Gates of Ahn'Qiraj



An insectoid menace awaits in Silithus in the ancient, brooding city of Ahn'Qiraj that represents a danger to both Horde and Alliance and their place in Azeroth. However, no forces can preemptively deal with the threat unless they can breach the enchanted Scarab Wall and open the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj closed during the War of the Shifting Sands.



The World Event Quest
Ahn'Qiraj was opened for the first time in the realm Medivh on January 23, 2006, and has been opened on most, if not all, other realms since. Opening the gates is a process spanning weeks or even months that requires the cooperation of hundreds of players from all races and factions, involving monsters and quests from all corners of the world map.

The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj are sealed by powerful magic, and to open them, an elite guild must brave a number of trials to reconstruct a long-lost artifact: the Scepter of the Shifting Sands. This scepter can open the walls, but behind them a mighty Qiraji army lays in wait. To repel it, the combined military might of both the Alliance and Horde must be ready outside the wall, and to be ready a great number of supplies must be gathered—food, bandages, metals and herbs. Once all is ready, the player who holds the Scepter can open the gates, and the Ahn'Qiraj War can begin.

Restoring the Scepter
Restoring involves a long series of quests that will require the efforts of a well-coordinated raiding guild, supported by other top guilds within a faction. Because of the reputation requirements of a certain farming quest (see step three below), one player from each side will typically be designated as that faction's scepter-bearer.

Quest Rewards from Restoring the Scepter
Even once the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj are open, people may wish to complete part of the scepter questline for the epic rewards. This quest-line can be completed after the initial war has ended and the gates are open, and all rewards but the final mount (which can only be received during the 10-hour war event) are accessible. Here's a list of the quests that give rewards.

Red Shard Line

 * gives
 * or

Blue Shard Line

 * gives
 * and 20


 * gives
 * gives
 * or
 * or

Green Shard Line

 * gives
 * or

Completed Scepter

 * gives
 * or or  or


 * gives
 * and Scarab Lord title

Note: The quest (and therefore, the legendary mount) is only available during the main war event which occurs upon the initial ringing of the gong and lasts 10 hours thereafter. This mount is usable both inside and outside of the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj, whereas other Resonating Crystals are only usable inside the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj. Once the war event is complete, the legendary mount can no longer be obtained by any means.

can not be completed until after the war event has finished, at which time an NPC will spawn next to the gong that offers the completion of the quest line.

Gathering war supplies
While the elite guilds complete their mission, the entire server must work together to gather war supplies for the combined army of the two nations. This stage of the gate opening can easily last several (real-time) months due to the number of supplies that must be gathered:

''In parentheses is the number of signets awarded on "repeats" of the quest. The first time you will always be awarded 10 signets.''

Both factions need to gather:
 * 90,000 x Copper Bar (1 Signet)
 * 26,000 x Purple Lotus (7 Signets)
 * 80,000 x Thick Leather (7 Signets)
 * 17,000 x Spotted Yellowtail (7 Signets)
 * 400,000 x Runecloth Bandage (10 Signets)

The Alliance needs to gather in the Military Ward of Ironforge:
 * 28,000 x Iron Bar (5 Signets)
 * 24,000 x Thorium Bar (10 Signets)
 * 20,000 x Arthas' Tears (10 Signets)
 * 33,000 x Stranglekelp (3 Signets)
 * 180,000 x Light Leather (1 Signet)
 * 110,000 x Medium Leather (3 Signets)
 * 20,000 x Roast Raptor (5 Signets)
 * 14,000 x Rainbow Fin Albacore (3 Signets)
 * 800,000 x Linen Bandage (1 Signet)
 * 600,000 x Silk Bandage (5 Signets)

The Horde needs to gather in The Valley of Spirits in Orgrimmar:
 * 22,000 x Tin Bar (3 Signets)
 * 18,000 x Mithril Bar (7 Signets)
 * 96,000 x Peacebloom (1 Signet)
 * 19,000 x Firebloom (5 Signets)
 * 60,000 x Heavy Leather (5 Signets)
 * 60,000 x Rugged Leather (10 Signets)
 * 10,000 x Lean Wolf Steak (1 Signets)
 * 10,000 x Baked Salmon (10 Signets)
 * 250,000 x Wool Bandage (3 Signets)
 * 250,000 x Mageweave Bandage (7 Signets)

Each item has its own NPC for turn-in. On the Alliance side, all turn-ins are in the Military Ward in Ironforge. Each turn-in requires a full stack of the item (10 or 20, depending on the item), and awards 10 Commendation Signets and a box of the first time you hand in one stack. For the second hand-in of the same item, the amount of signets depends on the level of the item - high-level items will still give you 10 signets each time, mid-level items get you 7 signets, and 5 signets from the third hand-in on. Low-level items apparently only give 1 signet starting with the third turn-in.

Boxes of Ahn'Qiraj War Effort Supplies contain various items. Observed contents included:
 * an item appropriate to the turn-in level (eg. a lvl 23 green for silk bandages, a lvl 40 green for thick leather)
 * and several types of Scrolls

You can turn in the signets for more supply boxes or for reputation with one of your five factions. The five commendation officers, one for each race in the faction, are located in the same area and also 1 in each capital city. Each can take either, or at a time. Turning in 10 awards 150 reputation with that race (increased in Patch 2.0.1), while turning in 1 only awards you 5 reputation.

Finally, there is an NPC patrolling the area ( for the Alliance, for the Horde) that accepts 5, 10, 15, 20, or 30 Commendation Signets (depending on your level) in return for a larger batch of supplies, and will tell you the progress being made in all of the turn-ins, and an NPC for the opposite faction ( in Ironforge,  in Orgrimmar) that will tell you about progress on that side.

The turn ins per level:
 * 5: lvl 1-19
 * 10: lvl 20-29
 * 15: lvl 30-39
 * 20: lvl 40-59
 * 30: lvl 60+

Opening the gates
Once all the necessary war supplies have been gathered, the combined forces of the Alliance and the Horde will begin transporting NPCs, equipment and supplies to Silithus. Five days must pass while the supplies are sent by zeppelin (this cannot actually be seen occurring); as the days pass, the stockpiles of supplies that had been accumulating slowly diminish until everything is in place, at which point the holder of the Scepter can ring the mighty gong to cause the Scarab Wall to open. This will cause a ten-hour-long continent-wide event to begin, preceded by a global message to everyone on the server stating, ", Champion of the Bronze Dragonflight, has rung the Scarab Gong. The ancient gates of Ahn'Qiraj open, revealing the horrors of a forgotten war...".

The most immediate effect, of course, is that the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj will open and powerful monsters and bosses will begin pouring out. General Rajaxx appears, along with a number of very large Anubisath and Qiraji epic monsters that the combined player and NPC armies must defeat. Once this is done, raiding guilds can proceed into the 20- and 40-man instances at their leisure. In addition, anyone with a complete Scepter of the Shifting Sands who rings the gong again during this event will receive a Black Qiraji Resonating Crystal that is used to summon a cross-faction, fast legendary mount.

While the fray at the Gates is underway, large floating obelisks called Resonating Crystal Formations will reportedly appear in Silithus, Tanaris, Feralas, The Barrens, Thousand Needles and Un'Goro Crater. These obelisks will alternately mind-control player-characters in their vicinity and spawn high-level monsters like Colossal Anubisath Warbringers and various Silithid.

After ten hours of this the crystals and their spawn will disappear, bringing the Ahn'Qiraj War to an end. From this point forward, the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj will remain open.

Time Limited Opening Quests
There are 3 time limited quests available in Cenarion Hold during the 10 hour opening event. Each of these quests, and the related quest giver, vanish at the end of the opening event. Note that the following 3 quests only become available following the death of a Colossus mob at each of the 3 hives in Silithus. Each quest is essentially a delivery quest with a 2 hour time limit, and all are very simple to complete. Players completing each quest will receive, as well as Colossal Bag of Loot.



Organization
Some servers coordinate the efforts through their realm forums, and some even have dedicated websites to help organize their efforts.

View status on U.S. realms here.
 * First 5 U.S. Completed Realms:
 * Medivh (Gate opened on: 22/Jan/2006)
 * Mannoroth (Gate opened on: 27/Jan/2006)
 * Zul'jin (Gate opened on: 31/Jan/2006)
 * Hyjal (Gate opened on: 02/Feb/2006)
 * Icecrown (Gate opened on: 07/Feb/2006)

View status on EU realms here.
 * First 5 EU Completed Realms:
 * EU-Kael'thas (Gate opened on: 30/Jan/2006)
 * EU-Magtheridon (Gate opened on: 30/Jan/2006)
 * EU-Archimonde (Gate opened on: 02/Feb/2006)
 * EU-Azshara (Gate opened on: 06/Feb/2006)
 * EU-Destromath (Gate opened on: 11/Feb/2006)

RE-Opening the gates
When patch 3.0.2 was released, the gates of Ahn'Qiraj were briefly closed due to a bug that reset the gates on each server, and gave all characters of the same Race and Class as the original opener the ability to speak Draconic. All mobs spawned during the event were respawned as well. The supplies did not need to be gathered, and if the quest chain was done previously one would need to simply turn it in and re-open the gates, giving them the mount and Scarab Lord title.

Permanent "Closure" of the Event
On February 6, 2009, sometime after Patch 3.0.8a, Bornakk posted on the forums that the Ahn'Qiraj gates will automatically be open on all new future realms. He would also later clarify in the thread that there are no plans to have an alternative method to obtain the Black Qiraji Battle Tank.

On February 11, 2009, a day after Patch 3.0.9, Server:Nesingwary US was the world's first realm to be opened in this way.

The final step of closure came with the release of Patch 3.2. The commendation officers in all major cities were removed.

However, in Patch 3.3, the resource collectors and quests were unexpectedly brought back. Though it was simply a glitch and has been fixed, it shows the programming for the AQ War Effort still exists to this day.

The underlying programming has finally been removed by the Cataclysm expansion. All serves now have the gates open, and Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj has been retuned into a 10-player raid.

Quests
The following is a list of quests associated with the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj world event. Once the gates have been opened on your server these quests will no longer be available.


 * &mdash; /
 * &mdash; /
 * &mdash; /
 * &mdash; /
 * &mdash; /





Patches and hotfixes

 * Sceptre Quest Chain removed (undocumented changes)

Related information
Other pages relating to this:
 * Ahn'Qiraj the area
 * Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj the instance
 * Temple of Ahn'Qiraj the instance
 * Silithus the zone
 * Scarab Wall the location
 * List of scepter holders by server
 * Ahn'Qiraj War Info at Goblinworkshop.com
 * Ahn'Qiraj story progression (May fall behind in current news)
 * A quest chain walkthrough (German)