Sunstrider Isle to the Ghostlands

[MongoJerry]

THE ADVENTURES OF NERIAD: Sunstrider Isle

"First I'm a powerful Night Elf priestess," said Neriad. "Then I wake up one day as a lowly undead priestess and work my way back to being even more powerful than before. Now I'm a blood elf novice! What is going on?!?"


Woohoo! I finally got in the beta! Booo! I can't copy my level 60 priestess over to the beta. Woohoo! I can still check out the new starting zones!

In a way, I'm glad that I can't copy undead Neriad over to the beta, because it gave me the perfect excuse to scout out the new Blood Elf starting zone. It starts off much like any other starting zone in the game, but as I leveled up and especially when I crossed into the Ghostlands, I found that the Blood Elf starting zones blows every pre-expansion starting zone in the game away in terms of content, storyline, and riches.



Upon first appearing on Sunstrider Isle, the lowest level Blood Elf zone, Neriad found herself on a grassy slope near large towers, magical floating platforms, and large trees.



Dominating the view is the enormous Sunspire, a tower that supposedly overlooks the ruined Sunwell.



Like all starting areas, the first quest NPC waits for you in plain sight so that those new to the game know where to go first. In this case, the first quest NPC is Magistrix Erona who asks players to kill mana wyrms, who were once guardians of the nearby Burning Crystals. The Scourge's invasion of Quel'Thalas has made the mana wyrms go "errant" and out of the control of the blood elves. From a story line perspective, this is a nice touch. Right away, you're asked to deal directly with one of the consequences of the Scourge's invasion of Blood Elf lands.



The mana worms look like floating fish, and like starting mobs in other areas, they start off neutral (yellow) until you attack them. I had fun playing around with the Blood Elf racial abilities, Mana Tap and Arcane Torrent. I'll have more to say about them later.



Neriad killed the required eight mana wyrms, turned in the quest, and surprise surprise gained level 2 right away. If only the rest of the levels came that easily. She got the next quest, which was to kill some lynxes, and also another quest that encouraged Neriad to talk to the priest trainer inside the Sunspire. Neriad purchased the Fortitude spell from her and got another quest to go talk to Well Watcher Solanian. This is one of those quests that say, "Hey, newbie! Take a look upstairs!"



Inside the Sunspire, Neriad first spotted the magic brooms that can be found all around in the towers, houses, and pathways on the island. If they remind you of the magic brooms from Fantasia and the idea of out of control magic, you'll get the idea of why they're there. More than one person commented in general chat about how spooky the brooms were. To whomever at Blizzard came up with the idea of including the brooms, nice touch!



Well Watcher Solanian apparently keeps a vigil over the remains of the Sunwell and hasn't had time to collect his belongings, so he asked Neriad to collect them for him. Ah, the requisite "find things on the ground" introductory quest.



In addition, he asked Neriad to find the Shrine of Dath'Remar to the west and pay homage by reading its plaque. This sounded like it would be a simple task. Little did I know.