Trophy Huntin' (11/09/11 - 17/09/11)

WoW achievements only this week. I played some Starcraft 2 also, but what were the chances of me getting any achievements in that?

World of Warcraft

Character: Grimtoosk (Troll Druid)

Explore Zul'Drak

Explore Zul'Drak, revealing the covered areas of the world map

We're actually far from finishing the zone. I got this while waiting for the others to catch up on a gathering quest, in which the druid's flight form gives you quite the advantage. I decided to just fly all the way around the zone and take in the sights. It's a very gloomy, evil looking place, but for once it's in an appealing way. The remnants of a corrupt and ruined troll empire make for some interesting environments. I'm very much looking forward to getting to the troll part of the questing.

Working Day and Night

Obtain 450 skill points in two primary professions

We finally hit the coveted level 75; the level at which you can start crafting at cataclysmic levels. I took the opportunity to sink some gold into jewelcrafting, unlocking the daily quests in the process. Time to see how profitable this profession can be.

Safe Deposit

Buy 7 additional bank slots

The amount of glyphs I'm producing per crafting session was getting far too vast for my existing storage space. I spent a fortune buying glyph and herb containers to make the crafting process a little less time consuming by taking out the need to mill the herbs in batches. I'm sure the amount of time saved will be worth it overall.

Character: Grimtooth (Orc Warrior)

Help the Bombardier! I'm the Bombardier!

Kill 10 Schnotzz infantry with one artillery shell during the Fire From the Sky daily quest in Uldum

I could pretend that this was due to incredible judgement and timing skills, but it was all down to luck. I wasn't trying to hit 10 at once, it just happened. Yay?

 

Unearthing Uldum

Complete 105 quests in Uldum

Following on from two zones that seemed to regress back to the old style quests of grindy killing and looting, Uldum was a breath of fresh air, presenting plenty of variety. While Deepholm took me quite a while to finish due to it being a long slog, I completed Uldum relatively quickly, mainly because of how much fun I was having with it. It was also great to see cut scenes being put to so much use, as they really flesh out the story. When your main mode of narration is a text box, you need to make use of all the extra tools available. I think cut scenes like the ones you see in Uldum are vital to the evolution of WoW's storytelling. Hopefully, we'll be seeing a lot more of them in the next expansion.

Explore Uldum

Explore Uldum, revealing the covered areas of the world map

It was only a matter of time before a zone heavily influenced by ancient Egyptian architecture surfaced. It's a setting that's been used in many games before it, and I'm honestly surprised that it's taken this long.

I would like to ask though; what are these cat things? I wasn't really following WoW when Cataclysm was being previewed, so they came out of nowhere for me. It's not uncommon for Blizzard to introduce new non-playable races in an expansion (when Ethereals do become playable, I am on that), but for some reason, these Tol'vir took me by surprise more than any other race ever has. I can't really decide whether they fit into Warcraft or not.

In a Thousand Years Even You Might be Worth Something

Compete the Coffer of Promise quests in Uldum up to and including Harrison Jones and the Temple of Uldum

Alright, it's time to come clean. I'm aware that this questline was a massive Indiana Jones reference from start to finish. I have a terrible admission to make: I have never seen an Indiana Jones movie. It's true, and it means a lot of these quests were probably lost on me, but I still enjoyed them nevertheless.

I should rent those movies.

Level 85

Reach Level 85

There it is. This is the third time that Grimtooth has reached the level cap. This time, the momentous ding was attained by the rather anti-climactic act of mining. Still, I was relieved that I hadn't leveled moments before when I was doing a quest that involved killing naga. That would've been so, so wrong.

Now that Grimtooth is level 85, he'll wait until Grimtoosk's party has caught up, before grabbing sword and board and taking on the role of my main once again.