Gara

[moonone]

Here are links :
http://wod.wowhead.com/achievement=9434
and
http://wod.wowhead.com/quest=36490

I so feel this is the next step. If you missed it look back at my last two posts on page 37

Also note the npc dots on the map by Emabari Village. What are those - are they underneath - just a glitch -
either way I think this is the best lead for right now.
The achievements are for both Alli and Horde. Not saying the actual achievements have anything to do with this (reading to much into it)
just looking at the text in achievement - the fact it must be done in void realm. The fact you can enter the void realm while on this quest is what is the point.
Could totally be off about this - but it seems right. Every other step would be done while leveling - and once your level 100 you start getting campaign quests - which would eventually lead you to this.

Also effigy items do not drop unless you had berry part done I am pretty sure - but maybe not - easily tested by making a new toon and killing one of the thunderlord giantslayers.

So there is at the very least some useful stuff to check out

a- new toon can pick up an effigy item (one that has not done berry part)
b- get shadowmoon campaign quest - and get into void and see what is what
c- look for npc's that might have relevance to shadowmmon near Embari Village

[Ickabob]

I agree with you that an alliance hunter leveling up would likely come across Gara without any guidance, and by possible coincidence have the berries on them. They then continue questing to 100 picking up the effigy items along the way.
It makes sense on alliance as your introduced to the steps in a logical order:

• Find Gara and do both dialog options
• Finish questing in SMV and move onto Gorgrond.
• Find Crude effigy along the questing trail. This is important as it puts the other items into some sort of context.
• Find the bowl, incense and fruit on your questing journey to 100.
• Now they find themselves stuck without the cloth and bone, likely having to resort to external help to find these items (which horde characters would have found naturally, but without the context of the crude effigy)

Here's where it all breaks down. You have all the items and make the effigy. You click to use it but it gives the error 'Requires disturbed grave'. That has no meaning to the player and no logical link to Gara. We had the benefit of data mining items added in a beta build and experimentation got us results. Had we not being doing this work now it's quite unlikely that someone would see those effigy items and link them to gara when released among all the new items/spells/quests.
Lets say some hunter does stumble back to Gara after having this effigy completed in his bags. Sees the grave object and continues the chain. What next? he finds the lantern a few days later while doing the garrison assault on Pillar of _(?). He uses it and it makes him all shadowy.. cool novelty item, right? He's supposed to work out the connection between the effigy completion and this lantern dropping all of a sudden?

Now from horde perspective, I'm not entirely sure. One question I have is, do the effigy items drop without completing the first steps with Gara? If the answer is no, then a horde player would likely never figure any of this out without reading a guide on wowhead.

Don't get me wrong, however. I love the concept of this obscure story driven quest for hunters. It sure as hell beats camping a spawn point. I guess it makes sense for them to keep it a mystery and add context and clues to fill in the blanks without making it so glaringly obvious that it just becomes a mundane quest to collect your prize. I'm sure with the smallest guidance at this point we would make another breakthrough and continue our quest. Just look what we achieved up to this point. With a few teasing comments from the dev to rile us up, and a tiny bit of data mining, we where able to give these items a context, find all the effigy items (which could have come from any creature across draenor) in less than 2 hours. We don't need our hands held through this, just pointed in the right direction.

Totally agree. Sure, the first few steps could be stumbled upon during regular play. Hell, it's possible for someone to maybe put together the effigy and maybe figure out where to take it and use it. Without something to go on, the average player likely wouldn't know where to go from here. After all, we only know what we because of datamining. I don't really see someone finding the lantern and figuring out what to do with it without some context.

[Quiv]

Now from horde perspective, I'm not entirely sure. One question I have is, do the effigy items drop without completing the first steps with Gara? If the answer is no, then a horde player would likely never figure any of this out without reading a guide on wowhead.

They do not. You have to do the ear scratch and berries before the effigy items drop. Which means Horde have to run all the way to SMV before questing or do a whole lot of backtracking.

[moonone]

I just laid out the context for lantern - did anyone just see my last few posts?

nobody else thinks that this might be what we have been missing / looking for :O

I get we are all frustrated - and that there is a lot to be desired for as far as how we would know what we know without data mining and whatnot - but don't loos sight of what we are doing here

I don't know what else to say - I thought I just threw out some really tangible leads :/

[Zgar]

I like the idea of having to go into the void through the quest, but there's just one thing that I see wrong with that.

The lantern allows us to see into the void, and it says that it partially phases us into the void, what would be the point of it if we could just get fully phased in through that quest? I feel like we're skipping the step of the lantern and replacing it with the possibility of a quest phase.

Its not a bad idea, and its worth trying, but I just feel like it wouldn't make sense to have the lantern and then just jump in through a quest.

[Gazer]

Wain, are you in the beta doing all this stuff? Just wondering It isn't so "fun" when you're the one spending hours upon hours upon hours beating your head against a brick wall.
Yes, its for all Hunters why we do it. It is. But the brute force method isn't any fun anymore.

Also, from memory, Wain has already done, "all this stuff" time and time again since cataclysm, and single handed worked with Muffinus implementing hundreds and hundreds of pets/skins/looks that we all take for granted these days.

http://forums.wow-petopia.com/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=4290
http://forums.wow-petopia.com/viewtopic ... 54&t=10346
These masses of info and lists are just the tip of the iceberg and don't look overly fun to me, but he's done them for us all. That and he STILL he maintains and looks after them, and has done since Sun Mar 06, 2011

Ironically Muffinus used to go by the name Noah here, but when it comes to getting all the ducks in a row, or beasties in line and two by two, Noah is actually more of an appted name for Wain really. He's the one that built the Arch and ticked off off the beasts. Muffinus is more like a Hunter Pet "God", though that's a pretty high pedestal and he'd probably hate that name

Regarding "It isn't so "fun", it's only been a few days, it's still only beta, there's no hurry or secrets that MUST be solved to the games detriment. And sure it's little a frustrating, but it's a hell of a lot of fun and dam exciting, more so than what hunters have had in a long time. My brain hurts a little too, but in a good way.

[Eaglesong]

I have the shadow enclave quest, I did it before doing the quest to interact with Gara with the berries.

[Quiv]

Where is the Shadowmoon Enclave? Is it a subzone on the map? I have search all of the Pillar of Fates area and nothing was called Shadowmoon Enclave.

[moonone]

well - I checked above Embari Village - nothing there as most of you alli know - only thing close is the priestess summoning void doggy in cave - which we have all checked already. Don't know why those markers are showing up for Shadowmoon Enclave - might be a glitch.

So that still leaves us with doing the campaign questline while being able to get lantern.
Yes the lantern buff has us partially phased - but have we not been looking for a way into the void?
well - there apparently is a way - whether or not we can get in there with questline or not (I feel we need it) I don't know.
I would assume - anyone can get into the void there - but if you have the buff you might be able to see something you can't if you don't have the buff - or maybe once in the void the buff changes to one of the previously mentioned (in uselessx data)

Personally - this is were I am going to put all my eggs in until someone can say that the void there is a dead end or finds the next part elsewhere.

Where is the Shadowmoon Enclave? Is it a subzone on the map? I have search all of the Pillar of Fates area and nothing was called Shadowmoon Enclave. It is the pillar of fates.

[Rodhake]

yes it is if u check the arch and the things u kill its the same mobs

[Eaglesong]

Shadowmoon Enclave is the level 100 garrison daily quest, done at the pillars of fate. Some of the same type of mobs also show up in the shadowmoon invasion quest in your garrison, which I think is why they are marked on the map as being in Lunarfall or Frostwall.

[moonone]

while I am back up at pillar of lights - thought I'd point out whatever new stuff I do - might answer some questions people have add and collaborate with what others have tried.

The portal - there are 3 symbols. If you look at the middle stone there you can see the symbols. They are a little off (they aren't mirrored are they?) - but it is them for sure. So I tried making all the symbols on the ground the same - going in order of what is on the stone - top to bottom. Was on last symbol (circle looking one) when I aggrod mob and my pet messed it up. Will mess around with that at some point again probably. Minus well do something other than collecting Apex, looking around, etc.

Also - the buff some of us have talked about. I finally got it. YAY - I successfully read the power font /joy
might have had a confliction with what others experienced though. It was said to drop as soon as they moved - and I also remember someone saying it dropped when they left the hut. The buff did not drop for me - I wasn't sure if I was going to try just standing there and see if anything happened after 5min (btw I had both buff and debuff) or something else - so I tried something else. I started walking around from right to left looking at the stones in there - and had the buff for almost a minute until I focused on the moon patterns on the floor with the arrows - when I started running around the table the buff dropped off me.
I'll test that some more too - just seems odd -

that's all for now - probably gonna go watch The Leftovers -peace-

[Eaglesong]

haha, I just finished watching The Leftovers!

On page 33 (this thread), the pic of the void spawn with the lanterns......he showed up at my Shadowmoon orcs invasion garrison quest as the final boss. I just did one with the lantern buff, just for something to do.

Nothing.

[Darius]

We were basically just told that we're not getting any hints

https://twitter.com/Muffinus/status/508843736684843008

Another "hint"

https://twitter.com/Muffinus/status/508853932861698048

[Lupen202]

We have combed through pretty much everything and have done all of this work; how is anyone going to get it even on live without hints? Maybe someone will happen upon something somewhere along the line during questing or what have you, but seriously? We have ran dungeons, looked into each zone, tried different items and killed different mobs, with and without the buff. We have tried different things in our garrison like the invasions.

This is a really ridiculous expectation - for us to figure this out without any hints, when nothing done so far has had any rhyme or reason to it. Without data mining and such I don't think we ever would have guessed about the effigy. And IMO it's the wrong kind of challenge for us to just "happen upon it". I find trying to decipher hints and the like far more realistic and fun, but whatever.

In the end whoever is "first" will just be the lucky one who by some miracle found an item or Npc randomly. But I never cared about the competition anyways, just working together to figure this puzzle out. I was really looking forward to taming Gara and solving this in beta with this community but i don't even know where else to look.

[Qraljar]

Yeah, I think Muffinus really just tried to give us the wrong type of "challenging". Not intentional, of course.



But stuff like this doesn't feel challenging or difficult. It just feels random and punishing.


The stuff where you can blame your own failure for not finding out earlier: that is what is challenging or difficult. Not the stuff where you have to scour databases and do random, unrelated shit until you happen upon it by chance, or worse - process of elimination.



Well, I guess, if anything, it's a lesson for who were involved in its creation: a chain of events with no hints, no rhyme or reason, all for the sake of "difficulty" are bad. If they had given us hints, even vague ones, it would have been a way to both add more lore/story to it, and turn it into something fun and difficult, rather than something random and bland.



It's the difference between "I tracked down this creature, checking clues, did some detective work alongside a community of like-minded hunters, and killed a lot of enemies to get there." and "I just did some random shit and hoped it would work."


Yeah, I was excited in the beginning, but that excitement is fading away. Oh well..

[Lupen202]

Just sad because when I finally tame Gara, I don't think I'll feel as big of a connection to her. Don't get me wrong I still love her story and all, but I don't even pay attention to that anymore when I'm running around on a wild goose chase looking for some random item or npc in some random area. It's not about her and Om'ra anymore, it's about solving the "mystery", and that's gotten really tiring. I thought the big idea behind her was that we'd feel a connection to her when we tamed her? Because of her story. In the end though, I think I'll just be worn out.

I know we don't have to do this but I do genuinely enjoy figuring things out, and that void wolf... Of course I want it.

But we need some kind of direction. And the reward is certainly not really worth... all of this. And regardless of when its figured out, whether its during live or beta, when that first person figures it out, everyone will have her anyways. Just look her up on WoWhead and theres your guide, unless the end-boss is difficult enough to require a decent ilvl, but that's a different kind of challenge. (But that too will be nothing when people progress through the expansion and can power through it.)

It was a ton of fun, very exciting, and I loved Om'ra and Gara's story at first. Especially when we figured out the effigy and actually did learn her story. But wasn't searching the entirety of draenor for days enough? Do we really have to do it a second time?

[Darius]

Here's something that may actually be helpful!

https://twitter.com/Muffinus/status/508854718693904385

[Miacoda]

Oh I know, someone get the void buff, yell "FIRST" in a crowd of people, and then I'm sure Gara will show up.

On a less joking note though, it does kind of suck that there really doesn't seem to be any in-game clues or hints that would logically lead to the next step. It feels like a wild goose chase and... I dunno. I would love something that makes my brain think but this all just seems so random? It's giving my brain a headache instead. But maybe there are hints that are meant to be so obscure that we just haven't picked up on them yet (Lord of Glass? Did we ever figure that out? I was at work all day).

But the story so far is really neat, and I am a HUGE sucker for beasts with a story.

[Leorina]

What gets me is he said "no ODD prerequisites", meaning we may need to complete some achievement or quest.

If so, that's a bit annoying as I was doing this on a boosted hunter.
Again, if so, then it would need to be a neutral quest/achievement for sure (or one that is rewarded/retained upon faction changing)