Ask a Beta Tester: More on phasing and starter zones

Welcome back to Ask a Beta Tester on this Maintenance Day Tuesday. Let's get started right away with webrunner's question...
Have you seen any interesting/fun usable gear with cool procs or use abilities, or is it just stats, stats, stats till the Tauren come home?
There are plenty of trinkets with this sort of thing, but not weapons or robes or anything like that. Trinkets are much more common as quest rewards in Wrath than they were before, and you get a pretty wide range of effects. On weapons, it's all stats of various flavors.
Rodrigo asked...
Are there any mounts summonable like the Magic Broom of the Headless horseman? Instant summon is just too delicious... I'll miss mine in 2 days...
Nope. Sorry!
The Hammer asked...
As an RPer, I'll be looking forward to hosting events within Northrend, and within the other places in the game. I am worried, however, about this phasing technology. A lot of my events are situational, and rely on everyone being on the same "page", as it were. So, my question is, far from being a gift to the RP community, is the expansion and its phasing going to damage these events? By explanation, will an attack on a Scourge-controlled town fall apart when most attendees have already seen the Scourge off, in their phasing version? Or does it not work like that?
It depends on where you host it. The entire game world isn't changed by phasing, just certain sections of it. Icecrown is one place where they use a massive amount of it, because the zone is a story, more or less. Other zones don't see nearly as much of it. I don't have a list I can give you of all the places it is used, but you'll be able to find places for your events. Heck, if you can get people to the same phased step together, you might even have some fun with it. I could see making an event out of the final group quest in a certain chain in Icecrown. I won't spoil what the chain is, but the 5-man group quest that pops up will be a nice hint.
Fojar asked a pair of questions...
If I want to get the maximum awesome-lore experience, would you recommend leveling my Alliance toons or my Horde toons first?
Both sides have great stories in Wrath. Anybody who says Alliance is favored or Horde is favored is nuts. Which faction do you like better? The Horde has the Forsaken out for vengeance, or Saurfang struggling to keep things together with Hellscream romping about. The Alliance has origin stories, and a healthy helping of vengeance there as well. Both factions are awesome, and I don't think one needs to come before the other. Just pick whichever.
And also, have you noticed any significant bugs or problems with the phasing system?
There were some weird bugs during the beta but they've been smoothed out. Bugs such as an area rolling over to the next phase because one quest triggered it, but you had other quests to do in that area that you can't finish anymore. They don't phase early anymore.
In another case, I had a quest to get a few drops from some mobs, and while those mobs existed in my current phase, they were different from the ones I was supposed to kill in the previous phase. So I killed them for an eternity without the drops until I realized I was supposed to do it earlier. That was a bug, and has now been fixed and I have the quest done. I think all of these kinds of bugs have been fixed for launch.
Joe asked...
How should we approach mounts and riding skills as we go into WotLK? If we can afford our epic flyer and training, should we go ahead and do it?
Are there faster mounts in WotLK that require new training?
It's up to you if you want to train epic flying now or not. You won't be able to use it until at least level 77, but buying it now means you already have it and you won't be tempted to spend the money on random junk on the AH as you level. Having epic flying in Northrend is really, really nice, especially if you're questing in Icecrown or Storm Peaks. Just keep in mind you'll need an extra 1000g (roughly) at level 77 for Cold Weather Flying. There aren't faster mounts as far as new training, but you do need Cold Weather Flying to fly in Northrend at all.
Omestes asked...
Is this like TBC, where I can comfortably level in Northrend at 68?
Yes.
Nick S asked...
Are there quests chains involving trips into Utgarde Keep in both starting zones, i.e. if you want to clear all the Utgarde Keep quests will you need to run quests in both starting zones to get the (Dungeon) quests?
The two starting zones each have an instance cluster of their own. The Borean Tundra has the Nexus, the Howling Fjord has Utgarde Keep. You'll only get quests for the local dungeons in each starting zone.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Expansions, Wrath of the Lich King






Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
dcwdvl Nov 4th 2008 2:33PM
"Are there any mounts summonable like the Magic Broom of the Headless horseman? Instant summon is just too delicious... I'll miss mine in 2 days...
Nope. Sorry!
"
As of beta yesterday, the Magic Broom had a 3 second cast time. I assume this will go live with 3.0.3 today.
Arkkis Nov 4th 2008 2:42PM
I think the whole instant cast mount thing was a bug of somekind. If you mount up on a normal mount and then summon the flying broom while mounted it has the normal 3 sec cast time. Just a weird aspect of the mount I guess.
Deadly .Off. Topic. Nov 4th 2008 3:16PM
Not like it matters much now since most brooms will expire (or already have expried) by the time they fixed this.
It sort of seems rather ironic - they had the time to hot fix pallies who will be around for a while, but the brooms get fixed after most people's brooms have expired. Priorities must suck for some people.
Deadly .Off. Topic. Nov 4th 2008 3:17PM
*expired (D.O.T. is clearly thinking to rename herself Dyslexia off topic)
SaintStryfe Nov 4th 2008 3:48PM
glad I soaked it for all it was worth, grinding distant mobs in Winterfaw and Sithilus while it was here.
Shrike Nov 4th 2008 2:37PM
I'm so excited to see WotLK in action. 8 days is far too bloody long.
Radiophonic Nov 4th 2008 2:44PM
So I'm hearing that there are tons of quests in all areas, has the allowable number of quests in your quest log expanded or should we all start getting those last 10 or so completed?
Grink Nov 5th 2008 7:43PM
Say I'm a WoW lore newbie... where can I go to catch up? Say from the beginning?
Thundernova Nov 4th 2008 2:55PM
The WoW manual has a decent quick rundown of lore, and the same info is available on the WoW site. Also, check out the "Know Your Lore" column here on Insider.
Tiforix Nov 4th 2008 2:58PM
It'll cost you about $40 and a few days of your time, but I really recommend playing through all of the single-player campaigns in Warcraft 3 if you haven't already. You'll get a good overview of the story and a feel for who the important characters are.
Zuldim Nov 4th 2008 3:01PM
Wowwiki is a great place if you don't want to buy the books.
They give good outlines.
If you want to know a good place to start specifically about wrath itself,
http://www.wowwiki.com/Arthas_Menethil
is a good place to start.
Tanglebones Nov 4th 2008 3:07PM
In addition to Thundernova's suggestions, I also enjoy browsing randomly through WoWWiki (www.wowwiki.com) pick a topic that interests you, and then click links in that article and links in that next article (etc) ... and suddenly realize that it's 2 a.m. and you have yet to start on the ten-page research paper you have due tomorrow... be aware though, that like any Wiki, the information might be dodgey.
Anaughtybear Nov 4th 2008 4:12PM
You stole my undead warrior's name. Now everyone is gonna think I'm a newb. Raawr.
Zuldim Nov 4th 2008 3:01PM
I meant to books or the games... WTB edit feature..
Jose Sanchez Nov 4th 2008 3:02PM
"Are there any mounts summonable like the Magic Broom of the Headless horseman? Instant summon is just too delicious... I'll miss mine in 2 days..."
Try a druid? :P
JonRowley Nov 4th 2008 3:07PM
If you are exalted with Argent Expedition and in a dungeon that typically gives their faction, but wearing a DEHTA tabard will you still get rep with DEHTA?
dcwdvl Nov 4th 2008 3:22PM
DEHTA isn't a faction you can gain rep with. There are 4 championing factions: Argent Crusade, Kirin Tor, Ebon Blade, Wyrmest Accord. If you are not wearing any of those tabards, rep goes to the default Horde Expeditionary (least it did last time I did a 5 man on beta several weeks ago). There are no faction specific instances like there were in BC.
Eddy Nov 4th 2008 4:32PM
DEHTA is, factionally, Cenarion Expedition. Doing their quests give you BC rep, not Wrath rep, and the same level 70 rewards.
K Whitt Nov 5th 2008 7:44AM
On an amusing note about DEHTA, the quest to get teh worg pup from LBRS, the cage you capture it with has the flavor text "DEHTA Approved"
Mouton Nov 4th 2008 3:15PM
For the dungeons in the starter zones, how "buried" are the quests? In HFP, you'd have to do a reasonably long quest chain to get the Ramparts quests, which meant I had run the place twice before actually getting the quest for it. Will this happen again in Northrend?