Posts with tag undercity

Hallow's End is nearly upon us, and this year looks like it's going to have a whole bunch of fun new things to keep us occupied, from new pets to new loot to new quests.

To start with, the famous wickerman of Undercity will now have a Stormwind equivalent, maintained by the Gilneans. Alliance and Horde will have a chance to honor their own wickerman or douse the one that belongs to the opposing faction. In addition, you'll be able to go on a stink bomb run over Stormwind or Undercity, or clean up after the other sides' bombing. You can read up on all of these quests, which are dailies, in Allison's Hallow's End Achievement Guide.

The Headless Horseman will once again lurk in the Scarlet Monastery graveyard, with his usual outlay of rings, his helm (perfect for transmogrification), and his sword, all of which will now be ilevel 365. His Reins will also be a possible reward from the first kill each day, of course. Again, you can find a complete list of his loot in our Hallow's End Achievement Guide.

Tricky Treats, those annoying things that you couldn't destroy fast enough in years past, will now buy you stuff. Vendors this year will sell every single Halloween mask for two Tricky Treats each, and two different pets, the Feline Familiar and the Little Wickerman, for 150 Tricky Treats each. Tricky Treats will be awarded from various quests or Hands of Treats from trick-or-treat buckets in inns around the world.

The holiday officially starts Oct. 18, so get ready! There's lots of new stuff to do this year, and not much time to do it in, especially if you're not about to tear yourself away from BlizzCon, even for a flying horse.

---

Blizzard has been getting hit with a few complaints since the Midsummer Fire Festival began -- that the holiday was just a stat-bump for the items and was relatively the same event as last year. Even the highlight item, the Frostscythe of Lord Ahune, was part of the controversy. Bashiok took to the forums to discuss the changes that had to happen for the Midsummer Fire Festival to even happen and gave players a clue to confirm the widely held belief that Hallow's End this year will play into the larger story between the Forsaken and the worgen.

The Midsummer Fire Festival remained largely the same due to the amount of work that had to go into rearranging fire locations due to the cataclysm, changing around all of the decorations, and generally spending a lot of time switching over from the old world. Bashiok does cop to the fact that the event is more or less the same as last year's, but reminds us that the Midsummer Fire Festival has already had its major overhaul back a few years ago.

The more interesting news, however, is that Bashiok says we've got some surprises coming our way with respect to Hallow's End, WoW's take on Halloween. We've been long speculating, based on data-mined items and story cues, that Hallow's End will deal with the continuing story of Sylvanas' march into the kingdom of Gilneas and the worgen's fight to take back their homeland. Plus, who doesn't love the classic Halloween monster movie tropes of zombies and werewolves?

Bashiok confirmed that there are changes in store for Hallow's End. To what extent, we do not know. However, I will be looking forward to surprises because, really, I love surprises. I'm a giant sucker for surprises. Bring on the surprises!

Currently on the PTR, there is one new fishing daily for the Horde found in the Undercity. This new fishing quest requires the player to fish up a severed abomination head from Undercity. As of right now, it appears these quests are a work in progress, as only one quest is available, and the Alliance versions of these quests are not yet implemented.

Blizzard has stated that Cataclysm is intended to keep both Orgrimmar and Stormwind as the central hubs for players to congregate in, with portals to Cataclysm zones and daily profession hubs. With new fishing dailies being added to other cities, players will be traveling to different cities just a boat or zeppelin ride away to make use of some of the underused assets in the game. If people have now noticed, the amount of content being added for patch 4.1 (and potentially, 4.2) constantly grows larger. Combined, these could be some of the more feature-rich patches in WoW's history.

---

WoW Patch 4.1 is on the PTR, and WoW Insider has all the latest news for you -- from previews of the revamped Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub to new valor point mechanics and new archaeology items.

---

---

Derthelz on the official forums asked a good question -- why is the Alliance prepared to kill Arthas but not to try to retake their lost city of Lordaeron? After all, the upper half of the Eastern Kingdoms is almost completely lost to the Alliance, despite the area being the former home of some of Azeroth's most powerful nations. Why doesn't the Alliance try to take them back?

Crygil says that, actually, they just might:

"Who said that the Alliance wouldn't attempt to reclaim these lands? That is a very dangerous assumption to make, especially if you're of the forsaken persuasion.

The Lich King is a threat to all the inhabitants of Azeroth and, as such, he needs to be put down before territorial disputes can be resolved. Leaving those claims for the future only makes sense; far easier to fight one war at a time. For now, it's better to focus on the task at hand."

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Michael Sacco will be your host today.

Editor's Note: The above image has now been fixed to include its original participants.

What a great week for dungeon running. Got my shaman his full tier 9 set, my rogue her 2-piece, and a myriad of other badges and loot for my other alts. Soon I'll start pawning off my alt's Emblems of Frost for Primordial Saronite and finance some epic flying. Plus I've gathered enough mats to get my rogue berserking on both of her weapons. Not bad, Patch 3.3. Not bad indeed.

But wait! The Queue is about you. Let's get some you in here.

Squirr3llywrath9 asked...

What's the deal with the Scarlet Crusade? I thought they were against anything that is against the teachings of the Light, particularly the scourge. But in Dragonblight there are shadow priests and death knights in the various bases the crusade has in Northrend. Was wondering if I missed anything that explains their change in ideals.

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's (almost) daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

I'm going to kick off today's edition of The Queue with a question for you, the reader. It's a gravely important question, so read carefully! What should I order from the local Chinese joint for dinner tonight? Should I go with my usual, shameful choice of orange chicken? Or should I go a spicier route and go for the Kung Pao? Heck, maybe I should bring a little variety to the table with a Pu Pu Platter? Help me, WoW.com!

Sindrow asked...

"Remember how faction switching caused all AT progress to be wiped? Is it safe to say that race change will not have similar effects, since everything is occurring within the same faction? Can you guys think of *any* negative result of a race change?"

So Cataclysm is coming and Kisirani is already working on an in-game launch event. It's gotta mean something right? Now don't get me wrong, even with my self-confessed zombiephobia, I loved last November's zombie invasion (though, at times, it got really frustrating). So now Kisirani is officially hard at work planning a new event to herald the beginning of an Azerothian cataclysm, I can't help but wonder what she has up her sleeves for us.

Is anyone else excited? I certainly am and it gives us something to focus on during the inevitable wait. To be fair, at least Cataclysm's not scheduled for 2012! We don't have that long to wait, we could be rolling Worgen and Goblins in just under/over a year's time. That just about makes it bearable. But it also leaves us with time to think about what Blizzard will do to introduce players to this brave new world.

Hit the jump to find out what we think could well happen prior to the launch of Cataclysm.

The timing of Elizabeth's tip for Lament of the Highborne by katethegreat19 could not have been more fortuitous for me. For the first time, my fiancee and I have created and actually played Horde for more than a few levels. It was only yesterday that she encountered the in-game version of Sylvanas' song. While we've both certainly seen the videos before now, this is the first time we've seen it in game. And there's just something about having done the quest, and seeing the performance happen "live" in Undercity that's just a little special.

That's why I was pretty happy to see this video in the tip line. The video is not earth shattering, and I'll admit I debated with myself whether or not I could actually put it on Moviewatch. However, the musical work katethegreat19 put into the video was so amazing to me that I felt it overcame the lackluster visual portion of the piece. She basically recreated all the singing and acoustic pieces herself.

Don't get me wrong. The author found a lot of great art on Deviantart and pieced it together into an attractive montage which complemented her performance. It's just not a "movie" in the sense of what we usually feature here. Ultimately, I really liked kate's performance here, and will be downloading this to my iPod as soon as I figure out how.

---

It was probably the least exciting thing to go down during the Wrathgate questline (Wrynn FTW, no?), and I've only played Alliance during Wrath, so I haven't really realized it until now: Varimathras is no longer in the game. He was always my favorite faction leader (even though he wasn't actually the Undead faction leader, so to speak) -- I loved his "You think you can match the might of a dreadlord?" taunt, his story (he always hinted that the Forsaken, a threat within the ranks of the Horde, might have a threat within their own ranks), and his demonic look. And now, after the Battle for the Undercity, he's gone.

Fortunately, this is World of Warcraft, and no one in Warcraft really ever stays completely dead -- just ask Kael'thas. But as a more pressing concern, players are currently wondering how they'll be able to do Varimathras' quests (for the Loremaster achievement) with him no longer hanging around the Undercity. New Blue poster Ancilorn says not to worry -- they'll come up with a way for those who can't see Varimathras to do the quests associated with him. Or, and probably more likely, they'll just take them out of the Loremaster requirements.

But a moment of silence, please, for one of my favorite lore figures, Varimathras. He was always on the winning side. Except for, you know, that one time right at the end.

I have a few alts on an RP realm that I visit from time to time, and I remember thinking to myself at one point: "These characters are a bunch of deadbeats." I'd gotten too used to the alts on my main realm being a bunch of pampered brats, spoiled rotten by the presence of a hardworking main, so financial discipline had grown to be a thing of the past.

Not so on another realm where you don't have a main, and I realized that unless I went back to a few monetary basics, my alts would wind up dancing naked on mailboxes in pursuit of gold. This is a fine tactic with a long and storied history, but when your most promising alt is a level 16 Undead Mage, you're up the proverbial creek. No one wants to see a rotting, naked corpse.

So I started not being a deadbeat, and it was with surprise and delight that I logged on to find the little tyke sitting on a pretty respectable pile of gold by level 21 -- as in, he can afford to pay for his level 30 mount and training several times over, and still have enough left over to train himself all the way to 45 even if he doesn't make another penny.

I love this idea a whole lot. A group of folks on Steamwheedle are holding an RP even (which they've done before), but it's a different kind of event than the usual party or dueling tournament. Instead, it's going to be completely peaceful -- they're having a Saturday morning crafting bazaar. Down in the empty vendor stalls of Undercity, they'll have crafters of all types and levels, some with their mats, some where you'll have to bring your own mats, making items aplenty for players. On January 24th, they're holding a "Black Market", where you'll be able to get almost anything crafted that you want (providing you've got the goods). They're also having a raffle, and they'll be serving food and drink as well. What a great idea.

In fact, I'd love to see something like this come to the game at large -- maybe Blizzard could provide a bonus to crafting when it's done at a certain time in a certain place, like create a "crafter's market" weekly on Saturday mornings (scheduled just like the Sunday fishing tournament), where crafters can make sure to be in a certain area ready to craft for any players who might need it, and can get bonus items or currency or mats for their trouble.

For such a social game, combat seems to always end up being the only way for players to connect regularly (not that there's anything wrong with that, but the only way to bond in game seems to be killing things). It would be nice to see more of this type of connection encouraged by Blizzard, with players using the skills they've earned to help each other and both sides getting a nice reward for it.

One of the more amusing things that polarizes WoW players is the various capital cities. Everyone has a favorite, very few people are ever neutral. Some of my friends like Ironforge for its simplicity, it's all laid out in a circle. Some like Stormwind for the truly city-like appearance. Some even like Darnassus because they have a thing for purple. Some of my friends wish we played Horde so we could have Orgrimmar, because I guess they need more spikes in their life or something. Me? I'm a Stormwind (and Silvermoon City) kind of guy, but Dalaran has stole my heart. Plenty of people hate Dalaran too, though.

Everyone just wants different things out of their cities. I like cities with tons of flavor, with a very city feel. Stormwind feels like people really live there, despite how small it is. Dalaran most definitely feels like a city of mages, and there's a ton of flavor and neat stuff to look at there. The fact that every single person who gives you directions in Dalaran has a name is crazy neat. The little daily event at 9 PM where you get to help turn on the lights is amazingly cool for how simple it is.

How about all of you, what's your favorite? What do you like about it, or dislike about the others? What would your ideal capital have, if you're not very fond of any of them?

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.

It's Wednesday, which I've determined is the worst day of the week ever, so let's skip any delays today and jump right into the Q&A. If you disagree that Wednesday is the worst, you are wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. As wrong as you could possibly be. Just sayin'.

Robsato asked...

I recently got my warrior to level 71 and I really miss my riding crop especially since my main is a pally going at normal speed feels really slow. Is there a way to get my 10% speed increase back?

Important news for all 20 of you playing female Tauren out there (of whom Robin Torres and I are two, so I guess it's for the other 18); beware the port to Lake Wintergrasp from Dalaran when your faction controls the fortress. Our reader Amalline wrote in to let us know that an unfortunate bug from the beta concerning the room you're ported to has made its way to the live realms. And by "unfortunate bug," I mean "hilarious joke for all those of you not playing female Tauren" -- you can't get out the door.

Those who have played female Tauren since World of Warcraft classic will recognize this as the latest iteration of the old and equally annoying "I can't get into Molten Core!" bug. Now, while I personally have no intention whatsoever of entering Wintergrasp (which, given my previous track record on such resolutions, means that one of my more sadistic friends will make sure I get stuck there within 2 weeks), I realize that there may be people among the remaining 18 worldwide players with an itch to go an ungainly killin' spree. If I were you, I would plan on being solidly part of the defense for the time being.