Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Cataclysm: Pre-Launch Events

Lots of mammoths... in a mammosh pit.
Patch 4.0.1

I know I'm late to the party about a post on this "pre-event" stuff, but here it is. It's mostly just my opinion and experience so far, not a guide. :D

Phase 1
It all started November 7th with a round of fun quests in Stormwind (and I'm guessing Org for Horde) that introduced us to the Twilight's Hammer Cultists that are spreading the "Doomsday" message all over town. A few elemental rifts also began opening all over Azeroth and Outland and if you closed a rift (in an area fit for your character to level in) you'd get to turn in the Mysterious Device the rift left behind for some cash. Nuku and I were having so much fun hunting down rifts that we received the [Tripping the Rifts] achievement on the first night.. well technically the second night since it was 2am when we got it haha.

Phase 2
Started a couple days later unlocking some new quests in Ironforge. I'm not sure where your second phase was, my horde friends, but in my humble opinion Phase 2 was barely even a "phase" since there were very, very little new quests.. But I guess it was a phase since it was "PHASED" XD, having us hunt down angry earth elemental spirits that you could only see when you drink an elemental sapta. I did find this phase interesting in the fact that these Earth Elemental mobs exist in the same place as you, yet you can't see them without the buff.. I'm always amused by quests like this. *giggle* Yes, I'm easily amused.

Phase 3
I can't remember when this started but I sure am glad I told Nuku that we needed to do those quests yesterday or we would have missed out! Just another fun round of quests in Stormwind, capturing Twilight Cultist infiltrator's and interrupting their rituals at their "secret" locations within the city. I have to tell you, the part I found MOST amusing of this chain had nothing to do with the actual quests. I was so blown away at the texture of the ritual thingy I stared at it for a few minutes. It was the ritual that was happening in the abandoned building that resembles the SW bank in the Dwarven District.. The textures on the Ritual thingy compared to the textures on the walls of the building were like day and night. It's as if the "vanilla" building textures are 256p x 256p resolution and the new textures are something like 1024 x 1024. XD Pretty. Anyway...

Phase 4
So, the final phase of the Elemental Invasion has started today and if you haven't noticed, then you've likely not been logged on at all today because trade has been hopping with plenty of, "INV PLZ" and "WHEN IS THE NEXT INVASION??!?!" I realized later that there is no quest for the invasion so it doesnt matter if you're in a raid group or not.. It only helps to keep track of where the majority of people are fighting.

Here's how the invasions work:
In Stormwind - At the start, everyone who can help, grabs Sandbags to start placing at specifically marked locations. Objective notifications appear in the top center of your screen (or wherever your PvP/zone objectives normally show up for you depending on your UI.) When all the sandbag locations have been uhm.. sandbagged *giggle* Wind and Water elementals spawn all over the city. The key is to close every rift in each flagged section of the city (marked on your map) to secure the locations, and to free a certain number of trapped citizens within each area. Once the city is secure, portals in the Trade District open to the "perpetrators" lairs: Prince Sarsarun from (a place resembling) Ahn'Qiraj who is responsible for the air elementals and Kai'ju Gahz'rilla in Zul'Farrak for the water elementals. (But at this point you can queue for all four bosses, I'll name the other 2 in a moment.)

In Ironforge - At the start, this is just like in Stormwind, but the only difference is they are "wall reinforcements" instead of sandbags and the elements are Earth and Fire. When you've secured the city, the portals open in the Commons to the ones responsible for the Earth and Fire elementals: Crown Princess Theradras of our beloved instance Mauradon and Grand Ambassador Flamelash of Blackrock Depths.

These Event bosses are available in the dungeon finder for only about an hour after the portals open and then they do not reappear in the dungeon finder until the next invasion occurs. And I do believe that the bosses pertaining to the certain elements are inaccessible if we fail to secure the cities, as in, if IF was not secured but SW was, then only the Wind and Water bosses will be available for example. But I'm not exactly sure, so don't quote me on that. XD

Conclusion
I'm having a freakin' blast with the pre-launch events and I am so happy to be a part of it before our world is changed forever!!!! XD

5 comments :

  1. Yes, if you don't secure a city, you don't get access to those bosses. On my server, TB was bugged and we couldn't rescue the last 21 citizens, so we never finished and those bosses were unavailable. I expect that to be fixed with this morning's maintenance.

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  2. The Horde ones took place all in Org/Durotar, except for the one that has you run to Nagrand. I did them last night on my belfadin. I still need to drag her skinny butt to TB so I can get the rift achievement. ... Find $30 so she can wake up as a human!

    The little elementals in IF are earth, and in Org, they're fire. The ones that spawn in the cities are different too, with fire and earth spawning in Org, and wind and water in SW. I haven't been in TB or IF during the invasion, so I'm guessing the other two types are there. :3

    And luckily for people like me, everything is still going on. :3

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  3. "And I do believe that the bosses pertaining to the certain elements are inaccessible if we fail to secure the cities, as in, if IF was not secured but SW was, then only the Wind and Water bosses will be available for example."

    Confirmed. If the city is not defended successfully in one hour the corresponding bosses are not available.

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  4. We expect a song about Cata from you!

    :D

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  5. Been having loads of fun doing these elemental sidequests with you =). It's just too bad Blizz didnt make them a little more involved and with more story line.

    Or maybe they wanted players to get through all phases really fast because they knew each phase would be broken 2/3 of its uptime anyway. XD

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