I suggested a long while back that something like this could be an option for those of us who'll never get in to the endgame instances - a "story mode" version of the instance where you can zone in and watch a replay of the fights, similar to the flashback events in the AQ40 questline. You might have to do some small amount yourself, or it might be purely a spectator sport. I'm thinking that you'd zone in to an empty instance strewn with mob corpses, and have an NPC guide you through the lore or the place. When you get to a boss area, you'd initiate the event (activate a scrying bowl?) and watch the fight take place. Maybe from your own perspective, or maybe you could choose to jump to the perspective of one of the participants - who knows?

Blizzard could either record the kills itself using its own team, or it could have a set of PvE contests similar to the PvP tournament. Complete BWL in the fastest time with fewest deaths, and get your performance immortalised for posterity. I'll bet there's plenty of guilds would jump at the chance to do that.

If they went down the competition route, it'd have to be starting from level ground - so you'd have premade toons at level 60 for the MC/BWL/AQ40/Naxx contests, and a fixed set of gear/enchants/consumables to choose from. Of course, you'd have to be allowed to customise your character's features to look like the "real" you. We can probably predict who'd win most of them, but there might be some surprises among the smaller guilds who had individual skill but not hardcore time requirements.

That said, I don't know how much technical effort it would be to implement, and it's anyone's guess how popular it would be, so I can understand why they don't do it. All I know is that there definitely *is* a demand, even though it may be just me :-)

haha, and the main point of the MCed-Nihilum fight would be to not attack kungen from the front, as if he blocks then someone eats a 500k revenge crit.

I believe the developers stated in the most recent irc interview that they had no intention of progression servers similar to EQ where you clear old content to unlock the new content. More specifically one of the developers said they didn't want to focus on old content in the game rather the progression of the game as a whole.

Regarding progression servers: EQ was created 1999. Progress servers arrived in 2006. If WoW were to make a "Progress"-style server right now (June '07), it probably would catch up to current servers by the end of the year.. which begs the question: "Why bother?"

Maybe once WoW has a few more expansions, then it would be reasonable to consider a progress server. Right now, however, there simply isn't enough content to make it last more than a few months.

So Illidan is down. I'd kill for some spoilers about what happens before during and after the encounter.

I know there's an actual quest to defeat him, wonder what the reward/dialog is for that.

Does he actually die? Or does he appear dead and rise from the ashes to announce we failed like Kael?

I'm so giddy, but I won't see this content for months though.

Well if Kael'Thas and Illidan are dead who is going to fight Arthas along with us? Kungen?
Brilliant planning, really.

That entire "Archimonde used Nordrassil as a conduit to gain entry to the Emerald Dream" is an entirely fan based notion. There's nothing officially out there that supports that theory at all.

It's right up there with Tyralyon being Mograine's 2nd son, because he's a Paladin(ignoring there's no proof Mograine is a Paladin), regardless of the fact that he was trapped in Outland almost 2 decades before the events in WC3 happened.

Also the Verdant Sphere is the thing that's been floating around Kael since the events in WC3:TFT.

I always figured the Nightmare was another one of the Old Gods.

Since an Old Gods is in cahoots with Azshara (well, vice versa actually), that'd be a neat way to tie together two possible expansion zones in the future (Maelstrom and Emerald Dream)

I hate all this ominous “The Master” stuff, it’ll only be cool if it turns out to actually be The Master and they put in Davros is a gateway boss.

Edit: Pondered over that being an unfitting post then realised we’d done half a page on Nihilum being a boss fight..

WTB CoT for War of the Ancients. Best instance ever made. Enough said.

Guys. Gurgthock is in the game as a goblin questgiver wearing a... thing. Having Nihilum as a raid boss is so far past the level of inappropriate as to be ridiculous. Gankly is not any one person, or any HWL rogue from any server, he's just a joke based on the fact that undead rogue gankers are extremely popular. The fact that you would read into these things that much is absurd.

They said they had "bigger plans" for it. Probably means it'll be a major feature of a future expansion rather than something thrown in a content patch.

Wouldn't it have been easier for Archimode to say, goto Ashenvale, Feralas, Hinterlands or Duskwood and used the portal to enter the Dream as opposed to blowing himself up? Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face!

Every time someone whines on the WoW forums about deathcoil or cloak of shadows, the Nightmare grows stronger!

In all seriousness, the Emerald Dream has been tossed around, hyped, alluded to and then pushed back so much that the current state of lore seems like it will pass the point where it is any longer relevant.

He's too tall to fit through the portal, and foolishly farmed goblins for his pirate hat without stocking up on Noggenfogger first.