BlackTemple
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How to get attuned to the Black Temple [updated]
On the PTR, it was really easy to get attuned to the big new tier 6 raid, the Black Temple. All you had to do was be at least Honored with the Violet Eye and talk to Johnny McWeaksauce, and you'd get the amulet that served as a key. So it actually never occurred to me to wonder what the attunement process would be like in the live patch. In case you were wondering, however, wonder no more. MMO-Champion has all the details (plus screenshots), courtesy of Arthyn from Vanquish (A-Staghelm). In short, you have to kill Fathom-Lord Karathress (a boss in Serpentshrine Cavern) and Al'ar (a boss in the Eye). The detailed version is after the cut, for reasons of length and spoileriness.Update: apparently, Karathress and Al'ar are just the first parts of the attunement chain. After Al'ar, you have to kill Rage Winterchill, the first Hyjal boss, and even that may not be the end -- we'll just have to see. World of Raids has screenshots of the new quests.
Patch 2.1 is here
As announced yesterday, patch 2.1 has gone live this morning. It brings many, many changes; here are some highlights: Almost every level 70 epic buffed Big Alchemy changes Black Temple and Mount Hyjal raids Druid epic flight form New zones: Ogri'la, Skettis, Etherium Prison Netherdrakes Talent changes for Paladins, Shamans, and Rogues Battleground matching system Ruins of Lordaeron arena That's just the big stuff -- there's tons more. For well-organized compendia of 2.1 information, check MMO-Champion or World of Raids. The full patch notes are as usual available at Blizzard's site; if you can't get there, I have them mirrored on our site (in three parts, because the notes are ridiculously long: 1, 2, 3). And if you can't get the patch downloader to work, WoWWiki has a list of patch mirrors.Most realms were supposed to come back up at 11:00 AM PDT; there was a bit of a delay, although most realms appear to be up now. However, some realms needed extended maintenance, and are expected to come up at 2:00 PM PDT. Those realms are listed after the cut.
Patch 2.1 live tomorrow!
For those of you who didn't want to wander through the extremely long transcript for the Stratics House of Commons Dev Chat in the last post, I thought I would point out one extremely pertinent bit. According to Tigole, Kalgan, Drysc and Eyonix, patch 2.1 is going live tomorrow morning to all servers. If you've been holding off on running the torrent, or meaning to look for that patch mirror site but never got around to it, you might want to get that download started. In either case, patches generally mean strange bugs and rolling restarts, if not an extended downtime in the first place. Best to prepare for an extended WoW jones now and some frustration as the bugs get worked out of the system.Me? I've got my World of Warcraft home game, WoW Insider, and caffeine. I'm ready to face patch day!What kind of things do you do on patch day? Have any particular things you do on maintenance Tuesdays like the WoW LJ community does with their Caturday - Servers Screwed thread? Share your tips and save your fellow WoW players from boredom tomorrow!Edited to add: Yep, Drysc confirmed extended downtime: We will be performing extended maintenance on May 22 for all realms.
Magtheridon's head, some Black Temple loot, and more!
From the guilds Drama and Curse on the PTR comes some more Black Temple loot! This stuff is amazing, folks! Both guilds have succeeded in slaying two bosses of the Black Temple instance, and I'd like to give you a preview of the loot. How about a 100.2 DPS One-Hand Axe? Or a high-stat crossbow? Or, maybe some resto-shaman gears? Check out all the linked gear so far, here. One of the biggest things I noticed about the few healing gears linked so far were the perma-haste casting effects on-equip. This could be a huge hint at what's to come, where you may need to get those big heals down to under one-second cast times. I'm very excited to see more from the PTR. On a different note, another quest has been reported: The head of Magtheridon is a quest item that is turned into Thrallmar or Honor Hold. Like the heads of Onyxia and Nefarion, the quest turn-in gives a zone-wide buff: "In Hellfire Peninsula and Hellfire Citadel, increases Honor Hold/Thrallmar reputation gained from killing monsters by 10%." Here is a snippet of the quest dialogue:
PTR: Images of Illidan in the wild
Many of us have been curious to see just how Illidan would look when he was actually in-game as opposed to data-mined from the PTR client and then previewed through the WoW model viewer. Well, several brave souls from the PTR have managed to locate him in the Black Temple and have sent back the above screen shot of the man Night Elf-Demon himself in game. The reports are that he's roughly as tall as Onyxia large, but not overly so, yet extremely imposing when you're standing face-to-err ... hooves. The rumor from the peanut gallery says that when he gets to 20%, he despawns saying only "A terrible and costly mistake you have made. It is not my time, mortals." [via Curse, with a video size confirmation from Ysona]
Know Your Lore: Teron Gorefiend
Sometimes you don't have to slay a dragon, topple a kingdom or save the world to be famous in Azeroth. Sometimes you can just be a total bastard. So today we're featuring Teron Gorefiend -- Death Knight, deceptive questgiver, Black Temple boss and all-around badass. Who: Teron Gorefiend. What: Formerly an orc warlock, now an orc warlock's spirit in the body of an undead human knight, aka a Death Knight. History: Teron Gorefiend was a member of the Shadowmoon Clan of orcs, based in Shadowmoon Valley. Along with his clan's leader, Ner'Zhul, he turned from the shamanistic legacy of the orcs into the dark teachings of the warlocks. Eventually, Ner'Zhul broke a pact he had made with the Burning Legion demon lord Kil'Jaeden and went on to a bright future as the Lich King. His apprentice, Gul'Dan, took up where he had left off and organized the orc clans into a single entity with a council of powerful warlocks supporting it, known as the Shadow Council. Gorefiend joined up with the Council. During the first war against the Alliance, Gorefiend and the Shadow Council manipulated events from behind the scenes, including the assassination of King Llane Wrynn. But Gul'Dan overreached when he tried to gain secrets from the mind of Medivh, ending up trapped in a coma when Medivh died. Orgrim Doomhammer, chief of the Blackrock Clan, figured that it was time for a coup. Doomhammer killed the Shadow Council's puppet warchief and slaughtered as many Shadow Council warlocks as he could -- including Gorefiend.
Deathwing lives! (Maybe!)
Never heard of Deathwing? Well, I suppose you can be forgiven -- he's not currently in the game. However, Deathwing (also known as Neltharion), the former leader of the Black Dragonflight plays a big part in Warcraft lore. Despite the fact that he's not currently to be found in Azeroth, there's a lot of speculation as to where Deathwing might be. Grim Batol, where he was last seen? Returned to his long-empty lair? Or perhaps he's truly dead? Well, new information coming from the public test realms suggest that Deathwing may be back. BlizzPlanet is reporting that in the Black Temple, the NPC Lady Sinestra has a dialog referring to "the master" -- presumably Deathwing. Still curious? Full text of the dialog after the jump.
Tier 6 in motion
By now, you've probably seen the Tier 6 shots (if not, you've got to read Elizabeth's great critiques of them all), but here they are in all of their full-motion glory. Yes, even the Warlock (lol) set. Don't watch this if you're not into spoilers, especially because there's a little surprise at the end... Was it just me, or did the Paladin set just look like weird flat spikes before? Here, you can see it's actually glowy. And it's awesome to see the eyes on the Hunter set blink, although I think that if I ever did get my Hunter to the point where he could wear and obtain those shoulders, all that blinking would annoy me after a while. The Mage's head just looks all pointy. But oh yes, that Shaman set does look awesome. You hear that, guild? We've got to get to the Black Temple... it will be mine.
Mr. Stormrage's Worst-Dressed List, 2007
Tier 6 is out and about on the forums, so it's time for everyone to do their best Joan Rivers imitations (especially the undead, who are halfway there already) and critique the sets. Boubouille has been nice enough to link us to all the Tier 6 skins in his massive 2.1.0 info collection, so I'll be using his skins as the basis for the criticism. Ready to get bitchy? Let's go!
Preview: Black Temple bosses
MMO-Champion is at it again (Boubouille has just been doing a bangup job showing off content from this 2.1 patch!), and this time, he's somehow delved into the Black Temple and pulled out screengrabs of (most of) the bosses. As of this writing, there's no Illidan grabs yet, but that may still be coming.Since we killed the site off the last time we linked to it, I've gone ahead and mirrored the Boss shots: Here's High Warlord Naj'entus (he's the Naga-looking thing we saw last time), Supremus, Teron Gorefiend (judge me by my size, do you?), Gurtogg Bloodboil (the best looking one, in my opinion), Mother Shahraz, and Essence of Souls (the last one appears to be an encounter of sorts, and it's probably where that three faced boss-- Desire, Grief, Anger-- appears).Boubouille has also grabbed a layout of the class trinkets available at the Exalted levels of the Ashtongue Deathsworn rep, so you can know right now what you're going to be working for. I have to admit that all the content looks sweet, but just like all really high level content, I wonder how many people are actually going to see it. The Black Temple seems fun, but to tell the truth, I'm actually looking forward to the Ogri'la and Sethekk quest areas more.
Model grabs from the 2.1 PTR patch (Updated with Tier 6!)
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gaming_news/Brand_new_WoW_models_from_the_2_1_PTR_patch'; MMO-Champion has already started cracking open the Public Test Realm patch with a model viewer, and he's found some pretty cool stuff, including new weapons models (some of which still look unfinished), what appear to be bosses from the Black Temple (or possibly new models from the other opened areas), and even Illidan and the Druid epic flight form. If you're worried about spoilers, don't-- I'm going out of my way here to keep them from you, but definitely don't click on any of those links, because there are definitely spoilers ahoy.And don't click on the "Continue reading" link below either, because I've put a few of the more pertinent snaps after the jump, along with a little healthy speculation about where and what they're for. MMO-Champion promises more, so check over there to see what else he's put up.
April news from Blizzard Europe
Most of Blizzard Europe's announcements today mirror the main Blizzard announcements, which we've already seen. However, from the European site, we get an extra tidbit of Black Temple information: complete information on the new Priests of Baa'ri faction! What do we know about these priests? Well, they were closely connected with the priesthood of the Temple of Karabor, now known as the Black Temple, and now they seek new allies to help reclaim the Temple of Karabor from Illidan's clutches.And now on to the important stuff: faction rewards. Depending on how friendly you are with them, the Priest of Baa'ri may be willing to sell you patterns to craft holy resistance gear of all armor types, a new type of spellthread with +healing and holy resistance, and an armor kit with holy resistance. Does this mean we're going to have to worry about holy damage in the Black Temple? Well, I suppose I can start getting concerned about collecting resistance gear after I finish the attunement chain...
Know Your Lore: Illidan
It has come to our attention that there are quite a few people out there who don't know anything about the Warcraft universe. Considering that the Burning Crusade expansion is chock-full of major lore characters, this is somewhat disturbing. While it's definitely not necessary to play the previous Warcraft games to enjoy WoW, this is an online roleplaying game set in a particular universe, and understanding a little bit of the history behind the game can make your time in Azeroth more enjoyable. Sure, it's not exactly The Wheel Of Time in complexity, but there's some cool stuff going on in the world that you can only "get" if you know who's who. With that in mind, the new Know Your Lore feature will present quick and dirty biographies of some of the most famous names in Azeroth. Our inaugural article showcases someone you've definitely heard of, and will be hearing much more from in the near future -- Illidan Stormrage, the ultimate boss of the Burning Crusade expansion.
Instances in Burning Crusade and beyond
Relmstein's got a great roundup of the new instances coming in the Burning Crusade, including the lowdown on two instances that won't show up in January, but will likely appear in two releases after the expansion.The Black Temple, it seems, won't be available when the expansion hits-- Blizz says they want to "polish" it before release. Relmstein says that's fine, because it will take players a few weeks to get to level 70 anyway. I'm not sure that's true-- you should never underestimate how fast players can eat up new content, but I do think that the other new instances will be more than enough to at least keep the majority of players interested for a while. The other instance we'll have to wait a bit on is Zul'Aman, a 10-man instance that's Troll-based like Zul'Gurub and Zul'Farrak. Of course I knew that there would be lots of new 10-man content in BC (the highest dungeons will have a limit of 25 players), but the thought still gets me excited-- UBRS is one of my favorite instances in the current game (and relatively easy to get a group together at any time), so more 10-man content will be very welcome to see.Finally, Relmstein takes a look at instances and areas that still haven't opened in the world. Hyjal and the Island in the middle of the map we already suspect will open in later expansions, but there's a few instances that might be closer-- specifically Uldum in the south of Tanaris (a Dwarf lore instance like Uldaman) and Gilneas near Silverpine Forest. There's no plans yet for either to open (Blizzard has acknowledged that they want to, but probably aren't currently working on either), but considering that instances are many players' favorite part of the game at large, it's extremely exciting to think what swirly portals we'll be walking through soon.
