Dark Portal Opening Event

[Morfiend]

The opening event for the Dark Portal starts today. Servers arnt up yet, but they have information on the front page of their website.

Azeroth is under attack! Horrific creatures are swarming from a suddenly active Dark Portal and have rampaged into the Blasted Lands. Defenders from Nethergarde Keep have scrambled to meet the enemy head-on. However, even with the assistance of reinforcements from the ever-vigilant Argent Dawn, the forces of Azeroth need your help!

Not much is known of the invasion at this early stage, but early reports from the battlefront describe wave after wave of demonic attackers charging from the Dark Portal. It is also reported that Lord Kazzak was seen departing through the Dark Portal. In his stead he has left his minion, Highlord Kruul, to sow fear and confusion among the defenders.

Accompanied by a host of infernals, Kruul has been seen near a number of major cities in Azeroth, along with the following outdoor areas:

    * Hinterlands
    * Eastern Plaguelands
    * Winterspring
    * Stranglethorn Vale
    * Azshara
    * Silithus
    * Searing Gorge

Not even the elite forces of the Argent Dawn have dared attack Kruul directly. Only a large and well-coordinated group of adventurers might stand a chance of defeating him.

[Merusk]

Awesome.  This has been hinted at for months, what with the NPCs that were dropped into Beta referring to the Dark Portal area being a sign of a recent battle.   Sounds like there's a world boss as well as the stuff from the scourge invasion/ AQ opening. Very nice.

[Modern Angel]

So far extremely lame. One quest to kill six felguards coming through the portal and that's the only activity to be found. Maybe (hopefully) something else will happen on a timer.

[Kenrick]

Uber lame AoE clusterfuck.  wtg bliz.

[Paelos]

I scoured the continent and came up with nada. Very dissapointing.

[Merusk]

To add insult to injury, the quest reward is simply another Argent Dawn tabard.  Sure, it's NAMED something else, but if you have the one from the Naxx opening, don't even bother with the AOE clusterfuck that is the 'event'. 

(At least I didn't waste several hours fighting for my 6 unlike some of my guildies.  Explosion trap ftw.)

[Modern Angel]

Well, you can USE the tabard while it's equipped for a special flex/holy nova emote. But bleh. Absurd. Shoddy.

[AcidCat]

Well, you can USE the tabard while it's equipped for a special flex/holy nova emote. But bleh. Absurd. Shoddy.

The "use" function of the tabard is retarded. I'd rather have nothing, it's that underwhelming. If you're going to make it do something, at least do something useful or cool.

I liked fighting the army of demons coming out of the portal, and being on a PvE server the quest was fairly easy to do. But yeah, there should be more. As is, its just a tease - but maybe that's all it's supposed to be anyway.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Could not do the quest at all on Horde side on a pvp server. Alliance gank groups just sat at the portal and killed any Horde that came for the quest. I did manage to actually get the quest between corpse runs.

[Righ]

I quite liked the event. There were literally fucktons of alliance there, half of them flagged with impunity due to the overwhelming population bias that they enjoy. You group up with a mage and get your six kills. Then it was off to the level 61 elite demons nearby to kite them into the alliance. When you can get them there without them resetting, you simply feign death and the myriad alliance AoE spammers get executed. Probably wasn't the event Blizzard intended, but it works. Oh yeah, Somnus fucks them up too.

[Xanthippe]

Had a lot of fun yesterday when the server first came up.  The horde took over Nethergarde Keep, slaughtering all the alliance as they landed.  Then a huge battle at the portal itself off and on all day.

A group of us went to Karazan and talked to the new npcs there at the instance entrance, after killing some lvl 69-70 mobs nearby - which as far as I can tell are the same mobs that used to be there only higher level, and they drop netherweave.  Everything else they dropped for us was the same crap 50ish grey loot.

I haven't yet seen or heard of Kruul.  I assume that will come later.

[Righ]

There's a bunch of level 65-66 greens on the AH now. I'm guessing that they come from the 70s near Karazan.

[Merusk]

They drop netherweave, eh.   Looks like I might have to get a few folks together to stockpile some mats for my tailor. 20-slot bags, here I come.

[caladein]

20-slot bags, here I come.

That take a bit over two weeks in transmutes to make if you specialize in Primal Mooncloth. Sweet.

[Xanthippe]

20-slot bags, here I come.

That take a bit over two weeks in transmutes to make if you specialize in Primal Mooncloth. Sweet.

What else is there to specialize in?

[caladein]

There's a certain appeal to quoting myself :P.

There are three Tailoring specialists in Lower City, Shattrath:

• Spellfire Tailors make 2x Spellcloth when creating Spellcloth.
  
• Mooncloth Tailors make 2x Primal Mooncloth when creating Primal Mooncloth.
  
• Shadoweave Tailors make 2x Shadowcloth when creating Shadowcloth.
  

All Tailors regardless of specialization can make any of the above three, but there is no bonus. Also, the three cloth cooldowns are not shared, you can make 2 of your specialization's and one each of the others every four days.

They also added in the patterns for a 28 Slot Soul Bag, 28 Slot Enchanting Bag, and 20 Slot Bag that all Tailors can make (requiring Shadow, Spell, and Primal Mooncloth respectively).

Here are the Epic 3-piece sets, that are all... lackluster to say the least:

• Primal Mooncloth, +Healing and MP5... like, that's it.
  
• Wrath of Spellfire, +Arcane/Fire Dmg and Int.
  
• Shadow's Embrace, +Shadow/Frost and Stam, kinda like the Robe of Winter Night... except no one really wanted it then either.

[Merusk]

20-slot bags, here I come.

That take a bit over two weeks in transmutes to make if you specialize in Primal Mooncloth. Sweet.

You haven't seen my bank.

It's worth the 2 weeks.

[SurfD]

of course, spawncamping Karazan (which is going to be spawn camped out the wazoo) in an attempt to kill mobs way higher level then you (and therefore harder to hit, with higher resist rates, etc) just to get a few netherweave a week early wont really matter much unless there are a LOT of idiots on your server.  A week after TBC goes live you will have Netherweave coming out of your ass and no idea what to do with it all.

The level 64 /65 greens and greys (and maybe blues or epics if the planets align) might be worth it tho.

[lamaros]

Spent a little while farming them. Not worth it in my opinion.

[caladein]

Took a five-man group out there after we finished running an alt through an instance. Defiantly not productive or anything, but still fun. Plus, we got to show a few of the guys around the outside of the tower.

[Ironwood]

The higher level items are dropping everywhere.  Wife got some really nice bracers (green) while farming for Water in the EP.  They were level 64 or 65 I think and would have replaced one of her really nice blues.

It was a wtf moment, right enough.