Azeroth is Shattered. (For those of you who don’t play WoW, this means that the patch applying the expansion hit, despite the fact that the expansion doesn’t come out until the 7th.)

Rather than having an entirely phased world, Blizzard decided it would be better to “force” the changes on everyone. Especially since this is essentially an upgraded version of the Original WoW. WoW 2.0 if you wish. So all the changes were pushed to all the players. And man, were there a metric ton of changes. As a long time player, and a fan of clearly undervalued achievements, I had already completed Loremaster on my main, Joyia. I was excited to see in the flood of new achievements, zone specific achievements for the Original WoW quests. (Previously all of the Original WoW quests were merely lumped together into Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms, now they are broken down by zone, with the Kali and EK achievements being metas requiring all the specific zones.) I couldn’t wait to watch all the dings from them when I logged in.

However, when I logged in, I didn’t receive a flood of achievements. Oh one or two, but not the 40 or so I should have gotten from all the quests I had completed. As it turns out, Blizzard made *far* more extensive changes than most players originally assumed. Instead of updating a small number of quests and adding new ones, they updated about 95% of all the quests in the game. In addition to adding new ones. This means that a majority of the quests were re-numbered in the system. So while my “quest total” lists at over 2000 quests completed, I have barely 50 total listed under the various zones.

I grumbled a great deal about this change. But, I looked on the bright side, at least now I had a good reason to go back and see all the changes. So I went to go see Duskwood, my favorite zone, and started to re-run all those quests.

To say I was impressed would be an understatement. Not only did they adjust the flow of quests to be better for the player (gather several quests, make a lap of the zone, return to turn in quests, repeat) but they also updated the quests to take into account things the player did in the previous incarnation of the zone. If you were a fan of the zone before, now it is better.

(Spoilers!!!! – Can you even believe what happened to Sven?! That was AWESOME! –Spoilers DONE)

I might have complained about the quest re-numbering and wipe originally, but now I am thrilled. I will be sure to re-visit each zone, read all the new quests, and experience all the new shiny the game has to offer. Also it makes it a great deal easier to get my Seeker title. Bravo Blizzard, for not taking the easy way out when updating the old world. For taking the time to revisit each quest and make it fit within the new design ideals solidified in Wrath and Burning Crusade.