Bomb throwing monkeys, voodoo pygmies with relatively intelligent monkey slaves and you turning into a massive whirlwind of electrifying mass destruction - what do they all have in common? That's right, Goblins.

All right, finally sitting down to do this, between sickness, stress and my slacker nature it's been taking some time before I got to it, but now we're there and on the way! I'll start off by saying that the Goblin starter area stand in stark contrast to the Worgen one. Where the wolves have rain, somber characters and an atmosphere of immense catastrophe the green gits sit with vast beaches showered in constant sun, foxy ladies (well, by Gobbo standards) and humour. A lot of humour.

It all starts with a wreck, you're floating around on some driftwood, lying peacefully with a friend sitting just next to you. Trying to move you realize you can't, you're stuck, maybe dead? That's what the newcomer thinks as he screams for the guy sitting by you to do something! Doesn't he know who you are? You're <Nostra>, without you they would all be dead by now! That's right, like with the Worgen starter areas we're an important fella, not just some nobody to fetch the cook's pot for him.

Sad thing you're dead.

But! This is were Goblin ingenuity comes in, the newcomer, Doc Zapnozzle, decides to zap us back.

So do I, so do I...

-cough-

It turns out they don't (who could've guessed, eh?), and we're soon back on our feet and ready to become the hero the survivors need. Our but-saving friend, the doc, hands us a pair of thermohydratic flippers and asks us to save all those who are still stuck in their escape pods. As we race through the water, the flippers boosting our swim speed, we stop by the first pod, opening it with ease (you know, a left-click) the man to emerge from it is no other than Trade Prince Maldy, who thanks us for saving his precious neck and expresses his surprise over it, since he'd done what he'd done...

They're being very unspecific with what's actually happened, but from doing some research I gather that Maldy had a great scheme; he was offering Goblins on Kezan, mostly his own Cartel I believe, the chance to escape on his ship for a fee, of course his real plan was to sell all the refugees as slaves. That didn't go too well, we're told that as they were passing the Lost Isles a Horde ship sailed by, and shortly after an Alliance vessel approached as well, but instead of just passing by they blasted the Goblins to bits.

But back to the isles! We save a couple more Gobbo necks before heading to shore and the remnants of the ship, there we meet a plethora of different characters but the most eye-catching is by far Gobber. Love at first sight for sure. But as we have little time (or I did, wanted to test Starcraft 2 again, hehe) we make our way past all these people and up on the wreck where we meet our former executive assistant, Sassy Hardhearted, she does not live up to her name as she starts to cry while giving us a hug. Completing the first quest there (Goblin Escape Pods) we're then sent to help out around the camp, the problem they've been having is the monkeys on the island, they are a bunch of kleptomaniacs who not only stole a clutch of teraptor eggs that have hatched and released a menace of hungry raptors on the Goblins but they also managed to get their hands on the explosives. That's right, the bomb throwing monkeys.

Our tasks is to eliminate both problems, by simply killing the (te)raptors (lame!) and feeding the monkeys nitrous-bananas. That is bananas that's been filled with nitro (awesome!), the effect being an explosion in the rear-end of the monkey and a short but glorious flight that ends with a squash. Goblin Technology, what wonders they bring to the world. I'd like to mention the awesome racial skills here; Rocket Boots and Belt, the boots when used works like a long jump and have kind of the same effect as a mage blink, I think it's slightly shorter though but it definitely looks more fun! The belt has some awesome functions that are shown in later quests, but only the rocket is useable at will - not too bad, especially if you shoot it after a flying monkey, it's rather slow so it will simply follow the monkey up in the air. A great deal of fun can be had if we shoot it after someone mounted, heh. But alas! Back to the topic.

After dealing with the two most immediate threats and probably annihilating this tribe (pack?) of monkeys with our excessive use of nitronanas we go on to our next quest. For this we're sent southeast to aid Foreman Dampwick with some trouble, well there we learn that there are both good news and bad, the good news are that they've found Kaja'mite, that incredible ore that made the Goblins intelligent in the first place! The problem lies with the a bunch of monkeys, again. These monkeys have taken up mining picks and started to harvest the Kaja'mite, completely unacceptable of course, by Goblin law all Kaja'mite belongs to them, or so we are told. It is nice to see that Foreman Dampwick willingly explains what Kaja'mite is, as seen in this quote:

I do think that's what those jungle trolls asked themselves too. Heh, the most interesting part of this is probably how he refers to Kezan, from it I think we can assume that if Kezan isn't completely gone, there's probably not much left of it, at least the Bilgewater's have some good reasons to believe that, though I won't deny the possibility that Kezan might have survived and the Bilgewater's simply having assumed it was destroyed in the Cataclysm, maybe it might have looked that way from their vantage position? But let's not ramble, continue!

We agree to escort Dampwick's last miner into the cavern and hold the monkeys off while he hacks out some Kaja'mite for Dimpwick. As we make our way into the cave we see strange paintings on the walls, and automatically receive a quest to follow them all the way into the cave and acquire an artifact to take back to Sassy. But before we get far we see something foreboding, the corpse of an orc, and above it stands a small figure which I at first assumed were a gnome, as we come closer their attire, voodoo mask, tribal clothing and staff, and name (Pygmy Witch-Doctor) leads me to believe that they are some new race, as we later tell Sassy about it she agrees with that notion and suggests that we call them Nostra-ians. Lovely name.

The pygmy turns out to be hostile and we're forced to kill her, looting her and the orcs body we accomplish one quest (find an artifact of whoever made the wall-paintings) and received another, on the orc we find a journal that tells us some of their story. Because I find this text to be rather interesting I'll quote it.

So, from this I'm lead to believe that the goblins were racing past and happened to be caught in the crossfire as the Alliance tried to sink the Horde ship. So it was a mistake and the Alliance didn't intentionally attack the goblin "yacht", that actually makes more sense than the justifications I had made up myself, hehe, and I'm relieved. I had at first thought the Alliance simply didn't want any witnesses as they captured the orcs' `precious cargo´ and that that was why they attacked, but if this is how it is it certainly adds more flavour to it, who knows, maybe the Alliance planned to aid the poor goblins and that is why they lingered around the islands? Of course from the goblin's own viewpoint they've still been attacked without cause and will obviously seek allies...

At any rate! As we're done in the cave we head back out, deliver the miner and his ore to Foreman Dimpwick and then head back to camp. Well there we deliver our finds to Sassy who gives the pygmy artifact a look at and concludes that the paintings depict the pygmy's and us on a island with an exploding volcano. She doesn't seem to panic and we quickly examine the orcish journal, this is a bit more interesting and we're tasked to find the orcs' camp, which is supposed to be further up the mountain, and deliver the journal to their leader. I get a shifty feeling as Sassy sees us off with the words "Good luck, Nostra. I always liked you.", well thank you for the vote of confidence! (<,< >,>)

With that in mind our journey to the orc camp is surprisingly uneventful, we quickly locate the leader, Aggra, the captain of the Horde ship, Draka's Fury although she does give a pretty bad impression by trying to grab the journal she apologies for this and suggests that we work together, stating that we have a common enemy in the Alliance and that with the large number of SI:7 assassins roaming around will likely be the death of us all, goblin and orc. We accept; for the Horde!

Aggra then tells of a scout party lead by Kilag Gorefang that headed into the jungle to the west to search for some `precious cargo´ that the orcs were guarding before the "filthy Alliance" sunk their ship. They are having some trouble though, some "deadly jungle plants" are blocking the way and we are asked to prove our worth by journeying into the jungle and find them.

They aren’t far off so it isn’t a long trek, but what meets us is definitely what I would class as a “deadly” jungle. There must be hundreds of plants blocking the way, there’s long tentacle-like things with sharp thorns and carnivorous plants with mouths as large as my goblin. A scary place, not long from the edge of this multicoloured sea of lush greenery is a small group of orcs, one of which is Kilag. They are all desperately trying to fight off the plants and Kilag only have time to throw a quick glance before he goes back to his grass-cutter business. He does note our all-in-1-der belt and tells us to pull something from it and solve the problem before they’re all dead!

Giving it some thought (not really) we activate some tool in our fantastic belt (don’t ask me what, or how, hehe) and starts to spin with mad speed, in fact we spin so fast that when we get close to the plants we deal such tremendous amounts of damage that we kill everything nearby. It only took a few seconds to kill over a hundred plants and clean the place up. Afterwards Kilag has little time for idle chatter so he tells us to report back to Aggra while he and his men move forward. Aggra is impressed by our ingenuity but tells us to quickly run back to Kilag and his scouts while they pack up the camp before coming after us. If nothing else we most certainly must have increased our stamina with all this running, right? Hurr hurr.
Once we find the scouting party once again their hiding just off the beaten path, a slight problem is in their way. Apparently the way is blocked once more, but not by plants this time. SI:7 assassins have taken up position in and around a glen just north of the orcs, where they lie in ambush. The orcs have been unable to locate them, and now they need us to use a pair of those “amazing goggles goblins are known for” to spot them, pulling out our goggles and bringing one of the orcish warriors with us as a meatshield we go hunting.

It isn’t a difficult task, a mere six of those ugly humans need to be downed and it’s solved with ease with our bigger, greener and meaner friend’s help. Reporting back we’re given a quick thanks and then off it goes again. This time on the back of a panther, Kilag’s panther to be exact, we’re taken down to the beach where we’re asked once more to risk our precious neck to aid in the retrieval of the orcs’ `precious carg´. This time we are to run straight through the Alliance camp, kill a gyrochopper pilot, steal the keys and fly over to the Alliance ship, there we’ll find and retrieve the precious cargo. To my relief I’m told we’ll have support, the battlesworn of the orcs will cover us; and they do! It was pretty awesome to run down into the Alliance camp and find most, if not all, of the Alliance soldier busy fighting against the orcs, it made it easy to sick-sack between them and target the pilot as well.

Off we go! Sadly we don’t get to fly it ourselves, at least not in the sense of us controlling the path, but it was a nice touch, if for nothing else than the comments of our own character as he approaches the piece of “overly-complicated gnomish engineering with lots of unnecessary instrumentation and safety precautions”. I guess that’s goblins for ya, hehe.

Landing on the ship we’re met by a few pathetic human sailors, that we take out with a few simple fireballs, and then head down below deck. Unsure of where to go next we had a look around, and seeing some blue glow from the captain’s quarters head there. We’re met by a big cage that is obviously of a magical nature, in it is… you guessed right! Warchief Thrall, our might leader. Though maybe it would be more appropriate with ex-warchief? Hmm, only time will tell, hehehe.

We open up the cage and only manage to exchange a few brief word with the warchief before he runs off, slightly confused we follow close on his heels to see what’s he’s up to. On deck he kills off any sailor foolish enough to come close (don’t mess with the Thrallminator) and climbs up on a few crates, now he’s ready to talk.

And then it happens, we're enveloped with wind and turn into a large whirlwind that flies up, crackling with electricity that we can shoot at any we please. Although we can’t control the fly path we get to massacre the sailors, most of whom, I can add, are either in the water or in rowboats, looking suspiciously much like they’re trying to get away…

After killing what must have near a hundred of them we finally land on the shore, the Alliance here have been dealt with as well and there’s not much to do but follow the path back up the mountain. There we meet with Sassy who tells us what the goblins have been up to while we saved Thrall (and according to themselves… themselves).

Foreman Dampwick built a rocket sling that’s supposed to throw us, one by one, over the strait separating the islands. And here I was thinking Kaja’mite was supposed to make you exceptionally intelligent, I guess it might take a while for the effects to really set in. At any rate, the foreman is apparently waiting for us on the other side, with a Town-In-A-Box he salvaged from the yacht wreck.

Before we before we commit what I assume is suicide we hear a scream, it’s Trade Prince Maldy. I haven’t mentioned it but throughout the entire game he’s been screaming at us, mostly threats and similar, this it’s a bit different though and he walks up to us.
So maybe it’s not that different after all, but at least he did reveal (some of) his plan! Maybe this is why Azshara is terraformed into a Horde symbol? That doesn’t’ make sense though, he seems to despise the orcs, now I’m more curious than ever of what happens in Cataclysm…

We shoot ourselves over the strait in a rocket, although it iscool it saddens me to discover that apart from looking at the rocket wrecks littered over the shore and the –giant- hammerhead shark swimming around in the water between the islands; there’s nothing else of interest here… yet.


I hope you guys enjoyed reading this, and am terribly sorry for the time it took to write it up! If you see any faults, have any questions or anything else… I’m here for ya!

http://i804.photobucket.com/albums/y...SDC10567-1.jpg
http://i804.photobucket.com/albums/y...r/SDC10587.jpg

__________________
~Your friendly dead-guy.

Oh, and I thought I'd add here...

If there's any trouble with the images post and they shall be fixed!

Also, if someone from Wow.com looks by, they should totally post a guide how one registers on that site, 'cuz it seems to either be an IQ test or plain impossible. You know, anyone who knows how it's done should make one, impossible to comment on their site otherwise!

__________________
~Your friendly dead-guy.

I am interested in all the "subraces" in your description. Ya, I said it.

__________________
"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious."
� George Orwell

*fapfapfap*

Awesome read. Thanks a lot, man.

Is it shorter than worgens'? I feel Gilneas was way more longer :S.

Anyway, nice to see the new roles of the characters. It's great. Also, I think male/female will have different roles, just because of some talk I read around there.

Thanks a lot again .

Agree xDDD.

__________________


Metzen: They are one of the ancient races of Northrend that we haven't spoken of before... because we hadn't made them up before. (laughter)

~Main: Expansion theorycrafting, Expansions list, The Age of Nightmare, Empire of the Tides (coming soon)~
~Fan ficton: Anachronos Journey: The Timeless Heir~ ~Geography of continents series: Old Kalimdor (original), Pandaria~
~Locations as zones series: Azjol-Nerub, Barrow Deeps, Zul'Aman, Demon Hunter zone, Caverns of Time~

Just as I thought.

Also, Maldy's actions explains the reported Goblin City in Azshara... probably

__________________

But, part of it doesn't make sense: wasn't the goblin city supposed to be your ally or something?

Perhaps, Maldy gets eventually forced to accept his new role, and quits lamming around. Let him meet the Horde's new leader, and his aspirations of world-domination will disappear when fear towards Garrosh replaces them.

And yeah, it seem Kezan suffered a bit from Cataclysm and Maldy created panic around, but it's probably safe, save but for some scar or two around Mount Kajaro.

We'll probably play around a part of Kezan and get involved in Maldy's tricks. I think instancing those 1-6 areas has been a good idea: not only protect and benefits the lower levels, but it also gives the opportunity of creating new unique storylines for individual characters.

I think they should make all the future race starting zones like these; I don't see them improving the others to this level, and I have no problem with it, save if Cataclysm brings enoughs changes for it to be worth doing. Time will tell, but I'd love seeing it applied to the draenei zone: start with the wreckage, and watch how new buildings are built.

Something like this would be nice for the future 1-6 zones: World of Warcraft new expansions list (shameless advertising ftw xDDD )

__________________


Metzen: They are one of the ancient races of Northrend that we haven't spoken of before... because we hadn't made them up before. (laughter)

~Main: Expansion theorycrafting, Expansions list, The Age of Nightmare, Empire of the Tides (coming soon)~
~Fan ficton: Anachronos Journey: The Timeless Heir~ ~Geography of continents series: Old Kalimdor (original), Pandaria~
~Locations as zones series: Azjol-Nerub, Barrow Deeps, Zul'Aman, Demon Hunter zone, Caverns of Time~

I think this goblin:

Is one of these girls:

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...tpanel_007.jpg

__________________
^Ignored again.

Okay. It is cool.

I'm sorry, but I don't get it.

@Chrise Hurr hurr, yeah, that also happens to be the <players> ex, she seems to have decided Trade Prince Maldy is the better (read; potentially richer) guy though.

Well, there's 3 times more words in this one, but maybe it simply flowed better, that wouldn't surprise me since here I took my time writing while with the Worgen one I wrote it in 20 minutes immedieatly after playing.

I honestly don't think this will happen, he seems cut out for a "nemesis" role for the players, I think he will be the Lich King of Azshara, hehe. It isn't impossible that we'll see Horde symbol Azhsara divided between the Horde and the "Maldy loyalists", it would go well with the theme of strife and fighting for survival that seems to go along with Cataclysm.

__________________
~Your friendly dead-guy.

I don't know, the worgen one, with the coast sunking and you interacting that lot with the people... I don't know, I feel it had more than goblins'. Perhaps because Gilneas has houses and whatever, so you feel like you're at a more populated place, while Lost Isles is more like the savage kind. Dunno.

Regarding quests, do you calculate they had the same numbers more or less?

It's called spam, don't try getting it -_-.

__________________


Metzen: They are one of the ancient races of Northrend that we haven't spoken of before... because we hadn't made them up before. (laughter)

~Main: Expansion theorycrafting, Expansions list, The Age of Nightmare, Empire of the Tides (coming soon)~
~Fan ficton: Anachronos Journey: The Timeless Heir~ ~Geography of continents series: Old Kalimdor (original), Pandaria~
~Locations as zones series: Azjol-Nerub, Barrow Deeps, Zul'Aman, Demon Hunter zone, Caverns of Time~

Oh! You meant the two demos or whatever we should call them, hehe, I thought you meant the actual text.

Yeah, I do think the Worgen one was more "developed" and it showed in that the phasing was utilized more there, I think the goblin one was older and was made for last Blizzcon, at the end you got a message about "having fun at Blizzcon" at least.

That said, I do think they had about the same number of quests, but that the Worgen ones were a bit more "interactive", such as the `throwing barrles at abominations' heads´. Not that the goblin quests lacked that, but there were more of that kind for the Worgen. It also meant they were worth more mention.

__________________
~Your friendly dead-guy.

Seems like you got much further than anyone else, most people's demos from around Blizzcon stopped around when you rescue Thrall, not mentioning the rocket slingshot at all. I myself didn't get any further than the part where you ride on a gyrocopter.



Also, for short Green chicks, Goblins are surprisingly hot. Seriously.

__________________

I'd tap it.

Makes me wish Blizz would seriously consider redoing all of the races' models. If they can make goblin women look like that, imagine what they could do with orcs.

__________________

I actually think orcs look fine, at least some of them. The issue for me comes down to the nose being so high above the mouth it looks jarring, and the lack of a real "skullcap" for the hair models making the hair look gangly.

If they redo the old models night elves totally need underwear made of leaves, like dryads

__________________

If theyre so attuned to nature they should go commando

__________________

Like we need more reasons for men to play as girls.

OMG, yet another awesomesauce review by Nostra!!!111one!oneone!!11one!1!!

This poses some serious questions though. Where was the Horde ship headed to? What was the Alliance ship's intentions when they openly attacked the Horde one? How do these pygmies look like (no screenies provided)? Do gobbos grow pubic hair? Is pie better than cake? Hmmm...

The pygmie used a gnome model wearing one of those wooden voodoo masks.

__________________

Ya. My friend plays as a girl. His excuse is the tried-and-tested 'If I'm gonna stare at an ass, it might as well be a girl's'. Maybe he has a point, but I tend to stare the head of my character (that might have something to do with me being a gnome)

I should make a list of what the old race's new underwear should be

__________________

I'm pretty sure it was already confirmed in an interview (forget which) that 1-6 involves Undermine. It was described, as I recall, as being a seedy, dirty city, with lots of Grand Theft Auto referances.

They should make a goblin boat a zone.

__________________
"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious."
� George Orwell

__________________

Really? Female goblins?

__________________
"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious."
� George Orwell