Posts with tag dalaran

I ran into an old friend from the Burning Crusade days recently, and we found ourselves reminiscing about the things we missed from that expansion. While we both agreed that the quality of the play experience is way better these days, there was one thing that we both missed: Shattrath.

As any BC-era player could tell you, Shattrath was a busy place, with players getting their tailoring and blacksmithing done in Lower City, loitering around the Scryer and Aldor bank ledges, playing chicken with the elevators, and riffing on Cro Threadstrong's threats to the nearby fruit vendor. Because the Alliance and Horde were both headquartered in the city and there were no faction restrictions on which of the two banks and inns you used, it was pretty common to encounter both friends and enemies as you went about your business (or, just as commonly, sat somewhere and gossiped in guild chat). While we were chatting about this, my friend said something that stuck with me: "It felt like you cared more about players from the opposite faction because you saw them all the time."

The more I thought about it, the more I felt he was right. I knew if my counterparts in Alliance raiding guilds had upgraded their gear, /waved at them a lot, and /pointed and /cheered to the telltale flames in the central part of the city to congratulate them on their Kael kill. In Cataclysm, we find ourselves largely on opposite sides of the world and encounter each other but rarely outside of the entrances to raids or while farming in higher-level zones.

Now obviously, there are technical issues with sticking players of both factions into the same city (Dalaran was famously laggy for most of Wrath of the Lich King), and given the Mists of Pandaria storyline, it doesn't make much sense to encourage interfaction closeness. But still I wonder, would the sense of server community (otherwise hurt by the success of the Dungeon Finder and Raid Finder) benefit from the reintroduction of a popular neutral city?

---

In today's Mists of Pandaria Live Developer QA, a player asked whether we'd see a Dalaran-like capital city on the new continent of Pandaria. Cory Stockton's answer reveals a surprising amount about the new Pandaria paradigm of exploration.

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.

Last week, we talked about the evolution of NPCs from classic WoW to The Burning Crusade. It was a quiet beginning to the evolution, starting with just a few NPCs in classic WoW that spawned world-altering events like The Great Masquerade. But in The Burning Crusade, we not only saw major movements from major-name players like Thrall, who actually got off the throne in Orgrimmar and traveled all the way to Nagrand to visit his long-lost relatives, but also minor players. These seemingly minor players gradually won the hearts of the playerbase through storylines that progressed with each patch in the expansion.

Characters like Cro, Jadaar, Asric and even the shifty Griftah weren't just NPCs. They were subtle reminders that those characters we barely interacted with had lives of their own, and it breathed a new energy into the game. Suddenly, the world wasn't just about you and whatever quest you happened to be on. It was also about Griftah's "unfair" persecution, or Cro's struggle to get that blasted fruit cart out of the way -- mundane, ordinary, everyday events, the sort of events we witness on a daily basis in the real world. Bringing the mundane to the game made Outland feel just a little more real, too.

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.

Warcraft has a huge story behind it that stretches back over three expansions and an original MMO, three RTS games, and expansions to those RTS games. It covers novels, comics, manga, short stories, and even books, quests, and items currently found in World of Warcraft. The sheer amount of information out there can be a dizzying, massive pile of stuff to keep track of for the average player. Though Cataclysm's done pretty well with incorporating story and lore into gameplay, there are still tons of question out there left to be answered. Cataclysm doesn't cover everything.

That said, this week I decided to mix it up a bit and answer some lore questions from previous posts. To mix it up even more, I also put a call out on Twitter for everyone's burning lore questions. I won't be doing these too terribly often, but if you've got a question that isn't answered in this post, feel free to leave a comment and I'll come back here next time I decide to do a Q&A. Let's get started, shall we?

@ericisgame from Twitter asked:

How many Old Gods are there currently and how many do you think will be eventually revealed?

Every Thursday, The OverAchiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we're still after that last coin from the Eventide fountain.

Welcome back, folks. We return this week to the next installment of our miniseries on the Dalaran fountain's magic coins. Getting all of the coins will grant you A Penny For Your Thoughts, Silver in the City, and There's Gold in That There Fountain, with the completion of all three granting The Coin Master and one more notch toward Accomplished Angler.

It's really in the set of silver coins that you get a sense for just how dangerous this fountain can actually be. Most of the people who tossed coins into it never saw their wishes come true. Of those who did, most probably wished they never had. Why is this fountain's existence even tolerated by Dalaran's municipal services? Is it considered an historical artifact or something?

EDIT: This guide is now finished! You can find the full series here:

• The OverAchiever: Dalaran's magic fountain
• The OverAchiever: The silver coins of the Dalaran fountain
• The OverAchiever: The gold coins of the Dalaran fountain

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.

We've talked about their politics and their ancestors, but humanity itself has not really been described in detail -- and it deserves to be. The humans of Azeroth derive from the ancient servitors of the Titans, and their origins lie in the frozen continent of Northrend (indeed, before it was a continent of its own), but they've developed over time into a brash, persevering people of their own who rose to master the Eastern Kingdoms and who had endured two hideous wars with alien invaders, the plague of undeath that shattered their strongest kingdom, and times of chaos and uncertainty. It is humanity that holds the Alliance together today, serving to unite disparate peoples in a collective that grows more cohesive in the face of growing Horde expansionism.

The ultimate drive to exist that has kept humanity going past world-shaking calamities must be respected. When war and strife come, humans have risen to the challenge. Although one of the shortest-lived of Azeroth's native races and possessed of one of the youngest cultures, human have risen on the strength of their determination.

Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we detour back to Dalaran with a fishing pole in hand.

I'm actually writing this on July 4, so I'm in the mood for a little fun while we're waiting for the dust from patch 4.2 to settle. If you've been around the site before, you've probably seen my worshipful odes to the Dalaran fountain, which I still think was one of the best and most brilliantly eccentric parts of Wrath of the Lich King. (I think archaeology's very similar overall, even if Blizzard's still working out the kinks.) While I took a look at some of the coins almost three years ago during the Wrath beta, it occurred to me recently that we never actually did a guide to them and their importance to WoW's mythology.

So here's the deal: You're in a magic city. The city has a magic fountain. Lots of very important, somewhat important, and unimportant people in the world made wishes and tossed coins into the fountain, and the fountain (being magic) remembered them. Some of the wishes are funny, many of them are sad, many are quite thought-provoking, and a few are simply tongue-in-cheek references to the Warcraft universe (Archimonde's is probably the standout here). If you fish all of them up, you'll get A Penny For Your Thoughts, Silver in the City, and There's Gold in That There Fountain, with the completion of all three granting The Coin Master. So if you're going for the fishing meta Accomplished Angler (ha ha! sucker!), you'll need the coins even if you're not interested in the lore behind them. You monster.

Warning: If you're still playing your way through The Burning Crusade and Wrath content, there are a lot of lore spoilers in here, so be careful.

EDIT: This guide is now finished! You can find the full series here:

• The OverAchiever: Dalaran's magic fountain
• The OverAchiever: The silver coins of the Dalaran fountain
• The OverAchiever: The gold coins of the Dalaran fountain

Blizzard has released an update for the patch 4.1 official patch notes. Most of these notes confirm changes already in game, including the presence of portals to Stormwind and Orgrimmar in Dalaran and Shattrath, which should be good news for people leveling through the 60s and 70s. In addition, the art update to Reins of the Dark Phoenix was stricken from the patch notes. That change will be coming in patch 4.2.

Read on after the break for all the new changes.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week, we take a break from slaughtering trolls and digging up ancient relics long enough to discuss our early impressions of patch 4.1. My first impression: Cobraaaaaa!

The days and weeks following a major content patch are always an adventure. Suddenly Azeroth becomes the Wild West, with unexplored frontiers awaiting over every mountain, untamed vistas as far as the eye can see, and far, far too many people wandering around who haven't bathed in months.

Patch 4.1 has been no exception. Logging in on patch day is a bit like going to sleep in one world and waking up in another, one where up is down, left is right, Olivia has brown hair and wears tight shirts, and Walter Bishop has an intact brain and is sleeping with some Asian chick. You never know when you're going to discover some random new nugget of craziness that wasn't in the patch notes. You also never know when you'll be disconnected in the middle of a boss fight, but hey, patch days are patchy.

It's only been a few days, but undoubtedly you've noticed some good, some bad, and some weird new things lurking about the fringes of this digital world we spend time in. Let's take a look at some of the more mage-specific tidbits, shall we?

Those of us who make Darkmoon decks will no longer have to park our scribes in Dalaran to access the ink trader there, because patch 4.0.6 will bring with it the addition of ink traders in Stormwind and Orgrimmar. Now, aside from changing an alchemist's proc specialization, there's no reason to move any crafting character out of the main cities!

Bashiok

Ink Traders are being added to Stormwind and Orgrimmar in 4.0.6.

source

The ink trader used to be the center of every glyph maker's business. Now that the traders only take the somewhat more expensive Blackfallow Ink, they're mostly used as a way to create more Inferno Ink. I also sometimes use them to trade Blackfallow Ink in for lower-level, common inks when I need them for glyphs, but that's only when my stocks of old-world herbs dry up. So far, actually, it's been only Ethereal Ink from Outland.

---

Maximize your profits with more advice from Gold Capped, plus the author's Call to Auction podcast. Do you have questions about selling, reselling and building your financial empire on the auction house? Basil is taking your questions at basil@wowinsider.com.

---

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.

Since I talked about Gilneas last week, it only makes sense to continue the discussion with one of the most worgen-centric places in all of the World of Warcraft, namely storied Shadowfang Keep. It debuted in vanilla WoW as a brooding ruin infested with those dastardly worgen and the angry, unquiet ghosts of their victims. Now, some six years on, it's a brooding ruin infested with those dastardly undead, led by three traitors to both the Forsaken and Gilneas itself, also jam-packed with the ghosts of its former worgen masters and their victims.

In short, time hasn't done much to improve Shadowfang Keep's general disposition. Well, unless you like your keeps to be atmospheric, top-filled with raging monstrosities and jam-packed with the loots -- in which case, the former estate of Baron Silverlaine awaits you.

Yes, before it was a dungeon, Shadowfang Keep was the ancestral home of Baron Silverlaine, a noble who owed allegiance to Gilneas and whose ancestral lands lay just outside of where the Greymane Wall would be erected. Ruling over the settlers of neaby Pyrewood Village, the Baron seemed a relatively capable leader... until, of course, the coming of the Scourge.

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.

Duty first. Grief second. Self-pity? Never.

Daughter of a Grand Admiral, once intended of a prince, and one of the greatest mages in the history of Azeroth -- it's a hell of a reputation to live up to, but Jaina Proudmoore is nothing if not conscious of the example she sets to others. While other leaders have suffered greatly and bear the scars of their past as a badge of honor to further their pursuits, Jaina has had her own share of grief. Yet unlike the other leaders of her time, she bears her sorrow quietly, burying it under responsibility and an unwavering dedication to the greater good of the world.

Jaina Proudmoore was the youngest of Grand Admiral Daelin Proudmoore's children. The only girl born to the family, Jaina had a lot to live up to -- and she was determined not to spend her life as one of other ladies of the noble court. From a young age, Jaina showed a remarkable aptitude for the magical arts. Around age 11, she was sent to Dalaran to study among the mages of the Kirin Tor -- something that may have been a daunting task for other children her age, but not Jaina. She'd spent her childhood reading tales of Aegwynn, one of the greatest Guardians the world had known. The tales of how Aegwynn had overcome the stigma of being a female wizard and achieved far greater success with her position than any man in the Guardian line only served to fuel Jaina's ambitions, even though she was but a child at the time.

This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com.

Soon, Deathwing the Destroyer will spring forth from his exile in Deepholm and wreak havoc upon Azeroth. The world (of Warcraft) as we know it will never be the same again. Some locations will be mostly unchanged, while others will be completely unrecognizable.

One of the things I'm looking most forward to in Cataclysm is having my characters wake up in the newly changed world and experience that "Holy cow!" moment. When I get home from the midnight opening of my local game store and install the game, I want to log in at the most interesting and significant place I can. I plan on taking some time during that last night to move my characters to certain specific locales.

There are many places to choose from. Where will you log out the last time before the expansion? Will you choose a place that will experience a big change, like the bottom of the Shimmering Flats? While it might be fun to wake up underwater -- or will you be floating, or ported to the speed barge? -- there might also be a million other players who had the same idea. You may want a more secluded and original place. Other zones with big changes like Desolace or Blasted Lands might be less crowded and still provide that "whoa" factor.