proto-drakes
Latest
The OverAchiever: Cataclysm achievements FAQ
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we are pleased to discover that a certain noncombat pet's going to be a lot more fun to obtain. Hey folks. This edition of OverAchiever was initially meant to cover archaeology achievements, but we've been getting so many questions on Insane in the Membrane and other problematic achievements that I decided to pre-empt the archaeology article. The Queue comments also tend to host a lot of achievement questions, so I want to answer as many of them as I can here. I apologize in advance to anyone who already knows some, most, or even all of the answers contained herein. If you have a question concerning disappearing achievements, reappearing achievements, achievements that are being altered, or [insert issue du jour], hopefully you'll find the answer here. Additionally, there's some information on the Razzashi Hatchling that pet collectors might want to hear about (fair warning: It involves a Cataclysm spoiler related to Northern Stranglethorn content), in addition to notes on what's going on with the Shen'dralar, Dire Maul, Molten Core, and city reputation tabards. I ran both an Alliance and Horde character ragged on the beta to confirm everything in this article personally, and the information should be accurate as of the most recent beta patch.
The Queue: Again and again
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. In this edition of The Queue, we answer a couple of new questions, and a couple of questions that we've answered approximately seventeen thousand times. Okay, not that many, but it certainly feels it. Hopefully between the new and the old there's something for everyone. cactusham asked... "Can Horde queue up for Stockades and Deadmines, and can Alliance queue up for Ragefire Chasm and Wailing Caverns?"
Ulduar drakes not being removed (yet)
Bornakk confirms something that a number of guilds still working on their Ulduar drakes have been wondering -- are they planning to eighty-six them as soon as patch 3.3 hits? Nope -- Blizzard hasn't changed anything from its previous policy concerning the drakes, and they'll still be warning us a month in advance if they do eventually decide to remove them. This started as a response to the removal of the Naxx-era drakes without much advance notice, which resulted in some very unhappy players being caught unawares. What I always found interesting about the wording on Blizzard's policy is that they don't "currently" have any plans to remove the drakes at all, but they're keeping an eye on things. It makes me wonder if there's an ideal percentage of guilds or players they'd like to achieve the drakes each patch, and that numbers were short in Naxx and still short in Ulduar. The Naxx-era Glory of the Raider (heroic) was certainly uncommon and, for a competent guild, hinged almost entirely on their ability to get past the RNG-riddled and sometimes-buggy Immortal, then said to be the rarest raiding achievement in the game. For Ulduar, my guess is that achievements like Firefighter are probably the biggest stumbling block, although fortunately the achievements required for the meta are more dependent on skill and less dependent on RNG than Immortal. We'll keep an eye out for you, but for the moment, raiders, keep plugging away at those drakes.
Maybe Ulduar drakes aren't going away in 3.2 after all
We had a bit of a minor freakout when we heard that the Rusted and Ironbound protodrakes might be getting removed as rewards for the Ulduar meta achievements in Patch 3.2, and then even more of one when the slow trickle of information about 3.2 turned into a firehose. Bornakk mentioned the change initially with the caveat that it was their intention to remove the drakes eventually, but that he'd seek definite confirmation either way as to whether it was happening in 3.2 or not. There's been no update about it in the past few weeks. Well, after a thorough reading of the 3.2 patch notes, I don't see a single trace of anything saying the drakes are getting removed. At the risk of counting my protochickens before they hatch, I think we might be safe, given how fast 3.2 looks like it's coming out. This is at least a relief for my guild, who's doing pretty well on 10-man hard-mode progression but ... is there a word worse than "dismal"? ... on 25-man hard-modes. Maybe there's hope for us yet.Should we get the soul-crushing confirmation that they'll be removed with 3.2, we'll be sure to let you know. There's still a lot of time for change on this one, though -- maybe it was an accidental omission, maybe it'll get decided on later -- but for now, you can breathe a little easier knowing you might be able to keep hacking away at those hard modes to get your undeniably awesome drakes even after the Argent Coliseum is commanding your guild's attention. Patch 3.2 will bring about a new 5, 10, and 25 man instance to WoW, and usher in a new 40-man battleground called the Isle of Conquest. WoW.com will have you covered every step of the way, from extensive PTR coverage through the official live release. Check out WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2 for all the latest!
Bornakk defends removing the drakes
As you have probably heard, Blizzard will be removing the Plagued and Black Proto-drake mounts from the game as of 3.1. Currently they're available from the meta-raiding achievements, but since Blizzard wants to keep them rare, they've put a limit on the time you have to finish off those achievements before Ulduar gear and higher levels make them too easy. Lots of players are less than happy about this -- we're not in the right place right now to do these achievements, but we still really want a chance at these drakes. But Bornakk defends the decision over on the forums: he says that they didn't want the achievements to be "watered down as patch after patch goes by."One player suggests tweaking them in a little different way: the new Herald of the Titans achievement actually requires you to have a certain iLevel on your gear, so that you can't get it if you're geared out so well it makes the fight trivial. Players want to know why Blizzard can't do that with the Glory of the Raider achievements, so that no matter what new gear we get, the difficulty stays the same.But Bornakk confirms that it's not a matter of difficulty, it's a question of rarity. If players were always able to get the mounts, there would always be more and more of the mounts in the game. They want to cut off the supply, period. The good news is that there will eventually be more rare mounts to go after (and I can't wait until I see that Gnome head flying around). But the proto-drakes' time is almost up.
