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Ask a Beta Tester: Raid zones, plot, and more on phasing

I decided to do something a little different with the image above for today's Ask a Beta Tester. Instead of beating you over the head with another of my awesome Dalaran screenshots, I've plugged in some music you can listen to while you read, if you'd like. Just hit play, and get in a Wrath kind of mood.

Milkgas asked quite a few question, but many of them involve story spoilers that I don't think readers would appreciate seeing in this particular column. What I don't answer, you can truck over to Ask a Lore Nerd and I'll squeeze them in on the bottom behind my usual "spoilers be here, yarrrr" line. We can definitely hit a few of them though.

Has there been any hints in the quest text of either the Uldum or the Karazhan Basement as a raid or dungeon in this expansion or the next?

Nothing that I've seen! We'll have Ulduar as a raid zone in Northrend, so to me that seems like a definite no on Uldum. I don't think they would put two Titan raids in one expansion, unless Uldum turned out to be a 5 man dungeon. We've seen nothing about the rest of Karazhan.



Ive noticed some undead blood / high elf models in the beta, is there any evidence of us having to fight an undead Kael'thas?

No.

Are there any keys necessary to access raids or dungeons? One of which I noticed was the drop from Sapphiron to access the Eye of Eternity.

That's the only one we know about so far.

In Warcraft III there were eight dreadlords sent to keep Arthas in check. Six are dead, all but Mephistroph and Varimathras. Is there any hint of Mephistroph in Northrend?

Not that I've seen or heard.

Is the Scarlet Crusade still determined to flight the plague? If so why do they have a base off the coast of Icecrown, surley the Lich King would have pushed them back if they were so close.

The Lich King has the following factions on his tail: The Horde, the Alliance, the Argent Crusade, the Knights of the Ebon Blade, the Scarlet Onslaught, and a few others which I shall not name here. Arthas pissed off a lot of people. Even the Lich King needs to pick and choose his battles. There are other factors involved as well, but I will avoid bringing them up here. There is a ton going on in Icecrown, story-wise.

uncaringbear asked...

What happened to the new dances? Weren't we supposed to be getting some sort of a dance studio to make our own customized dances?

I never heard of the customized dances thing, I thought that we were just getting new dances. Either way, there's been no sign of it. I think they scrapped it, or put it off to the side for awhile.

Chris asked...

Will titles like Champion of the Naaru and Hand of A'dal be disapearing with patch 3.0 or when the actual expansion hits? My guild only needs to kill Kael...

I am pretty sure that the ability to gain those titles goes away in 3.0.2, same with the Amani War Bear. They're very similar. Specific challenges for the current game, yadda yadda. If one was trivialized by 3.0.2 then the others likely are as well.

Talia asked...

You've mentioned, regarding the new phasing system, riding through a zone "empty of mobs" because you've already quested through it. Does this phasing idea hold for all mobs, or only special/quest related ones? Does this, then, have the obvious implications for helping friends with quests you've already done? What about farming/grinding?

Not every quest changes how you see the world. It's reserved for very, very big quests. Let me lay out two hypothetical quests to try and give examples.

  1. Kill ten boars.

  2. Assist Tirion Fordring and Darion Mograine in assaulting a Scourge stronghold.

The first one won't change anything. There will still be boars. The second one is a pretty big deal. When you finish that quest, those mobs will probably be gone from that stronghold. In fact, it will probably be populated by the Argent Crusade or the Ebon Blade instead, probably with new quests.

In most cases, yes, this does prevent you from going back and helping your friends with older quests in these areas. You'll see one another on the mini-map, but you can't interact. You won't see eachother in the game world. However, there aren't many group quests that cause these phase changes, or come in between phase changes. They tend to be towards the end, or at the very end of a series of phases. It shouldn't be a very big problem. There's only one quest chain that went against that, but the quests were for 2 or 3 people and not 5. It might be a little harder to find groups for those quests, but not impossible.

Also, most places that change over like this aren't really places you would want to farm. You won't make an entire zone unpopulated this way, just pockets of it.

Derec asked...

Are there any quests that send you back to Outland?

Yes, I've seen a number of them. They're usually short, though. To go talk to some person, or something like that. There are plenty that send you to Kalimdor/Eastern Kingdoms as well.

The Wrath of the Lich King beta is in full swing, and the WoW Insider crew is here to sate your curiosity with Ask a Beta Tester! Leave your beta questions in the comments and we'll do our best to answer 'em! And if you can't get enough Wrath, don't forget to check WoW Insider's Wrath Roundup page for anything we haven't answered here!