World of Warcraft: Exploring the Black Temple Patch
Staff Writer Joe Iuliani has been playing through the new Black Temple patch that was released at the end of May. Today, he files this report on the patch and what it's been adding to his gameplay experience.
It's been nearly two weeks since the release of the newest WOW patch, and across the board, I think it's been pretty damn cool.
If you don't have a flying mount, well most of this content really just won't apply to you. Of course, if you've been playing the Burning Crusade since its release, there is no real reason not to. I suppose being lower than 70 isn't going to make things interesting either. Come on, level people, coffee is your ally.
Blizzard renews World of Warcraft with new solo and five man quests that generate quick money and loot. Many quests are repeatable with a number of blue items dropping. Additionally, there is a new group to achieve faction with, the Sha'tar Skygaurd (it wouldn't be an MMO without some more faction grinding). The quest lines start off right next to the flight point in Shattrath The Sha'tar have two main camps, one in Skettis located in Terokkar Forrest and near Ogri'la in Blade's Edge Mountains. As you gain faction with the Skygaurd, a flight path opens between the two locations. As you can imagine, this makes loot questing more convenient.
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The "King of the Ogres" quest line is one of the first in the new patch. It begins in the Circle of Light in Shattrath City, (I almost missed the start, keep an eye out on the way to the portals to the cities) and just follow the quest instructions. A nice feature of this quest line is that if you luck out and find another group killing the required mobs, you can just loot along with them. The quest item drops away from the mob, not on the corpse. This line is worth it just to be named King of the Ogres in Blade's Edge. It's also the pre-requisite for all the Ogri'la quests (Any quest involving Apexis Shards) Stick around for the giant Ogre celebration they have for you. Throngs of dancing ogres, how do you beat that? Ok, well you can beat it lots of ways, but this is just fun.
One of the best features of the patch are the daily solo quests. You can do up to ten repeatable quests a day which are marked in your quest log as "daily". The daily quests alone have the ability to generate more than one hundred gold a day. Each quest has cash turn in of 11 gold, 99 silver (C'mon Blizzard, would it have killed you to make it an even twelve).
Some of the Blade's Edge Mountains daily quests are: Bomb Them Again, The Relic's Emanation, and Wrangle More Aether Rays. The Blade's Edge Mountain quests also come with fifteen Apexis Shards Apexis Shards are used for activating daily quests, as well as five man group summon quests. The Relic's Emanation quest is the WOW version of an old memory game called "Simon". Match the order the crystals light up in, and repeat the order. It helps to turn the screen orientation to above you. Be careful, each wrong answer costs you a chunk of health. Also, the quest is timed, so you need to move it along, or you're out one Apexis shard.
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Bomb Them Again is a blast (pun intended). A Quick daily bombing run at either of the Forge Camps. Just keep moving, but be warned, the Legion Flak Canons will knock you out of the air as well as causing damage over time. This is where having that epic flying mount comes in real handy, sure I don't have one, but it's about time for me to get one. Well at least attempt to get the Druid Epic Flight Form (another patch note)
There are a number of other repeatable quests involving the Apexis Shards, so the thirty plus shards a day you can generate questing are well worth it. In addition to being used to summon mobs, the shards are used to power items that are dropped. These items can be used to heal, summon larger mobs, or be turned in for gear.
Skettis Daily Quest: Fires Over Skettis, another bombing run where you have to destroy twenty Monstrous Kaliri Eggs. Trust me, you'll hate the monsters after about 10 minutes of flying around Skettis. They evade, stun you, and have a way of making you lose your shadow elixir... or maybe that's just me.
Repeatable Skettis quests involve turning in shadow dust for Elixir of Shadows. The elixir of shadows is required to obtain the sight to see the mobs to kill to farm Time Lost Scrolls. (It'll make more sense as you play) I'm not going to lie; this can be a real pain the rear. The number of Time Lost scrolls needed to complete the quest line is forty per quester. It's a lot, but they are guaranteed blue drops, which is worth it. Try and have a disenchanter with you, if the drop's not worth the disenchanted shards sure are.
Both Shadow Dust and Time Lost scrolls are great sources of faction, loot turn-ins, and both currently sell well in the Auction House.
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The focus of new content is in Skettis and Ogri'la but don't overlook new Consortium quests handed out in Storm Spire in Netherstorm and the Nether Drake quest line. The Nether Drake quest line results in the ability to purchase a Nether Drake Mount, while the Consortium quests will allow you to open an extra area of the Mana Tombs.
These are just a few of the daily quests I've discovered through game play, for a comprehensive listing of quests, just hit a web search for WOW daily quests, and choose from your favorite WOW sites. A number of folks out there have put a lot of time into some well planned out quest runs. It's not fair to just plug just one of the sites. Let's just say that I don't think I would have found some of this information on my own.
For a full list of patch notes check www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes.
Next stop, The Black Temple.
