BurningLegion
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Kil'jaeden makes first appearance in screenshot?
Boubouille from MMO-Champion has recently posted this "leaked" screenshot of Kil'jaeden in-game. According to the sender, this shot of Sunwell Plateau's final boss was leaked from a GM."Keep in mind that it could be a fake, it's not "that" hard to get the 2.4 running on an emulated server and spawn Kil'jaeden, in this case his scale on live servers could be different," warns Boubouille.Kil'jaeden the Deceiver, as we all know, is the eredar Supreme Commander of the Burning Legion, perhaps only second to Sargeras in the badass pecking order. With his appearance in-game and a chance for 25 intrepid mortals to "take him down", the lore implications are interesting. Granted, we only get to deal with "half" of him (the rest of him is submerged in the Sunwell), but lore-inclined raiders will certainly be itching to take a shot at him, at least until Arthas/Ner'Zhul/the Lich King makes an appearance in WoTLK.I'm not certain of the authenticity of the screenshot myself, but Killie definitely looks constipated and evil enough here to be the real deal.
Know Your Lore: Sargeras
Hard to believe that this friendly soul over to the right stabbing what appears to be an entire planet was once not just a good guy, but indeed, the goodest of the good guys, huh? (Goodest of the good guys? What, am I a drunken five year old all of a sudden? Sheesh, that's just horrible.) But it's true: the ultimate big bad guy in the Warcraft Universe, the ultimate evil, the guy who comes up with plans that involve possessing babies was once the champion of the Titans themselves, before he started stabbing planets and possessing babies.I guess there's no evil, be it big or small, that Sargeras won't engage in personally. He's a real hands on villain.So what's the deal with Sargeras, exactly? How did he go bad? Why did he assemble the Burning Legion in the first place? And what's he up to nowadays? With the Legion running around being killed for loot and Marks of Sargeras in Outland (seriously, what is the big plan for Outland, exactly? So far all the Legion seems to be doing is being mad at Illidan because he promised to be Kil'Jaeden's BFF and then went back on it. Did they pinky swear? I bet they pinky swore. That seems like the kind of thing Kil'Jaeden would do) you'd think ol' Sargy would be in the thick of it, but instead his sidekicks are running the show and he's nowhere to be found. Why?It doesn't help that some of Sargeras' history has changed in the telling. (Hey, I like the Draenei a lot, but you guys really changed the lore around.)Well, you may have a hard time believing this, but it turns out that his whole baby possession scheme wasn't such a good idea after all. I know, I know, how could picking on an infant have gone so horribly wrong? But rather than dwelling on that, why don't we start talking about Sargeras' early days.
Letting things fall through the cracks
The World of Warcraft is a big place. We've got tons of stuff going on, from Highbourne elven ghosts run amok, to crazy furbolgs, to leperous gnomes, all the way to the Burning Legion, the Scourge, and the clash of Titans and the Old Gods themselves. Things are happening all around us, all the time.So it's not surprising that a few things can slip through the cracks. Last night, I was rolling through Nagrand with my rogue when I got a quest to kill an Ethereal near Oshu'gun. While I was wandering around near the mountain, I saw an opening inside, and decided to see what was in there. And inside, I found something very surprising: Kil'sorrow agents holding a Naaru captive. According to the lore, the mountain itself is actually a ship, and the Naaru inside, K'ure, was weakened in the ship's crash and trapped there for centuries. The trapped Naaru in Silvermoon City (who funnels power to Blood Elf Paladins everywhere) gets all the press, but K'ure and his predicament have gone virtually unnoticed by both players and NPCs.Likewise, did anyone notice that the Arrakoa are actually attempting to summon an Old God to Shadowmoon Valley? In the southern part of the zone, among the green pools, you can see the bird men focusing their energies on something that looks exactly like C'thun. Considering all the trouble the Old Gods had caused, you'd think that would get a lot more attention than it does (unless it's just that no one really believes the Arrakoa could really do it-- they haven't pulled it off so far).Is there anything else that's fallen through the cracks of everything happening in the world? I'd think we'd be concerned that the Burning Legion is using a trapped Naaru or that the Arrakoa are trying to raise one of the most powerful beings in the Universe, but with everything else going on, I guess it doesn't raise much of an alarm.
More WotLK info from Games for Windows
World of Raids has more info up from the Games for Windows spread about Wrath of the Lich King. Eliah posted the zone list yesterday, and while we've heard some of this stuff before, there are a few juicy new tidbits. On the Sunwell, it seems the Burning Legion is using the Mana Forges in Netherstorm to power the Sunwell and summon Kil'Jaeden. The instance will have 6-8 bosses, and Kil'Jaeden will not be fully summoned when you fight him (which is supposed to explain how 25 level 70s can drop him). Dalaran will have one or two instanced dungeons in it (!), and will not have Auction Houses. It will have portals, including maybe one to Shattrath. There's some good Death Knight info, including a new AoE spell called Death and Decay. Blood runes will be damage oriented, Unholy runes will be utility and DoTs, and Frost runes will be CC-ish abilities. Finally, Inscription will give players the ability to sell scrolls (is it just me, or did the developers clearly say at BlizzCon that inscribers wouldn't sell scrolls?), and they will only be able to update "core spells"-- Priest's Mind Control no, Hunter Freeze Traps yes. Get ready for a round of QQing about what "core spells" are. Don't get too excited-- the expansion is still a long way away (and Zul'Aman is coming much sooner than Arthas will). But it is good news, especially the idea of dungeons inside Dalaran. Creatively implemented dungeons seeped in lore are always a good thing.Update: Changed Mind Control back to Mind Vision. And apparently it was just me who thought devs said no scrolls at BlizzCon.Thanks, Meth!
Killing your grandfather: What happens if you wipe in the Caverns of Time?
The Caverns of Time are a pretty neat place. With the recent announcement of Old Stratholme, we'll get to go back and preserve the timeline through four different events: Medivh's opening of the Dark Portal, Thrall's escape from Durnholde Keep, Arthas's purging of the city of Stratholme, and Azeroth's victory at the Battle for Mount Hyjal. The mysterious Infinite Dragonflight is trying to disrupt the timelines for unknown reasons, and we have to keep things the way they were. But why? Yes, any change in the past will have a ripple effect on the future, bla bla bla, but there are people who would definitely prefer that events went down differently in three of the four CoT instances. Blizzard doesn't show us what happens when we wipe, fail or simply choose not to preserve things in CoT ... so we've had to fill in the blanks ourselves. The Battle for Mount Hyjal: Okay, no one really wants to see history changed for this one. Heck, it even looks like the Infinite Dragonflight may not want to change it, since we see none of their members in the battle. If history was changed ... actually, I'm not sure what the Burning Legion really would do if they won the war. Destroy all the mortal races in their quest to bring chaos to the universe? Enslave all the playable characters and force them to become an invading force for another world? Man, that would be awesome. For the Legion. Not so much for Azeroth. The Burning Legion winning at Hyjal is like a big Game Over sign for the Warcraft universe.
This is the arena that never ends
It just goes on and on my friend. Jbangalanga, Weaslelawd, Spiked and Deunan started playing it, not knowing what it was, and they continued playing it for ten hours and twenty minutes just because ... Yes, you heard right: there was a 2v2 arena match that lasted for over ten hours. According to Weaslelawd, the DPSers of the teams -- the warrior and the warlock -- got killed in the first few minutes. This left Weaslelawd, an orc resto shaman, and Spiked, a night elf resto druid, to battle it out. Neither healer could out-DPS the other's heals, and both were too stubborn to give up. The druid was unable to rez his own partner due to cooldown restrictions, but stayed alert enough to interrupt any attempts from the shaman to rez the warrior. Jbangalanga created a character on Spiked's server to try to negotiate a settlement, but talks fell through as neither Weaslelawd or Spiked was willing to throw the match or /roll for it. Weaslelawd actually talked to a GM halfway through, but unfortunately chose to host the picture on imageshack, where they can't be seen due to excessive bandwidth usage. Eventually, it hit 5 AM in Spiked's area and he began to zone out. Also, he said, eight pieces of his gear were broken. He emoted to Weaslelawd that he was ready and let the shaman kill him. Weaslelawd walked away from his ten-hour match with ... 15 added to his arena rating. Wow. Spectators on both Burning Legion and Shadowmoon have suggested that both teams deserve a couple thousand arena points and a Manly Man award for a ten-hour fight. I would probably have given up around the twenty minute mark. What would you have done in the same situation -- fight it out or give up?
Know Your Lore: Kil'jaeden
The Burning Legion are probably the villains that we fight the most in WoW. Sure, the Scourge put up a good battle in a few instances, and the spawn of the Black Dragonflight dominated the level 60 raids, but the Burning Legion has really come into its own in the (duh) Burning Crusade. From Hellfire Peninsula to Shadowmoon Valley, we're constantly fighting demons. But who's leading the Crusade? We never see any of their higher-ups, unless you count Balnazzar (the secret mastermind behind the Scarlet Crusade) and Kazzak, who doesn't really do much but sit on his new throne and yell. With that in mind, allow me to introduce the current Lord of the Burning Legion and a hell of a guy, Kil'jaeden! Who: Kil'jaeden the Deceiver, acting Supreme Commander and Lord of the Burning Legion, former Special Operations and Recruitment Manager for the Burning Legion. Much like evil organizations everywhere, the Burning Legion has tons of bureaucratic titles.
I fought Highlord Kruul and Highlord Kruul won
Hey, everyone who complained about the Scourge world event being too wussy -- the Burning Legion sends its regards. Eliah Hecht has documented that Highlord Kruul is owning everything on most servers, but no one has answered the question: Is it possible to kill this guy? Short answer: Yes. He appears to be a renamed Kazzak with most of Kazzak's abilities, plus he has Kazzak's loot table. He seems to hit harder than Kazzak and enrage sooner, but an organized, or even slightly disorganized, raid of 40 people can kill him. WoWWiki has a good strategy guide for Kazzak. Exo and Trans killed him on Smolderthorn, as did groups on Illidan, Medivh and Kalecgos, apparently. Long answer: Probably not, at least if your server's anything like mine. Kruul heals massively every time he kills a player or pet. So if Kruul spawns near a major city, it's nearly impossible due to the number of deaths. Unless you can clear the area of everything but organized 60s working in a raid group, just get naked, sit back and watch the carnage.
Server Downtime Thursday
Blizzard is rolling out new hardware for several US realms this Thursday, and the process of transferring the realms means - you guessed it, extensive downtime. The migration will begin on Thursday at 12:01 AM PST and may last as long as 24 hours. Those of you on effected realms will receive an extra day's credit to your account, which is, I suppose, better than nothing. Following the migration, Blizzard plans to open character transfers from existing realms to new realms (yet to be opened) to further help with performance and overcrowding issues. Realms transferring to new hardware are Archimonde, Dalaran, Khadgar, and Mal'Ganis. Other affected realms include Aggramar, Andorhal, Anetheron, Burning Blade, Burning Legion, Dentarg, Duskwood, Earthen Ring, Eonar, Eredar, Executus, Gilneas, Gorefiend, Haomarush, Kargath, Laughing Skull, Lightning's Blade, Llane, Malygos, Scilla, Shadow Moon, Steamwheedle Cartel, Thunderhorn, Thunderlord, Turalyon, Ysera, Ysondre, and Zuluhed. While these realms are not receiving a hardware upgrade, Tseric explains that current equipment configuration requires this.Update: The schedule has been pushed back to Thursday.
