Onyxia is returning to form in World of Warcraft to celebrate the game's five year anniversary in the upcoming patch version 3.2.2. Onyxia's Lair will be a 10 and 25 man dungeon come 3.2.2, and will also feature items which preserve the old Tier 2 look from the original run, but will of course have level 80 stats. Onyxia will also drop a 310% speed flying mount modeled after Onyxia herself known as the Brood of Onyxia.

In addition, players who log in during the game's fifth anniversary will all receive a Onyxia Whelping pet.

3.2.2 has hit the PTR already, and patch notes  are now available as well. You can find them below:

General

The Brood Mother Returns

o After years of lurking in her lair battling the many brave adventurers who travelled from afar to challenge her, Onyxia returns to commemorate World of Warcraft’s five-year anniversary.

+ Onyxia has been scaled to offer new challenges to level 80 players and is now available for testing in 10- and 25- player modes.
+ Adjustments have been made to the encounter to keep it fit for modern raiding, but the fundamental experience of fighting the Brood Mother will remain, as will the horror of the Deep Breaths!
+ Some classic items Onyxia offered level 60 players will have their stats adjusted appropriately for level 80 players.
+ Brood of Onyxia, a very rare 310%-speed mount modeled after Onyxia herself will be available for the luckiest of challengers.

Copied Test Realm characters will no longer be copied with their achievement history in order to better facilitate the character copy process.

The full patch notes can be found on the official EU forums here.

Thats stupid, and they don't even reskin the drops. Next think you know your going to be doing Molten Core for T1 again : D

Run out of ideas? Let's just bring back old stuff. These idiots will pay for anything!

Its actually ingenious since a lot of current WoW players were not around to experience Onyxia back in the day...

And some of those who were would actually enjoy doing it again. It was an enjoyable fight.

Plus, look at it from Blizzard's perspective... they have designed MASSIVE amounts of content in WoW that is now completely useless due to expansions. Why wouldn't they start adjusting some of the old content to work with the new level cap and equipment? 

Oh god the haters are out... hating on something popular doesn't make you kool kids it just makes you look stupid.


I think this is great making old content useful again and bringing back some memories. I hope they go through all the old zones to make them abit more populated and fun.

Why is it that people skip over this part "Onyxia returns to commemorate World of Warcraft’s five-year anniversary" and immediately go on the attack?

People have been saying for a while that Blizzard "throws away" old content in favor of new content so to celebrate the 5 year anniversary they bring back a classic raid. Yet they are met with outcries of being "lazy" and "recycling" because they have run out of ideas.

This is why developers dont listen to forums, you keep sending mixed messages. You say you want something and then when you get it, you complain.

Originally posted by Xiaoki

Why is it that people skip over this part "Onyxia returns to commemorate World of Warcraft’s five-year anniversary" and immediately go on the attack?

People have been saying for a while that Blizzard "throws away" old content in favor of new content so to celebrate the 5 year anniversary they bring back a classic raid. Yet they are met with outcries of being "lazy" and "recycling" because they have run out of ideas.

This is why developers dont listen to forums, you keep sending mixed messages. You say you want something and then when you get it, you complain.

Its just the same WoW haters that always troll these forums. They have been pissed for years that WoW is so popular and drains population from other games and will look for any excuse to badmouth it.

However, it would seem they are by far the vocal minority.

Originally posted by Xiaoki

Why is it that people skip over this part "Onyxia returns to commemorate World of Warcraft’s five-year anniversary" and immediately go on the attack?

People have been saying for a while that Blizzard "throws away" old content in favor of new content so to celebrate the 5 year anniversary they bring back a classic raid. Yet they are met with outcries of being "lazy" and "recycling" because they have run out of ideas.

This is why developers dont listen to forums, you keep sending mixed messages. You say you want something and then when you get it, you complain.

These arn't fans of World of Warcraft, these are people who blame the game for ruining the genre even though Blizzard never developed all those crap clones. Noone really cares what they think anyways they're just a minority.

Originally posted by Anubisan

Originally posted by Xiaoki

Why is it that people skip over this part "Onyxia returns to commemorate World of Warcraft’s five-year anniversary" and immediately go on the attack?

People have been saying for a while that Blizzard "throws away" old content in favor of new content so to celebrate the 5 year anniversary they bring back a classic raid. Yet they are met with outcries of being "lazy" and "recycling" because they have run out of ideas.

This is why developers dont listen to forums, you keep sending mixed messages. You say you want something and then when you get it, you complain.

Its just the same WoW haters that always troll these forums. They have been pissed for years that WoW is so popular and drains population from other games and will look for any excuse to badmouth it.

However, it would seem they are by far the vocal minority.

Unlike you im not willing to settle for half assed content..

I think it's funny how people complain that they want to have a reason to run old content and how they like the old tier armor better than the new, then Blizzard brings back Ony with a T2 look and people complain.

Guess you can't keep 10M+ people happy.

Originally posted by Varny

Originally posted by Xiaoki

Why is it that people skip over this part "Onyxia returns to commemorate World of Warcraft’s five-year anniversary" and immediately go on the attack?

People have been saying for a while that Blizzard "throws away" old content in favor of new content so to celebrate the 5 year anniversary they bring back a classic raid. Yet they are met with outcries of being "lazy" and "recycling" because they have run out of ideas.

This is why developers dont listen to forums, you keep sending mixed messages. You say you want something and then when you get it, you complain.

 

These arn't fans of World of Warcraft, these are people who blame the game for ruining the genre even though Blizzard never developed all those crap clones. Noone really cares what they think anyways they're just a minority.

smart people are also a minority....what does that say about wow? hmmm....I played for a long time and got tired of them dishing out half ass content...while other games give way bigger content patches quicker and more in numbers then  wow......wow only did 2 major patches in bc...maybe they dont care because they know the majority is willing to pay for crap.

Originally posted by skeaser

I think it's funny how people complain that they want to have a reason to run old content and how they like the old tier armor better than the new, then Blizzard brings back Ony with a T2 look and people complain.

Guess you can't keep 10M+ people happy.

Their is no point to run old content. I would rather them make new content...and more of it instead of 1 raid in the "major patch"

Originally posted by cloudacv

Originally posted by Varny

Originally posted by Xiaoki

Why is it that people skip over this part "Onyxia returns to commemorate World of Warcraft’s five-year anniversary" and immediately go on the attack?

People have been saying for a while that Blizzard "throws away" old content in favor of new content so to celebrate the 5 year anniversary they bring back a classic raid. Yet they are met with outcries of being "lazy" and "recycling" because they have run out of ideas.

This is why developers dont listen to forums, you keep sending mixed messages. You say you want something and then when you get it, you complain.

 

These arn't fans of World of Warcraft, these are people who blame the game for ruining the genre even though Blizzard never developed all those crap clones. Noone really cares what they think anyways they're just a minority.

 

smart people are also a minority....what does that say about wow? hmmm....I played for a long time and got tired of them dishing out half ass content...while other games give way bigger content patches quicker and more in numbers then  wow......wow only did 2 major patches in bc...maybe they dont care because they know the majority is willing to pay for crap.

How is making old content useful again a bad thing? SOE have done it with some of their games like The village in SWG and the fans of the game are happy. It's a great step towards repopulating the old world and making armour sets people loved become useful again.

Clearly none of you know how Blizzard works.

Pre-BC was the 1.0+ stage, BC was the 2.0+ stage, and WotLK is the 3.0+ stage.

Every .1 is a big patch that adds content such as dungeons.

Ex. 3.2 has huge "fixes" and nerfs and adds Crusader's Coliseum, the new raid dungeon.

3.2.2 doesn't add anything incredible(usually), just some hotfixes, small changes and such.

Being that it is the 5 year anniversary, Blizzard has decided RATHER THAN ONLY HOTFIXES in the minor patch, to buff up Onyxia and make her drop old school loot with lvl 80 stats and drop some new stuff.

For those complaining about how "you'd rather have new stuff", you obviously have not been playing very long and haven't learned or at least noticed how Blizzardd marks their patches. I think all companies do it the same way anyway...

Shortly put, Blizzard would normally make this patch only have fixes but, for the anniversary, is bringing Onyxia to the lvl 80's.

When 3.3 comes out, you will have your new dungeon. Icecrown Citadel.

EDIT: This small patch makes me wish I would be playing then. I have better things to do and better games to play rather than listen to "know it all, just started playing" fanboys in Trade Chat. Also, the new dungeon sucks, I've played it. And it's too easy.

Originally posted by Varny

Oh god the haters are out... hating on something popular doesn't make you kool kids it just makes you look stupid.


I think this is great making old content useful again and bringing back some memories. I hope they go through all the old zones to make them abit more populated and fun.

More MMO's should be revisiting old world content in order to revitalise the game world once new expansions have been released.

New expansions always sound the death knell for old content, yet it's still out there taking up space and being either bypassed or done solo by a Paladin, oh what joy that is.

I say tweak all old world content so that it can still provide a challenge for all lvls, why on earth there isn't more scaleable content I will never know, and with this option your giving all the players so much more to do than daily quests.

Seems WoW devs run out ideas

Originally posted by Arskaaa

Seems WoW devs run out ideas

Hardly. If you knew anything about WoW lore you'd know that there are tons of things they could and will expand upon such as the Emerald Dream or the Maelstrom.

One thing I'm still unclear about, though. I've been talking to some of my older friends from back when WoW first came out, and we've been kicking around the idea of making a Legacy guild to start from the beginning again and just hit ALL of the game's content. We've got our 80s and pretty much have done it all. Now we want to just enjoy the game from a PvE angle. I know we're not the only ones doing this sort of thing.

I'm just curious if this does anything to the original quest line that culminates in the quest to take her down. I haven't seen anything conclusive about this. I'm sure there's probably a blue post about it, but  I got sick of reading 30+ pages of "AWESOME!" and "LAZY BLIZZARD!" posts at the official forums.

I am confused, the 5 year anniversary is not until November, I expect the patch to hit sooner than that.  

Nice that Blizzard is making old instances worthwhile again.  Nothing wrong with that, and who cares if they use the same skins.

Originally posted by Arskaaa

Seems WoW devs run out ideas

it does seem a bit lasy. Look at WoW's spandex wearing twin. For CoH's 5 year aniversiery (notice its the same Aniversary!) they added two new Task forces (one hero, one villian) that revive the Evil Nazi Clone of the hero's siginture character Statesman.

The Richesman is a monster to fight on both sides, but he's new...

Originally posted by cloudacv

Originally posted by Anubisan

Originally posted by Xiaoki

Why is it that people skip over this part "Onyxia returns to commemorate World of Warcraft’s five-year anniversary" and immediately go on the attack?

People have been saying for a while that Blizzard "throws away" old content in favor of new content so to celebrate the 5 year anniversary they bring back a classic raid. Yet they are met with outcries of being "lazy" and "recycling" because they have run out of ideas.

This is why developers dont listen to forums, you keep sending mixed messages. You say you want something and then when you get it, you complain.

Its just the same WoW haters that always troll these forums. They have been pissed for years that WoW is so popular and drains population from other games and will look for any excuse to badmouth it.

However, it would seem they are by far the vocal minority.

Unlike you im not willing to settle for half assed content..

Whatever!!!  Talk to the hand...
 

Now that looks like fun. I remember the original raid, and it was rather entertaining. But looking at the patch notes Death Knight is still getting "balanced"...Not to mention Pally and rogue this time.  Will these people EVER knock it the hell off with the "balancing"?? It would be one hell of a lot easier(on all concerned) if they split talents in to PvE and PvP.

This thread is proof that WOW haters, the majority of which have no clue about game development and how to run a game, are never happy and will never be happy with ANY decision Blizzard makes.

For months, they complain - "Blizzard needs to revamp the old content".

Now its - "Blizzard is revamping the old content - they ran out of ideas and are lazy".

See, never happy.

This is clearly for fun and as others have said, it is going to give many new players the chance to do one of the hardest, most exciting and crazy fights in all of WOW.

Any player who joined after the BC launch, probably has not done Onyxia at the level it was designed for. This is their chance.

Many old school players, who remember this fight and would like to experience it again and yet another chance to scream "MORE DOTS!!!!" again, are going to relish the opportunity.

Overall it is a win-win for Blizzard and anyone but the most hardcore and blinded hater will see that. Of course they hate anything Blizzard does and will never play WOW again so honestly, it doesn't matter what they think.

I am actually rather happy for Blizzard and the WoW fans out there.  This is a good thing, making old content that people missed something worth doing.

  There is nothing wrong with revamping old content to make it worthwhile again; as pointed out before, SOE has done it a little with SWG as well as a few zones in EQ2.   WoW has been a bit notorious for coming out with new content and new raid zones that kind of push the rest of it into the shadows never to be used again.  The zone files are taking up space... why not give people a chance to use it!?

There is but a difference between deserting some of the wonderfull old zones and revamping a single cave with a dragon.

Of course it would be great to re-visit many places of Azeroth revamped, but selling Onyxia with 80s-loot as new content is slighly beside what people meant with "make Azeroth worthwhile again".