This is a reminder in case this News from last weeks Cataclysm Beta Build went past you. A player noticed that a Zul’Gurub Achievement has been removed from the game and Blizzard confirmed the change.
Zul’Gurub is a 20 player raid instance, introduced as content patch in vanilla WoW. While raids were typically 40 players at the time ZG was the first raid for smaller groups, basically the level 60 predecessor of 10 man raids today. Epic drops were, aside from Hakkar, the rare exception.
Zul’Gurub provides 3 interesting drops, still. The Swift Zulian Tiger, Swift Zulian Raptor and Tome of Polymorph: Turtle.
Update: new information here.
Why remove?
Personally I detest changes like this. Actually I enjoy farming old content and am farming Molten Core, Karazhan, Zul’Gurub each reset. Not like I need the gold or the drops, I jsut enjoy doing these instances and I see them as Solo Instance, which is something I always wanted to have.
We have seen what happened to Naxxramas in Wrath of the Lich King. Naxxramas at Level 60 was a very hard isntance and not many players have even seen Kel Thuzad. It seemed like a cheap – encounters were already in place, the instance just needed retuning – way to warm up old content for the new players in WotLK. Aside from 1 Boss instances like Obsidian Sanctum and Malygos it was the only available raid content for way too long into the Expansion.
But why remove Zul’Gurub? Not like the 200 gold you can get in thes 20 minutes there will mean much to anyone these days, there aren’t any imbalanced drops. Instead it is a nice place to hang around, one of the prettiest raid instances in my opinion – compare it with ToGC, or sterile ICC which is completely empty aside the laboratory at putricide.
Zul’Gurubs jungle theme is so beautiful, Plants, wildlife, fishing, water falls and the details everywhere that make ZG more authentic and inhabited place than ICC has ever been. On your next run do not just rush through take a moment and look around. You will see what I mean.
Quotes
So a very popular Warcraft news site (it starts with an M) is reporting of a new build that hasn’t been deployed yet: Cataclysm Beta – Build 12857
In it it lists the guild classic raider achievements:
* Guild Classic Raider – Complete the classic raid achievements listed below while in a guild group.
* Molten Core Guild Run – Defeat Ragnaros.
* Blackwing Lair Guild Run – Defeat Nefarian.
* Temple of Ahn’Qiraj Guild Run – Defeat C’Thun.
* Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj Guild Run – Defeat Ossirian the Unscarred.I noticed ZG is not there. Is this an unofficial confirmation ZG will in fact be biting the dust? I would like to know because I wouldn’t mind picking up a couple of items for nostalgic purposes before it is too late.
and Blizzard replied:
Zul’Gurub is gone as a raid instance come Cataclysm.
Actually I delayed this post, since I hoped we’d get more information. Basically we do not know what happens to the drops, quests, mounts, reputation.
What to look out for
As mentioned above I am running Zul’Gurub on 2 Characters each reset for the Swift Zulian Tiger and Swift Zulian Raptor. It takes less than 20 minutes to clear the whole place and provides a decent amount of gold.
If you are interested in obtaining The Swift Zulian Tiger, Swift Zulian Raptor and Tome of Polymorph: Turtle you better start farming right now. These items have a low drop chance, you need to be ver lucky to get them before this fabulous place is gone. Rest in Peace Zul’Gurub.
Update !!
- AQ20 has been converted to a 10 player raid.
- AQ20 tuning has not changed, it has just been reduced to a 10 player raid.
Update: I posted a new article about this here.
Thanks for the feedback, always nice to hear what visitors think about the site.
About Zul’Gurub I am not 100% sure that it will be totally removed, looking at the way they said “Zul’Gurub is gone as a raid instance come Cataclysm.”. But so far there haven’t been any updates. in its status. I jsu thate to see old content gone.
Not more than I wrote above. I am very curious about the change, as soon as I know more I’ll post about it.
There’s a rumor that poly turtle will be trainable. No source handy. Confirm/Deny would be appreciated
Been on Beta, leveled a Mage to 12 and saw all trainer spells up to 85 and no polymorph turtle at this time. It could come at a later build though.
Got asked for this kind of macros a few times the past week and posted them here.
I just stumbled over the this description on the Archeology stuff:
Maybe this is a hint at things to come?
Seems like „Zul’Gurub is gone as a raid instance come Cataclysm.“ is demystified now and it is indeed coming back as 5 man instance in Patch 4.1