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WoW Archivist: The classic Molten Core experience, 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? In the last WoW Archivist, we covered the early parts of Molten Core: the "attunement," the grueling trash clear to Lucifron, and the weird hunter-focused mechanics of Magmadar. As we left off, the raid had just reached its first rune. To douse the rune and (eventually) summon Majordomo Executus, you had to make friends with an angry royal guy made of water. The duke of douse Duke Hydraxis, as a water elemental, wasn't very fond of other elemental types, particularly Ragnaros or his fiery kin. His Hydraxian Waterlords were the first raid-based reputation in WoW. You could rep up with them before setting foot in Molten Core by killing certain elementals out in the world, but only up to just shy of honored. After that, you had to run MC to get additional rep. Trash gave rep until revered, but only boss kills got you through the slow grind to exalted. Meanwhile, you could complete a small quest chain for the Duke. He first sent you to kill elementals in Plaguelands and Silithus, and then to obtain an item from Pyroguard Emberseer in Blackrock Spire. Further quests involved killing specific trash mobs and bosses in Molten Core. Hands of the Enemy quite literally asked you to bring him the severed hands of Lucifron, Gehennas, Shazzrah, and Sulfuron. Once completed, you could loot the duke's coffer and choose one of two very valuable fire resistance rings. At this point, the duke also gave you an Aqual Quintessence, one of the most famous items from classic WoW.
WoW Archivist: Talisman of Binding Shard, the lost legendary
This edition of WoW Archivist was originally published May 24, 2011. Given Blizzard's recent retrospective on Molten Core, we felt the piece of Warcraft history was worth another look. All references to time, space, and current content should be viewed through the lens of this piece's initial date of publication. Last week, we finally escaped the morass of World of Warcraft's beta to discuss patch 1.2, the first major content patch of the post-release game. We're going to take a break from patches for a while to examine some other myths and legends that arose in vanilla WoW. Today, we're going to look back to one of the legends of Molten Core. Molten Core is rather unique in that it's the home of more than one legendary item. Both Thunderfury and Sulfuras have their roots in Molten Core, though one does require items from Blackwing Lair to complete; Blackwing Lair hadn't even been implemented yet when players started receiving the first pieces of these legendary items. Everybody knows about Thunderfury and Sulfuras, though. Not as many people know Molten Core once had a third legendary.
Patch 4.1 PTR: World boss loot tables updated
When Cataclysm launched, there were several rare spawn elite mobs like Garr and Poseidus that had a chance to drop loot on par with that from a heroic if killed by a 5-man group -- though you're likely to need more than five people to kill them. In patch 4.1, these rare spawn elites will be dropping upgraded loot, making them more attractive to 5-man groups. Mobus's Dripping Halberd Reins of Poseidus Belt of a Thousand Gaping Mouths Xariona's Spectral Gauntlets Garr's Reinforced Girdle of Memories Vitreous Beak of Julak-Doom In addition to all that, there are several randomly itemized epics in the files, such as the Mistral Pendant and the Cloudburst Cloak. We don't know where they come from yet, but they are similar in name to the random enchant epics from the Throne of the Four Winds. WoW Patch 4.1 is on the PTR and WoW Insider has all the latest news for you -- from previews of the revamped Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub to new valor point mechanics and new archaeology items.
3-man group conquers Molten Core
3-man Molten Core. You read that right. sailoreagle on Livejournal walks us through the run his Tier 6 prot warrior, Tier 6 holy priest, and a "Tier 4-ish" feral druid (along with hunter and mage alts) had in a surprisingly easy Molten Core instance. You'd think they'd have trouble along the way (in fact, they thought they'd have trouble along the way), but from this account, it actually went down pretty easily. From the screenshots, it seems like they just plowed through the bosses-- they ate Magmadar's frenzies, exploded Garr's minions, organized around Sulfuron and Majordomo, and eventually, yes, survived wave after wave of sons to take out Raggy himself.Pretty amazing. They got both Bindings of the Windseeker out of the deal, along with a bunch of other epics that it used to take 40 different people to obtain. It's still not actually easy-- sailor says they burned through some hardcore potions, and clearly their gear helped out a lot (although think what this will be like at level 80), so it was still a challenge.Still, it's kind of sad, in a way. Remember when you went back to your childhood playground and everything seemed so... small? If three people can beat Ragnaros, is he really fit to carry the title of Firelord any more? Thanks, Timeless!
Revenge of the Joi of Warcraft
Serial entrepreneur and unofficial World of Warcraft spokesman Joi Ito recently sat down in the studio of Mobuzz.tv for an interview, which you can check out on their site. He touches on many of the most interesting aspects of the game (IMHO) including leadership and guild management, trust and bonding, achievement and value, and the implications of interface design when the current cadre of young players enters the business world and expects great tools to help coordinate personnel in that ever-elusive "real world." As one who sees a lot of parallels between my experiences in game and my "day job" experiences in the virtual office at Weblogs, Inc., I appreciate the way Joi communicates how World of Warcraft can provide inspiration for future leaders in the future office, as well as discussing the value that different and historically undervalued leadership qualities can bring to group coordination and management -- whilst simultaneously conveying the satisfaction and fun of pwning face.
World of prankcraft
My guild (the uberl33t Gothic Bunnies on Thunderhorn-H) has been really rolling through MC lately-- we've got everything but Rag on farm status (and we'll have him soon, don't worry). But since the zone is so easy for us now, we need to do something to keep each other interested, and tonight that something came in the form of pranks.One of our warlocks stepped away on /afk and put himself on /follow to another player... who then jumped in the lava, with the warlock following right behind him. We summoned the other player out, and left the lock to flounder in the flow. And while the summon out of the lava was going on, one of our mages put a portal to Orgrimmar right over the summon portal, and three of our guildies ended up in Orgrimmar before they realized they were clicking on the wrong thing. Two fights later, our MT dragged Garr's last minion away from us back towards the lava (we had all crowded around him before he exploded just to send us all flying), and instead sent a few guildies flying into the drink. Basically, there was shenanigans aplenty in Molten Core tonight.And this is definitely not the first time I've seen this kind of thing go down, either. Our mages love to give out level 1 conjured water, just to make us mana users angry. And way back when I was going through UBRS on my first time (on my gnome warrior), I got freaked out when Vael (who I later learned is a friendly NPC in UBRS) appeared and I was frantically told by my guildies to "tank the red dragon!" It took me a few seconds to figure out why my taunt button wasn't working.Are you the same way-- does your guild prank each other mercilessly, or are we all just crazy?
