The Opening of the Gates

In a strange juxtaposition of retro gaming and modern social media, I found out that the Ahn'Qiraj war effort on Kronos had been completed because a message from Kronos' official Facebook page about it showed up on my Facebook feed. It stated that there was going to be a delay of five days before the grand opening of the gates, to allow the armies to get into position. I have no idea whether that's true to the original Vanilla experience, but it was certainly convenient to have the whole event moved to a weekend, when I'd actually have a chance to poke my head in to see what was happening.

On Saturday evening I then saw another post stating that the event had started, though the gates to the raid weren't supposed to open until Sunday. I logged right in, having already parked my paladin at Cenarion Hold the day before.

Silithus was the busiest I've ever seen it in any iteration of the game, and I excitedly started to ride south, passing an awe-inspiringly huge NPC army in the process. Then I saw my first Anubisath! I stopped to take a screenshot... and a few seconds later I was dead, killed by Horde. Oh right, PvP server.

I released my spirit and watched the continuous stream of Alliance ghosts running back to their bodies for a few seconds, then logged out. My plan to "witness" the event, maybe even record it on video or something, was clearly futile under the circumstances, and I had so many more fun things to do that evening than let myself get ganked over and over again.

But you know... well done, guys.

(Tekai once again has a more informative post about what's been happening.)