Ozumat
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Know Your Lore: The Kaiju of Azeroth and Outland
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. Okay, let's just put our cards on the table. I just saw Godzilla, I liked it, and now we're going to do a KYL about giant monsters in World of Warcraft because I'm still all sorts of giant monster marking out. So here goes another list. What are the rules? Simple. It has to be a giant. How big is giant? It's sort of a you know it when you see it but to give you an idea, High King Maulgar isn't big enough. Also, if there are two giant monsters that are exactly the same, I'm only using one of them. So let's get on board the monster train. This isn't a worst to best style list - it's just giant monsters, robots, and other critters. The Fel Reaver Yes, the Fel Reaver. While Void Reaver might be the one that drops the better loot, the Fel Reaver was the monstrous robot that made us all wet ourselves when we first stepped through the Dark Portal and began exploring Hellfire Peninsula. The Fel Reaver made such an impression that many of us will stop in Hellfire even today just to kill it.
Know Your Lore, Tinfoil Hat Edition: The Dark Below
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. I see them! A million worlds glittering in their perfection! One above all others! We have fallen, we must rebuild the final Titan! Do not forget. Wrathion may have just finished chowing down on the heart of the Thunder King when he rattled off that strange speech about this bizarre "final Titan," but what he said seemed to indicate there is far more going on in Pandaria than we'd thought. Or, on the other hand, there is far more going on in Azeroth than we thought. Things that must be taken care of, things so urgent that Wrathion is attempting to set the war between Alliance and Horde on fast-forward so that we can skip that part and simply jump to what he thinks is the important stuff. Earlier this week, Blizzard appeared to be trademarking something called The Dark Below, and many have speculated that it's the name of the next WoW expansion, largely because of the existence of Ozumat and his title, Fiend of the Dark Below. The trademark was later revealed as a possible hoax -- and later still, revealed to be a trademark in Europe. So is it WoW? If it is a WoW trademark, what could possibly be in an expansion with that title? I have absolutely no idea. But that makes for some excellent Tinfoil Hat speculation, so why don't we look at what could potentially be lurking in The Dark Below? 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.
What we know about Ozumat, the Fiend of the Dark Below
Due to some news that's come to light this week, people are curious about The Dark Below, and its relation to World of Warcraft. As a result, the end boss of the Throne of Tides expansion, Ozumat has come to people's attention. The dread beast's title is Fiend of the Dark Below, and therefore (with the news that the next Diablo III expansion is likely to be named Reaper of Souls) a possible connection to the new expansion, always assuming of course that The Dark Below is in fact said expansion. So, what do we actually know about Ozumat? Well, turns out, not a heck of a lot. Here's a rundown of the kraken to krak all krakens.
Cataclysm Post-Mortem: Vashj'ir
Alex Ziebart and Mathew McCurley (that's me) decided to give each Cataclysm zone the once-over now that we're many months out from the release of the expansion. In this post-mortem series, we'll examine (in our own opinions and words) what worked and what didn't work in terms of story, quests, and overall feel for the zones and the cool moments that dotted the landscape. Join us for a discussion about Cataclysm's new level 80 to 85 content and what made the cut as the most compelling experiences. The Sunken City of Vashj'ir lies off the coast of Stormwind, with pieces of the forgotten land rising up from the waves after the devastation of the cataclysm and Deathwing's sundering of Azeroth. The Alliance scrambles to secure this territory so close to their shores to prevent any malicious entities from causing more havoc on their shores. The Horde, seeing a golden opportunity for a land grab so close to the human capital, has sent its navy in full force to take the now surfaced islands of Vashj'ir. Little does either faction know that a war rages in the very heart of the sunken city between the Lady Naz'jar and her army of naga aided by the Old Gods and the kvaldir. Lady Naz'jar's ultimate goal -- enter the Abyssal Maw, home of the water elemental lord Neptulon, and seize his power for her naga army. Vashj'ir's story Mathew: Before we begin, I have a confession to make. I finally finished Vashj'ir, from start to finish, only recently for this article. Zones that are built in such a way, as to emphasize the 3D space of the water, etc, are one of those things that occasionally bugs me. It's not that I didn't want to participate in Vashj'ir -- quite the contrary. I just had no reason to go here since Hyjal was so straightforward and had my flying mount ready to go from the get-go. Also, Vashj'ir was notably bottle-necked in beta, as many players streamed in and getting out of that initial sunken ship was a rough ride. Now that I had the zone to myself, it was a much better experience.
WRUP: Whatever happened to Neptulon, anyway?
Every week, just at the start of the weekend, we catch up with the WoW Insider staff and ask them, "What are you playing this week?" -- otherwise known as: WRUP. Join us to see what we're up to in and out of game, and catch us in the comments to let us know what you're playing, too! When last we left Neptulon the Tidehunter, the brave lord of elementals was assisting us in defeating the foul kraken Ozumat in the Throne of Tides 5-man instance. But, of course, Ozumat was not killed -- merely weakened. The beast disappeared into the deep, and Neptulon disappeared along with him! What happened? Well, we may not find out. Blizzard, defending its choice to not include an Abyssal Maw 5-man instance (or raid) in patch 4.2, said this past week that: We've decided for now that the Vashj'ir quest line along with the Throne of the Tides dungeon does a pretty good job of finishing the Neptulon story. source Those of us at WoW Insider respectfully disagree; there's more story here to be told. And since we all loathe untied ends, I decided to pose the question to our writers and editors this week: "Using your best predictive and story-telling abilities ... what happened to Ozumat and Neptulon?" %Gallery-124460%
