Posts with tag sulfuron-keep

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.

In the deepest parts of Blackrock Mountain, the Dark Iron toil relentlessly, slaving away at the whim of an ancient, terrifying master of flame. The Molten Core, as it is called by the denizens of Azeroth, is not this creature's home. Instead, it is the home of a dark ritual gone terribly wrong, a ritual that not only backfired, but subsequently resulted in the enslavement of an entire dwarven clan.

The 10th anniversary of World of Warcraft has some extra special goodies this year, including an updated, 40man LFR version of the Molten Core. Although many players lurked in its depths in the original iteration of the raid, the story of the area and how it came to be was scattered all over Azeroth -- because the tale begins long before there were dwarves, clans, or anyone to call Blackrock Mountain by name.

The Dungeons and Raids panel is now in Q&A mode, and Cory Stockton (lead content designer) gave us a lot of new information concerning what to expect when patch 4.1 goes live. I've assembled everything we know below:

• Firelands raid This is the elemental plane of fire and an outdoor raid located in Mount Hyjal. You'll be able to mount up and run around.
• The final boss will be Ragnaros, and you'll fight him in a building called Sulfuron Keep. Sulfuron Keep looks very similar to the building you'll see when you fly into Hyjal for the first time (and may in fact be the same one).
• The Firelands raid will provide more backstory and lore on Ragnaros' presence in Azeroth. I thought I heard that he won't be moved out of Molten Core (he'll be in both raids simultaneously) but I'm not 100 percent sure.
• Expect 7 bosses.
• The Abyssal Maw The elemental plane of water. A new 5-man in Vashj'ir thematically similar to the 5-mans shipping with Cataclysm.
• "Oh, and it's nothing Oculus." Players will be moving around a lot in the dungeon and they're doing their best to avoid the "Oculus effect" of quirky mechanics being unintentionally annoying.
• The entire dungeon will be underwater. They've overhauled underwater combat and you can fight normally if you're on the floor. Most of these mechanics are already in place in the beta Vashj'ir zone, so some players will already be familiar with it.
• They're planning on four or five bosses.

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BlizzCon 2010 is upon us! WoW Insider has all the latest news and information. We're bringing you liveblogging of the WoW panels, interviews with WoW celebrities and attendees and of course, lots of pictures of people in costumes. It's all here at WoW Insider!

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