New Flavors of Azeroth Cookbook, New Leveling Route, Ghostcrawler Tweets

[Lumy]

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New Flavors of Azeroth: The Official Cookbook
New Flavors of Azeroth is a new official cooking book for World of Warcraft, in which Nomi shares regional recipes and techniques from Pandaria, the Broken Isles, and Shadowlands. Easy-to-follow dishes are included in each chapter, as well as tips on how not to burn your food (unlike Nomi). The book will come out on May 18, 2021 and you can preorder it now on Amazon.

Noted Pandaren chef Nomi is your guide through the culinary world of Azeroth in this follow-up to World of Warcraft: The Official Cookbook.

Journey through Azeroth and prepare to feast on new culinary delights inspired by this official-licensed World of Warcraft cookbook.

In this cookbook, Pandaren chef Nomi has collected the best recipes gathered during his travels and will instruct you in everything you need to know as you feast your way through Azeroth. As a young boy in Pandaria, Nomi answered the beckoning call of the Cooking School Bell and quickly grew into a promising chef. Through the years, this intrepid cook has traveled across Azeroth, learning countless regional recipes and techniques from Pandaria, the Broken Isles, and even the mysterious Shadowlands. Each chapter features easy-to-follow dishes, as well as numerous tips on how to not burn your food. Let culinary expert Nomi be your guide in World of Warcraft: New Flavors of Azeroth.

New Leveling Route
Harldan has released a guide for one the fastest 10-50 leveling routes in the Shadowlands Pre-Patch.

Ghostcrawler Tweets about his experience in the Shadowlands Pre-Patch
Former Blizzard employee Greg Street (Ghostcrawler) has been tweeting his experience lately after returning to play Word of Warcraft in the Shadowlands Pre-Patch.

Why He is Returning to Play

• I haven’t played WoW in about 6 years. Coming back today.
• Why am I coming back?
  
  • 1. Shadowlands looks great
  • 2. Friends demanding it
  • 3. FOMO
  • 4. Honestly I needed a clean break when I left Blizzard. I’ve compared it before to constantly checking on one’s ex. But enough time has passed now
• And to be clear, I am just coming back as a player and fan! I’m not working on the game. I am very happy at Riot.

Leveling a Retribution Paladin

• Some Ret paladin leveling experiences so far:
  
  • 1. Single target rotation is pretty fun now that I have a few talents
  • 2. Happy to see some of the abilities I worked on are still in the game
  • 3. Dungeon runs all AE but these are leveling dungeons on content everyone but me knows
  • 4. Haven’t done any PvP yet.
  • 5. I lost the quest thread in Drustvar. Either missed some bread crumbs or maybe a level squish bug? Either way I think I have to switch zones
  • 6. Boralus is pretty. Little complicated to navigate.
  • 7. Surprised at how quickly all the muscle memory came back for interrupts etc.
  • 8. Enemy models look great. I don’t notice the player model upgrade as much as I had anticipated. Camera angle / distance probably.
  • 9. Random upgrades to quest rewards is cool. I got epic shoulders.
  • 10. Exile’s Reach was great. Kudos. I worked for years on a good new player experience. Never landed it. I’ll have to try Horde version.
  • 11. I still screw up melee a lot in groups when I am clipping the mob and so technically out of range... or sometimes legit out of range.
  • 12. So many mounts! Someone needs to update the mammoth NPC lines.
  • 13. I’m missing healing in these dungeons. Guess I need a shield.
  • 14. I renewed for 6 months, so I guess I plan on sticking with it for awhile.
  • 15. I always kept my accounts secret. Still do on LoL. Part of me now wants to just friend whoever wants to chat, quest or do runs. I’ll have to think about that.

Leveling

• More WoW on the paladin:
  
  • 1. Leveling is insanely fast, like maybe too fast. I barely get into a new rotation before I get another ability. It’s clear I am going to hit max level before I ever finish the BofA main story line.
    
    • 1. (Cont.) This always bummed me out when I was on WoW. Ideally you want people to skip over the middle of a story, not leave before the end
  • 2. I had no idea Transmog had become such a... thing. It was a small feature I worked in with the UI team. My baby done all growed up.
  • 3. All of the rare spawns and chests are fun. They break up the mentality of beelining to the next quest objective. Azeroth is s beautiful place so I am all for things that get you to explore it more.
  • 4. I love finding vignettes that seemingly have nothing to do with questing like the crab fighting (yes!) area in Drustvar. In my day, level designers would just add these for fun.
    
    • 4. (cont.) Sometimes it was a new hire or intern learning the process in an area where they wouldn’t break anything. I always wonder what the stories are for these locations.

Leveling a Warrior in Pandaria

• More WoW:
  
  • Made a warrior to relive Pandaria. Some thoughts for those interested:
    
    • 1) Fixing the weird time streams with Chromie is something we wanted to do for years. Glad the team finally tackled it and using that for alternate leveling experiences was clever.
    • 2) MoP Alliance used to begin with the shipwreck quest, which felt really un-epic. The whole Horde battle was added pretty last minute. My memory is a little fuzzy on all this though.
    • 3) Holy crap, Jade Forest is still gorgeous.
    • 4) Went Fury. Traditionally that was a mistake at low levels. Oh no, I am being sub optimal! Maybe.
    • 5) I am guessing Charge merged with Intercept? Seems like a fine change.
    • 6) Enrage still has its ancient black and red spell effect.
    • 7) I like the evolution of the talents. Some old faves in there with some updated mechanics. Naming warrior talents was always fun.
    • 8) I don’t need all the healing mechanics we added for warriors to help with leveling. Maybe 50-60 I will?
    • 9) The joys of making sure I have two weapons. I knew what I was getting into with dual-wield. Chose TG for aesthetic reasons.
    • 10) Wild Strike gone but Raging Blow still around. Maybe Slam is filling the nice now that weird cast is gone.
    • 11) Kind of wish we had just made an Asian themed continent with Pandaren in it instead of branding the whole expansion around Pandaren.
    • 12) We added mogu pretty late because we didn’t have enough bad guys. You can only butcher so many monkeys and sha.
  • PS Someone pointed out I made a confusing tweet about the mammoth mount. I meant the *yak* mount with the grummle NPCs. I wrote a lot of those lines and now forget what some of them referred to. “Epic yak mount” was one of the first art tasks I entered for this expansion

[SinR]

just a touch under 6hr for 10-50.

Nice.

Wonder what the breakdown would be for Alliance? wonder if that 25% XP bonus makes up for Vulpera Racials

[Bane-Thunder-God]

I think its great that the levelling experience isnt long, this is important for the welfare of new/returning players.

Interesting to see Ghostcrawlers experience, I think all in all blizzard has been nailing it with the decisions for new player experience and everything going into Shadowlands.

I'm definitely excited for the expansion just wished it wasnt delayed but oh well I can wait. I've tested the covenants for my main on beta and im so ready.

[Armakus]

Always awesome to see this type of insight from someone who worked on the game. Really hope we get to see more content like this!

[TheLucky1]

Always interesting to read stuff/thoughts from GC, that guy is a cornerstone for multiplayer games.
(Inb4 angry nerds that won't ever even get a percentile of his success in their life.)

[minkage]

God I miss reading Ghostcrawlers interactions with the community and its such a shame blizzard abandoned this type of discourse.

[Varitok]

God I miss reading Ghostcrawlers interactions with the community and its such a shame blizzard abandoned this type of discourse.

He would respond to me at like 10pm with a tweet to explain a position or correct misinformation in a nice tone. The guy was so interactive with the community that it was crazy. He never once got confrontational from what I saw.

[LemonDemonGirl]

Hmm... no RL food recipes from Kul Tiras and Zandalar? Guess I'm not having Bwonsamdi-style burgers then lol

[Kathranis]

I think its great that the levelling experience isnt long, this is important for the welfare of new/returning players.

Interesting to see Ghostcrawlers experience, I think all in all blizzard has been nailing it with the decisions for new player experience and everything going into Shadowlands.

I'm definitely excited for the expansion just wished it wasnt delayed but oh well I can wait. I've tested the covenants for my main on beta and im so ready.

I think they could still do with tweaking each Timewalking Campaign to actually give you the full experience of the expansion, through the patch content and even the raids (perhaps via soloable scenario versions) that cleanly carry you from 10-50. Even if it means cutting some stuff and bridging it together with new breadcrumbs and whatnot.

Obviously that'd be a bit of an undertaking so I can understand why they didn't go that route, but it would help make everything feel more comprehensive.

You do lose out on the feeling of a long, epic adventure that spans multiple expansions, but by the same token, they have Classic now. If you want the original experience, you'll have it gradually rolled out as they progress Classic into BC and beyond, and hopefully they keep that progression constantly rolling with new onramps into the original 1-60 experience whenever they release a new Classic expansion.

Timewalking and faster leveling benefits a lot of players, and it encourages creating alts which should dramatically increase engagement and help maintain longevity for the game. The more characters you can realistically level up and try out, the more likely you are to find the right fit for your playstyle, and the more long term content it opens up in terms of transmog farming and other tasks, if you enjoy that stuff.

[Smeller]

Noted Pandaren chef Nomi is your guide through the culinary world of Azeroth in this follow-up to World of Warcraft: The Official Cookbook.

So we are burning stuff? I don't need a cookbook for that.

[Dalheim]

So we are burning stuff? I don't need a cookbook for that.

Well, this book contains his secret to how he keeps screwing up!

[DesoPL]

There is still people who cares, what Ghostcrawler have to say about WoW, even if he work for like allmost decade in Riot? Really? Dissapointing.

[Jastall]

God I miss reading Ghostcrawlers interactions with the community and its such a shame blizzard abandoned this type of discourse.

Probably because many people hated him and blamed everything they didn't like on him back then just like they do with Ion now and will do with the next person who takes upon the unfortunate mantle of sustained the vitriol of the bad part of this game's community.

People claim they like candid communication until it involves hearing things they don't want to hear.

[TheRevenantHero]

Of all the things he's ridiculously criticized in the past, it absolutely boggles my mind to see Ghostcrawler say he thinks Shadowlands looks great. This 100% cements with me that his opinions should be completely disregarded at all times.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Well, now that it's been 6 years maybe GC can enjoy the typical retroactive love that's simply not available to employees working on the game. People are so fickle.
I liked GC, before he stopped working on the game. Still do, although as someone NOT having been away from the game for the past 6 years, I am 100% enjoying the new leveling and its length.

[trapmaster]

The leveling is great but boa gears meh, throw them out.

[McNeil]

Ah, good old Ghostcrawler tweets. They used to post them all the time even long after he was working on the game. People sure miss him now.

[dunkl]

Hmm... no RL food recipes from Kul Tiras and Zandalar? Guess I'm not having Bwonsamdi-style burgers then lol

I'd think kul'tiras alone could have it's own cookbook, with all the yummy seafoods. I'm not sure of the style of the zandalari, it seems a mix between south american, islander, maybe jamaican (or is that darkspear), dinosaur lol, maybe spicy stuff and tropical fruits

[Chromell]

Of all the things he's ridiculously criticized in the past, it absolutely boggles my mind to see Ghostcrawler say he thinks Shadowlands looks great. This 100% cements with me that his opinions should be completely disregarded at all times.

What if he meant it as it looks great aesthetically?

[Armourboy]

Of all the things he's ridiculously criticized in the past, it absolutely boggles my mind to see Ghostcrawler say he thinks Shadowlands looks great. This 100% cements with me that his opinions should be completely disregarded at all times.

I think he is looking at it like many of us are, the story has the potential to be great and interesting, and believe it or not is pulling some people back in. I've come back after a year break, my wife even longer. We had an old guild mate return for the first time since Wrath.

Yeah some of the systems look iffy, and the story has a chance to get weird and off the rails quickly, but it at least has potential there.

I've never fully agreed with Ghostcrawler, especially when I was going back and forth with him several times on healing changes in Cata, but he isn't always wrong either.