PTR Notes: Climb every mountain
by Elizabeth Wachowski 
Apr 26th 2007 at 10:38AM
It looks like the Battle of Mount Hyjal has been opened for testing on the PTR to everyone with Honored reputation or greater with the Violet Eye. Boubouille of MMO Champion, Bistustal at World of Raids, and the stalwart testers of the Elitist Jerks forums have gone and taken some lovely screenshots for those of us not on the PTR.
You start out at an Alliance base commanded by Lady Jaina Proudmoore, who is apparently both 20 feet tall and totally okay with the non-scourge undead. The Scourge come over the hill in Black Morass-like waves. Without the help of your team, the Alliance and Jaina get owned, and everything despawns.
According to the lore, after the waves at the Alliance base, you should go to the Horde base (commanded by Thrall) and the final Night Elf base (commanded by Tyrande.) You'll fight your way up the mountain until the final battle against Archimonde the Defiler. Wowwiki also suggests that you fight two other major lore figures from Hyjal -- the dreadlord Anetheron and the pit lord Azgalor.
All in all, Mount Hyjal looks like a fun instance. Too bad I'll probably never see it until level 80. What kind of instances would you like to see in the Caverns of Time? Do you wish you could run Hyjal?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Chuck Apr 26th 2007 10:48AM
That was kind of the one thing that has not made sense to me since BC started .. is that what % of people that play wow will ever even experience Hyjal? 1% or less even? How can you call those well spent development dollars if so few of your customers even use them??
Sylythn Apr 26th 2007 10:58AM
Well if they don't just abandon it after the next major expansion, like they did with Azeroth end-game instances, then it will have value.
Sylythn Apr 26th 2007 10:58AM
That and 1% of 8.5million is still 85,000 people paying $15/mo.
Matt Apr 26th 2007 10:58AM
Why do they make important NPCs stupidly tall?
Derbeste Apr 26th 2007 11:03AM
I have to agree with #1.
Why are all the good "lore" encounters so hardcore that 99% of your fan base will never experience them?
I wanna go back and fight Naxx just so I can fight Kel'Thuzad.....but I probably will never be able to.
I know you need encounters to satisfy the hardcore. I know you need VERY difficult dungeons to give the hardcore the sense of accomplishment and elitism that eludes them in real life. (Seriously hardcores....just because the only place you use your pecker is in front of your computer, doesn't mean you have to be one.)
But Mnt. Hyjal is the ONE instance I was most excited about in TBC. Now that I know it's going to be Tier 5 asshats and above, I feel incredibly deflated.
I'm still going to play WoW...so I know blizzard doesn't care......
I just wish there was a way that casuals could do it too.
Why not normal and heroic Hyjal like everything else???
Why not something like "ethereal tier 5" for casual groups that dissapate after the instance? Rewards would, of course, be blue or something so the hardcore can feel they are still better in the fake world.
Hank Apr 26th 2007 11:31AM
I'd like to see more use made of the Durnholde Keep instance. I mean, the place is HUGE! I'm sure they could stick some kind of content in there.
Maybe revisit the Frozen Throne...
Falgorn Apr 26th 2007 11:16AM
Not to sound conspiratorial or anything, but I think the TBC release Raid content has been tuned harder than intended so that progress would be snail paced. To this end I have a suspicion that the Raid Changes in 2.1 that are coming as part of the 'consumable changes' will see a *substantial* tuning down of current endgame.
It's mere speculation, but I think Mount Hyjal and the Black Temple were probably intended for TBC release. As they were delayed TBC was released and development continued until now (2.1). So as not to have everyone running through the content available too fast it was tuned way way up to hide the fact that TBC went live with only 3/4 of intended content available.
I mean.. Illidan was the Banner Boy for TBC, and wasn't even in the game...! With any luck, 2.1 will bring new content, better gear, worse consumables, and less frustrating raiding. It's pointless for Blizz to limit most raid content to the real High End guild, and I suspect its not their long term gamplan!
deveric Apr 26th 2007 11:24AM
correct me if im wrong, but don't you need to complete mt hyjal to even get to black temple? so whats the percent of guilds/people that will even see BT
Doodzin Apr 26th 2007 11:24AM
Why would you think only 1% will be hardcore enough to even see the content?
The vials of eternity are hard to get, but by no means impossible, and unlike previous content, you do not need 40 people to do it. I've heard numerous stories coming out of SSC already, which means people are coming close to their first vials already. Do people think the EYE will be that much more difficult?
An organized raiding guild should be able to see mount hyjal before the next expansion, even assuming it will be out next January, which is just dreaming if past trends continue.
Sylythn Apr 26th 2007 11:37AM
@6,9 - I don't think it's a conspiracy, I think it was totally planned out. You've only got 10 extra levels, 7 extra zones...and look how fast people hit 70. The content's got to be harder to slow people down, or Blizzard will have a substantial user base saying, "Ok we're done, what's next?" long before they have a new expansion out. Many of those people will go to other MMOs in the meantime, and there's worry they won't come back when Blizz has new stuff ready.
Dan Apr 26th 2007 11:53AM
That's funny, my friend and I were just talking the other day about how it would be awesome to go through the Caverns of Time and help escape the sundering of the Well to Hyjal. I don't know what the quests would be or what you would do, but it would be cool.
amasen Apr 26th 2007 11:54AM
I'm going to have to agree with 1 & 5 in the sense that I am very disappointed with all the good lore being in raid content. I play with my girl friend, my best friend and a couple other people I know. But for all of us to experience all the good lore, we would have to sell out our personal lives and sign up to a raiding guilds schedule. No thanks I've done that before and it's just not rewarding enough to give up my life for it...
Why Can't the big content be 5 and 10 man? Because as an ex-raider, I know the only challenge to a 25man is getting that many people to show up and all do the same thing at the same time. Each individual person can literally go on autopilot and eventually collect epics...
Karmakin Apr 26th 2007 12:06PM
Falgorn:The 2.1 patch, from what I've seen seems to be a complete rebalancing of the TBC instanced content, creating what hopefully will be a consistant and fun framework for future content, as opposed to the unfun, untuned no framework we have now.
Mobs do less damage. Because they do less damage, this is a substantial buff for healers. (Speaking in relatives). Healing Paladins would be too powerful, so they took a bit of a nerf. In order to keep encounters consistant, you have the alchemy changes, to limit buffs. You can then design and tune encounters to much more specific minimum DPS/Defence/Healing levels.
Could Blizzard blow this? Sure. Is it probable? Maybe. But for me, at least it's a framework.
At least they're trying.
Rich Apr 26th 2007 12:14PM
Meh, More content that 80%-90% of the player base will never get to experience.
amasen Apr 26th 2007 12:19PM
@13
I was an old world raider... Up to Naxx and the spider wing. I gave up on raiding because it offered me little reward and even less challenge while sucking up far to much free time.
When I speak of autopilot it is in the very limited scope you get to use your character while in a raid. Sure it takes a lot of group coordination, but your classes diversity goes down the hole and you begin to use 2-3 of the same spells over and over. 5mans let generally use your class in a far more dynamic way than a raid will every let you because your roll is 20% of the effort compared to 4% in a raid...
Gill Apr 26th 2007 12:29PM
This is part of the reason why I'm playing less and less these days. There's so much Warcraft lore in this game that I want to see and experience but it's come to the point that there's a high price to pay just to even get inside and see this lore: TIME.
I was under the impression that BC would have improved that. I already thought the Onyxia key quest was long... well, guess I was wrong. What exactly did we get with the expansion just to experience the great lore of this franchise??? MORE RIDICULOUS ATTUNEMENTS (Black Temple Attunement for me and my guild??? Forget it!), MORE TIMESINKS.
BaboonNL Apr 26th 2007 12:45PM
"MORE RIDICULOUS ATTUNEMENTS (Black Temple Attunement for me and my guild??? Forget it!)"
Killing Al'Ar and Vashj shouldn't be any problem if you plan to raid BT, and the rest of the attument (if any) is still unknown.
Gill Apr 26th 2007 12:50PM
Baboon, BT attunement requires you running all over the place, both in Outland and Azeroth.
http://worldofwarcraft.com/btattunement/
I honestly don't have the time for that.
Kedran Apr 26th 2007 12:51PM
To the question posed on what cavern in time encounters - I came into wow late, never did any of the big instances - scholo, strat, ubrs, naxx, oxny, etc. That content is laying unused because who would run those instance when they can go to outland at 58 and blow up like a roman candle. Seems obvious they could repackage that former highend content as 5 man heroics and the cavern of time vehicle is the perfect way to justify it. That would benefit everyone north of 60 and be repackaging existing content.
OvertAgent Apr 26th 2007 12:57PM
I have to say, this game is so based for raiding guilds, it's really pushing a bit part of their fan base away. If you don't have the time to get into a raiding guild and raid the end game stuff, then you're pretty much done with the game once you hit 70.
I understand that the drops would be too crazy if everyone could pug to tier 6, but I was under the impression that's why they put heroic mode on places.
Warhammer is looking better and better everyday just because it'll be new stuff that I can actually get to.