Caverns of Time: Mount Hyjal

fivehundred · 12/28/06, 12:31 PM

http://www.blizzplanet.com/content/657/

For those that may not be able to access the link at work:

World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade - Caverns of Time: Mount Hyjal

Caverns of Time: Mount Hyjal will ship with World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade expansion retail launch. The dungeon requires 25 player raid groups. However, not everyone can enter the dungeon. This dungeon requires many pre-requisites:

1. You must be level 70

2. Complete Caverns of Time: Durnholde (Old Hillsbrad) and Complete Caverns of Time: Dark Portal (Black Morass).

3. Talk to Soridormi (Adult) - the consort of Nozdormu. You may find her roaming around the clockwork in Caverns of Time. She will give you a quest titled: The Vial's of Eternity.

However, this is no 1-2-3 immediate quest. To acquire the two vials of eternity requires the completition of many quest chains that will take months to accomplish and good gear.

4. You must complete the Cipher of Damnation quest chain in Shadowmoon Valley and the Stormspire quests in Netherstorm. The Stormspire quest chain starts in Area 52 with the Consortium Ethereal. The chain ends when Nexus-Prince Harammad sends you to A'dal with a crystal. Maybe you should have talked to Akama at the Warden's Cage in Shadowmoon Valley.

5. A'dal will give you the Arcatraz Key quest: The crystal key is divided in two halves. The first half is held by the last boss of Tempest Keep: Botanica - Splintertree. The second half is held by the last boss of Tempest Keep: Mechanar. Once you assemble the Arcatraz Key and have completed the two quest chains: Stormspire and Cipher of Damnation -- Khadgar will talk to you, asking you to talk to A'dal. A'dal will give you the Kael'Thas dungeon key chain quest. The key is named Tempest Key - for the final showdown with Prince Kael'Thas Sunstrider.

6. Brace yourself - - you need to be revered with the Sha'tar Reputation faction to obtain the Tempest Keep Heroic-Dungeon key, Revered with the Lower City to obtain the Auchenai Key to unlock the Auchindoun Dungeons in Heroic-mode, Revered with the Cenarion Expedition to unlock the Heroic-mode for Coilfang Reservoir dungeons, and Revered with Thrallmar/Honor Hold to unlock the Heroic-mode Difficulty for Hellfire Citadel dungeons. Hope you have had fun reading this far.

7. Complete Trial of the Naaru: Mercy; Trial of the Naaru: Strength; and Trial of the Naaru: Tenacity. No easy task ... for you have to complete the three trials in Heroic-mode. Trash mobs hit for 15,000 non-crit damage, no less. You have to kill Murmur in Auchindoun: Shadow Laberynth, retrieve an unused Axe of the Executioner from Hellfire Citadel: Shattered Halls, Kalithresh's Trident in Coilfang Reservoir: Steamvaults, and to rescue Millhouse Manastorm (gnome) after killing the last boss of Tempest Keep: Arcatraz. Once you have completed those four dungeons in Heroic-mode, return to A'dal and he will grant you the Tempest Key to enter Prince Kael'Thas dungeon -- which requires 25 players. Kill Kael'Thas and loot his Vial of Eternity.

8. Now you need to kill Lady Vashj and loot her Vial of Eternity. No data has been gathered concerning the requirements to enter Lady Vashj's dungeon.

9. By now you should be Friendly with the Scales of the Sands faction.

10. Now you can enter Caverns of Time: Mount Hyjal

In this dungeon you go back in time 4 years into the past to fight alongside Malfurion Stormrage, Tyrande Whisperwind, Thrall, and Jaina Proudmoore against Archimonde and the Burning Legion. Your mission is to stop the Infinity Dragonflight from altering time.

THE VIALS OF ETERNITY

INTRO

Soridormi: The Battle of Mount Hyjal is one of the most well-guarded events of this timeline. Should an intruder alter its outcome, the impact would extend to all subsequent moments in history.

As the Aspect's prime mate I'm far more in tune with the flow of time than other bronze dragons. I recently sensed a minute ripple in time emanating from the events surrounding the Battle of Mount Hyjal. Someone or something is attempting to change this timeline and they must be stopped.

Soridormi: Seven vials were drawn from the Well of Eternity by Illidan. He poured three into the lake on top of Mount Hyjal and a second Well of Eternity was created. For years the rest were believed lost.

With the opening of the Dark Portal, we've come to know that he gave one each to his lieutenants Kael'thas and Vashj. Retrieve what remains of them; we wil need them as foci to open a gateway to any events tied to Mount Hyjal, recent or ancient. The outcome of the Battle of Mount Hyjal must be preserved.

I've asked the impossible of you, yet I expect you to succeed. Much depends on it.

QUEST OBJECTIVES

Soridormi at Caverns of Time wants you to retrieve Vashj's Vial Remnant from Lady Vashj at Coilfang Reservoir and Kael's Vial Remnant from Kael'Thas Sunstrider at Tempest Keep.

Rewards: 24g 60s

If this is, in fact, how you get attuned to Caverns of Time: Mount Hyjal, I feel it represents a significant change on Blizzard's part in how players gain access to the end game content. I'm curious as to what EJ readers feel is Blizzard's motivation for this change, other than the obvious one of extending the life of their content. I've thought about that a bit this morning and a couple of things come to mind:

1) An attunement quest like this may be a way to allow the "hardcore" players to distinguish themselves from the casual guys. Perhaps they felt that opportunity was necessary due to the lower raid caps and the abundance of "raid quality gear" readily available in the expansion.

2) Does anyone think this might be an attempt to address the consumable issues we faced in Naxxramus? I think the extra farming required to complete the end game content in a reasonable amount of time led to a lot of burnout and guild turnover. Perhaps the encounters in Hyjal will require a lot more "finesse" (a la 4 horsemen) rather than brute force (a la Patchwerk). If that were the case, Blizzard would still make you spend the time you would spend farming for consumables, yet they are not really required to be successful in the instance.

In any case, getting an entire guild through this sounds like a monumental task for everyone but the most hardcore guilds. What other theories do you guys have that might explain this rather radical change in what's required to gain admission to the end game content?

♦ Tecton · 12/28/06, 12:40 PM

Rewards: 24g 60s

That bit made me laugh.

The first thought that comes to mind when reading this is that a LOT of people aren't going to see this for some time, and getting yourself attuned to this is going to induce some major guild-member poaching from the bigger fish of the server.

From Blizzard's side, this mostly justs looks like another way to force people into Heroic level content, which isn't a bad thing.

♦ Praetorian · 12/28/06, 12:41 PM

There's a lot of speculation here and thus I'm not sure how much there is to really discuss, but the writeup you linked is crafted specifically so as to make getting keyed seem like some tremendous ordeal.

I could produce a writeup of getting Onyxia Scale Cloaks necessary to do Nefarian that starts with running BRD and goes through the full Onyxia key quest that makes it sound equally long and arduous.

Revered faction rep is something every will have unless they level to 70 by grinding in some secluded corner of the world for ten levels. Quests and instance runs especially make the rep fairly fast. Unlocking Heroics is something everyone will want to do, regardless.

Basically you need to kill Vashj and Kael'Thas in order to access CoT: Hyjal. Ok, sounds fun to me.

Farming something repeatedly or engaging in tedium is not fun. Having to kill bosses and run instances that I'd already be running regardless? Cool. What's the problem?

Also I laughed at this:

Trash mobs hit for 15,000 non-crit damage, no less.

Oh, ok.

Nite_Moogle · 12/28/06, 12:42 PM

Now that is a quest series. I heartily approve at something you have to bust your ass to work for.

Basically you need to kill Vashj and Kael'Thas in order to access CoT: Hyjal. Ok, sounds fun to me

Now the big question: since you knocked off two of Illidan's cronies, is Illidan still the 'end boss' of Outland, or will that distinction be the final boss of Hyjal?

Edit: I think the 15k damage is pre-AC mitigation

Ultramax · 12/28/06, 12:42 PM

Please, these doesn't represent anything. A guild mate in who get into the beta with the guild invites could have every step done except Vashj and Kael within the next two weeks if he wanted to.

Here, let me make a similiar list for Naxx atunement.

1. Get job
2. Buy game
3. Install game
4. Level to 60
5. Make UBRS Key
6. Complete Onyxia key
7. Kill Onyxia
8. Farm Essence of Fire
9. Make Onyxia scale cloak
10. Get BWL Atunned
11. Farm BWL for gear because otherwise Naxx would be pretty hard.
12. Farm AQ40 gear because otherwise Naxx would be pretty hard.
13. Farm Stonescale Eels.
14. Make many Flasks of Titans because Naxx would be pretty hard otherwise.
15. Get Argent Dawn Rep
16. Give Nexus and Arcane Crystal to NPC in LHC.

You see the problem with that? All the stupid things this retard listed for Hyjal attunement are actually things you'd fucking do anyway if you wanted to raid. So for those of you who are not in the beta let me simplify the entire process.

COMPLETE HYJAL ATTUNEMENT GUIDE
Kill Kael'thas.
Kill Vashj.

Edit: Gurg is a dickhead for being a faster typer.

DeeNogger · 12/28/06, 12:46 PM

Im very interested in how a raid will be set up inside such a unique scenario like the Battle of Mount Hyjal. In every raid instance in WoW classic the set up was the raiders invading the bad guys lair (MC your going in to kill Rag, Bwl you are entering to slay Nef, etc etc). In this case things will (in theory) be occurring within the instance regardless of player interaction. Does this mean there will be a time limit? Will parts of the instance (event wise) reset upon a wipe or every night? The things possible could result in an amazingly unique raid instance like nothing done in WoW classic. I am very excited.

More on topic, this seems just like the Ony key quest 2.0, a little longer and in depth maybe, but essentially the same thing. I wasnt around back in the day when Drakk only dropped 1 blood and guilds were making huge pushes to attune 40-50 people. But it was done back then, and this seems like essentially the same thing.

Jeht · 12/28/06, 12:47 PM

If you replaced, "stuff you need to do to get Hyjal attuned" with "cool stuff you get to do in TBC" I don't think anyone would be bitching.

♦ Abradix · 12/28/06, 12:48 PM

To be honest it doesn't seem that huge a deal to me, besides the obvious fact that you need to clear two raid instances to unlock it. This simply shows the tier of the instance though, until now it was very simple, we started with having just MC, then we got BWL which was more difficult, etcetera. If MC, BWL, AQ40 and Naxxramas were in the game at release though, blizz might've put a sign somewhere saying "Naxxramas isnt advise if you havent completed MC and BWL yet, be warned". That sign is basically what this questline is. The lore behind the quest sounds funky though.

Mist · 12/28/06, 12:49 PM

Originally Posted by Praetorian

There's a lot of speculation here and thus I'm not sure how much there is to really discuss, but the writeup you linked is crafted specifically so as to make getting keyed seem like some tremendous ordeal.

I could produce a writeup of getting Onyxia Scale Cloaks necessary to do Nefarian that starts with running BRD and goes through the full Onyxia key quest that makes it sound equally long and arduous.

Revered faction rep is something every will have unless they level to 70 by grinding in some secluded corner of the world for ten levels. Quests and instance runs especially make the rep fairly fast. Unlocking Heroics is something everyone will want to do, regardless.

Basically you need to kill Vashj and Kael'Thas in order to access CoT: Hyjal. Ok, sounds fun to me.

Farming something repeatedly or engaging in tedium is not fun. Having to kill bosses and run instances that I'd already be running regardless? Cool. What's the problem?

Also I laughed at this:

Trash mobs hit for 15,000 non-crit damage, no less.

Oh, ok.

Them little water elemental things in Steam Vaults do hit that hard, actually. :P

Ultramax · 12/28/06, 12:51 PM

Not anymore, fixed last patch.

♦ Praetorian · 12/28/06, 12:56 PM

Anyway, this is mildly informative but mostly hyperbole. I'm sure there's a similar thread on R&D complaining about how this is proof that Blizz hates casuals, and if not, I bet there will be soon!