Quel'Thalas (Ghostlands, Eversong Woods)
Difficulty Rating: **** (out of 4)
2.0 Status:
"Open"
Special report: Elf Lands Missing in Action
"Quel'a-what?"
That was my first reaction as the words flashed on my screen. I was swimming northward along the coast from the coast of Tristifal Glades. My mission was to explore to coastline for the new northern territories of the Eastern Kingdom added in the 2.0 patch, the Ghostlands and Eversong Woods. These lands are to be the new Bloodelf zones, with Eversong being their lush and vibrant-colored home and the Ghostlands to the south being the slowly corrupted land of the scourge that is encroaching on their kingdom. Being an Alliance warrior, I hoped to slip in, dagger in teeth, and move as stealthy as I could with my bulky frame among the fantastical dwellings, observing, watching and breathing heavily. If a stray Elf happened to wander my way, well, that dagger would get its drink of Elvish blood that night. So, what did I find? Well, sit right back and hear a tale.
My swim started off well enough. After traveling for a bit along the northern coast, it became apparent that I would be seeing a lot of mountains. Steep cliffs rose from the water, pushing themselves in jagged ridges which seemed impermeable. I would stop here and there to test the mountains and look for weak spots, like I had practiced many times before. However, my experience has taught me that approaching areas from the water is usually the worst method of penetration, since the cliffs are so steep and the terrain so unforgiving. But in this case, I did not have any alternatives, as it seemed clear that they wanted to encase the whole northern lands in a protective layer of vertical rock. So, without any choice, I resorted to throwing my hulking body repetitively against the boulders. Elbows were scraped, bruises were formed and knuckles were bloodied. And then came the fall. When I was trying to scale a particularly difficult stretch, I lost my balance and plummeted to my death. When I woke, I was standing in front of the Spirit Healer in EPL. EPL! That meant I needed to travel through EPL, then WPL, and then Trisfial Glades and then swim back to my corpse. So I chose to resurrect at the spirit healer and then use a combination of mount and gryphon to make my journey back.
With that journey finished, I continued my trip northward and came across the ruins of a small tower, a dock, and an archway. I had heard these existed previously but had never had the chance to visit them. Looking them over, they did not seem to serve any purpose for the coming expansion, other than to be a point of interest. Moving on, I decided to tackle the mountains again. I selected a site which seemed to have a hope of success and went to work at banging my armour into the rock all over again. After a serious struggle and some pretty damn good luck, I made it to the top of the ridge. How did I do it? Can't say. Won't say. But I will say this - it was HARD.
At this point, I was smack between the border of an unnamed area north of Stratholme and the beginning of the Ghostlands. Pulling myself to my feet and wiping the grime from my hands, I was standing on a top of a mountain range. To my right, the mysterious unnamed area fell below and to my left, the Ghostands spread out before me. I did not know what to expect when I arrived at the top of the ridge. But I had expected something else other than the sight that met my eyes. Through the hazy mist, I could see the Ghostlands were ... blank. Well, almost blank. Nestled in the valley below, a flat grassy floor spotted with beige dominated left-most half of the area, which was sharply divided by the right-side which had a reddish brown hue. There were no trees, no streams, no hills - nothing. Across the textured plain, to the far distance, I could see the rising mountains of EPL. The wind howled and vast emptiness spread out before me. Suddenly, it seemed fittingly appropriate for the Ghostlands to be the land of wind and ghosts.
While unexpected, the look of the area was familiar to me, since I had seen this mash of textures in other areas when behind the scenes. But where was the content? Wasn't the 2.0 patch supposed to have added the expansion content to the world of Azeroth? I made my way down to the ground level and set out to explore, hoping the Eversong Woods might provide some answers to my questions.
There was actually fair bit to see in the area. The unnamed area to the right was actually an enormous crater with vertical cliffs, which I would save exploring for last. Moving left and riding along the plains of the Ghostlands, I came to a gentle slope that allowed me to ride up to the mountains which were above the EPL. Here there was a fairly wide plateau that allowed me to comfortably ride along its length, where I could stop and move into the mountain range to check out the sights over EPL. One particularly interesting discovery was that of a road. The road first begin in EPL, then wound through a small valley and then took a sudden right turn and jumped vertically up a wall and then ended on top of the plateau where I was standing. It seemed that it would be the entrance to the Ghostlands for those entering from EPL. It wouldn't be until the next day that I found the road in EPL and discovered the portal in front of it.
After finishing exploring the mountain range and after a long, but uneventful, ride along the length of the area, I decided it was time to move on to the Eversong Woods. I begin to move north but on my first attempt I encountered a steep mountain range and beyond and below a body of water. That isn't right, I thought to myself, checking my map again. The world map showed a smooth transition between the two areas - there wasn't supposed to be mountains or water in the way. But after traveling along the length of the northern part, I soon realized that there was no way around this range. If I wanted to hunt for the Eversong Woods, I would need to drop down from the Ghostlands and go for a swim.
Since I hadn't of explored the crater yet, I opted to stay and use slowfall to gain access to it. Tomorrow, I told myself, I would come back and continue northward to Eversong. The crater was interesting since it was so far below ground compared to the Ghostlands. The air was heavy and thick with reddish mist and the cliffs surrounding were topped with jagged spires. Like the Ghostlands, there was no content here, however, Stratholme was here. Moving over to the southern mountain range, I found the outline of Strat cut into the rock. The way up to the instance was steep but after a bit of trying I was able to get up and behind it. However, when exploring behind it, I made the mistake of touching one of the entrance portals and I was whisked inside Strat and locked behind the steel gates of the portals.
The next day I returned and swam further northward towards the woods. After swimming for awhile the coastline starting curving to the right. That's odd, I thought. It's supposed to continue straight up. But then I remembered the mountains and the body of water that I had encountered the night before when trying to access Eversong. Eversong must be on the other side of the river that cuts across the land. So I journeyed through the center of map, following the coastline and looking for signs of the northern territory. But none appeared. All along the way, looking north, I could see nothing but endless water. By now I felt something was seriously wrong. I decided to venture out into the fatigued water half-way before returning, but I still could not see the edges of the territory. After making it all the way around I came to the inescapable conclusion - like it's southern neighbour, the Eversong Woods are missing in action in 2.0.
Folks, Blizzard is lying to you. The new land that you see on your maps in 2.0 does not exist in the game in any shape or form. The new Elvish lands are still locked deep within your game files, only be to sprung out and unfolded like a pop-up book upon the installation of TBC.
But, of course, after I had thought about it, they aren't really supposed to be available in the first place. The Bloodelf area, along with the Draenei starting area are supposed to be instanced, so people without the expansion, which is 100% of us at the moment, should not be able to see the content. This would also explain why I have come so close to the islands of Exodar and yet still did not see its coastline. It's highly likely that these islands are also MIA as well.
So, the question remains in the end, will there be content in Quel'Thalas to explore in TBC for those with the expansion but who do not use the portals to enter the areas? I know I'll be back to check. See you then. 
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Kalak
