Shapeshift
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Five more must craft neutral Hearthstone cards
It turns out that people get oddly passionate about card lists, which is honestly a pretty great sign for Hearthstone. The first list we dropped two weeks ago was met with agreement, and also a lot of 'where is this card?!', despite warnings that there would be more to come. There was also some disagreement with the Wild Pyromancer choice, but I'm hoping that Amaz and his skilled use of the fiery minion at Dreamhack Summer has opened some eyes. It's incredibly powerful with the right complements. This week we'll take a look at another five sub-epic cards no one should be without. The only ranking to the list is mana cost, so we're not saying that one's more important than another. That decision is up to you and what decks you want to play.
Shapeshift into a baby panda
The panda on the left? That's Meng Meng. He can be found in Stormwind, cheerfully rolling around and napping by the portal to Pandaria. The panda on the right? That panda's not a panda at all, it's a dwarf shaman. How did the dwarf shaman become a baby panda? Well, it's simple really, all you have to do is show a little affection to Meng Meng. Meng Meng's horde counterpart is Luo Luo, found near the portal in Orgrimmar. Performing emotes such as /hug, /love, and /pet at these little pandas will make little hearts float above their heads and put an item in your bag called Magic Bamboo Shoot. This is unique, so you can only have one at a time, but you can carry it with you until an opportune moment for some pandafication arises. If you just can't wait, another option is to use the bamboo shoot immediately, then hug Meng Meng or Luo Luo again for another item. There are mixed reports on whether this persists through combat, with some players asserting that you can do entire dungeons as a baby panda. With the buff lasting only 10 minutes, you'd have to be fast! Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
GDC 2012: Frogster shows off Eligium: The Chosen One
At GDC, there is much to see and do. And one of the best things to do (besides try to win a really cool fuzzy hat) is to actually experience a game through a demonstration or even some hands-on play. I had the opportunity to do just that with one of Frogster's upcoming games. No, not that one; the other one. Ellen-Jane Austin, Country Manager UK, and Marco Neubert, Director Product PR, took me on a brief tour of Eligium: The Chosen One. Although this game from Shanda Games Ltd. is pretty similar to other games in many respects, there are a few features that give it a unique flair, especially the virtue system, mounts, and my personal favorite, an ability to shape-change into a two-headed dragon!
TUAW's Daily iPhone App: Shape Shift
You probably know Backflip Studios from its many popular titles on the App Store already, but Shape Shift is a relatively new title from Julian Farrior's company. It's a puzzle game, sort of in the vein of Bejeweled, with a grid of icons that you can switch around to match up four or more in a row. The catch is that you can only switch icons of the same shape, but you're trying to match up colors, so the game consists of moving around shapes to line up the various colors. It's interesting -- definitely a new mechanic from anything I've seen, and it's addictive enough to stay compelling for a while. One little twist is that you can switch "gems" without making a match, so there's a lot of potential for chaining up moves. But in classic mode at least (there's also a Zen mode for peaceful matching), there are bombs and other obstacles to match your way past. Game Center integration is included, of course, and the game's presentation and polish are nothing less than what you'd expect from Backflip these days. Plus, according to the company's model, both the iPhone and the iPad versions are free and ad-supported, allowing you to clear out the ads with just one simple in-app purchase. Shape Shift is an excellent puzzle game and another great title in Backflip's growing lineup.
The Perfect Ten: Shapeshifters
Because we are true geeks, last weekend my wife and I went to see X-Men: First Class. Afterward, we got into a discussion about what mutant power we'd pick for ourselves if we had the choice. I was torn between teleportation and quick healing, while my wife wanted to be able to turn into cash to pay off our mortgage. I think one of us is more grounded in the real world than the other. But the more I think about it, the more I was intrigued with the idea of a shapeshifter. To be anyone would give you unparalleled freedom -- and plenty of chances to get into mischief, too. Come to think of it, it's probably best I'm not granted that particular superpower. However, plenty of MMOs do give players the chance to shift between their normal forms and something else entirely. While there are far more than 10 examples that the brain trust over here came up with, I'm going to pick out my favorites to highlight.
The Daily Grind: How would you convince someone to jump ship to your MMO?
I've always noticed that when someone becomes completely enamored, infatuated or smitten with a great thing, he always wants to tell others about it in the hopes of sharing it. Whether it be losing weight, a great movie, a hot new artist or an awesome MMO blog, we all have our evangelistic moments as we make the case for how terrific something is to our friends. Do we do this with MMOs? Does a bear relieve himself in the woods and then shapeshift into an Elven Druid? Most definitely. MMO players are never short on expressing their opinions, especially to friends, family and whatever anonymous forum-goer may be lurking. Not only do we love our games, but we want others to love them as well. So how would you convince someone to give your favorite MMO a try over the one he's currently enjoying? What makes yours so special, and how would you transfer a bit of your passion to others? For a bonus question, have you ever successfully wooed someone to your game, and if so, how did you do it? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Ancilorn wants to know your favorite form dance
For some reason, this post in the WoW Europe general forums asking what shapeshift form has the best dance moves makes me suspicious. The poll itself is innocuous enough, although I don't understand why Tree of Life and Moonkin carry such a commanding lead (Cat is my personal favorite). No, the suspicious part is: why are they asking this now? New dances were a much-hyped feature in Wrath of the Lich King, although they have so far entirely failed to materialize. If they're still working on them, for 3.3 or 4.0, this might be some market research to see what sort of dances we like. On the other hand, it may just be an innocent piece of fun from Ancilorn. Who knows?
The real new Night Elf cat forms
You have probably seen the new Night Elf cat forms by now, the last of the four feral forms that are going to be revamped in patch 3.2. Reaction to them has been mixed; many players love them, while many think they leave something to be desired in the ferocity department. As our newest columnist Eddie put it, "You have to love the little 'bells' on the colors. Just like a nice little kitty cat." I fall on this side as well - they look more delightful than dangerous. Evidently Anik of Rexxar agrees with me and Eddie, because he was inspired to make the above image showing the logical extension of the direction the cat forms seem to be taking. What gets me is how little editing really needed to be done - they really look like that already, for the most part. Of course, several of our writers are extra-excited about these newest forms; Zach and Manda both promise that they are rolling druids just to get access to them. Sailer Moon Cosplay Cat and Scene Kid Cat are their picks, in case you were wondering. %Gallery-19003%
Druids get polar bear form in Wrath with new Glyph list
The fine folks at MMO Champion have a small preview of the new talent calculators and, even more interesting, how the Inscription ability will work to change our abilities with glyphs. The majority of the new glyphs previewed so far seem to be for druids as of this posting (but who knows what the future may bring) but the one for mages, Glyph of the Penguin, seems extra awesome to me.Empowers a Minor Glyph to cause your Polymorph: Sheep spell to turn the target into a baby penguin.Not only does this suggest that the days of learning separate poly spells for turtles, pigs and so on are gone, it's a cool way to help bring variety to a standard ability. Of course, since the vast majority of glyphs are for druids, we're seeing a lot more straigtforwardly useful ones, like Glyph of Frenzed Regeneration and Glyph of Shred, but Glyph of the White Bear looks pretty cool as a possible harbinger of what's to come: imagine a whole host of such glyphs for each and every druid form? Glyph of the Black Lion, anyone?This suggests a lot of potential for personalization in the new Inscription profession. Anything you're looking forward to? I hope the ones for warriors are as cool, myself.
Breakfast Topic: If druids could shapeshift into anything...
What would it be? If you asked me this question a year or two ago, I certainly wouldn't have thought of moonkins and trees! Certainly a bird form would have popped into my mind, but other than that, I might have also thought of keepers of the grove, dryads, and possibly some sort of tauren equivalent (maybe something like a Liontaur!)A new expansion is coming up, along with new talents and new abilities for the druid class. Who's to say one of them isn't a new form of some sort? Speaking both from a practical standpoint and also based on your wildest dreams (or nightmares), what sort of forms do you hope druids could learn in the future?
Shifting Perspectives: That special versatility
It's often been said that druids are the three-in-one class: we can mimic warriors, priests, rogues (and even mages), but can't fulfill their respective roles as well as they themselves can. While in recent times druids have been able to gear up and perform as well as their parent classes in many respects, we are far from "warriors with stealth" or "rogues that can heal" or "priests that can off-tank in a pinch."Our problem as druids is that we cannot but neglect the full breadth of our abilities when we must specialize in only one aspect of our class. Of course, any class works best in situations where most or all their abilities might be needed to succeed, sometimes even in the course of a single fight -- it's just that for druids these abilities include tanking, damage, and healing all together. If you're playing with an experienced group, each player is likely specialized to one of these three roles, and his or her whole purpose is to minimize the chance that backup tanks, healers, and damage-dealers will be needed. That leaves druids trying to compete with warriors, rogues and priests (and mages), trying to do just as well at the same task, but with fewer abilities to call upon in the fight. Locked into these smaller roles, we must gear up and spend our talents in such a way that even if we were to shift out of our main role into another when the need arose, we wouldn't be able to do very well at it at all. This brings me to the adventure at hand: Today we will go on an journey of the imagination together, exploring the potential future of druids, considering how this problem of specialization versus versatility might be approached. Indeed, as I gaze into my crystal-ball-shaped paper-weight, I see two possible futures: one, called "The Path of the Pandering Pedant," seeks nit-picky perfection in a class designed for breadth and scope, while the other, "the Way of the Multitudinous Master" brings the full manifest of all our abilities into harmonious use with one another.
Druid epic flight form is live with patch 2.1
Patch 2.1 brought many treats to the adventurers of Azeroth, but one of the sweetest is the Epic Druid Flight Form quest. Unlike its predecessor, Flight Form, this ability isn't handed out to every high level shape shifter with the appropriate riding skill. The quest to fly at epic speed is long and complex. Revered reputation grinding, Heroic instance running, escort quests, exploding foliage and much more await the intrepid druid. Oh, and they have to pay the 5000g riding skill upgrade before they can even start the quest. When they finish, druids not only get the Swift Flight Form ability, but also a relic that works for any druid spec: Idol of the Raven Goddess - Increases the healing granted by the Tree of Life form aura by 20, adds 9 critical strike rating to the Leader of the Pack aura, and adds 9 spell critical strike rating to the Moonkin form aura.An excellent walkthrough, Wiki style, can be found here at the Servants of Seagis guild site.EDIT: Another reward received in the quest chain: Charm of Swift Flight, Trinket, Equip: Increases speed in Flight Form and Swift Flight Form by 10%. Thanks to Felixia from the Uldum Server for the heads up!
Druid flight form FAQ
Earlier today, I hit 68 on my Priest, which was awesome because I got Prayer of Mending. However, if I was a Druid, I would have gotten something infinitely more awesome: Flight Form. If anyone's unfamiliar with flight form, it's a Druid shapeshift that's only usable in Outlands and turns you into a Stormcrow, allowing you to fly. This means a free, instant-cast flying mount, basically, as well as free flying mount training (which is much more expensive). People have a lot of questions about Flight Form; fortunately for us, Locust has compiled an excellent FAQ in the forums. I'll put the more interesting bits here, and the whole FAQ (which is rather long) after the cut for those who can't access the WoW forums. Do I need Journeyman Riding skill (which is needed for ground epic mounts) in order to gain this ability? Will it cost me? Yes, and it will cost you 540g. Will I still need to buy Expert Riding skill in order to buy Artisan Riding skill to ride a flying epic mount? No. Once you train for Flight Form, you automatically gain Expert Riding skill. You save yourself 800g. If I activate Flight Form while falling, can it save me from a fall that would normally cause me to die? You bet. Can I attack in Flight Form? No. No attacks. No abilities. What happens if I die while very high in the air? Your body will be found exactly where you died. If you are unable to retreieve your corpse because it is too high, you will have to spirit res. Normal running speed: 100% Walking speed: 40% Aspect of the Cheetah: 130% Cheetah form: 140% Ground normal mount: 160% Ground epic mount: 200% Druid Flight Form: 160% Normal flying mount running: 160% Normal Flying mount flying: 160% Epic flying mount running: 200% Epic flying mount flying: 380% Epic swift nether drake: 410% Wind Rider (Flight Master): 500%
