WoW Classic: Friended

A friend of mine, whom I have played Dungeons & Dragons with, decided to give WoW Classic a try. He decided to play a Tauren Druid, a class that paired nicely with my Tauren Warrior.

I highly recommend playing WoW Classic with a friend. Doing so makes finishing quests easier, leveling up a bit faster, and is a lot of fun! In the screenshot above, my Warrior was level 6, and his Druid was level 3.

We have been using Discord so we can talk while playing. It is more efficient than having to stop and type something into the game like: “We need to kill two more of those.” It is strange to think about playing “Vanilla” long before Discord existed.

As you can see in the screenshot below, my friend was able to join the Guild that I was in. House Kraken is a good group of people!

One of the first things we did was finish up the quest in the Brambleblade Ravine that requires players to collect belts from the Bristleback enemies. We started looking for the way back out, and ended up in this little cave.

The enemy in here was slightly higher level than we were (if I remember correctly). It dropped a Dirt-stained Map that was the start of a quest called Attack on Camp Narache. I think this was the first item we found that spawned a quest.

After carefully evaluating the map, you realize that what you discovered are the plans made by the Bristleback war chief for an extended siege on Camp Narache.

Surely Chief Hawkwind could use this information!

Eventually, we remembered where the actual exit to the Brambleblade Ravine was located. We killed stuff on the way out, because every little bit helps little players level up.

Camp Narache wasn’t terribly far from the Ravine, but it still took a while to walk back over there. In Classic WoW, players have to reach Level 40 before they could get a mount. The mount costs gold, and the currency system in WoW Classic is way slower than the booming economy in “live WoW” (or “retail WoW”, as some have started calling it).

Holding on to the money you earn in Classic WoW is difficult because you need to buy your skills (and buy them again when you are big enough to level them up). This is true for class-related skills and skills that go with professions. We were finding it difficult to accrue enough copper to buy what we needed.

There are also way less flight points in WoW Classic than in the regular game. This leaves our Taurens with no option other than to “hoof it” between one town and the next.

Off in the distance, behind Bane Bloodhoof, you can see the Kodo dealer and several Kodo Mounts. This is located in Bloodhoof Village.

Bane Bloodhoof had a quest for us that we didn’t immediately start working on. We got into the habit of grabbing quests while we were in town, and picking our way through them later.

Bane Bloodhoof: There are dwaves preparing a dig site to the northwest. They think secrets lie in the earth, and that is true, but hollowing and defiling the land is no way to earn its teachings.

Collect the dwarves tools of digging, smash them, and return to me with the dwarves’ broken tools.

You can smash the tools at a forge. You will find one in Thunder Bluff, but any forge — even a forge at the dwarves camp — will suffice.

This is another one of those “gather up x amount of specific item and bring it back to me” quests. The thing I found interesting about this one, just based on the quest text, is that it is the first time we are sent to fight and kill a race that is part of the Alliance.

The reason why we are sent to kill Alliance Dwarves is because their digging is “defiling the land”. This is an environmental quest, much like the ones where players go and cleanse water wells.

My friend and I are playing WoW Classic in 2019, when people have very strong opinions regarding climate change and the negative effects that can happen when people are… well, “defiling the land”. I played Alliance back in “Vanilla”. But, even if I had been playing Horde, I’m not sure this quest would have seemed as significant as it does today.

Harken Windtotem gave us the Swoop Hunting quest. I was actually excited to pick up this quest because the first day WoW Classic went live, I noticed players in the chat mentioning that a Swoop killed them… again.

It would be a fun challenge, and I thought it would go well with two players working on it together. Warriors hit things; Druids heal the Warriors.

Harken Windtotem: The swoop is a cunning bird, and difficult to find and hunt. A collection of Swoop Quills is a badge of cleverness and determination for a hunter.

If you are willing to take up this task, then enter the plains and hunt the swoop.

Bring me their quills, and bring honor to your clan.

The swoops may be found anywhere in Mulgore, but your eyes must be sharp to spot them, and your hooves must be quick to catch them.

Maur Raincaller gave us the Mazzranache quest. It is another one of those “go gather up a bunch of animal parts and bring them back” quest.

Maur Raincaller: My grandfather told me stories about his battles with a strider named Mazzranache. He told me of its demonic red eyes, razor-sharp talons and venomous bite.

As fortune would have it, while traveling across the plains, I encountered it, and it took a nasty bite from my shoulder. He was as terrible as my grandfather described. I will need some hard-to-find animal parts to clean the infection from his bite: a wolf heart, cougar femur, plainstriders scale, and swoop gizzard.

Hurry, time is of the essence.

I find that I am not reading the quest text while playing WoW Classic with my friend. We are mostly grabbing quests from quest givers and then going out to complete them together. A screenshot will do if I want to read the quest text later (and maybe put it into a blog post).

A while back, my husband Shawn and I played World of Warcraft together. We played Dwarves – his was a Hunter, and mine was a Cleric. We were working our way through Azeroth, zone by zone.

Shawn is legally blind, and needed me to read the quest text to him. I didn’t mind. As time went by, Shawn unfortunately discovered that playing video games was causing him too much eye strain, and he had to stop.

My friend that I am playing WoW Classic with today does not need me to read quest text to him. As such, we have both started taking quests without taking the time to read them until we are ready to work one that one.

In our travels, back and forth from town to quest locations, we found a quest giver on the road. Bag space fills up really quickly in Classic WoW, and much of it is filled with quest items that you cannot drop if you want to be able to turn in the quest those items are connected to.

We found a quest giver on the road. Morin Cloudstalker gave us the Ravaged Caravan quest.

Morin Cloudstalker: A few days ago, we found a Venture Co. caravan traveling under guard on the northern shore of Stonewall Lake. We’d lost two of our number in an earlier battle, so we were quick to attack and lay waste to the caravan.

We left their supply crates, thinking that our torches would destroy anything of value, but given that the Venture Co. salvagers have been spotted near the burned wagons, maybe we were wrong.

Perhaps you should go to the caravan and examine the contents of the crates.

This was another quest that we picked up but did not immediately start working in. In general, it’s a good idea to grab a bunch of quests before heading back out of town, and work on them as you travel. Doing so can reduce the number of times players need to go back to a town – assuming their bags don’t fill up too quickly!

By the time we were done, Vaca had reached Level 7. Neverlast wasn’t too far behind her, and we figured that we would eventually be at the same level.

WoW Classic: Friended is a post written by Jen Thorpe on Book of Jen and is not allowed to be copied to other sites.

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