Starting at 2am this Saturday (4/26), the gates of AQ can be opened.

We don't know the exact time the gates will be opened. But I'm guessing it will be Saturday afternoon or evening. Others are saying Sunday. Hopefully we'll get an exact time beforehand.

For those of you who don't know, the opening of the gates starts a 10-hour world-wide event. So even if you aren't level 60, you can participate. It's likely that the server will crash many times during this 10 hours. So you may not want to schedule anything important during that time.

What do you think? Where should VS meet up? Should some of us go to the gates & others stay in the cities? Or should we all go to the same place?

The good news is that it looks really, really cool, even from a vantage point in Cenarion Hold. The bad news is that even if you ARE 60, the gates opening basically just means you will get to gape in delight as GIANT ANUBISTHINGS crush you like a bug. XD I would love to go and watch, since I was only 30 on Zul'jin when those gates opened, but we shouldn't plan on actually ACCOMPLISHING anything. XD

I was there when the gates opened on Zul'jin. There were hundreds of people there. It was neat to see, but lag was of course, HORRIBLE. It took me about 5min to cast a spell. So just be prepared to not be able to do much!

sounds cool! I saw an anubis thing in the sands one day. They are huge!

Sounds like a lot of fun to watch but I'm wary as a 5-man instance group with two AOE spells going at once chokes up my computer.

And two mages? Fuhgeddabowdit.

It's all up to Musa now for when they decide to open it. I haven't looked, but I am sure they will post on the Eitrigg forums on when they plan on doing it.

This was a ton of fun when we did it on Kilrogg... definitely worth staying awake for.

http://www.psyscape.com/dominicide/index.php?topic=1902.msg21213

If you can get 20-30 60s together you can do some damage against the big dudes that spawn. Plus, if someone can successfully kite one of the really big bugs back to Cenarion Hold it's free loot for everyone!

I'M A BIG DUMB LIAR NEVERMIND.

What I MEANT to say was that watching the NPC armies amass is really, really awesome.

Musa's dicking around & not saying when they are going to open the gates. "Oh, Saturday or Sunday. Depends." Bah. I'm guessing it'll be Saturday, which would be nice for our planned Sunday runs.

There was some excitement tonight when we thought Musa was going to open the gates. Didn't happen. Long story, which you'll hear later, I'm sure. But I must say that their scepter guy, Lotho, was pretty decent about it.

So here are the details.

Ahn'Quiraj Gate Opening
Saturday, April 29
5pm Eastern / 4pm Server (estimated)

If you want in on some hot raiding action, we're gonna gather up about an hour in advance. I'd recommend setting your hearthstone to Cenarion, it'll make your life easier.

If you can't make it to the opening, you can enjoy the fun at Feathermoon, Ungoro or Gadget. Stuff may happen elsewhere, I dunno. The whole event lasts 10 hours, so Saturday night should be crazy.

By the way, expect to die. A lot. We wandered up to the Emissary today - he does about 2700 damage per hit. I got one-shotted 3 or 4 times. Here's some screenies:

http://iwhitney.hopto.org/~inky/vs/entertaining_the_troops.jpg
http://iwhitney.hopto.org/~inky/vs/entertaining_the_troops.jpg
I entertain the generals before the battle

http://iwhitney.hopto.org/~inky/vs/raid_dance_ftw.jpg
http://iwhitney.hopto.org/~inky/vs/raid_dance_ftw.jpg
This is why we raid, group dances

http://iwhitney.hopto.org/~inky/vs/holy_shit.jpg
http://iwhitney.hopto.org/~inky/vs/holy_shit.jpg
Holy Shit!

Though I may not make it this afternoon I had a lot of fun last night at the false alarm. Level 60 chickenbutt is HAWT!

The Anubisaths don't do nearly as much damage as the Emissary (although they still hit pretty hard). However, the crystals (which are what spawns most of the mobs) sometimes have Generals around them which hit like beasts--and besides that, they periodically mind control anyone who comes within proximity. Mobs will also be spawning continuously at the Gates themselves, but if it was anything like Zul'jin, your big raiding guilds will probably take a monopoly on them :( As I recall, none of them have much of anything in the way of loot (if there's even anything at all), but they give you considerable amounts of rep with the Brood of Nozdormu--that is, the bronze dragonflight :)

There are also the colossi at each Hive, which are basically enormous, extremely powerful bugs that cannot be killed except by a massive zerg of tons and tons of people. I believe only one was killed on Zul'jin, and that's because it was trained to Cenarion Hold. They give a good amount of reputation on death, and you can also turn in bits of their flesh for bags'o'lewt.

I had a ton of fun at last night's false alarm.
I'm sorry that I didn't think to thank everyone who took the time to haul my poor lvl 35 butt all the way to Sithilis so I could watch. Thanks guys! I really appreciate it. I'm gonna try to make it to the big event today so I can take lots of screen shots and die in many horrible ways. I can't wait!

Well, that was pretty fun. We romped for a while in Silithus and Tanaris. Managed to bring down several of the 58+ anubis guys. We took down one lieutenant-general, level ??. That was pretty sweet.

I got some screenshots.

http://iwhitney.hopto.org/~inky/vs/aq0.jpg

http://iwhitney.hopto.org/~inky/vs/aq1.jpg

http://iwhitney.hopto.org/~inky/vs/aq2.jpg

http://iwhitney.hopto.org/~inky/vs/aq3.jpg

http://iwhitney.hopto.org/~inky/vs/aq4.jpg

http://iwhitney.hopto.org/~inky/vs/aq5.jpg

http://iwhitney.hopto.org/~inky/vs/aq6.jpg

http://iwhitney.hopto.org/~inky/vs/aq7.jpg
Our visit to AQ40. I went in naked, for budgetary reasons.

This was a lot of fun...and the chicken finally got to fly! WOOOO!!!!

Great to have a bunch of the guild together for some good quality dying!

ALLRIGHTIE, I took fifteen million thousand and one screenshots last night, so anyone who didn't make the opening or the final battle, I gotcha covered. I am way too tired to upload them tonight, but I tell you what: I had an absolute blast.

I couldn't make it. :(

I was a little late for the opening (and my computer crash followed by the server crash didn't help) and I didn't stay for too long, but boy that was fun :D

And we always seemed to have more dead people in the group than alive! But we did kick some bug ass and had a blast.

It was a blast.

By the way, the raiding guilds managed to kill all three of the Colossus bugs. Which means that we all got phat lewt. Each bug's death started a quest that gave me 8g 67s and a bag containing: 1 or 2 pieces of green gear, 2 major mana, 2 major health, 20 quail, 20 morning dew. Oh, and I got a blue in one of my bags, 13009, which I have vaulted if anyone wants it.

Considering the 6g I spent on repair costs and the, oh, 200 points of damage I managed to inflict on Zora before being one-shotted for the 10th time, I think I got the good end of the stick.

It was a blast. I haven't checked my screenshots yet / I'll have to do that later today. The 3 AQ quests were very sweet for me / they gave me nearly 30K xp which put me over the top to 59. Did anyone see what happened with the final invulnerable/immobile warbringer? If nothing else, I have my unarmed up to 289 now!

I wanted to try the imageshack slideshow so here's 11 screens from the AQ event. Much fun!
It seems to automatically zoom and randomize the images.

http://img232.imageshack.us/slideshow/player.php?id=img232%2F4801%2F1146465790lhp.smil

I was wondering that myself Jorak.

The bugged warbringer is still there. nearly 24 hrs later and the peeps are still hacking away at it.

Here are a few from the battle...

Are the colossus quests still up? not sure how long they stick around.

If they are, and you are 50+ you get some free shit!