Obviously spoilers in this thread, don't read any further if you want it to be a total suprise.

(Are there things in this thread that I'm not finding?)

New patch today (4/25) pushed out a Jimmy McWeaksauce to PTRs that lets anyone with honored+ rep with VE get attuned/ported to Mount Hyjal. On live to zone into Hyjal you must kill Vashj and Prince Kaelthas (so no one on live is keyed yet). Patch was 38 megs by the way, fairly large (the original 2.1.0 patch was something like 200 megs). Lots and lots of little bug fixes, like hunter, alliance epic mount wingsflaps, etc.

Hyjal is in Tanaris obviously, one of the CoT wings. When you zone in, you are in a small cavern with a raid entrance (another zonein), and two gates "Night Elf" and "Horde". There is also a vendor that sells 3 pages of gem designs, and the T6 vendor (!).

You can see the gem vendor loot at http://www.mmo-champion.com.

When you zone into the raid instance you start out, as Alliance, at a small alliance base with lady Jaine Proudmoore and lots of 70 elites, including horsemen, dwarf riflemen, NE priests, bloodelf Sorceress' (?).

The starting area is standard alliance structures, few towers and buildings, think Theramore. You start the encounter and rush out to fight Undead - a few 70 elite abominations (naxx) are the first encounter.

Don't see a map yet, not sure if its because of a mod or there is no map for Hyjal ingame.

No obvious zone-out point in Hyjal. Graveyard is standard CoT GY, so a 3-4 minute run. Fighting the first groups now, more later.

I was wondering that too... and im still looking O_o

Probably high elves, since at the time of Mount Hyjal there weren't technically any blood elves.

Do they look anything like this?
http://www.battle.net/war3/images/hu.../sorceress.gif
http://www.battle.net/war3/images/hu.../sorceress.gif

So hyjal is harder than BT?
I did not see that coming.

[e] Nevermind, I read the comment wrong, I thought he said there was a jonny mc weaksause handing out T6 in front of hyjal.

The T6 vendor wants the T6 tokens, so...

Hyjal definitely does not seem harder than BT. Our instance got bugged and stuff started despawning, and the monsters weren't running to us anymore. But it looks like you have to defend the base against multiple waves (like Black Morass). The first wave is 8 ghouls, they die very easy and I believe are CC'able. They spawn in turn necromancers and mages as they die, but Jaina really owns hard (she had at least 9 mobs on her at one point and never dropped below 96%).

Its still buggy, basically any wipe means your done it would seem (lol), as the waves get bugged up after wipes and randomly stop. But so far the monsters die pretty easily, you get NPC help, seems to start out easy and ramp up. We pulled a bunch of abominations and they all died very easy and were hitting the tanks for 1-2k.

By the way its trivial for wall jumpers to jump into the alliance/horde base camps at the moment, just jump around one of the corners at the locked gates and you can get inside easy. I'm exploring the entire zone at the moment, Thrall is the horde commander (and not KoS if your alliance!).

There are three camps - Alliance, Horde, and the Night Elf camp where the World Tree is. You start the zone with undead attacking the alliance/horde base camps, so far the farthest I've gotten is 3 waves (boss is 3d wave). I assume you slowly fallback to the Night Elf camp at some point (they are all connected), and witness Archimonde and the World Tree events from WC3. The zone is not very big at all, you can ride from one end to the other in under 5 minutes. I was told pre-TBC that Hyjal was planned to be a raid that took under an hour once you mastered it, and I can definitely see that.

http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/8...7024237vh1.jpg

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/6...7024554hp4.jpg

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/9...7024418ry3.jpg

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/8...7024434ld9.jpg

Inside the "Locked" Encampment

Wow, that truly looks like the WC3 event. Is there much more to it than that? Do the bosses attack the raid which is fortified or something (ala AQ20)?

I mean I guess that's what spronk is saying... still, really unique idea. Could be a lot of fun.

It's all fun and games until you hear Archimonde's ridiculous voice.

Anyone else notice Jaina's +100% Spirit Aura?

Assuming she'll be an integral part of the Hyjal event, and not only present at the Alliance camp, this seems like a nice way to passively provide additional longetivity for your casters without having them resorting to consumables.

Ahh how I miss WC3's brilliance aura.

During the end of beta event, I was standing within range of 4 Jainas, and their auras stacked. I remember wishing I was a caster with Imp. Divine Spirit just to see some big #s.

i would assume all 4 leaders have some kind of special raid buffing aura that they put out.

So that's why the Priest Tier DPS gear has so much spirit! <sarcasm>

huge place, but bugged as you can see

Anyone looking to set up some organized test raids for this? Odds are a great many more people have been able to dupe enough gems/mats over to have fully kitted out characters by now, as well.

Truly amazing.

Looks like a far more interesting version of Black Morass 25 man style. Looks exactly like the Wc3 level in nearly every aspect. I can't believe what I predicted came true (yet to be seen but from what im hearing you will be fighting in each of the bases defending against waves eventually with a boss). Usually when you think about what it might be its very far off, yet this looks like its going to directly from Wc3... making it even more awesome. What sounds even better is the length it will take once mastered. One hour to complete when you get the hang of it? Superb once its on farm.

Hopefully they continue with this route. If the next expansion set was say, The Caverns of Time where they add tons of instances to the place I'd buy it. Just from the track record with this place thus far the area looks like it will be 3 for 3.

Maybe my dream of a 25 man raid instance where you fight along side hellscream to kill Cenarius, then stop hellscream with thrall, with the ultimate conclusion of killing Mannaorth might be met. So much potential with the CoT!

ah, so the enemy count is part of the zone. I'd thought someone had whipped up a mod already

On this note Jimmy McWeaksauce is no longer selling the BT attunement neck, at least for a couple of fresh characters I copied over tonight. So if you were planning on trying BT this weekend, plan on Hyjal instead if you don't have enough people already copied over and attuned.

I ran around and explored Hyjal a bit and it's looking incredible so far if you're a lore junkie, can't wait to try it.

Personally I was a bit underwhelmed. I honestly expected a more "epic" feeling to the encounter in general, and I just didn't get that after playing around with the first few waves. That might change when I see the bosses, and I hope will change with the World Tree comes into play(and all that goes along with it).