Today is a very introspective day, as far as topics are concerned. (I would of posted it yesterday, but I was busy playing with my new figures (1/8 GSC Hanekawa Tsubasa, and Nendoroid Makise Kurisu) and freaking out because of a thunderstorm)
(Note: I plan to grab some screenshots for this a bit later, but I figured I should post in now anyway)
We have “Things You Miss (post Cata)” and “Your Favorite Spot (in or outside of game)”.
Obviously, the first choice for things I miss and my favorite spot is my favorite spot I miss. Duh. I really miss being able to go hide at the lighthouse in Quel’thalas. It was a nice, relaxing place, that was a bitch to get to. Nowdays, there is a big invisible wall stopping you from getting up there.
That being said, I miss a lot of things in the post-Cataclysm Azeroth. Every zone that’s changed, I miss at least a little bit. Of particular note is Azshara, which has been thrown to the wolves goblins, and is considerably less cool than it used to be.
I miss the old leveling flow, just because I knew it so well. I miss being able to skip quests in zones… there are a lot of things I “miss”.
Anywho, lets get onto the more fun topic of favorite places.
I -really- like Crystalsong. Such a pretty, pretty zone, and so very, very unused. Actually, I like a lot of the Northrend zones. They are, for the most part, very pretty. It’s sad that the least pretty zones are the ones where players spent the most time (Icecrown, Dragonblight, and to a lesser degree Storm Peaks and Wintergrasp).
Another obvious choice in WoW is Nagrand. Everyone loves Nagrand. So pretty, good quests, and home to the best mounts in the game (Talbuks, everyone loves Talbuks), of all time. Ever. Even Rift’s cool mechanical horses aren’t as cool as Talbuks.
Other good zones from Burning Crusade are Netherstorm (It’s purple, and in space, what more could you want?) and Eversong Woods (so pretty, so very very autumnal and pretty).
Cataclysm has pretty boring new zones, really. Hyjal is okay but not super pretty, Vash’jir is pretty but just a horrible zone, Deepholm is somehow even more lame than Vash, Uldum has great quests but is basically just a big desert, and Twilight Highlands is infested by nightmare fuel (the rest of it’s pretty nice though).
I guess Cata did have Kezan, but you’d struggle to spend an hour there, really.
Let’s move on to other games. Rift is an easy choice, because I’ve been playing more of it than I’d care to admit. Rift has zones that run the gambit between boring and less-boring, but it does have some very pretty vistas. Mainly because you can walk almost everywhere. The world feels much more… complete, than the Zones of WoW at most times. Mainly because mountain climbing is not only completely valid, but it is encouraged, with all of the Cairns at stupid high places, for instance.
While I’ve not been to every zone in Telara yet (Not been to the 46-50 zones yet), I can say that the zones that are probably the nicest are firstly, the Lake Of Solace (which is a bit of a silly answer, as it is just a big lake, with nothing much in it), and then Moonshade Highlands (which I always want to refer to as “Moonshae” for some reason), which is geographically pretty simple, but is a pretty nice zone. Iron Pine Peak is nice too, but ‘SNOW EVERYWHERE’ in a huge ass zone is a bit tiring after a while.
There are a lot of very pretty games, and I’m much too lazy to think of and/or name them all. The only other really good game I’ve been playing much of recently is Minecraft (1.8 worlds are super pretty), and it’s not like I can specifically be like “that area is cool” in a game that is all procedurally generated.
Next Time: FFFFF-Fashion?
