Travelin' Around
The time came to use my Nether Ray and tour Northrend's sights. While I had fought in many places and seen many things especially in the PvP aspect of things, I decided to go and check out the sights, especially knowing that Icecrown had received monsters and was open to fly into!
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The Explorer Tabard, travel the world and wear it proudly!
In this Image-Heavy Journal entry, I will detail what I saw when traveling across Northrend, from Crystalsong where Dalaran is, to Icecrown, where the Lich King resides, along with Lake Wintergrasp once more and then further West into the Sholazar Basin, which not many have paid attention to just yet!
To see my first Beta Journal detailing Death Knights, click here
To see my second Beta Journal going over my Warlock and Rogue's experiences, click here
To see my third Beta Journal going over the Warrior changes in the expansion, click here
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Crystalsong is where Dalaran is at
Explorer Achievement
The thing that inspired this journal entry was primarily the Explorer achievement I obtained upon logging into my premade. Looking into the requirements, you must have explored every single nook and cranny of the whole world of Azeroth and Outland! This is a very hard task as even my normal characters don't have some zones both in the old world and Outland fully explored, yet, if you do, you get a nifty achievement AND a cool Tabard to go with it!
You may view the awesome tabard that made my Death Knight a little less naked above. This made me determined to go and retry to explore every zone, including that pesky little area in the Bone Wastes in Outland where the Sha'tar guys are who just doesn't seem to want to be explored.
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Lake Wintergrasp's Fortress, as seen from above
The Crystalsong
Crystalsong is where Dalaran is floating, conveniently in the very middle of Northrend. A very cool looking place, with lots of frozen trees and crystal-looking environments, the area level looks to house enemies in their mid-70's for those questing in here. Dalaran is going to be the new Shattrath, as we all know, with portals anywhere you need to be including Battlegrounds, so it's the ideal center of deployment to the rest of the icy continent of Northrend.
In looks, it is like a cross of Azshara and Terokkar Forest, with a river leading up to Icecrown and three other exits; East to Zul'drak, West to Lake Wintergrasp and South to the Dragonblight.
Lake Wintergrasp
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Sholazar Basin, a very nice zone in the cold continent
Up next we have an aerial shot of Lake Wintergrasp's Fortress, it is really hard to fly into this zone without getting dismounted at random intervals at the moment. It may be because I was flying too close to the Fortress itself (which was Horde-controlled, so I should be able to fly in anyway), or simply because of the lag the area was generating because of the stress-test this zone is still enduring.
This zone has level 80 enemies in both entrances so it was a bit tough to exit without any casualties, as the lag took its toll and the Shadow Revenants didn't take kindly to my escape from the area.
Sholazar Basin
A very, very beautiful zone just North of the Borean Tundra, the Sholazar Basin seems like a cross between Stranglethorn Vale, Nagrand and Un'goro Crater, three of World of Warcraft's more beautiful zones!
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Icecrown's main entrance, heavily guarded by Frostwyrms and Undead
The Sholazar Basin had lots of Wildlife from the jungle in it, and was taking a big toll on my computer's rendering ability, in order to take the shot provided I was brought down to 10-12 FPS at the most.
Icecrown
Finally, the place I wanted to visit the most. The Icecrown zone is easily one of the most visually appealing zones Northrend has, as should be expected. The ambience is cold and chilly, the music sets the mood perfectly for you're in the Lich King's domain at long last, and the initial entrance with big gates preventing anyone on foot to go in is full of undead, with Frost Wyrms patrolling the skies above.
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The Lich King's Icecrown Citadel in its full glory
The Zone itself is pretty large, and has a lot of the Warcraft 3 layout into it, which is amazing, yet the best part of it was gazing at the gigantic fortress the Lich King resides in.
Located at the very south of the Icecrown Glacier, the Icecrown Citadel is easily the largest building World of Warcraft has seen, dwarfing Tempest Keep's imposing presence by a lot.
There were no visible entries yet, it may be because the place isn't open for raiders just yet, or simply design leading you to storm Arthas's fortress from the side bridges that connect into it. Time will tell.
The monsters inside this zone are very powerful and most are elites above level 82, at least the ones seen from above guarding the major strongholds. Some new abomination-like enemies were patrolling the borders, so this zone will provide challenges for small and large groups of people should they decide they want to kill Arthas's final defenders.
Thanks for reading, and see you in my next Beta journal!
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