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Know Your Lore, TFH Edition: The dark secrets of the mogu
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. They were once rulers of an empire that rivaled the Zandalar in size and scope, but they possessed powers far greater than the trolls could ever dream of. They used their power to shape the grummels and saurok from the lesser races of Pandaria. They enslaved the pandaren race as a whole, using them to build structures and gather supplies all under threat of their iron fists. Their great empires trace back to thousands of years ago, before even the War of the Ancients, and possibly before the rise of the kaldorei race. The mogu are one of the clear villains of this expansion, and our arrival denotes the sudden uprising of this strange, curious, violent race. While the mogu may have been relatively quiet for centuries, they are certainly far from it now. And as we make our way through Pandaria we see more and more evidence that these violent beings are on the move -- something that disturbs the gentle pandaren greatly. The mogu hide secrets, and over the course of raiding, we uncover a few. But their greatest secret may just be something so unfathomable, so bizarre, that it shakes the roots of everything we currently know and believe. Today's Know Your Lore is a Tinfoil Hat edition, meaning the following is a look into what has gone before with pure speculation on why and what is to come as a result. These speculations are merely theories and shouldn't be taken as fact or official lore. Please note: This post contains some content spoilers from Mists of Pandaria.
Know Your Lore: The Sha
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Have you had the dream again? A black goat with seven eyes that watches from the outside. - The Puzzle Box of Yogg Saron We did not bring them to this land, they were there all along. But we unleashed them from their prison, allowing them to run rampant over the verdant hills and fields of Pandaria. Our arrival on Pandaria's coast was nothing more than a catalyst that sparked a chain of disastrous events the likes of which Pandaria has never before seen ... at least, not in written history. The Sha are a unique villain, the first in Azeroth's history that we alone are responsible for. We've dealt with the horrors of the Burning Legion, we've fought the armies of the Lich King, we've even brought down and vanquished the fallen Aspect Deathwing. But we've never before had to fight something that was spawned not from the evil of the universe, but the evil within ourselves. Which makes the Sha utterly fascinating ... and their origins even more so. Please note: The following post is chock-full of spoilers for Mists of Pandaria.
Know Your Lore, Tinfoil Hat Edition: The whispers of Azeroth
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Sargeras: Fallen Titan, founder of the Burning Legion and destroyer of worlds. Since his fall from his place as the premier champion of the Titans, Sargeras has enjoyed utmost success in his mission of destruction, bringing down endless worlds and wreaking havoc across the universe. Yet one world has eluded his grasp, time and time again -- Azeroth. Though the Burning Legion has visited Azeroth countless times, it has yet to sink its claws into the world and wrench it apart. Despite this, the Legion continues to try. There may be hundreds, thousands, possibly even millions of distinct worlds out there ripe for annihilation, but the Burning Legion and Sargeras himself have focused with certainty on our little world. Is it a matter of revenge? Is it a matter of stubborn persistence? Or is there some other reason we're the focus of the universe's heralds of hatred? What is Sargeras' fascination with our tiny planet, anyway? Today's Know Your Lore is a Tinfoil Hat edition, meaning the following is a look into what has gone before with pure speculation on why and what is to come as a result. These speculations are merely theories and shouldn't be taken as fact or official lore.
Saying goodbye to Cataclysm
I remember the first time I saw the trailer for Cataclysm. I will cheerfully admit I totally flipped out over it, largely because I was so excited to see Deathwing make a return. I've always been fond of the Dragon Aspects, and I was looking forward to an expansion that featured them in a way they'd never been featured before. We'd seen Alexstrasza and Ysera, of course, but with Malygos dead and Nozdormu missing, I knew something interesting had to happen on both of those fronts. The expansion itself was different than I'd expected, to be perfectly honest. Cataclysm wasn't exactly a bad expansion, really, and the old world quest revamp as well as flight being added were both welcome additions. But Cataclysm lacked the spark previous expansions had, and I can't quite put my finger on why, exactly. Despite the fact that it didn't knock The Burning Crusade out of first place on my list of favorite expansions, there's still something I'm going to miss about Cataclysm once we're wandering Pandaria.
Know Your Lore, TFH edition: Sargeras was right
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Imagine if you will a perfectly nice little wooded area, teeming with wildlife. Here, there's a bird's nest; there, a small group of deer peacefully grazing on the grass. Over the hill lives a small pack of coyotes that will eventually hunt the deer, but it helps keep the deer population down. Circle of life and all that. Some years, the wildlife flourishes; other years, water is scarce and so is food. Those are the lean times, but somehow the little wooded area continues to thrive on its own, waxing and waning its way through the years. Now imagine that little wooded grove gets targeted for development. All woodland creatures are systematically driven out of the area or killed. The lovely trees are ripped from the ground one by one. The grass is torn up, dirt and earth moved and leveled out. And one by one, houses pop up where the wooded area used to be. Clean and tidy paved roads, white picket fences all in a row, pretty if bland houses plunked into symmetric lots carefully designed for the maximum use of space. Those who live in the houses may occasionally see a deer out the window, a remnant of the wood that no longer exists. Which is better? Today's Know Your Lore is a Tinfoil Hat edition, meaning the following is a look into what has gone before with pure speculation on how it happened and what is to come as a result. These speculations are merely theories and shouldn't be taken as fact or official lore. But they're interesting!
Know Your Lore: Algalon the Observer
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. I have seen worlds bathed in the Makers' flames. Their denizens fading without so much as a whimper. Entire planetary systems born and razed in the time that it takes your mortal hearts to beat once. The Titans are creatures of myth and mystery to the mortals of Azeroth. While some Azerothians (most notably Brann Bronzebeard) seek to unravel their secrets, most remain blissfully unaware and uncaring of the origins of the world. But the mysteries Brann works so hard to uncover more often than not raise far more questions than they answer, and in some cases, create havoc that could reduce our world to ashes in the blink of an eye. In Ulduar, Brann sought to uncover the further secrets of the origin of the dwarves, something that the Explorer's League has been working on since the early days of WoW and the first player steps into the Titan stronghold of Uldaman. But what Brann uncovered was a massive facility that wasn't just for the storage of information from times long past. The facility of Ulduar and its corrupt Titans weren't anywhere near as much of a threat to the world as what came after Loken's defeat in the Halls of Lightning. For it was the moment of his defeat that the failsafe was tripped and the signal was sent. And it was Loken's death that heralded the arrival of Algalon the Observer and the end of the world.
Know Your Lore, Tinfoil Hat Edition: The secret of Pandaria
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. "It's just possible that the curious race we're going to meet in this mystic land, may just teach us a thing or two about who we are, and why we fight." -- Chris Metzen, BlizzCon 2011 What do we know about Mists of Pandaria? We've been told that the major conflict highlighted in this expansion will be between Alliance and Horde. We've also been told that this will be one of the bloodiest wars since the days of Warcraft II. We've been told that there will be consequences for our actions, and we were told when the expansion was announced at BlizzCon that the pandaren have something to teach us. So what's up with that? And what's up with the crazy map making a reappearance? That's the funny thing -- it's all interconnected, possibly. Today we're going on a Tinfoil Hat trip through Mists of Pandaria to talk about my favorite crazy map, some theories on Azeroth, and why exactly Garrosh needs to be removed. Today's Know Your Lore is a Tinfoil Hat edition, meaning the following is a look into what has gone before with pure speculation on how it happened and what is to come as a result. These speculations are merely theories and shouldn't be taken as fact or official lore.
The MMO Report: Chocolate makes you fat edition
This week on The MMO Report, Casey delivers a Valentine's Day rant before moving on to the latest news -- namely, The Secret World's release date rumors, Wakfu's PvP, and the sunset of sci-fi sandbox Earthrise. He also rounds up the latest Blizzard headlines, noting the lawsuit against Valve, World of Warcraft's recent sub losses, and the "valiant and pointless exercise" of rebuilding Azeroth in Minecraft. Finally, Uncle Casey's Mailbag provides a forum for the debate over just how we're supposed to pronounce "SWTOR." All this and more in the video behind the break!
The world of World of Warcraft recreated in Minecraft
Minecraft players are well-known for their insane, over-the-top LEGO building projects, but one may have all the rest beat. A player named Rumsey is in the process of recreating the entire world of Azeroth from World of Warcraft inside the game, and while it's not completed quite yet, it's already incredibly impressive. Rumsey says that he had to cheat a little: Instead of placing every single block by hand, he wrote a piece of software that helps to automate the process of making full-scale version of the world. He's recently completed one continent -- Kalimdor -- and has plans to do the others as well as all of WoW's dungeons. He says that the only problem he's run into is Minecraft's height limit of 128 blocks, so he's had to employ mods to get around that. When the project is complete, Rumsey has hopes that it will be hosted online for tourists to visit this much blockier version of their favorite WoW stomping grounds.
The entire World of Warcraft being recreated with Minecraft blocks
We all have goals in life -- some of us work for our families, some seek money and fame, and some work for a greater good. Minecraft forum user Rumsey's chosen path is to recreate the entire World of Warcraft inside the indie sandbox hit, Minecraft. And as you can see above, he's doing pretty well -- the entire continent of Kalimdor (including the new zones from the Cataclysm expansion) is almost done, and he's well on his way to doing the rest, including all of the instances and dungeons.Rumsey came up with some custom software to put it all together, which basically translates the current maps of WoW over to the measurements of Minecraft blocks. Rumsey is trying to keep Minecraft's "1 yard to 1 block" ratio, though that means he has to balance WoW's detail with Minecraft's inherent blockiness (and Minecraft's height limit of 128 blocks has required mods to make some of WoW's tallest features work). Still, what's been created so far is certainly recognizable as Azeroth.Now if we can only get StarCraft, Crafting Mama, CrimeCraft, GemCraft, and macaroni and cheese in this project somehow.
The Game Archaeologist's World of Warcraft confession
As you may well know by now, I wasn't an early adopter of the MMO scene apart from a brief exposure to BBSes in the '90s and Anarchy Online and Final Fantasy XI in the early 2000s. To be honest, I found that MMOs were as intimidating -- and fascinating -- to me as pen-and-paper RPGs. You see, in high school I started buying RPG manuals and devouring them cover-to-cover, but I could never find friends or like-minded people with whom to play. The genre was a spectator sport for me; I was looking in from the sidelines and imagining what would happen if I actually got to be part of a D&D session. Likewise, MMORPGs in their earlier forms appeared as user-friendly to me as that house on the block with overgrown shrubs, a rusty iron fence, and a mangy, ever-barking mutt in front of it. Maybe it was really cool inside, or maybe it was a death trap from whence there was no escape, but I never had the courage to find out. Let me put it this way: I purchased and read the entire Star Wars Galaxies Prima Guide three times over without once signing up for the game. I'm sharing this with you because I always want to remember that what we take for granted today -- that MMOs are friendly, fun, engaging, and a downright natural part of many of our gaming lives -- isn't always true for those curious lookey-loos who feel intimidated by the scope, busy UIs, subscription fees, or the often bizarre attitudes that long-term MMO players exhibit. For me, it took one game that tore those barriers down to extend a welcoming hand to me, guiding me into these awesome games. Of course, that was World of Warcraft. And even though my geek cred would be so much higher if it were something earlier or, well, not so mainstream, that wouldn't be the truth. So today I'm going to share my story of how I got into MMOs and why the early days of WoW were some of my most treasured gaming memories.
Know Your Lore: Lore and Story Q&A highlights
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. I have to be honest here -- while I love the Q&A aspect of the Lore and Story Q&A panel, I was really hoping we'd see some sort of lore panel devoted to Mists of Pandaria this year. That said -- hey guys, how about those Pandaren? For those thinking that Pandaria is going to be all and end all of this expansion or that Pandaria sounds like something that could be potentially boring, I would suggest that you wait patiently here. We didn't get a lore panel dedicated to Mists, and therefore we don't know all there is to know yet. However, the Lore and Story Q&A panel this year did deliver some interesting tidbits of information, even if there really weren't a lot of Pandaren-centric questions to be had. I wouldn't be annoyed by this if I were you -- after all, those asking questions had no idea Pandaria even existed until 24 hours before the panel, so formulating questions for the upcoming expansion would be a little premature, to say the very least. That said, in between all the questions we did manage to weasel out a few chunks of Pandaren lore, as well as some other interesting info.
Mine of WorldCraft blockifies Azeroth
YouTube user and Minecraft enthusiast Haasth22 has replicated some of the human starting experience in popular indie title Minecraft, complete with blockified tier 2 Judgement armor and quest NPCs. Sure, it's heavily edited, but who doesn't love seeing Azeroth all blocky with that recognizable Minecraft charm? Whatever you do, don't watch the movie while playing WoW, because you will alt-tab into game to see if you got a message or a whisper (like I'm doing right now) while listening to the sounds of the video. If you've got other cool recreations of WoW in Minecraft, we'd love to see it. You can always use our tip line to send us videos, questions, and suggestions. Heck, you could even shoot us a compliment. We love compliments.
Know Your Lore: The humans, part 3
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Imagine for a moment that you are, right now, a human of the same age that you are, but living in Azeroth. Depending how old you are, you either lived through or were born into the aftermath of three of the most devastating wars your world has ever seen. Keeping in mind the trouble with timelines, every human alive in the Warcraft setting has endured loss and hardship on a scale almost unimaginable; many were driven from their homes by invading monsters or demons from other worlds, or were forced to flee in advance of legions of walking corpses that relentlessly tried to kill them and dogged their steps all the way to safety. The humans who congregate today in centers like Stormwind and Theramore have survived when vast numbers of their people died. Only the former high elves have lost more of their kind. The fact that humanity manages to remain a force to be reckoned with despite the loss of almost all of its former northern domains in the Eastern Kingdoms, the deaths of uncounted numbers of their people and the usurpation of their inheritance is a testament to their origin as a seed race of the Titan's first arrival on Azeroth. Indeed, much like their dwarven cousins (for now humans and dwarves truly know they share a common origin, as do their gnomish relations), humans harbor a stony resolve in the face of adversity that could crush or corrupt another people. Let us look at humanity's most recent travails.
Rumor: World of Warcraft's next expansion has been named
First there was The Burning Crusade, then Wrath of the Lich King, and, most recently, Cataclysm. World of Warcraft's expansions have been the lifeblood of literally millions of gamers' playtime, which is why many fans are anxiously awaiting word of the fourth expansion pack to the hit MMO. Today we may know the name of the expansion: Mists of Pandaria. According to MMO Champion, Blizzard filed a trademark with this title on July 28th, which is exactly in line with how the company has procured titles for the previous expansions. The trademark specifies that this is for "computer game software." The Pandarens are one of the more light-hearted races in the Warcraft franchise, with kung fu panda bears from a secret empire somewhere in Azeroth. Despite being fan favorites, the Pandarens have been rarely seen in WoW, while Blizzard has used them in a couple different April Fool's jokes in the past. We'll be keeping our eyes on Blizzard for any official confirmation.
Know Your Lore: The Warcraft cosmos, part one: The Material Plane
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Even now, the true battle between the forces of Light and Darkness approaches. We will all be called to join, and in the face of this conflict, all mortal suffering will be meaningless. -- Prophet Velen Far beyond the tiny planet of Azeroth, beyond the shattered shores of Outland -- or Draenor, as it was once called -- there lies the Great Dark Beyond. This dark, empty void between worlds exists even beyond the Twisting Nether. It is the space between planets, existing in the same material plane as the planets themselves. While the Twisting Nether exists within it, it should not be confused with the Nether, because they are two distinctly different entities. In the existing universe of Warcraft, only a small handful of planets have been defined, floating somewhere out there in the vast, empty space of the Great Dark Beyond. All of these planets are connected, which gives way to a larger, slightly more tinfoil hat theory regarding the greater Warcraft cosmos and what it all means, when it comes down to it. But before we indulge in any speculation, we should define what lies within that Great Dark Beyond and how it all plays together in the vastness of the universe.
Know Your Lore, Tinfoil Hat Edition: Silence of the Titans
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Once upon a time, godlike creatures of order called Titans landed on a small, unassuming planet named Azeroth and proceeded to reorganize it. After they left, the planet was invaded by malevolent creatures called Old Gods -- creatures of chaos and destruction. The Titans returned to the little planet, horrified at what had happened, and rose up against the Old Gods and their elemental lieutenants in what was the most horrific war the planet had ever seen. But instead of destroying the Old Gods, the Titans were forced to imprison them deep within the planet. They set safeguards over the fragile world -- draconic aspects to watch over the various domains of life, the earth, magic, time, and nature. They created new guardians to watch over the prisons of the Old Gods. They created a magical font of energy, tied to the Twisting Nether -- the Well of Eternity. And satisfied with their work, the Titans left. No one on the fragile planet has seen them since; they are spoken of in history and in legend, but they've never returned. Why? Of all the questions in Azeroth, this is the biggest by far. Why did the Titans imprison the Old Gods, instead of starting over from scratch? Common theory suggests they liked the planet too much to re-originate it, yet they left behind safeguards that would do exactly that, if the Old Gods escaped again. So why not simply do so to begin with? Why leave the world as it stood? More importantly -- why are we here? Today's Know Your Lore is a Tinfoil Hat edition, meaning the following is a look into what has gone before with pure speculation on why it happened. The events presented are events that happened in Azeroth's history, but the conclusion is simply a theory and shouldn't be taken as fact.
Know Your Lore: Uldaman, Ulduar, and Uldum, strongholds of the Titans
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. In the beginning, Azeroth existed as a simple planet floating in the midst of space (or the great dark beyond, as it's sometimes called). There is very little out there in terms of the history of Azeroth's creation, but what little we do know is this: Azeroth attracted the attention of creatures called Titans, godlike beings that traveled from world to world, creating order from chaos and leaving planets teeming with life. The Titans did to Azeroth as they did to countless other worlds before: They created seed races to inhabit the little planet, encouraging life to grow. Along with the seed races, they created the earthen -- stone beings that were meant to maintain the order the Titans had cultivated. Satisfied with their work, the Titans left. It was some time after the Titan's departure that disaster struck. The little planet caught the eye of malevolent creatures known as Old Gods. The Old Gods strive for chaos and destruction, the exact opposite of everything the Titans create. Azeroth, still new to the universe, crumpled under the assault. However, the Titan-created earthen presented a problem that required a creative solution. The Old Gods, seeing that these creatures were made of rock and stone, released a disease called the Curse of Flesh -- the originator of many of the species that roam Azeroth today.
Is comparing your game to World of Warcraft really such a good idea?
Look, it should come as no surprise that World of Warcraft is king of the hill, head of the list, cream of the crop, at the top of the heap when it comes to MMOs. Whatever Blizzard did, it did it at exactly the right time with the right team and the right IP; it was a perfect storm of something. And it did other game developers a favor in that it's now possible for an MMO to do respectable business, even if the numbers don't quite approach WoW's 12 million concurrent subscribers. Naturally, though, there are studios that aren't content with having their own subscribers. They want WoW's, too. And that's a pretty tall order. To that end, they reference WoW in their ad campaigns. But what good does name-dropping the world's most popular MMO in your ad campaign even do? Let's take a look.
Them's fightin' words: RIFT commercial takes on WoW
"We're not in Azeroth anymore," Trion Worlds' new TV commercial proclaims before a rift gobbles up the words. This 30-second spot for RIFT features a hero opening a rift with a jewel, a dragon roaring, an ogre on the warpath, and adventurers gearing up for the fight. The commercial ends with an invitation to pre-order the game. This comes hot on the heels of RIFT's launch date announcement and signifies the next step up for Trion Worlds' marketing department. You can watch the new TV spot after the jump!
