Actually, the advent of battlegrounds has given the world PVPers an organized asylum to play in where they can’t bother us carebears. The state of constant chaos in Hillsbrad only eased up when the battlegrounds opened. It helps that the Alterac Valley bg is only a couple hundred yards away from Tarren Mill…
I did ask for Guild help but there was no one close enough, I didn’t think of putting out a general call for help though I will next time thanks.
PS glad to hear you’re getting better.
Generally, those who are interested in defense PVP will already have their World Defense and Zone Defense channels on, and attacks on questgivers and deathguards at TM will trigger announcements on those channels. So if no one came based on the defense channels, that usually means that no one who’s willing to PVP defend is in or near the attacked zone. Calling for help probably wouldn’t have done anything.
I think it takes a special kind of player to gank quest givers though, lots of four letter words come to mind…
Regarding BGs I tried it last night with my Warlock at 39 after my previous experience of my Pally at 49. I felt very squishy indeed though I still managed a good few kills and picked up a couple of achievements. I kept running out of mana and then I would die it went:
mana low -> life tap -> arghhhhhh rogue stab\pally judgement -> graveyard.
I was also surprised at just how many players had some sort of Fear break or immunity as you don’t come across this much in PvE or at least you don’t up to level 40.
Agreed that it still happens, but it doesn’t happen anywhere near as often as it did before bgs.
Incidentally, if I were in your place and hadn’t managed to catch that bat at that moment, I’d have just tried to run to Hammerfall in Arathi Highlands, just next door. You’d have expanded your flight points and gotten an entree into the next level of zone (and Arathi has a sort of rugged beauty to it, too).
I’m off on holiday for a week so no WoW for me and no checking up on this thread and all your progress, I look forward to catching up when I get back.
I’m especially interested in what instance you’re going to try next Quasi!
Have a good week everyone.
I’ve been thinking all morning about the wildlife of Outland (if I could only be officially paid for doing that!). I’m not entirely sure what triggered it, but it’s been an ongoing thing for a couple of hours now.
There are a few hits and misses as far as the design of Outland wildlife is concerned. Let me cite Zangarmarsh as the perfect zone, as far as this subject. Zangarmarsh’s native life are almost all fungoid creatures. I think the only non-fungoids are either humanoid, insectoid, or the hydras. The broken and the ogres are native to Outland in the first place, so they belong. The nagas are imports, and I think they imported the hydras, as well, since they’re the only non-fungoid, non-insectoid, non-humanoids in the zone. The sporebats, the long-leggers, the airsharks (whatever they’re called) are all fungoid (as are the Sporeggar, the humanoid fungoids). Then there are the lightning wasps, which are the first non-Silithid insectoids you come across in the game. And that’s a nice touch, too…the Silithids (which used to be the HUGE BIG BAD threat to the entire world) don’t exist on Outland. Generally, the wildlife of Zangarmarsh is totally different from that of Azeroth. This is not so to different degrees with the other zones of Outland.
I have to go to lunch soon…more after.
cough cough Basilisks cough
And the fish in the lake. (The lobster-men are found in Azeroth, but they are humanoid.)
Well sure. It’s because players are a lot more likely to use Fear and such than mobs. Some races like Humans get an anti-Fear racial, but otherwise there’s plenty of trinkets out there that’ll break Fear, and they’re considered pretty much mandatory in PVP.
You forgot the marsh beasts, which appear in Teldrassil and a couple other Azeroth zones. (Technically the Azeroth type are bog beasts, but same model and all.) Otherwise, I know what you mean. Hellfire Peninsula’s got boars (with spikes!) and vultures (with two heads!) and a ton of orcs (wait, FEL orcs!). They do have ravagers, but since they’re also on Azuremyst and Bloodmyst that might not count. But then you get to Terokkar Forest and you see…wolves and spiders. Same as every other forest zone out there. There are Warp Stalkers and Basilisks, but the wolves and spiders are pretty weak as Outland species go.
Side note - the plant life. I’m pretty sure that when BC went live, all the plants in Outland were “alien” to those of us used to Azeroth. At one point, I noticed that there were Azerothian plants, like Golden Sansam, Dreamfoil, and Mountain Silversage in places like Hellfire Peninsula.
Now there is a quest in Zangarmarsh, out of the Cenarion Expedition outpost there, to bring in Unidentified Plant Parts and get them identified, and sometimes they turn up as being (non-Herbalism-related) Azerothian plant pieces. So it looks like they were thinking about issues with plant seeds “sticking to adventurers” who crossed the Dark Portal.
I won’t help on first instance (often it’s someone who’s trying to do a quest himself and ran too close to a guard) but I’ll respond if someone says “they’re killing questgivers!”
Of course, it’s specifically explained in-game that the ravagers on Azuremyst and Bloodmyst are native Outland beasts that were artificially and accidentally introduced by the draenei when the Exodar crashed. There are a handful of quests to kill them, with the questgiver explaining that there’s a risk that the ravagers will disrupt the natural balance of the islands. (And look at the furbolg reaction to the ravagers - they call them “Apocalypse Beasts” or something like that, because they’ve suddenly appeared without explanation.)
I don’t **seek out **PvP, so I don’t watch the defense channels, but I **will **help if I’m in the area and someone’s ganking NPCs or lowbies. So asking in General (or in a capital city Trade if you’ve got an alt parked there) is never a bad idea, because you’ll catch people like me.
Thanks!
Agreed. Although I still do have a plan to dress up in a silly outfit (e.g., my full Brewfest outfit + both Brewfest steins) and go kill lowbie questgivers–but that won’t count, because I won’t be in my normal armor so I’ll be very easily killed. 
There are PvP trinkets that breaks anything that causes loss of control of your character (2 min CD), Humans and Forsaken have racials that mimic the trinket (same, shared CD), Warriors have a talent that can break Fear and then give a few seconds of immunity (30 sec CD, used to only be usable in Berserker, but can now be used in any stance)…
Oh, I know. I’ve played though AM and BM way too often. But you do see them before you get to Outland, which is why I said they might not count.
And the orcs are actually native to Outland originally. They were imported to Azeroth by the Burning Legion.
Some have already noted things I was going to post. Hellfire is a mix of good and bad alien design. The spikey pigs have been noted…I don’t quite buy that they’re a case of convergent evolution. Likewise with the burrowing worms…they have those on Azeroth as well.
The good:
Scytheclaws. I don’t think they appear on Azeroth at all.
Ravagers. Already mentioned. The ones on Azuremyst and Bloodmyst are escapees from when the Exodar crashed.
The giants in Outland are totally different from Azerothian giants, apparently being elemental in nature rather than flesh.
The bad:
The boars.
The oozes in the glowy green swampy thing.
The neutral:
The two-headed vultures. At least they TRIED to make them different from Azerothian. However, the design of birds in Outland is inconsistent in the extreme. You have the two-headed vultures in Hellfire, but the perfectly normal roc models in Nagrand, and the perfectly normal smaller bird models of the Arrakoa pets/guardians in Terrokar and other zones.
Nagrand is, overall, pretty good. The only real weak spot is the roc models, which might as well be giant Teldrassil owls. The clefthoofs and talbuks are sufficiently different from anything on Azeroth (though the talbuks hover dangerously close to the gazelles of the Barrens). The weak spot here is the elekks, which aren’t QUITE elephants. I didn’t even really like them as an example of alien model design when they were just draenei mounts to me.
Bladesedge has some bad alien design. Raptors. Wolves. Chimeras. Dragons. It’s like a little corner of Azeroth was plopped down in the Nether. There are ravagers and moths…the moths are basically the same models as appear on Azuremyst and Bloodmyst, and it’s never really said that they were also escapees from the Exodar (though it’s a bit ambiguous…after all, there’s a moth vendor in the Exodar).
Shadowmoon Valley has pigs, chimeras, and basilisks. More Azerothian models. They also have scytheclaws, which is good. But also dragons. I was never sure if the dragons were supposed to be only Azerothian or if the Titans put dragons in positions of guardianship over other planets as well.
Netherstorm is the zone I’ve spent the least amount of time in, but I seem to remember basilisks there, as well. They also have scytheclaws.
In all, it’s a mixed bag that really could have done with some more original modelling to exhibit the essential alienness of Outland. It’s a different planet, after all.
Basilisks are in every zone in Outland, I’m pretty sure. I think Hellfire is the only place they don’t show up. They tend to congregate around the broken-off edges that disappear into nothingness. It’s actually kind of a cool effect: where there’s empty space, there’s (usually) basilisks. If they’d made the creature a bit more otherworldly, it could have been really neat.
Oh, and Terrokar also has spiders and wolves and basilisks. The phasing thingies are good, though (can’t remember their names).
They’re pretty good about humanoids in Outland, though. The only places there are really Azerothian humanoids are the places you’d expect them: Shattrath, outposts from the Hellfire front towns, etc. Orcs are native, so the occasional orcish communities that aren’t in “communion” with Thrallmar aren’t a minus. Likewise with Draenei and Broken, while they’re not native, as such, they’re noted as having sought refuge on Draenor (Outland before it blew up) a long while ago, so they’re also okay.
Good alien humanoids:
The arrakoa (despite their remarkably Azerothian companion/guardian birds)
The Celestials (who aren’t apparently native, but have arrived to do business)
The naga (who have a lore-driven reason for being scattered around Outland)
The demons (who also have a lore-driven reason for being so numerous there)
The Blood Elves (again, a lore-driven reason)
I can’t really think of any really out-of-place humanoid areas. There don’t appear to be any native communities of trolls, dwarves, gnomes, tauren, night elves or humans around. Blizzard did pretty good at keeping track of this one.
I’ve been curious about the Draenor/draenei connection. Was the planet originally called Draenor, and the draenei adopted the name to differentiate themselves from their eredar forebears, or were the draenei already calling themselves that and then gave their name to the planet? I’m going to assume the former, since I seem to remember that Outland was called Draenor in the WarCraft RTS games …
My biggest question regarding Outland is the geology of Blade’s Edge. Is there any kind of rational geologic explanation for those insane spikes? The best I can come up with is underground molten rock + explosions + rapid cooling + long term erosion of softer rock/dirt around the asploded rock.
“Draenei” means “Exiles” in their language, since (in the retconned lore) they were the remnant of the Eredar which rejected Sargeras’s call to join the Burning Legion. They escaped their original homeworld of Argus in the ship which crashed in Nagrand (called Osho’gun by the orcs). When Kil’jaeden and Archimonde caught up to them on Draenor, they stole a portion of Tempest Keep (the Exodar) and crashed on Azeroth. With their track record, I wouldn’t want to have a draenei as a pilot.
Since the word originates with the Draenei, I have to assume that the planet was renamed by them. It would seem to mean “Place of Exile”.
Warning: I can’t access WoW sites fully here at work (they’re blocked but I can see the first sentence or two on Google), so a lot of this is memory jogged by those first sentences.