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Breakfast Topic: All that you can't leave behind
I am a total WoW packrat. It's a little embarrassing. My void storage has been full for ages; stuffed with transmog gear, rare and epic archaeology items, and, in particular, old quest rewards or dungeon keys. Those last two, I realize, are kind of ridiculous to keep, but I worked so hard getting that Seal of Ascention! And completing the Scepter of the Shifting Sands is one of my most prized achievements in the game, don't you dare tell me to throw it, or any of the items I got along the way, in the trash! "But you can't even use rings or necklaces in transmog!" my friends remind me. I know, I know, but guys, that's not the point! The point is... the point is... I just can't let go, okay?! Are you a WoW packrat? What items do you hoard, beyond all logic or good reason? With bag and bank slots becoming ever more precious commodities, how do you decide what to keep and what to get rid of?
WoW for Dummies, Act II: Evils of old
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. For both Alliance and Horde, the first part of vanilla WoW was all about putting an end to Ragnaros, and uncovering and subsequently lopping off Onyxia's head for a delightful city decoration that was not at all likely to scare the pants off of any of Stormwind or Orgrimmar's children. Seriously, who thought dragon remains on a stake was a wise design choice? Regardless, while there were definitely giant foes to be beaten, if one dug a little deeper, there was some underlying story going on in vanilla, too. The Alliance was busy getting back on its feet, and Warchief Thrall was busy trying to make nice with the Alliance. But even though Onyxia had been defeated, the king of Stormwind was still missing. And even though Ragnaros had been sent back to where he belonged, he was far from the only menace in Blackrock Mountain. And even though these problems were leaping up in the Eastern Kingdoms, there was something lurking in Kalimdor -- something far, far worse than problems with dragons and firelords.
WoW Archivist: Scepter of the Shifting Sands
The 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? It is sad to me that it seems the only players who have access to truly epic quest lines these days are the ones on the receiving ends of legendaries -- Shadowmourne and now Dragonwrath. If we turn back the clock to vanilla, we'd come across perhaps the most epic quest line of them all. Monstrous in its time commitment, material needs, and far more random and diverse than the chain for Thunderfury, it was the mother of all quests. Not only did it require the participation of an entire realm in order to be able to complete it, but it took the effort of at least one raid team of 40 (if not more) to coordinate and organize the energy needed to get a very small handful of people very rare and very special rewards that have yet to be duplicated by Blizzard. This quest chain is the Scepter of the Shifting Sands.
WoW Archivist: The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj
The WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? What secrets does the game still hold? If you enjoyed Patches of Yesteryear, you're going to love this. Readers have requested that the Archivist cover the opening of Ahn'Qiraj a number of times since the reboot of this feature. The original intent was to explore it when we reached that point in our journey through the patch notes of old, but I bow to the demands of the masses on this one. The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj was one of World of Warcraft's first attempts at a massive, server-wide world event. Ahn'Qiraj didn't simply open when it was patched in, like every other raid zone in WoW. It had to be opened by the players, and how quickly or how slowly it opened depended purely on the population's participation. The event was plagued with chains of server crashes and other such performance problems, but ask any truly old-school WoW player and they will almost certainly list this event as one of their fondest WoW memories. %Gallery-121544%
Breakfast Topic: What are your resolutions for the expansion?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. In the final days of old Azeroth, before the Shattering, my friends were chomping at the bit. They were farming the elemental bosses for JP, taking screenshots of Darkshore and Stormwind Park, and discussing names for their forthcoming gnome priests. Where was I, while all this was going on? Far out in the Bay of Storms in Azshara, fighting a giant "minnow" named Maws. Yes, that's right: in the final hours of Wrath, I was finishing the Blue Shard portion of the Scepter of the Shifting Sands quest line. A little late? Yeah, you could say that. An eternal procrastinator, I started the entire chain with Only One May Rise exactly three days before the Shattering occurred. As fellow Scepter-chasers will already realize, my efforts were truly epic -- and alas, all for naught. Though I was able to obtain the Blue and Green scepter shards after a mammoth three days of questing, farming, and running all over Azeroth, the Red scepter shard requires a second, fresh lockout of Blackwing Lair, and I did not have one. No Scepter for me. I don't regret doing the quest line, even if I didn't end up with the Feat of Strength; I'm a big quest nerd, and I loved experiencing the lore. I do, however, regret not starting earlier. Therefore, in Cataclysm, I've made myself a promise: I will do every quest available to me, from Hillsbrad to Mount Hyjal, Darkshore to Deepholm. As I go through the lowbie zones on my Loremaster druid, I won't move on when I get the achievement; I'll complete everything available, just to see what happens. Is there anything you were unable to finish before the Shattering? What are your resolutions for playing in a post-Cataclysm Azeroth?
The Queue: Yes, kittens again
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. Don't like kittens? Too bad, I've got a room full of them, plus enough pictures of them to wallpaper the Taj Mahal. Nyold asked: I have a question about mastery system. A lot of the description says something like "each point of mastery increases the damage by an additional 2%." Does this mean each mastery RATING found in gear, or is there another conversion from mastery rating to mastery skill (kinda like how crit rating and crit percentage is)? Mastery works like most other ratings in that there's a conversion from the points you have on gear (rating) to the effect you see on your character window (skill). The formula varies from spec to spec.
Breakfast topic: Quest detritus
Anne talked recently about all the bits and pieces that tend to accumulate in a packrat's bank vault, and I'm one of the guilty parties. I'm a hardcore collector of feral staves, tier sets, tabards, and assorted items that I just can't bring myself to delete (Seal of Ascension -- seriously, why do I still have this?). Unfortunately, the tendency carries over into quests as well. Over the course of doing Loremaster, I knocked off most of the older quests littering my log, and now I'm left with two. One's a nightmare to finish -- The Good News and The Bad News, which is part of the Scepter of the Shifting Sands line and an enormous pain in the ass due to the 10 Elementium Ores required. I've resigned myself to the quite-likely possibility that it'll be there for months to come. The other one, much like the stuff clogging my bank, is something I can't force myself to drop. Echoes of War sent people to the original version of Naxxramas, and was required for the tier 3 questline. Incredibly enough, it was even shareable when Wrath came out, and our early Naxx raids at 80 had a good laugh over it. But I'm afraid to turn it in -- not just because the follow-up quest probably isn't there anymore, but also for some reason I don't think I can articulate very well. If I turned it in, I guess I'd feel like another little piece of old Azeroth was gone forever. Do you have any quests like this sitting around in your log, and what keeps you from turning them in?
The Queue: All your fault
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.You know, I was getting bored of that whole musical intro thing, but having it around certainly made these preambles easier to write. What do you write here every day about a daily Q&A column? Guess what, guys! We're A'ing more Qs! Shock! Awe!So you've broken me. Congratulations. I am now a hollow husk of a man that can do nothing but uphold the status quo. I hope you're proud of yourselves. Here it goes again. WootZoot asked... "Any word on if Blizzard is working on a new novel or RPG book?"
Know Your Lore: High Overlord Saurfang
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!Did you know that Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms were actually separated by a stray swing of High Overlord Saurfang's axe? Did you know giraffes are just zhevras that were on the receiving end of a Saurfang Uppercut? Did you know that Saurfang doesn't have a face beneath his mask, just another axe? Overlord Saurfang is only afraid of one thing... Mrs. Saurfang.Okay, I'm sorry, none of that was true except for possibly that last one. It was just as obnoxious to type out as it was to read, trust me. (Un)fortunately, it's a pretty good introduction to Saurfang, as he somehow evolved into a fan favorite bad ass over the last few years while his Alliance counterpart remained a Blizzard Employee ego stroke. It took me awhile to buy into the hype around this guy, but he's been winning me over as of late.
Ahn'Qiraj Held Hostage
As you may or may not realize, getting into Ahn'Qiraj requires not only a massive farming effort, but also a long, tedious quest chain. The quest starts with a faction grind - requiring the quester to collect 42,000 silithid carapace fragments to reach neutral with the Brood of Nozdormu. (Yes, you did read that correctly - 42,000. Each silithid kill will net 1-4 carapace fragments, so you may use your imagination to guess how long it might take to collect enough.) The quest continues after this for many, many steps, several of them requiring a raid group to complete. The final reward for this quest is the Scepter of the Shifting Sands - which must be used to open the gates after the war turn-ins are completed. However, a guild on Detheroc server that has completed the quest chain has decided to hold the server's access to Ahn'Qiraj hostage, saying they will only open the gates once they receive 5,000 gold from the server. While the quest chain is long, difficult, and costly, it's also very rewarding - granting the quester several very nice epic items along the way. Is a guild completing the Ahn'Qiraj quest chain justified in making such demands for their hard work?Update: This has been officially declared a joke. [Image credit: screenshot taken by Sean of the Fires of Heaven guild - check out their news archives for great screenshots of the quest chain!]
