The new stuff picks up south of Echad Eregion. This will be a happier post. You may have noticed that the last two posts showed severe underwhelmedness, which is like a word. Seeing new things is whelming, which actually is a word, even if none of the definitions are quite what I am looking for. Maybe I should have gone with “neat” or “novel.” Oh well, too late now. The previous posts had two points. One is to chronicle: humans tend to remember the extreme events and think of them as typical, forgetting conflicting evidence or whether they really were happy/sad for most of the moments. Going through those moments provides point two, which I will let Yeebo explain:
I’m not really sure what Turbine was thinking with the lead in to the mines. You show up at the north end of a new zone, and it’s not even remotely obvious that the best thing to do is run ahead. I guess they figured everyone would see Moria on the map and head straight there (that’s what I did).
In southern Eregion, the landscape changes. The scrub plain looks a bit like the Lone Lands, adding large furrows of dried-up rivers. The ruin architecture also feels different, although I do not study ruins enough to speak intelligently there. It is not like walking into one of WoW’s zones with an entirely different color palette, but it was striking enough for me to notice as a very non-visual person. Around Mirobel is where it really kicked in: enemies above level 50, a new monster type, legendary items, and all that jazz. Continue reading Mines of Moriaâ„¢ Day 3: At the Gates