Cataclysm Zone Questline: Darkshore (Spoilers)

[Leopold]

Hello everyone, seeing as there hasn't been brought much attention to this zone on the forums yet I figured I could do it. I'll also pay some attention to new lore added to this zone and such. So sit back and enjoy the reading. (Seeing as my computer is too unstable to actually provide video walkthroughs I decided to work through word and picture)
Map of Darkshore in Cata:

You start out in Lor'Danel which is a refugee town filled with survivors of Auberdine, however, not everyone who survived is here and your first quest involving finding more survivors. It turns out that there's some difficulties with water elementals rampaging upon fleeing survivors and you are also tasked to kill some of these elementals while you're out looking for survivors.
Blizzard also did a nice (or annoying) thing which has a big blue arrow point at the survivors.





Right, so apperently the elements poisoned the found survivors and makes it harder to heal their wounds, luckily this priestess thinks she can make a salve to counter the effects.. of course you need to do all the gathering work! In the meanwhile a gnome here also seems to be investigating corrupted animals and wants you to gather samples.



While you were out gathering clams, they moved the wounded to the inn.Then I placed the samples into Buzzbox 413 and the gnomes believes that the crabs may have eaten some kind of infected meat, sending you out to search the beach for a dead bear.

So now the gnome knows that the crabs have gotten infected from the bears... but what did the bears get infected from? This investigation requires mores samples!


After studying the samples it turns out that they've been eating Duskrats and our Gnomish friend knows only one place where those rats live, he even believes some person has infected the rats but he needs ichor from the cave to be sure.

When you arrive at the cave you can find the night elf friend of the gnome and it turns out Zenn Foulhoof ( the Satryr who asked you to gather body parts of animals back in vanilla in the level 1-10 zone for Night Elves) is behind the corruption and you are tasked to slay him.


While in the cave killing the demons you find a quest giving key which makes you free a bunch of uncorrupted animals from their cages.It turns out you're not the onlyone interested in this corruption, as you search through the cave you also find a Forsaken Apothecary brewing something up and you decide to take his research notes to Lor'Danel. I returned to Lor'Danel, hoping I would be given a bit of rest but a hero (even though it's a gnome) never has a moment of rest!


A sentinel asks you to bring the ghosts of Bashal'Aran at peace by putting out a Bazier, I also recieved two other quests which were already there in vanilla named "A lost companion" and "A love eternal"




Upon arriving at Bashal'Aran, another sentinel tasks you with killing some lost highborn spirits.


The quest "A lost companion" did take another turn in Cataclysm. The dryad and son of cenarius sends you out to gather yet another bunch of natural reagents to save Grimclaw but also you must take out a group of naga who settled after the cataclysm.


After delivering all the reagents and dealing with the naga the son of cenarius intends to put you through a ritual in an attempt to discover what troubles the forest spirits. I could only choose one of the three animals and I chose the stag. Apperently after finishing it, the quest gave me a nice little buff which made me 10% faster with the spirit of the Stag. While I was away he took care of Grimclaw which moved back to Lor'Danel so I decided to move back too.



Upon arriving back you find out that the salve didn't have much effect on the elemental toxins and a group of other survivors died. Atleast Grimclaw is reunited with his friend and Cerellean with his love. As if things couldn't get worse, it turns out that there's been several sentinels to the north attacked by a tribe of trolls. You must report to a lieutenant who leads the counter attack. You also find a dwarf who seems rather interested in reclaiming items from shipwrecks, the only problem are the murlocs.. I feel bad for actually helping this scavenger but the idea of butchering murlocs managed to get past that feeling.




The sentinels believe that by taking out the trolls their labour force they'll eventually win the battle and while you're at it you have to find Highborne relics scattered across the ruins.



During my killing spree I came across an overseer who carried some written orders, I'll be sure to deliver them to the sentinels once I've left not a single troll laborer alive!

After destroying their laborers, saving old relics and delivering orders, it's time for the next step. You are tasked to enter their war camp, slay as many soldiers as you can see. Burn all their supplies and finally locate the Night Elf prisoners.



In the meanwhile while in their camp I decided to take a picture of this working pitt where the laborers under the watchfull eye of Horde soldiers gather rocks to use for their catapults, apperently they were planning to use the stones from ruined Highborne temples aswell.



You discover it's too late for the Night Elf prisoners, though one starving elf's last wish it that you kill the torturer who killed almost everyone.




After killing this crazy troll you free the only surivor and escort her out of the war camp, once finished she reveals you a secret about the leader of this operation.




With this new information you gained from the prisoner there is another issue, taking care of this magic. You are sent out to gather magical amulets to the west and in the meanwhile take down Horde military officers to make sure when we kill the leader nobody else will replace him. Sadly from here the quests appear to be bugged so I'll continue once it's fixed. From what I have expierenced at the moment this zone has been improved a lot compared to back in Vanilla and I'm sure once the quest is fixed I'll be even more pleased.

[Ravasha]

Looks nice and takes less time than those videos.

Thank you!

[Leopold]

I'll do be best to continue as soon as possible.

[Kryn]

Nice to see how they kept and reworked a few of the older quests that used to be available in vanilla Darkshore.

[Magtheridon]

is that weapon your gnome is using new?

[TheDangerZone]

woot! thank you so much for this, as said before, it take lass than the videos, also is easier to read the quest text.

Keep the good work!!

[Leopold]

is that weapon your gnome is using new?

The axe is called Power Of The Mountain Giant and it's a reward for ending the quests in Feralas. Wether it's new or a reused model, I don't know.

[highway55]

The zone has been much improved. Unfortunately this only points to how bad the zone was prior. Westfall, Silverpine, Azshara all trounce this zone. I have yet to test Northern barrens or Loch modan, but this zone truly comes up short in comparison to the first group mentioned.

The transition from Gilneas to Darkshore is horrendous. I just know there is no possible way Blizzard is done with it. After defending your city and epically crashing a zeppelin into the front lines, you appear at Darkshore to collect clams and release poisonous bears. The other issue is that new players will unknowingly start the wrong chain of quests in Darkshore (those aimed for level 10's) and not the quests in the South appropriate for level 12's.

I understand the common response of "they needed to balance 10-20 zones," but a new player to WoW, which the goblin and worgen zones are clearly catered to, could easily be turned off because of the drastic change in questing a Worgen player sees here. Older players will experience the "cliff" in worgen lore as they step into Darkshore. I could see a huge amount of veterans stopping at level 12 (20 for goblins) because they wanted to experience the story and zones. Eight more levels of Worgen lore would be nice.

[Leopold]

Right, I decided to make a minor update with the quests that do work. In this tiny bit of text I'll be dealing with "On the brink", "An ocean not so deep" and "The looting of Althalaxx" sadly "Strategic Strikes" cannot be finished due to the bug.





I started out killing their shamans in the hope to obtain their magical amulets which we could use to destroy the magical protective ward who protects the troll in charge of this whole operation.




Afterwards I took a slight turn south towards the tower of Althalaxx where I found a bunch of Forsaken looting the place for anything usefull, luckily I was there to put a halt to it!
As I wandered up the stairs I heard the Forsaken in charge yell "I said, SEARCH the bodies BEFORE you eat them!"




With the Forsaken slain and the Troll leader's officers yet being bugged I deciced to deal with the Murlocs which the Dwarf wanted me to deal with. Apperently the gnome is very eager to have you blast the Murlocs out of the ship.. well aslong as the job pays, I can't complain.



So you send the little suicide robot into the water, have him yell thing about how he'll steal then treasure and then bang.



I informed the dwarf of my succes and I end for now with a picture of Lor'Danel.



@t Highway55: I agree with you, even though this place is nicely redone I would really love to see a level 12-20 zone for the Worgen.

[Deleted]

Awesome mate, nicely done

[Leopold]

Thanks for all the positive commenting, I also intend to do Ashenvale once I'm finished with this.

[TheDangerZone]

Thanks for all the positive commenting, I also intend to do Ashenvale once I'm finished with this.

That would be amazing! thanks for the effort! you're awesomesisimo!