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WoW Archivist: Paths not taken
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? Recently, Blizzard addressed rumors that their ultra-secret next MMO, codenamed Titan, had been "reset." Developers were indeed reassigned to other projects as the slimmed-down team made "some large design and technology changes to the game." Since we don't know anything about Titan for sure, despite some compelling leaks, we'll never know what features the game would have had as part of its original design. The WoW team, on the other hand, has backed away from many different announced features and content additions that didn't work out. This week's WoW Archivist will look at some of the more interesting and infamous canceled or delayed features. Homeless Believe it or not, player housing was briefly tested in alpha. Model viewers showed files going back to alpha in a folder called "playerhousing" (as shown below). Only human houses were ever designed. Blizzard also added a portal in Stormwind as an entrance to an instanced player housing area. An alpha blue poster named Katricia wrote, "Our current idea (which could change) is to extend the cities to have player housing neighborhoods. For example, in the canal area of Stormwind players can see a blue instance portal behind a large portcullis; this is the entrance to the player housing neighborhood in Stormwind."
The glyph of the future
Variations on the glyph system are a subject I think about all the time. I have ever since Path of the Titans was announced and then scrapped. I understand why it was scrapped, but it did disappoint me. It sounded cool, and I wanted to play around with the options it would provide. Recently, forum poster Madcapmcgee has asked all of us what kind of glyphs we might want to see introduced to the current system. Do we want cosmetic glyphs? If so, what would we want? Vanity glyphs? Quality of life glyphs with no direct effect on combat? And what do we want for our prime and major glyphs? For myself, I want a glyph that lets me dual wield polearms with Titan's Grip. I have a Hellreaver, and dang it, I want to swing two of those beasts around. (Well, technically, I have a Kiril, but transmogrification means I get to have a Hellreaver.) I'd also like to see a glyph that reduces the cooldown on Heroic Leap out of combat so that I could use it like Blink, a glyph that caused me to grow every time I hit an enraged state (which is why I grabbed that Kiril that was on the DE chopping block, frankly), and finally, I'm dying for a glyph that makes Mortal Strike automatically add the Rend effect so that I never have to Rend manually again. What do you, the viewers at home, think? What glyphs do you want to see in... the future!?!? (Imagine this in my best Criswell impression.) World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria is the next expansion, raising the level cap to 90, introducing a brand new talent system, and bringing forth the long-lost pandaren race to both Horde and Alliance. Check out the trailer and follow us for all the latest MoP news!
Gameplanet interviews Cory Stockton and Greg Street
In the flood of Cataclysm news that went live recently, Gameplanet got the chance to sit down with WoW's Lead Content Designer and Lead Systems Designer (you'll know them better as Cory Stockton and Greg Street, a.k.a. Ghostcrawler) and discussed a number of subjects likely to be affected by the expansion. Both interviews are great, and I've highlighted a few points past the cut if you're trying to avoid spoilers (in which case I must respectfully question your choice of website reading material).
Cataclysm Press Event: Path of Titans scrapped, Inscription overhauled
At BlizzCon 2009, we learned of the Path of the Titans, a new alternate advancement system that would see PCs allying with various titan cults in order to gain various character bonuses apart from simply leveling up. At the recent Cataclysm press event, Blizzard announced that they'll be completely scrapping the system. To offset this, they've chosen instead to work on an overhaul of the glyph system, as they noted they didn't quite get it to where they wanted with Wrath. Here are the basics: There will be a new tier of glyphs, currently called "Medium" glyphs, that will provide "fun alterations" to abilities. Major and minor glyphs will act much as they currently do. You'll have 3 of each glyph type at level 85. You will no longer have to re-buy glyphs when you respec or rearrange them. Rather, you will will learn each glyph like a skill and be able to swap them at will from a list. This list will show all glyphs available to your class, but will only allow you to use the ones you've purchased.
BlizzCon Roundup: Last year's fun and games
BlizzCon 2010! Anaheim! October! Players are buzzing about the new announcement, and already making travel plans -- but what can a person expect to see at BlizzCon? What kind of stuff is there to talk about? Last year's BlizzCon was all about Cataclysm -- a trailer, playable demos of the new races, lore information, and of course the usual cavalcade of costumes and dance routines. Here's a quick roundup of what you missed at last year's BlizzCon, to give you an idea of what to expect this time around: Pre-show guides and activities: Preparing for BlizzCon -- a quick pre-con checklist Guide to BlizzCon 2009 The goody bag! The WoW.com meetup, including the cast of The Guild The BlizzCon 2009 show floor The official program
WoW.com's top ten stories of 2009, part 3
If you were reading the site earlier this year, you'll remember that our first word about what was in the new expansion came long before BlizzCon did -- multiple leaks, some believable, some not, shaped our idea of what we'd be getting in the game's third add-on. Way back on July 1st, reader Ryan noticed for us that Blizzard had applied for a Cataclysm trademark, and from there, things spiraled out into rumors and speculation. Obviously, Cataclysm will already be one of the biggest stories of 2010, but it took up a lot of 2009 as well.
Ghostcrawler on the Path of the Titans
Our good friend Ghostcrawler (I can say that now, because we all got to meet him at BlizzCon the other week) has done his best to explain the new Path of the Titans feature coming in the Cataclysm expansion over in this forum thread. We had this same question come up on last week's podcast as well, and we said pretty much the same thing GC does: Path of the Titans is a brand new way for max-level characters to keep improving themselves. Of course, the feature is still being developed, but the goal is a "gated, not grindy" way (as in, you'll earn rewards by doing things, not by doing them over and over again) to experience character progression outside of just reputation grinding, PvP, or raiding.He clarifies the idea more later in the thread as well. The different paths of the Titans are meant to be class-independent, but GC says that they do want players to debate which path is best for which class, even if they do end up with a "best" solution in the end. Archaeology is meant to be a part of it, so GC agrees that it could be more of a mandatory secondary profession than Cooking or Fishing has been in the past, but they're aware of that danger. And just because the paths may be tied to dailies or instances doesn't mean they'll work the same: the time in which you can progress might be longer than the daily quest limit or shorter than the weekly raid limit. The idea, as above, is to give players who don't necessarily raid or PvP something else to do with character progression at endgame.Should be interesting to see what they come up with. Personally, this sounds a little bit to me like D&D's prestige classes -- not nearly as powerful or varied, but a way of separating your character out from the rest of those that chose the same class you did. That's just me being hopeful, though -- Blizzard seems to have a lot of development before we see this as a finished product. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it. Nothing will be the same. In WoW.com's Guide to Cataclysm you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion. From Goblins and Worgens to Mastery and Guild changes, it's all there for your cataclysmic enjoyment.
The Light and How to Swing It: Cataclysmadin
Every now and again, Zach takes you through musings of truth, justice, and the Azerothian way in The Light and How to Swing It before the new guy -- someone who'll actually write regularly -- steps in.Holy cow. You'll be hearing that lame phrase a lot once the next expansion rolls around and Taurens start dispensing their own brand of divine -- or should I say, bovine -- justice. All jokes aside, Tauren Paladins are just one of the big changes for class once the Cataclysm hits, and it's a pretty cool one. Blizzard seems to have planted the seeds of lore to explain the rise of "Sunwalkers", the flavor name for Tauren Paladins. Character-wise, Taurens are the most sensible choice, as well, considering they are arguably the Horde's noblest race. Undead Paladins aren't in the cards, unfortunately, even though it's something some fans have toyed around with because of lore reasons.But no, the whole "risen from the dead to wear plate" role has been filled up nicely by Death Knights. Instead, we've got the Sunwalkers, which is pretty cool for Horde players who've always wanted to try out the Paladin class but perhaps didn't want to play Blood Elves. Worgen and Goblins, Cataclysm's new races, aren't eligible to become Paladins, which rules out experiencing the new starting areas as champions of the Light. The good news is that Azeroth will be reshaped -- good news for us players, anyway... seems like a bad deal for Azeroth -- which means that we're likely to get new starting areas to experience the thrill of leveling once again.
Lichborne: What Cataclysm might mean for Death Knights
Welcome to Lichborne, the Death Knight column that dares ask the hard-hitting questions of Blizzard. Questions such as: Can I make a Worgen Death Knight now? Pretty please with sugar on top? We've now had about a week and a half to digest all the new information from BlizzCon about the Cataclysm, and while it's not a complete picture of what we can expect from the expansion, there's enough information now that we can make some pretty good educated guesses about the direction of the game and the new theorycraft of being a Death Knight. Let's take a look at we can learn from the latest information. New Races The new races definitely have some pretty awesome racials. The Worgen's plus damage racial will make them a very solid choice for a DPS Death Knight, and the sprint will be excellent for closing distance in PvP, especially when paired with Lichborne or Icebound Fortitude to avoid CC. Even the skinning racial will be nice for a leveling Death Knight who decides to take some time out to level the money making gathering tradeskills. Goblins are definitely going to be a nice little convenient race, with low buy and sell prices and a free bit of banking. Combat-wise, the Rocket Boots should be nice for closing distances or running away. As far as whether these races will end up being the "best" races for Death Knights, I don't think I can say. Part of this is because I think the idea of a "best race" is, to at least some degree, rather subjective, but also, the devs strongly hinted they'll take a look at everyone's racial abilities as they move into Cataclysm, so its certainly possible that other races will get some new or upgraded racials that will keep pace with the awesomeness that are the new races' racials.
Arcane Brilliance: What Cataclysm will mean to Mages, part 2
Welcome to the latest edition of Arcane Brilliance, the weekly Mage column and internet meeting place for IHATEWARLOCKS. If you can't remember what that acronym stands for, you can check last week's column, about two paragraphs from the end. If you can't be bothered, it doesn't matter. The name says it all, really. When I was growing up, way back at the dawn of time, in the late eighties, I didn't have access to a lot of games. It wasn't like it is now, where I have an unplayed backlog of quality electronic entertainment so deep my house reeks of shrinkwrap and unfulfilled potential. No, back then, I remember saving my pennies for an entire summer with an eye on getting a new game, then going to the game store and having a choice between Lufia and 7th Saga. I chose 7th Saga (mostly because you could be a robot in that one), and even though time hasn't been particularly kind to that game, it still holds a special place in my heart. You know why? Because I played it. I played the crap out of it, and when I finished it, I started over and played it again. And the next time I saved up enough money for another game, or tricked a relative into buying one for me, I snagged Lufia, and repeated the process. With the really great games--the Chrono Triggers, the Secrets of Mana, the Shining Forces--I played them so many times I came to the point where my fondest wish was that I could discover a way to excise them from my brain...to selectively forget I'd ever played them so I could plug them back in and experience their unique joys afresh. Yes, back in the late eighties and early nineties, we were pretty starved for games. But the ones we had, we loved. What does this have to do with anything? Nothing really, just thought I'd share. Ok fine. Read on, I promise I'll find a flimsy way to tie it in to the actual subject of this week's column.
Spiritual Guidance: What the future holds for Priests
Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a UI and addons blog for WoW. What will Cataclysm hold for Priests? I'm back from Blizzcon! There's been a ton of big announcements which will mean future impacts for Priests whether you heal or dish out damage. Let's take a quick look at what we know.
BlizzCon 2009 Insider Trader: Cataclysmic professions part two
A week has passed since BlizzCon 2009 and we're still digging up more news, getting clarification from the blues, and analyzing all of the panels. Last week, Insider Trader discussed some of the major professions-related features coming up in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, the next expansion pack. Pass through the break to learn all about: Profession racial abilities and how they will be changing. The new direction for Alchemy. A totally revamped Fishing system! Archaeology details and speculation about the leveling process. The evolution of Inscription. Then, continue on to part three of this discussion to learn more about: Reforging and (not) repairing our own gear. Woodworking. Profession specializations and the new direction for differentiation.
The best of WoW.com: August 18-26, 2009
What a week it has been in the World of Warcraft. Last weekend in Anaheim, Blizzard held BlizzCon, a convention of over 20,000 people, and announced the third expansion of the world's biggest MMO: Cataclysm. New races, new levels, new systems and instances, and oh yeah: the entire world will explode thanks to the return of a very evil and very angry dragon. Here's our most popular posts from the past seven days to catch you up. News BlizzCon 2009: Opening Ceremony liveblog Straight from the convention floor, here's the announcement in all of its live glory. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm announced After all of the leaks and speculation, it's official. The game is getting another expansion. BlizzCon 2009: Archaeology and Path of the Titans A new secondary profession, and a brand new way for characters to grow even beyond the new level cap of 85. Patch 3.2.0a being deployed today Right in the midst of BlizzCon madness, Blizzard dropped a bugfix patch on the live servers. BlizzCon 2009: Guild leveling and talents Guilds will earn points for ingame success, and be able to spend those points on all kinds of fun rewards. Features BlizzCon 2009: The costumes What is a convention without fans crazy enough to dress up (or dress down) as their favorite characters? Feast your eyes on these. BlizzCon 2009: Worgen animation Here's what the change everyone wants to see looks like. Know Your Lore: World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Worgen A special KYL for the new Alliance race. BlizzCon 2009: Cataclysm, the story so far What we know about the story behind the new expansion. BlizzCon 2009: Stats vastly simplified It's all back to core stats when Deathwing takes over.
BlizzCon 2009: The short version
For all those of you out there who don't have the time to slog through the 100+ articles we published on BlizzCon 2009, we've condensed the events of the past few days into the most important things you need to know: THE END OF WRATH: Developers gave some pretty revealing information on what we can expect to see in patch 3.2.2 (the revamped Onyxia raid) and in patch 3.3, where we'll finally stare down Arthas himself. THE NEXT EXPANSION: Blizzard's own loremaster Chris Metzen debuted the first trailer for the next expansion, titled World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, and that sound you hear is millions of players who can't believe Blizzard would ever pull a stunt this big. Cataclysm's basic storyline features the return of Deathwing and the re-sundering of the world in his wake, forever altering Azeroth's classic landscape and sending players to previously unseen parts of the world like the Lost Isles, Hyjal, Gilneas, Uldum, and Grim Batol. FEATURES OF CATACLYSM: The most important features of the next expansion include two new races (Goblins for the Horde and Worgen for the Alliance), new class possibilities for existing races, a new secondary skill, character stat simplification, cross-server instances, the ability to level and "talent" your guild, new means of character advancement through the Path of the Titans, Mastery, and the revamping of the talent system, and rated battlegrounds. LIVEBLOGS: We blogged and liveblogged the convention from start to finish: the Opening Ceremony, the WoW Preview panel, the WoW Art panel, The Guild's panel, the first and second WoW Class, Items, and Professions Panels, the general WoW Q&A, the Breaking Into the Industry panel, the Game Systems panel, and the Raids and Dungeons panel. FUN AND GAMES: Even in the middle of all the craziness, we still found time for our third annual Reader Meetup (we expected maybe 300 people and got 1200+) with the cast of The Guild present, Premonition's live raid, the Costume contest, and the Dance and Soundalike contests. If you'd like a more thorough look at how BlizzCon 2009 went, visit our round-ups on Day One and Day Two of the con for a more complete guide to our articles, galleries, and videos.
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BlizzCon 2009 Insider Trader: Cataclysmic professions
Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.Over the course of several BlizzCon panels, we've been treated to a preview of how professions will be changing in Cataclysm, the next expansion pack. Pass through the break to learn all about: The new title and level cap. Revamped skill gains. Archaeology, the new profession! Reforging, a new dimension to crafting professions. Hints about the future of Engineering, Fishing, and Gathering. Information about things we wanted to see, but won't.
Day two of BlizzCon 2009: Round-up
Well, readers, BlizzCon 2009 is over and done, and our staff is slowly but surely beginning to make its way home in celebrated zombie-like fashion. In the meantime, we've outsourced article production to our household pets, so be gentle with your criticism of Toonces' efforts today (stupid cat can't even spell QQ correctly). Anyway, here's what happened on Day 2 of BlizzCon: SATURDAY'S PANELS: We liveblogged the panels on Breaking Into the Industry, the general World of Warcraft Q&A, WoW Game Systems, the Dungeons and Raids panel (which included information on both Icecrown Citadel and Cataclysm content) and the second WoW Class Discussion panel. NEW FEATURES ANNOUNCED: Blizzard announced a long-awaited feature in the form of cross-server instances, which should dramatically increase the pool of people available to run a 5-man at any given time. We won't have to wait for the expansion; they believe it should be ready to go live in patch 3.3. Another long-awaited feature will make its debut in the form of rated battlegrounds and arena points from wins. A beloved feature of the old honor system -- ranked (and faction-specific) PvP titles! -- will also return. WORLD OF WARCRAFT: WE'RE ALL &$#*%*^ED NOW: Cataclysm continued its storm through the con, and we've got in-depth looks at an array of the announced features. Read on for a look at the Cataclysm narrative, tanks and the removal of +defense, an explanation of the Mastery system and new talent functionality, what we know about the Path of the Titans, the introduction of guild leveling and talents, the known dungeons of Cataclysm, and what we can expect to see in patch 3.3's Icecrown Citadel raid and 5-mans. PATCH 3.2.2: On the subject of Wrath game patches, Matt Rossi takes a look at the most eagerly-anticipated part of patch 3.2.2, the return of Onyxia. LIVE RAID: The top-ranked U.S. guild, Premonition, did a live raid against a series of selected bosses, falling eventually to...Hogger? No one saw that coming. CLASS AND ROLE COMMENTARY: Zach Yonzon and Eddie Carrington respectively have you covered on Warlock and Hunter information from at the Class Q&A panels, Christian Belt's written his column on Cataclysm and Mages, and Matticus examines the information released on stat changes and their likely repercussions for healers. VIDEOS: We have additional video of the new Worgen and Goblin starting areas, the finalists and winner of the costume contest, and the Dance and Soundalike contest. %Gallery-70748%%Gallery-70706%%Gallery-70745%%Gallery-70746%%Gallery-70747%
BlizzCon 2009: Path of the Titans explained
For my money, one of the most interesting Cataclysm features they've alluded to is Path of the Titans, another character advancement system at max level. Before the Systems panel today, we didn't have a lot of solid information on it. There are still questions to be answered, but here's how it appears to work so far: At maximum level, you choose to align yourself with a given Titan cult - i.e., you choose a specific path. The paths are not class- or role-specific. Players will have to figure out for themselves what path they want to take. Turning in artifacts found with Archeology (the new secondary profession) will cause you to progress along your chosen path. The main rewards are Ancient Glyphs (not part of the Inscription profession). At each rank in your Path you have two to three choices of Glyphs. Some examples of Ancient Glyphs are: Bleed reduction Bandage improvement Increased damage following a crit More Glyphs will probably come after launch. Everyone is going to eventually be able to get all the glyphs for their path, and it will not be grindy (i.e. not like Sons of Hodir). I'm looking forward to learning more about this as Cataclysm comes towards beta and release. I'm especially excited that they're focusing on making it not feel grindy, because that's a definite risk for a system like this. 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!
BlizzCon 2009: Q&A with Cory Stockton
The DirecTV stream has been of questionable stability today, but it has brought us an excellent interview with Cory Stockton, WoW's lead world designer. Here's what we learned: Development on Cataclysm was started before Wrath of the Lich King was done. Deathwing is the main boss of Cataclysm, as Arthas was for Wrath. You will not be able to go back to the old world content at all post-Cataclysm. Faction transfer will let you choose any race that can play your class. Archaeology is a secondary skill, like cooking, so anyone can get it. It ties in very closely with Path of the Titans, the new advancement system. It's all about traveling through Azeroth finding ancient artifacts, with a mini-game to decipher what the artifact is, and then you get rewards for it. Rewards will include profession recipes, items, and money, and the big reward will be new glyph slots for Path of the Titans (hopefully more on this later). The Worgen will have their own district in Stormwind. Odds and ends, sure, but some darn interesting ones. 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!
BlizzCon 2009: Archaeology and Path of the Titans
The upcoming expansion, Cataclysm, will be incorporating greater levels of character customization than ever before. From guild talent trees, a different talent tree system, new races and race/class combinations, to a new profession that will be all about customization. Enter the Path of the Titans, and the new secondary profession, Archaeology.Pass through the break for all the details, but be warned, spoilers lay ahead!
Ask a Lore Nerd: Of Nerubians, Dwarves and Titans
Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, where each week blogger and columnist Alex Ziebart answers your questions about the lore and history of the World of Warcraft. Ask your questions in the comments section below, and we'll try to answer it in a future edition. I'm going to get this out of the way right off the bat since I know I'll get a dozen people asking again this week: Yes, Know Your Lore will be coming back, it is not gone forever. I promise. I will pinkie swear on it, even. Come on, who wants to pinkie swear? Anybody? Anybody?Aler asked..."On the topic of the Nerubians and the Qiraji, is there any relation in the lore between the two? Or are two insect civilizations coincidental?"There's absolutely a relation between the two. They hold a common ancestry. Both the Qiraji and the Nerubians are offshoots of an even more ancient race, the Aqir. Way back when Azeroth was still very primal, and Trolls were the top dogs. There were three major players in the world: The Amani Trolls, the Gurubashi Trolls, and the Aqir. They warred for thousands of years. Thousands. It was a war of attrition on the grandest scale possible, and all involved more or less broke under the weight of their losses.
