elemental-invasion
Latest
WoW Archivist: 10 years, 10 amazing moments, part 2
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? Reflecting back on 10 years of WoW, I find it hard not to smile and shake my head in disbelief. If someone had told me early in 2004 that a game would be released that year and I'd still be playing it week in, week out in 2015, I never would have believed it. If you missed part 1, I covered world PvP near Uldaman, founding a guild, getting lost in Gnomeregan, earning my Rhok'delar bow, and my first night in Outland. Here are five more amazing moments. 6. The Wrathgate. In the weeks after Wrath of the Lich King launched, one achievement got instant attention in your guild chat: Veteran of the Wrathgate. Those who had already experienced the awesomeness congratulated the player who earned it. Those who hadn't waited in anticipation of that moment (and hopefully remained unspoiled until they did). And those who had just earned the achievement were left saying, simply, "whoa." It's a quest line that deserves its own Archivist column someday, so I won't go into detail about the lead-up to this incredible event. Once you completed it, the cinematic began. Going into it, we thought we knew what Wrath was all about. We thought it would be straightforward: The Lich King attacked us, so the Horde and Alliance would put aside their differences to take him down. No mess, no fuss. Four and a half minutes later, the champion of each faction was (apparently) dead, the Forsaken were in open rebellion, everything was on fire, and we realized that this story would be far messier and more interesting than we thought. Afterward, we gazed over the charred remains on the battlefield and listened to the screams of the dying, shellshocked from this devastating moment. It was over, or so it seemed. But Blizzard had another surprise in store for us a few quests later: the Battle for the Undercity.
Why Warlords of Draenor needs a pre-expansion event
Lately I've been thinking about Warlords of Draenor and how I hope it returns to the tradition of pre-expansion launch patches with big world events. Let me tell you a story. I was talking with a friend about the period at the end of Burning Crusade when the crates began spawning in major cities. He reminded me that neither of us had really paid much attention - his guild was in the process of breaking up over M'uru/Entropius and I was tanking for a guild working on clearing Black Temple at the time. We were busy, is what I'm saying. So busy, in fact, that one day we found ourselves running for our lives from an Ironforge that was completely infested with the walking dead. Other players were now zombies. The auctioneers were dead. It was all chaos and madness. Now, for a lot of people, the zombie invasion was a load of fun. It was new and different, something you didn't see in game every day. Some of my guildies went over to Orgrimmar and joined forces with Horde players they knew (Norgannon was a smallish and incestuous server in those days, all the Alliance and Horde players seemed to know one another) to form roving gangs of undead, laying waste to all, Horde or Alliance. They had great fun. For me it was a huge pain in the rear end.
Breakfast Topic: Elementals vs. Zombies -- which event was better?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. In the days leading up to Wrath of the Lich King, plagued crates started showing up in major cities, triggering a widespread zombie infestation that, for a few days, brought World of Warcraft as we knew it essentially to a halt. In the days leading up to Cataclysm, cultists started showing up in the major cities, heralding an elemental invasion that would also impact World of Warcraft, just before the game would change once and for all. With both events now in the history books, which event leaves you with the better memories? For better or worse, the zombie infestation will almost surely go down as the more memorable event. It involved unique player mechanics not seen before or since and even created a de facto third faction which members of both Alliance and Horde could temporarily join (not always voluntarily). The elemental invasion? Quests were there, you did them, stuff showed up, you killed it. The settings may have been unique, but in the end it was still "just WoW." Which brings us to the downsides. During the zombie infestation, WoW stopped being WoW. Which meant: Want to raid? Want to quest? Want to farm? Too bad. All that was pretty much shut down, and we weren't being told when it would be back. It turned out to be just four days, but nobody knew that at the time. With the elemental invasion, when players got tired of it, for the most part they could ignore it. Dalaran and Icecrown Citadel were unaffected, and pretty much everything was out of the way except for the city events -- and for those, you always knew that things would be back to normal in an hour at most. Neither event was without its flaws, and both were unique in the history of WoW. No doubt the advent of the next expansion will produce another such event. Which event would you like the next one to be more like? %Poll-56488%
Elemental invasion boss portals open until further notice
Bashiok has announced that the elemental invasion boss portals are open in the capital cities "permanently" (which means they'll likely be going away when the patch hits tomorrow morning). Now is your chance to farm any additional items you want from those bosses or grind out a ton of easy justice points. The blue announcement is as follows: Bashiok Due to your valiant efforts in protecting the key invasion cities, the four boss portals are now 'permanently' open. If you need anything from inside the portals, or maybe you dropped your keys in there, now is the time to go through and get them. Initial reports from shaman in the area that were available at time of publishing suggest that this is hinting at something far more sinister. One such shaman, a one 'Krunkmaster' from Proudmoore was quoted as saying "This is hinting at something far more sinister." Chilling! source
