When the year 2009 started, Forged Alliance already had cleared the first tier of content for the nearly two month old Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Patch 3.0.3 was still the most current live patch. I finally began to start leveling my 5 level 70 alts into Lich King content as Forged Alliance started clearing 25-man (which was called "Heroic" back then) content.
January 1, 2009 - The New Years Fireworks tradition continues. This time in Shattrath City on a fairly new Deathknight.
January 3, 2009 - Just a couple of Dwarves, dwarving it up, yo.
January 3, 2009 - Ran up a ramp in Borean Tundra, fell through the world. Had to ALT-F4 out of the game and graveyard resurrect when my character finally died. Took a while to get going again.
January 3, 2009 - I've probably taken more "wallpaper" type screenshots with my Netherdrakes than with any other mount. Random fact.
January 3, 2009 - "The Lich King turns to face you." Ahhh, crap...
January 4, 2009 - You can dance, if you want to.... Apparently I cannot.
January 5, 2009 - Venture Bay, the World PvP area in Grizzly Hills. PvP dailies and objectives. Dailies could be completed by killing appropriate NPCs in the area. Which was good because I didn't often see people there, even back in the hay day.
January 5, 2009 - This plane doesn't feel very safe. Did I just see a part fall off?
January 8, 2009 - Highlord Bolvar! A fun and memorable questline. When Bolvar came in to save the day was a pretty cool moment. And if you completed the Marshall Windsor questline he would whisper you and tell you that he remembers you helping him.
January 10, 2009 - Alliance fleet off the coast of Howling Fjord. Empty ships. I later found they were used for a Horde quest.
January 15, 2009 - Frog says you're a traitor...
January 16, 2009 - Now, everyone be careful. Don't fall off the pipe, but don't go too close to the poison pipe either. Oops, someone fell off. Wait for them to run around. Ah, they aggro'd the slimes.... And now they failed at Frogger... Remember Frogger? Of course you do. If you didn't mess it up, chances are someone else near you did.
January 18, 2009 - He Who Plays With Food!?!?
January 18, 2009 - While I liked the concept of Dalaran as a magical floating city and its beautiful visuals, it often felt more cramped than Shattrath. Also it wasn't until much later in the expansion that you could use flying mounts within the city limits. Remember accidentally flying too close, getting dismounted and then slow falling really far? Oops.
January 19, 2009 - Busy raid schedule. Killing lots of spiders.
January 21, 2009 - Shadow Murlocs!!!!! I really hated Murlocs, but whenever those baby Murlocs would call me "Mama".... Hang on... got something in my eye..
January 21, 2009 - Leaving the Isle of Quel'danas.
January 22, 2009 - Forged Alliance defeats Sapphiron 25-man. Quite a few of us were rolling with Frost Resistance rings for this kill. Yeah, resistance gear was still a thing.
January 23, 2009 - Howling Fjord. Visual splendor.
January 26, 2009 - Before Ulduar was open, I guess they hadn't finished Thorim's model. So they had this placeholder Hodir model up on top of The Temple of Storms.
January 26, 2009 - Another shot of Dalaran from high above.
January 27, 2009 - The Park in Stormwind during the Lunar Festival. Now it is a smoldering crater.
January 28, 2009 - Ah, weapon skills. Here I am grinding my Unarmed skill up by attacking mobs in lowbie instances. I was either going for the Did Somebody Order a Knuckle Sandwich? achievement or leveling my skill in order to use a new weapon.
January 28, 2009 - Just a couple of Elves. Elving it up. In Thrall's place.
January 28, 2009 - Working on the Battle of the Wrathgate questline. This was a phased version of Orgrimmar filled with Forsaken refugees that left Undercity during the uprising. Sadly this was removed in Cataclysm.
January 30, 2009 - Forged Alliance destroys Kel'thuzad 25-man! Huzzah!
January 30, 2009 - You maniacs!! You blew it up! One of my favorite aspects of the Lunar Festival was traveling to the oddball corners of the world like this place in Azshara.
February 1, 2009 - One of the cultists seems to have stumbled on to my blade and died...
February 2, 2009 - This NPC, along with a weapon and quest in Mulgore, were made and dedicated to Ezra Chatterton, a child and WoW player who died from brain cancer in 2008. Because of Blizzard's kindness, this boy is now immortalized in the game. You can even hear his voice if you talk to the NPC Ahab Wheathoof in Mulgore.
February 6, 2009 - World Dragon in Feralas!! Don't let the level 62 fool you, this guy was still scary.
February 9, 2009 - Ah, waiting a few minutes and waves and waves of trash before Kel'thuzad can be bothered to come after us himself.
February 19, 2009 - We may not have been prepared, but we were level 80!
February 26, 2009 - Classic Raid Night! Clearing Sunwell Plateau.
February 26, 2009 - Back before account-wide mounts and account-wide achievements, city raids were fairly common. And usually pretty fun!
March 3, 2009 - There was always a bit of a rush riding into Orgrimmar on an Alliance character. I felt so bad. I always tried to stay in the middle of the pack. And never dismount until you have to.
March 4, 2009 - Wintergrasp!! So much fun you had to wait to get in sometimes.
March 5, 2009 - See "visual splendor".
March 6, 2009 - Not everyone could keep up. With that many players on screen, some would lag out or fall behind. These usually 40-player strong groups would end up with "tails" of slow players. The good groups would wait for everyone to catch up so we could go in full force. Bad groups would just ride in straight away.
March 6, 2009 - Fun mount for killing all faction bosses. Also look at that quiver and arrows! 200 per stack!! oh man.
March 6, 2009 - Krasus' Landing in Dalaran used to be the only place you could fly in the city. Sometimes you'd see people showing off their mounts there. This sort of thing doesn't seem to happen anymore.
March 7, 2009 - Silvermoon, Thunder Bluff and Undercity were usually fairly easy to attack since they were far less frequented by Horde players. Orgrimmar was where everyone was. But sometimes a player who was playing both sides would spy and then leak word of the attack to Horde Trade Chat, allowing them to intercept us. The City Defender achievement was probably extra encouragement too.
March 19, 2009 - Achievements for purposely leaving people out of your raid.
"Can I raid with you guys?"
"Sorry, we're full."
"But you only have 8 people in there..."
"We're going after the achievement."
"Oh... :("
March 22, 2009 - I wanted a snazzy way of hitting 80 for my warlock. So I went around the rest of Azeroth and got the exploration achievements for all the zones. When I got to Northrend I purposely left two areas near the coast unexplored. I quested and leveled up to 79 and when I only needed a few thousand experience points, I flew to that spot so I would hit level 80 with Exploration XP. I got World Explorer and Level 80 at the same time.
March 22, 2009 - I'm level 80 and I'm still wearing level 70 Tier 5 gear. Most epic gear from Burning Crusade lasted well into Northrend and wasn't replaced until level 80 blue or epic gear. Many of the first guilds to clear raids in Wrath of the Lich King were still wearing old gear. This didn't happen again with later expansions.
March 25, 2009 - Alexstrasza showing up after slaying Malygos. Lots and lots of red dragons!
March 27, 2009 - Waiting for the Battle for Wintergrasp to start. There was usually a queue during the busy hours of the day.
April 10, 2009 - More visual splendor!! Such beautiful zones.
April 14, 2009 - Patch 3.1 - "Secrets of Ulduar" was released.
April 15, 2009 - Northrend is pretty amazing.
April 16, 2009 - Two days before, Patch 3.1 was finally released and we could begin raiding Ulduar. The first few nights were dicey, with the trash in some places being insanely hard. But hotfixes were applied, strategies were learned and we forged on.
April 17, 2009 - Group 2 defeats XT-002 Deconstructor! And now begins the battle of the Engineers to see who dismantles it for its precious parts...
April 17, 2009 - Gah! This guy would just pop up and scare the crap out of anyone not expecting him when they got to this part.
April 17, 2009 - Excuse me miss, you have something on your face...
April 20, 2009 - Patch 3.1 also added a construction zone in Icecrown where the Argent Tournament grounds were being built. It added a few new dailies and some quests. It was also pretty cool seeing this place in a construction phase instead of having it just pop up over night.
April 22, 2009 - Vehicle Combat in Ulduar was a lot of fun.
April 24, 2009 - There was this gnome mage NPC that would randomly wander around Dalaran turning the street lamps on. Occasionally he would sheep random players and send them this mail. Only happened to me twice, ever.
April 25, 2009 - Some of the best and most memorable moments I had in WoW were spent with these people. Okay now that that is done, who is putting Frost Resist gear on to tank this guy?
April 27, 2009 - I wish this flying train wasn't so far in or was used somewhere else. So freaking cool. Ulduar had amazing visuals.
At the end of April 2009, Patch 3.1.1a was live and Forged Alliance was working on clearing Ulduar. Because of the What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been and Holiday achievements, many of which required a level 80 character, I rushed to get my 4 main alliance alts to 80 by the end of February. Though I considered it fun at the time, in retrospect it was made moot with account-wide achievements and mounts added in Mists of Pandaria. Ah well :)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.