Posts with tag caverns-of-time

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.

Ves asked...

Who are all these humanoids aiding the blue dragonflight? I did the quest where you find out one of them was a Troll forced to work for them under the threat of harm for his family, and I assume some of them are blue dragons taking human form becuase sometimes blowing up the world requires opposable thumbs, but surely they can't all be either dragons or slaves.

Gear! Let us continue our discussion of gear in five man instances, for we are shamans, and we have more interesting things to talk about. Like love. Or DPS. I like talking about DPS more than love, to be honest, I'm not specced for love with anyone but my wife. (She's a very specific boss in this regard.) Healing's good too, we could also talk about that. I found myself healing a Halls of Stone/Lightning run (is anyone else noticing that they end up running more instances back to back in Wrath?) in enhancement spec (resto gear) the other day, and I freely admit I wished I was resto several times on that run. Well, we made it through, anyway. But a HoT would have been very nice on Ionar. Can I just say now how very much I hate Ionar? A lot. Healing that fight without Riptide is pretty agonizing, especially when you don't have Nature's Swiftness or Earth Shield as well. The tank had to heal himself a couple of times. Lesson learned: it's just more fun to heal as resto. Oh, please let dual specs come soon, Santa.

As I'm inching up the levels on the shammy and considering if I want to raid on him (I've been considering raiding as resto or enhance, haven't decided yet) I'm looking to the Storm Peaks instances as a source for upgrades. What can we find there? I've also begun making forays to the Culling of Stratholme in prep for when I start running it over and over again on heroic for the fist weapon. I mean, for no reason at all! There's no fist weapon here! Don't even run the instance! (Whew, I think they bought it.)

Still leveling? Looking to do some dungeon runs? Want to know where to go, or where to find your quests? ...No? Oh. Well, okay. You can leave, then. Wait, I think I heard someone say yes! In that case, you might be interested in WoW Insider's guide to the dungeons of Wrath.

In the gallery below you'll find a quick guide to all of the 5-man instances of Wrath of the Lich King, in order of the level of the instance. It contains brief descriptions of each dungeon, their level range, and just where to find all of the quests for each of them. I hope it proves useful, and if not, at least some of the pictures are pretty!

A guildmate of mine was healing a Culling of Stratholme run last night and finally broached a question that seems to have occurred to everyone who's helped Arthas take his utilitarian moral perspective on the road: "Why are we helping this guy?"

It's a question that people used to ask about Black Morass a lot too (indeed, the first boss, Chrono Lord Deja, will ask you that himself), but Black Morass was a little more cut-and-dried. Medivh unquestionably cost many lives in bringing the first Horde through his portal, but if the orcs never set foot in Azeroth, then the world would have fallen to the Legion. The Bronze Dragonflight is unusually blunt about the cause-and-effect; war breaks out among the human kingdoms, the Alliance never occurs, the new Horde is not present at Hyjal to defend against Archimonde's forces -- indeed, the Legion may very well have swept the world without Hyjal ever occurring. So, despite the destruction wrought by the first Horde's entry into Azeroth (and you could argue, because of it), Medivh must succeed in opening the portal.

I'm not sure it's quite that straightforward with "Old Strat" -- and questions about whether it is prompt some thought-provoking questions concerning Azeroth's past, present, and future.

We're going to get right down to business this evening, folks. I was kind of heartened to see Willferal (our first questioner) ask about something that's bugged me for a while.

EDIT: several commenters have taken issue with the lack of a spoiler warning on this post when it went live at 9:00 pm EST. I genuinely apologize; it should have occurred to me to write one, and it's entirely my fault that one wasn't present. So consider this fair -- if belated -- warning that there's a significant, if general, spoiler in this AABT concerning an important quest chain in Wrath, and if you're trying to avoid spoilers completely, please do NOT read AABT. This column is nothing but a pile of spoilers compressed into a spoiled package and tied with a spoilery bow.

Willferal asks...

I know that in Wotlk, the players are fighting Malygos. But in TBC, Kalec/Tyri are blue dragons that help us, and Kalec is especially vital in his help to kill Kiljaeden. What's their role in Wrath?

I wish I knew. I never found any mention of Kalecgos while leveling, and Tyrygosa only got a brief mention at last year's BlizzCon. Tyrygosa's role in BC wasn't that extensive, but Kalecgos was all that and a box of crackers in Sunwell, so this is a little...mystifying. They both seem on passable (Tyrygosa) to good (Kalecgos) relations with the mortal races, so the involvement of their entire flight in Malygos' war would -- I hope -- concern them somewhat. I really hope Blizzard goes somewhere with this, but as of now I don't think you can expect to find anything in Northrend.

We're all busy people, so let's jump right in here. Sorano asked...

Has Gelbin Mekkatorque ever done something to contribute to the world around him? Poor little guy seems to do nothing nowadays. I'm sure as leader of the Gnomes, he could do a lot to help the people of Azeroth.

He does things, but they're not portrayed in WoW very well. It's mostly things you will find in the RPG books. Mekkatorque helps design the various siege weaponry the Alliance uses (steam tanks, etc), and works heavily on figuring out ways to take back Gnomeregan from the ferocious level 30 elites and, more importantly, clean up the radiation.

Welcome to this week's edition of Know Your Lore, bought to you today by assistant lore nerd Daniel Whitcomb.

Stalvan Mistmantle, an inhabitant of Duskwood, is one of those guys who just sort of sits there in lore, provoking admiration in some, malaise in others, and a lot of questions in others. Most Alliance have likely at least heard of him, but if you've leveled exclusively in the Horde, you may never have met him. His story is presented in a very sinister fashion, but as to the man behind the quest, and how exactly he came to surrounded by Necromancy and horror, that is a little less clear.

As an Alliance member, you first hear of Stalvan through a vision of Death received by Madame Eva. Specifically, she senses Death in the future for her granddaughter, and hears a name in her visions - Stalvan. Heading to Daltry, the town clerk, you begin your investigation. As you continue it, you find out more and more about Stalvan's life. Strangely enough, although it starts out benign, and in fact paints him to a pleasant fellow, an itinerant wanderer and country teacher, spirits appear and try to end your investigation violently. In addition, you often find yourself cursed simply from handling his old belongings.

Our good friends at WoW Radio have continued their beta instance-running ways -- previously, they've taken runs through Utgarde Keep and The Nexus, and after a short break (they're busy folks, pushing out great radio 24/7), they've done a run through CoT: Stratholme, viewable right there if you want to see it.

We should warn you that there are spoilers, of course, and personally, I think I might not watch the whole thing -- I'd kind of rather experience the Culling of Stratholme on my own. But for those of you willing to take the plunge with the WoW Radio folks, enjoy. We hear there is some good lore commentary going on, and there's even a bug where, Totalbiscuit tells us, "all Gnome females are default naked." Shudder.

Yeah I think I will pass, actually. But if you do choose to press play, enjoy the video.

Just the other day, a fun little potential toy for Engineers cropped up. Wormholes! Wormholes? Yes, wormholes. What do they do? Think about Mages for a moment. They have both Teleport and Portal spells. Teleport spells take only them to a capital city of their choosing. Portals create a way for your entire party or raid to go to that capital city.

Engineers have Transporters, which work similar to a Mage's Teleport. They take you specifically to whichever Goblin or Gnome town your Engineering specialization likes best. Wormholes will be the answer to the Mage's Portal. You will be able to take your entire party to that town, not just you. The only one we've seen so far is a Wormhole to Gadgetzan, which may actually prove to be quite useful. While Shattrath has an NPC that will teleport you straight to the Caverns of Time, I haven't seen one of those in Dalaran so far in the Wrath Beta.

Currently it seems the intent is to have Engineers quest for these Wormhole generators, but they aren't available on either the live or beta realms quite yet. That could easily change before we see them ourselves. We may also see these in Patch 3.02 rather than Wrath of the Lich King as well, seeing as Northrend has Goblin towns of its own.

[ via MMO-Champion ]

Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.

For the past several weeks, Insider Trader has been examining the recipes that craftsmen can acquire from factions by earning reputation with them.

So far, we've covered:

• Designs for jewelcrafters, part one.
• Plans for blacksmiths.
• Recipes for alchemists.
• Patterns for leatherworkers.
• Patterns for tailors.

Last week, we covered several factions that offer jewelcrafting recipes, but because of the sheer number available, are continuing with the last five factions this week.

The first five factions listed here can be viewed by checking out last week's edition of Insider Trader, while the last five factions, in bold text, will be covered today.

• Violet Eye, honored. (Karazhan)
• Thrallmar or Honor Hold, revered.
• Lower City, revered.
• Aldor or Scryers, revered.
• Sha'tar, revered.
• Keepers of Time, revered.
• Scale of the Sands, revered. (Mount Hyjal)
• Cenarion Expedition, exalted.
• Consortium, exalted.
• Shattered Sun Offensive, exalted.

Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan posted several new changes that are appearing in the Wrath of the Lich King Beta tonight. The highlights include:

• Level cap raised to 80.
• Less XP required for 70 to 80*
• Storm Peaks zone available, Icecrown unavailable.
• Follow dungeons available:
• Halls of Lightning
• Halls of Stone
• Caverns of Time: Stratholme
• The Occulus
• Utgarde Pinnacle
• Heroic Nexus
  

Tigole also notes that premade characters will be made available at a later date on a different server. It looks like they'll actually be doing this now. More changes and analysis of the latest Beta patch to come throughout the evening. Stay tuned.

*We did some rough calculations. Daniel's Hunter was approximately 50% of the way through level 70. His hunter is now 60% of the way through level 70. Thus, the XP required to level was reduced by approximately 20%. These are just rough estimates, and no official word on the percentage has came out yet.

Update 11:49 p.m. EDT: Zarhym has said that patch notes are still being compiled. We'll have them up as soon as Blizzard releases them.

It hasn't shown up on the Beta servers yet, but it's probably still one of the most eagerly anticipated instances of Wrath of the Lich King, especially for us old timers. I'm talking, of course, about The Culling of Stratholme in the Caverns of Time.

The nice thing about the Caverns of Time is that you can do stuff like this, sending people back to visit pivotal places, people, and things in the past without creating a whole new game. Despite the stumble in Mount Hyjal, when we appeared to go as tourists instead of agents of the Bronze Dragonflight to combat the Infinite Dragonflight, the Caverns of Time has been solid and well-liked, with 5-man instances that allow you to experience some important and intriguing lore and give you a definite story to follow in the instance, one that can be done in well under an hour.

Certainly, this model has lead to a lot of fans, and a lot of people hoping we'll see many more CoT dungeons to come. There's even rumors (or wishful thinking) that we'll get another Caverns of Time raid for Wrath, possibly The War of the Shifting Sands.

Whether it's true or not, I can't say, but the caverns definitely have room to expand. As the custodians themselves explain, passageways to new times could open up without warning, sending us off on new adventures. What times, places, and people would you like to visit via the caverns?