Game Design Exercise: Farahlon Horde Storyline

And we return again to designing Farahlon, for the last time. But fear not, this is not the end of me trying to pretend I’m designing World of Warcraft. Because I still have too much time on my hands, I will return in about a week with a new project – Emerald Dream expansion! Yes, it’s a potentially much bigger project, which is also why we will probably go into less detail with specific design parts, or with every small storyline present in the expansion. But until that happens, let’s return to Farahlon and see what the Horde is doing while Alliance is busy being all heroic saving the draenei towns and protecting monasteries from ravenous looters.

Game Design Exercise: Farahlon Alliance Storyline

We’re back in our Farahlon Game Design Exercise! After taking a foray into designing dungeons, which is probably closer to actual hard design, we’re returning into a more lore-like environment. I have alluded previously to the larger Alliance and Horde storylines taking place in Farahlon, but other than small glimpses of it, we didn’t know exactly who and how acts in this new environment. Well, as we’re drawing closer to the end of this particular exercise, we’re going to finally finish those storylines – though we mostly know the very end (Uraga’s demise in the Bladewind Fort instance). But this will be like watching Revenge of the Sith – we know how it ends, but it’s the journey that matters!

Game Design Exercise: Sky City of the Apexis

Do not fear, even though this post does not have “Farahlon” in the title, it doesn’t mean I abandoned or finished that project, or even that this post isn’t part of the series. Indeed, this is a continuation of the previous post which talked about the dungeon associated with the Farahlon patch – this time we’re dealing with the culmination of its storylines and content, that is the Sky City of the Apexis raid, which I don’t doubt players would dub SCA or SCotA. It’s meant as an Ulduar-style raid, with multiple wings and a total of twelve bosses, with each wing having its own separate environment. And don’t worry – although I’m myself not a raiding person, I know what makes them tick in most people. So I’d probably hate playing this myself.

Game Design Exercise: Farahlon’s associated dungeons

Greetings again. This time we really did return before whole patches managed to release and you might have noticed, our concept map of Farahlon changed a bit. Mostly, you can find new names for some of the previously unnamed areas, but two new locations have been added as well – Mok’nathal Village on Ara’s island and a raid icon for the Sky City of the Apexis. Today’s post will delve into the three dungeons that are added with my imaginary Farahlon patch, and mostly concentrates on the story featured in those dungeons, with a general idea of boss abilities. The raid will be the subject of a whole other post, as it’s meant to represent a whole large tier – with about 12 bosses total. So let’s delve into the three dungeons and what they have in store.

Game Design Exercise: Open Objectives in Farahlon

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I told you more than once that I wasn’t abandoning the project – just delaying it until further notice. Of course, that notice took a bit longer than expected, but we’re back. The thing that propelled me to come back the most was constant hits I’m receiving on the Farahlon articles, as well as my other ideas that I want to develop in these posts. So stay tuned. Meanwhile, Farahlon!

Character Profiles: Dawn-Seeker Verroak

In-game

Name: Verroak Krasha
Race: High Arakkoa
Gender: Prefers not to specify ((male))
Age: 32
Class: Sun-Sage
Professions: engineering, jewelcrafting
Religion: New Dawn (a restoration of the old Apexis religion)
Alignment (per D&D): Neutral Good
Traits (per CK2): Quick, weak, scholar, mystic, diligent, proud, deceitful, shy, ambitious, kind

The Founding of Veil Krasha

Now after all these people went to Draenor and saw that warped little alternate, they think that our Draenor used to be just like this. Well, you’re squawking wrong. For example, you can find hardly any arakkoa outside of the Spires of Arak, and I come from Farahlon, which you lot didn’t even go to. I mean, I’ve even heard some rumors it doesn’t exist over there. And that’s nonsense again, you can’t have geological differences between different timelines, not without Deathwing to mess the land up for laughs. So people say, how did your family come to Farahlon? How did this Veil Krasha even exist? Well, I’m no Reshad, but let me tell you a story.

Game Design Exercise: Farahlon Side Stories

I know it’s been some time since I’ve done this, but most of that time, I had better stuff to write. As in, in-character pieces about events actually happening in the Tower of Krasha. We got some new people involved in my particular circle, and I concentrated on that for the time being. But now, I return with the piece I promised two weeks ago, side stories of Farahlon. Most of these you won’t even get a breadcrumb for and you’ll have to stumble upon the right NPC in the wild. Doing these stories is not essential to your story or game progression, but they reward with some cool bits, including lore, battle pets and followers.

Skyreach Manuals: Life Cycle of the Primals

The Primals are some of the most curious creatures of Draenor. In many ways they’re so very different from all the other forms of life on our world, and in many ways they’re also very similar. Some say the Primals are mimicking other life forms, as is often said to be the case with mandragoras and hydras, and some say they were deliberately designed in a similar way. One of the most common theories about the Primals is that they’re a Titanic creation gone haywire. The Breakers are commonly believed to be the Titanic creations, but some argue that so were the Primals. The best proof of that theory are ancient artifacts related to the Primals sometimes found in forgotten Titanic vaults. Whichever the case, the Primals are a faction of creatures with very distinct life cycle, clearly tying them all together.

Finding his place

Well, well, I haven’t written on this myself for a while now. Partially because there wasn’t much happening. Actually, now that I think of it, there were things happening. Not all of them I can recall at moment’s notice, such is my memory at my age, but most recently I decided I needed to exert some more direct control over this rift. I mean, I now have some interest in the Draenor I could find on the other side and the exit suddenly drifting away from it would be most unfortunate. So against my better judgment, I decided to use the services of an ethereal I knew, Shazaad, to find a way to control the rift better.