Posts with tag nagrand

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.

Garrosh Hellscream is probably one of the most contentious additions to the Cataclysm expansion. Oh sure, he existed all the way back in The Burning Crusade, but he wasn't Warchief at that point in time. Nobody thought for a moment that the depressed Orc in Garadar would one day be leading their characters into battle against the Lich King. And nobody dreamed that Garrosh would one day be sitting on the Horde's throne.

It wasn't so much the surprise of the situation that people took issue with, however. Instead, it had much to do with Garrosh's attitude throughout Wrath of the Lich King. Headstrong, ruthless and downright bloodthirsty, Garrosh's decisions in Wrath didn't ring right or true with the playerbase. Even more jostling to players was the notion that despite the player dislike of the character, the NPCs of the world loved the guy. It may very well be the first time that a large chunk of a faction's players have blatantly disagreed with a fictional NPC faction -- and the NPC faction won out.

The Shattering makes it clear that Garrosh's position is only temporary, but in Cataclysm, he's certainly attacking the job with gusto.

Today's Know Your Lore contains pretty much every possible spoiler that exists for the novel The Shattering by Christie Golden. If you're avoiding spoilers, run away! Run away!

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.

On Nov. 22, 2010, millions of players logged in to World of Warcraft to view the old world one final time. Whether venturing to out-of-the-way spots, running around the park in Stormwind, or saying goodbye to Magni Bronzebeard and Cairne Bloodhoof, every player was well aware that the next day, these locations and people would no longer exist. As for me, my guild leader took those of us who wished to go on a romp around the hidden places in Azeroth that many had never before seen and would never see again.

On Nov. 23, players logged on to find an entirely different, harsher world waiting for them. Orgrimmar was transformed into a bristling fortress of iron and steel. Stormwind's façade was forever marred by the charred claw marks of Deathwing, and the lovely park nestled in the corner of the mighty city had been torched and fallen away into the sea below. In Ironforge, the city was now ruled by a council of three; in Orgrimmar, a new Warchief sat on the throne. In Thunder Bluff, Baine Bloodhoof now stood in the place of honor once reserved for his father Cairne.

For those who read the novel The Shattering by Christie Golden, all these events made perfect sense. For those who hadn't picked up the book, the resounding question asked was a simple "What happened?"

Today's Know Your Lore contains pretty much every possible spoiler that exists for the novel The Shattering by Christie Golden. If you've been putting off picking up the book and giving it a read and would like to remain unspoiled, I would highly suggest turning away now.

Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we continue the Mountain o' Mounts grind in Outland with a few notes on BC reputation.

If you're catching up with us after last week, we've finished off both The Ambassador and the first leg of Mountain o' Mounts. I have to confess that I approached both achievements from the perspective of a player who wasn't necessarily at the level cap (I've been leveling a goblin priest lately and greatly enjoying the benefits of faction tabards in dungeons), and I completely forgot that the Argent Tournament even existed. Whoops. (Either that, or I've got one hell of a mental block concerning jousting.)

This week, we're going to hit the dark portal in pursuit of more mount and reputation achievements. Outland is the single most fruitful continent for getting lots of mounts from a limited set of factions. If you've got the patience to make it to exalted with the three factions that sell transport around this shattered hellhole, you'll have an additional 19 mounts at your disposal. You can bump this up to 21 if you count the two PvP talbuks available from Halaa, but these days you'll probably have to arrange a battle royale in the zone in order to get the kills (and tokens) needed. More on this in a bit.

Otherwise, your three targets here are the Netherwing, the Sha'tari Skyguard, and the Kurenai/Mag'har. But first, a brief history lesson for all those of you who joined the game in Wrath of the Lich King and still need to work on your Outland reps ...

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's Know Your Lore with Thrall left the former Warchief in Nagrand, seeking guidance not only in regards to the raging elements of Azeroth but his own life as well. The former Warchief knew he couldn't step down without leaving someone in charge, and so he had to pick a temporary successor. It was his choice, however, that baffled and angered many World of Warcraft players -- rather than picking someone well known like Saurfang, or perhaps giving Vol'jin a chance to shine, Thrall chose Garrosh Hellscream.

Garrosh's life has been anything but easy. First introduced in The Burning Crusade expansion, Garrosh was apparently -- let's face it -- a petulant crybaby who couldn't even muster the interest to lead the people of Garadar when the impending death of Greatmother Geyah approached. It was up to us as players to convince young Hellscream that life would be all right without the Greatmother, but he simply refused to listen. It wasn't until Thrall visited Nagrand that Hellscream finally stepped up, in a much larger capacity than anyone imagined.

But where did young Garrosh come from? What was his life before we encountered the sulky, unwilling leader of the uncorrupted orcs of Nagrand? What caused him to be so fearful of stepping up to lead? And more importantly, why exactly is he fit to lead the Horde, a much larger group of individuals than that tiny village, when he couldn't be bothered to step up in Garadar?

Our tip line has just exploded with readers writing in with news that the next phase of the Cataclysm precursor events has just gone live this evening. The world isn't ending yet, but things are certainly heating up. This phase of the event introduces a few new quests for both the Horde and the Alliance.

The gates of Stormwind and Orgrimmar are being heavily regulated. The city guards (along with players) are searching every Alliance and Horde citizen coming and going through the gates for Cultist paraphernalia. Both factions are also dealing with some hefty infiltration -- there are (poorly) stealthed cultists all over both cities. Horde players will also notice that Thrall is missing from his throne room. He has officially left Garrosh Hellscream in charge and has departed for Nagrand.

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

Of all the PvP events I've participated in over the years, the battle for Halaa in Nagrand always sticks out in my mind as one of the best-executed examples of world PvP that the World of Warcraft has ever produced. The battle for Halaa brought together several areas of warfare in perfect harmony.

• The element of surprise The battle for Halaa took place at any time. Whenever the opposite faction felt like taking control of the city, they could form a raid and start bombing. It left the controlling faction scrambling to assemble a defense when the words "Halaa is under attack!" popped up on their screens.
• Aerial assault Players had to activate one of four wyvern stations and fly over the city of Halaa to drop bombs, causing massive amounts of damage. Until the defenses were weakened, players could not successfully enter the city.
• Sabotage While enemy players were taking to the skies, one of the keys to success was to destroy the activated wyvern stations to prevent those enemy players from immediately taking off for another bombing run.
• Siege warfare Once the city's defenses were eliminated, the conquering force moved into the city center and held the city captive. Either the defending faction would break the siege and regain control of the city or it would be lost to the conquering heroes.
• Spoils of war Defeating your enemy within the boundaries of Halaa yielded you a Halaa Battle Token. Once you controlled Halaa, those tokens could be spent on various rewards, including the coveted Dark War Talbuk.

With new expansions come new territories to explore and conquer. Sadly, Nagrand and the war-torn city of Halaa fell to the wayside in favor of Wintergrasp once Wrath of the Lich King was released. So what does a player who is hungry for world PvP do now? If you have some friends and are will to do a little organizing and promoting, here are three new ideas to spring on your server.

I'm not sure about Holy Pally. On one hand, it features a singing, dancing draenei. I think one of the best things about World of Warcraft are dancing draenei. It therefore stands to reason one of the best things about WoW machinima is dancing draenei. But I feel like the singer's voice was over-affected by the filters, and it left the song feeling garbled. It's really hard to get a grip on the performance with that being the case. The lyrics and vocals are by MelodeeNagrand.

The video itself, however, was fun. The machinima was created by Nagrandify. (I think these two have something about Nagrand. I'm pretty good at detecting these things.) The music video was plenty apt to MelodeeNagrand's lyrics, and kept the pace of the song. It felt a little dark to me, but that could just be that I get distracted by shiny things.

Ultimately, Holy Pally was a decent video. I hope to see more from the pair, as they seem to interact well together.

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It's time once again for Arcane Brilliance, the weekly mage column that would like to thank its readers profusely for the deluge of screenshots it received last week. Arcane Brilliance sent out the call, and you guys responded in droves. There were so many, in fact, that it was an impossible task to select just one for the column. Arcane Brilliance finally went with this one, apparently of an undead pimp of some type, simply because it made Arcane Brilliance chuckle. Also, the column this week is about leveling through Outland, and this is a pretty good representation of how your mage will look throughout that leg of the journey: like the mutant love-child of the entire cast of Saved by the Bell.

Seriously... you guys are awesome. Sooooooo many good pictures to use. I may have to start writing like 12 of these a week, just to have an excuse to use all of them. Thanks again, and keep them coming. Even if I don't get to use them, I just enjoy browsing through them. So many mages, so little time.

Last week, our mage leveling guide hit level 58 and fled vanilla WoW for the alien landscapes of Outland. This week, we'll tackle the 10 levels your mage will be spending there, amongst the hellboars, sporebats, and ravagers.

Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all-things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple Rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com's arena column.

Okay, I'm a bit of a music buff. I love Bob Dylan, one of the most influential American singer/songwriters of our time. Here's some listening music while reading -- you can probably guess what it is. I selected it primarily because the song title goes well with our discussion -- and I love Dylan's brilliant live performance in Budokan. It's a bit much if you're not a Dylan fan, I'll freely admit.

Patch 3.2.2 has a myriad of PvP changes in it; I am stunned to see so little conversation on the interwebz about it. In fact, I've written so much about these changes that I was advised to split the article into parts. A lengthy article here on WoW.com is approximately 1000 words -- this article was over 3,000. (No, not over 9,000.)

I'm going to split up this article into three parts.

1. Overall changes
2. Class changes
3. Bug fixes and Glyph Changes

Check out what's a-changin' after the break.

Reader Malos on Nagrand sent me an interesting idea that I thought was worth some discussion. For a long time now, I've been a big fan of the idea of turning the old instances into Heroic versions -- I think it would be really fun to play Deadmines as a level 80, or roll through Scarlet Monastery for badges. But obviously the problem there is that Blizzard already has enough to do -- they're focused on creating new content, not revamping old instances that people have already played.

So Malos has a solution: instead of tweaking the instances to us, how about tweaking us to the instances? He suggests a set of gear, much like the Heirloom gear, that matches your character to whatever instance you happen to step into -- if you enter Deadmines, it powers down your level 80 character to an appropriate power and level for the instance. That way, all Blizzard has to do is make one set of gear per class (that could even scale upwards, so they never have to make it again), and boom, every instance could be played at the standard difficulty by any character any time.

Will it happen? Probably not. But I really like the idea of tweaking the players, not the instances, and I think there's a lot of possibility there for Blizzard. They've had such a tough time trying to balance out content for all kinds of players (including all of the hard modes and extra gameplay in Ulduar), that it might be interesting to try and measure the difficulty by going the other way -- balancing players out for all kinds of content.

I thought this was a really cute idea: an in-game date, sharing some of the best locations and activities around Azeroth with someone you love (or just happen to be courting). There are lots of great ideas in that thread -- I agree that the Twin Colossals is one of the more scenic (and out of the way) vistas to visit, but there are plenty more to go to: The Grim Guzzler, a floating island in Nagrand, the Darkmoon Faire, inside the bio-domes in Netherstorm. Personally, I think the best date would be a picnic on the deck of the ship in Deadmines -- sure, you'd have to fight off ninjas every once in a while, but what is a date without a little ninja fighting, right?

If you do head out on a date, make sure you bring some roses and a bottle of wine (depending on how well you expect the date to go). If you've really thought ahead, you can bring a Romantic Picnic Basket, or you can shell out for a regular Picnic Basket, but otherwise, it's probably just best to have a snack of Delicious Chocolate Cake (it's guaranteed to make your date Very Happy).

Like I said, cute. Spending the time together with friends is what the game is all about anyway, and there's nothing wrong with taking some time to experience the world and hang out with each other. And if that's a little too boring for your tastes, maybe you can have your date tag along with you to some 2v2 Arena matches afterwards. Nothing gets the romance going like a little bloodshed.

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. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

We're going to jump right in today, because we have plenty to talk about this time around!

NarwhalFrenzy asked...

"Referring to the quest Out of Body Experience, we already know what happened to Prince Keleseth and Prince Valanar, but will we ever figure out what happened to the other darkfallen there, like Prince Theraldis or Prince Atherann?"

I have no doubt we'll be seeing them in Patch 3.3, in and around Icecrown. Prince Theraldis (the one on a horse (with an equine-themed pashmina afghan)) seems to have been the overseer of that whole project going on during Out of Body Experience, so I wouldn't be surprised if he turns out to be a raid boss and Prince Atherann is in a 5-man or a group quest elsewhere. Though it would be interesting if they were a side-by-side raid boss, like the Twin Emperors. Hm!

Dear players,

Things are good back here in Nagrand -- though we don't see anyone but Death Knights coming through nowadays, I often think back to a few years ago when I saw so many of you come through leveling up, just as you are now in Northrend. You were so innocent and naive back then -- you really weren't prepared, at level 66 and 67, still not knowing what treachery Illidan might have planned or what treasure the walls of Tempest Keep might hold. Nowadays, the space inside those walls is empty except for the occasional Death Knight group -- my friend Ghabar up in Stormspire says they see even fewer players than we do here.

Even the boys in Halaa say things are slow -- while I'm sure it's a relief not to be under attack every other hour, they come down here to Aeris Landing every once in a while just to pass the time and see what's up. I suppose when the Death Knights are gone, that'll be pretty much the end for us. Oh sure, we'll have the occasional newbie come through (I'll always need Crystal Fragments and Obsidian Warbeads, as long as there are suppliers to buy them -- and there are), but things won't be the same. Maybe I'll even get out of the trading business and take up a profession of my own. I hear Inscription can be fun.

Oh, and by the way, it's the first of the month, so I've got your monthly gems sitting here. You may not need them up in Northrend, with your Lich King and your dragons and whatever else you've discovered up there (have you found any Ethereals yet?). But they're here, just like the rest of us, waiting for you. Sigh.

Yours,

Gezhe at Aeris Landing in Nagrand

It's a new month, and those lovable little swindlers we call the Consortium are offering up free gems once again.

Of course, they don't give away their best stuff to just anyone.

The better your reputation, the higher the chance you have of being granted a blue quality gem, although nothing is a guarantee, even at exalted.

Head out to Aeris Landing in South Western Nagrand and try your luck. You're guaranteed to come away with something, and you might get more than you'd hoped!

Check out our complete list of the bags you get at each reputation level for more information.

Didn't get what you needed? Check out our Consumer's Guide to Gems to get the scoop on how to go about choosing and acquiring gems for your gear.