Posts with tag Theramore-Scenario

The fourth and final installment of Sarah Pine's novella Quest for Pandaria was released yesterday on the official site. Part four of Chen and Li Li's journey takes them to the open seas, where they encounter a massive storm, and a tense face off between two ships, one Alliance and one Horde. While this is Chen and Li Li's adventure, the fourth part of this tale does a lot to highlight the feelings and tensions between the two factions in a meaningful way.

And it also does a lot to clear up timelines. At the end of the tale, Chen and Li Li have witnessed the clearing of the mists surrounding the continent of Pandaria. This places the mist-clearing event somewhere just before the attack on Theramore Isle depicted in both scenario and the novel Tides of War. Unfortunately, the tale did little to clarify what exactly made the mists part in the first place ... which means this may be one of those important plot points we'll explore later in the expansion.

Quest for Pandaria served as a an excellent introduction to Mists of Pandaria, and a wonderful bridge between the graphic novel Pearl of Pandaria and the new expansion. Part four is full of emotional moments and characters that you really don't want to miss. You can read part four, or the story in its entirety, in the Expanded Universe section of the official website.

The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

One of the biggest stories this week was the launch of Theramore's Fall, one of several new scenarios we'll see in Mists of Pandaria. Theramore's Fall was tuned for level 85 as a one-week preview of the scenario feature -- after the launch of Mists, it will become a level 90 scenario, and players will no longer be able to get the special rewards offered at level 85. That said, it's worth doing to test out the scenario feature, and to see what exactly happened to Theramore.

But there's an issue with Theramore's Fall that had players by and large confused -- a lack of any kind of introduction or context for the event. It could be cleared up by reading Tides of War, but not everyone has the time to pick up a book. Because of this, I decided to take a different route with this week's Know Your Lore, and give a brief introduction into what this scenario is, why you're in it, and the absent heroes of Theramore's Fall, who by all rights should have been included.

Please note: Today's Know Your Lore contains some spoilers for Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War. If you're looking to avoid all spoilers, you may want to come back when you're done with the book!

Blizzard Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street has joined YouTube denizen Wowcrendor for an interview. You can check out the video above, and we've pulled out some highlights below:

What's the one thing Blizzard would have done differently in Cataclysm?

We would have worked the story around a continent rather than having zones. There was too much teleporting, and the sense of world was eroded. There was a lot of value in coming over the hill and seeing into the next zone, the transition. The teleporting created an instanced feel, and there wasn't the novelty. Mists has a whole new continent to explore, so that's something Blizzard have changed up for this expansion.

Why did Blizzard go with Cross-Realm zones over server merges?

Cross-Realm Zones were designed to fix the issue of having a ton of players at max-level, but lower level zones being dead. The experience of being in a MMO is lessened, so we wanted to fix that.

Closing and opening realms all the time is not the solution, we can't keep doing that incessantly. We also don't want 20,000 players running around Stormwind or other high-level zones! For players who like deserted zones, we're not really catering to that. WoW is not set up to be a single player game!

Last night, after I completed the Theramore scenario, I took a ride out to the ruins to look for old friends like Smiling Jim and Captain Garran Vimes (both I presume deceased) and while there, I ended up tooling out to Alcaz Island. When I got there, I noticed a curious thing - the place was deserted. There were no naga patrolling it, no black dragon elite flying above it, and no Doctor Weavil inside the buildings.

I then logged on a character who hasn't done the scenario and sure enough, everyone was back (I even went and let Weavil MC me for two minutes just for old times' sake). Is this deliberate? A sign of potential future changes? A phasing bug? I have no idea. I'd personally like to see the Alliance fortify Alcaz Island and turn it into a base for future attacks on Durotar and the Horde, but right now all I know is that Doctor Weavil probably saw that huge mana bomb explosion and decided to get somewhere with less explosions. The guy likes to nap.

Thanks to Chris for the reminder.

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It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!

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The Fall of Theramore is live on European servers, so as your spy across the pond I thought I'd run it as soon as possible to bring you a review and how-to from the Alliance side. Please note that if you don't want spoilers, don't read this. This post is going to be very spoiler-heavy if you want to be surprised by Theramore's fall.

Last warning! Spoilers behind the cut!