World of Warcraft celebrated its tenth anniversary on November 23rd. A lot has changed in WoW over the past ten years. In our series “Do you still know…” we look back on the past and want to remember special events with you. Or game elements that have only changed a lot today or maybe no longer exist at all. In this part of “Remember…” buffed editor David Bergmann thinks about the opening of Ahn’Qiraj.
The opening of Ahn’Qiraj – even WoW players who weren’t there during the “Classic” period must have heard about it before. The opening of the gates of Ahn’Qiraj is usually referred to as the WoW in-game event par excellence. Since the completion of the opening, players have always wished for a comparable event. But what was it all about – and was it really that great?
Patch 1.9.0 was released at the beginning of 2006 and brought with it the raid instances Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj (20 players) and Temple of Ahn’Qiraj (40 players). Alone, they had to be unlocked by players first. And not worldwide, but per server. It didn’t stop at the competition between realms, however. Because for each server it was also about which player could make their character the scarab prince and dust off the coveted black Qiraji tank drone mount (however, other characters could also do this within a time window of ten hours). But one after anonther.
The preparations for war
The concept behind Ahn’Qiraj’s opening would probably have many players frowning and exclaiming “unimaginative design” these days. The Idea: Alliance and Horde members must collect supplies so that the forces are prepared for the fight against the silithid. And not just in a figurative sense. For example, you could collect…
14,000x Rainbow Fin Tuna
90,000x copper bars
400,000x Runecloth Bandage
600,000x Silk Bandage
Well over 1,000 copies of more than 20 items each had to be collected. Complete stacks of items were given to NPCs and in return they usually received rather underwhelming item rewards and the opportunity to increase reputation with the Horde or Alliance peoples.
At the same time, players fought their way through a truly epic quest line featuring giant dragons and quirky gnomes, at the end of which characters held the Scepter of Sandstorms in their hands to open the gates of Ahn’Qiraj with a spirited gong bang. That, in turn, was only five days after the end of the war preparations.
Top guilds, casual players, alliance, horde – if you wanted to keep up in the server race, everyone had to pull together. And then the question had to be clarified: Who is allowed to open the gates?
That’s how it was then
The event surrounding the opening of Ahn’Qiraj may not be clear to me, but at least I have vivid memories. That probably applies to almost all players who were there. The question of which guilds set the tone was quickly resolved on our server. On both the Alliance and Horde sides, there was only one guild that really played at the top of the endgame. An alliance was quickly formed – they wanted to support each other instead of getting in each other’s way in order to bring the server forward.
The guild I belonged to was at least big enough to be involved in some steps of the questline. And of course many of us started the tasks on the way to becoming a scarab lord ourselves – but without any incentive to keep up with “the big ones”. The quest was primarily a nice change of pace, provided you got beyond the brutal reputation grind, and had great rewards to offer. These included, for example, Dirge’s funky Chimaerok chops . A popular buff fodder for tanks.
However, the main occupation for many players was the item grind for the war preparations. And even if the Ahn’Qiraj event may have been remembered as the best idea since sliced bread – at least on our server the fun of the grind quickly got lost. Participation fell very quickly and noticeably. Many players used the event to have a realistic chance of getting mounts from other races; At the time, however, nothing was more alien to many more players than the idea of collecting mounts. A few crazy committed guilds continued to ensure steady progress, but that was not enough to keep up in the server competition.
And then came what made the opening of Ahn’Qiraj memorable: player engagement. Namely, the top alliance guild of our server (the one on the way to the scarab lord) opened an event within the event. The offer: Players could send the required materials to this guild instead of trading them themselves. Why should you do this? Because the guild came up with far more attractive rewards than the developers. Gold prizes, items and raid places were raffled week after week among all senders. This actually gave a good boost to the war preparations. It still wasn’t enough for a real top place in the race, but after the opening everyone didn’t give a damn anyway. One was proud of the joint performance of the players on the server.
This sense of community made opening Ahn’Qiraj so special. And not just per server. One got the impression that all WoW players worldwide would put their heads together. The progress of the servers was monitored daily. News of the progression of the questline spread like wildfire. In times when not every detail was sucked out of the game files months before release, it was actually largely unclear how the quest series went – until someone reported what had happened.
On the other hand, you can follow the progress of the top guilds on your own server. What point in the quest are you at now? When is the next step that requires a raid group? We had a big drama about the fight against Eranikus in Nighthaven. A guild alone could not lift the battle. However, they didn’t want to risk too much rush on site. Eventually, server crashes threatened. A few selected raid groups were ordered to help and accordingly knew the planned date for the adventure, which was guarded like a state secret … at least that was the idea. In fact, of course, what had to happen happened: significantly more player characters appeared than expected. The Horde guild meanwhile raged in the forum about that you weren’t officially notified – and I organized a backup raid player to travel to Moonglade instead of hanging out at Blackwing Lair. After all, the Eranikus fight was possibly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Who is going to miss that?
Eranikus didn’t cause a server crash, but lags and slide show flair made the spectacle more of a test of patience in places. A few weeks later, it seemed like trifles. The servers only really got down on their knees when it was actually time to open the gates. Here, too, it was unclear for a long time when the chosen player would hit the gong. Incidentally, this not only upset Horde guilds, but all interested players on the server. After all, the event around the opening “belonged” to all of us. Hundreds of players did their part, so they all wanted to be part of the spectacle. No matter how much or little each individual player contributed, everyone felt a responsibility, everyone wanted to see the grand finale. That sense of togetherness;
In the end things turned out well. The gates were opened on our server at “prime time” and not in secret. The scepter-bearer even rode in a parade through several zones all the way to Ahn’Qiraj. A great spectacle… until the servers failed. As soon as the gate opener and entourage arrived in Silithus, you found yourself on the login screen. For the next 30 minutes, the stay on the server was usually limited to a few minutes. The biggest surprise: In between, the servers lasted long enough to open the gates.
Then the real spectacle started. Small, large, and even larger silithid have been beaten down by dozens of groups of players. There were still lags, the servers were bitchy, boats – which should have arrived in Menethil – were stranded in the Stonetalon Mountains. Most players took the problems sportily. Because that was our event, that was our chaos. We had toiled for weeks for this. Nobody could take that away from us, not even server lag. Only the top guilds didn’t notice it. They had crumbled into the raid instances at the first opportunity and worked on first kills.
What is WoW Classic?
World of Warcraft Classic is a true recreation of the original WoW as you know it from 2006. All parts of the game – from combat mechanics and talent trees to character models and zones – have been recreated, contributing to the authentic experience.
Getting Started
All players with an active World of Warcraft subscription or game time on their accounts have access toWoW Classic at no additional cost.
- Open the Blizzard Battle.net Desktop App and select World of Warcraft from the menu.
- Select World of Warcraft Classic from the Version menu. If you have more than one World of Warcraft account, you’ll see a second Account drop-down list. In this column, select the active account you want to play with.
- Click the Install button. The progress bar will tell you when your game is ready to play.
- Click the Play button when the installation is complete.
You will need to select the realm you want to play on from several different realm types. Make sure you choose the same realm as your friends – in World of Warcraft Classic, you can only group with characters that are on the same realm as you!
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