silithus
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Qiraji Guardling pet now appearing on all realms
June 21 is the first official day of summer, and that means the Qiraji Guardling has begun spawning on all servers. Like its counterpart the Snowy Owl, this pet is only seasonally available, which means you've got a limited time to capture one for yourself. The Guardling spawns in southern Silithus, along the walls of Ahn'Qiraj -- both inside the entrance area, and just outside near the Scarab Wall. The pet spawns anywhere from poor to rare quality, and is always accompanied by two other critters, so make sure you've got a decent team put together before you set out. The Qiraji Guardling is on the list of required pets for the World Safari achievement and its associated Zookeeper title, so if you're looking to complete those achievements, you'll want to grab one of these pets while they are available. No need to hurry too quickly, though -- the Qiraji Guardling will keep spawning until the Autumnal Equinox, which falls on Tuesday, September 23 this year. Happy hunting!
Seasonal pet Qiraji Guardling available today
If you're a collector looking forward to getting the World Safari achievement for the Zookeeper title, this summer is your big chance to finally catch the seasonal Qiraji Guardling pet. Though not strictly associated with the Midsummer Fire Festival, this miniature Qiraji only spawns during the summer season. If you're looking to catch one, you'll find them in Silithus near the Scarab Wall... but with a bunch of zookeepers-to-be waiting for it to spawn, expect a crowd. If you don't like fighting for spawn points, the Guardling should be around for a few months. While we don't have an exact date from Blizzard, its winter-only counterpart, the Snowy Owl, spawns from November to February. Happy hunting!
The top ten most desolate spots in WoW
A little while ago, we did a "Top ten most beautiful spots in WoW" post, and many commenters had an interesting request: a companion post of the ten most desolate places in WoW. We thought it was a great idea, so we're taking the suggestion to heart. This was an interesting topic to think about, because the desolate spots in WoW are the ones I tend to avoid. For the most part, I don't want to spend my fun WoW time in virtual wastelands! Then again, sometimes those deserted, eerie places have a haunting beauty all their own. Check out our list, and tell us your own favorite desolate places in World of Warcraft!
WoW Archivist: Patch 1.12, Drums of War
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? I'm not ashamed to admit when I've made a mistake. Which is good, because today's Archivist would be awkward otherwise. Last week's classic WoW recap was a smidge premature. I haven't covered patch 1.12 yet. Why? Because I thought patch 1.12 was patch 2.0. Patch 2.0 would go with the Burning Crusade-era patches. Patch 1.12 isn't patch 2.0, however, so we're mired in classic WoW for one more week. Patch 1.12, Drums of War, released in August of 2006. It contained the feature that has set the standard for all group content in World of Warcraft: cross-realm Battlegrounds. In addition to cross-realm Battlegrounds, patch 1.12 also included sanctioned world PVP (which didn't work) and a number of UI improvements that you probably take for granted all these years later. Let's dive in, shall we?
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: Patch 1.8, Dragons of Nightmare
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? Who says every content patch needs a new raid tier? Patch 1.8, released Oct. 10, 2005 (just slightly under one month after patch 1.7), laughs at your raid tiers. It was actually quite a small patch as far as content goes, and there wasn't anything particularly world-shattering in it, but it still did something interesting: It built up future content. Patch 1.8 implemented the following: The Dragons of Nightmare world bosses A revamp of Silithus The groundwork for holidays such as Hallow's End and Winter Veil None of these things, on their own, were very large events. They were cool pieces of content, but they weren't supported by a raid or dungeon. Quite the opposite -- they laid the groundwork that would herald a raid coming in a later patch. Let's dig in, shall we? First the patch notes in full, then the analysis.
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%
Patch 4.1 adds ... a resort town?
Patch 4.1 is adding a bunch of new content to Cataclysm, including retuned Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman heroic instances, but it's also adding a resort, apparently. Perculia over at Wowhead went on an expedition to the 4.1 PTR, where she discovered that there's been a new area added in the mountains between Feralas and Silithus. Its inhabitants are marked as Gadgetzan faction, and it's full of NPCs, from Silverpine favorite Johhny Awesome to chef Gordon Tramsay. And everyone seems to be having a grand old time, sipping pina coladas and lounging around in lawn chairs. We have no idea what the location is going to be used for -- it may just be fun flavor, but Wowhead speculates it might be an extension of the Steam Pools or even used for some kind of in-game holiday.
Gold Capped: The market for enchanting mats for BoA gear
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the auction house. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail! A long-running, profitable business is selling enchanting scrolls that can be put on BoA gear. These all have no minimum level, since BoA gear is considered level 1, which means they typically take lower-level enchanting mats. Some good examples of these mats are Large Brilliant Shards and Greater Eternal Essences, which are used for a bunch of enchants like Crusader and Spellpower. The price for these mats have gone up quite a bit on most realms since Cataclysm, and the reason is clear: The ilevels of the drops in Stratholme were reduced in patch 4.0.1, and the drops in there no longer disenchant into the same mats.
Collecting Armor Sets: Dungeon set 2
For the longest time in vanilla World of Warcraft, players were content with collecting the dungeon set 1 pieces from Stratholme, Scholomance and Blackrock Spire. A purple item was a incredibly rare thing to see in the early days of WoW. It was a status symbol, a badge of pride for raiders who managed to band together to defeat Onyxia or brave the depths of Molten Core. With epic items soon came epic discontent, largely from casual players who either didn't have the time or the inclination to raid. As time went on and more raid dungeons were released, the complaining continued; players who were unable to dedicate the time needed to successfully complete a 40-man raid dungeon felt it was unfair that they could not obtain epic gear. It was a valid complaint, but it took well over two years before Blizzard finally did something about it. About four months after the release of Ahn'Quiraj, Blizzard implemented Patch 1.10, "Storms of Azeroth." Among the fun changes like the introduction of weather in Azeroth and quest-experience-to-gold conversion at level 60, casual players finally received what they'd been asking for: a quest line that didn't require raiding and would allow them to upgrade their dungeon sets one into new ones that included epic gear. This set is called, appropriately enough, dungeon set 2.
Patch 3.2 brings two more heirloom weapons
We were all aflutter over the news of the new Heirloom chest pieces that give you an extra 10% XP, but we somehow forgot to mention the two new heirloom weapons. The Venerable Mass of McGowan and the Repurposed Lava Dredger are the two new heirloom weapons we'll be getting in patch 3.2, and sticking with the theme of the other heirlooms thus far, you'll recognize them instantly if you're an old school player.These two items are probably aimed at filling gaps in Heirloom itemization that left people like Enhancement Shaman and Feral Druids without a swank weapon to level up with. Naturally, other classes can use these if they want, but those two class/spec combinations really had no good options to work with.I'm particularly pleased to see the Mass of McGowan being brought back. I don't know if it was the same on all servers, but on my particular server, that thing was largely believed to be a myth for the longest time. You see, the Mass only drops off of mobs that are level 60 or higher. Before they finished implementing Silithus, there were no non-elite level 60 mobs out in the world that you would just kill at random throughout your day. The only place you could find this thing was usually in raids. I'm sure my server had plenty more of them, but the only one I was actively aware of was one being used by the main tank of a Horde raiding guild. It had more mystique surrounding it than most of today's epics.They just don't make blues like that these days. Le sigh!%Gallery-66638%
Hunter Pet News: New exotic pet families added, Kill Command changed
The latest Beta Build has hit the test servers, and there's a lot to report for Hunters. In particular, many of the announced changes we discussed in the last Scattered Shots went through. Aspect of the Beast now grants a melee AP buff, and Mongoose Bite is unlinked from dodge. Tranquilizing Shot now dispels magic effects, and Arcane Shot does not. Most of the big notable changes however, center around pets, and specifically Beast Mastery. The 51 point talent is now implemented, and 5 extra talent points work. Chimeras and Devilsaurs are now exotic only. In addition, two new exotic pet families have been found: Worms and Silithids. %Gallery-28679% You can tame both the Dredge Striker and Dredge Crusher type worms in Silithus and the Jormungar worms in Northrend. For Silithids, only one "warrior" skin seems tamable, while the worker, wasp, and heavy tank type silithids are not tamable. The worms are Tenacity pets who feed on bread, cheese, and fungus and have a family skill called Acid Spit that does nature damage and reduces, while the silithid is a Cunning pet who feeds on meat and fungus and have an ability called Venom Web Spray that roots the target for 4 seconds and does nature damage. I've added some screenshots of the new pets and their abilities to the gallery above. Also, if you're not impressed with any of the new exotic pet families so far, take heart. We've been told they're still working on the pets themselves. Unfortunately, the rest of the pet-related news is less than amazing.
Player vs. Everything: Pointless mini-zones
How pointless are so-called "pointless mini-zones," really? Michael did a post the other day which examined the history of a zone in EverQuest called Surefall Glade. Hitting his links gave me a nice little walk down memory lane -- I have fond memories of Surefall, being an old-school EQ fan who cut his teeth in Qeynos Hills, back in the day. There really isn't all that much to the zone, though. It's like the article says: a cabin, a lake, an archery range, and a few hidden caves with some bears. There's nothing to do but raise your fletching skill, and nothing to kill that's worth killing. Eventually they added some stuff to it, but it was still never anything more than a small, transitional town. Surefall was the essence of a pointless mini-zone: Most players never had any compelling reason to go there. Still, did it add something to the game with its mere presence? Like Moonglade in World of Warcraft, you could argue that it was kind of a neat place for players to discover and hang out. We get so focused on the "content" of these games that sometimes we forget that exploring a new zone you've never seen before, even if there's really nothing to do there, is content in its own right. Besides, does every single zone in our MMOGs have to be a big quest hub tied to a specific zone? Can't some places just be places?
Insider Trader: Cooking, the final stretch
Cooking is a secondary tradeskill that most players should strongly consider learning, and maximizing. The buffs that many of the foods award can be quite helpful, and aside from damage buffs, there are also healing buffs, tank buffs, and food for hunter and warlock pets, among other yummy treats. If you rely on purchasing the foods from the auction house, you'll find your consumables bill soaring upward. You can also make a profit from cooking, especially regarding pet food. Because many players are stubborn and won't learn any of the secondary skills, you can sell your dishes for a hefty price. Still, if you don't fall madly in love with cooking, searching high and low for the latest recipe and farming to your favorite tunes, then you might have some trouble and confusion when trying to reach 375. This week, Insider Trader will take an in-depth look at the easiest path to cooking 375, avoiding fishing altogether. Although they go hand-in-hand, they can be done separately, and many cooks do not want to become fishermen.
The evolution of World PvP rewards
Relmstein has a good post up about how Blizzard's world PvP has evolved over time, and what we might expect from Lake Wintergrasp, the PvP zone in Wrath of the Lich King. When world PvP began, it was very much an ad-hoc environment, which lead to a lot of 1v1 battles that eventually escalated when wandering guildies or alts showed up. As Relmstein says, the large majority of battles started with that stealthing noise (that used to inspire chills in the spines of those on PvP servers), and ended with an all-out brawl with no rewards but to get the other guys back.Nowadays, world PvP is much more organized, in the sense that there are specific objectives and goals to go after. The original reward was a zonewide buff (in Silithus and the Plaguelands), but Blizzard eventually morphed this into something more permanent -- in Auchindoin, you fight for a buff that earns you tokens for rewards, and in Halaa, you fight to get the rewards themselves.Which leads Relmstein to suspect that Wintergrasp will have direct rewards of its own, almost equal to the gear you get from endgame dungeons and Arena PvP. He predicts that it will be token-based (not a bad idea, considering all the badge changes Blizzard has put in lately -- in fact, Blizzard might even cut a corner and have Wintergrasp reward players with WotLK's version of badges directly), and that it will be updated with each Arena season, to keep players fighting there. All good ideas -- Blizzard has definitely innovated (successfully or otherwise) in the area of World PvP rewards, and we'll look forward to Wrath to see what they come up with there.
Around Azeroth: Bugged tower
One more great Silithus shot, then no more. I promise. No, really. Ok, we'll see. This one was too cool to pass up. Player Vexxia of The MishMash Crew on the Velen realm risked life, limb and repair bills to get this great screenshot. And right after she got it, the miniboss spawned and her pet ate it for lunch and whined for more. Well, not so much with the repair bills, I guess.Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? Because we'd love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next! Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. We prefer full screen shots without the UI showing. And please, no more sunsets. No, really. Ok, only if it's a sunrise in new Patch 2.4 lands. We'll take those anytime.%Gallery-1816%
Around Azeroth: The Silithus landscape
While the alien landscape of Silithus may be familiar to many of us, there are many more who are relatively new to the game and never spent time among the insect swarms and underground hives of the desert zone. Player Thirlwell of the Murder By Numbers guild on the Khadgar realm sends us this ominous shot to remind us of places yet unexplored by many on their race to cross through the Dark Portal.Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? Because we'd love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next! Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. We prefer full screen shots without the UI showing. And please, no more sunsets. No, really. Ok, only if it's a sunrise in new Patch 2.4 lands. We'll take those anytime.%Gallery-1816%
WoW maps past show present
It's a good week for posts at DwarfPriest.com, it seems. In this look at the manual for World of Warcraft, we get to see that the maps included in the original, 2004 release (which hasn't been updated since... four years later, and we're still using the same increasingly inaccurate manual) are at times surprisingly accurate to what we see in the game today. Interesting inclusions and omissions abound: the fact that Maraudon isn't on these maps but Dire Maul is just fascinates me from the perspective that Maraudon was a full patch ahead of the Maul.I remember riding around Silithus way before the AQ release trying to get inside and see what was back there, and have been to both Hyjal and along the Greymane wall with my lovely wife who always wants to see the zones that are the hardest to access: I like the idea of Gilneas coming into the game so much that I've mused about releasing the whole zone as an instance before. For these reasons I found this look back at the game manual's maps and what has and hasn't made it into live yet to be grist for the mill of my naturally speculative brain. Will we finally see Uldum when Ulduar hits in WoTLK? Maybe Hyjal will finally go live? Will those islands off the coast of Gilneas make a reappearance on the world map? I've been wondering for years now what's up in Kul Tiras. Anything on these maps you're surprised to see? Anything excluded that you'd expect? The very detailed map of Quel'Thalas, years before it went live, was one of my big 'woah' moments looking over these maps, which shows how easy it is for me to forget just how much lore the RTS series packed in.
Breakfast Topic: Old school world PvP
Reader Ekrim sent us a tip to let us know that when all instances crashed on the Earthen Ring server over the weekend, Horde-led raids descended on to Stormwind and Ironforge. Word quickly got out to the Alliance and an epic battle ensued for the next hour until the entire server was brought down to fix the crashing problem. Not an unprecedented event, but certainly fun.This reminds me of old school world PvP at Southshore/Tarren Mills (on my server). There was no goal or objective other than to overrun the enemy town before they overrun yours. It was pure, unadulterated, unmitigated fun. Blizzard experimented with structured world PvP in Silithus and Eastern Plaguelands, and then some more when they launched the Burning Crusade expansion, but they failed to capture the lawless, unpredictable quality of the good old days when we just did it ourselves.Which brings up the topic at hand: why aren't we doing it ourselves anymore? Because of the lack of Honor, welfare epics or Arena rankings from the proceedings? When's the last time you've spontaneously joined in on a mass world PvP party for fun and not for profit?
The Art of War(craft): Outdoor PvP, Part I - War in the Old World
So you've tried out all the Battlegrounds; maybe even ground your Honor quota from the Call-to-Arms holiday. You've played your Arena games for the week, and maybe you've sent a message to those filthy campers who messed up your guildie's daily Simon Says. What else is there to do in the world of PvP? Well, there's always World PvP. Technically, any PvP that occurs outside of an instanced zone (i.e. Battlegrounds and Arenas) is considered world or outdoor PvP. In the old days, that meant hours of skirmishes between Tarren Mill and Southshore or endless assaults on the Crossroads. In Patch 1.12, however, Blizzard introduced objective-based outdoor PvP with A Game of Towers in the Eastern Plaguelands and The Silithyst Must Flow in Silithus. The trend continues in Outlands with objectives in Hellfire Peninsula, Zangarmarsh, Terrokar Forest, and Nagrand.I wrote about how I always wanted my PvP to have some sort of meaning, and objective-based zone PvP is about as meaningful as it gets. More than the Battlegrounds, where PvP is contextualized only through a story, or the Arenas where PvP is purely sport, the objectives in the outdoor PvP zones are designed to give a direct benefit to your faction. If any sort of PvP highlights the conflict between the Alliance and the Horde, it is the battle for control of these PvP zones. Achieving these objectives can make a player feel like he or she's contributed something substantial to his or her faction. Although it gives little to no Honor and no Arena points, it can be fun, spontaneous and even rewarding for the little time you put in it. Whether it's role-playing or for something different to do in between 2-on-2 Arena queues, world PvP offers a different slice of the PvP pie.
