Scant hours after the false alarms from the Burning Legion and Area 52 servers, it looks like we have a true winner in the race to Phase 4 of the Shattered Sun Offensive on the Isle of Queldanas. Continuing their streak, the Proudmoore Server activated phase 4 early this morning. Currently, it looks like they're the only ones legitimately at Phase 4, with Cenarius 2nd with 86% accord to us.gorgonnash.info.

Congratulations to Proudmoore on continuing your streak. Be sure to check out our Phase 4 daily guides for all the information you'll need to finish strong. The rest of you, check out our Phase 2 and Phase 3 daily guides to get the edge you need to power up to Phase 4 yourself.

Phase 3 is now upon us! According to us.gorgonnash.info, Proudmoore has now just barely hit the Armory phase of the Shattered Sun Offensive. As of 9:07pm PDT, April 2nd, Cenarius is behind them at 95%, with Zul'jin behind them at 90%. Congratulations, Proudmoore.

Of course, the biggest thing this means is that they've unlocked the quest Making Ready, which will allow them to eventually unlock the new Badge of Justice loot. Good luck to them, and may the unlocking go fast! For everyone who needs to catch up to Proudmoore, be sure to check out our phase 1 and phase 2 quest walkthroughs. For all you Proudmoore inhabitants, and all the rest of you raring to go, be sure to check out our phase 3 walkthroughs for all the information you'll need to forge ahead with the offensive, and look out for the Phase 4 walkthroughs coming soon from Alex.

Starting early yesterday afternoon and into the night, quite a few servers have unlocked the 2nd phase of the Shattered Sun Offensive at the Isle of Quel'danas, known as the Sun's Reach Sanctum (We can't confirm for sure who was first, although rumor has it that Cenarius was a strong contender, and I'm sure accounts will differ unless Blizzard decides to establish a tracking page like they did for the Ahn'Qiraj event). This means a new building under control of the offensive , a tradeskill vendor (no ability to repair just yet, alas), and a handful of new daily quests dedicated to unlocking the 3rd phase, the Sun's Reach Armory.

Look after the break for links to walkthroughs for every Phase 2 daily quest!

The upcoming patch, patch 2.4, now known as The Fury of the Sunwell, revolves around... well, the Sunwell! I guess there's something in there about a huge demon by the name of Kil'jaeden, but I'm sure he's not important. Like my previous installments of Know Your Lore, I'll give a little bit of background information on our subject, so you understand the foundation of it. This bit isn't quite as exciting as my last installment or two, but this took a lot more research, and a lot more piecing together half-told bits of story from multiple authors. It's a bit like playing Connect the Dots, but instead of getting a flower or a sailboat, I get Richard Knaak flipping me off. Sorry it's so dry, but on with the show!

A little over 10,000 years ago, the Night Elves lived under the rule of Queen Azshara and the upper class of society, the Highborne. Their culture was rich in magic and the arcane, very different from the down to earth, nature-centric society of the Night Elves today. Queen Azshara and her Highborne were extremely hedonistic, using the nearby Well of Eternity for personal power and gain. At some point during all of this, Azshara heard a dark whisper, promising power beyond her imagination.

Does this sound familiar? Yes, Sargeras was up to his old tricks again. Like he lured Kil'jaeden and Archimonde to the Legion's cause, he did the same with Queen Azshara. Whereas Kil'jaeden and Archimonde seemed to have needed a little trickery from the Destroyer, Azshara was far more welcoming. She was pretty okay with hanging out with demons, and rather enjoyed the whole fire and brimstone thing.

Two new screenshots have landed on the official Wrath of the Lich King page, and they look pretty different from anything we've seen about the next expansion so far. You can click on the pic above to see the first one full, and here's the second.

Now clearly both show a forested, lush area, and there is only one forest that we know of is Northrend so far: Grizzly Hills, supposedly a redwood type of forest home to the Northern Furbolgs. This forest, however, looks a little greener than that-- it may be the Sholazar Basin, which we haven't seen screenshots of yet. Obviously the creature above is some new kind of Dryad, so that means we may see traces of Cenarius in Northrend, and when you mention Cenarius, you have to mention the Emerald Dream. So we may find out more about that line of lore in Northrend as well. Very interesting.

Metaphysic, a dwarf priest in the guild Afterlife on Cenarius, posts screenshots of himself at level 70, along with his /played. A long thread consisting of doubtful screenshot analysts and people who don't understand the irony in calling someone else a nerd on a video game forum ensues.

Asked how he did it, Metaphysic said he solo quested all the way to 70 in 44 hours. He's gotten 11 hours of sleep since the expansion's release. He'd already been to 70 in beta, so he mostly knew where the good quests were -- although he did say there were some "brutal" periods of griding when he couldn't find a good quest.

I created a character on Cenarius to see if I could confirm this, but Metaphysic wasn't online (unsurprisingly.) The screenshots look pretty darn convincing, though, and since a ton of other people in his guild were 67, I wouldn't be surprised if he really was 70.

So congratulations Metaphysic, and as your guildies said, get some sleep!