General Discussion

MMORPG.com Staff Writer Joe Iuliani has been playing Blizzard's World of Warcraft since Beta. Today, we kick off a new weekly column focusing on all aspects of the game's past, present and future. In this edition, Joe talks about Shattrath.

Welcome to what I hope will be a WOW column that will break away from some of the other WOW commentary out there. Throughout this article, there will be a lot of reviews of both past and current WOW topics. Before we start, I wanted to give you just a little bit of background on me: I’ve been playing World of Warcraft since the Beta was available, and a group of friends were lucky enough to get one.  I’m also one the midnight Burning Crusade purchasers (my way of feeling young and in touch, that didn’t go over well for work the next day) I’ve been there from the beginning and it looks like I will be with WOW for a good long time.   So without further ado, here’s a little article I’d like to call…Shattrath Re-Visited.

Shattrath, the shining star of Outland, is located in North West Terokkar Forrest.  The next zone over from the starting zone of Outland.  If you are new to the Burning Crusade expansion (chances are you aren’t) or if you’re playing catch up with some friends, make your way to Shattrath quickly. It’s the only city in Outland, and a great place to set your hearth to.  Shattrath is broken into four sections; The Lower City, The Terrace of Light, Aldor Rise and Scryers Tier.  One of the first Shattrath quests is City of Light; you will receive a tour of Shattrath along with a history lesson.  It’s a mandatory quest to unlock other quests, so you’ll just need to stick with it.  It’s fun enough, but make sure you complete it the first run through because the second time is just tedious.  Keep your eye on your guide. Rest, Restock reagents, and the flight point, make it an ideal place to set up shop.  Shattrath also possesses a bank; alchemy lab, specialty skill trainers, as well as portals to all the non Outland cities expect Silver Moon City.  These portals are located in the middle of the Terrace of Light.

Read the whole column here.

From my understanding, Blizzard did not include an AH in Shattrath for a reason. It's because they didn't want the "old world" cities to become "ghost towns" so to speak.

Shattrath also possesses a bank; alchemy lab, specialty skill trainers, as well as portals to all the non Outland cities expect [sic] Silver Moon City.

Silvermoon City can be accessed via portal from Shattrath; it is located next to the portal to Exodar in the same area of the Terrace of Light.

As you gain faction with one, you loose [sic] faction with the other and there is no coming back from it.

Not true. One can gain reputation with either faction from Hated to Neutral with the farming quests Voren'thal's Visions and Strained Supplies, both available from NPCs located in the Lower City.

Is this really up to the standard of quality MMORPG.com considers acceptable for featured content?

Originally posted by Dexeunt
....

Is this really up to the standard of quality MMORPG.com considers acceptable for featured content?

"Oh. Look at my amaaaaazing credentials as a player...I've been playing WoW since before the beginning, and have been playing in Burning Crusade for 8 months now, and...What? There's a portal to Silvermoon City? Whaddya mean Silvermoon is one word?"

Joe, honestly.

My 'credentials' suck. I've 'only' been playing for a little over a year, with 2-3 breaks of a month here or there, and even *I* knew that. Even my coworker (who plays on the same server) who's highest level character is a 51 Warrior knew that there were portals to ALL of the cities.

Why would there be a portal to Exodar, and not one to Silvermoon City, even?

So many lingering questions...

For Shame.

I have to concur with the consensus on this thread.  MMORPG.COM so far has been an excellent source of news and features, but this is a relatively useless banter.  If I were in charge of this site, I would seriously consider at least revamping this column so that it has useful (and accurate) information.

No offense Jon, but I agree with the others. This is far from a useful column - all of what you covered is basically available in the guide quest you spoke of.

Edit: except the guide quest actually has accurate info*

My bad guys, I missed the portal for Silvermoon.

Thanks for the comments and keep em coming.

Originally posted by Bluto

My bad guys, I missed the portal for Silvermoon.

 

Thanks for the comments and keep em coming.

 

and if you think the pro-WOW crowd is a tough bunch, wait till the haters pile on.....

Oh well, clean up the mistakes next time (run it past some other WOW players you know before publishing to verify accuracy) and consider coming up with some unusual topics, because I think your target audience is already very well acquainted with basics like the layout of Shattrath city. (heck, I know about it and I stopped playing before TBC was released)

Keep in mind...few readers of this site are WOW noobs.... most have logged a good amount of time...keep the writing at that level......

Heh,

Well I enjoyed the article. I have been playing WoW off and on for over a year but have not bought the expansion. The article was well written and friendly and so what if it is not packed full of adict feeding uber info. Sometimes high level light discussions are a welcome relief from all the heavy jargon and assumption filled guff that gets around out there. If I want in depth technical discussions I would go to a WoW forum rather than to a general MMO site like this one. Sure a few technical articles are good here and there but keep up the lighter ones as well.

I gotta say though I get sick of a game that requires people to research stuff on the web to be able to progress. I mean finding the Alliance first aid dude in the Arathi Highlands was overly difficult. Firstly because no quest lead me to him and it was only by researching outside the game that I knew he existed at all!! It is a roleplaying game after all and this sort of info should be available from in game sources. Maybe an article on this sort of hidden but necessary knowledge for the more noobtastic players out there would be a good idea?

M

 PS: What happened to my post count?!? Why am I a novice member again?!?

You know, I got to say I was not very impressed with this column.  I was hoping for some insight as to what the game should become, or pros and cons as to what the game has become since inception.

I have played on and off since Sept 04 (open beta, that 1 week where I drooled for months until December).  I have played both Horde and Alliance through end game prior to Burning Crusade.  I'm 32, married and a father of 3.  My wife hates this game.

This MMO has the best gameplay I have seen of any game out there.  <---- MY OPINION.  The ease yet difficulty of truly understanding class limits and purpose was done beautifully.  Hence the popularity.  In Dec. of 04 through Jan. of 05, the starting levels were difficult (i.e. - Zulzane quest for orcs and trolls required a small party) and now the starting levels actually are pretty simple and quests have since been removed.  The game developers I assume knew that the population in these areas would be sparce and having elites and party quests would just make rerolling almost impossible, cough hogger!!  But the story line and quests, instances, and crafting were done fairly straight forward.  Making money was hard to do and people actually had to WORK at getting items and equipment and reputation with major cities just to receive that wonderful discount for mounts. How many of you remember this type of GMOTD: HELP JOHNDOE GET EXALTED WITH TB, RUNECLOTH COD 2.5g/STACK!!!!  Onyxia Thurs. 8 pm!

The game prior to Burning Crusade was mostly revovled and designed around progression.  Yup, PROGRESSION.  What do I mean by this?  Let's take a person closing in on level 60.  Around level 54, groups for Black Rock Depths started to be formed and people would start getting some good blue gear to properly start gearing them for Black Rock Spire.  But at the same time that player could get attuned for Molten Core.  But WAIT, Molten Core?  NEED MORE GEAR!! Nah, your still level 58 so you enter Lower Black Rock Spire, OMG what a