World of Warcraft XIII: Even Aspects Get Nerfed

[Karoht]

That. Is pretty cool.

Karotfarmer hit 85 today.
Tomorrow is a big day. Karoht drops skinning for Alchemy. He's had Skinning since Vanilla. This is a big deal. Heck, I'm not even sure how you drop a profession (I'll find it, don't worry).

And I came to a decision regarding my other alts and their professions and such. Also, the order in which my characters will be prioritized getting to 90.
Karoht-Leatherworking and Alchemy
Karotfarmer-Herb/Skinning
Karohtaka-Mining and X. Not sure what I'm going to need, he might just pick up Herbalism too.
Persimmon-My poor unused Shadow Priest. Dropping Herbalism for Jewelcrafting, I'll have JC and Alch on one person, pay the 10 bucks for a race change to Goblin for the racial discount on the vendor mats for the JC and Alch mounts. This person's soul purpose is to crank out JC/Alch mounts and sell them.
Lemonydoom-Tailor/Enchanting, no change. My cloth and BoE item dump.
Pappapao-Pandaren Monk-Inscription and Other. Since I have a massive stockpile of Leather from farming up my Skinning, I might just go Leatherworking. Will probably be Inscription and Herbalism while leveling. Also, stockpiling cooking materials for my Panda Monk now.

2 months left before MoP. Stuff to finish list slowly dwindles.
-Tournament mounts-approximately 8 weeks.
-Venomhide Raptor-15 days
-Firelands Dailies pet-???
-Daily Quest stacking-Final weeks before MoP

[The Glyphstone]

Bwahahahahaha. Awesome.

[subanark]

Well, looks like another week of 1-day raids (4th week in a row). We really need to push for recruits, but hopefully on our new server we can find people who are at close in progression to us.

[Traab]

Thats pretty cool karoht, I know pretty much all of my characters have been skinners/miners since vanilla, but thats because I lack both the patience to grind up tradeskills like blacksmithing, and the access to high end recipies that are the only thing that makes taking those tradeskills really worth the cost. Alchemy is different, but those others, ugh. No, just give me 10 characters per server, each farming stacks of leather and elementium or whatever, and I can buy whatever high end stuff I want. I have to admit though, I both like and dislike the bump mining spawns got. It used to be you had to go out searching for ore to mine to level up enough to move to the next teir of minerals, now you cant death grip a mob without sending it flying through a mineral node. :p Makes it easy as hell to collect stuff, but im sure it has also dropped the price as its a work of 10 minutes instead of 2 hours to find a stack.

[Karoht]

So, Karotfarmer.
/played states that it took Karotfarmer 3 days (72 hours) 17 hours, 25 minutes, to go from level 1 to level 85. Which is a total of...
89 hours and 25 minutes.

Also, stayed up and dumped all my herbs onto Karoht, he dropped Skinning for Alchemy. This has a side bonus of meaning that my only character with 525 Archeology now has Alchemy, so I just need to get lucky with some Tol'vir Arch sites and I'm good to go for making a Vial of the Sands.

My other Alchemist is dropping Herbing for JC, and then taking advantage of the race change discount this weekend and turning into a Goblin. At worst she can buy the JC mount vendor materials (assuming they are in fact something you purchase and not earn some other way) along with the Vial of the Sands vendor mats, at the discount.

Now the question becomes, should I specialize both of my Alchemists into Transmutation specialty. I think I should. We've got a flask specialist in the guild already.

@JC mounts
You have to make all 5 mounts to be able to make the Onyx mount. That is pretty nifty. I don't expect to see the Onyx mounts around cities very much.
As I said earlier, I don't think that we will see the big expensive material be something you get by purchasing. I've got a few theories.

1-Purchased with daily tokens of some sort. LOTS of them. A jewelcrafting daily rewards 1 token? It will likely cost 50 tokens or more to buy 1 of the mats.
2-Valor Points. Since there are so many ways to earn Valor Points as of MoP. Even dailies will give you some valor points, though you'd have to do 50 dailies to get 150 VP, which would be quite a few hours of dailies. This is right up there with the idea of having multiple individual progression paths to access certain rewards.
3-Archeology. Extremely rare. Unlikely option, but possible. They did say that they wanted Archeology to be a bit of a money maker and that despite all the nerfs they did, they weren't really happy with the result. This might also be the 'carrot on a stick' they use to get people to give Archeology a try again.
4-It comes from breaking down certain types of items. IE-Disenchanting, Prospecting, Milling, etc. Not likely, as it places a bit too much weight on those particular professions

So if I had to put together those considerations to figure out how one obtains the pattern and the materials to craft the mounts, here's my guess, Clue style. (IE-Mrs White, in the Parlor, with the Candleabra)
Get the pattern from reputation and dailies, buy the mats with Valor points, the pattern to combine all 5 into the Onyx mount might come from Archeology. The mats don't appear to be BoP, the patterns probably will be.
I guess I should get my Priest working on Archeology now/soon.


Last note, I highly recommend the profession guides on WoWhead.com if anyone is planning on maxing out professions right now. Just go to wowhead.com, click on guides, click on professions, scroll down until you see one that applies to you.

[Eakin]

So I've been gone from WoW since Firelands appeared, but now I'm feeling the temptation to jump back in.

Do folks thing now's a good time to restart and try to get the tail-end of Cata content wrapped up, or should I just hold off until Mists?

[Karoht]

So I've been gone from WoW since Firelands appeared, but now I'm feeling the temptation to jump back in.

Do folks thing now's a good time to restart and try to get the tail-end of Cata content wrapped up, or should I just hold off until Mists?

Pugs on my server are going 6/8H, so you should have next to no issue finding a normal mode group to clear with and see the content.
LFR is an option as well.


Karotfarmer is all done
Karohtaka, my poor forgotten Shaman is going to be 85 by wednesday. 76-83 went remarkably fast, I forgot that this guy had all the BoA gear and how great the effect was when paired with a full rested bar. His mining is under control, but I still haven't decided which profession to pair it with. I could make him my Jewelcrafter rather than messing with my Shadow Priest, saves me having to retrain a profession. I think this is the simplest option.

On that note, Enhancement Shaman. I was enjoying it until about 65 ish. Then it got kind of stale. Part of why I parked Karohtaka at 76. At 81 you get Unleash Elements which just changes everything. Having that one more button to push about every 15 seconds suddenly just makes everything better.

And if you actually use a cooldown on every fight you can, you tear through mobs quickly, and you very rarely end up with times where a cooldown isn't ready. Fire elemental, Earth elemental, Wolves, Berserking, Bloodlust, 2 trinkets at 2 minutes each, and a defensive cooldown every minute. Try getting into the habit of having something up at all times, it's rather fun and kind of crazy.


And now that I've leveled through Cataclysm twice in two weeks, I actually came to appreciate more of the zones and the story.
Spoiler'd

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I really like Deepholm, I don't know why I disliked it before, I really don't know. Hyjal actually has a pretty good war campaign kind of story, blended well with the Return of the Ancients. I just wished that there was more going on with the Ancients all through Cataclysm, but oh well. Vashjr is an awesome zone if the underwater part doesn't bother you too much. It's fine for casters but melee not so much. Uldum, while it does have too many cutscenes, if WoW was a more relaxed game or if they spaced those cutscenes out with more quests in between, I think they would have been fine. Twilight Highlands starts out well, it really sells you as the hero of the Alliance/Horde. And you are involved in some great moments like killing an old god, the struggles of the Red Dragonflight, Cho'Gall and the Twilight Hammer (I still say that should be a band name), and the right amount of Horde VS Alliance conflict.

While the Cataclysm leveling content is short, it feels better directed. Less random. To compair it, lets look at a Burning Crusade zone, Zangarmarsh. I literally do 3 circuits of the entire zone (I find clockwise works best) and I'm done all the quests. There isn't really a direction or progression with the quests.

Wrath got better at this, and directed you down some pathways. Cataclysm, for better or for worse, does pidgeon-hole you a bit in that there is one way to progress in most places (Vashjr is really bad for it, Deepholm you can progress 2 ways right at the start, and then it's one singular line to wrap up the zone), but at least there is a connected storyline there.

From what I have seen of MoP questing, it follows a similar pattern as Cataclysm, but there are more storylines per zone. You still progress one story line via one pathway, but the storylines themselves do overlap and intersect. IE-You're working on Farmer Bob's storyline, when you cross paths with Farmer Joe who you helped earlier. You do a related quest or quests to help out Farmer Joe, but it still advances the story of Farmer Bob in some way.

Yeah, just some stuff I noticed and liked.
Also, on the entrance to Deepholm, they changed Aggra's voice actor to match the one she has in the 'save Thrall' questline. It's still an exposition dump, but it's far more tollerable.

[Dublock]

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I really like Deepholm, I don't know why I disliked it before, I really don't know. Hyjal actually has a pretty good war campaign kind of story, blended well with the Return of the Ancients. I just wished that there was more going on with the Ancients all through Cataclysm, but oh well. Vashjr is an awesome zone if the underwater part doesn't bother you too much. It's fine for casters but melee not so much. Uldum, while it does have too many cutscenes, if WoW was a more relaxed game or if they spaced those cutscenes out with more quests in between, I think they would have been fine. Twilight Highlands starts out well, it really sells you as the hero of the Alliance/Horde. And you are involved in some great moments like killing an old god, the struggles of the Red Dragonflight, Cho'Gall and the Twilight Hammer (I still say that should be a band name), and the right amount of Horde VS Alliance conflict.

While the Cataclysm leveling content is short, it feels better directed. Less random. To compair it, lets look at a Burning Crusade zone, Zangarmarsh. I literally do 3 circuits of the entire zone (I find clockwise works best) and I'm done all the quests. There isn't really a direction or progression with the quests.

Wrath got better at this, and directed you down some pathways. Cataclysm, for better or for worse, does pidgeon-hole you a bit in that there is one way to progress in most places (Vashjr is really bad for it, Deepholm you can progress 2 ways right at the start, and then it's one singular line to wrap up the zone), but at least there is a connected storyline there.

From what I have seen of MoP questing, it follows a similar pattern as Cataclysm, but there are more storylines per zone. You still progress one story line via one pathway, but the storylines themselves do overlap and intersect. IE-You're working on Farmer Bob's storyline, when you cross paths with Farmer Joe who you helped earlier. You do a related quest or quests to help out Farmer Joe, but it still advances the story of Farmer Bob in some way.

First, you are on a good server, I occasionally see pugs hoping to down 3/8 HM (and pretty much only aiming for people with 3/8 experience, which means they advertise for a few hours).

I said at the start of Cata that I liked the questing of Cata, I like the one story line much better then any other variation of it, I think I will prefer MoP even more although I only done about 2 1/2 zones (don't want to spoil/get bored of it already :P).

I hated the complete randomness, trying to find quests that was common in classic and TBC which stopped me from actually getting Loremaster (Yea I helped my ex-fiance get it instead -.-).

[Bulldog Psion]

Since I'm utterly sick of the ridiculous faction imbalance in PvP, anyone got a good suggestion for another MMORPG for my idle nanoseconds?

Disclaimer: I don't want anything anime-looking. Yes, I know, there are a million distinctive genres in anime, but you can still tell all of them at a glance -- bland faces with big eyes, spiky hair, girly looking guys and underage looking women. Blagh, I can't take it. Sorry to any fans, but I need to make that clear right off.

[Karoht]

Since I'm utterly sick of the ridiculous faction imbalance in PvP...

Such as?
Are you refering to your specific server imbalance, or are you saying that racials are too powerful on one side and too weak on the other?

[Dublock]

At least for my BG group its pretty even overall, but man there have been times where I spend a lot of time losing. Then I take a look at my stats and see that its pretty much even (*looks at AV and sighs*)

If I ever need to be happy, I look at my EoTS stats, 18 battles, 9 of them were 4 cap wins :P

Although I really wish they do something about Every Man for Himself racial, either change it or make it more standard.

[Karoht]

At least for my BG group its pretty even overall, but man there have been times where I spend a lot of time losing. Then I take a look at my stats and see that its pretty much even (*looks at AV and sighs*)

If I ever need to be happy, I look at my EoTS stats, 18 battles, 9 of them were 4 cap wins :P

Although I really wish they do something about Every Man for Himself racial, either change it or make it more standard.

Well, non-rated BG's aren't based on battlegroups anymore. A fact I am famous for forgetting and then conveniently remembering at the worst possible time.

Every Man for Himself? The human racial? THAT is still catching flakk?


Speaking of BG's, MikeB discovered something.
There's an Addon that he uses for Machinima, I forget the name, but basically it allows you to detatch the camera from your character and fly around independantly of your character. It's pretty neat.
So on his show, he and some friends got together (yaay, wargames feature that no one uses) to test it out and see what WoW Battlegrounds would look like if there was a spectator mode.

I'll be honest. I was impressed. And this was with one PoV. With 3 or 4 PoV's well coordinated (like a modern sports broadcast) Battlegrounds look pretty slick. They only tested Warsong Gulch and that other CTF map. Big multi objective maps like Arathi Basin and such might require more PoV's or a quick switch system for thos PoV's, but yeah, it was awesome. I honestly thought it would be harder to tell what is actually going on, or to see the clever plays in motion, but there it was.

The problem is, it requires a character to be idle for the entire match, per PoV. Hence why they tested in in Wargames and did a 9v9 rather than a 10v10. As far as proof of concept goes, it was pretty cool.

[subanark]

Well, Tuesday was no-go for raids. We had one person with a computer failure and the two people we did invite to the guild bailed on us before the fist raid. We could have pugged people, but ideally we want to start on spine, and if we did clear some of the raid, trying to get new people in on a partly finish raid is difficult.

As far as BGs are going, I don't do rated or Arena, but I am trying for 1 win per day. Yesterday it took 7 battles to win Went up against some premades, 1 was due to pure idiocy, 1 I have no clue on, and the others we just got out played. The win was actually AV, just barely though. We had 13 rouges (!), alliance actually defended their towers, and the rouges managed to back cap 2. Alliance still pulled first, but enough people were in our base to cause them to slowly start wiping and hold off their dps enough to kill their general first. I really do hate AV, I've gone though quite a few battles where there is none to very little actual pvp, and it ends up just being a race (which alliance usually have a head start in). The entire battle can be determine by which side has the best geared tank. Get enough really well geared tanks, and you don't need towers at all. IoC isn't much better either. A lot of times its just a race to see who can get the other gate down faster. I really hate rogues that stall for time when greatly out numbered. FoK -> Vanish -> Sap -> Fok -> prep-vanish -> Sap -> Fok. A good 30 seconds+ can be wasted trying to cap and failing. There really needs to be an anti-stealth ability, one you can use when you know there is a rogue being a douche.

[The Succubus]

I think I have reached perfection with one of my characters.

She has the Crusader title after a solid month of dailies.

She has a Mekgineer's Chopper after two months of grinding and farming gold.

She has just finished a *perfect* High Inquisitor Whitemane transmog outfit and people keep stopping and staring. ^_^

In short, I'm very happy with her right now and am wondering what my next project should be. Aside from the whole Magefury thing.

[Karoht]

I really hate rogues that stall for time when greatly out numbered. FoK -> Vanish -> Sap -> Fok -> prep-vanish -> Sap -> Fok. A good 30 seconds+ can be wasted trying to cap and failing. There really needs to be an anti-stealth ability, one you can use when you know there is a rogue being a douche.

You mean like a Hunter's Flare?
Your other option is just spam an AoE back at them, they won't stay stealthed for long. It's not the best option, but you can usually sucker them into using all their stealth cooldowns pretty quickly, at which point they usually run for it.

[Hullabaloo]

There really needs to be an anti-stealth ability, one you can use when you know there is a rogue being a douche.

I was surprised there was not. In another game I played the Hunter type class had a tracking skill that showed stealthed rogues for a short period. Having a skill with no counter in the game surprised me.

[Dublock]

You mean like a Hunter's Flare?

I have gotten ambushed standing in the center of one.

I am pretty sure shadow step's range is just the same or a bit bigger then the radius of hunter's flare which is a problem.

[Karoht]

I was surprised there was not. In another game I played the Hunter type class had a tracking skill that showed stealthed rogues for a short period. Having a skill with no counter in the game surprised me.

Didn't WoW hunters used to have Track Stealth? Or is it just that Track Humanoid had a chance to reveal stealth? Or is there a Glyph option for it? It's been a long time since I looked over hunter.

Yes, Flare has a range that Rogues can counter. Which is why smart hunters stand on their Ice Traps or Frost Traps. Great, he shadowstepped? Frozen/Slowed and revealed. Hunters Mark prevents stealth.
Or the other trick is to stand away from the objective a ways, in Camoflage. Throw the flares onto the objective with an explosive trap or Ice Trap on the objective.

There are other options too. Magma totem has a pretty decent range. Arcane Explosion randomly if you are a mage, Holy Nova if you are a Priest. If you are a druid, constantly scatter mushrooms and detonate them constantly. Don't worry about mana because in PvP longevity is countered by burst, so sustainability is largely meaningless.

Vanish didn't used to remove Faerie Fire (Druid), not sure if that's changed. Can't stealth with it on. Druids should have Natures Grasp up constantly in PvP (roots target if they hit you, can root up to 3 targets + Entangling Roots), and the minute you are out of stun, do everything in your power to cyclone the rogue for as long as possible.

The other is wait for the first hit, pop defensive CD's (many aren't affected by stuns) which are typically a soft counter to burst.

The other counter to stealth is temporary retreat. Move away, and break line of sight ASAP. Count to 5, go back to the objective you are defending, assault the rogue, call in reinforcements, whatever. But get away for a moment or two, it makes all the difference in the world. If a Rogue has already popped cooldowns trying to kill you, they aren't likely to do too well when you turn around and have the initiative and try to kill them.

[Traab]

Track Hidden, but its honestly not that big of a range. Like, half the radius of your minimap iirc. Barely further than you could spot them if they stood in front of you. Couldnt hurt, but I dunno if it would be much of a help, considering the huge range I remember sap getting.

[Karoht]

I've been thinking about "The Sha" lately. Connecting some dots.
Spoilered due to walls of text.

Spoiler

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We know that they come from negative emotions, particularly those of combat.
We know (from spoilers of the starting quests in Pandaria) that the Sha can possess people so some extent.
We know that the Old Gods, for whatever reason, at some point in their imprisonment, have been fighting amongst each other.
We know that the Naga, servants fo the Old Gods, for whatever reasons, have been fighting amongst each other.

Theory:
The Sha are a direct biproduct of the Old Gods being imprisoned on the planet. To the point where even the Old Gods are not immune to them.


Side Theory:
The Titans imprisoned the Old Gods on Azeroth, and then seeded the planet with life. Rather than just mindless automatons, which they could also have used instead. Perhaps the living (sentient) beings purpose on Azeroth was to absorb the excess energies of the Old Gods, which we know of as emotions.
Later on, the Old Gods used the Curse of Flesh to turn the stone and metal creations into the humanoid races we know of today. While this may have accelerated the Old God's plans of escape, it may have diminished the ability to absorb those excess energies and emotions.
The major relevance, when combined with what we know from Un'Goro crater, is that the Titans, the creators, don't entirely know the capabilities of their own creations. Free Will on Azeroth could very well be an accident, not intentional. For all those saying this is a kiddie expansion, this is a very mature concept when one stops to think about it. It's saying that the creators are flawed beings, not flawless ones. Sure, we already knew that with Sargaras, but now it is further confirmed.

Algalon:
He mentions a complete systematic failure of containment, yet the Old Gods are not free. I believe he was refering to the Sha, and these negative emotions. He was also surprised about the emotions of the champions of Ulduar, and described how he had felt nothing for what sounds like a very long time.
Algalon also shows the champions of Ulduar what he sees, a background realm with dark spirits. Though these are not confirmed to be Sha per se, they very well could be manifestations of negative emotions of some type.
Jin'do the Hexer/Godbreaker demonstrates something similar, but his variant seems to surround Death more than just negative emotions. But, what else could cause negative emotions on such a scale but Death itself?

The Emerald Dream:
Perhaps the Dreams true purpose, hidden even to Ysera, is to provide a positive counter-balance towards those negative emotions, via dreams and inspiration and imagination. The corruption of the dream, the Emerald Nightmare, may not have been due to an Old God afterall, but could be due to the Sha influence. The entity which corrupted the Emerald Dream is still not as of yet confirmed. Therefore it does stand to reason that it's antithesis, some form of negative emotion, may have played some role in it.

The Aspects:
While the Aspects knew of the Old Gods, I doubt they have much knowledge of the Sha, if any. There is a good chance that many actions which were belived to be caused by the Old Gods were actually caused by the Sha. I think I may recall Ysera mentioning something which sounded an aweful lot like the Sha during the novel "Stormrage" which dealt with the Emerald Dream, but I could just be mis-remembering. I hate to say this, but I may have to re-read that horrible book.
*shudder*

And related to all of the above, my Emerald Dream Expansion Theory

Spoiler

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Yes, I know I said that an Emerald Dream Expansion was highly unlikely. Try not to rub it in too hard.

Emerald Dream Expansion Theory:
Blizzard has wanted to do player generated content for quite some time. Players have wanted an Emerald Dream expansion for quite some time as well. There may be a way to meld the two desires together.
So, we know that to fight the Sha, we need to create and inspire and all that jazz. Without turning the entire population of Azeroth into hippies, the Emerald Dream may offer up some possibilities.
Player created challenges: Dungeons/Scenarios/Raids created by players which exist as dreams in the Emerald Dream. Probably just existing as extra content, having little to nothing for major rewards and possibly some bragging rights could be attatched to them for the creators of the content.
Player Progression: Could involve a new set of powers which only activate while in the dream, in addition to any other features. These are powers that would be selected much the way the new talent system works.
Reclaiming Territory: As the corruption is defeated via quests, dungeons, and raids and even pvp to some extent, the corrupted territory is peeled back, revealing new lands to explore.
Dream Bosses and Events: The Dream is a very random place. Random 'world bosses' and random Event type content, which can spawn in completely random locations. Some of which can spill over into the real world if left unchecked.
Along with Player generated content, there is still the corruption of the dream to face off against, and the nightmares it may hold, along with viewing Azeroth in an entirely new light (not just a green filter either). The Emerald Dream is a very bizarre sort of place with it's own rules.
The Emerald Dream is also not truly affected by the passage of time. Meaning that the map of Azeroth as seen from the Emerald Dream would not have been affected by the Sundering, there would be one massive continent. The Dream could also still hold a connection of some sort to the original Well of Eternity.
Inside the Dream are creations of Titan origin. The Dreams of the Gods. Whole cities, people, places, orginally created by the Titans. Creatures only dreamed of but never given form. Some, for good reason. Others, perfectly fine creatures awaiting experimentation and variation. Ethreal dream beings. Living breathing magic and spells, just waiting for a spark of imagination to explode into reality. Nightmarish corrupted monstrocities. Druids of the Dream.

The Sha could very well be part of the set up for such an expansion, by providing the basis of the corruption, and a direct method to combat the Sha (and the Old Gods influence) by restoring the Emerald Dream. Pandaria is said to be "a land that lives and breathes" and that may have plenty to do with the Dream/Nightmare at play.
Earlier I referenced Jin'do the Hexer/Godbreaker and his boss Hakkar. Hakkar could be a Sha given physical form by the Dream in order to contain/restrict him. Likewise, the Loa, and the Ancients (Malorne, Goldrinn, Aviana, Cenarius) could all be the antithesis of the Sha, also given form. Or the Sha could be corruptions of the Dream.

Seriously, I see a lot of setup potential for the Emerald Dream here. I never thought I'd day that, but there it is.

Just some speculation. Thoughts?

[Dublock]

I've been thinking about "The Sha" lately. Connecting some dots.
Spoilered due to walls of text.

Spoiler

Show

We know that they come from negative emotions, particularly those of combat.
We know (from spoilers of the starting quests in Pandaria) that the Sha can possess people so some extent.
We know that the Old Gods, for whatever reason, at some point in their imprisonment, have been fighting amongst each other.
We know that the Naga, servants fo the Old Gods, for whatever reasons, have been fighting amongst each other.

Theory:
The Sha are a direct biproduct of the Old Gods being imprisoned on the planet. To the point where even the Old Gods are not immune to them.


Side Theory:
The Titans imprisoned the Old Gods on Azeroth, and then seeded the planet with life. Rather than just mindless automatons, which they could also have used instead. Perhaps the living (sentient) beings purpose on Azeroth was to absorb the excess energies of the Old Gods, which we know of as emotions.
Later on, the Old Gods used the Curse of Flesh to turn the stone and metal creations into the humanoid races we know of today. While this may have accelerated the Old God's plans of escape, it may have diminished the ability to absorb those excess energies and emotions.
The major relevance, when combined with what we know from Un'Goro crater, is that the Titans, the creators, don't entirely know the capabilities of their own creations. Free Will on Azeroth could very well be an accident, not intentional. For all those saying this is a kiddie expansion, this is a very mature concept when one stops to think about it. It's saying that the creators are flawed beings, not flawless ones. Sure, we already knew that with Sargaras, but now it is further confirmed.

Algalon:
He mentions a complete systematic failure of containment, yet the Old Gods are not free. I believe he was refering to the Sha, and these negative emotions. He was also surprised about the emotions of the champions of Ulduar, and described how he had felt nothing for what sounds like a very long time.
Algalon also shows the champions of Ulduar what he sees, a background realm with dark spirits. Though these are not confirmed to be Sha per se, they very well could be manifestations of negative emotions of some type.
Jin'do the Hexer/Godbreaker demonstrates something similar, but his variant seems to surround Death more than just negative emotions. But, what else could cause negative emotions on such a scale but Death itself?

The Emerald Dream:
Perhaps the Dreams true purpose, hidden even to Ysera, is to provide a positive counter-balance towards those negative emotions, via dreams and inspiration and imagination. The corruption of the dream, the Emerald Nightmare, may not have been due to an Old God afterall, but could be due to the Sha influence. The entity which corrupted the Emerald Dream is still not as of yet confirmed. Therefore it does stand to reason that it's antithesis, some form of negative emotion, may have played some role in it.

The Aspects:
While the Aspects knew of the Old Gods, I doubt they have much knowledge of the Sha, if any. There is a good chance that many actions which were belived to be caused by the Old Gods were actually caused by the Sha. I think I may recall Ysera mentioning something which sounded an aweful lot like the Sha during the novel "Stormrage" which dealt with the Emerald Dream, but I could just be mis-remembering. I hate to say this, but I may have to re-read that horrible book.
*shudder*

You know that makes sense...

Spoiler

Show

I am thinking of what I know, and Garrosh is a boss, but since playing though the first few quests and reading your thoughts, I am convinced that Garrosh is going to have some serious emotional response to something. He is already known to have some outbursts, anger issues but something is going to trigger it I want to say its going to be the Alliance, but at this point its to early.

When that happens (assuming I am correct :p), I wonder who will help lead an action against Garrosh, cause if he does get taken over surely someone on the Horde side is going to get involved, Suarfang? Lady Sylvanas? The Blood Elf guy (Yea...I really can't remember his name...a great time to make him some actual lore) Or someone else? Will they actually assist the Alliance to help (Or more likely compete in trying to get rid of him)?

Your ideas are fantastic and I thats where Blizzard is taking it, it does wrap up a few loose ends and makes sense. It does a fair amount to counter the "immature" issues of the expansion, although I fail to really see it. (How are pandas any more immature then a number of things in WoW more so if you include any pop culture reference?)

I do wonder how far out Blizzard planned all of this out? I absolutely love it when an author drops foreshadow but you don't know until after you get a better idea and you go "WOW" grab the first book, flip to the page and then smile (Yes I have totally done that in both Harry Potter and Pendragon, a 10 book series which had personally the best ending to any series). Whenever I finish my loremaster you better believe I will read into the quests/stories to see if I can spot any.

[Karoht]

You know that makes sense...

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I am thinking of what I know, and Garrosh is a boss... ~snip~ ...I wonder who will help lead an action against Garrosh, cause if he does get taken over surely someone on the Horde side is going to get involved, Suarfang? Lady Sylvanas? The Blood Elf guy (Yea...I really can't remember his name...a great time to make him some actual lore) Or someone else? Will they actually assist the Alliance to help (Or more likely compete in trying to get rid of him)?

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My bet is Saurfang. He threatened Garrosh directly that if he ever took the Horde down the old dark roads of the previous wars, he would intervene. I seriously hope that Saurfang leads it. Plus I miss the old guy. He's my favorite Orc other than Thrall.
I doubt Saurfang would work with Sylvanas (Wrath Gate, his son was killed there), part of the reason why Lore'themar Theron doesn't leave Silvermoon City is that it's defenses are too weak, and he probably has no major beef with Garrosh. Vol'jin will probably be down for assisting, but at the same time he would be unwilling to betray the Horde or its leader. Bane Bloodhoof doesn't actually have a vendetta with Garrosh, contrary to popular belief, proof of this is in the book The Shattering. Bane accepted that his father was the one who made the challenge, and it was Magatha who betrayed his father, not Garrosh. Thrall will probably be no where near the action for two reasons. If he's involved, people will expect him to retake control, plus he could probably own Garrosh with some Shaman powers. Third reason is that he probably respects the legacy of Grom Hellscream far too much to marr it, even if it is already marred. So yeah, my bet would be Saurfang, or some yet unnamed Orcish up-and-comer. But I doubt they would introduce another character like that.

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Your ideas are fantastic and I thats where Blizzard is taking it, it does wrap up a few loose ends and makes sense. It does a fair amount to counter the "immature" issues of the expansion, although I fail to really see it. (How are pandas any more immature then a number of things in WoW more so if you include any pop culture reference?)

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Contrary to popular belief, Pandas are very dangerous creatures.

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I do wonder how far out Blizzard planned all of this out?

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Can you keep a secret?

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Really?

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Promise?

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Don your tinfoil hats now...

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Longer than you think.
Recall that they introduced the Old Gods back in Warcraft 3, Frozen Throne, when Arthas and that Nerubian King (Anub'arak) were running through Ajol'Nerub to beat Illidan to the Frozen Throne. There is an Old God in there as a boss. In fact I highly recommend reading the wowpedia.org article about the Old Gods.
Also, Christie Golden started writing the book Arthas a year or two before Wrath of the Lich King dropped. This is before the Ulduar raid was even being worked on. Yet, you can practically see the whisperings of the Old Gods in that novel, if you look hard enough. So she had to have foreknowledge which meant Blizzard had to have a plan for it.
Then there's the Mattias questline. Mattias is also in the Arthas novel. But seeing as he is only in the prologue and epilogue I could see them adding those parts in shortly before the book shipped, as the book shipped shortly before Wrath was released.
If you look around they leave clues like that all over the place. And the gap between Warcraft 3 and WoW is quite a few years, so that does mean that they had a plan back then, at least as far as the Old Gods are concerned.
Random note regarding Algalon in Ulduar. If you look at the very top of his Globe, you can see what looks like a golden colored Naa'ru. And it is floating over a patch of ocean, further north than Northrend. Theories are that this is either Elune or E'lune (yes, the Night Elf Moon Goddess is probably a Naa'ru), or Mu'sha who is the other eye of the Earthmother from Tauren mythology. Mu'sha is the name of their Sun God/dess, while they also believe in Elune the Moon Goddess. The other theory is that it could be the location of another cloaked island hidden by the Titans. Or more directly, the Naa'ru are the Titans.

[Ivellius]

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My bet is Saurfang. He threatened Garrosh directly that if he ever took the Horde down the old dark roads of the previous wars, he would intervene. I seriously hope that Saurfang leads it. Plus I miss the old guy. He's my favorite Orc other than Thrall.
I doubt Saurfang would work with Sylvanas (Wrath Gate, his son was killed there), part of the reason why Lore'themar Theron doesn't leave Silvermoon City is that it's defenses are too weak, and he probably has no major beef with Garrosh. Vol'jin will probably be down for assisting, but at the same time he would be unwilling to betray the Horde or its leader. Bane Bloodhoof doesn't actually have a vendetta with Garrosh, contrary to popular belief, proof of this is in the book The Shattering. Bane accepted that his father was the one who made the challenge, and it was Magatha who betrayed his father, not Garrosh. Thrall will probably be no where near the action for two reasons. If he's involved, people will expect him to retake control, plus he could probably own Garrosh with some Shaman powers. Third reason is that he probably respects the legacy of Grom Hellscream far too much to marr it, even if it is already marred. So yeah, my bet would be Saurfang, or some yet unnamed Orcish up-and-comer. But I doubt they would introduce another character like that.

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Saurfang makes sense, and remember that Vol'jin has promised to take care of Garrosh as well. The two working together would be good choices. I still kind of think Thrall will return as Warchief, even if I wish he wouldn't. Baine doesn't particularly like Garrosh, but I think open action against the Warchief is out of his personality. Sylvanas could provide clandestine aid or remain completely uninvolved--she doesn't care much for Garrosh but she's clearly not threatened by him either.

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Can you keep a secret?

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They do plan things way out. The RPG book Shadows and Light described the titanic pantheon, and Northrend is almost identical to its description in the RPG book Lands of Mystery. All the rage over pandaren is similarly misguided, given they've been around since Warcraft 3.

[Karoht]

I remember an article on wowinsider.com some time back after ToC released. It detailed a lot of those foreshadowing moments and what they eventually turned into. If I come across it again I'll post it. It proved catagorically that the devs had been planning a lot of these things much farther back than anyone realizes. IE-The Old God in Warcraft 3, some elements regarding Deathwing in the novels which popped up as early as the Burning Crusade era, and a few neat tidbits about the Lich King which were hinted at in Vanilla.


And hey, even when we do hit that point of "hey man, they're just making stuff up now" I have only one statement to that.
Um, yeah? Like everything else they've "made up" to get to this point?

[Dublock]

Reading Ivellius's reply that Blizzard made a note (I *think* on twitter that met with some outrage on the forums for a few days

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They intend on having Thrall back as a leader of the Horde.

I was posting in a thread that I think Thrall should take a backseat with his wife and kid and someone posted a link strongly suggested that Thrall won't be doing that after MoP.

[Karoht]

Reading Ivellius's reply that Blizzard made a note (I *think* on twitter that met with some outrage on the forums for a few days

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They intend on having Thrall back as a leader of the Horde.

I was posting in a thread that I think Thrall should take a backseat with his wife and kid and someone posted a link strongly suggested that Thrall won't be doing that after MoP.

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I'm not worrying about the new Warchief until we hit the last Tier of the expansion. However, after Chris Metzen 'spoiled' that Garrosh was going to be a boss and strongly suggested that Thrall was going to be the new Warchief, Zarhym was on the forums about a week later and said that "Chris Metzen's statements were not entirely accurate" and this is word for word quote, not paraphrase. Chris Metzen and no one else from Blizzard commented on the situation. Mind you I haven't seen this new quote yet as I have been without internet at home for the last 3 days. So I would say that no matter what is going to come to pass, Thrall = Warchief is not the whole story. There's lots of ways he could come back in a major role to the Horde, such as a major spiritual advisor to whoever becomes Warchief. But honestly, between the Earthen Ring and his family, I see him having more on his plate. I doubt they'll change him from a neutral character back to a Horde character, partly because of Alliance QQ (no really) and partly because it just isn't his role anymore. Moreso because he's grown away from the Horde.

In fact, I fully expect Thrall to be trying to mend the rift in relations with the Pandarens caused by by the Horde and Alliance conflict. Thrall has always been pushing for peace, even with the Alliance. This is where I expect they will keep him out of the way for the majority of the expansion.

I kind of pictured Thrall and Malfurion teaming up at some point (IE-Last phase of Heroic Ragnaros), but I'm glad they had Haamul Runetotem and Cenarius team up with Malfurion instead. It was good to see all three teachers of the Druid path do something incredible together.

[The Succubus]

This may just be me but I'm worried that they've run out of compelling villains to use as raid bosses.

Vanilla had Nefarian, Ragnaros, C'thun, Onyxia - all of whom have well established presences in Warcraft history.

BC we had Illidan (I was really sorry to see him go. He was one of my favourite characters, despite being a complete (scrubbed)) and then in Sunwell we even saw Kil'Jaeden.

Wrath of course we were up against Arthas and the first of the loopy Aspects, Malygos.

With Cata, we met the second loopy Aspect Deathwing.

In Pandaland, we have.....no-one. Unless Alexstrasza suddenly decides to have a glass of the crazy juice all the other Aspects have been chugging lately.

[Aidan305]

In Pandaland, we have.....no-one. Unless Alexstrasza suddenly decides to have a glass of the crazy juice all the other Aspects have been chugging lately.

I was reading an interesting Know Your Lore on WoW.com on this very subject the other day based around the argument that the true villains of Pandaria is (DunDunDun) the characters themselves.

Here's a link to the article in question. It's a good read with some very interesting points.

[subanark]

Well Tuesday didn't happen. Due to lack of attendance. We did recruit for Wensday and busted though the first 6, although it took the full 2 hours we had allocated. Thursday we tried some stuff for Spine, and evetually decided to try 3 healing it which worked better. Just a few mistakes here and there, and it is a bit tighter on the healers to do this, but if we mostly just have to survive up to the 3rd plat to BL down. We are very close to being to use to use pots for the first plate and get it down in 1 go, maybe a bit of tweaking in the raids gear will help on that.

Someone is off next week, although we think we do have a replacement. At least now we can hand out fragements for the legendary seeing as we actually have a rogue now.
So, this weeks breakdown on raid comp would be:
tank druid, prot warrior, restro druid, holy paladin, holy priest, ele shaman, rogue, enh shaman, arcane mage, hunter

[Ivellius]

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They intend on having Thrall back as a leader of the Horde.

I was posting in a thread that I think Thrall should take a backseat with his wife and kid and someone posted a link strongly suggested that Thrall won't be doing that after MoP.

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I'm not worrying about the new Warchief until we hit the last Tier of the expansion. However, after Chris Metzen 'spoiled' that Garrosh was going to be a boss and strongly suggested that Thrall was going to be the new Warchief, Zarhym was on the forums about a week later and said that "Chris Metzen's statements were not entirely accurate" and this is word for word quote, not paraphrase. Chris Metzen and no one else from Blizzard commented on the situation. Mind you I haven't seen this new quote yet as I have been without internet at home for the last 3 days. So I would say that no matter what is going to come to pass, Thrall = Warchief is not the whole story. There's lots of ways he could come back in a major role to the Horde, such as a major spiritual advisor to whoever becomes Warchief. But honestly, between the Earthen Ring and his family, I see him having more on his plate. I doubt they'll change him from a neutral character back to a Horde character, partly because of Alliance QQ (no really) and partly because it just isn't his role anymore. Moreso because he's grown away from the Horde.

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The Alliance outcry would be because Thrall isn't any more of a neutral character than he's ever been, and putting him back as a Horde character would only serve to reinforce that. Remember, nominal Warchief Garrosh didn't add the newest Horde race to their confederation. Sure, the Earthen Ring worked to unite whoever would oppose Deathwing, but it's a "we're going to stop fighting each other because we have something bigger to worry about."

This may just be me but I'm worried that they've run out of compelling villains to use as raid bosses.

Vanilla had Nefarian, Ragnaros, C'thun, Onyxia - all of whom have well established presences in Warcraft history.

BC we had Illidan (I was really sorry to see him go. He was one of my favourite characters, despite being a complete (scrubbed)) and then in Sunwell we even saw Kil'Jaeden.

Wrath of course we were up against Arthas and the first of the loopy Aspects, Malygos.

With Cata, we met the second loopy Aspect Deathwing.

In Pandaland, we have.....no-one. Unless Alexstrasza suddenly decides to have a glass of the crazy juice all the other Aspects have been chugging lately.

Two loopy Aspects in Cataclysm, in fact--Murozond was revealed, too. Interestingly, the original set of raid bosses aside from Kel'Thuzad were more or less unique to WoW. Sure, Nefarian and Onyxia make sense as Deathwing's children, but nothing had ever been heard of them. Same with C'thun and Ragnaros.

Now, it's true that there aren't as many villains that could come from the previous games, but the world of Warcraft wasn't quite so vast back then. Just some other villains who are still out there:

• Kil'jaeden - He was defeated once and might be a bit of a retread, but he's still around.
• Other Old Gods - Still a few of those left.
• Azshara and the naga - The ocean's been awfully quiet.
• Balnazzar, Mal'ganis, and other dreadlords - Balnazzar was never defeated before the Cataclysm, and Mal'ganis disappeared at his last encounter. Their propensity for coming back means that seeing Anetheron, Detheroc, or even Varimathras wouldn't be too much of a surprise.
• Sylvanas - Yes, she's another Horde character, but crazy is pretty much the way she's gone.
• Maiev - Off-screen (read: in a book), she also went crazy and tried to kill a bunch of night elf leaders.
• Scourge remnants - We'll see a revamped Scholomance soon.
• King Rastakhan - I'm sure we'll see him (or at least his underlings) in Pandaria.

See, it's not so bad. And all of them save the Old Gods (who were hinted at) and Rastakhan go back to the original RTS series.