The strange task of entering Dalaran
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Aug 12th 2008 at 8:00PM
Here's a somewhat annoying little problem with the Beta. As of the latest build, you can't just walk into Dalaran, or rather, you can't just use the teleportation crystal go up. Instead, you have to complete a quest to align yourself to Dalaran. But this quest is only available at level 74.
In the Outlands, it's not uncommon for a fresh 58 to head through the Dark Portal and right to Shattrath City. Binding in one of the Inns there essentially puts all of the Outlands before you, with flights connecting you easily to where you wish to go.
It seems strange that Blizzard has put up this strange quest attunement roadblock to those who wish to alight from the boat to Northrend and head straight to the capital. Perhaps it's a similar decision that caused them to restrict flying mounts to level 77 and above -- they don't want people skimping on exploration and seeing content, so they make you hang around the newbie zones for a while before you can just stick with Dalaran.
Luckily, not all is completely lost. Much like with Shattrath before level 58, You can still get teleported or summoned up by a Mage or Warlock before level 74. Still, it's a strange little extra hoop Blizzard's having us leap through to get the to top.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Expansions, Leveling, Factions, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
thebitterfig Aug 14th 2008 12:50PM
/sigh
if it was only a quest, and not mage portals, then it would be fine. but that it is "easy" to get there by other means and teleport spells bugs me. it means unless you have high-level mage friends, or you want to pay for a port, your SOL. wait until 74...
but there will probably be lowbies of all stripes there. bliz could stop it, in a practical sense, if they wanted. just make it so the npc's don't talk to you unless you do the quest, but meh.
the quest just serves as a way to punish some people for not trying to bend the system...
CannedBread Aug 12th 2008 8:10PM
One does not simply walk into Dalaran?
Kevin Aug 12th 2008 8:29PM
your comment reminds me of the LotR books. and i quote...someone "One does not simply walk into Mordor".
VSpeck Aug 12th 2008 8:36PM
*sigh*
Quisling Aug 12th 2008 9:10PM
@Kevin:
That was the point of the statement. Are you always this slow?
Super Guest Man 9000 Aug 12th 2008 9:39PM
Thats the joke Kevin....
Sundae Aug 13th 2008 9:37AM
I can't tell, was that one successful troll or genuine ignorance ... ?
Either way 10/10, would /facepalm again.
Todd Aug 12th 2008 8:09PM
Mages can complete a quest to get their teleport spell to Dalaran at 71, just fyi.
Ilnara Aug 12th 2008 10:45PM
I hope so, it is OUR city. Thew Magus don't want just any old riff-raff in there.
Todd Aug 12th 2008 11:12PM
Well not to rule out this quest changing, at the moment a quest for attunement exists that a mage can get at 71. So here's keeping the fingers crossed that this stays.
Saelorn Aug 12th 2008 8:20PM
I wouldn't be completely surprised if they removed the ability to portal into Dalaran before level 74. It always seemed kind of like an oversight that a level one could catch a gate straight to Shattrath even though you can't physically walk through the dark portal until level 58.
byron Aug 17th 2008 5:25PM
I really hope they do that. I thought it was stupid being able to go to Shat without being able to go to through the Dark Portal.
Lucid Aug 13th 2008 8:08AM
On the plus side, if you're like myself and completed every single quest in hellfire before you moved on, it sounds like you'll have plenty to do in each of the significantly larger zones. The rush to dalaran wont feel so mandatory and give you plenty to juggle with before feeling like you need to get there.
Also, technically you shoudlnt have arrived in Shattrath until 64ish anyways so it seems to keep in line with that.
deviationer Aug 12th 2008 8:22PM
I have a feeling they will remove the roadblock and allow anyone who can get to Crystalsong Forest will be allowed to be teleported up.
JDM Aug 13th 2008 5:40AM
Not quite... I could warlock summon my level 1 alt to that zone if going there was the only thing you needed to do.
Gazmik Fizzwidget Aug 12th 2008 8:30PM
I'm not sure I agree with their methods, but I can sympathize with Blizzard's (presumed) motivation on this.
The implementation of Shattrath as hub city for BC was always sort of at odds with the storyline. As questing/exporation would have it, the player steps through the Dark Portal and makes her way through a war zone to discover a strange new land... and once several pieces of the Outland story had fallen into place, she'd be invited to join the Naaru in the expansion's defining struggle (and hang out at their home base). What actually happened, once players found out how useful Shattrath City is, was that everyone skipped over the "discovery" part of the story by running to Shatt as soon as they got to Outland and then skipped back to level through Hellfire quests.
It looks like the story and zone structure of Northrend is much the same: early exploration and discovery, and just as soon as you start to get familiar with the place, you realize how big a war you're getting involved in... and that there's somebody offering a well-equipped base to run that effort from.
Visiting zones and doing their quests in the "right" order makes for a more cohesive story, but with these hub cities situated in the middle of their expansions' leveling ladder, we're stuck with a tradeoff between coolness of story and convenience of gameplay mechanics.
Super Guest Man 9000 Aug 12th 2008 9:44PM
Not sure about you but when I first went to outlands on my main I leveled through Hellfire and got the full experience before I headed off to Shatt. Every alt after my main I ran right off to Shatt to set up my hearth and then proceeded to quest, I didn't miss out on anything. Even if someone runs off and sets their hearth to Dalaran it dosnt mean they're gonna skip the starting zones.
Styopa Aug 13th 2008 9:12AM
Absolutely correct. Just because everyone did it (with their alts, by the way - I didn't see a lot of people doing it with their first characters) doesn't mean that's the way it was intended to happen. I would have liked to have seen a 'ban' on Shatt until one was supposed to have gotten there levelwise, but then again I'm not a "rush to get to the end of the game and then biatch about the lack of content" player, either.....
Bromnir Aug 13th 2008 3:07PM
I DID see a lot of people do it with their mains, actually. Word spread pretty quickly that shat was THE place to be. Had to spend my whole levels through Hellfire, Zangar, and Terrokar fighting off well-meaning guildies offering to show me how to get to Shat.
However, I agree that once you've done the epic storyline once, it seems less important on extra plays-through. Pity they can't make the attunement account-wide instead of toon-specific. (Hmmm... Aren't they working on items that are similar to this; i.e. account-bound? And come to think of it, didn't the Death Knight as originally proposed work this way? You did a quest that unlocked the ability to create DKs on your entire account. I wonder whether it might be possible for them to do an account-wide attunement...)
Gazmik Fizzwidget Aug 12th 2008 8:31PM
I'm not sure I agree with their methods, but I can sympathize with Blizzard's (presumed) motivation on this.
The implementation of Shattrath as hub city for BC was always sort of at odds with the storyline. As questing/exporation would have it, the player steps through the Dark Portal and makes her way through a war zone to discover a strange new land... and once several pieces of the Outland story had fallen into place, she'd be invited to join the Naaru in the expansion's defining struggle (and hang out at their home base). What actually happened, once players found out how useful Shattrath City is, was that everyone skipped over the "discovery" part of the story by running to Shatt as soon as they got to Outland and then skipped back to level through Hellfire quests.
It looks like the story and zone structure of Northrend is much the same: early exploration and discovery, and just as soon as you start to get familiar with the place, you realize how big a war you're getting involved in... and that there's somebody offering a well-equipped base to run that effort from.
Visiting zones and doing their quests in the "right" order makes for a more cohesive story, but with these hub cities situated in the middle of their expansions' leveling ladder, we're stuck with a tradeoff between coolness of story and convenience of gameplay mechanics.