the-exodar
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The OverAchiever: In which Alliance has it much worse than Horde
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we are grateful to play Horde. This past week, I was tabbed out of the game writing an OverAchiever on Bloody Rare as a follow-up to our guide on Northern Exposure when something interesting started happening in the background. In the sliver of laptop screen dedicated to WoW, the chat channels exploded with warnings that the Alliance was attacking Orgrimmar. Given that the Midsummer Fire Festival is still going on with lots of players busy stealing enemy fires, this isn't particularly unusual. I shrugged and went back to work. And yet, the warnings just kept coming. Curious, I tabbed back into the game to discover that a full 40-man Alliance raid was fighting its way to Garrosh Hellscream. Other players said that none of the other Horde leaders had been attacked, so I can only assume the raid was starting For the Alliance! with the toughest foe among them. Now, Garrosh is by no stretch of the imagination anywhere near as popular as Thrall was, but lots of Horde players are still willing to defend him from attack because, well, he's got his moments. Orgrimmar's central district quickly became a lagfest of epic proportions as dozens of players who'd been gossiping in trade or loitering around the Auction House rushed to defend Garrosh. The Alliance raid was ultimately defeated, but they rallied and tried again -- unsuccessfully -- an hour later. This was the first of three days that I saw the same Alliance raid desperately trying to kill Garrosh, and something started to niggle at me by day two. Namely, For the Alliance! and For the Horde! are among the very few achievements that are significantly tougher if you play one faction over the other.
Around Azeroth: Set sail
There was only one type of boat to be found in Azeroth -- the ships that traveled the seas, be it from Darnassus to Auberdine or Booty Bay to Ratchet, were all identical. At least until the release of The Burning Crusade, when the nautical technology of Azeroth jumped forward with a new ship design. In this shot, sent in by reader Dana, we see the results of this innovation at the end of the dock, just waiting to transport us to The Exodar.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 a copy to aroundazeroth@wow.com, with as much or as little detail as you'd like to share with the world! %Gallery-1816%
Mysterious Mysteries: the Exodar
While questing in Azeroth the other day, a guildy and I got into a discussion on The Exodar. He mentioned that it looked to him that it was a ship and that someone should be able to fly it. That led to my geeking out a bit over the lore, and explaining that it was indeed a ship, a nethership, and the fourth part of Tempest Keep. I've often speculated about this strange city. As I fly around Netherstorm, I try to imagine what it was like to have that last piece of the armada floating with the others, and where it might have been placed. But the true mystery is what might have been within the Exodar. We know it had a boss, but who was flying that great ship when the Draenei broke in? What exactly was it used for? I think of it in terms of the Caverns of Time. If we were able to step back to that moment when the ship was hijacked, what would we see? I bet the battle was immense. Okay, here's where I'd like to here from you. What do you think the Exodar originally was? Are there clues within the existing structure that can hint at it's original purpose? [image courtesy of WorldofWar.net]
