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WoW's 10th anniversary pet tribute to Hogger
In the past Blizzard has occasionally given out battle pets as gifts to players for logging in during the game's anniversary period. Previous anniversary rewards have included the Baby Blizzard Bear and Onyxian Whelpling. This year is an extra-special landmark: the 10th anniversary of WoW, and the 20th of the Warcraft franchise as a whole. As a result, we seem to be getting an extra-special battle pet, a humanoid called Hogs, who bears a strangely-similar aesthetic to that legend of lowbie leveling: Hogger. I love the choice of a Hogger tribute for the 10th anniversary pet. It's such a community touchstone for those of us who have played the game--if you've at any point leveled a human character, even to 10 or so, you've probably encountered Hogger. That may not be all of us, but it's many of us, and it's a great choice for the game's first decade of life. Here's to Hogs!
Breakfast Topic: What's your WoW grudge?
I started off on the Alliance side, and it's still where my mains are. My first character, my paladin, was leveled tentatively and badly, with only minimal skill and understanding. We all have to learn somewhere! One of my main memories from that period was dying. Dying a lot. I don't know now whether I'd have the skill to do the Ironman Challenge, but I sure didn't then, and things killed me constantly. I didn't understand about aggro linking, where if you taunt one mob, any mob near to it will be taunted too, and I wasn't great at using my abilities. I was holy, to improve the healing, and I didn't have the early damaging skills pallies get now. This made me angry. So whenever I see Hogger, who must have killed me 20 or 30 times, I take my revenge. It's harder now that he's down in the Stockades, but when I went down there to take the screenshot in the header and killed him, I still thought "Ha!" And murlocs -- they're high on my grudge list. My God, they killed me a lot. If I encounter a gang of murlocs while I'm out herbing, I'm sorry. They're going down. I mentioned monsters from the Alliance side, as I really don't know what the Horde equivalent of Hogger and murlocs would be. Do let me know! I'll go and kill them for you. Should I seek professional help? Do you hold irrational grudges against mobs or bosses that killed you over and over again? And if you do, who or what are they?
The unveiling of Hogger cosplayer Bryce Masunaga
World of WarCrafts spotlights art and creativity by WoW players, including fan art, cooking, comics, cosplay, music, fan fiction and more. Sample the whole spectrum on our Arts and Crafts in WoW page. Perhaps you're familiar with the photo above, we've used it on several occasions for a variety of articles here at WoW Insider, partially because it' a really cool costume with a lot of detail and partially because hey, it's Hogger! But I've always wondered just how that costume was put together -- and more importantly, who the heck is in there, anyway? Luckily, that question has been answered by an email from the costume's creator, Bryce Masunaga. While Hogger was a fantastic costume that many remember, Bryce has done a couple of other costumes for BlizzCon as well -- a sturdy Tree of Life that does the Twist, and a lovely version of priest tier 5. Bryce sat down with us and chatted about the art of costuming, patience, and how exactly he managed to walk around in that Hogger costume and still see where he was going! %Gallery-142533%
WoW Moviewatch: Hogger's Treasure
Hogger's Treasure was created by Bonkey. As the story goes, the most famous gnoll of Elwynn Forest has grown tired of the Alliance (well, mostly gnomes) constantly killing him and his brethren. As any noble leader should, Hogger hatches a plan to stem that tide of blood and goes off in search of a treasure that will secure his people's safety. This is a fun piece and I was happy to see it. It can be easy to lose sight of this kind of machinima among the sea of satires and music videos, so it's become a breath of fresh air whenever we see a story-based machinima. I definitely enjoyed it and I kind of hope Bonkey continues the story of Hogger's later adventures. I think he could punch Deathwing in the face. Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at machinima@wow.com.
WoW Rookie: Alliance newbie zone revamps in Cataclysm
New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide. Spoiler alert: Today's WoW Rookie is nothing but one big spoiler of the changes Cataclysm will bring to existing Alliance newbie zones. If you're aiming to hit the expansion spoiler-free with fresh, unsullied eyes, you'll want to re-join us two weeks from now (since next week's WoW Rookie will look at Cataclysm newbie zones Horde-side). But for those of you who are itching for a glimpse into what's in store for newly created Alliance characters in the expansion, we've got brief highlights and screenshot gallery samplers of the gnome, dwarf, night elf and human starting experiences. There's not much new to report for draenei in the Exodar, save that their flight point has been moved inside the city. And as for the new Alliance race, the worgen, we've given them their own detailed gallery and write-up, and you can head over to our YouTube channel to watch video of several worgen gameplay segments. Come back next week for a similar look ahead at the newbie zone revamps for Horde races. And now, screenshot galleries (one last spoiler alert for the road -- Cataclysm spoilers abound!) of each starting area plus written highlights, after the break.
The Daily Grind: What's the hardest boss you've ever fought?
The video game boss is as traditional as it is feared. From the earliest days of the console generation to our fancy-schmancy Eminem-Os, gamers have cut their teeth on challenging villains such as the Sleeper, Mallyx, Tarinax the Destroyer and the Watcher in the Water. Boss battles always seem impossible at the outset, punishing parties with a complete wipe at a single mistake. Strategies are memorized, patterns are ingrained and teamwork polished until that big baddie hits the floor, sobbing like a baby. So what's the hardest boss you've ever fought in a MMORPG? Was it an epic one-on-one battle, a harrowing party fight, or even a raid boss so mighty that its mere gaze stopped you in your tracks? What made this confrontation so difficult -- the sheer pool of hit points, the complex strategy or the way it almost seemed to cheat to win? And no, "Hogger" doesn't count for this Daily Grind. These memes have a statute of limitations, you know.
Breakfast Topic: Where do you go for spring break?
This Breakfast Topic is brought to you by WoW.com's guest blogger program. Want to participate in a future call for guest posts? Read up on how to contribute, and keep an eye on the site for program announcements. It's ironic, but it happens: as we play the game we escape into to alleviate our boredom, we sometimes become, well, really, really bored. The same old dungeons into which to delve, the same conversations in guild chat, the same long wait after another week of bad loot rolls. Start here, fly there, knock down a dozen of those guys, pick up their stuff, and bring it back to the person whose orders we're blindly following to do all this to begin with. Oh, and do it again tomorrow, and the next day, and then for the next few weeks until him and his friends decide they really like you a whole bunch. It all sounds almost too much like real life, like a real job. Even if our real-world daily commute involved riding a small, colorful dragon between a sweaty, humid jungle and a freezing arctic tundra, and our jobs involved slaying the animated corpses of former friends and allies, and our reward included rifling through their gross, dead pockets for quarters (and, if we're lucky, the occasional attractive pair of shoulder pads), all the novelty would soon wear off and we'd eventually be asking other members of the PUG we just joined, "Are you sure it's Wednesday? It feels like a Thursday. It's really only Wednesday?" So as dedicated as I can be to gearing up and progression, I like to take a vacation now and then. A break, if you will, and with spring break upon us and summer break fast approaching, what better time to talk about where we like to wander off to when we're sick of standing around in Dalaran trolling trade and LFG? Personally, when I need a bit of time away from it all, I head back to where it all began -- and as a human, that means Elwynn Forest. Yes, I'm in Stormwind all the time, but when I'm on break, I'll head down to Goldshire to check in on the creepy kids, catch a glimpse of (and righteously throttle) Hogger, and then head over to Westfall and treat myself to a solo Deadmines run. It's refreshing, and best of all, I get to keep every piece of copper dropped. Ah, bliss. So where do you head off to when you need a change of scenery? Where do you escape to when you need an escape in your escape?
It came from the Blog: Elwynn Extravaganza
Last month, It came from the Blog ran from Orgrimmar to Elwynn Forest in order to punch Hogger and play at the Darkmoon Faire. We took the zeppelin to Grom'gol and then ran north through Stranglethorn Valley and into Duskwood. Continuing north, bypassing the mountains, we crossed the river into Elwynn Forest. Hogger was downed multiple times and there were hijinx to be had at the Faire. Of course, it was not all fun and games. Whereas most of the lowbies were protected, the stragglers were eaten by fierce jungle fauna. And we could have done without the Alliance funsuckers who KSed Hogger as well as preyed on flagged and naked lowbies. But overall it was a good time. Below is the gallery for the Elwynn Extravaganza. Stay tuned for the Winter Veil and Battleground Bonanza II galleries. %Gallery-84100%
Reminder: It Came from the Blog Elwynn Extravaganza today
The Elwynn Extravaganza is today! It came from the Blog will be meeting at Orgrimmar and running to Elwynn Forest for the festivities. Here is the basic info: When: Saturday, December 12th, 5pm EST (2pm PST, 3pm Server) Where: Meet in front of Orgrimmar on Zangarmarsh (U.S.) Who: Any level Horde character How: Just send a tell to Robinator or any It came from the Blog Lurker for a guild invite. Not familiar with the WoW.com guild? Then please read our FAQ. The events are fun and you are all invited. So after you finish listening to the WoW Insider Show, please join us for some in-game fun. More details are after the break.
Premonition gains A Tribute to Mad Skill achievement
Via GuildOx, we have another big raid achievement coming down the pipe for Premonition of the Senjin-US server, who probably needed a boost after that horrible wipe to Hogger at BlizzCon. They've just grabbed the 10-Man Tribute to Mad Skill achievement, which means they defeated the 10-man Coliseum raid on Hard Mode up through and including 10-man Anub'arak with less than 5 wipes over the entire time.Premonition has established itself among the solid lead US guilds before, having also been the first US guild to get Heroic: Alone in the Darkness by killing 25-man Yogg-Saron with no watchers. It looks like they're poised to continue that streak now that all the bosses in the Coliseum are unlocked. Congratulations to them, and good luck in the future!Update: We're attempting to verify this through other means at the moment. Hold onto your pants! -AlexUpdate #2: Confirmed.
Video of the Hogger live raid at BlizzCon
Michael Gray mentioned it in his writeup of the Premonition live raid at BlizzCon 2009, but this is a moment so epic it's worth mentioning again, and now that there's video online, you can see it: in the final fight, none other than Hogger appeared to take on one of the best guilds in the game. And this was no mere Hogger, nor even the slightly-more-powerful Memory of Hogger seen in the Trial of Champions. No no -- this thing was a foul raid boss from the bowls of Deepholm, a one-shotting maniac that couldn't be controlled even by the best tank. As you can see in the video above, he charges like an angry Rhino -- he was originally pulled by a Hunter who was then one-shot so fast the aggro table cleared and Hogger reset instantly. And after the raid changed their collective pants, they took him on again, and it was all over but the Gnoll snickering.He was immune to taunt, and he appeared to just pick a target at random, pinging around the raid like Batman beating up bad guys in his recent videogame. He only had about 600 hit points (some say 666, which would make sense), but he was immune to damage, or at least all forms of damage that Premonition tried to throw at him. In the end, even though they'd beaten Thaddius, Anub'Rekhan, and Patchwerk all at once, this level 80 Heroic version of Hogger was the one who wiped them. I saw Ozzy do War Pigs, but this Hogger fight was probably the most epic thing I saw in Anaheim last weekend.
BlizzCon 2009: Premonition live raid
You've probably heard of Premonition, one of the big raiding guilds that everyone follows in "the raiding scene." Among other things, Premonition is the group known for being the first guild in the U.S. to complete Alone in the Darkness. They were also special guest stars this year at BlizzCon 2009. Similar to other WoW related panels, the stage hall in which Premonition performed was way too small for the sheer number of people who showed up. We stood shoulder to shoulder and necks to backs in order to fit. Unlike other live raid displays, Premonition's live raid performance was crafted specifically for this convention. Premonition fought a series of four boss teams, with each boss team having at least three members. Some of the bosses featured during the raid included the a team of dragons, Brutallus, Infernus, and other stars from Outland. Premonition's only real wipe happened when they faced down Thaddius, Anub'Rekhan, and Patchwerk. That three-boss team managed to get Premonition down on their first attempt. After only a bit of recovery, the star raiding guild picked themselves up and easily defeated the trio. The final bout, however, was with a very special guest star from the old world past. Updated and beefed to represent his full power as a level 80 raid boss, this nightmare memory was met by the audience with howls of joy and nostalgia. Hogger had appeared. Despite their skill and coordination, Premonition stood no match against the Gnoll of Gnolls. While noone can dispute Premonition's skill, there are just some basic truths to the world. Hogger is the king boss. BlizzCon 2009 is here! WoW.com has continuing coverage, bringing you the latest in Cataclysm news, live blogs, galleries, and reports right from the convention floor. Check out WoW.com's Guide to BlizzCon for the latest!
[1.Local]: Speaking of patch week chatter
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week.Patch week? Oh, yeah. Speaking of patch week, we all knew that patch week was going to be rough. We knew there would be delays, and bugs, and restarts, and false starts. We knew that hardcore players would gripe, that newbies would be confused and that there would be plenty of contentious debate from all sides.What we didn't know is that we could be caught unaware by even geek crafts. Take it from mibluvr13, who took one look at the baby Hordie shirtfeatured in this week's World of WarCrafts column and began groping for the Escape key. "Ooooh, god," mibluvr13 moaned. "I never thought WoW.com would punch me in the biological clock. BRB, having a kid."The week in reader comments, through the bleary eyes of our punch-drunk, patch-distracted readers, after the break.
Breakfast Topic: Looking forward to patch 3.3 and the next expansion
So patch 3.2, aka Call of the Crusade, aka the Last Biggie Before Icecrown, has finally dropped. Yay. Woo hoo. Check out the doves we just released. But wait, just take a moment to gawp at the new content. Go on, you deserve it. Hogger's waiting for you, we understand. Oh hi! Back already? So, let's look forward to the future shall we? BlizzCon is mere weeks away (excited yet?) and we know with that lovely fanboy/girl certainty -- normally reserved for predicting tomorrow's sunrise -- that the next expansion is going to be announced. So, to speak of the future. I'm convinced patch 3.3 will hit before Christmas (I'm guessing around November to coincide with the Warcraft: Death Knight manga). So where does that put us for the new expansion? I can't see Blizzard waiting a year for the next expansion, not without any new content. But, I digress. Patch 3.3 is now officially incoming, it doesn't have a name or an ETA but it's coming. Can you feel it in the air? So readers, what do you think patch 3.3 will herald, aside from Sindragosa and the showdown with Arthas?
Player reaction to the 5-man Trial
All right -- patch 3.2 has been out for a few days now, and I would say that most people who are interested have had a chance to go in and run the brand new 5-man instance. Of course it's not the only change in the patch (far from it), but it's the one I was most looking forward to, and unlike the raid instances, it's all in there and doable, ready for our judgment. So what did we think?I tried it yesterday, and my first impression was "underwhelmed." I definitely don't feel that way about 3.2 as a whole, but the instance itself seems less than impressive, a one-room fight with almost as many boring moments as there are exciting ones. The fights themselves are actually pretty commonplace for a Heroic -- the jousting fight is probably the least-liked among the playerbase (seriously, whoever really loves the jousting mechanic over at Blizzard needs to take a good long look in the mirror for some self reflection), while the best is of course the Argent Confessor, who summons a random figure from our "past memories" to fight. I got Illidan and Onyxia the first few times I ran the instance, but of course Hogger and Van Cleef and Heigan the Unclean also have a chance at making an appearance. I did like the fight, but I was kind of bummed the old memories didn't bring any of their abilities with them -- they all have the same three abilities to throw at the group.
Breakfast topic: How do you learn tactics?
I was never one for these tabletop strategy games or D&D but thanks to WoW I have become quite a tactician. Tactics are so integrated in the game that they come into play figuring out how to down Hogger without aggroing too many of his numerous minions, to sneaking through hostile territory and avoiding NPCs who want to kill you all the way to confronting KT in Naxx or Ignis in Ulduar. The latter is especially true, Ignis is a nightmare where a knowledge of tactics is life or death. When your raid leader asks if everyone knows the tactics and you all nod heads and mutter yes, it's not actually courtesy, he or she is trying to figure out how many people will survive long enough to down the giant er ... giant. Once upon a time all you had to do to learn the tactics was play. Wiping on bosses and the depression of death, failure and repair bills can be a great motivator. At the same time, there are few unique boss fights in WoW. They all follow some kind of pattern and sometimes phases are even borrowed from other mobs. Others, such as Shade of Aran's Flame Wreath go down in lore and legend, even getting their own ever-so-catchy (nay beautiful) theme tune. I challenge anyone to move after having heard that (I even have that in iTunes and would play it just in case my raid forgot. No one ever did.).So I wonder, constant readers, how do you learn tactics? I can read WoWwiki, for example, until I'm blue in the face but because of the weird way my brain is wired (don't ask), the only was I can truly learn tactics is in the fight itself. Yes, there's YouTube, there's the pre-boss-fight sit down where the raid leader does a run though the fight because no one bothered to take ten minutes to do some reading up. What methods do you use?
Breakfast topic: When Blizzard listens
For years it has been a running joke that the level 11 elite Hogger should be a high level raid boss. Every server will have heard talk of a 40-man Hogger run or re-rolling a bunch of level 1's just to tackle this insurmountable foe. He is surely the scourge of Alliance toons everywhere simply because he is the first elite we encounter as we explore Elwynn. Well, it seems Blizzard have listened, Boubouille over at MMO Champion has been datamining the 3.2 patch files and has discovered tidbits about some of the bosses we'll be fighting. Indeed the most interesting part involves memories of past encounters -- including Hogger. Yes, you can also fight Algalon, Onyxia, Illidan and Edwin VanCleef but Hogger is the most important. What confuses me though is whose memories are you fighting? Those of your own past encounters or those of one of the Argent Crusade? If it's the former, what happens if you've not fought said boss? What if you're Horde? But I digress. While you can bet Hogger won't be a level 11 anymore, it's a shocking revelation. While we know Blizzard pays attention to what WoW players are saying, it's nice to be reminded of that. So I want to know your reactions? Is it a good thing for Blizzard to pander to player's whims? Do you think reminding players where they came from and their past triumphs is a good thing? Not so keen? Is it just an excuse to be lazy and rehash old content? Tell us, constant readers, and drop your thoughts in the box below.
The Queue: Going to the movies
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.The Queue is generally a weekday affair, but since this Saturday is going to be a busy day for us WoW players, we're going to be doing a special edition this weekend. You didn't forget about BlizzCon tickets going on sale this Saturday, did you? I hope not! If you have any BlizzCon related questions, get them in over the next couple of days, and we'll see what we can do for you this weekend.Erogroth asked..."What is the status on the Warcaft movie? I have not heard anything in a long time. Is it even in production? Will we ever see it? Is there even a website?"
Naxxramas optimization
Crygil posted an important announcement last night concerning the lag and associated performance issues in Naxxramas. Blizzard has made some recent optimizations to Naxx, and they want to know what all of our experiences are like in the instance this week. As such, they're asking everyone to post feedback in terms of performance in the thread over on the official forums.Now by performance I don't think they mean "My pocket Paladin can't tank." What they're looking for are detailed reports such as "When I was attempting to do the Heigan dance, my entire group lagged behind a good 5 to 10 seconds. We decided to go and raid Hogger after we wiped for six hours in a row." Or "The Ice Block appeared after Frost Breath when my guild was taking down Sapphiron because of the 30 second lag."Matt Rossi wrote a great piece yesterday on the need for designing the fights around latency. Hopefully this will become less of an issue as Blizzard works out their backend mechanics; and it appears this change is a major step forward.
DC shows off what look like Series 4 Figures at ComicCon
Empire magazine is already posting pictures from this weekend's ComicCon out in San Diego (WoW Insider also has correspondents there on site), and though they have no idea what they've stumbled across, it sure looks to us like what might be DC Unlimited's Series 4 WoW figurines. And rather than just the standard player characters, Blizzard and DC are going a little NPC for this series -- as you can see above, they've included everyone's favorite elite gnoll, Hogger himself. Also included in the series are a Succubus of some sort (with what looks like a Tauren with a polearm in the back there), and a gun-wielding Tauren Hunter.The figures all have signs that say "Worldwide Debut Friday 4pm" on them, so it looks like we're getting to see them a little early. And Blizzard is excited, too -- Slorkuz has even written a poetic ode to Hogger in honor of his likeness being immortalized.We'll keep an eye out for more info -- looks like DC is expanding their action figure line to include a few more less traditional character types. Who else should they honor with a figure in the future?
