Working On It

"Can't you see I'm working on it?"

Wow. 4.0.3 hit, and it seems like I'm still discovering new achievements. New fishing and cooking dailies in Stormwind, new dungeon achievements, new per-zone quest achievements for the Old World... it's almost overwhelming. Where to start? Well, I did what any reasonable person would.

I took a vacation.

Oh, well, OK - it was something of a working vacation, as I toured Azeroth and picked up all the new flight points. Technically I was "surveying the damage", or something like that. In truth, I was playing tourist. Oooh-ing and aaah-ing over the rents in the landscape, getting all fan-boy squee over the sight of murloc babies in the Blasted Lands, and generally getting all excited about the idea of finally being able to fly in the Eastern Kingdoms.

After vacation, though, it was back to work. The ogres of Ogri'la? They love me in that... um,. wide open, shard covered plain. I ended up with a mess of apexis crystals for my efforts, which will probably never do me any good at all. Ah well.

Next step was to give free reign to my OCD, dive right in and start cranking through the new quests available in the Old World. As a level 80, they're obviously not much of a challenge... but the lore is nice and tasty! As others have noted, though, there's kind of a weird mix of quests in some zones. I started in Arathi, where I found myself doing the quest chain to free Myzrael again. Wait, what? I mean... didn't I do this already? Isn't she, like, bad news? Hmm. Maybe a slightly different quest chain would have been better in this case.

What's odd is that elsewhere - where you encounter Quae and Kinlory - the quest text makes an obvious allusions to your previous help in foiling a similar plot. Other quests are similar, but not entirely, like the quests they've replaced. Others are entirely new.

Let's be honest, though. It doesn't seem to matter that the whole world seems to be turned upside down and inside out as far as continuity goes... man, I mean, I've fought with myself, I've fought myself one on one and in groups, I've travelled in time so many times that... really, I just don't know anymore. Maybe this is normal for those who are chronologically gifted.

Or maybe this is Deathwing's work? I mean, he's stirred up the elements and shattered the world. I think you can make the case that in WoW, at least, time is similar to - if not exactly - an element. Maybe the Shattering has fragmented more than the material world.

It's an avenue to explore. I'll keep an eye on it, and see if there are any obvious clues that manifest themselves as I trek across Azeroth, killing and re-killing evils new and ancient. If I come across any further insights, I'll let you know.

Rest easy. I'm working on it.