Memories of TBC - Episode 4: Through the Dark Portal

Hey dudes - Silvite Soltis here and today I'm back with the next installment of Memories of TBC: my reflective series of my Burning Crusade adventures.

Last time, I told the story of how I met Thrillseeker - one of my longest in-game friends to date. And though that was one of my fondest WoW memories from 2007, it did take place on Azeroth, and not really in Burning Crusade content. Well today, we're finally ready to step through the Dark Portal and enter the fantastical realm of Outland. I hope you enjoy! If you do, then add yourself to my mailing list below, and leave a comment letting me know what memories you have from back in the day. I'd love to hear your stories as well!

So, sit back, relax and enjoy as I recount my first true Burning Crusade experience...

Memories of TBC
Episode 4: Through the Dark Portal

It was sometime around the early summer of 2007. As usual, the exact date eludes me, but since I was comfortably seated at my final host family's coffee table in Gifu, Japan, I'm sure it was probably around June. My study abroad was winding down at that point and though I was sad to be leaving the country that I'd come to love so much, I was also excited to get my hands on my own copy of The Burning Crusade when I got home.

TBC Free Trial (Advertisement)

Well, as fate would have it, I didn't need to wait - at least not for a taste. You see, Blizzard implemented a free trial of The Burning Crusade to players who hadn't upgraded their accounts by that point. After hearing this news from Leika, I exploded with excitement. Even though it would only be for ten days (and I wouldn't be able to actually level up), I would finally be able to see what was beyond the dark portal for myself!

So on that hot summer day, I fired up the family laptop, activated the free trial, and logged onto my priest to begin my Outland journey. As usual, Silvite was parked in Ironforge, so I had to wait for the long flight down south to Nethergarde Keep, but that only increased the excitement welling up within me. By the time the gryphon had landed, I was quite literally trembling. I mounted my Stormsaber, which I was still mighty proud of attaining as a human mind you, and I headed south toward where the Dark Portal stood.

The Dark Portal (Blasted Lands)

By this point in TBC, the crater was completely deserted. Everyone who was interested in the expansion had come and passed through months ago, but that allowed me to take in everything that was there - the NPCs standing around outside, the two massive statues that I'd seen on the loading screen so many times over the past two years, and of course the massive green swirly portal that beckoned me toward it. Finally, I decided it was time, and I charged forward.

Hellfire Peninsula

After a full minute or so stuck on the loading screen, I found myself on the Stair of Destiny facing an alien world. And while I'm sure many people's first memories of Outland are of the massive army fighting the pit lord's forces at the base of the portal, mine was the sky. The glowing green lights and many celestial orbs high above the zone absolutely enthralled me - especially when I looked down to see the barren, hellish wasteland that was Hellfire Peninsula. Running forward down the first portion of the steps, I found the first quest giver for the zone.

"Take the flight to Honor Hold!" he told me.

"Well alright. I guess I'm heading to Honor Hold." I thought to myself as I hopped on the gryphon he provided. Over the wasteland Silvite flew and again, I took in all the sights I could. There was a road running along the middle of the zone, as well as swarms of elite demons on the ground below. I looked up at the sky again, amazed by its appearance. Why was this world so different from Azeroth? And why exactly were we here? I didn't have the faintest clue about the lore of Outland, but I was ready to find out.

But, one thing at a time! To start, I had some quests to do. Upon landing in Honor Hold, I set about exploring - finding the inn and setting my hearthstone there, running to the top of the keep, and checking out the towers on the outskirts of town. At this point in my adventure, all of the quests and events start to blur together into a mass of Hellfire Peninsula, so I'm not 100% sure of exactly how each bit went over that few days of the trial. Still, there is one quest that I do remember vividly - the gathering quest Waste Not, Want Not.

Tagar Spinebreaker

The general premise of this quest was, and still is, very simple: go gather some wood and metal in the area just north of Honor Hold. However, as I was still a noob even at level 60, this quest took me far longer than I would like to admit. You see, there were lots of fel orcs spread throughout this area that liked to wander back and forth around the edge of the cliff. The casters and normal orcs weren't too difficult on their own, but more than once I was caught off guard by one of the wolf riders wandering nearby. To make matters worse, there was also a level 61 elite patrol, Tagar Spinebreaker, who snuck up on me more than once when I got too far to the left.

The worst part about doing this quest, however, was actually finding the metal and wood. Having taken nearly a year to level to 60 back in Vanilla, I was no stranger to item collection quests, but on the family laptop I was using at the time, I had a very hard time distinguishing what objects were metals for the quest, or part of the broken-down catapults that I couldn't click on. Combine this with the numerous fel orcs swarming the area and my own incompetence as a player back then, and you can see how this quest gave me so much trouble.

Eventually, after probably a full hour of killing orcs and clicking on scenery, I finished that quest and headed back toward Honor Hold to turn it in. And while the reward options weren't useful to me as a priest, I felt great that my adventure in Outland had finally begun...


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I hope you enjoyed this brief story about my first proper Burning Crusade experience. I had many more adventures during that 10 day expansion trial, but since I stopped questing in Hellfire when my experience capped (1 away from leveling up to 61), I'm not really sure where I finally finished. Still, it was fun for sure, and I was really happy to finally step into that crazy outer-space realm. And now more than ever, I'm super-stoked to do it all again when Classic TBC is out!

But anyway, that's it for today. If you enjoyed this post, let me know by leaving a comment down below! Also, consider adding yourself to my mailing list so you don't miss out on more stories like this in the future. Follow me over on Twitter for updates as well, and consider checking out my YouTube channel if you enjoy video content too! Thanks for reading, have an amazing day, and as always...

Take it easy!

Memories of TBC - Episode 3: The Friendly Hunter

New Friend?

Hey dudes - Silvite Soltis here. And today, I have another installment of Memories of TBC for you all to enjoy.

As I'm sure we all know from watching seven seasons of My Little Pony - friendship is magic. So today, that's what I'm going to be talking about - the story of how I met one of my longest in-game friends in World of Warcraft. As far as I'm aware, this is the final big event that I experienced before finally being able to step through the Dark Portal, although at this point, the lines are quite blurry, so it might have actually happened slightly after my first adventures in Outland on my priest. Either way, it's a memory that I cherish from out in the open world of Kalimdor from back in the day, so here it is.

Before getting into the story, though, I'd just like to take the time to day thanks for coming to read it. If you enjoy it, feel free to add yourself to my mailing list below, so you can get updates when I release new content like this in the future. There's a lot more coming as we head toward Classic TBC, so let's keep the hype train going!

But anyway, with that out of the way, let's get right into the story...

Memories of TBC
Episode 3: The Friendly Hunter

It was a hot and humid May day back in 2007. I'd recently come home from a Saturday morning kendo practice at school to my newest, and final, host family's house, and I wanted to relax a bit through the afternoon. My host parents were still busy with work and errands until the evening, so I had free range of the house. And you know what that means - World of Warcraft on the family laptop!

I sat down at the short coffee table in the small living room of the house, just in front of the couch. Firing up the laptop (which was leaps and bounds ahead of the ancient technology that my previous host families had tried to pass off as computers, by the way), I eagerly wondered what I should do today - take my priest around to farm gold, level my tauren druid through the mid-20s, or continue the grind on my favorite alt - Aoyamamotoko.

I chose the third option, and swiftly logged onto my purple elf lady to go continue a quest chain that I'd started a few days prior in Felwood. Though I'd hearthed back to Darnassus to gain that sweet sweet rested XP in my previous play session, I was soon back in that creepy forest and began making my way down to the middle of the zone - to an area called Jaedenar.

Jaedenar

I don't recall the specific details of the quests over here to be honest, but the general gist of it was that I had to kill a bunch of these cultists in and around the cave, then light some braziers. Easy work, I thought. But as I made my way toward that cave, I realized that this was not going to be so easy. See, there are a bunch of mobs packed in fairly close proximity in this general area. And while I should've learned how to pull mobs back to a safe distance by this point, being a warrior and all, I didn't.

These guys are no joke in large numbers

I charged toward a cultist, since that's what warriors do. However, there was a caster just a bit too close to it.  By the time I'd finished the first mob, I was at around 40% health. All of a sudden, ANOTHER cultist was on top of me - a patrol perhaps, or maybe just a random mob that I hadn't seen when I'd charged in head first.

"Oh crap," I thought, "I'm gonna die..."














I popped Retaliation, thinking that it might somehow save me from the shadowbolts that were coming at me like machine gun fire. But just as I was about to die, something else flew past me - a flurry of arrows and a giant cat! And man, that kitty looked pissed!

Regaining my composure, I clicked on the only health potion that I had left, which I'd somehow forgotten I had until that point. I looked around while smashing Mortal Strike on the closest mob and discovered just who my savior had been - a male night elf hunter by the name of Thrillseeker. Well...he'd certainly lived up to his name with this pack, that's for sure.

I thanked him for helping me as my warrior ate some random food that I'd had stored in my bags. Then, I asked whether he was doing the same quest chain I was, to which he nodded.

"Wanna group up then?"

"Sure!"

Male Night Elf Hunter

Thrillseeker and I spent about an hour in that cave that afternoon - killing cultists, lighting braziers, and even escorting that one night elf out of the cave to safety.  We died a couple of times toward the end of the quest chain, but had a blast throughout it all. While we fought, we chitchatted about why were were both playing at like 2AM server time. It turns out that he lived in California and typically played late after work, while I was in Japan on a study abroad and played when I could log on. He'd only just recently started playing the game and was on his first character, whereas I was considered a veteran by this point (despite still being a terrible nooby clicker). All in all, it was a friendly exchange and a nice change of pace from the solo experience I'd grown accustomed to over the past few months playing in the dead of Azeroth's night.

By the time we'd wrapped everything up in Felwood, we'd added each other to our friends list and agreed to do a dungeon or some more questing together at some point. At the time, I remember feeling like that would be it - that we'd just part ways and never group up again. Little did I know we'd interact much, much more over the years to come...

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I hope you enjoyed this short story of friendship in the big wide World of Warcraft. Thrillseeker and I continued to quest and dungeon together on and off throughout the Burning Crusade leveling experience, which was obviously a lot of fun. Eventually, around the end of July when I got my priest up to level 70, I left the guild I'd been with for most of Vanilla - the Guardians of Azeroth - and joined his guild - Reservoir Dogcows of Whisperwind. This guild ended up being my home for most of the Burning Crusade, and you can still see some old raiding videos of our adventures together there over on my YouTube channel even to this day. But if it hadn't been for that one fateful day in Felwood on my warrior, I might never have found that guild. And so, many of the stories to come in this particular series would have turned out very differently.

So, thanks Thrillseeker - whether you know it or not, I owe a lot of my WoW experiences from 2007 onward to you. Thanks for saving my ass in Felwood that day!

Anyway though, that's it for today. If you enjoyed this story and would like to hear about more of my adventures from The Burning Crusade back in the day, then follow me over on Twitter, or add yourself to my mailing list below so you can get updates when new content is released. Also, consider checking out my videos over on YouTube, as all my posts get made into videos shortly after they're written here. In any case, thanks for reading, have an awesome day, and I'll catch you next time.

Take it easy!