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WoW Archivist: World of Warcraft patch 1.3
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? Less than four months after the release of patch 1.2, which introduced the 5-man dungeon Maraudon, came patch 1.3 and yet another new 5-man dungeon -- or rather, three new 5-man dungeons rolled into one. Patch 1.3 introduced Dire Maul to the game. Dire Maul's three-in-one format remains rather unique in World of Warcraft. Nothing like it has ever been attempted again. Patch 1.3 also included many other noteworthy details: Blizzard began its trend of implementing popular addons into the game's default UI. The first steps towards capping the number of players that could enter a dungeon or raid were put in place. The very first incarnation of the Dungeon Finder tool appeared. No, it wasn't useful in any imaginable way. Come along, won't you?
WoW Archivist: Indalamar the Warrior
The WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? What secrets does the game still hold? If you enjoyed Patches of Yesteryear, you're going to love this. I have a confession to make. I lied about Archivist being done with events from WoW's beta. Last week, we discussed the Talisman of Binding Shard, an item that dropped six months into World of Warcraft's lifespan on live realms. What we are going to discuss today goes back again in the final stages of the beta. Remember last week how I told all of you to make a note of the guild name Nurfed because it was going to come up again? Today, you will meet Indalamar the Warrior with a capital "W."
WoW Archivist: World of Warcraft patch 1.1
The WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? What secrets does the game still hold? If you enjoyed Patches of Yesteryear, you're going to love this. This week's Archivist will be tackling World of Warcraft patch 1.1. Up until this point, we'd been mired in alpha and beta patches, examining the game before the masses got its grubby mitts on it. Patch 1.1 is the first 1.x version of the game, making it the first version of the client made available for open release to the public. However, this patch was released prior to the official launch of the game -- those of you that participated in the open beta of World of Warcraft back in late 2004, it's this version of the game that you likely saw first. This patch included goodies such as: The implementation of kodo as the replacement for Plainsrunning Molten Core and Onyxia's Lair were opened up Removal of many in-combat resurrection spells Let's crack open the archives!
WoW Archivist: World of Warcraft beta patch 0.12
The WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? What secrets does the game still hold? If you enjoyed Patches of Yesteryear, you're going to love this. World of Warcraft's beta patch 0.12 marked the final pre-release patch of the game. Patch 1.1 was the official release candidate, but this was the final cycle of the beta. Some highlights from this patch include: The item durability system was implemented. You could no longer complete standard quests in a raid group. Scholomance and Ragefire Chasm were implemented. Let's discuss, shall we?
WoW Archivist: World of Warcraft beta patch 0.11
The WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? What secrets does the game still hold? If you enjoyed Patches of Yesteryear, you're going to love this. Last week, we took a break from patch notes to tackle a reader request: The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj. This week, it's back to patch notes, and we'll be looking at beta patch 0.11 from September 2004. The beta started to wind down at this point, but the game still wasn't quite feature complete -- even with the launch of the game only a month out. Some highlights from this patch include: Revamped model system The addition of loot options that brought the group looting system mostly in line with what we have today Undead players' ability to speak Common revoked, given Gutterspeak Onward!
WoW Archivist: The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj
The WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? What secrets does the game still hold? If you enjoyed Patches of Yesteryear, you're going to love this. Readers have requested that the Archivist cover the opening of Ahn'Qiraj a number of times since the reboot of this feature. The original intent was to explore it when we reached that point in our journey through the patch notes of old, but I bow to the demands of the masses on this one. The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj was one of World of Warcraft's first attempts at a massive, server-wide world event. Ahn'Qiraj didn't simply open when it was patched in, like every other raid zone in WoW. It had to be opened by the players, and how quickly or how slowly it opened depended purely on the population's participation. The event was plagued with chains of server crashes and other such performance problems, but ask any truly old-school WoW player and they will almost certainly list this event as one of their fondest WoW memories. %Gallery-121544%
WoW Archivist: The Karazhan Crypt
The WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? What secrets does the game still hold? If you enjoyed Patches of Yesteryear, you're going to love this. Contrary to what I said at the end of last week's column, we're taking a break from looking at old beta patches this week to show you precisely why we changed the column's name from Patches of Yesteryear -- some of World of Warcraft's most fascinating mysteries never appeared in patch notes at all. The Karazhan Crypt intrigued many players throughout vanilla WoW and into The Burning Crusade. By the time Wrath of the Lich King rolled around, it was almost entirely forgotten. The Karazhan Crypt is a piece of unreleased content that is really rather grim. While World of Warcraft has images of death and downright creepy things all over the game, very little stands up to the sights in the crypts of Karazhan.
WoW Archivist: World of Warcraft beta patch 0.9
The WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? What secrets does the game still hold? If you enjoyed Patches of Yesteryear, you're going to love this. Do any of you vanilla WoW players remember how terrifying Teremus the Devourer used to be? He was among the very first world bosses, and boy was he annoying. He was immune to fire damage, frost damage, and magic-based DoTs. Seriously? Immune to fire, frost and DoTs? Yeah, he was brutal. It was perfectly normal to find him rampaging through Stormwind thanks to a friendly hunter kiting him to town. You have patch 0.9 (Aug. 17, 2004) to thank for Teremus' rather ... aggressive nature. He was in the game world before that, but he would leave you alone as long as you left him alone. As of patch 0.9, he turned into a lowbie ganking machine. Other patch 0.9 highlights: Hunters opened up for play testing -- yes, after mages and warriors were given talent trees. And they could use shields. Priests and rogues received the first iteration of their talent trees. Micro-dungeon redesigns were put in. "What the heck is a micro-dungeon?" I hear you ask. Well, let me tell you!
WoW Archaeologist: World of Warcraft beta patch 0.8
The WoW Archaeologist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? What secrets does the game still hold? If you enjoyed Patches of Yesteryear, you're going to love this. Patch 0.8 was released to World of Warcraft beta servers in July 2004. The game was still taking shape at that point in time, but development of the base product had come far enough that Blizzard could finally start adding additional layers of complexity. Warriors and mages were the first classes to receive talent trees, and that happened in this patch. Other notable additions in patch 0.8 include ... Players who died in PvP against a player or PvP-flagged NPC had to wait in time-out for 2 minutes before they could resurrect via corpse retrieval. The level cap was raised to 50. Sunken Temple and Razorfen Downs were opened and itemized. Rogues lost the ability to use bucklers (shields). Tauren were given the Plainsrunning ability. Follow us behind the cut for the full patch 0.8 patch notes and discussion of the highlights!
The Queue: Super The Queue Alpha II Gold Turbo Tournament Edition
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. I am so hyped up for Marvel Vs. Capcom 3. I got my Tournament Edition fightstick, my Collector's Edition paid up and ready for pickup, my MvC2 downloaded from Xbox Live. Could not be more excited. Can't wait to repeatedly get destroyed by people running Magneto/Storm/Sentinel teams. It'll be like 2001 all over again. Chips asked: I just came back to the game after a long break and I noticed several things different about the male troll model. They seem to have a perpetual stubbed toe, some of their hair and shoulder armor clips, and the end of tabards curl upwards. I haven't been able to find much info about this, is this a recent bug, or a deliberate model change? Male troll models are indeed messed up right now, and the issues are at least partially fixed in 4.0.6.
Should level-capped players be put into content they outgear?
I do not like The Stonecore. On a recent guild-sponsored alt run, four not-ready-for-heroics players and my level 85 shammy queued up for a random Cataclysm dungeon. We wound up with The Stonecore. We immediately decided that we didn't want to run The Stonecore, but we also didn't want to just wait the 15 minutes to requeue. So, we cleared our way to the first boss and defeated it, successfully eating up the 15 minutes. Not wanting to actually finish an instance that didn't offer us any level-appropriate gear, we re-entered the random dungeon finder. The result: The Stonecore. Again. We gave up, ran the instance for the lousy 70 justice point payoff, and died a little inside. A huge part of my distaste for The Stonecore is related to how often it comes up in the random dungeon finder on both heroic and normal versions. It's a wipe-filled nightmare on heroic, especially with a group that doesn't know what it's doing. (And let's be honest, text-based communication on the fly can only get you so far.) I have no complaint about getting regular Stonecore at levels 82 and 83. The problem is that I get it all the damn time when I'm level 85, and Blizzard gives me almost no incentive to finish it.
The Queue: Repeat Christmas header
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. I don't care that we used this header last year. An orc in a Santa hat -- it's the best. Sanctis asked: I got an Amazon Kindle for Christmas (I will now read a "book" for the first time in 3 years). What Warcraft books do you recommend for me to start with? I haven't read any of them. Start with The Shattering! It serves as an introduction to Cataclysm, and we gave it a pretty darn favorable review. If you've been playing Cataclysm and thinking, "Hey, why exactly is Magni Bronzebeard dead and Garrosh Hellscream the new Warchief?" then The Shattering can help fill in those blanks.
The Queue: Late is better than never
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. This extremely late edition of The Queue is brought to you by Road Runner High Speed Online, because my connection went down for many an hour while I was attempting to write this yesterday. Phoenix asked: What's a welk!? They're all over Vashj'ir. Is it just a snail with a fancy name? Basically ... yes. A welk (or whelk) is a sea snail. In some regions of the world, the term is a little more broad and includes other types of mollusk, and in other regions of the world, the term is a lot more narrow and only covers specific types of sea snail. The most basic answer, however, is that whelks are sea snails.
Encrypted Text: A Cataclysm 101 guide for rogues
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any Cataclysm questions you have! There was once a time where rogues were one of the worst soloing classes in the game. We have never had any tanking or healing abilities like the hybrid, and our fellow pure DPS classes have the advantage of ranged attacks. Rogues were simply wrecked by their enemies. While we had decent levels of dodge, our survivability depended entirely stunlocks to control our opponents. Against anything immune to stuns, we were pretty much worthless. Times have changed. Rogues have reached levels of survivability that were previously fantasy. We remain the single best DPS class for toe-to-toe damage, and now we can actually last long enough to get the job done. Each of the three rogue specs has a purpose and a direction, and the title for top DPS spec is still up for grabs at level 85. Blizzard has already tweaked the mastery system for rogues several times to ensure that no spec is left behind. I'm looking forward to our bright future in Cataclysm.
The Queue: Day One
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky, senior editor at WoW Insider, will be your host today. Yeah. That thing. The one connected with a Ghostcrawler drinking story. Ewwwwww. Adam asks: What the hell are Anemones?
Raid Rx: Leveling tips for Cataclysm healers from 80 to 85
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. If you're looking for more healing advice, check out the Plus Heal community. A few more days before Cataclysm -- and I don't know about you, but I'm excited! I've already got my plans and strategies in place. I'll try to answer a few frenzied questions for leveling healers as well ... questions such as the following: Where should I go level? Should I bury myself in dungeons and chain heal (not the spell) that sucker until I fall over? When do I replace my gear? Do I power my professions as I go? What consumables should I stack up on?
Countdown to Cataclysm starts now!
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, the game's third expansion (and biggest one yet), is releasing in just six days. To help you prepare, we've got articles to last you all the way through launch day and beyond, starting tomorrow. We'll be covering all aspects of the expansion for all types of players. Here are some of our helpful Cataclysm articles to get you started; be sure to keep an eye out for more in the days to come! New around here? Learn about Cataclysm and nab some tips and tricks for lowbies from WoW Rookie. Remember, you can play Cataclysm at midnight PST on Dec. 7 no matter how or where you buy it! Want to turn your character into a goblin or worgen? You're in luck -- race changes to the new races are available on launch night. Learn more about rated battlegrounds in this FAQ. Ghostcrawler and the design team have some notes about DPS spec design, and changes and notes for tanks, too. Coming back after an absence? Check the new system requirements for 4.0.3 and Cataclysm. If you're excited to get into heroic dungeons and raids, check this progression chart for the expansion's intended progression. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion (available Dec. 7, 2010), from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.
Cataclysm Beta: Chromaggus tameable by hunters
Here's some pretty awesome news from the maven of all things hunter pet-related, Mania: Chromaggus is tameable on the beta servers. Chromaggus is a boss in Blackwing Lair known for keeping healers on their toes with a variety of debilitating debuffs, for making magic users curse his name thanks to a shifting resistance shield, and for dropping the coolest-looking shoulder armor in the entire game. You need be a beastmastery hunter to tame him, as he is a member of the exotic Core Hound family. Not only is he a great pet for a nostalgic, old-world raider, he also has a very nice-looking, unique skin, and he'll be in high demand for certain raiding groups, as Core Hounds now provide Ancestral Hysteria, a Heroism replacement. For my own part, if he remains tameable when Cataclysm goes live, I know I'll eventually be pulling my old hunter out of the mothballs and calling in a few favors. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion (available Dec. 7, 2010), from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.
The Queue: End of the world
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Today's edition of The Queue is one of mourning. My request to change WoW Insider over to Zelda Insider so I could gush about Zelda music all day long was denied. Instead, I will simply embed a YouTube video. Elmo asked: Is there any zone you think came out not so well in Cataclysm as far as story/quests?
The Queue: Nah nah nah-nah-nah-nah, nah-nah-nah-nah nah nah nah nah
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. Yeah, so maybe I've been playing a little Rock Band 3. Dath asked: Are the Dragons of Nightmare still in Cataclysm? Yes, but only half of them. Lethon and Emeriss are canonically dead, but Ysondre and Taerar make appearances. I won't go into detail as to the nature of the appearances because it's best experienced.
