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Know Your Lore: Top 10 lore developments of 2012, part 2
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. In part one of our look back at 2012's best lore developments, we looked at the various aspects introduced to better introduce lore to those that had only a passing interest in it. While the Lorewalkers, print media and instance developments were also tremendously appealing to those that already have a handle on Warcraft lore, they also served as a method of getting the lore out to those that weren't really interested in the minutiae of mogu and mantid. And that's honestly pretty important. There are plenty of players that play the game simply to play it, not paying attention to why they are playing at all. By implementing subtle elements that introduce the lore in an unobtrusive fashion, the developers have quietly found a way to make sure that regardless of how or why you play the game, you still have some sort of basic understanding of what is going on. Cataclysm had a story, but it was so complex that it was difficult even for those with a strong grasp of lore to puzzle out exactly what was going on and why we were doing what we were doing. But the fun doesn't stop there -- and today's picks are those that are slightly less unobtrusive in regards to lore and story.
Murdering animals for 5.1 reputation
The patch 5.1 daily system seems fairly straightforward for the most part -- you either get your dailies directly at the base camp for your respective faction, or you get a quest that will send you to a daily hub in Krasarang Wilds. Once your dailies are completed, you can then turn them in for reputation. But there's another daily quest out there, one that's hidden behind a purchasable item. This daily quest not only grants you a chunk of reputation, it'll give you a useful buff as well. But how you go about the process of getting that quest, and the limitations to the quest, seem to be a mystery to many players. And if you ask Jorn Skyseer or his Alliance counterpart Huntsman Blake, they have pretty much nothing to say on the matter. So how do you go about getting this useful bit of extra rep? Well, there are two parts to the process.
Alternative leveling in the Isle of Quel'Danas
I'm bored of Northrend. It is beautiful and has lovely music and is full of lore and I'm bored. It's the new Outland for me and my alts. Other ways to level abound, of course, but they all have their drawbacks and are various levels of "Been there; done that." as well. So I took Tizzi, the bored goblin mage, to a place where my aged druid spent many grindful days: the Isle of Quel'Danas. We complain about dailies now, but Quel'Danas (also known as the Sunwell Isle) was the land of too many dailies for our quest log. Grind, grind, grind we ancient Burning Crusade players did, so we could be of the Shattered Sun and get some lovely loot besides. When Quel'Danas was the in-thing, everyone was max-level, so there was no XP -- just the cash, gear, and camping. Oh, so very much camping. The Isle of Quel'Danas is vacant of players now, but is otherwise unchanged. It resides in a bubble in time, much like Outland, and the NPCs are still there to give quests or be slaughtered.
Talking patch 5.1 with Dave Kosak & Cory Stockton
Patch 5.1 introduced a lot of new content, and a lot of new lore -- and who better to explain it all than Lead Content Designer Cory Stockton, and Lead Quest Designer Dave Kosak? We sat down with both, along with Community Manager Zarhym to talk about some of the new features found in patch 5.1. Along with questions about the Brawler's Guild, both Kosak and Stockton addressed scenarios, daily quests, tweaking old content, that pesky matter of player housing, and what's to come in patch 5.2. Patch 5.1 was an incredibly fast patch. Is this going to be a trend with Mists? Cory Stockton: Yeah, for sure -- this has been our goal for a long time. We can't promise that we're going to have the exact same amount of content in the exact same amount of time, but it's definitely our intention to deliver patches in a time frame similar to this with a similar or larger amount of content. It just all comes down to each individual patch and the details of what we can do, but it's definitely our goal. Dave Kosak: We'll alternate between patches that have raid content and patches that don't have raid content as sort of required by what players are doing in the game and try and space it out. But our objective has always been faster content delivery, and we're hoping that players are seeing that we're trying to live up to that.
WoW Archivist: Patch 2.1, The Black Temple
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? Blizzard ruined my intro. I was going to talk about how appropriate it was that patch 5.1 included a scenario for warlocks that took them to the Black Temple. Then they pushed it to 5.2. So fine. I'll just fall back to something generic. In terms of sheer content and changes, patch 2.1 was truly massive -- one of WoW's biggest patches of all time. It arrived in May 2007, five months into The Burning Crusade. Let's dive in! Illidan shouts at us in person We were ready, if not perhaps entirely prepared. After an ad campaign and a trailer that prominently featured Illidan, many players expressed disappointment that WoW's first expansion didn't launch with the Black Temple raid. In retrospect, those concerns seem silly today. If anything, the Black Temple released too early in the expansion, forcing Blizzard to add the ultradifficult Sunwell Plateau raid to fill the gap between expansions. The Black Temple was an enormous raid, and one of the game's most beloved. No matter where you went, everything was big and scary. In some areas, even clearing the trash felt epic. Nine bosses populated a vast indoor/outdoor instance. Many of them are still remembered fondly. Supremus and Reliquary of Souls were highly memorable encounters, the latter partly due its unforgiving awareness checks. Teron Gorefiend and Illidan were major lore figures able to be vanquished in WoW for the first time. BT wasn't the only raid that 2.1 introduced, however.
Reputation in review: The August Celestials
At the four cardinal points of Pandaria, great beasts known as the August Celestials watch over the precious continent. To the east is Yu'lon, the Jade Serpent -- a being of unfathomable power who is neither the first nor the last Jade Serpent in existence. While speaking to Yu'lon, it is made clear that upon her death, her life's essence will be passed on to another, in cycle that indicates some type of immortality. There are three others in Pandaria; Chi-ji the Red Crane to the south, Xuen the White Tiger to the North, and Niuzao the Black Ox to the west. It's not clear if these three follow the same cycle as Yu'lon, but all three share the same sparkling, ethereal appearance. We don't know where they came from. We don't know what they are. We don't know exactly how long they've been on Pandaria, although there is mention of Yu'lon in tales from the last Pandaren Emperor. We don't know what their ultimate purpose on Pandaria is, except to guard and watch over the world. And one would think that a reputation grind dedicated to these ethereal creatures would answer at least a few of these questions.
Tanks, healers, and a daily problem
As someone who plays a guardian/restoration druid, I've had mixed feelings about Blizzard's move to the "dailies model." Of course, you don't need to be playing a tank or healer to feel that way -- it would appear that everyone on the planet has mixed feelings about the seemingly-endless march of Mists of Pandaria dailies -- but there's an special agony to them if you don't have a battle-ready DPS spec. Beefy mob health pools make killing anything as a healer last the approximate length of the Roman Empire, and because quest mobs rarely hit hard enough to make Vengeance a threat, tanks don't fare much better. I will grant that grinding Golden Lotus to revered did give me the opportunity to finish Gone With the Wind after all these years. (Spoiler alert: The North wins the Civil War.) Now, dual-specs exist for just this reason -- i.e., so you don't have to quest on specs that are really designed for group play -- and I could avoid this problem if I really wanted, but here's the thing: I really like being a tank/healer. Whatever it takes to be a truly competitive DPS, I just don't have it, and I will tank or heal 5-mans and raids, happy as a clam, and hopefully contributing to a lower dungeon queue. By contrast, dailies leave me trying to collect every quest mob in sight to get enough Vengeance to AOE them down efficiently, but it feels really inconsiderate to do this while other players are trying to get the same mobs. And other players are always after them, because everyone's on the same rep grinds. Every day is like being trapped in the starting zone of a new expansion, and I honestly don't know if I have it in me to do this all over again on my alts (who are -- surprise, surprise -- tanks and healers).
Know Your Lore: Dailies and story development
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 have to admit that I've spent a lengthy amount of time this week trying to understand why people hate daily quests with such unbridled passion. Leveling a character through zones and completing various quests has to be one of my favorite parts of the game -- but once you reach max level, you've done all there is, from a questing perspective. In vanilla, this resulted in an absolute drought of things to do once you'd hit level 60. When daily quests were introduced in Burning Crusade, they were lauded as an excellent way for players to make gold after they'd reached max level. But the focus of daily quests has shifted since their introduction in the first expansion. No longer just a way to make gold after the well of quests to do has run dry, daily quests have morphed into a resource to gain both reputation and unique rewards. And oddly enough, daily quests have also evolved into what is slowly starting to look like an effective storytelling tool as well. But why do some dailies work, and others falter? What makes dailies palatable?
The Queue: Glory to the Alliance
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. Stop making a mess of our flags, you jerks. BlazeNor asked: With this farming aspect added to the game that seem to be done with phasing, do you think this could open the door to housing? For example allowing players to own a piece of land and building on it though reputation and dailies.
Getting started with reputation at level 90
Originally in the Mists of Pandaria beta, all reputation grinds were unlocked at level 90. This left players with a staggering amount of stuff to do, so much that it was immediately overwhelming. There was no clear path of reputation to follow, there wasn't a moment that explained where a player should go first, and why. On live, the Shado-Pan and August Celestials are now locked behind revered reputation with the Golden Lotus. This gives players a slightly clearer path to follow when doing dailies. But even with that change, it's still confusing to players, direction-wise. If you played in the beta, you have some understanding of reputations at level 90, how to increase them, and how they work. But if you're just now experiencing Pandaria and all it has to offer, you may be wondering where to go, what to do, and most importantly, what's in it for you? If you're dreading the thought of endless daily quests, don't worry -- it's nowhere near as complex as you'd think.
Blizzard clarifies getting started with the Golden Lotus
If you're level 90 and wondering just where to start on those Golden Lotus dailies everyone is talking about, Blizzard's got you covered. Blue poster Nakatoir clarified the process of entering the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, as well as starting up those pesky reputation dailies. The first part involves a trip to the Temple of the White Tiger in Kun Lai Summit, which will unlock the quest to head to the Vale at level 87. Once you've hit level 90, you must train flying before you can start with the dailies for Golden Lotus. There are a handful of entry quests before the dailies properly begin. Keep in mind that as you unlock reputation with the Golden Lotus, more daily hubs will become available. The Vale of Eternal Blossoms is a level 90 zone in a way -- while you don't gain experience for completing the quests, you do gain the favor of the Golden Lotus, which is pretty valuable to a max-level player.
The Warlord's Ashes, hidden daily of the Dread Wastes
One of the more interesting dailies in all of Pandaria is one that won't even be assigned to you by a quest giver. When questing through the Dread Wastes, or later while doing dailies in that zone, you may have spotted a curious tablet propped up at the base of an urn. According to the tablet, Warlord Gurthan, master of beasts and conqueror of men, waits here. He waits for the Earth to LAY before him as beasts once did. He waits for the Sun to KNEEL before him as men once did. Reminds me a bit of the clue to a puzzle in a Resident Evil game or something. Essentially, you (and another warm body) need to arrange yourself so one is lying down in the green circle, and the other is kneeling in the red circle. Doing so will send colored beams directly to the urn, and release the spirit of Warlord Gurthan. Strike the Warlord down, and collect the ashes. This item will begin a quest, which you can turn in at Kil'ruk the Wind-Reaver, which rewards the standard 5 valor points, 2 Lesser Charms of Good Fortune, and a smattering of gold coins. Unfortunately, this isn't available every day. Only on days in which the Klaxxi dailies involve the Terrace of Gurthan, fittingly enough. Nonetheless, it's a great little quest that rewards those willing to explore a little. Considering how there is absolutely no indication from NPCs that this quest exists, I wonder how many more of these hidden gems are just waiting to be found out there. And if there aren't any, there should be, because this is the kind of thing that makes it fun and rewarding to get out and poke around every nook and cranny in Pandaria. Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
Rising to exalted with the Order of the Cloud Serpent
If you've hit level 90, it's likely you've already seen the sheer amount of dailies and other activities to do in Mists. Along with the grind for gear, there's a grind for the beautiful cloud serpent mounts that can be found flying all over the Jade Forest. If you love the cloud serpents, you'll need to learn how to ride them. And in order to ride them, you need to get exalted with the Order of the Cloud Serpent. To begin, head to the Arboretum and speak to Elder Anli the Serpent Master, who will send you to Windward Isle to the northwest. Upon finishing the opening chain, you'll be roughly honored with the Order of the Cloud Serpent, and you'll have picked a cloud serpent of your very own to raise. A series of dailies will let you play and interact with your cloud serpent hatchling, and as time goes on, your reputation with the Order will rise. If you're saying this sounds an awful lot like the Netherwing grind in Burning Crusade, you'd be absolutely right. But reputation and dailies aren't the only things shared between the two factions.
WoW Insider interviews Lead Quest Designer Dave Kosak
Mists of Pandaria is a gigantic undertaking of an expansion that has subtly reworked everything that was painful about Cataclysm and turned it into a fun and interactive work of art. Responsible for much of that is Lead Quest Designer Dave Kosak, who graciously sat down to chat with us about the changes, and what went on behind Mists' development to make it the expansion we've all been waiting for. What makes Mists so fun? The substantial revamp to endgame, and the crazy number of quests and content to complete. The key to Mists is the sheer amount of quests and content to play through, presented in an interactive and entertaining environment designed and executed by Kosak and crew. Read on if you're wondering where that that world event we were expecting went to, what exactly happened to the Jade Forest, or how dailies are going to be less grind and more fun.
Mists of Pandaria and optional content
I'm always interested in the idea of what's optional vs. what's compulsory -- and more important, how optional something can become before it's too optional and thus entirely skippable. For instance, in Wrath of the Lich King, I completely bypassed that Kalu'ak reputation grind. Why? Well, for one thing, I refuse to fish. I will not do it. I won't fish in real life, and therefore I won't fish in game. So in a way, my bypassing Kalu'ak was because I've bypassed fishing. Fishing itself could certainly be seen as completely optional, although I know a lot of players who do it purely for the cooking benefits and even a few who claim to enjoy it. In a recent forum thread discussing the removal of head enchants and the possible conflict in game design with putting valor gear on the reputation vendors in Mists of Pandaria, Ghostcrawler discussed all the varieties of optional content. I thought it an interesting topic because in Mists of Pandaria, optional seems to have a different meaning than it has before.
Patch 5.0.4 currency conversion clarified
While we put together a comprehensive guide on what to expect with patch 5.0.4, there was something missing from the list. Currency conversion had yet to be explained on the current patch notes -- while we knew it was coming on Aug. 28, we didn't know the exact details. Blizzard has finally clarified the conversion rates, going one step farther by outlining what currency conversion will look like all the way up to patch 5.1. Valor points will be disappearing, converted to justice points, and conquest will be converted to honor. There will be no gold conversion for excess points, because the cap for justice and honor points will be removed until Mists of Pandaria launches. Blizzard Entertainment The currency conversion coming with Mists of Pandaria is going to happen in three stages, and this is how we plan for it to progress: With Patch 5.0.4 on August 28 Valor points will be converted to Justice points, and Conquest points will be converted to Honor points. Neither of the resultant currencies (Justice and Honor) will have an enforced hard-cap at this time. The current Arena season will end. Players will no longer be able to earn Valor or Conquest points (bosses will drop Justice, Arenas will be closed). Items formerly purchasable for Valor/Conquest will be available for Justice/Honor. With Mists of Pandaria on September 25 Valor can be earned again. Characters can earn up to 1000 Valor per week, and carry a maximum of 3000 Valor. Daily quests, random Scenarios, random Heroic dungeons, and all levels of raiding will reward Valor. Valor will be used to purchase ilvl 489 gear in Mists of Pandaria. The Klaxxi, Golden Lotus, Shado-Pan, and August Celestials factions will sell this gear. Revered reputation with each faction will be required. Conquest will become earnable. There is a cap of 4000 Conquest points. Arenas and Rated Battlegrounds reward Conquest. It will be used to purchase ilvl 483 gear from Pandaren battlemasters on the Great Wall. With Mists of Pandaria, Patch 5.1 We currently plan to upgrade the Valor system as Ghostcrawler described in Mists of Pandaria Looting Explained in the 5.1 patch, allowing you to upgrade your gear using Valor points. We'll have additional information once Mists of Pandaria launches and we get closer to the 5.1 patch release. Do you have questions or comments about currencies in World of Warcraft? Please let us know in this discussion thread. source Hopefully this clears up everyone's questions about this process. If not, you can always check out the discussion thread on the official forums and ask away! It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Mists of Pandaria Beta: Raising your very own cloud serpent
With the reopening of the Jade Forest, several quests and dailies that were no longer accessible have been reopened, including the opportunity to get your very own cloud serpent. Unlike the cloud serpents you can purchase from the various reputation vendors around the world, this cloud serpent is yours -- raised by you from the moment it hatches until the moment you can slap a saddle on its back and fly away into the clouds. Much like the Netherwing in The Burning Crusade or the Winterspring Frostsabers and Venomhide Ravasaurs for Alliance and Horde, respectively, your cloud serpent is obtained through a series of daily quests in which you take care of the little guy, keep him safe from certain doom, clean up after him, and keep him amused. You can start the chain by heading to the Arboretum in Jade Forest at level 90 to speak to Elder Ani the Serpent Master, who will take a good look at you and determine whether you've got the stuff to keep a cloud serpent. Don't worry, you do.
Breakfast Topic: What will you absolutely not do in Mists?
I am not farming. I don't even mean the typical WoW sense of farming. I specifically mean I am not going to do daily quests for the express purpose of getting my own farm to toil away at. There are certain things from my childhood I hated doing, fishing being one and working on the farm being another. I loathed both. And I have not fished a single cast in World of Warcraft, not in the eight years of playing it. I am certainly not going to go and farm. I got enough digging up weeds, plowing, pulling rocks out of the ground, pulling disturbingly warm chicken eggs out of a coop, and a whole host of other chores in my real life. I am absolutely disinterested in doing so in a game. As I've said before, I have no problem with content not intended for me. I'm cool with it. By all means, put it pet battles, farms, what have you. But there is no way on Azeroth or Earth that you will get me to farm. It is absolutely not happening. No way, no how, not going to do it. So what about you? What are you absolutely not going to do? It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
The Queue: Pet battles, Caverns of Time, and the quest log
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 have no idea what's being said in this song, but it sure sounds neat. evoxpisces asked: I was fooling around with the pet battles system in beta on a character I copied over. Then I made a new monk and was able to use pet battles right from the start.... does that mean that we only have to pay the fee once? And that pet battles are universal as opposed to specific to each character? All the pets I have are the exact same pets across all characters, and not different versions of the same pets?
Mists of Pandaria: 48 daily quests available on any given day
We all know that Mists of Pandaria is removing the daily quest limit, meaning that you can do as many dailies as you want. And now we have numbers, courtesy of Vaneras, explaining why that is -- specifically, because if you limit yourself purely to the new dailies coming in Mists of Pandaria, you still could barely do half of the ones available per day with the old limit. Vaneras - Quests As things are right now, it looks like there will be approximately 1300 quests in Mists of Pandaria. This is a very rough number though, and this is of course still subject to change. There is some overlap between Alliance and Horde, but the majority of these quests are neutral and because of this we do not expect there to be more than 200 or so faction-specific quests. Of these 1300 quests, roughly 300 of them are dailies. Right this moment we don't have the numbers off-hand to show how that that compares exactly to the previous expansions, but the quest count seems to more closely mirror Wrath of the Lich King, however with a much greater emphasis on dailies. Mists of Pandaria is actually the expansion where we have emphasized dailies the most... ever! The dailies are of course randomized, which means that you will never log in and find that you have 300 daily quests to do. We expect that if a player has progressed sufficiently with the neutral factions, and thus advanced to their maximum possible quest availability, you would have around 48 quests available on any given day. source While risking sounding like Matthew Broderick in Godzilla, that is a lot of quests. When you combine those 48 available dailies a day with older rep grinds some players are going to want to complete such as those at the Argent Tournament, the Molten Front and even Ogri'la or the Isle of Quel'danas, it seems that it was a very good call to remove that cap. It also sounds like I'm going to have a lot of questing to do. It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
