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Know Your Lore, Tinfoil Hat Edition: Twists in time
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. Two weeks ago, we looked briefly at the Timewalkers and the strange goings-on on the Timeless Isle. Since then, players that have been dutifully completing Kairoz's weekly quests have reached the end of the mysterious visions Kairoz has been trying to pinpoint -- with some disturbing results and implications. In fact, the whole mad journey has been a steady trickle of unanswered questions and dizzying scenarios that might or might not be true. Or perhaps they're all true, just in different versions of reality. And that's the bronze dragonflight in a nutshell. It's a headache-inducing puzzle of events that might have been, have been, never been, and may have meant to be but hadn't, that can't quite be untangled. Led by Nozdormu, the bronze dragonflight's missive has always been to protect and observe the pathways of time. The Titans gifted Nozdormu with the knowledge of when and how he would die as a warning, a lesson -- that no matter how powerful Nozdormu might think he was, he, just like any mortal, would have to answer to time eventually. This was meant to keep the Timeless One in check, an effective plan. But did it really work? Today's Know Your Lore is a Tinfoil Hat edition, meaning the following is a look into what has gone before with pure speculation on how it happened. These speculations are merely theories and shouldn't be taken as fact or official lore. Please note: This post contains spoilers for events on the Timeless Isle.
Know Your Lore: The top 10 lore reveals of Cataclysm, part 1
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. Spoilers for every single Cataclysm raid and zone to be found here. On the whole, Cataclysm has revealed a great deal of lore for the Warcraft universe. We've been to all four of the elemental planes and destabilized two of them by destroying the elemental lords who were effectively the dictatorial forces of their respective elementals. As of this writing, only Therazane remains as undisputed master of her elemental plane. (Indeed, with the destruction of Deathwing, she's actually in a stronger place than she was.) We've seen the Twilight's Hammer cult rise to world-shaking prominence and played a role in setting them back by destroying Cho'gall. We've finally managed to balk them on the eve of their Old God masters' final triumph by destroying Deathwing just as he was about to unleash an even more destructive assault on Azeroth than his first. The Dragon Aspects lost their immortality just after we discovered that there were actually safeguards in place to appoint new ones. We discovered the secret land of Uldum and its Titanic ruins, and we prevented the activation of the Halls of Origination at Deathwing's behest and discovered the connection between the Qiraji and Uldum. We also saw the war between the Alliance and Horde begin lurching toward a new phase. We discovered the fate of Gilneas and the Gilneans, saw tantalizing hints as to the development of the goblin people and their mysterious kajamite, and even more. It's been an eventful expansion in terms of what it established. For the next couple of weeks, I'm going to talk about where Cataclysm took us and what we discovered.
Know Your Lore: The Blue 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. The past few KYL's have been focusing on dragonflights, and this one's no different. This week, we cover the Blue Dragonflight, Azeroth's masters of magic. Before we do, though, we should go back and link my Red Dragonflight post and Anne's Black Dragonflight one, because a lot of the same ground is about to be covered. In some ways, the blue dragons are the ones players may be most familiar with. From Azuregos wandering about Azshara to Sapphiron in Naxxramas and Sindragosa in Icecrown Citadel, with appearances by Kalecgos in the Sunwell, Arygos in Ahn'Qiraj, and of course two 5 man instances and a raid in Coldarra, players have plenty of opportunity to run into a member of the Blue Dragonflight. The Blue Dragonflight has been involved in many of the important events of Azeroth's history despite suffering unimaginably from those events. From the War of the Ancients and the Sundering to the Third War and to the present with the Nexus War, blue dragons have attempted to hold to their ancient charge to shepherd the world's magics no matter what it costs them. And it has cost them very, very dearly. For thousands of years, the blue dragons were almost extinct, nearly wiped out by Deathwing and the Dragon Soul. Their leader and father, Malygos the Aspect of Magic, was driven mad by the loss of so many of his children and the betrayal of his best friend and most trusted confidant, Neltharion.
We Know Girls earn Champion of Ulduar [update: not] world first
According to progression site GuildOx, the Alliance guild We Know Girls on Arygos-US has earned the world-first Champion of Ulduar achievement. This achievement is awarded for completing each 10-man boss fight (except Alagon) with no raid members dying during that boss fight. It's the Ulduar version of The Undying, but unlike Undying, it doesn't have to be done all at once - if I down Flame Leviathan with no deaths and then wipe on XT-002, I still get achievement credit for the Flamey kill. I think this is a good reworking of the achievement. I've heard a lot of horror stories about flawless Undying/Immortal runs ruined by a disconnect or a lag spike. With the Ulduar achievements, at least bad luck will only bork that one boss. And congratulations to We Know Girls! Update: As pointed out below, VoS on the Sargeras realm and Bastion of Uldaman got the achievement May 9th, last Saturday, which means We Know Girls was not the world-first (due to the Armory's erratic updates giving GuildOx the We Know Girls information first). Grats to VoS and Bastion. Anyone know of any earlier than May 9? Update #2: GuildOx now properly reflects the order that these guilds achieved Champion of Ulduar.
Maintenance for June 17th will be short
Here's a heads-up to all our North American night owls early risers and Oceanic readers: It's Tuesday morning, and that means maintenance. Luckily, it's a short one today. Bornakk has said that they expect most servers to only be down a half hour, starting at 5AM PDT and ending a 5:30AM PDT. There are some extra servers that will be down slightly longer, until 6:30AM PDT. Those servers will be listed after the break. Aussies can rejoice as well, as any Oceanic servers not on this list won't be taken down until 5AM AEST (Which is noon over here on the American west coast). For the list of servers that will have a longer downtime, read on:
Select realms to undergo maintenance (updated!)
Drysc reports that a number of realms are under investigation for performance issues and will be undergoing a scheduled maintenance at 5:00 AM PDT on Wednesday, March 12 with a foreseeable downtime of 1 hour (update: Zorayn notes that downtime will be extended to 2 hours as opposed to one). As Drysc edits the thread, realms are added (or removed) regularly. From a quick perusal of the realms, it seems as though it is the Nightfall Battlegroup that is affected. Blizzard currently lists the affected realms as follows:Aerie PeakAltar of StormsAlterac MountainsAnvilmarArygosBlackwing LairDeathwingDemon SoulDoomhammerGnomereganIcecrownJaedenarKel'ThuzadLethonOnyxiaSentinelsTanarisThe Venture CoUldamanUndermineDrysc further notes that other Battlegroups are under close observation and will be taken down for maintenance should any issues arise that might require it.
