After today’s maintenance, Horde and Alliance players will find that the updated instances for Operation Gnomeregan and Zalazane’s Fall will be available to enter, so Horde players can head into the Echo Isles to retake the Troll homelands and put an end to Zalazane’s tyranny, and the Gnomes and their allies can muster their forces to retake the Gnomes’ home city of Gnomeregan.

The quests went live on the PTRs a while back, and today’s the day for them to go up on the live realms. Ready?

Back when Blizzard hosted the Cataclysm Press Tour, one of the unfortunate things we saw mentioned was the possibility that heroic versions of The Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep might not be ready in time for the launch of Cataclysm, and that they may have to wait for a future content patch update to give the team more time to work on them.

Well, word came down yesterday that those fears were nothing to worry about, because the two new dungeons will indeed be ready in time for the launch of Cataclysm, and players will be able to head in and see their favorite starting-game dungeons re-worked for the new world that we’ll get when the expansion comes out. Here’s the official word from Valnoth, when someone else in a thread stated that they wouldn’t be ready as fact and the reason why they weren’t available in beta:

Heroics are not ready for testing.

Heroic Shadowfang Keep and Heroic Deadmines WILL be released with Cataclysm. You will not have to wait for a later patch.

Strap on your pirate stompers kids, it’s back to Westfall for the Alliance and back to Silverpine Forest for the Horde!

The Gnomes aren’t the only ones on a quest to retake their homeland come Cataclysm – the Trolls want the Echo Isles back as well, and they’re ready to bring down Zalazane to do it. Vol’jin wants to rally the troops and take back the Trolls’ homeland, and they’re looking for your help to do it:

Embedded on the coast of Durotar, the tiny troll Village of Sen’jin is bursting with recent activity. In what some claim is a retort to the overblown assertions of the vertically-challenged High Tinker Mekkatorque, Troll Chieftain Vol’jin has announced his intention to “honor de ancestors ‘n’ take back da ‘omeland, mon.” The call has been given, and the scattered Darkspear tribe has begun to gather at the once-sleepy location. Now the primal rhythm of beating drums and strange clouds of acrid smoke drift aloft deep into the night, arguably a sign of celebration and preparation for an impending offensive.

With the full support of Thrall and his war council, Vol’jin is calling upon all factions of the Horde to prepare for an assault on the Echo Isles and the twisted witch doctor Zalazane. He will pay for his crimes against the Darkspears and the land that Thrall bestowed upon them! As explained by Vol’jin in the demand for Zalazane’s fall today, honorable members of the Horde passing through the village proper — whether they’ve never slain a boar in their lives or are the subject of every dragon’s nightmare — will be given a chance to help their upstanding troll brothers in what will surely be a brutal attack. But first there must be preparation. With the Echo Isles on the line, no detail is too small, no spoken word too trivial. And for that reason the noted troll shaman, Vanira, will get adventurers started on the monumental tasks ahead.

Hordies, you’ll have plenty to do in very short order!

Blizzard’s made a number of Cataclysm-related announcements recently (leading up to an Alpha or a Beta perhaps?) including the upcoming Operation Gnomeregan and new zones coming in Cataclysm including Mount Hyjal and Vashj’ir.

Now, as a Horde mirror to the quest to retake Gnomeregan, the Trolls are out to retake their homeland, The Echo Isles, and Blizzard has released a boatload of information about what they and their allies will have in store when they move to retake the islands:

After years in exile, the Darkspear trolls are preparing to invade the Echo Isles and reclaim the land once bestowed to them by Thrall. Led by Vol’jin, a wise and highly regarded Darkspear, the tribe’s bravest warriors will set out from Orgrimmar and Sen’jin Village, seeking to bring about Zalazane’s fall and begin the process of rebuilding their homes and villages on the Echo Isles. In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, new troll adventurers will begin their journey on these tiny islands off the coast of Durotar, where they’ll be able to experience this time of trial and transition firsthand.

Though the Darkspears may once again have their land, the tribe’s turmoil is far from over. The impending cataclysm will spark rivalry among the Horde leadership, and after years of running from a seemingly endless string of conflicts to preserve the Darkspear nation, Vol’jin is done fleeing. The Darkspears have reclaimed their islands and have no intention of settling elsewhere. Of course, as an untested member of the tribe, you’ll have some training to do before tackling the Darkspears’ larger matters.

Looks like there’s more to this than meets the eye and there may be implications for the leadership and future of the Horde. Very interesting story implications indeed. So while the Alliance are happily off to retake Gnomeregan, the trolls will have their homeland back, but at what cost and what will amount from it?

If you’re looking for some information on your realm, like what the horde-to-alliance ratio is, or how many alliance paladins you have on your server versus how many rogues there are, WarcraftRealms can give you all of the information you’re looking for. Just head over to the realm data page and look up your server to see everything you wanted to know about the population of your server.

The data is mined from a combination of the Armory and user submissions using the WarcraftRealms add-on, so it’s only really accurate for characters over level 10 that have made it into the armory, but if you’re interested in lending the project a hand on your server, you can download the utility and use it to help bolster the site’s database. In the interim though, the service probably has more information about your realm than you thought you wanted.

That header image up there is probably entirely too small for you to see, so go ahead and click on it to make it larger. Or you can click here to see it on the Warcraft Anniversary site.

The only parts of the header graphic that are visible when you visit the site directly are the figures in the front, Varian Wrynn and Thrall, standing on opposite sides of the page. In the full image, when enlarged, you can clearly tell there are additional figures off to the side of each of them, shrouded in shadows. Who they are isn’t exactly a secret if you look closely – it’s obvious that standing with Wrynn are the Prophet Velen in the back, King Bronzebeard next to Varian, and a night elf woman who is likely Tyrande Whisperwind. Over standing next to Thrall we can clearly make out Sylvanas Windrunner, Cairne Bloodhoof in the back, Lor’themar Theron next to Sylvanas, and likely Vol’jin down at the bottom.

So we know who they are, and we know where they stand, but why are they in the background and why are their faces blurred out? There are already interesting unrevealed things afoot at the anniversary minisite, like the interviews and special video, and the fact that the celebratory Battlecry contest (where players print out the Horde or Alliance symbol and take snapshots of themselves holding it in interesting places) has revealed a part of a photo mosaic that’s being revealed piece by piece.

It’s possible – although not terribly likely – that the banner plays a role as well. We’ll just have to wait and see. Besides, I love the art in the banner – they should take the Horde and Alliance faction leaders and turn each into a desktop wallpaper we can download.

See that guy right there? If you’re Alliance, you know he’s probably been in your way as you’ve tried to raid Undercity. If you’re Horde, then you rely on him and others like him to keep the Undercity safe from invaders and to stand guard.

But over on the World of Warcraft Livejournal Community, lustyevilgnome has noticed something….different about the Undercity. Something….missing.

So, I’ve just been on the PTR…
Has anybody been to the Undercity?

If you enjoy the abominations, go and tell them “goodbye” while you can, because in 3.3 they’re apparently all going to replaced by orcs from the Kor’kron Guard. And they’re all pissed off about the whole Wrathgate thing.

Uh oh! Looks like the Orcs are still pretty peeved about what happened at the Wrathgate, even though it’s clear that Sylvanas had nothing to do with it and barely escaped with her own un-life. But that’s not enough for the new Garrosh-led Orcs – whether or not Garrosh officially takes the reins in 3.3 or in Cataclysm remains to be seen, but it’s clear that the Orcs don’t trust the forsaken one bit right now.

Combine this with the rumor that in the newly rebuilt post-Cataclysm Orgrimmar that Garrosh has kicked out all of the Horde races aside from the Orcs and the Tauren because they are the only two “strong enough” to represent the true might of the horde, and you have some serious faction in-fighting going on in the Horde.

What does it all mean? Are we seeing the breakup of the Horde, no thanks to its soon to be new Warchief? We’ll have to wait and see.

Another find on the forums from WoW.com that’s simply too good not to share: Garrosh is Not Well Liked.

So you’ve all probably heard the rumor that in the events leading to World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, Cairne Bloodhoof is framed for some wrongdoing and is subsequently killed, Thrall becomes the Guardian of Trisfal and has to leave his position as Warchief of the Horde. Stepping in for him? Garrosh Hellscream, the violent, petulent, warmongering orc that follows Thrall everywhere and complains about how everything is the Alliance’s fault.

Garrosh…is no one’s first choice, apparently. He’s certainly not my first choice, but some fine folks on the official forums have put together a list of 50 Warchiefs better than Garrosh, which has subsequently expanded to be almost 200 in game characters, models, or objects that would leave the horde better than Garrosh ever could.

Some of the superstars on the list? Sicky Gazelle. Hogger. Egbert. Lost Barrens Kodo. High-Oracle Soo-Say. The list goes on, in incredible hilarity. Oh, and as shown above, “The Login Dragon” is indeed a candidate.

Click the jump to see the rest of the top 50 list, and head over to the forums to see the entire 200 in all their glory. Do you have any favorite NPCs that would be better leaders of the Horde than Garrosh? Let us know in the comments!

(more…)

I stumbled on this a couple of weeks ago and immediately thought it was hilarious. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a preference in faction really – my first world of warcraft character ever was a Tauren Druid, and my second was a Night Elf Hunter. Granted, I’ve come to play mostly Alliance characters these days, but that’s just because that’s where my friends have been. (If you play horde and know some nice people on a good server, let me know! I’d love to meet you!)

But that being said, there’s no debate that there are simply more Alliance players in the game overall than horde players, and the old stereotype that horde players are a little elitist doesn’t come for no reason. A lot of it’s been diluted since Burning Crusade, but old habits are hard to beat.

Speaking of stereotypes, it looks like there’s some validity to the whole “Alliance players are all kids” one, as proved by the first episode of Alliance v. Horde:

Whew. I’m not that bad thankfully!

one of these things is not like the other...

Now that Blizzard has announced that soon you’ll be able to change your faction, a lot of people are thinking about doing it and even more are talking about how it’ll work. Blizzard has all but said that you’ll have to either keep your class so you’ll only be able to change to a race that has that class, but they haven’t said if they’re doing one-to-one changes or any mage can choose an opposing race that supports mages.

Some guilds are talking about switching faction en masse – either to get better racial bonuses (horde to alliance) or to take advantage of high/low pop servers (a horde guild on a low horde pop server switching to a high horde pop server to find more people to recruit, for example), and other people are talking about switching just to get a chance to play with friends who are on the other side.

What about you? What would it take for you to take one of your characters now and change their faction as opposed to just leveling an alt of the opposing faction or rolling a death knight?