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Know Your Lore: Wrathion and Draenor
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. We may have helped him in Pandaria, but we certainly didn't fulfill whatever it was Wrathion had on his peculiar wishlist of things to do in regards to his plans for Azeroth. The Black Prince has stated on more than one occasion that he seeks to protect the world from some kind of impending attack by the Burning Legion. He even showed us the vision he'd seen as part of the expansion-long legendary quest chain in the last expansion. Yet when the chain came to a close, Wrathion was less than pleased with the results -- he wanted a clearly defined winner in the battle between Alliance and Horde, and he didn't get it. It was his next plan of action that was perhaps the most surprising, however. In the novel War Crimes, Garrosh Hellscream is placed on trial, and the end result for the former Warchief was a trip back in time to an alternate version of Draenor, courtesy of the bronze dragon Kairoz. But Kairoz wasn't alone in his efforts to take Garrosh back. Wrathion helped him out. And that's pretty strange when you think about it, because unleashing the Iron Horde on Azeroth seems like a really funny way to protect the planet. So what gives? More importantly, where is Wrathion now?
Know Your Lore: The lost tales of Pandaria
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. Mists of Pandaria was packed with a lot of story, each of its 'acts' dovetailing into the next. It wasn't quite as expansive as the myriad plot points that were introduced with Cataclysm, but Cataclysm also included a revamp of almost every level 1-60 zone in the game, with both quests and the stories of the zones themselves getting a shot of new story content. When Cataclysm was winding down to its inevitable end, I reviewed several of the plot points left in the expansion -- story hooks that we might or might not see addressed later. There are still many out there left untouched. It only seemed appropriate, in the waning weeks of Mists, to do the same. Although Mists didn't have quite the variety as Cataclysm, there were still moments of potential story that were left unanswered -- tales without an ending, problems or puzzles we still don't have an answer to. And as we move forward into Warlords of Draenor, we can only wonder if, or when, we'll see these elements pop up again. Please note: The following post contains some spoilers for the novel War Crimes.
WoW Moviewatch: The Black Prince of Veiled Stair
I have absolutely no idea how this slipped under my nose for so long, but the above video is in fact exactly what you think it should be, and it's amazing. The Black Prince of Veiled Stair was put together by Nan the Mistweaver and features vocals deftly delivered by Youtube parody artist Kavo. As always, Nan's video work is excellent here, capturing the story being told with appropriately flashy cuts and special effects that complement without being too overwhelming. The vocals are amazing -- the lyrics were apparently the combined effort of Kavo and Pennygearaxe, and match the original song syllable for syllable. I don't remember the first time I heard this particular idea for a parody being bandied about, but I'm beyond happy to see it come to life like this. Check out the video and while you're at it, head to both Nan the Mistweaver's channel for more machnima, or Kavo's channel for more excellent parody work. Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.
Reminder: Get your content cleared before 6.0.2
Blizzard posted a reminder earlier this week regarding several features that will either be changed or removed from the game entirely in patch 6.0.2. While we don't at present time have a release date set for the introductory patch of Warlords of Draenor, it would still be in your best interests to complete the content now, rather than waiting and possibly missing out for good. And of course, removed content means those achievements you've gathered will be filed away as either Legacy achievements, or Feats of Strength in the upcoming expansion. Challenge Modes should be top priority if you've got your eyes on those Mists of Pandaria sets, because they will no longer be available as of 6.0.2 -- the phoenix mounts will also be going away, although players that have earned one of the mounts will have access to all variations. Players looking for heirloom weapons from Garrosh Hellscream should hop to it, as those will also be removed once Warlords of Draenor is released in November. In addition, the Brawler's Guild will be taking a hiatus once patch 6.0.2 hits -- the bosses and encounters in the Brawler's Guild will be re-tuned for level 100. However, if you've already gained access to the Brawler's Guild, you'll still retain that access when the new expansion launches -- no need to dig up another invite. Lastly, if you have not started the legendary cloak quest chain by patch 6.0.2, you'll no longer be able to obtain it. Players already on the chain will still retain the quests, although they will be slightly altered, as the section of the chain that requires players to collect Valor Points will be gone altogether with the removal of Valor Points in 6.0.2. For more information on changes and removals with the arrival of both patch 6.0.2 and Warlords of Draenor itself, take a look at Blizzard's full post on the official site.
WRUP: How many legendary cloaks do you need?
It's the weekend once more, which means it's time to forget about the stresses of the work-week and dive into the delightful escapism of video games... which usually means playing some Warcraft. This week, we're all looking towards the end of Mist of Pandaria's legendary cloak quest chain, so in addition to what we're playing this weekend, we talk about where we are on our legendary goals. So just what is the team up to this weekend? Read on to find out -- and let us know what you're playing in the comments.
Patch 6.0.2: Ordos cloak requirement removed
One of the unique quirks of the Timeless Isle, introduced in patch 5.4, was the means in which players accessed Ordos, Fire-God of the Yaungol and the world boss located at the highest heights of the Isle. In order to even get to the temple in which Ordos was located, players needed to either fly very carefully on one of the Isle's many flying albatross taxis, or have a legendary cloak that would glide them right on over the broken bridge that led to the Ordon Sanctuary. And even if you took the albatross, fighting Ordos required the legendary cloak -- you could not engage the world boss without it. But according to developer Jeremy Feasel on Twitter, that's about to change in patch 6.0.2. @perculia @nite_moogle Yes, you will not need the cloak to fight Ordos in 6.0.- Jeremy Feasel (@Muffinus) September 16, 2014 Later tweets clarified that the cloak wouldn't even be needed to get over the broken bridge -- the Celestials will send everyone flying to the other side, regardless of whether they have the legendary cloak or not. For those that don't really do any raiding, Ordos has quite the loot table of gear. Every item he drops is ilvl 559, and although we won't be able to upgrade gear with Valor when the patch hits, it's still some pretty good gear for getting a head-start on leveling in Warlords. If you don't have a legendary cloak, or don't plan to obtain one, you might just want to focus your attention on Ordos for a few last pre-Warlords upgrades once patch 6.0.2 goes live.
The Queue: Who needs a title with that picture?
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. I'm glad I waited until the wee hours of the morning to write today's Queue. If I didn't, I wouldn't have been able to use that picture of Zarhym as today's header, courtesy of Ben Brode's Twitter. Benjamin Seeberger asked: with the introduction of Warlords of Draenor and the retirement of the legendary quest in its entirety, are new players going to have any clue who Wrathion is, unless they are rogues? Will his storyline make any sense in Mists when the legendary questline is taken out? Will the Timeless Isle make any sense? How will the departure of the questline impact Pandaria's storyline?
Warlords of Draenor Beta - Legend of Pandaria title introduced
As reported on Wowhead, if you've completed the legendary cloak questline before patch 6.0 drops, you'll be rewarded with a new title, Legend of Pandaria. It's like most titles in that it can be used even by characters that didn't earn it (I've only earned it on one character, and that isn't him above) so if you have managed to complete the quest, it's a nice little bonus. I'd still kind of like it if they allowed us to complete the quest once Warlords of Draenor dropped if we had already started it, but I won't say no to another title. I love those things. Nothing's ever going to beat Death's Demise, though. Still my favorite title ever.
Know Your Lore: Mists of Pandaria in review
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. With the introduction of the Warlords of Draenor cinematic, short story Hellscream, and the Lords of War animated shorts, we can pretty much tack an official "The End" on Mists of Pandaria. All tie in material has been or is in the process of being released, and all new and upcoming content seems to be focusing on the expansion ahead. Although Warlords of Draenor won't launch until November, we can pretty much consider Mists of Pandaria over and done with, story-wise. Which means it's time to do one of my favorite things to do -- head back and review the expansion in its entirety. It's not really fair to review a book based solely on one chapter, after all. Mists of Pandaria might have seemed like a fairly simple concept from the announcement of the expansion, but it actually played out into a reasonably complex story over the course of four content patches. So how does the story of Mists hold up against its predecessors?
World of Warcraft turns on Gaze of the Black Prince this week
If you're a World of Warcraft player, you're busy killing time until Warlords of Draenor comes out. So why not kill some high-level enemies and get a legendary cloak in the process? Blizzard is turning on the Gaze of the Black Prince buff starting July 15th and ending on July 29th, allowing players who have yet to complete Mists of Pandaria's legendary cloak quest a chance to get through the requirements a bit more easily. The Gaze of the Black Prince doubles all reputation gains with Wrathion and increases the chance of receiving the random drops required for the questline. It should be helpful for alts you're gearing up or just characters who hadn't quite made it through the process yet. You can also catch up with the most recent Warlords of Draenor patch notes to see how well your cloak will serve you going into the next expansion against the Iron Horde.
Know Your Lore: The time-travel fallacy of Warlords
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. Ever since the announcement of Warlords of Draenor, most players -- including myself, to a degree -- have been under the assumption that this is an expansion involving time-travel of some sort. Sure, supposedly we as players aren't traveling in time, but Garrosh Hellscream did so, to an alternate version of Draenor whose history he presumably changed. Now instead of invading Azeroth as we're accustomed to, this altered version of Draenor and its Iron Horde are attempting to invade the here and now. Only there's one key thing we've been missing -- this isn't time travel. Not in the slightest. After playing on beta for a mere few hours, what Blizzard is doing is something entirely different. While we've been focusing on time travel and how this would affect our future, Blizzard has been quietly putting together a story with some far-reaching, drastic implications that may very well take everything we know about World of Warcraft, stand it on end, and knock it over with one well-placed blow. Spoiler Alert: The following column contains a couple of fairly large spoilers for Warlords of Draenor. If you are avoiding expansion information and discussion, do not continue.
Poll: Are you purposefully taking advantage of the Black Prince buff?
As I mentioned on the podcast last week, I'm not a fan of the way that Blizzard is handling these micro-buffs. They seem, to me, like little party favors to get people back in the door, versus serious attempts at making better content or changing the way content is released. That said, my opinions are often just that -- mine alone. I don't pretend to have everyone agreeing with me, so I want to know with this here poll what you all think of the black prince reputation buff. Are you taking advantage of it? Or are you just ignoring it? And by taking advantage of it, I don't just mean letting it happen. I mean actively farming and using the buff to its fullest advantage. So with all that out of the way... Gaze of the Black Prince? Yay or nay? %Poll-88614%
Know Your Lore: Wrathion's duty
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. Wrathion is one of those unique and entertaining characters who appeared out of nowhere and managed a staggering degree of complexity in just a few short years in game. Although he was not introduced by name until the tail end of Cataclysm, his origins began when the expansion revamped level 1-60 content and consequentially introduced a bizarre and touching origin story in the Badlands. It wasn't until the legendary quest chain for rogues that we got a real look at Wrathion, newly hatched and remarkably intelligent for his age. Once his tasks for rogues were over at the end of the expansion, Wrathion departed -- and then promptly showed up again in Mists of Pandaria, in a far more extensive role that stretched the length of the expansion, and beyond. But one thing has always been incredibly unclear -- exactly what Wrathion is up to, and why he is doing what he's doing. He's given us a reasonable enough answer, but can we really trust the last remaining member of a dragonflight known for lies, deceit, and evil, even if he is supposedly uncorrupted? Please note: The following column contains spoilers for War Crimes. If you're mid-book, or have yet to read it, you might want to come back when you're finished with it.
Legendary quest boosts on the way?
Wowhead dug up some interesting new information this past week, largely in regards to the legendary quest chain offered by Wrathion. These changes are not for patch 6.0 -- they are for patch 5.4.8, which should be coming to the PTR soon. Two new spells of note have been added to the PTR -- one, called Gaze of the Black Prince, increases your reputation earned with the Black Prince by 100%, which might sound a little like the Grand Commendations for other Pandaria reputations that unlock bonus reputation for all characters on your account. But that doesn't seem to be the case with this particular spell. In fact, Gaze of the Black Prince also increases the chances of getting a Secrets of the Empire, Sigil of Power, Sigil of Wisdom, or Titan Runestone from enemies. How much of a chance isn't directly stated, but frankly, gathering the needed drops is far more time-consuming than simply earning the required reputation with Wrathion, so that's fantastic, right? Well ... there's more.
How to get a legendary cloak on your boosted 90
I just finished getting my legendary cloak on a second level 90 this week. It wasn't really necessary -- after all, I've got the cloak on my main character and I don't really need it on a second -- but I wanted to complete the chain again. The first time I went through this extraordinary, expansion-long chain was as the expansion itself played out, waiting between patches for the next leg of the chain to be introduced. This time around, there was no waiting in between stages. I could simply barrel through the chain as quickly as possible, a fresh level 90 against whatever Wrathion chose to throw at me. And let's face it -- the chain has changed in parts along the way. It still takes some time to complete, so you're not going to have your cloak tomorrow if you start today. But the rewards are well worth the effort, and it's quite a bit easier than it used to be. So if you have a recently boosted level 90 and you're interested in getting a legendary of your own, here's how to get that cloak with minimal stress.
The Queue: Alphas, garrisons, pre-orders, and more
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. How about that alpha news, eh? DespicableBrad asked: With Blizzard changing the data format from MPQ to the new CASC format, will things like WoW Model Viewer still work, or will those programs need a funamental update in order to read the new data files? Given the amount of data mining happening, I'm guessing the formats are interchangeable...? If not, I'm curious: how are the data miners viewing the files and extracting graphics from it?
Wrathion as The Fresh Prince (don't pretend this isn't awesome)
Found on Reddit today was a tip off to The Black Prince faction page on Wowhead. It has this gem: Wrathion, the Black Prince - or as we call him in my guild... Fresh Prince of Veiled Stair! In West Azeroth born and raised... In Ravenholdt is where I spent most of my days... Turning in lockboxes for some rep... Shoulda' known Shen'Dralar wouldn't be kept... When a couple of drakes, they were up to no good... Started makin trouble in my own black brood... And after a coup d'etat Jorach got scared... He said "you're moving in with Anduin and Tong at Veiled Stair!" Now we know this is a World of Warcraft site, and the World of Warcraft is pretty serious business. Purple pixels and internet dragons and all that. But we hope that you're able to take a moment out of your day and enjoy the awesomeness that a group of commenters have been able to come up with.
Know Your Lore, Tinfoil Hat Edition: The Titans, Azeroth, and Wrathion
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. Last week, we explored the legendary quests offered by Wrathion in detail, and managed to come up with some interesting theories regarding his purpose in Pandaria. No matter which way you look at it, what Wrathion says and what he actually does are two fairly different things. There's a story lying there, waiting to be discovered -- and while we've all been paying attention to what Pandaria has to offer, and the war between Alliance and Horde, Wrathion's clearly been working his own agenda. But he's only two years old at this point. He's far from a fully grown dragon, yet he seems to be pulling together complicated strategies and plans like they're nothing at all. Certainly he may be a dragon, but is a dragon that young out of the shell really going to be that advanced? Wrathion would certainly like us to believe it. The problem is that we simply don't have any evidence to back up the story he's told us -- nor do we have any evidence of how he should be acting. He may be two, he may say he's a black dragon, but this "dragon" might in fact be something far more important than he claims -- more important than even he knows. Today's Know Your Lore is a Tinfoil Hat edition. The following contains speculation based on known material. These speculations are merely theories and shouldn't be taken as fact or official lore.
Know Your Lore, Tinfoil Hat Edition: The Black Prince
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. Wrathion, the last black dragon -- to his knowledge -- on the entirety of Azeroth has been a puzzle from the moment his egg was created. His immediate response upon hatching was a vicious, calculated attack on his own flight via the use of assassins, which resulted in the nigh-extinction of the black dragonflight. And after completing that mission, he curiously chose, instead of going somewhere to be left alone as he stated he wanted, to go to Pandaria -- where he began an even curiouser journey that players were quickly swept into upon reaching level 90. Wrathion's travels in Pandaria, his sudden gaining of a multitude of Blacktalon Agents, even the spot in which he chose to make his temporary home are all increasingly questionable, especially given what little we know about Wrathion himself. He gives us a grand, magnanimous story about how he's looking out for the world because he's seen visions of the Burning Legion coming to call, and of our world's destruction. But he also said he was firmly on the side of the Horde, or the side of the Alliance, then swapped sides as efficiently as possible when it was convenient. In other words, Wrathion lies. He lies all the time. So the question we should be asking here is whether Wrathion has been giving us the real truth at all -- and what is the truth behind Wrathion's puzzling journey? Today's Know Your Lore is a Tinfoil Hat edition. The following contains speculation and history based on known material. These speculations are merely theories and shouldn't be taken as fact or official lore.
The Queue: Return of Nostradamus
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. At the end of today's Queue, I utilize ancient, trusted methods to tell the future. For now, we talk about hair. Laffable asked: In real life, I sport a nice thick beard. Unfortunately, my troll does not possess this ability. So I ask you, Queue Master, why can my troll no have beard?
