Posted on December 24th, 2009 by admin
From time to time it occurs to me that my character, were I a better roleplayer, has actually been to a whole lot of places. He’s seen a ridiculous amount of things and would have a really hard time settling down on a farm somewhere on Azeroth or whatever it is old adventurers do when they’re tired of killing old gods, elemental monstrosities, Dragon Aspects, ancient liches, and Illidan Stormrage, to name just a few.
It really occurred to me on a visit to Darnassus, in fact, to turn in the quest “A Cautious Return” that I should be able to do more than just hand the dude a note. I mean, I killed Illidan! I’ve kicked Kil’Jaeden’s butt back down the Sunwell myself! I went back in time and fought Archimonde. (By the way, Tyrande, thanks for the slow fall item and all.) Lore wise, I’ve pretty much seen everything at this point and soon, I’ll be running off to fight Arthas. You’d think I could say “hey, take it
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Posted on December 21st, 2009 by admin
We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.
The Angry Dwarfs covers patch 3.3 for new players.
BobTurkey continues his patch 3.3 theorycrafting guide for priests, discussing haste rating this time around.
Protection paladins, Righteous Defense has a guide for you. A list of desirable loot from the first wing of Icecrown Citadel, as well as Emblems of Frost.
And then we have a guide from SpicyTuna, discussing a PvE frost mage’s strategy for Lord Marrowgar.
Rogues, not sure what the traps in Icecrown Citadel look like? Forever a Noob can, strangely enough, make you less of a noob.
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Posted on December 17th, 2009 by admin
Following the pattern held in previous years, Blizzard will again be loaning out some of their top developers for panels at this year’s Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco, CA. WoW’s former Lead Producer Jeff Kaplan, a.k.a. Tigole, presented the keynote speech at last year’s GDC, and this year two top developers will be on tap to give horribly esoteric panels.
Brian Schwab, Blizzard’s Senior AI/Gameplay Engineer, will be presenting a lecture on AI architecture …
“AI programmers rarely use a pure architecture such as a State Machine, Planner, or Behavior Tree in isolation. Rather, several symbiotic architectures are mashed together, resulting in an overall architecture that is unique and powerful in its own way. This lecture is designed as a series of three mini-lectures where you will hear about several mashed up AI architectures along with intriguing lessons and insights.”
… and Erin Catto, Blizzard’s Principle
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Posted on December 14th, 2009 by admin
We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.
OutDPS continues their constant flow of excellent Hunter content with an updated guide to pre-raid hunter gear which now includes loot from patch 3.3.
Having trouble tanking the Halls of Reflection? Righteous Defense has the solution.
The Lion Guard has some ideas on how to make Holy Paladins more interactive, and wants to know what you think.
Are you a mage using Scorchio? Having some problems with it in patch 3.3? You’re not alone. Empowered Fire has some workarounds for you.
Hunters aren’t the only ones with a gear guide for patch 3.3. Penance Priest has one for assassination rogues, too! No, I’m kidding, it’s for discipline priests.
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Posted on December 10th, 2009 by admin
T for Thunderfury is the epic tale of Baron Soosdon’s quest to get Thunderfury for his paladin. When he finally managed this epic feat, needless to say, there was a party.
This video has a similar epic, awesome feel to many of Soosdon’s videos. And while it’s not technically a machinima, I still enjoyed the camera work and music. Soosdon’s just kind of got that flair, and could probably find ways to make an entertaining movie out of a watermelon in a bucket.
Congratulations to the good Baron on accomplishing this feat. Make sure to watch all the way through — there’s a special Christmas shout-out at the end.
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Posted on December 7th, 2009 by admin
You lucky European ducks may just have finally gotten that one thing you can hold over the heads of those Americans with their superiority complexes. The official online Blizzard store is now offering, exclusively for Europe, a set of Frostmourne-themed merchandise. Enclosed in a special box, the set contains one Frostmourne hilt keychain and one insulated metal mug with Frostmourne’s runic engravings on one side.
Steely-eyed readers may notice that the keychain is the same one as, or at least identical to, the one that came in your BlizzCon ‘09 goody bag. Of course, this one is “made of rhodium, a rare metal offering even higher quality than silver.” The mug, on the other hand, is a never-before-seen piece of merch.
The set is, of course, limited edition, so if you want to make this the perfect gift for the burgeoning death knight in your family, you’d best act quickly. Then again, I don’t think they like warmth very much. Maybe an insulated mug
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Posted on November 30th, 2009 by admin
A tipster named James sent us a pointer to store.wowhead.com a little while ago, and as a few people have noticed since, the Wowhead store is now open for business! Here’s what they’re selling:
Official Wowhead merchandise (a t-shirt, a hoodie, and a mousepad, so far – does anyone still use mousepads?)
WoW paraphernalia, like those steins, and some LapWorks and Steelseries hardware products.
Some random gaming hardware that seems to have nothing to do with WoW, like Guitar Hero for PS2, and Xbox 360 accessories. It is at a discount, though, so that’s cool.
The Burning Crusade collector’s edition. I guess they had some extra copies [now seems to be sold out].
One interesting feature of the store is “reward points.” Every item you can buy gets you a certain number of reward points; the amount loosely correlates with price, but I couldn’t determine a direct correspondence from one to the other. Basically they idea is: buy stuff, earn
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Posted on November 26th, 2009 by admin
Two Bosses Enter … but only One Boss Leaves, in WoW.com’s series of fantasy death matches. This season’s combatants come from the original five-man instances of Wrath of the Lich King.
We’ve got adds here, people: it’s Gortok Palehoof (Utgarde Pinnacle) versus Krik’thir the Gatewatcher (Azjol-Nerub). Gortok steps into the Thunderdome fresh from a resounding defeat of Lavanthor, while Krik’thir arrives after besting the Commander Stoutbeard/Kolurg from The Nexus.
Let’s review the ground rules:
Assume that the opponents share similar levels, health pools and comparative overall damage output.
New clarification: All of the competitors’ abilities, including crowd control and other effects to which bosses are usually immune, work on their opponents.
This deathmatch takes place in neutral territory, which shall in no way hinder either opponent from using his usual resources.
Don’t get caught up in gameplay mechanics and what
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Posted on November 23rd, 2009 by admin
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com’s daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco be your host today.
Happy fifth anniversary, everyone! In honor of such a prestigious age for our young upstart MMO, this edition of the Queue … has … well, basically nothing to do with the anniversary at all. I mean, it’s not as if you guys asked any anniversary-related questions. So, we’re just setting today’s Queue to “normal view” and takin’ care of business.
Shall we?
Pemberton asked…
How come we can’t fly from Darkshore to the Exodar?
Good question! I discovered the reason why back during BC alpha. The answer has to do with how maps are set up in WoW. Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms each have their own map set, with a unique ID. Northrend and Outland both have one, too, and so does every instance in the game.
What makes Exodar and Quel’Thalas different is that
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Posted on November 19th, 2009 by admin
Ready Check is a column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses.
I like the phrase real time execution when talking about raid management. It sounds real raid-like doesn’t it? We’re not fighting these bosses in a turn-based atmosphere. We’re providing them some real time execution. This time it’s for real, and this time, you’re getting executed! No more of this “it’s only a set back nonsense!”
Real time execution is not a science. It’s a skill and it’s an art. When you refer to “real time execution,” you’re talking about the actual nuts and bolts of running the raid right now, in the instance, as-it-happens, Leeroy Jenkins style. RTE is the on-the-spot management a raid leader performs to overcome performance issues the raid is having right now, which cannot (or should not) wait for down
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