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WoW Archivist: The most painful attunement of all
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? Attunement has been a hot topic across the WoW blogosphere of late, and WoW Insider has been no exception. Some believe that attunement is an archaic concept that only serves as a pointless, artificial gate to content. They appreciate the fact that Blizzard has almost entirely done away with attunements. Others see attunements as opportunities for extra content and a way of filtering lazy players out of raid groups where they don't belong. They want attunements to return. Attunements used to be a big deal in WoW. As the first steps toward endgame raiding, completed attunements were a hallmark of a serious player. Lest we forget what we're debating, I thought it might be the perfect time to revisit the single most grueling and aggravating attunement process in WoW's history: Horde-side Onyxia.
WoW Archivist: The evolution of Alterac Valley
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? The battle was nearly won. Back and forth, a 16-hour war between the Frostwolf Clan and the Stormpike Expedition had ravaged this once-remote valley. Towers and strongholds had been put to the torch. Countless heroes on both sides had fallen to blade and blast. A rampaging troll king had been defeated. Air strikes had rained fire from the sky. Elementals had been summoned and vanquished. At last, but not without heavy losses, the Frostwolf orcs and their allies had fought their way across the narrow bridge to assault the final bastion of the dwarves. All had sworn to see Vanndar Stormpike dead that day and the valley seized. They would kill him or die in the attempt. The AV "zone" The original version of Alterac Valley went live with patch 1.5. Along with Warsong Gulch, these two Battlegrounds were the very first ever added to WoW. Warsong Gulch was designed to be a more traditional PvP experience that anyone who had played Unreal Tournament or Halo could recognize. Some matches could last for a while, but the experience was meant to be a short-term PvP engagement. Alterac Valley, in its first incarnation, was absolutely nothing like that. AV was not, in any modern sense of the word, a Battleground. AV was a zone.
WoW Archivist: An expensive history of gold sinks
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 had asked me six months ago what I imagined would be the most expensive mount in WoW's history, I would have imagined some kind of giant rock elemental where you rode around on its shoulder, possibly a 10-headed hydra that breathed green fire, or maybe a goblin shredder that transformed into a jet. As it turns out, the most expensive mount in WoW is now ... a cat. Granted, it's a very shiny cat. It also happens to be five cats. It can fly. But why does it cost so darn much? And what other ludicrously priced items has Blizzard offered us over the years? Read on to find out!
WoW Archivist: Blackrock Depths, WoW's ultimate dungeon
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? You don't trust this bar. First of all, you had to fight your way through a legion of Dark Iron dwarves and their constructs just to get here. Secondly, it's run by a shady leper gnome who has one grumpy-looking golem for a bouncer. Third, there's an awful lot of laughter, yet no one here looks amused. You are right to be nervous. This is the Grim Guzzler. This is not a nice place. Welcome to Blackrock Depths For someone who began playing WoW post-vanilla, it's hard to explain just how amazing Blackrock Depths was back in early 2005. It's true that people often got lost there, but it was also a fantastic place to simply lose yourself. No area of the game has ever been as convincingly comprehensive or offered more to discover. There always seemed to be another boss, event, or area to explore, another secret to unlock. It's no secret, however, that BRD remains a favorite dungeon of many WoW Insider bloggers. BRD wasn't just a dungeon. It was a civilization, and you were there to bring it to its knees.
WoW Archivist: 5 years of daily quests
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? Just like Officers' Quarters, another WoW staple has recently celebrated its fifth anniversary. Daily quests were added to the game a little over five years ago, on May 22, 2007, in patch 2.1. One of Blizzard's big selling points for Mists seems to be its huge amount of daily quest content. Dailies are undoubtedly going to be a big deal at level 90. Blizzard has even lifted the daily quest cap that has stood at 25 for several years, so players will be free to do whatever dailies they like across the entire history of the game. Dailies seem like such an obvious and critical element of WoW, but they weren't part of the vanilla game. In this week's Archivist, we'll explore how daily quests began, how they have changed over the years, and how Blizzard is trying to recreate the glory days of daily quests in Mists. WTH is this blue exclamation point? Has a single piece of designed punctuation ever been as famous as WoW's chubby yellow exclamation point? It even has its own merchandise. Believe it or not, the exclamation point was one of Blizzard's biggest innovations when they created the game. No longer did you have to chat with every single NPC in town to figure out which one of them needed a favor -- a staple of RPG games for decades. Now you could tell at a glance which NPCs were willing to pay for a bit of random mercenary work. I remember how odd that first blue exclamation point looked. They had been yellow, after all, for two and a half years. Changing its color seemed like sacrilege. After accepting the quest, it had the word "(Daily)" next to it in my log -- it felt like both a promise and a warning. Daily quests were an exciting new element, but they were not without their critics.
WoW Archivist: Massacre at the Crossroads
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? Last week, Tom Chilton revealed that Mists would have no dedicated world PvP zone like Wintergrasp or Tol Barad. Instead, Blizzard wants to encourage a more natural style of world PvP. It wants players to duke it out in actual questing zones. On PvP realms, it wants players to be free to attack towns and cities without overwhelming NPC intervention. Since we're reviving WoW Archivist here at WoW Insider after a seven-month hiatus, now seemed like a good time to revisit the earliest days of world PvP. It's no secret that world PvP has had a rough journey throughout WoW's history. Blizzard did all it could to discourage the wild Southshore vs. Tarren Mill clashes that made Hillsbrad Foothills a laggy, unplayable mess, often crashing the Eastern Kingdoms servers entirely. In patch 1.12, the developers gave us new objectives to fight over in Silithus and Eastern Plaguelands, far away from where new players were leveling. Ultimately, those objectives failed to capture much interest. Players mocked the Silithyst PvP objective as "sandlol." Further experiments in The Burning Crusade were only moderately more successful. In Wrath, Blizzard added the Wintergrasp PvP zone, and that has been the company's primary world PvP model through the last two expansions. Before all of that, however, when the game was still so young that the vast majority of the playerbase hadn't yet reached level 60, there were raids on the Crossroads, in the heart of the infamous Barrens. And they were glorious.
WoW Archivist: Patch 2.0.1, Before the Storm
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? Patch 2.0.1 was, according to a large chunk of players, quite possibly one of the best patches to come out of vanilla WoW. It had nothing to do with the introduction of the new talent trees in preparation for The Burning Crusade's looming launch. It had nothing to do with the new, bulky, and rarely used first iteration of the looking for group tool. There were no launch events with this patch, just a heck of a lot of data that needed to be implemented in preparation for the launch of the first expansion. But what had players either cheering fervently or cursing forever had nothing to do with the imminent approach of The Burning Crusade. It had everything to do with PVP and the removal of the honor system as we knew it in vanilla. What's so special about that, you ask? Let's take a journey back in time and look at the good and bad of the old honor system. If you think today's Arena grinds are difficult, well ... you're in for one heck of an eye-opener.
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: Recapping classic World of Warcraft
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? The Archivist has come a long way. We've just about wrapped up the chronological history of classic World of Warcraft. Sure, there are still bits and bobs that have gone unexplored for now ("The Ashbringer ...") but we've covered every single major patch from the World of Warcraft from prerelease all the way up through the final raid tier of level 60 content. The next time we tackle a set of patch notes, we'll be firmly in The Burning Crusade territory. Exciting, isn't it? Before we leap into that sweet, sweet Burning Crusade, let's recap what we've covered already, starting way back in July 2009.
WoW Archivist: Patch 1.11, Shadow of the Necropolis
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? In last week's Archivist, we looked at patch 1.11's April Fool's Day patch notes, but this week we're digging into the real deal. Patch 1.11 included the original 40-man version of Naxxramas, which was the final raid zone of classic World of Warcraft. The game had seen no expansions yet. While we all knew it was coming, the idea was still foreign and nebulous to players who had limited prior experience with MMOs. "Green is the new purple" was something nobody grasped yet. Naxxramas was seen as the true pinnacle of raiding in classic WoW ... and in some ways, it's still seen that way by WoW's raiding veterans. The trailer for Shadow of the Necropolis is probably the first patch trailer I remember in vivid detail, as it's one of the first patch trailers in which Blizzard tried to tell a story. Previous patch trailers showed off new bosses and new environments completely without commentary, merely showing off pretty pictures set to new music from the patch's soundtrack. Shadow of the Necropolis slowed things down a bit, showing you some of who Kel'Thuzad was in life and how he came to be lich lord of Naxxramas. Patch trailers have continued to build on what patch 1.11 started. Let's take a look at what else this patch held, shall we? As usual, we'll first look at the patch notes and then we'll get into commentary.
WoW Archivist: Patch 1.11 for fools
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? Today's Archivist topic would have been a grand one to save for the next April Fools' Day, but that's half a year away! Sticking strictly to chronological patch order, what the heck, let's just tackle it today. In the early months of 2006, World of Warcraft players were eagerly anticipating patch 1.11, Shadow of the Necropolis, which would implement the original 40-man version of the Naxxramas raid. On April 1, 2006, former Blizzard community manager Caydiem decided to go fishing for trolls: She posted what is known as Evil Patch Notes. Some of the false patch notes released for patch 1.11 on April Fools' are timeless, immediately obvious jokes that just click, even five years later. Others are relics of their time, references to popular complaints and hatreds of 2005 and 2006. Players who have only just started playing World of Warcraft in the last year or two may not understand them at all. Others, years later, are closer to the truth than Caydiem may have ever expected. Patch 1.11's Evil Patch Notes will now be presented in full, where they may speak for themselves. Enjoy!
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 1.10, Storms of Azeroth
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? Personally, I find patch 1.10 to be one of the most memorable patches of classic WoW. It was a patch dedicated almost exclusively to giving nonraiding players more content, access to better gear (without trivializing raids), and generally making the world a prettier place. Patch 1.10 was the patch that implemented weather, as its Storms of Azeroth title implies. More than that, patch 1.10 taught non-programmers everywhere how version numbering works. "Patch one-point-ten? You can't do that! Shouldn't it be patch 2.0 after 1.9? Isn't 1.10 the same as 1.1?" Nope, sorry! Version numbering doesn't work that way! These aren't decimals, folks. The .10 does not represent a fraction of a whole; it's part of a versioning scheme set up like so: expansion.major.minor.build Patch 1.10 indicates that this is the first retail software release and it is in its 10th major revision. While I'm writing this, World of Warcraft version 4.2.2.14534 is on the PTR. Build 14534 of the second minor revision of the second major revision of the fourth expansion/retail release. These aren't decimals, and this isn't math. Patch 1.10 is neither patch 1.1 nor patch 2.0. Got it? Good! Now on with the show.
WoW Archivist: Patch 1.9, 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? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? As mentioned a couple of weeks ago, patch 1.8 did not include a brand new raid tier. Players thought nothing of it at the time. It was perfectly normal. What patch 1.8 did was lay the groundwork for the following patch. It revamped Silithus, and that revamp was utilized in patch 1.9 with the opening of Ahn'Qiraj and the massive world event surrounding the parting of the gates. In addition to the opening of the Ahn'Qiraj gates, patch 1.9 also includes: Linked auction houses Raid lockout revamp Paladin class review Follow along, won't you?
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 Corrupted Blood plague
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? In late September of 2005, the world was struck with a terrible, virulent plague. In the early days of this plague, it was believed to be well under control. Casualties were few and far between, constrained to indoor quarantine zones, protecting the outside world from the violent malady. These quarantine zones did not last long. Common vermin and pets acted as carriers, delivering this plague out to the greater world. Men, women and children were all infected. The young died instantly. The old were forced to weather a tortured, wasting existence prior to their death. Innocent bystanders acted as unknowing carriers, delivering the plague from one victim to the next. The death toll rose high enough that major city centers had been almost completely killed off, leaving only piles of corpses to rot in the streets. We're not talking about the Black Death or a modern pandemic like SARS or H1N1. We're talking about Corrupted Blood, a disastrous plague that struck within the virtual world of Azeroth, hurtling World of Warcraft into the public eye and placing it under scientific scrutiny.
WoW Archivist: Patch 1.7, Rise of the Blood God
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? As we go through the patches of classic World of Warcraft, you've seen all along that Cataclysm is essentially a sequel to the original game. Everything in Cataclysm ties into things that began all those years ago. The Twilight's Hammer, Ragnaros and the other elemental lords, Nefarian and Onyxia ... all of those things hearken back to the Azeroth of 2004 and 2005. It isn't just the main plot of this expansion that ties back into the original game either -- oh, no. The little side stories we experience and investigate tie back into the original game, too. Today, we're looking at patch 1.7 from September 2005. It is the patch that introduced us to Zul'Gurub and the Blood God Hakkar, both of which made their return just months ago. In addition, patch 1.7 includes: Arathi Basin Stranglethorn Vale's fishing event Implementation of the dressing room Debuff limit raised from eight to 16 Let's explore, hm?
WoW Archivist: World of Warcraft patch 1.6
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? Patch 1.6 has probably one of the worst patch trailers in the entirety of World of Warcraft's history. It's not just that there are no fancy custom animations in the trailer; such things came way later -- machinima was in its infancy, so Blizzard itself saw no reason utilize those techniques or perhaps didn't have the resources. No, it's not just that. It's that there is a token effort somewhere in the video to build drama and epic suspense, but it is all shattered by the image of a member of the QA team leaping about like a spaz in the background while a Judgement-donning paladin tries to set a serious tone. It just isn't happening. How good or bad the trailer was didn't matter back in 2005, though. Back then, it was the most exciting thing in the world. Interestingly, the trailer is surprisingly difficult to find at all in places like YouTube or other video hosts nowadays, seemingly moreso than other patch trailers from around the same time period. Patch 1.5 and patch 1.7 have sources aplenty floating around, but patch 1.6? It just seems lost and forgotten. In addition to Blackwing Lair, patch 1.6 also delivered: The Darkmoon Faire Battlemasters to ease battleground queues The implementation (and complete disuse) of a Silvermoon Remnant faction, high elves loyal to the Alliance, aggressive to the Horde -- and never used for anything of note. Join me on a magical journey through the Warcraft library!
WoW Archivist: World of Warcraft patch 1.5
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's back to patch notes in this week's Archivist, where we'll be looking at the lovely little details of patch 1.5, released back in June of 2005 just one month after patch 1.4. Patch 1.4 implemented the bare bones of World of Warcraft's first honor system, but it was patch 1.5 that brought us the part players cared about: battlegrounds -- specifically, Warsong Gulch and Alterac Valley. The patch also included ... Another early attempt at building the Dungeon Finder A dishonor system More effort to build upon Molten Core Follow along, won't you?
WoW Archivist: World of Warcraft patch 1.4
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? Onwards we go through the tomes of World of Warcraft history. Today we come to patch 1.4, released May 2005, a short two months after patch 1.3. Patch 1.4 was the sort of patch we would be shocked to see nowadays: it contained no raid zones and no instances. It wasn't bare of content, though. Some highlights from this patch are: The implementation of the earliest iteration of the honor system Sweeping itemization changes in high end 5-man dungeons and raid zones The outdoor area of Andorhal was revamped from, quite literally, the ground up And the most controversial classic WoW change of them all: the succubus model was updated Let's dig in. Just like our patch 1.3 discussion, our first page will be the patch notes (which are always massive) and the second page will be our in-depth look at the highlights.
