#gates of ahn'qiraj

[pulpsandcomics2]

The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj by Johan Grenier

[nzoth-the-corruptor]

Nightmare Incursions

Honestly they're not as cool as they sound. They're a content loop that takes place in a phased version of the base zone that has a funky skybox & a few of the unused vanilla Emerald Dream assets thrown around.

You get a mission brief by completing a quest in the vicinity of the portal, which is a container you open up: it contains a random quest and an item you can deputize members of your party with to give them that quest also (instead of the standard 'share quest' function you HAVE to use this limited charge item to give the quest to them.) This quest may call you to kill mobs, kill a mini-boss, loot an object off the ground, talk to scouts within the Nightmare to obtain an intelligence report, or gather resources with a gathering profession. When you turn in, you get another mission brief.

And all the quest text is copy-pasted between quests of the same type with a few word substitutions. There is no lore. Just go in, do the job, get big exp and gold, rinse repeat.

Well, there is one part with lore...

Nightmare Crafting

I've not completed the questline yet, but wowhead has a guide on it.

Of the parts I've completed so far (which have been absolutely miserable to do on Crusader Strike, thanks for killing off Chaos Bolt I really appreciate it Blizzard) it involves locating a horrific creature located on the very edge of the Ashenvale Nightmare which gives you a debuff that will guarantee your death if you aggro anything in its area, then returning to the field officer — she'll have dialogue for you.

Dialogue I was unable to screenshot because I was trying to get this done while a full Horde raid was massacring everyone trying to access her and was just rapid clicking through everything. It doesn't appear to be recorded elsewhere either yet.

After you mash through her dialogue, she gives you a quest to talk to Loganaar in Moonglade, who pretty much just goes "I dunno... that's scary. There's this really cool guy in the Swamp of Sorrows who might be able to help us though, one of the greatest of the Green Dragonflight! his name is Eranikus. Go contact this loser ranger in a cave to petition him for aid."

This sends you to Itharius, who keeps up his weird elven ranger LARPing the whole time. He says the trolls have returned to the Temple and he's worried what happened to the dragons in the temple, so you need to go check it out for him. Halfway through the raid you can enter the room that gives you the completion ticker for the quest, so between Dreamscythe & Weaver and Jammal'an & Ogom, but before you've seen any real Nightmare shit (Dreamscthye and Weaver are not corrupted, they're trying to stop you from reaching the corruption.)

You go back to Itharius and tell him that, yeah, the temple is overrun with trolls. Itharius goes 'oh that's bad' and sends you back to Loganaar while he goes to check out the Temple himself.

and that's where I stopped because I was ready to take a break, but when I go back to Loganaar my good friend the Shadowy Figure will be there waiting for me because she is my wife who has learned the way into my heart is giving me BiS gear.

Sunken Temple Raid

It's fun, but it definitely has certain composition requirements.

nice healer tier, though.........

I'm only 5/8 so I dunno how the raid ends yet in terms of quests and whatnot; I think the real test will be if we get a rerun of the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj in SoD to see whether or not it redoes the Eranikus chapter to be more complete.

Mannnnnnnn, blizz adding nightmare content to SoD is tempting. You can go through the nightmare portals and there's content and quests with them. And sunken temple is now a raid. Do they follow up with Eranikus? This is like the biggest vanilla hole that always interested me. The unfinished dream/nightmare stuff. There any good videos covering it? Idk if I got time/motivation to level =/

[requiemofthefallen]

ROTF at the games of AQ opening.  I remember it getting very laggy that night, and then I got kicked off, and couldn’t be bothered to try and get back on.

[shekinah-the-second]

The Nerubian empire being in a tundra always made me wonder why Blizzard chose such a weird place for spider people. In the unlikely event that spiders do end up living in the tundra, it likely wouldn't be for very long. Spiders are more likely to survive in forests, where they would hibernate in the winter, or in the case of some species, simply die and while the next generation of spiderkin mature and head off to eat ALL the insects. Spiders like warmer climates best, because that's where the food is most likely to be. In WoW's case? You bet your ass there's insects in warm places.

Logically, Silithus would be where the Nerubians should be. It's warm, there's no shortage of food, and look at that, they think they have an empire. Ohhh, child.

Logic isn't the only reason I think of Silithus when I think of the Nerubian empire. When I hear Abub'arak--or read it, I guess--one name comes to mind: Anubis, god of the afterlife. I don't know if Blizzard meant to invoke this when they created Anub'arak, and heaven knows that there are more blatant images of Anubis in the Ahn'Qiraj raids, but it still springs to mind. It doesn't help that the Nerubian empire uses powerful colors in their empire when we go to Azjol-Nerub. Black, blues, greens, and most striking to me, purple. (And no, I cannot show you an image, mostly because the screenshots I've taken of the dungeon are focused more on my character than on the architecture. Sorry!)

Now, purple doesn't just pop out at me because it's my favorite color. It's also because, in WoW, it's invocative of shadow magic, which we've seen primarily in Twilight's Hammer, who fucking love Silithus. Their robes are a dark violet, dark enough to the point where I wonder if some of them died from heat exhaustion, and the crystals around Silithus are a rusty purple-ish hue. The parallel of a spider empire and an insectoid one are not lost on me either, and that's something I believe Blizzard intended (though whether or not they were successful with this intention is up to the reader).

Now, as much as I love Wrath of the Lich King, I do think that with the Nerubian Empire and its remainders, few that they were, should not have been in Northrend. We already had the Scourge, an old god, more trolls, dragons, and proto-humans. Not every expansion needs to have ALL THE LORE crammed in, as too much on one's plate can lead to people not wanting to eat at all (which is a common complaint I hear about Cataclysm, that there was way too much going on). If it were me, I would have the Nerubian Empire, or what remained of it, in Silithus. Instead of night elf buildings in the area, there would be Nerubian. There would be a constant war, ever shifting with the sands, between the Qiraji and the Nerubians. The night elves, in my humble opinion, would be wise enough to stay out of that, but would still monitor it. After all, the victor could and probably would be their next enemy. Hell, even the dragons would probably stay out of it, though they would watch from the skies.

Back to Anub'arak now. In Wrath, he's undead. He's been dead for a long time, and Ner'zhul decided to raise him from death and force him and his minions into servitude. The ones who are alive despise the Scourge and see Anub'arak as a traitor. The undead ones, well, they probably don't really think. Except for Anub'arak himself, since he's actually able to speak and not just hiss and skitter and kill. Northrend is rife with undeath, but it's not as commonly seen in Silithus. Yes, there are the ghosts of sentinels and druids, but those are more spirits who have unfinished business. That is not to say, however, that something cannot be undead in Silithus.

Enter Moam.

This thing is not undead, but what it is is a living statue. It was built by Emperor Vek'lor as a Destroyer that would put all others to shame. Apparently he succeeded, too, because this guy's a boss in the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj. The reason I bring this up, though, is because it started out as a statue, something that was inanimate and not alive in the slightest. But C'thun gave it life, and it became a living statue. To me, that isn't all that different from giving a corpse life. I'm not talking a fresh corpse, such as someone who is dead for ten minutes tops. I'm talking dead-dead. Like, mummy dead. Not being able to be revived even as a miracle dead. You get the idea, I'm sure. With this in mind, this would work for an undead Nerubian and his minions to once again rise from the depths of the sands, or hell, just remain underground and be forced into servitude of their enemies. Well, the leader of their enemies, I guess. But I still like idea of at least one Qiraji being a dick about it and having the Nerubian "servants" do the menial work. And Anub'arak? Oh yes, you can be damned sure there would be hell for him to pay.

Now, theoretically, this could go on for some time. Let's say the Qiraji were more vindictive about it, and they end up torturing some Nerubians to death (again). C'thun could bring them back to "life," but I don't think he would do this forever. C'thun, remember, is using the Qiraji, and their bullshit would probably not interest him. Why should he fix their toys if they're just going to keep breaking them? He doesn't care about their petty egos. He wants the world. Let's say Anub'arak does die again, and the Qiraji ask C'thun once again for him to be raised. C'thun does so, but he also brings back Anub'arak's intelligence. No longer is this beast a mindless slave. Oh, and he remembers the humiliating defeat, as well as the tortures from his previous lives. He ain't here to do the clean-up anymore, unless it means cleaning the Ruins of Ahn'qiraj of all this insectoid filth.

Now, imagine this in-game. It would be big, I think, because Silithus was pretty huge when the questline and raids were released. Imagine walking into the Ruins, and doing it as normal, with the possible hints here and there that there's something going on at the temple that was not meant to. Of course, this piques the interest of the player, and probably their characters as well. RP-wise, this has a lot of potential. Going into the Temple, it's an entirely different scene. It's all-out war between the Nerubians and the Qiraji. You could potentially pick a side, with a Qiraji quest-giver on one side of the entrance, and a Nerubian one on the other. Choosing one over the other would lead you to be Neutral with the side you choose, and Hated with the side you're against. You could also choose not to accept either quest, but this would make the raid harder, as you'd have Qiraji AND Nerubians coming after you (whether or not the loot would effect this, I don't know; loot in vanilla WoW was random as all hell, and any kind of increase in drops were practically negligent).

The quest you choose would lead to a cutscene, which would be a convenient way to load the raid so you would fight the appropriate bosses. The cutscene would basically be the NPC talking about war and them and rewards and blah blah, you're clearly evil, but so are they, so give me shinies. The camera would pan through the temple, showing Qiraji and Nerubians fighting to the death, and showing the appropriate bosses where they would be, whether they were Qiraji or Nerubian. If the raid leader did not choose a quest, however, the raid would be presented as thus: there would still be fighting amongst Nerubians and Qiraji, but once aggro'd, both would attack the raid. The bosses would all likely have scenes. For example, Prophet Skeram and a Nerubian prophet. They would be bickering and hissing at each other, both wanting to stop the raid as it enters, but wanting to do so for Qiraji/Nerubian. Each boss would have a different loot table, but only one would be fought (no, we are not doing Twin Emperor fights for every raid boss, that is suicide). Depending on which one is aggro'd, the other would fuck off, basically saying something along the lines of "I hope it hurts for you as much as it has me" or maybe "I'll enjoy watching this." I dunno, I'm not good at boss one-liners.

The Prophet Skeram/The Prophet... Thoth'ax? (Look, I'm trying here, okay?) Silithid Royalty/Nerubian Miners Battleguard Sartura/Silkcloak Obzor Fankriss the Undying/Lykho'sedat the Patient Viscidus (seriously, though, fuck that thing, go frost or go home, I guess) Princess Huhuran/The Silver Bones Twin Emperors/Anub'arak Ouro/Scorpio? C'thun

I'm not going to go through every boss encounter with painstaking detail (although if there is interest in it, I'll definitely come up with attacks and strategies!). This is just a basic idea of what players and characters are going to end up facing. Either way ends up leading to C'thun, but once C'thun is down, in comes the quest giver, crawling in and skittering up to the party. He thanks you, for whatever that's worth, and you get rep boost (in addition to the reputation you have gained and lost from killing one side instead of the other), but something unsaid also happens. A quartermaster is present in the entrance of the dungeon, next to the questgiver, when entered a second time. Of course, vanilla wasn't known for giving out tons of reputation, it was all about the grind, you get to see what wears are being sold to you that you can get in exchange for what drops from mobs and bosses. Of course, this would be gated by reputation, with the best loot being available at Exalted, but starting at Neutral, you can get food/drink and potions that would give you a minor boost on some fights (+10 shadow resistance, for example, or a bonus to HP). For the Neutral goodies, it would require "shells" that drop from trash mobs. Starting at Friendly, you'll need drops from bosses, because that's when you start getting the good stuff. Weapons, armor, rings, trinkets. Relics and totems, too, because druids and shamans need love, too. Maybe off-hands as well, but I don't remember off-hands being used prominently in vanilla.

As always, I would love to hear feedback!

Moam image courtesy of Wowpedia.

[vanillaclassicwow]

Gates of Ahn'Qiraj . . Credit to from @sklumpo #PeterLeeArt - - - 👣 Follow @vanillaclassicwow 👀 Tag Your Friends Below Hashtags #classicwow #vanillawow #worldofwarcraft #worldofwarcraftclassic #classicworldofwarcraft #warcraft #warcraft2019 #blizzard #blizz #mmo #wowaddict #worldofwarcraftaddict #barov #vanillaclassicwow #vanillagames #battleforazeroth #gehennas #gold4vanilla #wowclassic #stalagg #wowlegion #forthehorde #forthealliance #sylvanas #anduin #alliance #horde More on https://vanilla.games Classic WoW Gold, Boosts, Accounts & Powerleveling Services on https://ift.tt/2XXXUHF - @classicwowpowerleveling @classicwowgold WoW Classic EU Servers: Firemaw PvP, Gehennas PvP, Golemagg PvP, Shazzrah PvP, Sulfuron PvP, Lucifron PvP, Venoxis PvP, Flamegor PvP, Zandalar Tribe RP-PvP, Mirage Raceway PvE, Pyrewood Village PvE, Everlook PvE, Razorfen PvE, Auberdine PvE, Chromie PvE, Hydraxian Waterlords RP WoW Classic NA Servers: Skeram PvP, Blaumeux PvP, Stalagg PvP, Faerlina PvP, Herod PvP, Thalnos PvP, Whitemane PvP, Fairbanks PvP, Arugal PvP (AU), Grobbulus RP-PvP, Myzrael PvE, Mankrik PvE, Atiesh PvE, Pagle PvE, Remulos PvE (AU), Bloodsail Buccaneers RP Unknown Author. If you know him, tag him please.

[wyrmguardsecrets]

If the Diablo III Netflix animation goes well, I want to see Blizzard lend them stuff like the Purging of Stratholme. Ahn'qiraj and the opening of the Gate. The battle through the Black Temple and Tempest Keep. The Argent Tournament and Icecrown Citadel with a flashback to the Massacre in Hearthglen. The Hour of Twilight. The corrupting of the Vale of Eternal Blossom and the Siege of Orgrimmar. It'd be awesome to have a Bloody Tears level battle with Illidan.

[zul-gurub]

[feelmyrayne]

When did you start playing?, Your first character?,and How did you come up with your main’s name?

I started playing shortly before the opening of the gates of ahn'qiraj. I was 12 I think. My first character was bloodyrayne my warlock, we had just gotten Blood Rayne the video game and I was obsessed with Rayne. My first email through Yahoo was also blood Rayne related.

[bruddahme]

Bruddah.me - World Of Warcraft Classic Gates Of Ahn'Qiraj Coming Next Month

https://bruddah.me/world-of-warcraft-classic-gates-of-ahnqiraj-coming-next-month/

[the-royal-courier]

Sunday Events

It’s Sunday, January 21st. End the weekend with a little fun.

The Steel Pub

When: 6 (server) Where: in Anvilmar, Dun Morough

Tonight’s Steel Pub will be the last of the year!  With the coming holidays, we’ll be too busy with deliveries to open our doors.  That said, come on down to tonight’s pub for a Winter’s Veil celebration!   There will be a contest for the best dressed, and the best drinker!

Be sure to stop by and try our holiday menu, as well as take home some bottles or casks for your loved ones!  It’s not too late!  We hope to see you there, and may your inner furnaces always burn bright!

(Contact @ironstoutbrews for more information)

Call of the Scarab

On this date, the Scarab Gong was rung, opening the gates of Ahn'Qiraj. Represent your faction by gathering supplies or by slaying Twilight and Qiraji forces. The winning faction gets to fly their banner next to the Scarab Gong for the rest of the year!

Looking for other RP opportunities throughout the week? Check out our Business Directory Section!

(http://the-royal-courier.tumblr.com/Directory )

Visit these pages to find a business to meet your needs today!

(We will continue to compile and add new businesses as we receive information about them. If you run a business, an RP hub, a spot that people are welcome to come RP with you or others at, complete the form Here:  https://tinyurl.com/wrabusdir (Cross faction RP is welcome too)

Thank you all and please contact @risrielthron if you have any questions or trouble with the form.)

(Do you host an Alliance side event, storefront, show, bar, etc on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday? Message @risrielthron​ to be added to this weekly event post. Cross-faction events welcome!)

[neomushi]

I didn’t care about them bringing back vanilla but I just remembered... Gates of Ahn'Qiraj...

it’s unlikely but if there is even a sliver of a chance for this mount to come back...

[dofuskamas011]

If you missed these contents of WoW Classics, you will regret it

Waiting for the opening of The Temple of Ahn'Qiraj

Vanilla Warcraft added a new raid - Ahn'Qiraj Temple in 2006 and introduced a special game mechanic, which is one of Blizzard's truly bold moves. Simply put, in order to open the door of The Temple of Ahn'Qiraj, all the players of the server need to work together to complete the two parts of the task.

The first part is to collect supplies. Alliance and Horde players need to pay an amazing amount of supplies, but in return you will receive a certain amount of reward after donating supplies and increase your faction reputation. ZZWOW provides the best service for all WoW Classic players! You can buy the cheapest WoW Classic Gold, the fastest WoW Classic Boosting Service, at https://www.zzwow.com/. They have the most classal staff and customer service, you can rest assured to buy everything you need. The second part is the opening task. A hero player need to complete an epic quest chain. Each branch task he face is an extremely difficult challenge. It is not simply a "go where and kill 10 monsters." Of course, the rewards are also very generous. If you successfully complete all the tasks and use the quicksand scepter to open the gates of the Ahn'Qiraj Temple, you will get the only epic beetle mount-Ahn'Qiraj beetle tank on the entire server. Prior to this, players have never experienced such a thing, the result is that the door of The Temple of Ahn'Qiraj in each server is opened at different times. Some of the top raid guild members could only helplessly watch other servers collect all the resources and open the door, and successfully overcome the raid before them. WoW Classic offers another opportunity for all players. When the hero of your server makes a Sceptre of the Shifting Sands, you should reach the temple's door and witness the collapse of the beetle's wall.

Notorious Hogger 2004 is the time just released by World of Warcraft. As a beginner, maybe you are proud of your human warrior reaching level 10. At this time, you accepted a mission, and the sheriff asked you to kill the Ghost Huage in the Elwynn Forest. You think this task is very simple, because you don't realize what kind of fear the "elite" monster will bring you. When you try to kill him, you are killed by him. In the rebirth, maybe you have found dozens of beginners who have the same experience as you. In fact, this is the first task in World of Warcraft that requires multiple players to team up. Hogger killed the most players, and he became a notorious monster, but unexpectedly received a warm welcome from some players. In modern WoW, you can already do all the tasks individually. But if you want to avenge your original human warrior, you can try to challenge Hogger in WoW Classic and remember to bring your therapist teammates.

ZZWOW is a classal provider of third-party game services with many years of experience and a reputation among WoW players around the world. WoW Classic was officially released not long ago. If you need to buy cheap Vanilla WOW Gold or Boosting service, ZZWOW is your best choice. As long as you have enough WoW Classic Gold, you can buy whatever you need in the game.

[arstansangnoir]

Remembrance Day

I went back to Silithus for Remembrance Day.  The Black Watch, the mercenary company I'd served with during the Second War of the Shifting Sands is gone.  Most of them didn't die in that particular war, except for Gandle, who went mad, and Tullus, who decided to ride out into the desert to see what was going on the night they opened the Gates.  We'd landed a cushy job as the military police in Cenarion Hold.  Drunken mercenaries and infiltrating cultists made life a little interesting for us, but we had it a hell of a lot easier than the poor devils who actually went into the hives and Ahn'Qiraj itself. @natharaiebonrook told some gruesome stories recently about what the Alliance was willing to do to its people to clear out the bugs, and he was one of the ones who made it back.

The Black Watch fell in battle a few months after I retired, on Icecrown Plateau, except for a couple of the officers.  They refounded the company only to have it wiped out in the Sewers under the Thunder King's Palace.  No one made it out that time.  Neither of those places is open to tourists, so I guess Silithus is as good a place as any to mourn them.

[sniperct]

February 22nd on my server at the time, Silver Hand. 14th server in the US, and 1st RP server. Have a picture story of that day

[standingstorms]

Friends being jealous of my Druid because I could hearth to Ironforge and teleport to Moonglade, so I didn't need to take a boat or pay a mage for portals.

Hours in the Plaguelands killing people for cloth for Argent Dawn rep

"LF rogue to unlock UBRS"

Unlinked auction houses so Ironforge was the social hub

The Ahn'Qiraj gate event and the server crashing a dozen times in an hour from everyone on the server going there.

Old high elf models

Old Varian Wrynn model at the end of The Missing Diplomat

That time I claimed I was resto and healed a live Strat run and then after we killed Balnazzar, turned into a moonkin and started dancing.

OOMkin

AoEing down the core hounds.

Hunters feigning death and using jumper cables and cheering when they worked because you've been in this dungeon for three hours and you know there are repops behind you.

Dungeons actually taking three hours.

The Hydraxian Waterlords

Azshara before the goblins ruined it. No one ever went there and it was my favorite zone.

Casting downranked healing spells to never run out of mana.

Southshore vs Tarren Mill.

The Battle of Darrowshire. 😢

just vanilla things

add your own

doing the Wetlands run and dying 20+ times because there’s no boat to Stormwind from Teldrassil but you really want to play a night elf

running literally all the way to one end of Duskwood and back and hoping to god you don’t run into Stitches because he will beat your ass

also running all the way to one end of Stranglethorn and back

no mounts until level 40

not even being able to afford level 60 mounts

those level 60 night elf mounts that didn’t have the armor on them and I’m a fool for being excited when they got armor

literally anything involving the Onyxia quest chain including EVERY TIME someone triggered the event in the keep room and all of the guards turned into dragons

Naxx and Molten Core attunement quests

Cheating your way into places like underneath Stormwind and Ironforge and also the Ironforge airport and that place you always flew over in Wetlands on the flight path because NO FLYING

when you actually needed every single flight path and if you didn’t know one in between where you were and your destination you were screwed

I dinged level 60 killing the mobs outside of Karazhan before they were leveled up and Kara became a raid

Stormwind park? but also no Stormwind harbor and also the old Stormwind auction house 

that PvP building in SW was like a special kid’s club because only people with Knight ranking or some such higher could enter it

easily attainable PvP titles

old water textures

the pre-AQ event when you had to feed NPCs literally any crafting materials you owned 

boy anduin wrynn (oh how far we’ve come) and lady katrana prestor chilling next to each other in the keep 

no Malfurion in Darnassus it was just Tyrande (but also remember when Staghelm was in Darnassus too)

for some reason I miss those quests in Darkshore where you’d go down the coast and find the remains of turtles and huge sea thresher beasts and have to turn them in to an elf lady who I’m pretty sure died in Cata

having to go to your class trainer to actively learn spells every time you leveled up and sometimes you’d get lazy and not go but then you’d be weak AF and levels behind and learning new spells was just so exciting and rewarding

lockpicking (I remember digging up all the chests from around Sunken Temple and in Redridge Lake just to level up my lockpicking skill like it was basically a third profession)

weapon skills

EARNING REPUTATION WITH THE CENTAUR CLANS IN DESOLACE

[geames-field-blog]

World of Warcraft's greatest world event ever, the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj, will return in Classic. Time to gear up, there's going to be a whole new batch of Scarab Lords. · . -----------👥----------------------. . tag your friend who looks like this. . ----------👍-----------------------. . -> Follow us for more news @games.field @games.field @games.field. . ----------------------💣----------------------------. . · #worldofwarcraftgermany #legion #worldofwarcraftart #worldofwarcraftfanart #mmorpg #blizzardgames #worldofwarcraftlove #worldofwarcraftscenery #worldofwarcraftofficial #worldofwarcraftaddicts #worldofwarcraftaddict #wow #blizzard #gaming #worldofwarcraftgirl #warcraft #worldofwarcraftscreenshots #alliance #azeroth #forthealliance #warcraftphotography #worldofwarcraftscreenshot #gamer #worldofwarcraftselfie #worldofwarcraft #horde #forthehorde #wowlegion #worldofwarcraftlegion #blizzardentertainment https://www.instagram.com/p/Bpv6G7ilLmf/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=15duphp1kiak