By the time someone reaches Twilight Highlands, they’ve gone through quite a bit of stuff. At the minimum, that person would have completed or at least done part of the zones of Hyjal or Vashj’ir, Deepholm, and possibly Uldum. At this point there is a lot of expectations to live up to, since we’ve seen the new questing and zone design philosophies that Blizzard has implemented in full force. When you’re in Twilight Highlands, you expect to have the best of the best – and Blizzard delivers.
(As always, this is from a Horde point of view, and will contain spoilers)
The lead-up quests to going into Twilight Highlands were really the only part that I didn’t like. Going to the gate in Azshara to inspect the gear that will go with you into the attack and then collecting the gear in Bilgewater Harbour was a little bit boring. I understand that the intent was to show that it’s a big effort and that you have an effect on the big attack. It doesn’t just appear out of thin air. Once you step on the zeppelin and head out towards the zone is when it gets fun.
You are on a zeppelin with a fleet of others, along with small fighters to provide escort towards the landing site by Dragonmaw Port. Along the way the fleet gets attacked by Twilight dragons, and Garrosh (strangely enough by himself on his own zeppelin) and his zeppelin go down, and you follow shortly after. The only “friendly” people in the zone for you are the Dragonmaw, which are under the rule of someone who isn’t too fond of giving up his power over the clan. He styles himself Warchief of the Dragonmaw, so being the patriotic Horde member you are, you decide to help lead a revolt that brings the death of the impostor and the promotion of Zaela – the new leader of the Dragonmaw. She is quite a bit more reasonable and is more than willing to help the Horde combat the Twilight’s Hammer in the Highlands.
Throughout the zone, it’s a constant battle: Horde vs Alliance, Horde & red dragons vs Twilight people, Deathwing vs Alexstrasza, lots of fun stuff. Very quickly about each part:
- Horde vs Alliance: I like the tensions in the zone. Everyone knows that the major enemy is Deathwing and Twilight’s Hammer, but the temptation to strike a major blow at the Alliance is just too much to pass up. The zeppelin gunship battle against the Alliance base was great, along with attacking the Dwarf camp. The dailies are a little annoying, but that’s to be expected with daily quests.
Horde & red dragons vs Twilight people: the major plotline of the entire zone. Starting with the Dragonmaw joining the Horde and ending with an assault on the Twilight base camp along the side of Garona Halforcen, it’s a lot of very fun quests. The Isorath questline where you battle inside the stomach of a big “thing” is really neat, especially seeing Deathwing attack people at the Maelstrom and not knowing it isn’t real until the end.
- Deathwing vs Alextrasza: best cinematic of all quests that I’ve seen so far. Seeing the two of them battle, then following them to attack the smaller drakes was a great sense of accomplishment. I took a great many screenshots, a version of the one above is my current desktop background right now. I really can’t wait to see what the Deathwing raid encounter will look like.
All in all, the zone was incredibly well done. A very fitting end to the questing chain through the Cataclysm zones, and really making me want more storyline through the raids that will eventually be added through future patches. Now, all that stands between me and Loremaster of Cataclysm is Hyjal.
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