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Ask a Beta Tester: Raid zones, plot, and more on phasing
I decided to do something a little different with the image above for today's Ask a Beta Tester. Instead of beating you over the head with another of my awesome Dalaran screenshots, I've plugged in some music you can listen to while you read, if you'd like. Just hit play, and get in a Wrath kind of mood.Milkgas asked quite a few question, but many of them involve story spoilers that I don't think readers would appreciate seeing in this particular column. What I don't answer, you can truck over to Ask a Lore Nerd and I'll squeeze them in on the bottom behind my usual "spoilers be here, yarrrr" line. We can definitely hit a few of them though.Has there been any hints in the quest text of either the Uldum or the Karazhan Basement as a raid or dungeon in this expansion or the next?Nothing that I've seen! We'll have Ulduar as a raid zone in Northrend, so to me that seems like a definite no on Uldum. I don't think they would put two Titan raids in one expansion, unless Uldum turned out to be a 5 man dungeon. We've seen nothing about the rest of Karazhan.
Spoilers: Wrath of the Lich King's peek into Druid lore
Recently in both Ask a Beta Tester and Ask a Lore Nerd, Druids have been asking a lot about their class. Not class mechanics and things like that, but their quests, story, and background. Will the old quests go away? (They won't.) Will we see more of Druid lore in Wrath?Yes, yes we will. And there's video! If you don't want to be spoiled about upcoming Wrath of the Lich King quests and storylines, I would advise against reading the rest of this post and the video within. Like that cinematic-that-shall-not-be-named from last week, watching it could really spoil an awesome game moment, so consider that your final warning. Oh, and it's long, so free up some time for yourself.
Ask a Beta Tester: Championing clarification, raiding, and more
Quite a few people wanted some clarification on the Championing system mentioned in previous editions of Ask a Beta Tester, so I'll try to do just that: The Championing system is not retroactive, and by that I mean old factions are not included in it. You can't use this to grind Orgrimmar or Honor Hold or whatever in level 80 dungeons. It only applies to Wrath reputations, and so far, not even all of those. It only counts towards the 'big four' of Northrend as far as I can see. Those reputations are: The Kirin Tor, The Argent Crusade, The Knights of the Ebon Blade, and the Wyrmrest Accord. You should be able to get really, really high reputation with the Valiance Expedition/Warsong Offensive just through questing, but I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a Tabard for them soon, too. The little people like the Kalu'ak are, so far, not included in this system.Read on for more answers to your questions!
Know Your Lore: Tirion Fordring
Welcome to Know Your Lore, where each week Alex Ziebart brings you a tasty little morsel of lore to wrap your mind around. Sweet, sweet lore. Mmmm. Have suggestions for future KYL topics? E-mail us! Or, if you have a question for our sister column Ask a Lore Nerd, e-mail us those, too!Despite how cool Tirion Fordring is, this was is actually one of the more challenging topics for Know Your Lore. It's difficult to write about Tirion without just giving a summary of the book about him, becase there's not much more to him until Wrath of the Lich King. Even after reading this, I'm still going to strongly recommend that you go out and find a copy of the Chris Metzen written book Of Blood and Honor.At the creation of the Order of the Silver Hand, Tirion Fordring was chosen to be among the first of the Paladins. Alongside him were people such as Saidan Dathrohan, Turalyon, Uther the Lightbringer, and Gavinrad the Dire (who!?). During the wars with the Orcish Horde, Tirion pretty much did what every other Paladin did: Kill a lot of Orcs and save a lot of lives. The real juicy stuff came a bit after that.
Ask a Beta Tester: Draenei, titles, and more glyph discussion
It's that time again, folks. Let's get this party started with Gary's question...Any new storylines for the Draenei?I haven't seen any major representation for them throughout Northrend, no massive plots just focusing on them, but they do have a presence and they are right there alongside the Alliance and the Argent Crusade. In some of the early quests, you do some unraveling of a cultist plot, and it's the Draenei fueling the investigation. Apparently thousands of years of the Legion trying to infiltrate your ranks makes you pretty good at sniffing out spies. A lot of their quests are that sort of thing, lending support to the Alliance rather than leading the charge like they did in Outland.There are a few other quests that show that the Draenei are starting to grow accustomed to Azeroth, and are settling into a calmer life there. They're not fleeing exiles anymore. Azeroth is home to a lot of them these days, so they'll fight Azeroth's fight, and some of them just plain want to live life. Explore and go on whimsical adventures like the rest of us.Jake asked... Are Prot Paladins having less downtime now with the buff to Blessing of Sanctuary?
Ask a Beta Tester: The Argent Crusade
It's that time again, ladies and gents. Alex here with today's round of answers to your Wrath Beta questions. Keep the questions coming, and we'll keep answering. To everyone that asked about Arena points: We don't know anything about that yet, and Blizzard doesn't either. As soon as they know, we'll know, and then you'll know.Gurluas asks...How many high elves are there in Wrath, and what are their role now that they have thier own faction?The High Elves actually have a pretty strong presence, which I'm rather excited about. The High Elves (and Blood Elves to a much lesser extent) are one of my favorite Warcraft races, and it makes me sad I can't play one. Alliance FTW. Dalaran, first of all, is packed full of them. Most of them are under the banner of the Silver Covenant, an Alliance-aligned faction of High Elves that aren't too happy about the Blood Elves being given a sizable section of Dalaran.There are also High Elves scattered throughout the Alliance forces in Northrend. There are a few of them in the 7th Legion (no, they're not all High Elves), the Argent Crusade, and just the Alliance forces overall. The fellow in charge of the Alliance contingent helping the Red Dragonflight at the Red Dragonshrine is a High Elf. He's a total badass, by the way. Check him out up there. Ashkandi is Draconic for Awesome.
Ask A Beta Tester: Death Knights, bears, and buckets
Welcome back to another edition of Ask A Beta Tester! I've stolen the reins from Elizabeth and Alex for a day, so let's get into last week's comments and get some questions answered. Death Knights: Multiple people had lots of questions about Death Knights, so I'm just going to list a bunch of them and then delve into what's going on: How Customizable are Death Knights? Do they get unique skintones, or unique racials? As to Death Knight Customization, the big difference they have right now are glowing blue eyes for every race. You can see that in action in our Death Knight racial gallery. Unfortunately, I think the Blue Eyes look sort of pasted on for most races, so I'm hoping they keep tweaking that to make them look more natural. We've also been promised different sounding emotes -- every Death Knight will have a deeper, sepulchral voice.
