Posts with tag caverns-of-time

Our friends over at Wowhead have uncovered the first batch of new patch 4.3 achievements, and there are some pretty awesome ones. Most of them refer to either new holiday content (primarily Winter Veil and Midsummer Fire Festival) or the new Darkmoon Faire, although there are a few achievements from the new dungeons.

Be warned that the titles and descriptions of these achievements may contain spoilers. Here are a few of my favorites:

• That's Not Canon! comes from defeating a certain boss in the Caverns of Time in a certain manner. A bit of a thumbed nose at people who don't like all this time travel? Maybe, but the title's hilarious enough that I can't stop chuckling.
• A-Caroling We Will Go Now this is how you spread Winter Veil cheer. I don't know about you, but I can't wait to don my gaudiest sweater and break some Orcish eardrums.
• I Was Promised a Pony Looks like our good friend Ghostcrawler got some achievement naming duties this time around. You can't deny it forever, Greg. It's true, and you know it. We are still waiting.

---

Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Look at what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!

---

After the round of interviews about Patch 4.3 last night, Blizzard has released a preview of the first in the upcoming linked, thematic Caverns of Time dungeons that we'll be exploring in our efforts to defeat Deathwing once and for all: End Time. It's a doozy.

Unlike previous CoT instances, this one sends the players into the future after Deathwing wins, to help Nozdormu find the reason he's blocked from accessing the past -- specifically, to the time before the Demon Soul was hidden by Malfurion. Along the way, you're forced to battle various former Horde and Alliance leaders, now reduced to echoes of their former sanity, and then the mysterious, malefic maestro of madness Murozond, an anomaly in the timestream not even Nozdormu can unravel.

Check out all the screenshots and get a preview of the experience at the official site, already. Not even a Volkswagen Beetle van full of heavily armed people could stop me now.

---

Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Look at what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!

---

Plaintively waiting for epic gems? They're on the way in patch 4.3 -- and the mechanic to obtain them is a little different this time around, according to Lead Systems Designer Greg Street, aka Ghostcrawler. In an interview with Tankspot, Ghostcrawler clarified how those epic gems are going to work.

"The way we're hoping to set it up, and we kind of have this working but things could change before we go live, is when you kill a boss on normal or heroic mode, each player gets a geode, and when they open the geode there's a chance they may find an epic gem inside. If not, it'll have blue gems or something like that," he said. Along with the scoop on epic gems, Ghostcrawler talked a bit about the upcoming legendary daggers and how they will work, as well as the Deathwing encounter.

For those wondering if the Deathwing encounter will be challenging, it certainly appears so -- and Deathwing himself will change from how we've seen him so far in game. Rather than the plate-wearing, mammoth-chinned beast we're accustomed to seeing, Deathwing will be hurt and resemble something Ghostcrawler calls "Cthulhu Deathwing." The entry for the Deathwing raid will be in the Caverns of Time, along with all other 4.3 instances.

For more on the Deathwing encounter, epic gems, tank threat and other 4.3 information, check out Tankspot's full interview.

---

Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Look at what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!

---

Patch 4.1 offers us more than the return of a couple of awesome old raids as new 5-man instances, we also have a host of new phased content to consider. Over at MMO-Champion, there are some interesting tidbits that have been datamined for our consideration. What are they, you ask? I'm glad you did.

In addition to various clues about the new instances and what they might contain, we're also treated to a list of various phased events. Someone named Tarecgosa will be involved in events at Coldarra (we have some sort of intro hinted at twice), which could mean the Blue Flight is finally getting ready to pick a new leader. Meanwhile, the Firelands opens up with new dailies, and Anachronos finally decides it is his time to return to the Caverns of Time, perhaps opening up the War of the Ancients raid we've been teased about.

It definitely looks like the Cataclysm is kicking it up a notch in patch 4.1, but much remains to be answered. Why are ZG and ZA making a return now? Are we finally going to find out what Hakkar the Soulflayer has to do with Hakkar the Houndmaster? (I ask this because if ZG is back at the same time that we're being sent back to the War of the Ancients; that's a big coincidence.) Will we finally get to see Neltharion's fall into madness and transformation into Deathwing? This should all be very interesting.

---

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.

---

The recent Twitter dev chat confirmed what is fast becoming a tradition: We will be getting a new Caverns of Time instance with the upcoming expansion. It's certainly not something I have much trouble with. The Caverns of Time are an excellent tool for looking back and understanding old pieces of the story that brought us to the current world as it is. Unfortunately, the devs were not willing to drop any hints as to the exact nature of the new instance, but we can, of course, make our own guesses.

The original questioner suggests War of the Ancients as a possible destination. In a way, that might be an interesting battle. It would, if nothing else, give us some insight into the character of Malfurion Stormrage, who promises to be a key figure in the expansion. That said, Rhonin, Broxigar, and Krasus have already traveled back in time to deal with the War of the Ancients, and you'd have to think that if you keep shoveling more time travelers back there, something's bound to give.

The dungeon finder has really changed what players get excited about the most in the World of Warcraft. It's a strange world when one of the most anticipated updates to the game is the ability to tell Arthas to shut his yap. No, we don't mean kill him in Icecrown, we really do mean telling him to shut the hell up. Just in case you missed it in the patch notes we posted a little while ago, there's this waiting for us in patch 3.3.3:

• Culling of Stratholme: Players may now skip the initial introduction dialog to this dungeon once they have completed it at least once.

The pre-Culling of Stratholme dialogue is really cool to experience the first few times, but after that it just starts to feel like a waste of time. The dungeon finder made it even worse, because as awesome as it is, it eliminated some of the social stigma of ditching a group early. Oculus and Culling of Stratholme are the two instances I can always expect some dip to drop from. Hopefully this change and the deserter debuff becoming 30 minutes will discourage that sort of behavior.

I was inspired by the time travel talk from last Friday's The Queue. If you were able to kill Arthas while doing the Culling of Stratholme; you would prevent him from becoming The Lich King, but would cause a much faster spread of the plague. It reminded me of this great piece of short fiction, where going back in time to kill Hitler prevents time travel from becoming possible and is therefore strictly forbidden.

I'd like to go back in time and help Mankrik's Wife escape her violent and lonely death. Do we really need another reason to slaughter those nasty boar humanoids? Besides, I bet she had some really great quests that we missed out on.

If you could go back in WoW time and change something, what would it be? What do you think the ramifications of your change would be?

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco be your host today.

I am tired, folks. Here is your Queue.


D-Back asked...

"What happened to AAFL? Is Sacco slacking off now due to his new Editor title and new shammy column? I enjoyed the AAFL articles."

Ask a Faction Leader is, for serious, coming back this Tuesday. Vol'Jin will be the titular faction leader. Email your questions to sacco@wow.com, subject line "AAFL".

When the news first broke yesterday about Onyxia returning to her status as a raid boss, I, probably like many of you, went into lore-generation overdrive. She's dead in the comic (Varian Wrynn decided her head didn't so much belong with her body any more), so how was she going to be a raid boss? I stabbed at ideas: she's in the Caverns of Time! Arthas could resurrect her as a Frostwyrm of some kind!

Fortunately, cooler lore-heads (Ziebart and Sacco) prevailed: they pointed out to me this comment by Maxim in the original post: "Zero lore. Maximum fun. HOORAY!" That perfectly sums up why Blizzard is doing this: there's no lore reason or explanation behind it, it's just a straight up fun thing for us to do to celebrate the five-year anniversary. Bornakk makes it official: Ony is still dead, and she's not coming back. This is a one-time thing on the 5th anniversary.

While, unfortunately, that may destroy some dreams about seeing similar old-world content come back to life (at least until the 10th anniversary, when we'll probably see Molten Core updated for the level 100 15-man raiding scheme -- drool), it means that there's no thinking involved about why Onyxia's back. She's back, we get to raid the original raid and pick up some great loot while doing it. Zero lore. Maximum fun.

I've always considered the Caverns of Time to be like the theme park of Azeroth -- as we've discussed before, there aren't really any reasons to go to some of those instances in the first place, and the whole thing seems just so ludicrous. If we wipe, or we don't go in there, and Thrall isn't able to escape Durnholde or Arthas isn't able to murder Stratholme or any of the other premises they have set up, then wouldn't the world as we know it change? It seems like fan service -- Blizzard wants us to visit these great parts of lore, and it just seems to me like they've cooked up a weak story around getting us there.

Which is why I was surprised to read this post over on Mystic Chicanery. They argue that the Caverns of Time are actually the most "real" of all the instances in the game. If we go into Utgarde Pinnacle, for example, and murder King Ymiron, there's no reason why he should be in there again the next time we head in. And yet he is -- we can go in and murder him time and time again, doing the same thing, and getting loot every single time. But in CoT, there's a logical explanation for why the instances are always the same: to the people we're encountering in the instances, it's the first time we've met them. From the outside world, the CoT instances may seem strange (the first time I was in Durnholde, we wiped with Thrall, and I jokingly checked with my guild to see if Thrall was still standing in Orgrimmar, alive and well -- he was), but inside the continuity of those instances, they work.

Of course, we do still get different loot from it every time, as the MC post notices. But it is quite a thought: even though the Caverns of Time instances are the ones in the game that seem to least need us messing around in there, they also might just be the most logical.

I love this comic from the very talented miggy over at WoW Ladies, not only because it's funny, but because she's got a point. Back when the Battle for Mount Hyjal instance in the Caverns of Time appeared in game, we all wondered why we were going there in the first place -- unlike the other CoT instances, there were no dragons to fight or strange factions messing with the continuum. All that could happen in there is that we'd screw everything up and ruin time as we know it (and given all the wipes that went on in there, we probably did). But with the Argent Tournament, Blizzard seems to have gone even further: not only is there no clear reason for us to do it, but we're actually ignoring the threat at hand.

As you know if you've read Sacco's excellent (and completely spoilerrific) guides to the Coliseum raid and the Tournament 5-man, there is a tacked-on reason we're doing all of this stuff, and it's that the Horde and Alliance want to send their strongest people to go after Arthas, and the Tournament is a way of sussing out who's most worthy. But though that makes for some great lore cutscenes, doesn't it still undermine Arthas' strength? How powerful can the guy be if there are so many people lining up to kill him we have to fight over it?

Don't get me wrong, we're definitely looking forward to the Coliseum, and it's definitely brought some interesting things and rewards to the game. Just like CoT, in the light of the lore and the MMO genre at large, it's a great addition. But it is funny that the great Lich King's main tactic seems to be to have us fight it out between ourselves way before we ever bother taking a shot at him.

Seemed to have some good luck with a previous Firefly quote, so why not? We're all set in Ahn'kahet, so let's pop over to Azjol-Nerub and lay waste to some bosses there.

AZJOL-NERUB

Every achievement here is, in one way or another, a DPS race. If you've had difficulty with previous achievements in that vein or your DPS is still gearing up, you'll probably want to steer clear of Azjol for a while.

Watch Him Die

This is one of the few achievements in the game most efficiently done from a kamikaze perspective (Sarth-10 3D is the most notable of the other picks). Early attempts at this with two tanks, two DPS, and one healer failed miserably, mostly due to the combination of poisons, a Priest healer, and Watcher Narjil's Blinding Webs ability. I'll admit I tried that before anything good dropped from Naxx, so it may just have been a gear issue at the time, but:

a). If you have very good DPS, and:

b). If you're willing to suffer a repair bill

-- you can probably get this achievement in one or two tries without worrying about keeping all three Watchers tanked, bringing an off-tank, or risking a DPS having to kite all three to the entrance.

Chromie, the little champion of the Bronze Dragonflight, is quite possibly one of the most polarizing figures in World of Warcraft. You love her or you hate her. She's either adorably awesome, or irritatingly stupid. I, for one, hate her because I had to do her quests in Andorhal before they completely redesigned that part of the zone to suck less. My girlfriend thinks Chromie is the greatest thing since sliced bread. There's something you should know, though. Chromie is a man. Well, probably.

How can I make such outlandish accusations? Well, have you run Caverns of Time: The Culling of Stratholme? At the very end, you'll see that Chromie's Dragon form sports a pretty thick beard. More importantly than that, Chromie's Draconic name is Chronormu. Following the naming scheme of the Bronze Dragonflight, names ending with -ormu are male, and -ormi are female. The exceptions being those ending with -os (male) and -a (female) which are general dragon naming schemes. Were Chromie indeed a female, her name would be Chronormi and not Chronormu.

Chromie is a man. A man, or a woman who had very cruel parents.

Ah, another Sunday afternoon! Well, technically this was posted precisely at noon, which isn't the afternoon. But you're probably not reading it at the exact second It was posted, so you are reading it in the afternoon. Right? Right. Now, with that settled...

Vinicius O. E. asked...

What happened to the dance studios?

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.

Merry No Maintenance Day, everyone! Let's not waste it and jump right into things. Chilblain asked...

When my guild does 25-mans, it's not uncommon to have 2-3 Priests, 2 Warlocks and 2-3 Mages. Nearly one third of the entire raid is all rolling on Cloth armor, yet we go entire evenings where not a single piece drops.

If Blizzard insists on the ridiculous notion that cloth should be all things to all people, have they addressed the poor drop rate in comparison to other items? Our Resto Druids and Shaman are all decked out in 213 and while our Priests are still healing in Heroic blues.