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Know Your Lore: Stormrage and the Emerald Nightmare, part 1
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. The events playing out in game right now have long-lasting repercussions on future lore, but there are also events playing out that aren't present in game. The Shattering by Christie Golden details some of these events, but there's another book out there that also has an effect in upcoming events. I'm talking about Stormrage by Richard A. Knaak, which was released earlier this year and covered information regarding the Emerald Nightmare. Even though the book was released some time ago, the effects of the book haven't been felt. This is because as far as timelines go, Stormrage hadn't really happened yet -- or has it? The book takes place somewhere between Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm, and though we don't see any of the events in the book played out in game, we see players from the book and the repercussions of the book's events. Today, we're going to give an overview of what's in the book and how it affects what's going to play out in Cataclysm. Please note: The following post is all about Stormrage and contains spoilers for the majority of the novel as well as the upcoming Cataclysm expansion. If you're planning on picking up the book, turn away now, lest ye be spoiled for eternity!
Breakfast Topic: What I won't miss
Visiting the Swamp of Sorrows the other day, I happened to pass by the Temple of Atal'Hakkar (aka the Sunken Temple) and became flooded with memories of the old days. I've had some good times there, back when the game was fresh and I was a newbie trying to learn more about my class and the world. Back then, the dungeon seemed so foreboding and we didn't think too much of losing countless hours navigating the temple's twisted architecture. Eventually, we grew to hate the place. First of all, getting to the instance itself was no small task. Surrounding the lake where the temple was, well, sunken, there were elite dragonkin that were a handful for characters of appropriate level for the dungeon. That meant needing to be sneaky (or swift) just getting to the middle of the lake. Once you got inside the temple, you had to deal with mummified trolls, oozes and snakes -- elite as far as I can recall -- just to get to the entrance of the instance! That by itself took a good while. Let's not even talk about getting lost on the way there ... the temple before the instance was a convoluted maze of unnecessary rooms, corridors and levels that was littered with NPCs who didn't drop anything good in particular. Oh, and did I mention that there are a whole bunch of quests that take you all around the world and can only be completed inside the instance? It would've been epic if it wasn't such a pain in the butt. It was fun for a short while, but I suppose I've grown up enough as a player to recognize that it was simply bad game design. Blizzard has grown up, too, right along with us (or it might be the other way around) and started putting out dungeons that were quick, fun, and significantly less confusing. When Cataclysm finally breaks the World of Warcraft, a lot of things will change and go away. I don't know what Blizzard has in store for the Sunken Temple, but I wouldn't miss it if it finally goes under. There are a lot of things I won't miss, actually, but the Temple of Atal'Hakkar is somewhere near the top of my list. How about you? What won't you miss when Cataclysm changes the face of the game world? What parts of the world wouldn't you mind bidding 'good riddance?'
[1.Local]: Readers dig into this week's stories
[1.Local] serves up a smattering of reader comments from the past week, from the sublime to the ridiculous.Nostalgia threads are among our reader favorites, so quite a few commenters this week chimed in on what Old World instances they'd most like to see made heroic (if such a thing were ever to happen). Readers chimed in on not one but two posts examining whether players should be embarrassed (or even ashamed) of their WoW playing. We chatted about whether or not the story behind WoW really matters and about cool things to do while we're fishing. This was also a week about preparations. We discussed shaping up smaller guilds for 10-man raiding in Wrath, and we talked about gearing up for PvP from scratch in the face of Season 4's debut. And finally, we had a rather hilarious take on hunter strategy – fuzzy logic, or no?Be sure to dive into the comments area of each thread (not this one!) and add your own thoughts – unlike your mama, we like us some hot, fresh backtalk.
Know Your Lore: Hakkar the Soulflayer
Welcome to Know Your Lore, where each week Alex Ziebart brings you a tasty little morsel of lore to wrap your mind around. Sweet, sweet lore. Mmmm. Today we're going to take a step back from out pre-emptive study of Wrath subjects and look at something a little more old school. We'll get back to catching up for Wrath of the Lich King soon enough, don't you worry about that. I'm far too excited about the expansion to not come back to it soon.Today we're going to look at Hakkar the Soulflayer, not to be confused with Hakkar the Houndmaster which apparently came first in the lore, but I don't really care which of them came first because the Blood God (that one's the Soulflayer) is way cooler. What the Soulflayer actually is is largely a mystery. He's a god, certainly, but Azeroth has many flavors of gods and demigods. He is probably just a Loa god, but our buddy Brann Bronzebeard seems to think he's more than that. Specifically, Hakkar might be the son of an Old God.
Around Azeroth: The sacrificial bear
We usually stay away from sunsets, as stated in every single post, but this one couldn't be passed up. In defiance of all fantasy conventions, it looks like it's the druid that's about to be sacrificed to the sun gods on this Mayan temple. Of course, there's no sacrificing going on here just yet -- Lutra of Vek'nilash is simply posing for a screenshot before tanking a nighttime Temple of Atal'Hakkar run. But he might have been sacrificed later with the old "jump down the hole and see what's below" trick (second only to "If you look through the crack in the wall, you can see Ragnaros!") If you missed it yesterday, Around Azeroth is running another user submission challenge: Grand Theft Azeroth! Send us pics of you (or your friends, we're not picky) committing your most nefarious deeds in the style of the GTA series. Mount-jackings, thefts, murders, muggings, cruelty to animals -- go wild! So far, we've only got a handful of entries, most of which seem to involve orphan abuse. Send your screenshots to aroundazeroth@gmail.com by noon EST on Thursday, May 8, and please use the phrase "GTA" somewhere in your e-mail title. Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We'd love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next! Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. We prefer full screen shots without the UI showing. And please, no more sunsets. We just used up the sunset quota for the year.%Gallery-1816%
About the Bloggers: Marcie Knox
Twice a week, our writers will tell you more about themselves, and let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more About the Bloggers. What do you do for WoW Insider?I write the weekly Raid Rx column every Tuesday and filled in on Ready Check for a bit. Occasionally you'll see me put up a post about something I've come across or make a guest appearance on another column, but between work and WoW, Raid Rx is plenty for me. What's your main right now?I play Valyre, Blood Elf Holy Paladin, queen of lewts and all things pink and purple. Currently I'm my guild's healing lead, webmaster, recruitment officer, and general avoider of MH. Someday our Priests and Locks will have spent enough of their DKP for me to get the T6 shoulders. Until then, I drool on those that have them.
Warcraft the TV show
I'm sure that many of us would like to have more WoW time in our day. That's the reason I started reading WoW Insider, so that I would be able to be as close to the game I love while I was doing the annoying part -- working to pay for my subscription and the utility bills that run my computer. Now this doesn't mean I spend the majority of my day perusing the latest theorycraft threads trying to figure out the best spell rotation for a 5v5 arena battle versus one warrior, two shammies, a priest and a rogue. What it does mean, however, is that I look for interesting ways to tap into WoW when I am not able to log in.So when Ray tipped us off that there was a new Justin.TV channel where I could watch someone level a character all the way to 70, I wasn't all that surprised. Sure it might sound a little strange to watch someone else play, but really, don't we do this all the time in real life? I know I have more than once sat down to watch another person run an instance I wasn't a part of. That's how I experienced the Sunken Temple for the first time. WoW Adventures runs without a specific schedule, so you will have to catch it when it's playing. I assume this is because Gelu Nex enjoys sleeping and eating on occasion, and I suspect might also need to do the annoying work part. If you would like to watch someone else play the game when you aren't able to, stop by WoW Adventures and perhaps we can nail down exactly how long it takes to get to 70.[thanks Ray!]
Around Azeroth: The Temple of Atal'Hakkar
Ah, the mysterious sunken temple -- more formally known as the Temple of Atal'Hakkar -- lies in th heart of the Swamp of Sorrows and was a rarely visited dungeon even before the Burning Crusade hit the shelves. However, this shot of the sunken temple, sent in by reader Kaeltor of Hellfire (EU), shows that despite being an unpleasant place to venture into (trust me, the undead Trolls have no concept of hospitality) it can be an impressive place to take a look at. (At least from a safe distance.)Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! Or perhaps you'd just like to see more of your pics from Around Azeroth. %Gallery-1816%
Around Azeroth: At the altar of the Blood God
When I first saw the tiny thumbnail of this screenshot in my mailbox, I wondered what new, cool instance it had come from. Obviously I hadn't seen it before -- those high-reaching columns of green light with a warm yellow glow coming from the ceiling in the middle. The unfamiliarity wasn't immediately dispelled when I clicked on the screenshot, though I can now tell you that the image came from the very heart of the Sunken Temple, right at the altar of the Blood God Hakkar.I have been there before... more than once, in fact! But it is apparently one of Azeroth's instances that I've avoided so much as to be unable to recognize it without explanation. Fortunately, Kragragh of Ataraxis on Undermine, who sent this shot to us, also provided me with location information! (If I realized ST had such amazing ambiance, perhaps I'd visit more often. Maybe it's a sign that I need to upgrade my video card?)Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! Or perhaps you'd just like to see more of your pics from Around Azeroth. %Gallery-1816%
