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The Mysterious Draw of the Dragonblight

wowscrnshot_051509_223314 In the past few weeks here at Project Lore, we've had the pleasure of watching the crew battle their way through Naxxramas, until finally reaching the powerful "Kel' Thud." And while they've been busy up in the necropolis in the sky, I've also been busy leveling down below in Dragonblight.

This zone has got to be one of my favorites in the game. The fantasy elements of WoW are a big draw for me, so a zone dedicated to the lore around dragons sucked me in.

The valley wasteland known as the Great Dragonblight is a somewhat mysterious land littered with the corpses of all different kinds of dragons who have come for their final rest. But the Lich King and his Scourge legions have found use in the remaining skeletons, many which have been reanimated into undead frost wyrms such as the tragic Sindragosa and the very Sapphiron who now resides within Naxx.

wowscrnshot_051509_224416As for quests, the Dragonblight's offerings range from level 72 to 75 in the long grind to level 80, with a good few group quests, some giant elites to battle in the north and also several dailies.

Both factions can pick up some sizable XP rewards (especially if you take advantage of rested XP when killing mobs) through questlines messing with the Scarlet Onslaught. Yes, the same baddies formerly in the Scarlet Crusade now have moved into Dragonblight in hopes of destroying the Lich King - and anyone else who stands in their way. I'm still trying to find a PUG to finish up Do Unto Others and the end of the Horde line. Another good line with some fun dragon lore lies in the Ruby Dragonshrine. And again both factions can partake, which is a plus in my book.

But for me, the real fun came with visiting the holy Wyrmrest Temple, riding a dragon to the top and taking on missions from Alexstrasza, the queen of the dragons and guardian of all life on Azeroth. Plus, her character model looks really damn cool. She and Lord Afrasastrasz are involved with Horde, Alliance and neutral quests alike. And if you just can't get enough of her majesty, there's always the Defending Wyrmrest Temple daily that opens up after completing the Rifle the Bodies questline. You'll get to shoot down dragons while earning a little money, some xp and a bit of rep with the Wyrmrest Accord all at once. And as an added bonus, if you can manage to complete the quest in under two minutes, you'll earn the Rapid Defense achievement. That's my kind of quest.

There's actually a ton more about Dragonblight that has really made me love this zone. I just have a couple more group quests to finish up before dinging 74 and moving on, probably to the dreaded Zul'Drak zone. I'm going to miss it.

Has anyone else felt a kind of attachment to Dragonblight? How about any other zones? I'll admit it, I also still get nostalgic thinking about the many, many hours I've spent leveling in the Barrens.

Reader Comments (33)

Dragonblight was enjoyable, my favorite part was the Wrathgate quest-line for sure.
I will admit though out of all the zones that I've leveled in I have enjoyed Storm Peaks the most, even though you have to fly everywhere and it's a pain if you don't have epic flying (which I didn't when I was leveling there). I still need to finish off Icecrown, Sholazar & Borean Tundra for the Loremaster of Northrend parts, but that's what I like so far.
Great quest-lines and lore in Storm Peaks!

May 29, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterHelmarn

sadly you dont have a choice no matter what you do you're gointo miss content if you go to slow you will miss teh end game content go to fast uyyo will miss the begininggame content but i am must say the lore is a bit confusing i didnt know orcs from another planet untill mount dew realesed taht game fuel promotion whear you watch or at least click o nteh videos for 25 tokens i watched teh orc starter video i allso didnt know that drenei aand orc were from teh same planet when i first went though the HOS event whear bronze beard trys to crack teh computer and it starts rembling about the course of flesh and the old gods the first time i heard of the old gods because i took m y time and tryed to get as much out of WOTLK as possible i missed the the eye off eternity and naxx and i aam missing ulduar i missed all the BC and vanilla all teh raids i made up for some of them like the AQ ZG and kara the eye aka tampest keep seprpent shrine caverns intrestingly enough i didnt knnow existed before doing it gruul magtheridon blade edge mountain werent so bad i self the one place i wish i done is BT and mout hyjal to kill such historick idols illidan or archimond i just gave up all hope of ever doing kil'jaeden

May 29, 2009 | Unregistered Commentercocopuff

@ Kalgorn
thanks for the right acronym it's been awhile since i visited the tundra busy doing some argent tourney dailies for gold and reputation as well as saving up those champion seals for the pets mounts and some of the gear.

@ cocopuff
get a new keyboard or learn to type hard to read your post. but your right to a point you do miss content if you rush to 80. And yes you'll be behind on new content if you take the time to do all the quests to get all the lore the game has to give at this point. but IMO it's worth it to take the time.

I wish thet the game was setup so to progress to higher level content you need to first "Graduate" from the lower level content, including the instances in the zone.

May 30, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterAlex

For lore sake, Sapphiron was not exactly reanimated from the corpses in dragonblight. He was reanimated by Arthas himself in Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne after Arthas killed the Blue dragon with the same name.

Same difference I know, but again, just for lore sake.

May 31, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterVoldenmist

Dragonblight, after Grizzly hills, was my favourtie zone in northrend, most likely due to the really cool questline that ends with a great cut scene and an achievement. I missed it when I left but things have to move on :)

May 31, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterStrongsword

Dragonblight was OK,with some highlights like the Bronze dragonflight quest and the whole Wrathgate thing. My favorite zone in LK is the Storm Peaks, with awesome quests that have you doing things like having battles against the Hyldnir on dragonback, and reuniting Thorim with the Sons of Hodir. You definitely want an epic flying mount before doing the SP quests though, with all the times you have to fly up that HUGE peak to talk to Thorim.

May 31, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterStaffan

Dragonblight was tons of fun. Oh, Oacha'noa...

God, she freaked me out.

Grizzly Hills is fun too, reminds me of Canada...or, what used to be Canada.

Too bad we don't have too many of those fur trading posts anymore.

May 31, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterDrall

Haha. Love the Grizzly HIll comparison to Canada. :)

While Dragonblight was rather enjoyable, can't say anything against the questlines there such as Wrathgate and Wrymrest Temple. I can also remember one quest with The Bronze Dragonflight(i think) you have to take some item to that area and use it. Then you have to fight against yourself. Pretty fun :)

But of all the zones in Northend, the best place to quest, for me, was Icecrown. From the beginning of LK content when i started a DK just to try them out and experiance their questline, i can remember hearing Tirion(i think that's him) saying 'we will tear down the fortress of Icecrown!" right after the battle at Light Hope's Chapel. The name sounded intimidating because i knew that's where this Lich King resided. I wanted to go straight there but with no flying and always on foot, walking to a 78-80 zone wasn't a good idea.

Was glad to finally get there when i did. It was loads of fun. All the group quests made it interesting :)

The only thing i can say i like about Storm Peaks is the Skinning cave. As im a skinner/Leatherworker, i love that cave. Great place to farm Borean Leathers if you need some. And you need ALOT of it! Fortunatly you can get alot in there. And it may just be me, but it seems to me that the 'Arctic Fur' drops there considerably more often than anywhere else. I've farmed there for an hour and got an entire stack of it along with about 6 stacks of Borean Leathers.

Sons of Hodir quests(which im sadly just starting) are pretty good too. Simple and fast enough to enjoy them while doing my dailys.

June 1, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterKalgorn

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