Aurael's Beta Journal #1

First Impressions

by Amber "Aurael" Weldon

My first foray into the world of the Burning Crusade was everything I had hoped it would be. The very first thing that I did was head to the hunter trainer to reallocate my talents. I had already planned on going down the marksmanship tree because silencing shot just looked like fun. After spending a few minutes deciding on my talents, I decided to take my night elf tail down to Nethergarde Keep and head to the Outlands. Once in the Blasted Lands, I realized that the Dark Portal had undergone quite a change.

I stood in awe, staring at the sparkly green swirls. Ok, not really. I wanted to get through it and see what the new stuff was!

I walked through the portal and immediately saw a questgiver. I ran up, grabbed the quest, but attention was drawn to the front of the ramp leading down to the Hellfire Peninsula.

As I crept closer, I noticed I was in combat. Whoa! Wasn't prepared for that! I feign death (yup, I'm a chicken) and took the opportunity to look at the reason I entered combat. Words fail to describe the scope of the massive battle that was playing out at the base of the Dark Portal. Once I was convinced that I wouldn't die, I went exploring the area around the portal.

Off to the side was a gryphon waiting to take me to Honor Hold. There was also a general vendor where I could trade my thorium-headed arrows for the better Wicked Arrows (22 damage per second, minimum level 55). I then watched as two Gnomeregan Conjurers held open a portal to Stormwind. Darnassian archers, Ironforge paladins, and Stormwind soldiers were running through the portal and heading straight for the battle in front of the portal. Nearby, a nurse took care of wounded Stormwind infantry and a priest prayed for the fallen. I took all this in for a brief time, then decided to hop on the the gryphon to Honor Hold.

Honor Hold is one of the busiest keeps I've seen in game yet. The rival to it would probably be Cenarion Hold. There was an air of urgency and war surrounding every aspect of it. Troops were being inspected, cavalrymen were riding out, the stable was fully of war horses, and the inn was full of infantry men having a drink. It was clearly a site central to the war effort. While standing outside, the hold itself was attacked by flaming green balls. They did no damage, but did daze me when they hit the ground near where I stood.

I wanted to try everything, so I logged off of my hunter and rolled a blood elf mage. The hairstyles were about the only thing different in the creation process. The blood elves have some very creative hairstyles. I watched the introduction to the blood elves in confusion. Weren't these people supposed to be recovering from a massive attack by the Scourge? The homeland of the blood elves was absolutely breathtaking.

The buildings and landscaping are a clear reflection of a society which oozes magic. Brooms sweep up on their own; mops dip themselves into buckets and wring themselves out before mopping the floors. Alchemy jars hang suspended in the air over floating blue flames. Cats prowl around the inside and outside of buildings. The blood elves' taste in decorating exhibits an almost careless blend of luxury and convenience.

Their attitudes reflect the arrogance that is typical of magic users. I worried that my blood elf might develop a bad back because of the arrogant way she stands with her hips cocked. Even her /flirts exude confidence: "I'm the girl the ESRB warned you about." Perhaps this self-assurance comes from the elegance with which they moves. The female blood elves almost look as if they are skipping when they jump and they throw in a random ballerina-like twirl now and then. The diva-like persona is complete with their Britney Spears-esque dance.

I had so much fun playing my blood elf, that it took me a while to convince myself to go check out jewelcrafting. I dropped my 300 engineering on my hunter to pick up jewelcrafting.

I was somewhat discouraged to learn that the only places to pick up the skill was the Exodar (draenei city) and Silvermoon City (blood elf city). So I headed to Auberdine to take the pretty little boat to the Exodar. I'm still holding out hope that jewelcrafting will be more accessible when the expansion comes live.

Jewelcrafting was very exciting, though I haven't reached my goal of getting to 300 yet. It looks as if it's going to be just as great as it has been rumored to be. The part I was most excited about during the lower levels of jewelcrafting was the stone statues that can be made. Each statue takes 10 stone (a nice place to get rid of all that excess stone from mining). The statues are used as a kind of healing totem during combat. Overall, I am quite excited about this profession.

Those are my first impressions of the beta. Personally, I am very excited about this addition to the World of Warcraft game and I can't wait for the expansion to come out. Stay tuned to Ten Ton Hammer for future updates to this journal and more information on the Burning Crusade!