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The Great WoW Insider Stormwind Stampede
This was the scene last night on the Horde side of Zangarmarsh, as WoW Insider's It Came from the Blog made bovine history and ran roughly 500 cows from Mulgore to Stormwind. Amidst shouts of "For the Herd!" and "Moooo," hundreds of level one Taurens appeared in Camp Narache -- blue shirts were premade by our own Krystalle and given out to the guildies that showed up, but first we ran out of shirts, and then we ran out of guild invites as we hit the system limit. Last I heard we had eight raid groups going, we had taken over one Ventrilo server, tons of guilds from both Zangarmarsh and other realms (including those down for maintenance) got involved, and at least a few thousand yells went out across the land. Finally, at 8pm server, Krystalle counted us down and the race began.We stuck to the road for a good thirty seconds, but eventually got split up in the Barrens-- we'd planned to all go on the Zep, but another group (including me), split off to take the boat from Ratchet. In Stranglethorn, many burgers were made-- I stuck to the center of the group and watched cows get downed by tigers left and right. I didn't die until Westfall, when stupid human guards on the road decided to one-shot me.Finally, at Stormwind, the scene was chaos-- cows dead everywhere, as stepping inside an Alliance city, even on a PvE server, flags you. People were AoEing on the Stormwind bridge, and even just inside the city, guards were felling cows left and right. A few people made it to the tram (unfortunately, the closest graveyard useable by Horde is all the way at the Eastvale Logging Camp, so it was a long run back), but we heard that the first person to find our Alliance plant, Insiderspy, and blow her a kiss, was Fiverr, our winner. Fiverr gets exactly what everyone else got, though-- a great time. Here's a gallery of what happened (updated as we add more and more photos to it), and we'll put more videos after the break as we find and hear about them. Thanks to everyone who came out! For the Herd!*edited to add* Another video is available after the jump!%Gallery-5943%
Enough with the yelling
I had a great time at the Stormwind Stampede yesterday (and pictures and videos from the event should be up soon). But here's a little tip we all picked up from running almost 500 Tauren around the world: to shut down all the yelling, you can just right click on the title of your open chat window, and then go into the "Channels" menu to shut down /yells just like any other chat channel. You can also turn off Guild chat this way as well, just in case your guildies start threatening to spoil Harry Potter, but you don't actually want to /gquit to get away from them. Unfortunately, turning off yell won't get rid of the big red text bubbles when people are near, but all you have to do then is just turn around.Of course, /ignore still works, and my little level one Tauren now has a bigger /ignore list than any of my other toons, thanks to some rowdy spammers yesterday. And /leave General will get you out of Barrens chat (just as /join General will get you back in when you finally arrive in Ashenvale). And I don't have that much of a problem with this stuff (only when I group up with 500 cows), but if you're really tired of chat spam, Devnull might be an addon worth looking at.It's not real complicated-- those of you who are experts at chatting (or have just been given a headache before by all the yelling) probably already knew it. But it was definitely a helpful little tip yesterday to sort through all the spam in the channels.
It Came from the Blog: Stampede to Stormwind!
Are you facing the full 48-hour downtime this week and not looking forward to spending quite that much quality time with your laundry? Don't worry, WoW Insider is here for you! This Tuesday evening, at 10:00 pm EST (8:00pm server time for Zangarmarsh) we will be running our own Stampede to Stormwind event! For those who would like to join us, all you need to do is to roll a level 1 Tauren of any flavor and log into Zangarmarsh US (sorry EU folks!) between now and 9:30pm EST tomorrow night. Once you're on, just /whisper any of the It Came from the Blog Officers for a /ginvite and let them know you're one of the racers. When time comes, you will collect your [Blue Linen Shirt] marking you as one of the Stampede participants and at 9:30pm EST, we will begin invites to the Stampede raid. At 10:00pm Eastern (8:00pm Server time), the race begins! Since this is purely a silly race, the primary "prize" will be a featured spot as winner in the next ICftB column, an in-game item of dubious usefulness, and the ability to say that you were there when the thunder of our hooves roared across Azeroth. So if this sounds like your type of fun, be sure to get over to Zangarmarsh and reserve your L1 Tauren (and name) now! We'll see you tomorrow night. And may the best cow win!
Breakfast Topic: Items that make you go "what?"
In all my time in Azeroth, I've seen some pretty strange things. The above "Priest's" mace that has a bonus to Nature damage was pointed out by Obron from the ICftB guild. (And we all had a pretty good laugh about it.) Some -- like the above item -- happen to have truly unfortunate item names, while the item itself still isn't that bad. Other items like the Triumphant Shield of Shadow Wrath and several other shields with random enchants that have the option of adding shadow damage struck me as just really poor planning. After all, what Class really needs a shield with a bonus to shadow damage? Worse still, the drop percentages of the +shadow damage versions are often better than the +shadow resist ones...Have you found any items with random enchants that made you stop and say "what?" Or how about items with oddball names that really don't fit the stats, or the point of the weapon? Somewhat related, how about weapons with graphics that just make you stop and stare wondering where the design for that came from!? (My current favorite for weird graphics is definitely the Squid on a Stick.)
It came from the Blog: Questalicious
Yes, once again it's time for our weekly(-ish) IcftB get together-- our guild over on Zangarmarsh is still hopping around like toads eating jumping beans, and it seems like there's quite a few people hanging out almost every day now. But we still want to try and keep up the events, because it's always fun for us to get together as a big group and make a splash.So our next guild event is going to be next Monday, July 16th, at 6pm server time (I believe that's 8pm Eastern). We're going to be doing quests of all kinds-- elite quests, group quests, instance quests, solo quests, lowbie quests, chain quests. You name it, we're going to do it. If you've had a quest sitting on your IcftB character for a while, but haven't finished it, Monday night will be the time to get it done. Or if you're interested in helping out some of the other characters with finishing their quest (and catching up to your level-- I'm looking at you, Feralpuppy, who's somehow level 65 already!). Of course, some quests will be in instances, so we'll also do some instance running. And there will likely be some BGs in there as well, as long as I can make it to 29 by then.If you haven't joined us on Horde side Zangarmarsh, please do (just send a tell to anyone in guild), and hopefully we'll see you Monday night for some questin' good times.
It Came from the Blog: Running the fire festival
The Midsummer Fire Festival has come and gone -- but a group of enthusiastic readers in our It Came from the Blog guild got together celebrate the last night of the festival by running the Eastern Kingdoms festival quest. Our trip to the Eastern Plaguelands, the Hinterlands, Searing Gorge, and Blasted Lands was an absolute deathfest at our levels (ranging from 7 to the 30s) -- but I think everyone had fun, learned a bit about Azeroth's geography, and netted some swanky looking shoulders in the end. And, hey, even if you missed out, you can enjoy our adventure vicariously, through screenshots!Our journey, for those of you who wish to re-create it for your own amusement, started in the Undercity. From there we went through Western Plaguelands and into Eastern Plaguelands to pick up the first flame. (Most of us travelled on to pick up the flight path at Light's Hope Chapel.) Then we went back through Western Plaguelands and cut down to the Hinterlands (yes, there's a path near the bridge to Scholomance that sends you out right near Aerie Peak.) After picking up the Hinterlands flame, we continued on to the Horde flight path at Revantusk Village and then jumped into the water and swam south, down to the Wetlands. From there we ran through Loch Modan (meeting a friendly Gnome near the Thelsamar graveyard), through the Badlands (picking up the flight path at Kargath), and into Searing Gorge for the third flame. From here, we ran through Blackrock Mountain, into Redridge, through Duskwood, Deadwind Pass, and Swamp of Sorrows, finally winding up in the Blasted Lands for the forth flame. Finally, success!%Gallery-4565%
It Came from the Blog: Midsummer Fire Festival
There are only a few days remaining for Blizzard's Midsummer Fire Festival, so over in our It Came from the Blog guild on Zangarmarsh, we're going to take full advantage of the final days of the festival with a last minute run through high-level areas to collect our quest reward shoulders. You'll have to be at least level 7 to pick the quest up, and while the quest is going to be dangerous for the level of most of our players, we're going to make the run to the Blasted Lands, the Plaguelands, the Hinterlands, and Searing Gorge as a group. My advice: come expecting a few deaths and leave your armor in the bank.If this sounds like fun to you (or if those shoulders just look too cool to turn down), meet up with us in the throne room above Undercity at 6:00 PM server time (that's 8:00 PM EST) on this Wednesday, July 4th. Look forward to seeing you all there!
ICFTB: Scavenging Azeroth!
This week's adventures with <It came from the Blog> took our adventurers to the four corners of Azeroth -- something I think that surprised some of them! But never let it be said that our folks shrink from a true challenge that tests their mettle! This week's game was a Scavenger Hunt involving 25 occasionally bizarre items that they were required to screen shot and send in. Depending on how creative you were, and how familiar you were with Horde territory, this could have been easy, or involve a lot of travel all over heck and back. For those of you curious for news of the happenings, and just how our adventurers fared against the fairly strange list I thought up, check out the details of this week's <It came from the Blog> shenanigans after the jump!
Tabard design contest winners!
I'm sure you've all been dying with curiosity while waiting to hear the winners of last week's tabard design contest -- and to find out which tabard would become the official guild tabard of WoW Insider's It Came from the Blog guild on Zangarmarsh. so, fortunately, I'm here to announce the winners! In first place, and showing off the tabard you see to the right, is Hellbena, whose eyes tabard snagged first place. Yep, this is the tabard you will soon see on ICftB members all over Zangarmarsh!In second place, we had Zungaba with this lovely bunny tabard and in third place we have Sylvina's excellent octopus design. (To see the rest of our entries, check out our tabard gallery!) All of our winners are taking home an I'm Only Here Because My Server Is Down t-shirt from J!NX (think of them as a RL version of your tabard), so if you meet any of them in-game, be sure to congratulate them!
Adventures in Azeroth: Collecting unique pets
Welcome to another episode of Adventures in Azeroth, where I document my misadventures as a new Hunter on a new server. (Want to check up on my progress? You're welcome to join me and a whole group of readers in the It Came from the Blog guild on Zangarmarsh!) But this week I'm not really talking about playing (I haven't leveled much since the last episode of Adventures in Azeroth) -- instead, I'm talking about the crazy lure of hard to find Hunter pets, and my new-found pokemon-esque desire to catch-em-all.However, practical concerns have limited my collecting. After all, one pet is quite enough work to keep leveled on its own -- much less if I had a pair. But, after noticing that every last Blood Elf hunter with an Eversong Woods cat identical to my pet Mittens, I decided I had to do something about it. I didn't want to be just-another-Blood-Elf-Hunter -- I wanted to be... well... unique! So I went searching for a new pet, one that every run-of-the-mill Hunter wouldn't have.
It came from the Blog: Vote for your favorite tabard!
First off, I'd like to thank everyone who participated in our tabard design contest! We have some excellent entries, which the WoW Insider staff has combed through for the best of the best -- and now it's your turn! I know we had a tough time narrowing things down to ten finalists -- every entry would have made a lovely tabard. (If you don't believe me, check out our gallery of entries, including commentary from some of the designers.)Take a look at our finalists and pick the one you'd like to see as the official It came from the Blog tabard! Polls will be open for 48 hours, so you have until Monday at 9:00 AM EST to get your vote in. And remember, the top three winners get to take home a "I'm Only Here Because My Server Is Down" t-shirt! Voting, after the jump!
Reminder! Tabard design contest ends tonight!
Interested in designing a tabard for the fine players in WoW Insider's It came from the Blog guild? If so, today's your last day to send in your entry! To have a chance at your design immortalized as the It Came from the Blog official tabard, all you have to do is: Visit the tabard designer (near the guild master in any major city) and play with the tabard designs until you find one you like. (You can also use IGN's tabard designer, though in-game screenshots are much prettier!) Take a screenshot of your work E-mail it to us at icftb@wow.com before 11:59 PM EST tonight! Tomorrow we'll be voting on our finalists, with the top three winners taking home a "I'm Only Here Because My Server Is Down" t-shirt from J!NX!
It came from the Blog: Hide & seek, and this week's adventure
This last Saturday, the Undercity on the Zangarmarsh server saw an odd assortment of people running wildly amok. And no, it wasn't because of the Fire Festival or Apothecary Faranell's red light special on body parts. The onslaught of rampaging Hordies was purely made up of members of the Wow Insider guild, <It came from the Blog>, all out to hide and seek as best they could! For the first round, Roark and Charcuterie agreed kindly to help me hunt down members of the guild. I'll tell you this much: there are some serious nooks and crannies in the Undercity. However... there are a few places you don't ever want to try to hide. Those hanging out under the elevators, in coffins, and most of the folks in the slime in the sewers were largely the first caught in the initial sweep. However, after a good half-hour of searching, there were five folks who were still nowhere to be found...
It came from the Blog: Tabard design contest! [Updated]
If you aren't familiar with WoW Insider's own guild, It came from the Blog on Zangarmarsh, let this be your introduction. We're a relatively new guild -- only a few weeks old -- and what that means is that we don't have a tabard yet! And I know everyone in the guild is eager to have one, but in order to get the coolest looking tabard possible, we're asking you to design them for us. Here's what you've got to do: Visit the tabard designer (near the guild master in any major city) and play with the tabard designs until you find one you like. (You can also use IGN's tabard designer) Take a screenshot of your work E-mail it to us at icftb@wow.com before 11:59 PM EST on Thursday, June 28th. Over the weekend, we'll vote on the finalists to determine the winners, with the top three each taking home a "I'm Only Here Because My Server is Down" t-shirt from J!NX! (You know, your out of game tabard.) Of course, the top tabard will be immortalized forever as the official tabard of It came from the Blog. Be sure to check out the contest's official rules, but if you've already done that, what are you waiting for? Get designing!Update: Sorry, everyone -- but as of 11:59 PM EST Thursday, the entry period is closed. Check back on Saturday to vote for winners!
Aventures in Azeroth: Lizzy's first instance
By now I'm sure you've read about last week's instance runs in the It came from the Blog guild on Zangarmarsh. And, maybe, if you looked through the galleries, you noticed that my newbie Hunter, Lizzie, was there in RFC. I've got to say, I've run quite a few instances in my day, but never as a Hunter, and it was an interesting learning experience as Mittens and I tried to do the best we could in a group setting.Now, I've got to say -- I have high expectations for Hunters in an instance setting. My main is a Priest, and my favorite instancing partner is always a good Hunter. Why? Because a Hunter stays back from the action, usually near where I am. And if an add runs after me, a tank, who's busy tangling with the main target of the group, might not even notice. But a good Hunter will always notice. They'll send in their pet with Growl, Intimidation, or Bestial Wrath and have that thing off of me in a flash. (Trust me, I heal very little while being smacked around by a mob -- and by saving me, an open-eyed Hunter can easily save the entire group.) So, despite being rather low level, I tried to emulate all the best Hunters I'd played with in the past. And what did I learn from all of this? Playing a good Hunter isn't as easy those Hunters make it look!
Hearing voices in the World of Warcraft
Clive Thompson (who I've enjoyed reading for a while now) posted a piece on Wired the other day about how voice changed the way he saw fellow players in World of Warcraft. It's a really interesting read, not least of all because of the two academic studies mentioned: one study found that women were "treated differently" when using voice chat, and another found that gamers made more solid and trusting relationships with friends they knew by voice rather than those that knew by text.I don't know if Thompson has heard yet that voice is going to be builtin to WoW very soon now, but it's true: voice is about to play a much bigger part in our game. And it's also true that voice changes things a lot-- in my regular guild, I will often jump on our Teamspeak server just to chat with my fellow guildies and friends, even if I'm not in a group. In It came from the Blog (the official WoW Insider guild in which I occasionally can be seen saying crazy things), we haven't set up a Vent server (although it's coming, guys), and so I had the strange experience the other day of running an instance with only text chat to keep me company. Don't get me wrong, I like all the guys in IcftB, but I don't know if the reason I don't know them better is just because I haven't been with the guild as long, or if I just haven't actually heard their voices.In the end, Thompson marks it down to a generational thing-- some people are willing to share their voices and hear others, he says, and some just aren't. I'm not sure if that's true necessarily (I am pretty conservative on, say, my Myspace page, and pretty free with my Ventrilo joining), but either way, the use of voice chat in videogames has only just started to make itself known.
It came from the Blog: Into the portals we go wrap-up!
If you missed last week's guild instance-stravaganza in It came from the Blog on Zangarmarsh, you missed out on some real fun. Most of us are pretty low level still and many of us are playing unfamiliar classes -- but I have to say we had a blast storming Ragefire Chasm and the Deadmines in all-guild groups. (And when things broke up, some of us took the party into Warsong Gulch.) But even if you missed out, you can experience some of the fun vicariously through our event screenshots. (I know looking through them brings back memories of many a nostalgic Deadmines run for me!)And even if you haven't yet joined us on Zangarmarsh, you're still welcome to hop on for some good times -- there's no level requirements and no class restrictions and whatever you want to play, we'd be happy to have you. Our next event is coming up this Saturday, at 10:00 AM server time, when we're going to be playing hide and seek in the Undercity. (And after that? Who knows!)%Gallery-4105%
Adventures in Azeroth: Introducing Cat
Last time we talked about my adventures as a newbie hunter running around Zangarmarsh with my pals in WoW Insider's It came from the Blog guild, I was a newly minted level ten trying to figure out what pet to tame. And knowing little of what I was doing, I asked for your advice on what I ought to tame. From the image above and the title of the post, I'm pretty sure you can guess what the results are, but I'll break it down for you anyway. Out of a total of 762 votes, cat won out with a total of 198 votes. However, boar was very close behind with 190 votes. And in third place, the noble owl, with 82 votes. (If you want to see the full results, check here.)So, as you can see, I went out and tamed a cat in Eversong Woods -- and I have to say, it's a completely different game after getting a pet! With a pet doing the tanking, I didn't have problems with monsters rushing up into melee range, where I can't use my bow, and beating on me. (Really, I'm hopeless once something gets into melee range!) And if something does get into melee range? I can just call my faithful cat in to pull it away. Oh yes, it seemed like the game was going to be eeaassssy sailing from here out. But of course nothing's ever easy...
Phat Loot Phriday: Stinging Viper
Our It came from the Blog guild is going to be going into instances this evening, including (I hope) at least a few runs through Wailing Caverns. While they're in there, they can get this very nice and cool-looking lowbie (read: twink) mace.Name: Stinging ViperType: Rare One-hand MaceDamage/Speed: 30-57 / 2.80 (15.5 DPS)Abilities: Chance on hit: Poisons target for 7 Nature damage every 3 seconds for 15 seconds. For you non-math majors, my calculator says that's 35 damage to a proc. Unfortunately, there aren't any other stats on it, but it's still a nice weapon for the level (I had it on my Shaman for quite a while as I came up past 20). Especially good for offhand on Rogues, as the higher damage range and the proc help out DPS quite a bit. Pair this with a Cruel Barb or a Wingblade and you're set. (Update: also see good points for using this as a Main Hand in the comments below) How to Get It: Comes as a drop off of Lord Pythas, one of the four druid snake guys you have to put down in Wailing Caverns (in order to fight the giant Murloc, that is). Seems to drop all the time-- there's an 18% drop rate on it-- but as you all probably know, going in there specifically hoping for it to drop means it probably won't. Always seems to happen that way, right? What's up with that?Getting Rid of It: Vendors for 30s 18c, disenchants into a Small Glimmering Shard.
It came from the Blog: Into the portals we go
Yup, as you can see, our little Zangarmarsh guild, It came from the Blog, is growing and growing-- we've made it to 188 members, and a good 90% of them are really fun people (the remaining 10% of them is me, and then some BigRedKitty haterz). If you'd like to find out personally who's who, just come over and roll a Horde character on Zangarmarsh, then whisper anyone in the guild for an invite. You can also come by our new forums and leave a note there, and we'll look for you ingame.We're trying to have one big guild event per week, and this week's event is going to be this Friday evening, June 15th, at 8pm server time. This time around, we're going to run some instances! Most of us are still fairly low, and all of us are Horde, so there'll probably be a lot of Ragefire Chasm and Wailing Caverns, but hopefully we'll also get a group into Deadmines, and maybe even try Blackfathom Deeps (one of my favorite instances) or Shadowfang Keep. Unfortunately I won't be there (I'll be off covering the Darkmoon Faire in Chicago, so look for pictures and reports from that this weekend), but if you join us, you'll have the chance to play alongside "Krystalle" Voecks, Robin "Robiness" Torres, and Elizabeth "Lizzie" Harper. You may also see Dan O'Halloran, Amanda Riviera, and Lisa Poisso there in some form as well. Not to mention that you'll get to play alongside up and coming IctfB superstars like Pingles, Hudson, Mogwai, and, if you're lucky, Zungaba. Shoutouts for the win! (Don't worry, rest of the guild, I'll get you in later.)So please come join us this Friday when we finally take the guild into some instances. Wipes for everyone, and loot for most!
