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WoW Archivist: Patch 2.1, The Black Temple
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? Blizzard ruined my intro. I was going to talk about how appropriate it was that patch 5.1 included a scenario for warlocks that took them to the Black Temple. Then they pushed it to 5.2. So fine. I'll just fall back to something generic. In terms of sheer content and changes, patch 2.1 was truly massive -- one of WoW's biggest patches of all time. It arrived in May 2007, five months into The Burning Crusade. Let's dive in! Illidan shouts at us in person We were ready, if not perhaps entirely prepared. After an ad campaign and a trailer that prominently featured Illidan, many players expressed disappointment that WoW's first expansion didn't launch with the Black Temple raid. In retrospect, those concerns seem silly today. If anything, the Black Temple released too early in the expansion, forcing Blizzard to add the ultradifficult Sunwell Plateau raid to fill the gap between expansions. The Black Temple was an enormous raid, and one of the game's most beloved. No matter where you went, everything was big and scary. In some areas, even clearing the trash felt epic. Nine bosses populated a vast indoor/outdoor instance. Many of them are still remembered fondly. Supremus and Reliquary of Souls were highly memorable encounters, the latter partly due its unforgiving awareness checks. Teron Gorefiend and Illidan were major lore figures able to be vanquished in WoW for the first time. BT wasn't the only raid that 2.1 introduced, however.
New Children's Week pets and quests
Wowhead News has unearthed some interesting additions to the Children's Week holiday, which starts this Sunday shortly after Noblegarden 2011 ends. For anyone worried about the meta-achievement For the Children, the achievements associated with the holiday haven't changed (more's the pity re: School of Hard Knocks), but the quest lines in classic Azeroth have. If you're Alliance, the brand-new quest series starts with Children's Week, offered by Orphan Matron Nightingale in Stormwind; if you're Horde, it starts with Children's Week, offered by Orphan Matron Battlewail in Orgrimmar. Both new quest lines will see you surveying the changes to the local landscape in Cataclysm, in addition to meeting important lore figures and paying your respects to the dead. Afterwards, you'll go out for the traditional ice cream treat and then visit a local vendor to get kites to fly. Wowhead News has more details on the individual quests if you don't mind spoiling yourself. The quest lines end with the offer of a new noncombat pet in addition to the usual Piglet's Collar, Rat Cage, and Turtle Box -- a new Snail's Shell! It looks like the Outland quest series will also offer a new pet called Legs, though there don't appear to be any new quests there. Experienced orphan herders thus have a reason to pick up a tyke again this year, and with any luck, the Wrath of the Lich King variant will be available even if you've done it before.
It came from the Blog: Running of the orphans snapshots
On the first day of Children's Week, we at <It came from the Blog> adopted orphans for the day and ran them around to wherever they wanted to go. We ended the day by letting them gorge on ice cream, like the irresponsible guardians we are. More than 80 people joined us, including Thrahk, our candidate for warchief -- should that position become available. We began the event by meeting and greeting at the waterfall in Orgrimmar. Note: It's hard to fish when you can't tell which bobber is yours. Then we completed all of the Orgrimmar orphan quests. We have snapshots that I took as well as those sent in by guildies. Midsummer Fire Festival is next month, so expect our next event to be on either June 26 or 27. We'll pick a continent and hit all the fires on it. And of course, Choose My Adventure continues. %Gallery-92548% Please join us on US Zangarmarsh-H in <It came from the Blog>. Ask Robiness, Robinemia or any member online for an invite. Guild ranks of Lurker or above have the ability to invite. You are all welcome as long as you play by our simple rules, which can be summed up with "Don't be a Funsucker!" Also, please see the guild FAQ for the most common questions.
The Daily Quest: Children's Week
Here at WoW.com we're on a Daily Quest (which we try to do every day, honest) to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we should be following? Just leave us a comment and you may see it here tomorrow! Take a look at the links below, and be sure to check out our WoW Resources Guide for more WoW related sites. It's holiday time again in World of Warcraft and this week it's all about orphans. We are introducing them to dragons, taking them into battlegrounds and abandoning them on zeppelin platforms in droves. The blogging community has a few things to say about them too. Cynwise's Battlefield Manual has a comprehensive guide to the School of Hard Knocks. Cynwise also suggests A Modest Proposal, which I highly recommend. A Healadin's Tear has some tips for the much maligned battleground achievement as well in For the Children! Big Bear Butt chronicles his time with his orphans in Limping into Children's Week. Gauss ponders The Orphan's Future in Gauss' Adventures in World of Warcraft.
Reminder: It came from the Blog's running of the orphans is today
Today's the day of the running of the orphans! If you have a level 10 or higher Horde character on US Zangarmarsh, please join <It came from the Blog> today for our Children's Week event. We will begin with a fishing party by the waterfall near the orphanage in Orgrimmar and then run off with our orphans to complete their quests and get them into keep them out of trouble. Here are the particulars: When Sunday, May 2. Mixer: 5 p.m. EDT (2 p.m. PDT; 3 p.m. server time) Event: 5:30 p.m. EDT Where Meet at the waterfall near the fishing trainer in Orgrimmar, US Zangarmarsh. Who Any Horde character, level 10 or above How Send a tell to Robinemia or any member online for a guild invite. Guild ranks of Lurker and above can invite. The level restriction is only because that is the minimum level to get an orphan. We will not be forming groups or raids, so guild chat will be raid chat. No mount is required as we will be running everywhere on foot, though there will most likely be higher level guildies keeping the paths safe. After all, our guild motto is Protect the Lowbies! Please join us on US Zangarmarsh-H in <It came from the Blog>. Ask Robiness, Robinemia or any member online for an invite. Guild ranks of Lurker or above have the ability to invite. You are all welcome as long as you play by our simple rules, that can be summed up with "Don't be a Funsucker!" Also, please see the guild FAQ for the most common questions.
The OverAchiever: Guide to Children's Week 2010 achievements
I had originally intended to run the last article in our continuing series on evil achievements this week but belatedly remembered that Children's Week starts this Sunday. Possibly I'd blocked it out due to the existence of School of Hard Knocks, but even that's not an excuse given that this miserable piece of work appears in my top five evil achievements article (and my own personal See Me In Hell list). As with other WoW holidays, Children's Week was heavily revised last year. We haven't seen any additional information for the 2010 holiday, so we're assuming that it's the same. Much of our 2009 guide had to be written on the fly as information trickled in from the realms that saw the holiday first, so for 2010, I've organized and expanded it past the cut. The Children's Week achievements and the meta For The Children are part of the year-long What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been, so you will want to get these done if you're working toward a violet proto-drake.
It came from the Blog: The running of the orphans
Children's Week starts on Sunday, which means it's time for another <It came from the Blog> event. We will be doing the low-level quests out of Orgrimmar together, which will mean lots of running, fun and orphans. We will have another Fishing Party by the waterfall before the event begins, so that we can chat and get to know our orphans. Here are the particulars: When Sunday, May 2. Mixer: 5 p.m. EDT (2 p.m. PDT; 3 p.m. server time) Event: 5:30 p.m. EDT Where Meet at the waterfall near the fishing trainer in Orgrimmar, US Zangarmarsh. Who Any Horde character, level 10 or above How Send a tell to Robinemia or any member online for a guild invite. Guild ranks of Lurker and above can invite. As usual, we will not be forming a raid group. This time it is not only because we tend to have more than 40 people participating, but also because we will be completing quests. You need to be level 10 to get an orphan and do the quests, which is why the level restriction. No mount is required, however. We will be running on foot wherever we need to go and there should be plenty of higher levels around to Protect the Lowbies! I am really looking forward to this and I hope you can join us. Please join us on US Zangarmarsh-H in <It came from the Blog>. Ask Robiness, Robinemia or any member online for an invite. Guild ranks of Lurker or above have the ability to invite. You are all welcome as long as you play by our simple rules, which can be summed up with "Don't be a Funsucker!" Also, please see the guild FAQ for the most common questions.
TurpsterVision: Northrend Children's Week
We can't believe it either – Turpster has been let loose on WoW.com to bring you videos from in and around the World of Warcraft! You've heard him on the WoW Insider Show, and now see him on TurpsterVision right here on WoW.com.First up a bit of housekeeping; thanks to all of you who took part in last week's contest -- over 500 of you! A winner has been chosen via the highly technical method of a /random in-game roll. Sorry to the others of you who didn't win this time, but who knows, maybe in the future we'll have another giveaway on TurpsterVision!This week we take a trip on the PTR and experience the new Northrend Children's Week, doing the impossible and completing both sides of the event to show you what is on offer. Lesley Smith posted about the event before and we even put up a handy gallery if you would like to take a closer look at some of the quest text.
Breakfast Topic: Are achievements putting too much pressure on players?
I'm not in a WoW place right now. I tend to move through phases of being a casual or a hardcore player. It depends on the content available (such as a new patch) and my workload. I did most of the Noblegarden achievements but now Children's Week is here I suddenly feel burnt out. Except for a quick romp through Gun'drak with my guildies last night and a pit stop to pick up my orphans, I've been strangely distant from Azeroth.The thing is, I know precisely why. It's the pressure of achievements and festivals. Let me be clear, no one is making me do these things but me. Last year I enjoyed Children's Week because it was my first time doing the Outland version, I got rep, money and the smug feeling you get from taking a cute Draenei orphan around to see her heritage. Now all my guildies and most of the other people on my sever are frantically going for the achievements and, in some ways, it feels like the holiday has been cheapened a little. Being so close to Noblegarden probably hasn't helped either.But it makes me wonder if I'm the only one? Right now I'm a casual player, but do you think the point of these holidays has been lost by the desire to get a Violet Proto-Drake?
Children's Week ruins Battlegrounds
I'm sorry Blizzard, but I'm with the whiners on this one. The School of Hard Knocks is so badly designed that it's ruining, instead of enhancing, the Battleground experience. Take, for example, the requirement to return a flag in Warsong Gulch. First of all, the requirement is that the player return the flag personally as opposed to being in the vicinity of a flag return. This means that all ten players on one side are angling to return the flag... which is great in theory but in practice encourages entire teams to wait inside the base hoping to get the Achievement. This results in extended stalemates that don't actually encourage what needs to be done, which is to capture the flag.In Alterac Valley, we have forty players and four capturable towers or bunkers. Sure, the opposing faction can defend the towers/bunkers allowing it to be recaptured, but the whole business of racing to capture one -- again, personally -- turns every Alterac Valley into a race. This means lesser chances of defended towers. Realistically, if players tagged and defended until the objective burned down, only 10% of the team would be able to accomplish the Achievement requirement in every match. I'm sorry to tell all those who are allergic to PvP that you'll actually have to play quite a number of Alterac Valley matches just to get this one. Unfortunately for me, on my Battlegroup, playing Horde-side AV is like pulling teeth.
Bornakk winks at new Children's Week content
Bornakk, you sneaky little... Over on the forums, when someone brings up the PTR achievements we've seen for the newly revamped Children's Week, he just kind of snickers and avoids the topic. And while that may mean that he's just ignoring the issue, I'll take to mean something a little more exciting: there's more in store for Children's Week than we think this year. Which isn't much of a surprise: we already know that there'll likely be a Gurloc and a Wolvar orphan added to the game (along with pets for each of those groups), and there's no mention of any quests involving those guys on the PTR yet. The original complaint in the forum was about "good" RP characters having to do evil things for achievements (haven't we made it plenty clear that achievements are optional?), so maybe we'll even see some more quests for all kinds of players.At any rate, expect new things to do during this year's Children's Week. We're sure Kisirani and her team are dreaming up all kinds of crazy things for us.
Hallow's End 2008 guide (updated)
>>Click here for WoW.com's Guide to Hallow's End 2009<< Hallow's End is scheduled to begin in a few hours, and you know we loves us some candy. There's been a big change to the Achievement needed to get the "Hallowed" title (it's actually gotten a lot easier), the Headless Horseman has a new loot table, and -- well, it's been a year since we've seen it anyway, so here's a round-up of WoW Insider's articles on Hallow's End. As an FYI, we're also expecting patch 3.03 to hit alongside Hallow's End, and it should contain a number of bug fixes for problems that have cropped up since 3.02 hit Tuesday and some class tweaks. With that said, nobody's 100% certain of what's actually going to go live, so check back; we should have more information this weekend.Read on for a guide to the holiday quests, the new Achievement related to the holiday, and some fun stuff you can do ingame til November 1st!EDIT (11:50 pm EST): we've confirmed a few changes to the holiday with some readers on the EU realms, and I've updated the post.
Children's Week begins today
Today's the first day of May, and that means that Children's Week has begun. All kinds of little snot-nosed orphans are out there begging for you to run them around Azeroth and show them the sights, and in return they'll give you one of the richest treasures in all of WoW -- a cute little noncombat pet. There's a nice Children's Week guide up over at WarcraftPets, and we've done our share of orphan touristing around here at WoW Insider. This year will be no exception -- stay tuned all week for posts about what may have changed in Azeroth for the holiday, and don't forget that this Sunday, our in-game guild on Zangarmarsh will be running around the orphans all together.Of course, it may not be the best thing for Azerothian orphans to be running around with all you wacky player characters, but they've got to get out of the orphanage at some point, right? Go do it for the kids this week!
