by Magistrate - 10 years ago     show comments

The Warlords of Draenor beta has been messing around with more than Azeroth’s Orgrimmar, Stormwind, and Blasted Lands. The Infinite Dragonflight is developing a presence near the Caverns of Time in Tanaris, as players are discovering, and we went out into the desert to snag some pictures. A word of caution: this will contain spoilers to both old and new content.

It currently isn’t clear what the Infinite are doing in Tanaris, but we have some interesting bits to go on. The Infinite Dragonflight has had a presence in most World of Warcraft expansions, including The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, and Cataclysm, but the deviant Dragonflight seemed to have skipped the events of Mists of Pandaria. It looks like Warlords of Draenor is remedying that.

According to dataminers, the Warlords beta has added a total of seven new Infinite Dragonflight NPCs to the area in and around the Caverns of Time. Additionally, CosmicGuitares put together a beta video previewing the changes. Currently, it looks like Infinite Pesterwings–tiny dragonkin–are spawning throughout the cavern and around the outside area. An Infinite Vanguard spawns just down the road within the Caverns of Time ruins. All new mobs appear to be level 90.

The Infinite Dragonflight, Revisited

The Infinite Dragonflight was revealed to be the work of Nozdormu at the conclusion of the End Time dungeon added in Cataclysm. The Infinite had been behind a number of time-based shenanigans, such as preventing key events in history from transpiring with the hope of modifying the future.

Such events have included the opening of the Dark Portal, the freeing of Thrall, and preventing Arthas from purging Stratholme when it was corrupted by the nathrezim Mal’Ganis. All of these events had an element of moral ambiguity–on the one hand, the Infinite were preventing terrible events from taking place, but on the other hand, such meddling would have invariably and unpredictably altered the future–the time period of our heroes.

The Bronze Dragonflight in Mists (Spoilers)

Although the Infinite Dragonflight didn’t appear in Mists, the Bronze Dragonflight (protectors of time) did have a presence. The last content patch revealed the Timeless Isle, where the dragon Kairoz (Kairozdormu) sought players’ help in discovering the nature of the island. As we worked through his weekly quests, we used the Vision of Time to study the events culminating in the Siege of Orgrimmar. Chronormu (or “Chromie”), another member of the Bronze Dragonflight, also appears above Mogu’shan Palace to motion players to the Timeless Isle. And readers of Warcraft books will remember the appearance of the Infinite Dragonflight at the climax of War Crimes.

The Bronze Dragonflight in Warlords (Spoilers)

Although Kairoz seemed a force for good–or at least neutrality–on the Timeless Isle, he later appeared watching over the battle to defeat Garrosh Hellscream in the Siege, and later appears in alternate-universe Nagrand in Warlords of Draenor. In Warlords, Kairoz gives a shard of the empowered Vision of Time to Garrosh in an attempt to manipulate him to his own ends, but is, ironically, stabbed to death with it by the very same Orc (read more on WoWWiki).

Time-related themes are located in other places on Draenor, as well, such as the Mor’dul tower event. The event shows a very strange looking artifact spewing time magic onto an Ogre tower, freezing everything inside in time.

An early (and no longer accurate) map of Draenor, featuring the “Chronal Spire”–the original gateway into the alternate universe. It has been replaced by the new Dark Portal.

Additionally, some kind of chronal magic was going to be the way players originally entered the alternate-universe Draenor. One of the early concept maps of the planet shown as a slide during the last BlizzCon gave us a peak of the Chronal Spire. Although this structure is no longer on the map, it’s probably safe to say that it was an indication that the power of time would be a component of the expansion’s story. Whatever the case with the Infinite Dragonflight, Warlords has all the trappings of time magic woven into its opening events, and the Bronze Dragonflight has had a couple important appearances at the tail-end of Mists.

Whether this is a herald of an unknown story or content patch sometime during Warlord‘s lifetime, or a set up for something to happen farther down the line, one thing is certain–Blizzard has not let these powerful forces fade into the past.