shattrath
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Forum Post of the Day: Notice of legal action
If you aren't familiar with the Shattrath City and its the Aldor's home within, I'll explain. The Aldor reside on an upper level of the city, which is reachable either by lift or by flying mount. Says forum poster Nalle announces: This is a notice of legal action against the Aldor. Their platform is a danger to all who use it, without safety precautions there is a danger both to residents of the Aldor terrace and the floor below. Many residents have already fallen to their unnecessary deaths, as well as taken expenses of durability in a location supposedly guaranteed to be safe by the Naaru. But, of course, this legal action is started by a member of the Alliance. Any Horde are long-since familiar with the dangers of in-game elevator platforms via the Undercity elevators. CM Drysc responds to this complaint with:Well, we are actually taking precautions to help make sure future elevators don't pose such serious health risks. At this time, however, the Aldor elevator is protected by the Sha'Tari Historic Landmarks Act of '28, enacted by the Sha'Tari Council of Self Preservation and Advancement. Our hands are unfortunately tied in these matters.Hey, Drysc! What about those Undercity elevators, eh?!
Midsummer Fireworks tonight
Don't forget, if you don't happen to already be out and about and looking at real fireworks this evening, the celebration will be happening in Azeroth as well. This evening, I believe every hour on the hour, firework displays can be seen over all the major cities in Azeroth (Booty Bay has been my favorite place to watch in the past, but I'm interested in seeing what happens in Shattrath this year as well). Additionally, there will be free booze outside the city gates, so get drunk and party!And if you haven't done the Midsummer quests yet, don't forget that IcftB will be running all over the world this evening also-- that will kick off around 8:00 pm EST. No matter what you're up to today in-game or out, have a great and safe time, and happy Fourth of July from all of us here at WoW Insider!
Around Azeroth: Stunt flying
Reader Sylvina from Argent Dawn is clearly a trained stunt pilot -- so don't try this at home, people! Though, honestly, this is a trick you can do by messing with your camera settings in the console. If you type /console pitchlimit 900, you'll be able to turn your you camera angle completely around and upside down -- and if you happen to be on a flying mount at the time, well, you'll look something like this.Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! Or perhaps you'd just like to see more of your pics from Around Azeroth. %Gallery-1816%
Around Azeroth: Flying over Shattrath
Sure, once you get a flying mount, these previously unusual overhead angles of locations in Outland become old news -- completely boring and uninteresting. But try to remember for a moment the excitement of you first took off on that flying mount and started zooming around Outland, taking screenshots of absolutely everything. That's what this screenshot, sent to us by Addie, is all about.Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! Or perhaps you'd just like to see more of your pics from Around Azeroth. %Gallery-1816%
Happy Midsummer Fire Festival!
Yup, the festival of flame is appearing in Azeroth starting today through July 5th. There will be bonfires in the cities, new quests to be run, and new rewards to be had (Toasted Smorc is some tasty stuff, and that +44 healing is nice, too). And of course, coming next week around July 4th, the fireworks will fly over Azeroth's cities yet again.I'm kind of excited to see what new stuff there will be to find in Outland-- I especially enjoyed the new Children's Week stuff this year (even though it took long enough to show up), and so I wonder how they celebrate Midsummer Fire in Nagrand or Shattrath. Can you imagine what fireworks would be like in Netherstorm, if they indeed have exhibits up there? Should be cool-- or in this case, hot.Enjoy the Midsummer Fire Festival-- I'll see you out by the bonfires.
Around Azeroth: Ca-caw.
Imagine this: you're a Druid who's just finished his or her flight form quest. What do you do?! Well, according to the screenshots that land in my mailbox, you start looking for amusing places to take screenshots of yourself -- as shown in this shot by Satarus of Khaz Modan. I can agree with the feeling: ca-caw!Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! Or perhaps you'd just like to see more of your pics from Around Azeroth. %Gallery-1816%
Where to start with 2.1 content
The 2.1 patch this week introduced enough new quest lines, top-end raid content, flying mounts, and L70 solo & small group content to qualify as its own game. With a three day weekend looming I didn't even know where to begin. So I scoured the web and found the where to go and what to do to get me started. THE BLACK TEMPLE: Already planning to strut around Shattrath in your T6 Raid gear? Don't bank that T5 set too quick. The Black Temple attunement quest is ... epic. And it hasn't even been fully discovered so far. What is known is that you will have to slog through a great deal of the Burning Crusade raid content that comes before it: Karazhan, Gruul's Lair, Magtheridon's Lair, Serpentshire Cavern, The Eye and The Battle of Mount Hyjal. And many of those raids require extensive attunement quests of their own. If you are still itching to begin, you can dig in with the Tablets of Baa'ri chain out of Shadowmoon Valley to start grinding that Ashtongue Deathsworn rep. NETHERDRAKE EPIC FLYING MOUNT: First, don't confuse this with the Swift Nether Drake top Arena teams are awarded with at the end of every season. That one has a speed increase of 310% and has an armored appearance. This is the normal epic nether drake with a speed increase on par with other epic flying mounts: 280%. What's special about this epic flying mount is that it can be obtained through solo and small group quests. No raid required. What is required is a great deal of dedication.The first steps on your journey is to dig yourself out of Hated reputation with the Netherwing clan and get all the way to Exalted. This is accomplished through solo, 5 man and 3 man daily quests. Head to the south east corner of Shadowmoon Valley and speak to Mordenai in the Netherwing Fields. A complete write up can be found here.
The Jubei'thos train ride
The horde over on the Jubei'thos (Oceanic) realm know how to have a good time. If, by a good time we mean a long trek across deserts, marshes, and wastelands. At 12 am server time they banded together to form what they called "the WoW train." They started the excursion in Shattrath and walked, single file, out the gates. Their destination was Karazhan, oddly enough. Archaicous describes a skirmish they had along the way as they marched up the Stairs of Destiny. He says "our train was derailed by the Pit Commander and his minions. We later all [resurrected], put our gear back on an[d] downed the Commander just in spite." They had a lot of fun that evening, and confused a couple Alliance players along the way. I must play on a boring server because we never get this organized in the spirit of fun. Sure, there is the odd "everyone get on their reindeer mount and meet me in IF for a photo session," but I'm pretty impressed by Jubei'thos' ingenuity. Evidently they formed the "WoW train" without the use of any VOIP programs, purely within the game. Are there any antics on your server like this? What do you do when the grind and the instances just aren't that all that interesting anymore? [via Archaicous]
Showin' that Aldor pride
This thread by Tenaciousp offers my sentiments exactly: Aldor rule, Scryers drool! Aldor assemble!Ok, well, actually it's a cut-and-paste of an identical Scryer thread, but still, I'm all for a little faction pride. Besides the rewards and the turn-ins, I haven't heard a peep out of the big dueling factions in Shattrath City. Sure, there have been the occasional skirmishes (I can't believe you all did that to our soup!), and I make it a point to shout "Death to Scryers!" whenever I see an Arcane Tome drop, but there's not much else to speak of. Sure, there's different areas in Shattrath and in Shadowmoon Valley, and a few diffferent quests, but where's the faction-on-faction PvP or really any player-involved opposition between the two factions at all?Now, hopefully more is coming in 2.1 and beyond-- I'd love to see those daily quests involve targets that the Aldor and Scryer have to fight over. And there are ways to pit the two factions against each other without actually pitting players against their own side. What about a repeatable quest that brought reinforcements to a periodic battle? As in, I bring armor scraps to Aldor Rise and every day at 3pm, the two factions have it out, with the winning faction making a special vendor available? Or it doesn't even have to be that complicated-- say whatever side brings the most turn-ins in a day gets an increased rep rate for the next 24 hours. Something to let us compete together and show a little Aldor/Scryer pride.Whether you think the Aldorks are losers or the Scrybabies are whiners, it's clear that there's animosity between the red and blue in Shattrath. It's just a shame there aren't more ways for players to mix it up in game.
CM chaos on the PTR
The community managers showed up on the PTR on Friday, and as you might imagine, chaos ensued. Eyonix appeared as a level one gnome, and he and Tseric both got invited to a player guild, where they chatted with players for a couple of hours. I don't know if any actually battleground matching systems got tested (that was originally their reason for showing up), but apparently lots and lots of people got killed by Gruul, Baron Rivendare, and even Nefarian appearing in Lower City Shattrath.Hopefully a CM event like this (as has happened before, when the expansion beta ended) signals that the end of the PTR (and the patch going live) is right around the corner.%Gallery-2985%
WoW Moviewatch: A'dal downed
This video has inspired me to coin what I will call the Lord British Postulate:If it exists as a living creature in an MMORPG, someone, somewhere, will try to kill it.History has shown that to be exactly the case, and I, Mike Schramm, deem it to be true. Get to work, Wikipedians.How else to explain that some crazed player has actually gone after the seemingly harmless A'dal of Shattrath City, and, in a "world first," killed him? That's just mean. Obligatory: But what did he drop?And I have to say that it's too bad the naaru didn't put up any more of a fight. Then again, maybe he just despawned. Do beings of sentient energy leave a corpse?
From Scryer to Aldor (and back again)
When we first heard that there would be two mutually exclusive factions in Outland, I knew it would happen, but here's the first time I've seen it in the wild: Coraline on LJ decided that Scryer wasn't the right decision for her warlock, and decided to grind her way back to the Aldor.It can't be an easy process. As you know if you've done the Shattrath tour, doing quests for Aldor lowers your reputation with the Scryers, and vice versa. And there are three levels of hate for each faction-- you start at Unfriendly (depending on which faction you first chose to join), and then slowly fall down to Hostile, and then Hated. You can't actually get the normal rep quests for the other side until you reach Neutral, so if you want to switch sides, you have to go to Shattrath and get a special quest (for Scryer rep, it's Voren'thal's Visions, and for Aldor, it's Strained Supplies). That quest consists of a simple animal drop (basilisk eyes and spider venom sacs, both from Terrokar), and can be repeated all the way back up to Neutral.Coraline says it's not actually that bad-- she went from Hostile to Unfriendly within about an hour of farming (which means she still has to fight to Neutral to start doing the normal quests). People working back towards Aldor are able to get silk from the spiders (that sells well on the AH), but unfortunately for repentant Scryers, the basilisks don't drop anything really good. They do drop Chunk O'Basilisk if you're a cook, and they can be skinned if you're a leatherworker, so there's that.Anyone else made the tredge back between the Aldor and Scryer factions? Coraline doesn't say she did this, but I would: if you're leaving your faction, make sure to grab all the goodies you can. I would be completely impressed to see someone dual-wielding both the Vindicator's Brand and the Retainer's Blade at the same time (you don't actually need the rep to wield them, do you? Just to own them, I'd assume).Update: We've got confirmation-- commenter shooter's guildie shows it is possible to wear both Aldor and Scryer gear at the same time. Could be a bug, but if you want to grind both factions for all the rewards, it seems you can do it.
Alright, that was completely worth it
Unlike most of you out there, I did not immediately rush into the Outlands with my level 60 whateveradin, slaying my way through Hellfire Peninsula in an unquenchable thirst for experience on the road to 70. Instead, I put aside that urge and rolled a Draenei Shaman. Now, just shy of 3 weeks from the release of the Burning Crusade, I've hit 60 - thanks largely to Skew having infinite patience waiting for me to catch up to him in quests - and have made my first tentative steps into that which lies beyond the Dark Portal. It's not that the Outlands are unfamiliar to me as a player, I spent a decent amount of time exploring them in beta, but there's a whole different vibe to them after slugging through every single one of Azeroth's zones in such a short period. To put it on a grand scale, it must feel the same way that seeing the new world felt to the first European settlers. To put it on a normal scale, it was really freaking cool. All of Azeroth feels so far away now. I made it to Shattrath, actually got a tour of the place from one of Khadgar's servants, and chose my allegiance (to the Aldor, btw, though I'm sure the elf-lovin' Scryers are nice folk too). I now have a rudimentary understanding of what's going on in the Outlands - Illidan = Bad, everyone else = good - and feel like there may be a point to my questing. To those still on Azeroth, I urge you to commit and level up to see the Outlands. Bountiful riches await you (every single drop is an upgrade), fantastic battles will challenge you, and the world itself will have you gaping in awe. For those of you in the Outlands now, don't forget to go back to the old world to see what a difference an expansion makes - and if you really want to see it from a new perspective, level up a Blood Elf or Draenei, so you can appreciate it all the more. Have any of you done this, or are in the process of leveling up a new character without first taking a look into the Outlands with a 60 you have? What's your experience been like?
Today, on Not Getting the Joke theater
An ordinary person, upon seeing a guy named "Griftah" selling "Amazing Amulets" in the Lower City of Shattrathfor very high prices, may think twice before buying the amulets. But Gazzle is no ordinary gnome. He spent 25 gold on the "Polished Pendant of Edible Energy" -- whose tooltip states "Focusing one's metabolism, this pendant allows the wearer to draw great energy from ordinary food and drink -- even heal wounds!" Upon equipping it and conjuring up some food and water, he discovered that he wasn't regening health and mana any faster. Disillusioned, he posted a "Shame on you, Blizzard" message on the WoW General forums and went off to try ... the other amulet he purchased. A round of mocking follows in which a ton of people point out that the amulet does exactly what the tooltip says it does, and it's not the amulet's fault if the health and mana would regenerate anyway. It's kind of like purchasing a "Talisman of Protection from Crocodile Attacks" if you live in Minnesota -- hey, it must be working, because I haven't been attacked by crocodiles! Along those lines, Griftah also sells an "Infallible Tikbalang Ward," which protects you from Tikbalang attacks. I agree with Tseric -- let the buyer beware on these items. Or, as another poster states, "I prefer to think of it as a stupid tax." According to Allakhazam, Griftah also sells:
