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Lesser Voidcaller brings all the spirits to the yard

June 28, 2013, 7:00 am
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Lesser Voidcaller

Since the introduction of the new Raiding with Leashes achievement, I've been farming the old BC raids for new pets. I've only managed to farm up about half, but I'm sure Lady RNG will be kind to me at some point. In my collecting adventures, I've come across a few battle pets that are so irresistibly cute that I could care less about abilities, pet family, or how to obtain them. Lesser Voidcaller definitely falls under that category because of its unique idle animation that summons small spirits.

Lesser Voidcaller drops from High Astromancer Solarian in The Eye, so it's not tough to obtain. Before you engage the boss, be sure to at least kill the two packs patrolling the room, as the casters will use a mind control and force a reset. The entire room will pull with the boss if you don't clear it, but I've never had an issue AoEing everything, even on my squishier priest.

Lesser Voidcaller is of the Magic family and its abilities are as follows:

Continue reading Lesser Voidcaller brings all the spirits to the yard

WoW InsiderLesser Voidcaller brings all the spirits to the yard originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 28 Jun 2013 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The living game and the end of nostalgia

July 8, 2013, 2:00 pm
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The ends of nostalgia
The downside to being the equivalent of a WoW immortal, having played close to non stop for the entire history of the game, is that you see a lot of things come and go. Guilds, players, friends, raids, dungeons, zones, expansions. It was all new once, and it all eventually isn't new anymore. And as a result, although I have in the past waged wars of words against nostalgia among the WoW playerbase, I can be as guilty of it as anyone.

There are, indeed, a great many things I miss. Some of them I get to see whenever I want, like Blackwing Lair and Un'Goro Crater, others are players who stopped playing, playstyles that are no longer valid (I loved and will always fondly remember the days of fury tanking Stratholme for my guild Eldritch Way over on Kilrogg, then taking the technique into raiding on Azjol-Nerub with Sworn, fury tanking in MC, BWL and AQ before finally speccing prot to tank Naxx) and even places that are just plain gone now. The other day, while doing my weekly scouring of the Barrens I realized that ever since Cataclysm, the zone I remember is gone, baby - Mankrik's wife is buried, and the days where I rolled a horde and leveled it to 60 just so I could attack my own guildmates when they raided the Crossroads are just as buried as she is.

Continue reading The living game and the end of nostalgia

WoW InsiderThe living game and the end of nostalgia originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 08 Jul 2013 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Know Your Lore: Why I love rambling on about Warcraft Lore

July 10, 2013, 11:00 am
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Know Your Lore Why I love rambling on about Warcraft Lore
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

Yesterday, on the podcast, we were asked a question about WoW lore and why we seem to know a lot about it. Well, it is my job as the writer of this column (and Anne's, too) to talk about these things, but the fact remains, we enjoy the Warcraft setting and its lore. Finding out that the Watcher Tyr lost his hand fighting Galakrond or speculating that N'Zoth has a sunken city somewhere underneath Vashj'ir are fun. Thinking about the setting and its quirks - like the Dungeon Journal's stating that the Twin Consorts are rumored to be the only two female mogu in existence, for example - is kind of like playing a vast game of K'Nex with the story.

The Warcraft setting started off with Warcraft: Orcs & Humans and has grown with games, novels, comics, and of course World of Warcraft and its many expansions. The MMO has greatly expanded the game's lore as it has produced new content - we've seen Outland, Northrend, and Pandaria, journeyed to elemental planes of air, fire and earth, discovered the threat of the old gods and seen the Burning Legion in action (going so far as to directly confront Kil'jaeden himself) and a great many of the setting's most iconic characters - Ragnaros, C'thun, Nefarian, Garrosh Hellscream, Saurfang, Bolvar Fordragon - these were all first seen in World of Warcraft. As the game has continued, the lore has only gotten deeper. For that matter, the game has taken characters I didn't care for at all, like Vereesa Windrunner, and elevated them in my eyes to being interesting, even fascinating.

Continue reading Know Your Lore: Why I love rambling on about Warcraft Lore

WoW InsiderKnow Your Lore: Why I love rambling on about Warcraft Lore originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 10 Jul 2013 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Après Hellscream, le déluge: A Lore Projection

July 11, 2013, 2:00 pm
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Spoilers for Patch 5.4 lurk within this post, like a hideous phalanx of grue.

I can't shake this feeling of dread lately. Thinking about the Siege of Orgrimmar, about Garrosh Hellscream, about the Horde and what's to become of it, and of the Alliance. Thanks to the most recent sound files, we know a few things, but what we don't learn from those files is as interesting as what we do learn. And yet, I can't shake this feeling of dread.

What am I dreading? The villain will be defeated, right? The heroes will be triumphant, the rebels and the Alliance will storm Orgrimmar and the 'True Horde' will be toppled from the fortresses it has made of a formerly vibrant, brawling town. All will be right with the world, yes?

Maybe yes, but maybe no. I keep looking at Garrosh Hellscream -- the orc who successfully led a disorganized Horde rabble to Northrend and welded an army out of it -- and thinking about what comes after the siege. What happens when the son of Grom is defeated? What happens to the Horde? What happens to the Alliance? What happens to Azeroth? What happens to us?

Continue reading Après Hellscream, le déluge: A Lore Projection

WoW InsiderAprès Hellscream, le déluge: A Lore Projection originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 11 Jul 2013 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Know Your Lore: Worlds lost, worlds unknown

July 24, 2013, 11:00 am
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The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

There are worlds we have not yet visited. Realms we have not seen, do not know. Some are demon-haunted nightmares, still others lost to our understanding, destroyed. The Burning Legion has been thwarted twice on Azeroth, but make no mistake - they have yet to bring their full power to bear, seeking instead to seize the world's unique magical energies for their own use. The dead world Xerrath demonstrates that the Legion has in the past destroyed entire worlds merely as a show of force to cow others into submission and slavery. What's worse is, there are races that were wiped out by them, but others who proved their worth were instead made into servants and slaves to the Legion - and Azeroth has balked their advance twice, putting us squarely in the strong enough to make good slaves category.

Yet, too, there are worlds beyond even the Legion's control, worlds dominated by the vast hosts that the Old Gods and their servants such as the Prophet Skerram, worlds like K'aresh (home of the Ethereals), worlds shaped by the Titans, and worlds that yet sleep in their infancy, unaware of the struggle between ancient inimical forces. Azeroth was one such world not too long ago. The destruction of K'aresh by Dimensius the All-Devouring proves that there are forces, hungry and ravening, that serve no masters and have destruction on their mind completely unrelated to the Legion or the Old Gods.

We know barely a fragment of the vast cosmos. Let us explore what little we do know.

Continue reading Know Your Lore: Worlds lost, worlds unknown

WoW InsiderKnow Your Lore: Worlds lost, worlds unknown originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 24 Jul 2013 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Velen Problem: Why the draenei need dissent

August 7, 2013, 1:00 pm
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The Velen Problem Why the draenei need dissent
I've been thinking about this one for a while. The character of Velen is a useful one for World of Warcraft as a whole as well as being one of my favorites in the game -- he stands for a rationally enlighten position which seeks to unite the Horde and Alliance in order to hold off the greater threat of the Burning Legion. In that regard, he's WoW's Medivh from Warcraft III. His visions of the future and powerful understanding of the Holy Light give him an unassailable moral authority - it's difficult for any allied faction leader to stand directly against Velen's position, when he makes it known. Luckily for the narrative, Velen is often distracted with seeking visions of the war with the Legion and how to defeat them and he can't always stand against the Horde/Alliance conflict... either that, or he foresees that it will play out in a way that's beneficial to his goals.

But it is this very role as unassailable moral compass that makes Velen a problem in terms of integrating the draenei into World of Warcraft and its storyline.

I'll explain using some examples. The current Battlefield Barrens weekly quest, for instance, is just the latest sign of Horde/Alliance conflict on Kalimdor. The Horde have expanded into Ashenvale, taken over Azshara, bombed Stonetalon, even made inroads into Darkshore (seemingly, at least) by allying with the local trolls. The night elves are reeling from these attacks. Their new worgen allies are stepping up to aid the Sentinels, going so far as to seek training under Shandris Feathermoon. Yet the draenei, who live on a set of islands just off the coast of Kalimdor, have done nothing.

Continue reading The Velen Problem: Why the draenei need dissent

WoW InsiderThe Velen Problem: Why the draenei need dissent originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 07 Aug 2013 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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How long is too long for a raid?

August 23, 2013, 12:00 pm
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How long is too long for a raid
I remember the year I spent in Icecrown Citadel. I'm not really exaggerating - it was from December to December, so about a year total. It was about the longest time I spent on a raid, including the days of Molten Core - for comparison, Molten Core was the only real endgame raid besides Onyxia's Lair from November of 2004, WoW's release date, until July of 2005, so roughly eight months. Interestingly, the Shadow of the Necropolis patch (patch 1.11) came out in June of 2006, so in the year between the first and last raids of classic WoW we saw MC, Onyxia, BWL, Zul Gurub, Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj, Temple of Ahn'Qiraj and finally Naxxramas. All of these raids released between July of 2005 and June 2006. Not all of these raids were replacements for previous ones - Blackwing Lair and AQ 40 were considered 'sidegrades' from each other, at least until one killed C'thun, who until the release of Naxxramas had the best gear in the game. The two 20 man raids, ZG and AQ20, did not replace BWL or evn MC gear, they just provided another place to go.

Because of the way raids were structured back then it's a little misleading to compare classic's raid release schedule with our modern one. Raids were something a very few players overall did - there was no parity between smaller and larger raid sizes, no LFR, no flex (although by the time Naxxramas came out, some guilds were running MC, Onyxia and even BWL/AQ with smaller raids to maximize gear acquisition before heading into Naxx) and the only way to gear up for raids was either to be carried through said raids by geared groups and handed all the stuff they didn't want or need anymore, or to start on the ground floor and run the level 60 dungeons. The design wasn't structured around raiding being accessible or allowing a larger group of players to see these fights - raiders got to see them, and if that was 10% of the people playing the game, that's what it was.

It's interesting to look at how players react to raid content now. A commonly expressed sentiment is that Throne of Thunder, a raid first released on March 5th, 2013, has been around too long and players are eager for new content. This is a raid that has been around for six month, and will be superseded around the time it enters it's seventh. While hardly the shortest time a raid has ever had to be run through, it's not much longer than the initial tier of Mists raid content, either. Mists of Pandaria released on September 25th, 2012, meaning that from October 2012 to March 5th 2013 we only had MSV, HoF and ToES - a time of about five months. What makes five months acceptable and seven months unacceptable? Are two months that much longer to raid a zone?

Continue reading How long is too long for a raid?

WoW InsiderHow long is too long for a raid? originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 23 Aug 2013 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Take what drops?

August 24, 2013, 4:00 pm
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The Care and Feeding of Warriors Take what drops
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host.

In looking over the changes to warriors in patch 5.4, we know that the patch will be going live on September 10th and, as of now, we've seen very little in way of buffs to our DPS (fury is seeing a change to Storm Bolt that might make it worth taking, arms is getting some AoE dps buffs and all warriors should see a slight bump from Deep Wounds, but nothing terribly significant) - I think it's safe to say we're not going to see anything like a buff to our main attacks at this point. Combined with some set bonuses that will favor arms over fury (the two piece, anyway) and I admit that I'm considering going arms once 5.4 rolls around. This is deeply ironic considering I just got a heroic thunderforged 1h weapon for my SMF set. I took the scimitar for three reasons I think most warrior players will appreciate.
  • It was a huge improvement over my normal 2h raid weapons.
  • It dropped and I could use it.
  • See number two.
While SMF puts out more DPS than either TG or arms as of right now (it's debatable whether or not that will continue) the two fury specs are close enough that as of right now, DPS warriors are in a strange position of being able to essentially switch between the two. It's not as easy as simply slapping on the weapons, of course - the current game is one with reforging and gem selection to consider. In order to go from TG to SMF, I have to reforge several pieces of gear as well as change my gem selection (and it is of course even harder to go arms from either TG or SMF). This is somewhat counter to the idea that you would use either TG or SMF based on whatever drops - even if you find yourself suddenly holding a much better SMF set, you can't ignore the work you'll need to get SMF ready, and you certainly can't switch between the two on a fight per fight basis.

Continue reading The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Take what drops?

WoW InsiderThe Care and Feeding of Warriors: Take what drops? originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 24 Aug 2013 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Features that have changed the World of Warcraft

August 27, 2013, 5:00 pm
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Features that have changed the World of Warcraft
Time to be blunt. World of Warcraft is way better now than it was in vanilla.

Before you gasp and get a case of the vapors, let's get real here. I'm me, it's true, you know it's true. The talent system? Leaps and bounds better than the last minute Diablo II clone we got in classic. Raiding? Raids today are more accessible, better designed, and far more varied then the resistapaloozas we got back in the day. I say this as a dude who farmed UBRS for the Draconian Deflector and who tanked Princess Huhuran in cloth freaking booties because they had nature resistance on them. Throughout its near-decade long run, World of Warcraft has constantly changed, iterated and improved on the experience it provides. Every patch, every expansion has made adjustments and tweaks, and while nothing is perfect and not all changes were good (We all know that any change to warriors that didn't make them invincible supergods wasn't a good one, am I right? Why are there so many crickets here?) the game has moved forward with new systems and features.

For me, it's interesting to look back over the history of the game at those changes that really improved the player experience or changed it in a fundamental way, that altered how we play. And so, now I'll do exactly that. With Flex Raids on the horizon for patch 5.4, what else can we look back on?

Continue reading Features that have changed the World of Warcraft

WoW InsiderFeatures that have changed the World of Warcraft originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 27 Aug 2013 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Warcraft and its "Joker Problem"

August 28, 2013, 11:00 am
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The "Joker Problem" is, in its simplest terms, based around the old Batman villain, first introduced in 1940. In his original appearance, the Joker was a homicidal madman who used complicated toxins to murder people as part of a crime wave that only he really understood. In his original appearances, the Joker was slated for death, because back then Batman routinely killed people or allowed them to die, but the editors realized that if they went around killing off all the good villains they'd run out of them, and so the Joker was spared. He went on to become Batman's greatest adversary.

World of Warcraft has a Joker Problem, because we keep murdering our Jokers.

Oh, it's hard to blame us - how many times have people pointed out how ludicrous it is that Batman or someone else hasn't murdered the Joker at this point? Plus, they drops shiny goodies when we kill them, and there's nothing players in an MMO like more than trinkets and baubles. Tirion Fordring once held a death sport that was entirely based around bribing us into gladiatorial combat with goodies, and we totally went for it. Sometimes we'd run that thing four times a week. But the fact remains - we barely get a good villain rolling for an expansion before we storm his or her castle, keep, subterranean lair, floating sky palace, old temple... you get the picture, I'm sure... and do war upon said villain. At the end, a sparkly corpse is left at our feet, the day is temporarily saved, and then someone else ignores all the evidence to the contrary and starts the whole thing up again.

Not all of the dead Jokers in our track were Jokers, of course. Some were Riddlers, or Penguins, or even just barely Calendar Mans. But we've definitely left a few Jokers strewn among the pile of dead would-be world destroyers, conquerors, and assorted evil people. Lady Vashj, Illidan, Arthas, Deathwing, Ragnaros, Al'Akir, Kel'Thuzad, Malygos, we've taken out some important figures with a great deal of significance to the setting. The up side is that it demonstrates the stakes and gives a player a sense of accomplishment to finally take down an archnemesis. The downside is, they're gone.

Continue reading Warcraft and its "Joker Problem"

WoW InsiderWarcraft and its "Joker Problem" originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 28 Aug 2013 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I won't cry for you, Garrosh Hellscream

September 5, 2013, 12:00 pm
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Garrosh Hellscream
We stand on the edge of patch 5.4 -- Orgrimmar is about to be invaded, and Garrosh Hellscream is about to be dethroned and likely killed. The decision to make a playable faction's leader the end boss of an expansion is a pretty surprising one, and as is to be expected, has been met with mixed feelings from many among the player base, myself included. I admit, Garrosh holds a very special place in my heart. Back at the end of 2009, Blizzard called me up and asked if I would be willing to write his leader story, to hopefully give some more depth to a character who was at the time much maligned. The prospect was incredibly daunting, and I was terrified, but keen for a challenge, I agreed.

As often happens when you spend enough time getting into the head of a character or two (or more), that fictional person begins to grow on you. When I started Heart of War I will admit I had little love for the younger Hellscream. I thought him brash, full of himself, and woefully ignorant of Azeroth. But I went into the story production armed with the following philosophy: everyone is the protagonist of their own story. As such, I was determined to give Garrosh, as my Australian husband sometimes quips, a fair shake of the sauce bottle.

Continue reading I won't cry for you, Garrosh Hellscream

WoW InsiderI won't cry for you, Garrosh Hellscream originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 05 Sep 2013 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Everything there is to love about flex raiding

September 9, 2013, 5:45 pm
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Ghostcrawler sums up everything there is to love about flex raiding

As is unfortunately usual in a Ghostcrawler twitter conversation, it starts out with a troll trying to get under the skin of WoW's lead system designer, and ends with Ghostcrawler making a point that everyone should hear. This time it struck home. Flex raiding is not going to be there for the hard core guild that wants to get world firsts, it's not going to be there for the people that want to raid just once every few months, and it's not going to be there as a cakewalk for newbies to just waltz into and get some epics.

It's going to be there for the former raid leader like me, that had no choice in The Burning Crusade but to have a "hard core" guild and all the drama and decision making that came along with it. Back in the day (note that I'm using the phrase here not as a positive) in order to see the end game content of Illidan, Archimonde, and hell, even Kael'thas, you had to have a guild that was well put together and full of dedicated raiders.

A dedicated raider was someone who farmed 10 to 20 hours a week, came prepared with their own food, flasks, and other assorted gadgetry. A dedicated raider read up on all the stats, knew the fights inside and out, and was ready to adept to new situations on a moment's notice. A dedicated raider also knew that we lived and died by the numbers. If you were not putting out 1,000 DPS (at the time), you were on the docket to be cut. When we entered Sunwell Plateau you had to be producing 1,500 DPS on Brutullas or you were going to be sat, and probably replaced in the long run.

A dedicated raider might have been the nicest guy in the world, but if they were not performing the way they needed to, then they didn't have a spot on the team. Sorry pal, we like you, but you can't mash your hand against your keyboard fast enough. You're cut.

Continue reading Everything there is to love about flex raiding

WoW InsiderEverything there is to love about flex raiding originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 09 Sep 2013 19:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Know Your Lore: The History of the Warchief

September 12, 2013, 9:00 am
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The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

This post exists because of the massive spoilers in this link, but the post itself will be spoiler free. As long as you don't click on that spoiler-heavy link, you will not see any spoilers in this post. (Edit - actually, there's one spoiler at the very end of the post - it's clearly marked as such, and it is a minor spoiler at best, but it is there. Let that guide your actions.) Instead, we're going to talk about the position of Warchief - how it came to be, how it evolved and then devolved, and how Garrosh Hellscream's reign as Warchief set the stage for what could be a completely new direction for his successor (whose identity I will not discuss).

The position of Warchief actually began as a complete figurehead, and the first orc to hold that position, Blackhand the Destroyer, was placed in that position due to his combination of physical fearsomeness and egocentric self-aggrandizement - so easily was he misled and directed by Gul'dan, head of the Shadow Council and architect of the Horde, that he never once proved himself a threat sufficient for Gul'dan to ever consider replacing him. It's not that Blackhand was either a fool or an idiot, he was in fact a canny tactician and a respected warrior. He simply believed his own hype - so convinced was he in his own superiority that when Gul'dan presented to him that he would be a respected equal and his position as Warchief would be one of real power, he believed it, because he believed in himself. Throughout the war with the draenei and later, the invasion of Azeroth, Blackhand ruled as Warchief and allowed himself to listen to Gul'dan's words - allowed himself to listen because they were telling him what he wanted to hear.

Even as the humans balked the orcs, and Blackhand's series of victories became defeats, he continued to listen to Gul'dan. This would be his downfall.

Continue reading Know Your Lore: The History of the Warchief

WoW InsiderKnow Your Lore: The History of the Warchief originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 12 Sep 2013 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sunwell Soloing and I: How to skip Madrigosa's ice wall

September 24, 2013, 12:00 pm
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Sunwell soloing and I How to skip Madrigosa's ice wall
If you're a transmog junkie like I am, you may find yourself doing old content a lot. I've been running Sunwell lately for various pieces of the DPS plate set that dropped here, and one of the things I got really tired of was the big ice wall that Madrigosa puts up just before the Brutallus encounter. First off, it's not impossible to see through it, but it does kind of obscure the action. Secondly, I'm just cantankerous and contrary and I don't like it when some dragon from three expansions ago tells me where I can and can't go. Today, however, I discovered that I don't have to let her make that decision for me -- it's possible in fact to completely avoid the ice wall and drop down into the Brutallus area before she casts it.

Continue reading Sunwell Soloing and I: How to skip Madrigosa's ice wall

WoW InsiderSunwell Soloing and I: How to skip Madrigosa's ice wall originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 24 Sep 2013 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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World of Warcraft's peculiar time dilation

October 2, 2013, 12:00 pm
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World of Warcraft's peculiar time dilation
When you've been playing a game as long as some of us have been playing World of Warcraft, you get some unusual moments of realization. One of them occurred to me recently, when talking about the upcoming 9th Anniversary of the game this November 23rd. The person I was talking to said "Yeah, my mom showed me how to play, I used to fish for her on her hunter" and it came out that said person was 21 years old, and that she has been playing the game since she was thirteen. She has effectively grown up in Azeroth, at least part time - nearly half of her life has been spent playing this game.

Meanwhile, with each expansion the game has lost some players and gained others - there are people who started playing in Cataclysm and even people who started play this year (I know, I've met quite a few of them) and many of them have no idea how to even go about absorbing all that happened in those nine years. To people who've played all along, it all happened - it's part and parcel of the game, it's history we experienced. But to new players, the sheer volume of it all can be daunting - I've had players comment with disbelief when told about 40 man raiding, who don't really grasp just how many times class mechanics have been changed and revamped and altered. One healer simply couldn't grasp the concept of an out-of-combat resser, a healing character who stood back out of range of boss fights and resurrected people who died over and over again. For me, the trippy part of that conversation was reading a 21 year old relate stories of Molten Core to this newer player and realize they were stories of what she was doing in grammar school.

Of course, for me WoW is a game I discovered in my 30's. My early thirties, come to think of it, and now I'm well out of that decade. So we're all aging, but the proportion of time we spent playing the game is different - for me WoW is just one of many games I've played, and certainly not almost half of my lifespan.

Continue reading World of Warcraft's peculiar time dilation

WoW InsiderWorld of Warcraft's peculiar time dilation originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 02 Oct 2013 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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How the Draenei make WoW a better place

October 4, 2013, 3:00 pm
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How the Draenei make WoW a better place

The light wishes suffering on none, my child. But it does not reign unopposed in our realm
- The Prophet Velen


It's no secret that I dig the draenei. They're my favorite race in the game (my second favorite are tauren, with worgen in third) and in all honesty for a long time, I never really knew why aside from my having really loved the draenei starting zone when I first played through it during the Burning Crusade beta. I really enjoyed the feeling of camaraderie I got from the various surviving crew members, all pulling together to survive, and as the history of the long displaced race unfolded and linked up to their appearance in Warcraft III and the broken ones I'd already met back in my vanilla days running through Swamp of Sorrows, I was hooked.

I liked that they were in turns noble yet murderous - I've never forgotten that it was Velen, supposedly kindly and peace loving Prophet, who ordered my draenei to go find the blood elves and their eredar allies on Bloodmyst and eradicate them. Kill them all, Velen said to me, and I did it. They even threw a party for me afterwards. I liked that for all our obvious compassion, we still were deeply flawed - there was clear racism and disquiet aimed at the Broken, whose mutated condition filled some of our people with disgust - you could see it in how we shoved them into the darkest corners of the crashed Exodar and forced them to toil out of sight. The draenei were many things - linked to the man'ari eredar through a common origin, forever exiled from their home, hunted by their former kin - but their long relationship with the Naaru and the Holy Light hadn't made plaster saints out of the draenei. I liked their having survived the orc genocide on Draenor has hardened, but not warped them.

And to be honest, I just really liked playing in one. I like how they move, how they run, how they look in plate or mail (most of my draenei are warriors or shaman, with one paladin who doesn't get out much), how their racial Gift of the Naaru makes a sigil float over their heads, their combat animations (especially how they use staves or polearms) - but it wasn't until recently that I really thought for a while about why, exactly, I still hold such a fondness for the draenei.

Continue reading How the Draenei make WoW a better place

WoW InsiderHow the Draenei make WoW a better place originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 04 Oct 2013 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Warcraft as a whole: story balance between RTS and MMO

October 7, 2013, 4:00 pm
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I was perusing the forums (like you do) when I came across this forum thread from poster Xewie, and I found it an interesting place to start thinking from. Xewie's points aren't entirely ones I agree with - I frankly found Mists of Pandaria one of the richest expansions in terms of lore and story and feel that anyone who dismisses it simply because there are pandaren in it is deliberately and willfully blinding themselves to an excellent ride with some astonishing highs and lows - but there's a certain truth in the points about the RTS vs. WoW itself. As others (including our own Michael Sacco) have pointed out, Garrosh Hellscream is really one of the first big lore characters we've had in World of Warcraft who was born in the MMO, evolved over its course and became a faction leader and finally an end villain.

I think part of the problem is that the RTS features these characters, so even when it kills a few (like Terenas Menethil) it offers up a few more. But the MMO features us, ultimately, so when we put down Lady Vashj or Arthas, there's no immediate replacement. To be sure, there have in fact been tons of new faces over the course of World of Warcraft - Ragnaros, C'thun, Nefarian were all first introduced in classic WoW, not the RTS. The problem is, we introduce these characters and then, well, we dispatch them. Sometimes, like Ragnaros, our first encounter with them isn't a final one, but even if we know they'll eventually be back, it's not like their luck will hold out forever. I called this the "Joker problem" once, and to a degree I think it is an issue for the MMO.

However, does it follow that we need an RTS to create stories? Since I think Mists of Pandaria did an amazing job of building up the story, and in fact I'm really much more of a Cataclysm booster than most, I don't agree with that idea. In fact, in many ways, WoW has done more to broaden and expand the Warcraft setting than the RTS ever did.

Continue reading Warcraft as a whole: story balance between RTS and MMO

WoW InsiderWarcraft as a whole: story balance between RTS and MMO originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 07 Oct 2013 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Proc Weapons, How I Miss Thee

October 12, 2013, 2:00 pm
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The Care and Feeding of Warriors Proc Weapons, How I Miss Thee
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host.

Remember Gurthalak? Remember how it single-handedly propped up arms warriors at the end of Cataclysm? The proc on the weapon was really excellent, almost any melee who could use a 2h weapon wanted one. Admittedly, Gurth didn't invent proc weapons. Icecrown Citadel had some excellent weapon procs, Last Word, for instance, had an excellent proc primarily because it was almost always up - a proc that thematically owed a lot to the first real dedicated tanking epic warriors in Classic WoW would have wanted to get, Quel'Serrar. Quel's defense proc (back when defense was a thing) made it very desirable as a tanking weapon, second only to Thunderfury - and the legendary was so amazing because of its proc. It was essentially a super-Thunder Clap, great for aggro and for debuffing attack speed on targets, reducing damage taken by the tank using it.

Proc weapons have a long and stories history in World of Warcraft. One of the first weapons I crafted at level 60 was an Arcanite Champion, a weapon based entirely around its strength and heal proc. It replaced the Blackhand Doomsaw, another proc based weapon. As time has progressed, we've moved away from these weapons - stat based weapons have dominated, and for the most part that's for the best, as it's easier to balance stats. If one looks at the evolution of proc weapons, even in Burning Crusade those weapons that had procs still tended to have stats on them.

One of my favorite things about Dragon Soul was the proc weapons on Deathwing - they seemed special, designed less around playing statistical Tetris through reforging and more around visual flair as well as interesting damage output.

Continue reading The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Proc Weapons, How I Miss Thee

WoW InsiderThe Care and Feeding of Warriors: Proc Weapons, How I Miss Thee originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 12 Oct 2013 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Five features I really want from the next expansion

November 4, 2013, 1:00 pm
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So everyone's handily speculating on just what the next expansion will be, and what it will have and not have. That's pretty awesome. I love speculating. So in the spirit of things, I've decided to throw my hat in the ring and natter on about what I'd love to see from the next expansion, whatever it ends up being.

Let's just jump right into it. What stuff do I think would be awesome?

An overhaul of the leveling/alt process

I definitely think we need to reconsider how we deal with alts. I'd love to see a system that reduced the time you had to spend getting them leveled once you got the first one to max - heirlooms work for that, but that long-rumored heirloom tab would make it a lot easier. Another thing which would definitely help are more heirlooms like Hellscream's Decapitator - our current heirlooms don't take us all the way to max level the way it will, and it's also useful now as a raid-level item an alt can make use of. It's an experiment I hope they continue.

I've seen some arguments that we should be able to start a high-level alt to skip over a lot of the leveling process, especially as we get closer and closer to the likely new level cap of 100. If that was implemented, it would need to be done carefully, but I'd definitely support some way to preview a class at or near max level so you could figure out if you'll like it or cut down on having to do the full 1 to 100 (or whatever it ends up being) march again.

Continue reading Five features I really want from the next expansion

WoW InsiderFive features I really want from the next expansion originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 04 Nov 2013 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Queue: I forgot I was writing this

November 6, 2013, 8:00 am
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Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Matthew Rossi is your "Hey, it's that guy" guy today.

So yeah, I totally forgot I was supposed to write this today. I was running some dungeons, and suddenly this bolt of terror rocketed down my spine. After I dealt with that ghost, I remembered I had to write the Queue for today because folks are getting to go to BlizzCon and once again, I'm not.

I'm not bitter about it, but I am wistful that I never get to meet any of y'all.

Anyway, let's do some Queue diving, shall we?

BlackSeal asks:
If they announce a new expansion Friday (which is almost a certain thing), do you think we will also see the cinematic for the expansion on Friday as well?

I can't recall if they had a showing of the Wrath, Cata and Mists cinematics that are currently in the game to kick off the expansion on the day of announcement at Blizzcon or not. (I am pretty certain the BC cinematic was shown as it is in the game at the time of announcement? Didn't we have to wait a while past Blizzcon for the Mists one? Uncertain as well about the others)

The cinematic almost always comes much later than BlizzCon. Wrath, Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria all had videos at BlizzCon that showcased the work already done on the next expansion, but none of them had the actual in game cinematic to the best of my knowledge. (I remember the Wrath of the Lich King video from BlizzCon very well, but I'm not as sure about Cataclysm. I do know that the cinematic with Deathwing's narration was not done yet.) So there will almost certainly be some kind of video at BlizzCon, and it almost certainly won't be the actual cinematic we get when Corgis Unleashed finally is released.

Continue reading The Queue: I forgot I was writing this

WoW InsiderThe Queue: I forgot I was writing this originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 06 Nov 2013 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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