The Journey Begins...Ammen Vale

After watching the opening cinematic, Khojna stands in the wreckage of a space ship.

Khojna's first view of Azeroth

The quests that confront you in Ammen Vale gave a strong sense of duty with regard to the Draenei.  The first priority was powering the healing crystals, which required (reluctant) harvesting of moth blood samples.  There was a recognition that the crash landing had produced a negative effect on the wildlife.  Much of the initial quests focussed on attempting to write these wrongs.  One of the first of these was to try and neutralise the effect a crystal was having in polluting Silverline Lake.

For some reason I always enjoy these quests, whether it be inoculating Owlkin, or neutralising Volatile Mutations and turning them into fluffy bunnies!

Silent Spring in Azeroth? 

Why isn't it like this when I get my Flu shot?

The Draenei come across as a reasonable people, except when dealign with blood elves.  A small scouting group, led by Surveyor Candress, is found, and the Draenei are not happy.

I received many upgrades as quest rewards, but was excited by upgrading my weapon the most!

In exploring the vale, I stumbled upon a few interesting objects.

Love the animation on the Emitter Part quest item!

Owlkin Scarecrows unsettle me...

The blue bottle and floating candelabra were two favourites from the Blood Elf camp

 Before leaving the vale, I noticed I hadn’t been to the Sacred Grove.  I wandered up there and was surprised by the Spirit of the Vale.  This NPC used to be involved in the Shaman Totem Quests.  I looked it up, and was pleasantly surprised to find that that NPC is friendly to the Horde as well, and has a message for them.  

  Found behind the elemental, is a perpetual battle between elementals, complete with rifts.

As I made ready to leave Ammen Vale, I took the time to turn and look out giving a final wave.

I was surprised when the Guardian waved back!

Before I finish up, I thought it might be interesting to take a picture of Khojna at the end of each zone.  Our explorer is now level 5!

See you next time!

A Star is Born!

In deciding upon the character who will be the Azerothian Explorer, many questions had to be answered.

In order to answer these questions properly, some background is required.

In Vanilla, I played Horde initially, then due to a lack of people playing in my time zone, swapped to Alliance.  With the advent of Oceanic Servers, I returned to Horde.

In terms of classes, I have max level Hunter, Shaman, Death Knight, Paladin, and Mage.  I also have a level 85 Warlock.  I have recently swapped mains from Mage to Paladin (Protection with Retribution Offspec) and couldn’t be happier.

So how does this impact our future star?

Well, as you can see, I have only ever seen Alliance questing in Vanilla, so I kinda feel like I pay this money, and don’t get to see everything.  So I have decided Alliance is the way to go.

Secondly, I want to play a class that will be strong solo-ing a range of content, including group quests, and have fast queues for Dungeons.  A paladin seems to fit that.  Also, I do worry that when I play different classes, I don’t play my main as well, so that makes it an easier decision too.

Now since we know we are going Alliance Paladin, what race?  I personally find Humans boring, so that rules them out.  I do love dwarves, but not necessarily as Paladins.  I have always liked Draenei, so I have decided on that race.  And I have chosen a Male.  (My current main is a Blood Elf Female, so its meant to be a bit of an opposite to her).

Now in terms of appearance, I had a look at the Burning Crusade Cinematic and have tried to make a Paladin that resembles the one seen there.  What do you think?

Burning Crusade Cinematic Paladin

What the Azeroth Explorer may eventually look like

What the Azeroth Explorer currently looks like

Now as can be seen in the final image, our star has a  name, Khojna.  This is a hindi word that means to explore or investigate.  I like Hindi words, especially for Male Draenei as their dance is copied from an Indian artist Dahler Mehndi.

Next time, a quick talk about professions, and how Khojna plans to tackle his new world.  Take Care!

Introduction

Hi Everyone.

This blog is going to be the record of at least one character levelling through the World of Warcraft.

Now, that has been done many times before, so how is this going to be different?

I am going to attempt to follow the guidelines listed below.

1. All zones will be explored.
2. All  levelling quests will be completed.
3. All text quest (and other books and quest items etc) will be read.
4. Experience will be stopped so as to complete quests at approriate level. (This will start with a halt at level 20 and continue every 5 levels after this).
5. All Dungeons will be completed when quests are available.
6. No heirlooms permitted
7. Only buying enhancements, not items from the Auction House.

I would imagine that I will try and post on a weekly basis, although there may be more than that early on.

This is a learning experience for me, and I hope you enjoy it as it progresses.

The next post will be discussing Character, Faction, Gender, Server and Name choices (maybe more).

See You Next Time

Azeroth Explorer.