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WoW Archivist: Patch 1.8, Dragons of Nightmare
The 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? Who says every content patch needs a new raid tier? Patch 1.8, released Oct. 10, 2005 (just slightly under one month after patch 1.7), laughs at your raid tiers. It was actually quite a small patch as far as content goes, and there wasn't anything particularly world-shattering in it, but it still did something interesting: It built up future content. Patch 1.8 implemented the following: The Dragons of Nightmare world bosses A revamp of Silithus The groundwork for holidays such as Hallow's End and Winter Veil None of these things, on their own, were very large events. They were cool pieces of content, but they weren't supported by a raid or dungeon. Quite the opposite -- they laid the groundwork that would herald a raid coming in a later patch. Let's dig in, shall we? First the patch notes in full, then the analysis.
Know Your Lore: The Green Dragonflight
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. Each flight of dragons is vouchsafed with an aspect of creation itself to supervise. The five Dragon Aspects were granted their powers and dominion over Azeroth's life, magic, earth, time and more by the Titans who created them from the massive proto-dragon Galakrond in long vanished times past. In the past few KYL's we've covered Alexstrasza's Red Dragonflight, Deathwing's Black Dragonflight and its offshoot the Netherwing, and deceased Malygos' Blue Dragonflight. This time we look at what might be the strangest dragons of them all. The servants of Ysera, the dragons of the Emerald Dream, the Green Dragonflight. In order to truly understand the green dragons, one would have to be able to understand the dream they all dream, but who can do that? How can one tell the dreamers from the dream? Easy. The dreamers are great honking green dragons that will kill you. It's relatively simple. If you doubt their power or their resolve, go to the Temple of Atal'Hakkar and ask the Atali, trapped in a complex smashed into the water by the fury and might of Ysera herself. Even when they themselves fall victim to corruption, the green dragons are fearsome opponents. While Alexstrasza and her brood concern themselves with life and living things, Ysera is effectively the shepherd of what Dylan Thomas called 'the force that through the green fuse drives the flower' - effectively, that which makes life itself possible. This is also what often gets them in trouble with old gods, blasphemous troll deities of bloodlust, and the loathsome Scourge and its malefic master. (I have been waiting to use 'malefic' in a sentence for so long now.)
Breakfast Topic: To Instance or Not to Instance
If you've spent much time at all adventuring around Azeroth, you understand the concept of instancing - non-shared areas of the world that you will only see your own party members in. Each has its own advantages - non-instanced parts of the world can make you feel as though you're within a bustling world full of numerous players with whom you can interact. Alternately, instanced areas can provide experiences that are always available to everyone, regardless of how many players may wish to to kill the monsters within. There doesn't seem to be any hard and fast rule about what is or is not instanced in World of Warcraft. For example, Onyxia lurks inside an instance of her own, while the four green dragons - encounters that involve killing a similar number of monsters of similar difficulty to Onyxia - are not instanced. Certainly this makes each of the encounters have a different challenge.But what do you think about instancing? Is it overdone, underdone, or just right in World of Warcraft? Do you prefer running through a private instance encounter, or racing against others to achieve the same goals?
Raiding After Patch 1.10
While you can hardly pass a day without seeing several threads in Blizzard's Raid & Dungeon forums proclaiming "ONYXIA STEALTH BUFFED!", I wonder if this time the posters have a point. There are numerous new and interesting challenges awaiting the raider in 1.10 and none of them made it into the patch notes. Are they bugs or features? We may not know unless we see hotfixes. Anyone out there see any other odd raid issues happening this patch?
