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Reminder: World of Warcraft 10th anniversary ends January 5
If you have yet to get it done, you might want to hit up Molten Core in the next week or so. The 10th anniversary celebration for World of Warcraft officially ends on January 5, 2015 -- and both Molten Core's 40-man LFR experience, as well as the Southshore vs. Tarren Mill PvP battleground will be taking their leave. Completing Molten Core will earn you an ilvl 640 epic helm as well as the Core Hound Chain that will give you a Corehound of your very own to ride -- but there's also a chance to pick up Hatespark the Tiny, a new Battle Pet, and the Flames of Ragnaros, a special cosmetic item that will give your weapon a fiery glow. As for the battleground, winning a battle on either Alliance or Horde side will net you an achievement as well as a special account-wide title, Southshore Slayer, or Tarren Mill Terror. To queue for Molten Core, you'll need an ilvl of 615, but that's relatively easy to get at level 100. Once the anniversary event is over, these items and achievements will no longer be available -- so you'll want to get a move on if you want to collect and complete them all before they're gone for good.
Know Your Lore: The Molten Core
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 the deepest parts of Blackrock Mountain, the Dark Iron toil relentlessly, slaving away at the whim of an ancient, terrifying master of flame. The Molten Core, as it is called by the denizens of Azeroth, is not this creature's home. Instead, it is the home of a dark ritual gone terribly wrong, a ritual that not only backfired, but subsequently resulted in the enslavement of an entire dwarven clan. The 10th anniversary of World of Warcraft has some extra special goodies this year, including an updated, 40man LFR version of the Molten Core. Although many players lurked in its depths in the original iteration of the raid, the story of the area and how it came to be was scattered all over Azeroth -- because the tale begins long before there were dwarves, clans, or anyone to call Blackrock Mountain by name.
Molten Core LFR may test your patience, but look at this mount
WoW's 10th anniversary celebration started today, and with it came what is now my favorite mount in the game. This Core Hound one of those mounts you have to see to believe. There's something incredibly cool about stomping around on one of these bad boys, especially with my matching hunter pet and battle pet in tow. I also snagged a ilvl 640 epic helm out of it. Everyone who kills Ragnaros will be guaranteed the helm and the mount. The rest of the bosses simply drop gold for everyone (around 25g each) which should hopefully pay for the repair bill you will rack up doing this right now. In order to queue for Molten Core LFR you must have an item level of at least 615. If you're not level 100 yet, don't fret. This event is ongoing until January 5, 2015 and I suspect many will continue to farm it for chances at Hatespark the Tiny and Flames of Ragnaros, both of which are not guaranteed drops. I'll admit that when I first went in, I expected this to be a complete pushover. However, I forgot how hard it is to organize a group of 40 people. Almost everyone inside is just barely making the ilvl 615 requirement to boot. People are used to soloing this for transmog gear and it can result in many wipes. It took my group nearly 2 hours to clear the whole raid. My first group didn't even make it past the first boss.
WoW's 10th Anniversary celebration starts tomorrow
It's kind of amazing to realize that WoW turns 10 tomorrow, and we get Molten Core and Southshore vs. Tarren Mill to celebrate. The fine folks at Wowhead have a detailed guide to the anniversary for you to look over. You can get an epic ilevel 640 helm, a weapon glow effect, mounts and pets from MC, titles from the new battleground, and of course the celebration package in the mail with an item to boost your reputation gain with Warlords factions. It's not often that an MMO gets to be this big this long. We even got to see 10 million subscriptions for the 10th anniversary. Party time!
Yes, Molten Core LFR will grant Hydraxian Waterlords reputation
I'm pretty excited about the upcoming 10th Anniversary Molten Core LFR, but I have to admit, of all the reasons I have to be excited about that, the idea that it would be a way to gather Hydraxian Waterlords reputation would have been absolutely on the bottom of the list. However, some of you apparently care about this, and now it's official - Crithto has confirmed that yes, Virginia, there is a Hydraxian Waterlords Reputation Santa Claus. So there you have it. Now, when I ran Molten Core, back in the day, you needed that rep to get the Aqual Quintessence you needed to douse the runes. And you needed one Quintessence per rune, so several people in your raid had to be gathering rep with them in order to get enough to complete the raid! You kids today, you don't even need to march 40 people through Blackrock Depths to get them to the Raid entrance inside the very base of the dungeon! Now (well, soon) you just queue up in LFR and get all the sweet Hydraxian Waterlords reputation you want, and you don't even need it for anything! I'll be over here in my rocking chair.
Breakfast Topic: Raid revamps
Blizzard is revamping Molten Core as part of its ten year anniversary. Onyxia's Lair received similar treatment for prior celebrations. Today, we ask: what other raid is worthy of coming back into the spotlight? What other raid is iconic enough to be worthy of a max level revamp? Or, iconic status aside, what's a personal favorite of yours that you'd love to run again at max level? Karazhan feels like the obvious answer to me. After Molten Core and Onyxia's Lair, few raids carry the same strength of nostalgia. Karazhan is one of the few. It had its flaws, what with the endless, tedious trash in the middle stretch, but it's beloved by most. Who doesn't love the Chess Event? To be fair, a lot of us probably didn't. But nostalgia is a powerful thing. I anticipate we'll see some Ulduar answers, too. I admit, Ulduar wasn't my favorite raid ever, but I didn't hate it, either. I know a lot of players who did love it, however, and its life was sadly cut short by the release of the Argent Tournament.
The Queue: Who needs a title with that picture?
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'm glad I waited until the wee hours of the morning to write today's Queue. If I didn't, I wouldn't have been able to use that picture of Zarhym as today's header, courtesy of Ben Brode's Twitter. Benjamin Seeberger asked: with the introduction of Warlords of Draenor and the retirement of the legendary quest in its entirety, are new players going to have any clue who Wrathion is, unless they are rogues? Will his storyline make any sense in Mists when the legendary questline is taken out? Will the Timeless Isle make any sense? How will the departure of the questline impact Pandaria's storyline?
WoW Archivist: The classic Molten Core experience, part 3
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? If you missed part 1 and part 2, that means you were late for the raid and we're docking you 50 DKP. Next time get here early to help the warlocks farm soul shards. OK, fellow archivists! We've cleared trash, we've decursed, we've pulled Geddon to Garr's room, we've brefriended the Duke, and we've doused every fiery rune. It's time to delve into the core of the Core to take on the Majordomo and Ragnaros himself, 2005 edition. The invincible majordomo Undefeated in battle, Executus rose through the ranks of Ragnaros's lieutenants to become the Firelord's majordomo. He did not appear until you doused all the runes, so the earliest raids on Molten Core had to stop after Golemagg and Sulfuron due to an Aqual Quintessence shortage. After raiders repped up with the Hydraxian Waterlords and could finally summon the Majordomo, they were faced with an invincible warrior -- literally. Executus could not be killed. His Aegis of Ragnaros spell gave him a 30K damage absorb buff and healed him to full, so it was pointless to DPS him. Instead, raids had to manage his eight adds: four Flamewaker Elites and four Flamewaker Healers. Mages were the key to this fight as they had the only reliable, long-term crowd control spell for humanoids. The fight required at least five tanks, one for the majordomo and one for each elite. All four healers were sheeped until all the elites were dead. Then the raid could kill the healers one at a time. But it wasn't that simple. The fight had some interesting complications.
Blizzard releases World of Warcraft's 10th Anniversary details
So, today the folks at Blizzard posted more details about the upcoming 10th Anniversary of World of Warcraft, featuring the Tarren Mill/Southshore deathmatch BG and the revamped level 100 40 player LFR version of Molten Core. One thing we now know for sure is that Molten Core will become accessible on November 21 (a week after the launch of Warlords itself) and last until January 6th, 2015. This gives you a little more than a month to get to level 100 and run the revamped Molten Core. It's a little worrying to me that you'll have to hit 100 and run this content (remember, it's a 40 person LFR) during the holiday season, but that's what we are currently being told. Also, thanks to the folks at Wowhead we also know that there are four helmets you can get when you defeat Ragnaros - an updated Crown of Destruction and plate, leather and cloth versions. In addition, Ragnaros drops the Core Hound Chain as well. The new battleground will have a 90-99 and 100 version, and winning either version of the Southshore/Tarren Mill battleground will reward you with the Tarren Mill Terror title for Alliance players and the Southshore Slayer title for the Horde. Rated PvP play will begin on December 2nd, and the first raids will begin opening at that time with Raid Finder and Mythic difficulty opening the next week. A full schedule for the raid releases is incoming. So that's how things stand so far. Looks like you'll want to get to 100 as quickly as possible if you're looking forward to that Molten Core LFR or the Southshore/Tarren Mill deathmatch.
WoW Archivist: The classic Molten Core experience, part 2
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? In the last WoW Archivist, we covered the early parts of Molten Core: the "attunement," the grueling trash clear to Lucifron, and the weird hunter-focused mechanics of Magmadar. As we left off, the raid had just reached its first rune. To douse the rune and (eventually) summon Majordomo Executus, you had to make friends with an angry royal guy made of water. The duke of douse Duke Hydraxis, as a water elemental, wasn't very fond of other elemental types, particularly Ragnaros or his fiery kin. His Hydraxian Waterlords were the first raid-based reputation in WoW. You could rep up with them before setting foot in Molten Core by killing certain elementals out in the world, but only up to just shy of honored. After that, you had to run MC to get additional rep. Trash gave rep until revered, but only boss kills got you through the slow grind to exalted. Meanwhile, you could complete a small quest chain for the Duke. He first sent you to kill elementals in Plaguelands and Silithus, and then to obtain an item from Pyroguard Emberseer in Blackrock Spire. Further quests involved killing specific trash mobs and bosses in Molten Core. Hands of the Enemy quite literally asked you to bring him the severed hands of Lucifron, Gehennas, Shazzrah, and Sulfuron. Once completed, you could loot the duke's coffer and choose one of two very valuable fire resistance rings. At this point, the duke also gave you an Aqual Quintessence, one of the most famous items from classic WoW.
WoW Archivist: The classic Molten Core experience
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? Are you ready to return to the Core? Last week, we learned that Blizzard is planning a 40-player LFR version of classic's Molten Core raid as part of WoW's 10th anniversary celebration. Regardless of what they have in mind, the experience is certain to be very different than it was back in 2005. Sure, you've probably solo'ed MC or cleared it with a few friends. But what was a Molten Core run like during classic WoW, when conquering Ragnaros and his fiery lieutenants was the pinnacle of endgame content? Read on to find out. Zoning in To access Molten Core at release, raids had to fight their way through the 5-player Blackrock Depths dungeon in order to access the raid. Today that would be impossible, but originally, dungeons had the same 40-player cap as raids. Those poor, poor fools in BRD didn't stand a chance with three dozen+ players carving their way through. Since clearing it offered nothing but a timesink, Blizzard changed the Molten Core discovery quest into an attunement in March 2005. You had to reach the entrance of Molten Core once, and then you could port there directly by jumping out of a small window in Blackrock Mountain. The game sometimes failed to register the instance transfer and you plummeted into a vast lake of lava. Yes, Molten Core could kill you before you even set foot in it.
Breakfast Topic: Do you miss vanilla?
With the 10th anniversary events announced, it's clear that Blizzard is trying to take us -- in a way -- back to the days of vanilla WoW, with PvP battles between Tarren Mill and Southshore and an updated 40-player Molten Core raid. But as a vanilla-era player myself, I have to ask: does anyone really miss those days? While 40-player raids sound epic in scale, the effort coordinating 40 players to be at the same place at the same time -- much less getting them to act as a cohesive unit -- was a fairly major undertaking. And though the new Molten Core takes away some of the headaches by making the event LFR, getting even 25 people to work together in LFR is a challenge. Will I be in the new anniversary version of Molten Core with everyone else? Sure. (After all, I want a Core Hound mount as much as anyone.) But have I missed running Molten Core all these years? Not really. What about you, fellow raiders? Are you feeling nostalgic for the good old days of vanilla?
World of Warcraft will offer minipets and nostalgic gameplay for its anniversary
As World of Warcraft gears up for its 10th anniversary in November, Blizzard has announced its plans for celebrating. Of note, the team is creating a 40-player raid finder version of Molten Core for "max-level" characters, who can "relive the experience of hunting down Ragnaros and his minions" and snag a new mount and achievement. A new deathmatch-style battleground will also be opened in an attempt to replicate the early Tarren Mill/Southshore PvP experience. If you don't really care about nostalgic raids and PvP, how about some free stuff? WoW will bestow a Molten Corgi minipet on everyone who logs in during the event.
World of Warcraft's 10th anniversary preview
Ten years is a long time. Ten years ago, in 2004, I was 20 years old and entering my third semester of college--also entangled in endless piles of paperwork while I prepared to spend a year studying at the University of New South Wales in Sydney for the calender year 2005. Ten years ago, in November 2004, World of Warcraft officially launched. The mark that WoW has left on the gaming industry is indisputable--but we're not here for musing retrospectives. At least, not yet. We're here because there's going to be a whole bunch of fun in-game events to celebrate WoW's first decade of existence, and Blizzard has given us a lovely preview of what at least a few of them are.
Warlords of Draenor: Forget looting the hounds, we can ride them
The latest beta build of Warlords brought with it several new Battle Pets as well as the mount pictured above. Yes, that is a Core Hound, and yes, you will be able to ride it by obtaining the Core Hound Chain. Although it's not directly stated where this mount will be obtained on the mount tab, it's safe to say we'll likely see it dropping in the newly-revamped Upper Blackrock Spire. After all, what's Blackrock Spire without The Beast? In addition to the Core Hound mount, several Ravager Wasp battle pets were added, along with a Runtish Gronnling, and a pet named Sky-bo that appears to be a miniature version of the Sky Golem mount. At the moment, there's no indication whether Sky-bo is an engineer crafted pet. To check out 3D models of the new Core Hound mount, as well as other new items added to the beta, head over to Wowhead.
Blizzard on raid design evolution
Lead Game Designer Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas has written a very extensive blog on the evolution of raid design, the first installment of which went live this morning. In this first part, Watcher covers the history of raiding, from the launch of the game in 2004 all the way through to the end of Icecrown Citadel in 2010. For many, these were the glory days of raiding and World of Warcraft alike, well, if you believe the forums at least. Watcher talks about the developers' aims to make raiding more accessible, and to improve the gameplay of groups by reducing them in size -- one healer in a group of fifteen healers can't have as big an impact as one healer in a group of five or two. He also discusses the introduction of varying difficulties in raiding, and looks back over all the patches of some of the game's greatest raids. Hit the break for the full post.
Blizzard looks back at the Molten Core
This weekend, Blizzard has begun a new series of blogs revisiting old raid content. Penned by community manager Daxxari, the first installment of Re-visiting Heroism's Past takes a look at Molten Core. Daxxari's guide includes a list of bosses, their most interesting drops, the battle pets added in the more recent past, and other tips for relative beginners to the game. Interesting to veteran players and game historians is the mouseover links in the post which provide tidbits of Molten Core history. Long-time players already know of the auction house shenanigans that occurred with Baron Geddon's Living Bomb, but it may be new information to discover that Molten Core nearly failed to make the final cut in World of Warcraft. According to the post, developers finished the dungeon in a single week, with Jeff Kaplan handling spawning and creature placement, Scott Mercer designing the bosses, Bob Fitch designing the loot, and Pat Nagle creating the Hydraxis questline. Molten Core was originally conceived as a single room where players would face Ragnaros. Everything else came much later.
Perfect Ten: My favorite MMO April Fools' pranks of all time
There are two types of people on April 1st: those who are annoyed and indifferent to the tomfoolery going on all around them, and those who gleefully embrace the zany antics and baldfaced lies. For the record, I am of the latter crowd. I love April Fools' Day and the humor and creativity that it inspires. While this day is by no means contained to our neck of the woods, MMOs have a long-running streak of trying to pull the wool over our eyes. I think a good goof has to have several qualities to make it truly memorable. It needs to be original. It needs to be actually amusing, whether or not you "fell for it." And it needs to tweak our expectations and understanding of how MMOs work. Sometimes there are even important ideas that emerge from these jokes that could, indeed, make these titles better. So let's go through my favorite MMO April Fools pranks of all time, as catalogued by yours truly!
Blood Pact: Demonology 101 at 90 in the end of Mists
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill finishes out with demon form. You just boosted your warlock to 90, and now we have all basic warlock at 90 laid out for you: General warlock 101 Affliction 101 Demonology 101, which is this article Destruction 101 Long-time readers will know that demonology AKA "demo" isn't my favorite warlock spec, but as I admitted to a friend recently, I can't recall seeing a "bad" demo warlock in organized raid. Demo 'locks are such well-oiled machines that once it clicks in your mind how to play, it's hard to not rock the meters.
Blood Pact: Do warlocks have button bloat?
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill won't give it up on Soul Fire. Celestalon started the talk about what abilities would we be sad over losing. I don't know that warlocks would lose many spells with our recent expansion overhaul -- we're pretty streamlined as it is. Veteran warlocks can see and feel the difference between Cataclysm's complication and Mists' minimalism every time they play. A warlock class strength is that we're so flexible at dealing damage, whether we do it through DoTs or with direct damage, or whether we're single target masters or AoE beasts. So we end up with a good deal of situational abilities that confuse the casual or fresh warlock as to what should be keybound. We might not lose the amount of abilities that, say, hunters will, but we're likely not immune from the chopping block. Let's talk some suggestions.