My day in Dustwallow Marsh on the PTR
by Matthew Rossi 
Oct 18th 2007 at 7:00PM
I finally managed to do some poking around on the PTR today after two days of trying to get my characters transfered over, and so far it's been a pleasant surprise. My alliance shaman hasn't made it over yet, but my horde paladin, shaman and warrior all did, and so I spent some time exploring the new quest content in Dustwallow Marsh. The Shady Rest Inn quest chain is finally completed!So far, any fears that there aren't quests for the Horde in the marsh are overstated. I've found plenty on my Belfadin, between quests to blow up oozes with electricity, quests to wrangle raptor feathers, escort smelly people on flowerpicking expeditions, and kill Grimtotem Tribe who are acting suspiciously. There are suspicious hijinks afoot, let me tell you. (I'm trying to avoid spoilers here.) The quest drops are about dead-on for the level, decent greens that seem to plug up some itemization holes (including a nice mail chestplate, featured in the screenshot, that a newly 40 enhancement shaman would like as well as a nifty pally sword for up and coming paladin tanks) and while they're not crazy or overpowered, they're about just right for their level all told. Starter greens, yes, but solid ones.
Hopefully I'll get my alliance on soon, I want to follow up the Missing Diplomat quest chain. (Note, don't follow that link if you don't want to be spoiled.) So far, Dustwallow seems to be shaping up nicely for those of us looking for new mid level content.
Update: As my draenei has just popped into existence on the PTR, I have an awesome change to report: the boat from Menethil to Theramore now has a crew, complete with a vendor who even sells reagents. This, my friends, is really awesome.
Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Quests, Lore
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
brogadorn Oct 18th 2007 7:18PM
all the boats now have a crew. They even changed the boat from auberdine to ruth'rean village with the elf boat.
Wagerz Oct 18th 2007 7:45PM
I went and had a look last night on my 70 alliance shaman. One of the more interesting things I found was that there were about 10 NPC's walking around on the boat including a food and Drink merchant and an engineer who could do repairs!
I havn't visited Azeroth in ages so I don't know if its new or not but its a pretty nice addition.
Mr. Tee Oct 18th 2007 7:26PM
Not having visited the PTR's yet, crews on boats is a nice change. Can we expect some goblins on zeppelins or something?
Chris Oct 18th 2007 7:50PM
While the changes to boats are nice, i kinda think that the quest to 'continue' The Missing Diplomat was a sad excuse as a continuation. After reading it on wowwiki, did we even learn anything we didnt already know? All we did we rediscover that the defias kidnapped Varian.
The only new development i see is that they have powerful mages and someone helping them. Did i miss something?
Johan Forn Oct 18th 2007 7:52PM
Question 1: Are these crew members Alliance flagged? Seems logical. This would finally make it harder for Horde to use the boats, as its also very hard to get passed the ELITE 65 zeppelin guards.
Question 2: Have the Theramore Guards' level finally been raised to level 65?
Krush Oct 18th 2007 8:32PM
escort smelly people on flowerpicking expeditions
That quest has been on LIVE for a while now...
http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=1222
http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=1270
@5) It was never hard to get past the guards for the boats or the zeppelins, just took some killing (or stealth). I will be sad [while playing Horde] if I can not party on a party boat anymore :(
Girl Meets WoW Oct 18th 2007 10:19PM
That's interesting. When I was on yesterday those quests were only half-implemented, such that you couldn't actually complete them or go through quest chains. You could only accept the quests.
fLUx Oct 18th 2007 10:40PM
Ah, like the boat bit! If you could buy food/drink on it too, that would be amazing, but I guess repairs is just as good!
Krick Oct 18th 2007 11:22PM
While the flower picking escort quest has existed for some time, but usually the quest only works immediately after a server restart and then is bugged for anyone else who attempts it. When it bugs out, you can accept the escort quest, then the NPC immediately kneels down and no longer acknowledges you.
If this quest is now fixed on the PTR, this could be why the author mistakenly thought it was a new quest as they were probably unable to do it before.
...
Krick
joan Oct 19th 2007 12:05AM
i am crazy player of wow game ,i like the wow game very much.
www.4gamesite.com
Ashwin Oct 20th 2007 2:11AM
Do you mean to say that that in addition to the neutral goblin quests, horde and alliance specific quests have also been added?
Michel Oct 19th 2007 2:44AM
the boats' crew are a great news. nice to see little improvements like that.
Django Oct 19th 2007 5:25AM
I did find the Missing Diplomat pretty sad. I mean... It didn't go anywhere, we never learned what the Private said. Will we truly go back at WotLK? I finished the quest with my 70 so I could visit Alcaz on foot to see if there was a continue, killed the Tidelord, nothin', killed some minions of Weevil, and nothin'. Killed a ton of Naga and visited the summoning rune and still nothin'. No King in sight.
So, it didn't continue the quest so much, as just... Remind us about it. Since I'm sure Jaina's interrogation would lead her to that conclusion, and diggin' around this ship would be pointless to come to the same conclusion.
Balgair Oct 19th 2007 7:51AM
I liked to see more of the Missing Diplomat and it certainly gave an interesting hint at who was involved which I hadn't seen before (that "someone powerful in SW"... anyone who's done a certain high 50s quest chain should be able to put the pieces together and work out who), but yes, it would've been nice to get further with it.
Having said that, a 30s quest chain leading to a place with high 50s mobs, it was always going to be hard to keep the link going, and hopefully Blizz have more planned for the future - at least now we know they haven't forgotten it.
Rest of the place is great; I didn't get a horde character copied over so don't know about their quests but I had loads to do on Alliance, really enjoyed it.
bonse Oct 19th 2007 7:41AM
Django, you did everything right, just several patches late :(
the king was there, until the whole gates of AQ quest line had him removed and replaced with whatever his name is the doctor guy who was involved in the opening, dammit, too long ago to remember the details. But yes, the king was once there, I /waved at him, he was pretty cool about it
Hank Oct 19th 2007 9:56AM
Great! I want to go back and continue that questline for the missing diplomat. Now, how would my lvl 70 know which NPC to speak to, without looking it up on another site?
Jose Sanchez Oct 19th 2007 12:53PM
@6
so, its fun for you when a group of 70's gank some lowbies?? why? you cant kill 70's??