Here's a heads-up to all our North American night owls early risers and Oceanic readers: It's Tuesday morning, and that means maintenance. Luckily, it's a short one today. Bornakk has said that they expect most servers to only be down a half hour, starting at 5AM PDT and ending a 5:30AM PDT. There are some extra servers that will be down slightly longer, until 6:30AM PDT. Those servers will be listed after the break. Aussies can rejoice as well, as any Oceanic servers not on this list won't be taken down until 5AM AEST (Which is noon over here on the American west coast).
For the list of servers that will have a longer downtime, read on:
A Discussion of the newly droppedThori'dal bought up a lively discussion on Legendary weapons in my guild chat the other day, which has in turn set my own mental wheels turning. Looking at the difference between the pre-Burning Crusade Legendaries and the Burning Crusade Legendaries, there's one big difference that stands out (beyond the level difference): The pre-BC Legendaries were quested, while the BC Legendaries have been drops.
The clear-cut off seems to suggest that at some point, Blizzard decided that creating long, involved quests in order to obtain Legendary weapons just wasn't the way to go, and they'd rather let the RNG take care of distributing Legendaries. But the question is, did they make the right choice? There's good arguments for both sides.
This week on Know Your Lore, we're going to talk about the faction that manages to be one of the most beloved organizations in the game while also being one of the most hated. Whether you love them or hate them, the Scarlet Crusade remains one of the most interesting factions in WoW, and they're attached to the Ashbringer that the WoW community is so fascinated with. Better yet, they return in Wrath of the Lich King.
The Scarlet Crusade was founded during the fall of Lordaeron, shortly after the Knights of the Silver Hand had been decimated by the Scourge and largely disbanded. Though its founders did not necessarily have the most sane or noble intentions, many of the men and women who joined their ranks did have only one primary goal in mind. They wished to free Lordaeron of the Scourge in the name of the Light, and crush the undead utterly. Considering those undead brought their homeland (one of the most powerful kingdoms in the world at the time) to its knees and blighted it beyond belief, that was a pretty noble cause.
As we continue down the road to Wrath of the Lich King, we get more and more information about what factions we'll be coming across. The Taunka, the Tuskarr, the Scarlet Onslaught, things like that. The one that seems to have gotten the most people excited is our beloved Silver Hand. The inclusion of the Silver Hand has even sparked a great amount of debate on the official Wrath forums, yammering for or against the Horde being welcome in the Order. Because of all of this, I've decided we'll take a little look at the Silver Hand this week!
Contrary to what most people believe/know, the Order of the Silver Hand was not founded exclusively by Uther the Lightbringer. At the time, Uther was actually still an apprentice. His teacher, Archbishop Alonsus Faol, was the true founder of the Order, though Uther was at his side, naturally.
Technically, this week, it's "two bosses leave" because we're wrapping up two separate fights. First up, Kel'Thuzad vs. Archimonde. This was a close fight, with a 14 votes (out of a total of 2508) separating the winner from the loser. As you might guess, opinions on the article were quite varied, with little consensus as to who would win or why -- but in the end, 14 more voters felt that Kel'Thuzad would be victorious.
Our next fight pitted Vaelastrasz against Illidan -- and this one was pretty clear cut, with Illidan getting a comfortable 67% of the vote. (Though there was a good amount of debate over the fairness of the abilities included for consideration, both Vael's Burning Adrenaline and Illidan's Shear.) Tragic, really, as I was rooting for Vael. (As commenter George M. noted, "Vaelastrasz destroyed Guilds. True story.")
If you enjoyed these fights, the next is set to be just as dramatic! Check back later to voice your opinion on the Twin Emperors against Chromaggus. (And check our brackets for the upcoming fight schedule.)
Two bosses will enter... but only one will leave in WoW Insider's fantasy deathmatch series. We're pitting two of Azeroth's raid bosses against one another in a battle that your votes get to decide -- until in the end we're left with a single boss as the ultimate champion. Be sure to check out our brackets for a full round-up of our ongoing fight schedule!) This week we present Kel'Thuzad, the ominous Archlich of the Plaguelands, and Archimonde the Defiler, the greatest and most ruthless of the Eradar. Who will win no one knows -- because ultimately, it's for you to decide. So read on and voice your opinion!
All this week, we're announcing our picks (from your nominations) for the best of the year in Azeroth. Lots of great stuff happened in the World of Warcraft this year, and we've sifted through all of it to come up with the stuff we'll remember for a long time.
Yesterday, we announced the awards for Server, Class, and Guild of the Year, and today we're proud to tell you our picks for Friend of the Year, Enemy of the Year, and Instance of the Year. Next year, we'll have all new foes (are you prepared?) and friends, not to mention tons of new instances. But before all the changes come, we're looking back at two NPCs that helped and hurt us this year, and the swirly portal we most enjoyed walking through. The winners are right after the break below.
And don't forget to come back all this week-- we've still got Player of the Year and Best and Worst Blizzard Move of the Year to announce, so stay tuned.
Lots of people have already tagged Blizzard's move to start dropping Pally items to Horde and Shaman items to Alliance in raids (even though neither side can actually roll those classes for another month, much less have 60s that can use the BOP stuff) as a bad one, but here's more proof. A-Team, a guild over on Stonemaul-A dropped Kel'Thuzad, and got a server-first loot item: the Ring of the Earthshatterer, the ninth piece of Shaman Tier 3 armor. That's right, they got a historic, server-first, BOP drop-- and none of them could use it.
The drop went to a pally (screenshot) in the hopes that a GM could come along and make it the Pally ring, but as you might expect by now, no dice. As a guy who plays a Shaman main, that especially tugs at the heartstrings.
Unfortunately, don't expect a change on this one-- the CMs have said any non-faction drops should be considered free Nexus shards. But considering that a guild running Naxx could farm Nexus shards in their sleep, that these drops mean there's even less chance that the right stuff will drop for a guild that actually needs it, and that these useless items will continue to be useless until someone finally gets a BE pally or Draenei Shaman to 60 (at absolute best, you're talking days after the expansion releases, if the servers are even up by then), it's too bad that Blizzard has resolved not to fix this one. Grats to A-Team for the nice drop, but shame on Blizzard for not letting them use it.
If you're already read up on these three, the videos won't tell you much more-- watching people do this stuff is, of course, never as fun as doing it. But if you haven't made it to Naxx yet, or haven't participated in extreme endgame content, it's neat to get a look at it-- especially through the eyes (and UI mods) of some of the best players in the game.
Here's a heads-up to all our North American night owls early risers and Oceanic readers: It's Tuesday morning, and that means maintenance. Luckily, it's a short one today. Bornakk has said that they expect most servers to only be down a half hour, starting at 5AM PDT and ending a 5:30AM PDT. There are some extra servers that will be down slightly longer, until 6:30AM PDT. Those servers will be listed after the break. Aussies can rejoice as well, as any Oceanic servers not on this list won't be taken down until 5AM AEST (Which is noon over here on the American west coast).
Technically, this week, it's "two bosses leave" because we're wrapping up two separate fights. First up, 
Our next fight pitted 
All this week, we're announcing our picks (from your nominations) for the best of the year in Azeroth. Lots of great stuff happened in the World of Warcraft this year, and we've sifted through all of it to come up with the stuff we'll remember for a long time.
Lots of people have already tagged Blizzard's move to 
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