn’t exist anymore.  It’s most apparent in a lot of the enemy spawn timers being dreadfully slow by modern standards, and causing a lot of the quests to take much longer than they should.  All players spend a pretty signifigant amount of time battling for the slowly spawning Naga mobs you spend most of this zone fighting, if you were doing this before they expanded tagging?  I admire your patience. 

Day or night, whenever you go, the zone has this kind of gloomy night time haze that works really well to set the mood.....also i’m not actually sure if Outland has a sun anymore.

The Naga?  Remember them?  Of course you do, we just spent most of Battle for Azeroth fighting them, up to and including their queen!  They had a big role in the story of this zone, both enslaving a lot of the local races to toil in their....something mines (i’m still not sure what the slave pen slaves are actually doing) and stealing what amounts to most of the remaining water of Outland to do...something, with.  It’s an underdeveloped plot for sure, but it’s a big hoot to get to fight iconic bad guys like Lady Vasj, who we all remember as the Naga leader that introduced us to the race existing at all in Frozen Throne!  Other, more friendly, races like the Sporegar round out the inhabitants of Zangamarsh and made sure that you were never bored when you were exploring this weird place.

I think something notable to bring up about Zanagamarsh too, is it’s relation to Dreanor in the later Warlords of Dreanor expansion.  For a long time it was hard to figure out exactly what Zangamarsh even could have been, to end up looking like it does, in a world that’s now literally shattered fragments floating through space, and when it was revealed what it actually used to be it all came into focus in a big way.  There is no “Zangamarsh” on Dreanor, but the “Zangar Sea” to the south of Frost Fire ridge sure does have some big mushrooms growing in it!  When you consider that the only reason all this water is left at all is that Zangamarsh is just some piece of the mostly drained ocean floor, left among the other landmasses, it makes it a bit more understandable how a place like this could exist in such a chaotic place to begin with!  

Zangamarsh has it’s issues, but it’s also incredibly unique among the rest of the Outland zones.  There are more places in Outland that show signs of life, one where life is even thriving as normal, but none felt more like stepping onto a vibrant alien planet still teeming with all sorts of bizarre alien life than Zangamarsh did.

Best Refuge In A Broken Land Award: Telredor

Telredor is a refuge city for the Alliance built on the roof of one of the giant mushrooms!  It’s one of the few surviving safe places for any of the Dreanei left in Outland and being so high up above all the dangers while you do your business actually makes it feel like one of the safest places for a player to be in the entire expansion pack!

Random Screenshot Of The Day:

It’s 2020 and it haunts me a lot that I still have absolutely no idea where the plot of this zones main conflict was even going.  What were the Naga doing with the water?  Were they sending it to someone?  Were the steam vaults just one giant vape?  Is that what happened?  Please, anyone, tell me!

Stray Notes:

- The Horde town in Zangamarsh deserves a shutout at least, as does the Cenarion Refuge you’re greeted with immediately upon entering the zone.  Both are fun settlements in an expansion where most Settlements being “fun” isn’t even the third thought in anybodies mind, let alone the first! - Unrelated to WoW, but hey, who’s amped for the big sad fest of Last of Us Part 2 on Friday?  I know I am!  I don’t know why I am, but I am!

[breadknight-likes-things]

Bread’s Game Journal 06/28/20: Through The Dark Portal, An Outland Retrospective, Part 7: Shadowmoon Valley

Shadowmoon Valley is the eventual fate of any world where Fel Magic gets out of hand, and probably a preview of Azeroth as long as I keep maining my Warlock!  There’s a lot of places in Outland that are dead, or filled with weird chaos that’s tearing the land apart, but Shadowmoon Valley feels different.  Shadowmoon Valley feels like the source of all of Outland’s, and frankly most of Azeroth’s, misery.  Notably, Shadowmoon was also the final zone where players would encounter Illidan, hiding away in the Black Temple doing.....something evil we guess?  It was never quite clear what his story in this expansion was supposed to be, and it was only ever resolved five expansions later in Legion!

To call Shadowmoon Valley “bleak” would probably end up a compliment, considering the hellish state the region is in, calling it anything other than a nightmare would be a positive statement.  Shadowmoon got to this terrible state due to the actions of two orcs, two extremely famous in the lore orcs at that!  Gul’Dan is one, his reckless use of Fel Magic twisting the landscape, poisoning all the creatures of the land, and even raising up a huge hellfire volcano as a show of his power.  The other orc is far better known for his life after he died, Ner’Zhul, who’s desperation to escape punishment at the hands of the burning legion post the second war caused both his imprisonment as one half of The Lich King, and the events that led to Dreanor quite literally exploding and becoming Outland to begin with!

The Skettis set up a small settlement here for.....some reason, seems like a bad idea to set up shop here of all places but alright.

The legacies of both of those orcs weigh heavily on the land of Shadowmoon.  Fel Magic has blackened the land itself and twisted all the wildlife into demonic beasts.  The Volcano “The Hand of Gul’Dan” spews fire and death out of itself at a constant clip.  There’s nothing here that’s of any value to anyone anymore, and yet it’s also here we see the culmination of a lot of storylines in the Burning Crusade expansion!  Illidan, hiding in what was one known as The Temple of Karabor, now known simply as “The Black Temple” leads his forced from this zone.  As does Lady Vasj and her Coilscar Naga.  The Burning Legion also has a large presence here, as would be expected given the state it’s in!

From a non environmental perspective though, this zone was also a huge deal for any players back during Burning Crusade, for one big reason: Flying Mounts.  At the respective Alliance or Horde town in this zone (both of which are somewhat disappointingly bland copies of the towns in Hellfire Peniunsula) you could find both your flight trainer and your flying mount vendor, ready to set you off into the sky....for a thousand gold!  That’s chump change now of course, but back in these days that price just about wiped out every cent you had made questing in Outland, and it was worth it.  The initial feeling you got when you realized all the things you could do and all the places you could go with a Flying Mount, it was huge!  Of course we know now that Blizzard has pretty absurdly soured on the idea of Flying Mounts, but man was it a thrill back in the day!

There’s lots of fun little lore touches here too.  Not just the aforementioned evidence of Gul’Dan and Ner’Zhuls meddling in powers greater than them!  You used to be able to find and visit Maeiv Shadowsong in her prison cell below a garrison near the Black Temple, though she’s since been removed given that it would’t make much sense for her to still be in there at this point.  The Ashtounge Dreanei are all over the place, the very same clan we saw swear allegiance to Illidan in The Frozen Throne, and before BC came out, the only real experience we had with The Dreanei as a race to begin with!  It’s weird to think of this dead and burned zone as one to explore and find fun Easter eggs in, but it is!  There’s lots to find a do in Shadowmoon valley, despite what the Fel would have you think!

Best Refuge In A Broken Land Award:  The Black Temple

Alright, so I’m breaking the rules here as The Black Temple isn’t a town meant for players, but an iconic 40 person raid!  That said, it does serve as Illidans refuge!  And I think that counts for something.  The temple of Karabor has fallen on some....hard times, to say the least, and though Illidan tries to keep order, it’s clear that this is mostly a place of chaos and despair....damn is it cool to look at though!

Random Screenshot of The Day:

Speaking of Easter eggs and looking cool, you can find this weird old hallucination of Gul’Dan performing the ritual that created his Volcano namesake, it doesn’t really have anything to with anything, but hey, lore nerds will get a kick out of it!

Stray Notes:

- I was gonna do my Last of Us 2 spoiler post tonight, but I’m holding off a bit, I want some more time to ruminate on that games story, it’s a lot!

- I finished Streets of Rage 4 today!  Hadn’t played it since Last of Us Part 2 hit, what a refreshingly simple game!  Lots of fun old school brawler action!