Month: October 2008

Filed under: Patches, News items, Mounts

According to the Patch 3.0.3 patch notes, the Druid Swift Flight Form, Paladin Charger, and Warlock Dreadsteed spells will soon become trainable. Before you all celebrate (or throw out invectives…), it should be noted that these spells will only become available at a level above the minimum required level to obtain the mounts or form and will require the appropriate riding skill. Swift Flight Form will be trainable at Level 71 and require Artisan or 300 Riding skill, while both the Charger and Dreadsteed will become available at Level 61 and require Journeyman or 150 Riding skill.

This means that players will still need to pony up for the cash required to train for the riding skill, which means an affordable 480-600 Gold for the land mounts and a not-quite-as-affordable 5,000 Gold for the epic flying skill. If you would like to get the satisfaction of doing some of the coolest quest lines in the game, you can check out the Dreadsteed guide on WoWwiki and our guides for the Paladin Charger for both the Alliance and the Horde. If you’ve got that 5,000 to plunk down — which our very own Dan O’Halloran has been penny-pinching to avoid — you can check out the epic flight form, too. And why not? You might even get a shot at getting one of the coolest ground mounts ever. If anything, doing the quest will grant you the mount a whopping one full level ahead of everyone else!

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, Blizzard, PvP, Quests, Wrath of the Lich King

Oh, this is rich. We’ll admit that WoW‘s achievements system is Blizzard’s reaction to Warhammer Online‘s Tome of Knowledge system, and sure, we’ll even go so far as to say that the PvE to PvP transfers are a shot off the bow of WAR, but claiming that WoW‘s Lake Wintergrasp is a straight rip from Warhammer? We’d think not. Still, that won’t keep Mythic’s CEO Mark Jacobs from claiming exactly that — the outspoken developer says he’s “flattered” by what he calls Blizzard’s attempts at open world PvP.

Too bad it’s straight out nonsense — we were at the PvP panel at last year’s BlizzCon, where Blizzard explained all of the experiments they’d made with world PvP, from the very sad Silithus, to the more successful Halaa and Auchindoun, and how they’d landed on the concept for Lake Wintergrasp — the worldwide buff, the raid boss, the persistent rewards, and so on — from all of the world PvP that had come before. That’s not to say that Blizzard doesn’t want to borrow the best things from Warhammer and other popular games out there, but to claim Wintergrasp is an attempt to emulate Warhammer‘s PvP is just plain reaching. And leveling through PvP? Considering you need a flying mount to get to Wintergrasp and you can’t actually get that until three levels left in the game, it’s as stretchy as it gets to claim that’s Blizzard’s attempt at emulating WAR. If Blizzard really did want to rip off WAR, they’d do it better than that, no?

Can’t say we’re that surprised, though. Jacobs and his team do have a habit of biting off more than they can chew already.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Events, WoW Social Conventions, Contests, WoW TCG

The WoW TCG World Championships wrapped up this weekend, and an American player named Jim Fleckenstein emerged the winner. The World Champs took place in Paris, and there was a fun twist — apparently last year, a French player won on American soil, and next year, the tournament is going to take place in Austin, Texas, so there’s a rivalry building.

The WoW TCG site has lots more, including play-by-plays of all the matches if you’re interested in how the top players play the game (Jim won with a Shaman — SHAMAN POWER!), and they’ve even got video of all the folks throwing down to win the crazy prizes. Looks like lots of fun in Paris for players of the TCG.

The 2009 season kicks off with the end of these world champs — the next event will be a Darkmoon Faire event in Anaheim, CA on November 9th (right before the Wrath release), and of course the Drums of War expansion is due out soon, with those loot cards we’ve been drooling over.

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Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Events, Ask WoW Insider, Bosses, NPCs

Time once again to put a question to you, dear readers, and see what you have to say about a current issue in the World of Warcraft. This time around, Rylia has a question about loot ethics with seasonal bosses — everyone and their guildie is taking down the Headless Horseman (making the Scarlet Graveyard an actual destination, strangely), and Rylia wants to know what the policy is when an item drops:

What’s your group loot policy for seasonal bosses? (a) Use the usual in-game loot roller; everyone roll Need on the rare items (mounts, small pets, etc.) (b) Whoever summons the boss for that particular attempt gets the rare item drop from that attempt. The logic behind (b) is that it prevents people who’ve used up their daily summons from getting more than one chance per day (and thus making their groupmates get less than one chance per day). If someone who didn’t have a summon in your seasonal group wins a rare roll, do you think that’s a ninja?

Rylia

Personally, I think all the summons should get settled before you enter the instance — if you invite someone in without a summon (for example, because they’re a tank, and you just need them rather than waiting for a tank with a summon), they’re a part of the group after that and have as much chance as anyone else to win a roll. And yes, if an item drops that someone can use, it should be a Need roll. So if that mount drops, everyone’s got a chance to win it. That’s just me, though — I can see the point about someone without a summon taking loot from people who entered with a summon.

Though I have no idea what to do if a mount and pet drops on the same run — would the person who won one not get a chance on the second? What think you, readers, both of general loot rules on season bosses and of Rylia’s summon policy?

Previously on Ask WoW Insider…

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Filed under: Night Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Hunter, Paladin, Priest, Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, Blood Elves, Classes

A little while back the gamerDNA blog did a nice breakdown of how WAR classes correlate with how gamers do on the Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology, a widely used test that can break down exactly what type of player you are (Achiever, Explorer, Socializer, or Killer). It was such an interesting writeup that I hoped they’d do it with WoW classes, and apparently I wasn’t the only one — they’ve got a new post up now examining which classes in Azeroth align with which types of players.

They throw gender into the mix as well — turns out that while the classes have generally the same percentage of players (not surprising, given that gameplay dictates the classes should be fairly balanced), things start to break up when you add gender to the mix. Priests and Warriors seem to have the biggest separation: according to their data (obtained via the profiles on their site), most Priests are played by females, and most Warriors are played by men. Paladins as well tend to be male, though not as much as Warriors, and Druids tend to be female, though not as much as Priests. Women also tend to prefer the elven races (Blood and Night), while guys apparently prefer Orcs and Dwarves (which helps my — sexist, I admit — theory from way back on the WoW Insider Show that the Dwarven starting area appeals to guys more than women).

The Bartle breakdown is interesting, too — Killers prefer Rogues (duh), Warriors tend to be Achievers, and Hunters have the slight Explorer edge, but in general, the classes have a fairly even distribution across the board. All of the different roles can be filled by all the classes, which speaks to the way Blizzard has built the classes — you can really solo, PvP, or group up with any of them. WAR‘s differences were distinct, but in WoW, Blizzard has done their best to make it so that whatever Bartle type you are, you can log in with any class and do what you want. gamerDNA promises more research here (including a Horde and Alliance breakdown), and we can’t wait to see it.

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Filed under: (Guild Leadership) Officers’ Quarters

Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers’ Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

Sometimes I get an e-mail describing to me a guild leader who fails for so many reasons that I am simply at a loss for words. However, words are all I have to work with here, along with my trusty Picard ASCII (courtesy of Blizzard poster Datth), so I will do my best. I warn you that this e-mail is a very long read. But those of you who want some insight into exactly what not to do as a guild leader, read on!

Continue reading Officers’ Quarters: /facepalm

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Filed under: Hunter, Machinima, PvP, Humor, WoW Moviewatch

Warning: This video contains harsh language.

Today we’re featuring Releasing the Beast II: Don’t Call me Huntard! by Sazabi. It’s an intriguing, mesmerizing, hilarious, self-aware take on a PvP movie — following up the hugely successful Releasing the Beast. Now, wait! Don’t tune out if you don’t like PvP movies. It’s not actually a PvP movie, per se. It’s a comedy all the way, including the filmmaker showing his own failures in the battlegrounds and making fun of his arena rating. It’s certainly not a how-to movie. In fact, the story goes out of its way to demonstrate that it is NOT a model of PvP play tactics.

The premise is this: after brutally failing during a PvE raid (with a very funny guest voice appearance from the star of Onyxia Wipe Animation) caused by his hobby as a Fraps-aholic machinima filmmaker, our hero decides to try his hand at the battlegrounds and arena scene at the urging of his main character, an Orc hunter. (Hence, the subtitle: Don’t call me huntard!) The PvP scenes are interludes within the arc of the bigger story and are set to some great music, mostly from the Naruto Original Soundtrack. These battle scenes are slickly filmed with split-screen punctuations of the action. (My only complaint about them is at times the camera angle is too high to see well.)

The battle fray is framed by the comedic conflict between the Second Life avatar of the filmmaker and his WoW creation (or so he believes), Sazabi. The story folds in on itself so many times that you feel like you’re in a Möbius strip that’s been flagged in enemy territory. But that’s exactly the fun here. Even though the film is 27 minutes long, you need to wait for the twist at the end which presents a fine comeuppance for our hero. (Which hero you’ll have to find out for yourself.) I also recommend downloading the FileFront version because the subtitles are a bit difficult to read in the streaming version and they help clear up some of the European accents at times.

[Via WarcraftMovies — Thanks Zac!]

If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Tips, Quests, Leveling, Factions, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King, (Death Knight) Lichborne

Welcome to Lichborne, where Daniel Whitcomb wishes he could be doing Hallow’s End achievements for his Death Knight on the live servers, where they count.

It’s a fact of life. Burning Crusade is about to become obsolete. All those rep grinds, all those exalted purples, all those dungeon keys are just so much pretty little bank space wasters. Sure, gear lasts a little longer into Wrath, but for the most part, we’re still going to be leaving it all behind for the new environs of Northrend, while Outland becomes a bump in the road to 80.

For Death Knights, this is probably still true. We’re going to want to rush to get through Outland so we aren’t desperately trying to find groups for Utgarde Keep while everyone else is getting Kel’thuzad on farm mode. But that means we’ll have only the bare minimum of faction, no grind, no turn-ins, no purples. On the whole this is probably pretty much OK, since we’ll be able to get good gear right out the gate in Howling Fjord and Borean Tundra. But is there still a reason to grind some of the Burning Crusade factions, or even to pay attention to them while leveling up?

Let’s look at some of the factions you’ll probably come across while speeding through Outland and what benefits they can offer the leveling knight.

Continue reading Lichborne: Are the Burning Crusades factions worth it?

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