Posts with tag uldum

Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, time is of the essence. Where have we heard that before?

I recently talked to a player who managed to solo most, though not all, of the Glory of the Hero achievements from Wrath. He mentioned ones like Share the Love that been impossible to complete without putting a group together, and as you can imagine, getting four more players for heroic Wrath achievements isn't the easiest thing in the world at 85. People who want the achievement for their alts are rarely interested in doing a meta piecemeal, and this is probably going to get worse, rather than better, once account-wide achievements go active. Once someone's got a red proto-drake on one character, they almost certainly won't repeat the process on one of their alts.

The vast majority of achievements get easier as you level up, but the canny achievement hunter will pay attention to the ones that don't. As the game changes, players' priorities and interests change, and older content has a tendency to fall by the wayside. It's best to strike while the iron is hot.

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.

I have seen worlds bathed in the Makers' flames. Their denizens fading without so much as a whimper. Entire planetary systems born and razed in the time that it takes your mortal hearts to beat once.

The Titans are creatures of myth and mystery to the mortals of Azeroth. While some Azerothians (most notably Brann Bronzebeard) seek to unravel their secrets, most remain blissfully unaware and uncaring of the origins of the world. But the mysteries Brann works so hard to uncover more often than not raise far more questions than they answer, and in some cases, create havoc that could reduce our world to ashes in the blink of an eye.

In Ulduar, Brann sought to uncover the further secrets of the origin of the dwarves, something that the Explorer's League has been working on since the early days of WoW and the first player steps into the Titan stronghold of Uldaman. But what Brann uncovered was a massive facility that wasn't just for the storage of information from times long past. The facility of Ulduar and its corrupt Titans weren't anywhere near as much of a threat to the world as what came after Loken's defeat in the Halls of Lightning. For it was the moment of his defeat that the failsafe was tripped and the signal was sent.

And it was Loken's death that heralded the arrival of Algalon the Observer and the end of the world.

Alex Ziebart and Mathew McCurley (that's me) decided to give each Cataclysm zone the once-over now that we're many months out from the release of the expansion. In this post-mortem series, we'll examine what worked and what didn't work in terms of story, quests, and overall feel for the zones and the cool moments that dotted the landscape.

On the southern end of Kalimdor, a forgotten civilization hides behind otherworldly technology, forged by the Titans to protect the great machinery of Reorigination. The tol'vir, great protectors of the ancient machinery, stand stalwart against the corruption and fighting. Some tol'vir have succumbed to the aqir long ago, but the civilization remained unknown to the whole of Azeroth. After Deathwing's violent breach from the Maelstrom changed the world forever, the resulting chaos broke the shield that hid Uldum and revealed its sands. Now, Deathwing and his allies fight to corrupt the tol'vir and bring chaos to Uldum and beyond.

Uldum continued the Cataclysm zone progression by moving you from the rocky, subterranean world of Deepholm into an open-air desert, a welcome change for the claustrophobic adventurer. Giant pyramids, monumental statues, and an Egyptian motif made Uldum one of the most beautiful and well-realized zones in Cataclysm. As players embarked on two very distinct quest lines, the story of Uldum unfolded as the forces of the wind broke the Skywall through the desert sky and into Azeroth's realm. On the other side of the zone, players were sent on a sprawling adventure with fan favorite Harrison Jones on a bumbling expedition to figure out the purpose of the Obelisks of Uldum and get into some wacky trouble.

This is going to be the most controversial of the Cataclysm post-mortems. I can feel it. Uldum was a zone that people either loved or hated during the content push to 85. We are going to try to keep it civil.

I was running around Uldum recently, doing the Ramkahen quests on yet another new 85, when it occurred to me that Uldum itself feels like the story has barely been told. Sure, we run around doing odd jobs for Harrison Jones, then we infiltrate the Halls of Origination and turn off the big doomsday device Algalon was going to use on us. And sure, we eventually crash into the Vortex Pinnacle and Throne of the Four Winds to stop Al'Akir and his minions. But what about the connection between Silithus and Uldum?

We know that Ahn'Qiraj was a lost titan city and that the Tol'vir were assigned to it, that entities like Ossirian were once watchers like Setesh. (Setesh's model is nearly identical to the Anubisath that patrol AQ today.) It just feels like, with C'thun obviously driving Cho'gall around even after his "death," that there's room for a whole raid just dealing with the lost connections between AQ and Uldum. The lost passages of the titan research facility that the Qiraji took over? (We know from Uldaman and Ulduar that titan constructions tend to go on for miles and miles.)

And that's hardly even the top of the list of raid instances we could see. A lot of us hoped for and expected an Abyssal Maw raid of some kind. There's a lot of talk about another Caverns of Time instance or raid with Nozdorumu's return. And I can't be the only one who keeps thinking that Grim Batol has entire layers we haven't seen yet. Heck, there are whole terraces in Deepholm we visit once and never go back to, and that whole zone is massive and cries out for more.

Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we begin an epic search for transportation across the Uldum sands.

The developers' strangest and most eccentric additions to the game often wind up numbering among the things that make World of Warcraft truly great, and -- fortunately for this column -- many of them are achievements as well. Today, I'd like to talk about something that, strictly speaking, is not yet an achievement. As of the most recent PTR build (13750), we know that it's going to be one in patch 4.1, and I am highly delighted that the Grey Riding Camel is now fair game for OverAchiever.

If you've followed Cataclysm zone or reputation news at all since the beta hit, you've probably known about the two camel mounts available at exalted with the Ramkahen faction. Getting them is a pretty straightforward process: Quest in Uldum, meet the kitty people, buy the kitty tabard, get the kitty people to fall in love with you -- and sooner or later, a Brown or Tan Riding Camel will result. Actually, that makes the process sound a lot more salacious than it really is, but I digress.

The Grey Riding Camel has always been different, and in order you get one, you'll engage in a little quest worthy of the zone's Indiana Jones feel. As with all Indiana Jones stories, it all starts when you find a valuable artifact after an agonizing search ...

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.

Once upon a time, godlike creatures of order called Titans landed on a small, unassuming planet named Azeroth and proceeded to reorganize it. After they left, the planet was invaded by malevolent creatures called Old Gods -- creatures of chaos and destruction. The Titans returned to the little planet, horrified at what had happened, and rose up against the Old Gods and their elemental lieutenants in what was the most horrific war the planet had ever seen. But instead of destroying the Old Gods, the Titans were forced to imprison them deep within the planet.

They set safeguards over the fragile world -- draconic aspects to watch over the various domains of life, the earth, magic, time, and nature. They created new guardians to watch over the prisons of the Old Gods. They created a magical font of energy, tied to the Twisting Nether -- the Well of Eternity. And satisfied with their work, the Titans left. No one on the fragile planet has seen them since; they are spoken of in history and in legend, but they've never returned.

Why? Of all the questions in Azeroth, this is the biggest by far. Why did the Titans imprison the Old Gods, instead of starting over from scratch? Common theory suggests they liked the planet too much to re-originate it, yet they left behind safeguards that would do exactly that, if the Old Gods escaped again. So why not simply do so to begin with? Why leave the world as it stood? More importantly -- why are we here?

Today's Know Your Lore is a Tinfoil Hat edition, meaning the following is a look into what has gone before with pure speculation on why it happened. The events presented are events that happened in Azeroth's history, but the conclusion is simply a theory and shouldn't be taken as fact.

In the beginning, Azeroth existed as a simple planet floating in the midst of space (or the great dark beyond, as it's sometimes called). There is very little out there in terms of the history of Azeroth's creation, but what little we do know is this: Azeroth attracted the attention of creatures called Titans, godlike beings that traveled from world to world, creating order from chaos and leaving planets teeming with life. The Titans did to Azeroth as they did to countless other worlds before: They created seed races to inhabit the little planet, encouraging life to grow. Along with the seed races, they created the earthen -- stone beings that were meant to maintain the order the Titans had cultivated. Satisfied with their work, the Titans left.

It was some time after the Titan's departure that disaster struck. The little planet caught the eye of malevolent creatures known as Old Gods. The Old Gods strive for chaos and destruction, the exact opposite of everything the Titans create. Azeroth, still new to the universe, crumpled under the assault. However, the Titan-created earthen presented a problem that required a creative solution. The Old Gods, seeing that these creatures were made of rock and stone, released a disease called the Curse of Flesh -- the originator of many of the species that roam Azeroth today.

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

Welcome to part 5 of the epic guide to Cataclysm daily quests! Previously, we discussed profession dailies, Therazane dailies, Tol Barad permanent dailies, and Tol Barad dailies received by the faction in control of Tol Barad. Today, we'll wrap up the last few dailies in Uldum and Twilight Highlands and then discuss getting the most out of your Cataclysm daily limit.

Uldum dailies There are only two dailies in Uldum, one infinitely preferable to the other. The first is a short, sweet, entertaining quest called Thieving Little Pluckers. It's fast, fun to do, located near the center of Uldum where you port in, and awards 150 reputation with Ramkahen, otherwise known as the guys who'll sell you a camel when you hit exalted.

The other, Fire From the Sky, is the daily version of the quest by the same name that is part of the Harrison Jones quest line. This was hands down the most broken, miserable quest I had to do on my way to 85. It involves using a cannon vehicle to shoot slow-moving bombs at tiny, moving soldiers on a large map. Initially, all players shared the available mobs; grouped players' kills did not count for other group members; and worst, you couldn't see any bombs except your own. The group you'd been oh so carefully targeting would blow up seconds before your bomb hit, leading to massive nerd rage.

Luckily, this has been hotfixed. Mobs are still shared, but group kills count for everyone, and all players' bomb targets are visible on the map. I still advise skipping it as soon as you get the associated achievement.

Once a day, resetting at midnight, alchemists at skill level 485 or above are able to transmute Volatile Life into a random other volatile. A little-known fact not documented in the tooltip is that if you perform this transmute in a specific zone, the result will not be random. For example, doing it in Uldum will always yield Volatile Air.

This transmute, even when performed in a city, is likely the best use of the shared alchemy cooldown. For a lot of realms, none of the other cooldown-linked transmutes (Truegold, Pyrium Bar, and the pre-Cataclysm stuff) are nearly as profitable as the Living Elements transmute, simply because as a general rule, Volatile Life is always among the cheapest of the volatiles. Transmuting it to just about anything is profitable, or at least not a loss. Now that we can force it, it's going to increase drastically in profitability.

Here's the list of locations and what they proc, taken from a blue post about a hotfix:

• Volatile Air: Uldum
• Volatile Fire: Mount Hyjal
• Volatile Water: Vashj'ir
• Volatile Earth: Deepholm

Transmute-specced alchemists also enjoy the chance of a double proc; however, the additional volatiles are completely random. You can force the primary proc but not the secondary bonus. Based on the fairly low drop rate from the Electrostatic Condenser, air will be the way to go for a while.

---

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 brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.

---

If you're sitting there at your keyboard right now violently coveting your upcoming Cataclysm experience and daydreaming of all the places you'll go, we here at WoW Insider would like nothing better than to aid and abet you in your wacky escapades. And since Cataclysm is launching on International Matthew Rossi's Birthday, who better to help you figure out where you intend to stream like an unstoppable torrent of locusts? Well, there may be lots of better options, but I'm doing it anyway.

Cataclysm has several new zones to experience and quite a few new dungeons to crawl through. Let's take a look, shall we?

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for discipline and holy priests and makes the occasional StarCraft 2 reference. If you ask her, she'll tell you disc priests are like sentries and holy priests are medevacs.

There is a lot to cover in Spiritual Guidance this week, so I'll be diving right in to the content. I was going to outsource my creative introduction to Mr. Fox Van Allen, but he wanted to be paid entirely in red M&Ms, so we'll just have to do without.

We'll be covering two topics today. The first will be to cover the latest build released on the Cataclysm beta earlier this week. There were some large changes made to AoE healing that affect both holy and discipline priests in different ways. Second, I've written up my advice on leveling from 80 to 85 as a healing priest.

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

All of us are anxiously awaiting Cataclysm's going live. Wrath is winding down and people are anxiously anticipating the new content. Some want new raids, some want new dungeons, some want new quests, some want to make goblins or worgen. Some of us are just really excited to see the changes to the old zones, and some just want to get right into the level 80 to 85 content.

I myself am in the beta. I have played it as it has evolved since the friends and family alpha, and I have watched some of the zones go from buggy and near unplayable, with quests not yet implemented, to being far more fleshed-out and nearly ready to go live. I love Hyjal. It has an epic feel; you are right in there battling to reclaim the zone from the Twilight Cultists and the elementals. Deepholm is equally amazing. In the revamped zones, I thoroughly enjoyed the CSI-inspired murder quest chain in Westfall. I have made both a goblin and a worgen and must say, the goblin starting area and Azshara should not be missed. Everyone should make a Horde character and complete the Azuregos and Kalecgos quests in Azshara. On the other hand, I feel Gilneas is a little overscripted and Darkshore is still a little odd.

There is a lot of the world I want to see when Cataclysm launches, but there are places I want to see more than others. Where are you most interested in exploring when Cataclysm comes out? What do you absolutely have to see, and what quests do you want to do? What particular zone excites you the most? Or are you just in it for new dungeons, raids and new shiny epics?

Welcome to Lichborne, your weekly source for news, guides, tips and opinions on the death knight class.

In the latest beta patch, Blizzard was so kind as to bump the level cap up to 85, in addition to opening Uldum and Twilight Highlands, the last two major leveling zones in the expansion. Unfortunately, neither zone is itemized, but more on that later. In my testing this past week, I've delved in the long-dead, dormant spec of two-handed frost. The spec was officially killed off (at least in the sense of having competitive DPS) in the latter part of Wrath, when Blizzard decided to make frost the official spec of dual wielding. However, with the advent of Cataclysm, that is changing. With blood becoming a dedicated tanking tree, it left unholy as the only two-handed weapon tree. Recognizing that some players might dislike the pet-tending aspect of unholy, Blizzard decided to support two-handed weaponry in the frost tree once again.

That said, deciding to support it and succeeding at it are two different things, and in addition, there seems to be a lot of people who are still confused as to whether or not Blizzard plans to support it. You can put your mind at ease now though. Very recently, Ghostcrawler (lead systems designer) confirmed that, yes, Blizzard is supporting the two-handed weapon playstyle for the frost tree.

• Cho'gall is not only alive, he's the last boss in Grim Batol: Bastion of Twilight, the new entry-level raid for the expansion.
• Upon defeating Cho'gall on heroic mode, the floor beneath you will collapse and you will fall into a cavern of flowing lava that hides a "horrifying secret," according to Lead World Designer Alex Afrasiabi.
• Uldum was locked away by a Titan mechanic that created a projection of a large, impassible mountain -- the Cataclysm destroyed the machine and opened access to Uldum.
• Thereazane the Stonemother will be present and involved in a reputation grind similar to the Sons of Hodir.
• Reports state that one of the bosses in Skywall: Vortex Pinnacle is an elemental lord. Given that Skywall is the Elemental Plane of Air, this can only mean Al'Akir the Windlord.
• Garrosh is the "acting" Warchief of the Horde. Implying "temporary." Everyone breathe a sigh of relief.
• The Valley of Wisdom in Orgrimmar is now the Tauren district.
• Garrosh's stronghold is not in the Valley of Wisdom; it's at the center of Orgrimmar.
• The Park district in Stormwind has been destroyed, largely because Deathwing wasn't exactly happy about his daughter's head hanging from the rafters.
• The Forsaken have set up a foothold in Silverpine Forest and have rebuilt many areas, to provide a base of operations for assaulting Gilneas. The current reason for the attacks is because Gilneas is strategically valuable to the Horde.
• Less of a lore note, more of an immersion note: New music will be added for all of the cities, and a large portion of the game world.

Archaeology

Plenty to look forward to, but the most interesting change is to the Archaeology profession. Since Path of the Titans is being scrapped, Archaeology is no longer involved with it. Instead, players will use Archaeology to "dig into the lore of the game" as a new vehicle for storytelling purposes. There are two types of "artifacts" players can uncover. The first will be a lore or story artifact, while the second type can reward items -- cosmetic or fun, with the occasional rare useable weapon. Archaeology will not provide any "must-have" items, so those that don't feel like grinding out another secondary profession can skip it entirely. However, it sounds like Blizzard is taking another step towards making the story and lore of the Warcraft world a more interactive experience.