WoW News

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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Filed under: Screenshots, Around Azeroth, Galleries

Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater

Stalked a rogue but couldn’t keep her
So he put her in a pumpkin shell
Until she shadowstepped her way out, garotted him, glassed him with a broken beer bottle for good measure, camped him until he logged out and posted a message on the realm forums about what a pervert he was. Peter had to transfer off and eventually rerolled a female gnome.

(Thanks to Kajirae of <Ultima> on Ysera for this shot from Toshley’s Station!)

Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We’d love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing [email protected] with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing — use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Bugs, Mounts

As I mentioned earlier, my server Silver Hand was down Saturday night. All night. I gave up trying around midnight. Friday night, when I was actually able to log on, the Heroic Instance servers went down catching many in my group in a neverending loading screen that forced them to restart the game only to find their toons were not logged out, blocking them from getting back in. Other reports have been pouring in, not only of servers down, but entire Battlegroups, laggy geographical regions and in one case, the disappearance of all of Outland itself.

On top of that, strange bugs have been appearing in the game such as zone-wide Wrath buffs appearing in Shadowfang Keep and Northrend lockboxes dropping off of Karazhan mobs. On the Silvermoon realm, the raid instances crashed. When the GMs reset them all they inadvertantly closed the Gates of Ahn’Qiraj as well. A packrat on the server named Dinosaur claims he had a Scepter of the Shifting Sands squirrled away in his bank and he was able to use it to bang the AQ gong to get the Scarab Lord title and claim the Scarab mount.

Speaking of mounts, how many of our trusty steeds and non-combat pets were eaten by the servers when we tried to utilize the new storage options implented in Patch 3.0.2. Many players have been petitioning to get those back. Today, Blizzard confirmed what we had been hearing in our tip line: missing mounts and pets are being mailed to characters who lost them. The process isn’t complete, but it’s happening. They also recommended going to any Stable Master (ask a Hunter) to claim any pets or mounts you deleted yourself before the patch.

In the same thread, class balance was addressed as well. It boils down to yes, some classes are OP and others are out of whack. Suck it up til Wrath hits and it will all smooth out. I don’t know about you, but I’m going back to my OP Boomkin now. If my server is up.

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Filed under: Breakfast topics

I hate to be blunt about it, but I’ve heard quite a few WoW friends tell me that the rampant server crashes that have cropped up since Patch 3.0.2 have driven them to other MMO’s until Blizzard fixes the problem. Many other games are offering Halloween/Fall Festival type activities including City of Heroes, Lord of the Rings Online and EverQuest 2 and many of us have played those titles (and still do!)

Are you waiting it out, slogging through or heeding the siren call of other online games?

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