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WoW Insider's first World of Warcraft memories
World of Warcraft's seventh anniversary took place earlier this week. Rather than the dry, impersonal WoW retrospectives you can find almost anywhere this time of year, the crew here at WoW Insider decided to hold our own retrospective instead, looking back on what pulled us so deeply into the game to begin with. Today, we're sharing our very first World of Warcraft memories, whether that was seven years ago, long before the Shattering, or just last year. I'll get things started, then the staff will join in afterwards. My first WoW memory is in Stranglethorn Vale. There are other events prior to STV that exist in some strange nebulous place in my mind, but Stranglethorn is the first event that I can really pin down. I was playing my very first character, my undead rogue on the Silver Hand server, trying to kill an elite alligator for the Excelsior quest. This was in December of '04, maybe January of '05. I was absolutely terrible at the game. I simply could not kill that alligator. Everyone I knew did it with no difficulty whatsoever, but I couldn't manage it at all. The reason I couldn't kill it? I was spamming Sinister Strike while dual wielding white vendor-bought daggers. That was the day I decided I should learn how to play the game rather than hope my friends take pity on me and fly across Azeroth to kill elites for me. Now I'm here, on this site, doing this. That's one heck of a step up.
Retaliation battlegroup down again
For the second Tuesday in a row around the same time (9:00-9:30 pm EST-ish), the US Retaliation battlegroup has crashed. Blizzard has confirmed that it's performing urgent maintenance on the hardware of the affected realms, and they'll provide an update at 11:00 PM EST/8:00 PM PST. Hmmm. Makes you wonder if whatever caused last week's crash was accidentally rolled back during server maintenance earlier today.The following are the affected realms: Area 52, Auchindoun, Azuremyst, Blade's Edge, Blood Furnace, Coilfang, Dawnbringer, Exodar, Fizzcrank, Galakrond, Ghostlands, Grizzly Hills, Shattered Halls, Terokkar, The Scryers, The Underbog, Velen, and Zangarmarsh. My guild's on Retaliation and has consequently found itself without something to raid for the second Tuesday running. Last week their solution was to take off to Mug'thol and do a level 1 Hogger raid, complete with designated tanks and healers, damage meters, and -- to top things off -- a bonafide ninja looter of the Malachite drop. Our server might be down, but our hallowed traditions remain.
Reader UI of the Week: Kraayliis of Azuremyst
Reader UI of the Week is back! Each week WoW.com will bring you a fresh look at reader submitted UIs. Have a screenshot of your UI you want to submit? Send your screenshots, along with info on what mods you're using, to readerui@gmail.com. After a bit of a break, Reader UI returns with a nice set-up from Kraayliis, a Death Knight on Azuremyst-US (view large). Here's what he had to say: I've just been working on setting up a clean UI that still retains the look and feel of a full UI while still minimizing the amount of clutter on-screen. I'm currently running WoW @ 1920x1080 resolution. This is my first shot at designing a UI so I just wanted to toss this out there to see what people would think. I started using Btex for the background a few weeks ago and couldn't find what I wanted so I decided to draw my own.
Choose my Adventure: Insert funny title about being level 25 here
WoW.com readers, it's up to you to decide the fate of Turpen the Gnome Warlock with Choose My Adventure. Help test the site's new features by participating in this event, casting your vote toward the many aspects of Turpen and following his exploits on Alex Ziebart's WoW.com profile!Well, you guys wanted me to run Deadmines. As you can see, I ran Deadmines. Many thanks go to Urse (Healer), Child (Tank), and Sneafoo (Noob Rogue of Doom) for 4-manning the thing with me. Urse was pretty overleveled for the place so healing was hilariously easy, but Sneafoo made up for it by starting the run at level 12 and aggroing Gruul from the pirate ship.I went further than that, too. I didn't stop at Deadmines, I did Wailing Caverns, Blackfathom Deeps and Shadowfang Keep as well. I was kicking around the idea as soon as someone suggested Deadmines, but I didn't think I would manage to land a group for either of them. When I went out to the Barrens to get my Succubus (Angva) at level 20, that sealed the deal for me. I picked up the quest The Orb of Soran'ruk, and despite the fact that its quest rewards sucked, it gave me more reason to try and get the groups together. I put out a call to all of the various resources I knew, LFG and community chat channels (your server probably has a few good ones) and all of that, and managed to score a few groups.
Around Azeroth: Dreamcatcher
Reader supun sends in this shot taken in the Draenei starting area on Azuremyst Isle. This Azerothian device bears a resemblance to a dreamcatcher -- though you rarely see those hanging against the lovely purple skies that are a hallmark of Azuremyst.Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? Because we'd love to see your idea of the best looking instance on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next! %Gallery-1816%
Around Azeroth: Learning the Language
I'm honestly surprised that Zaraphel of Greymane is the first person to send in a shot taken during the Learning the Language quest chain offered to newbie Draenei on Azuremyst Isle. After completing the Totem of Yor quest in the chain, you are turned into a shadow panther, and the entire world turns into a dark blue/grey blur. (Really, this still shot does a poor job of showing how incredible Azuremyst looks through the eyes of these creatures.)Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! Or perhaps you'd just like to see more of your pics from Around Azeroth. %Gallery-1816%
How Blizzard monitors realm populations
This forum thread from Pepe on Zuluhed is a little more than a "QQ need moar realm pls" post, but only a little-- he's wondering why a relatively empty realm like Zuluhed isn't added to the "Recommended Realms" list. Drysc answers to say that while Zuluhed might be low population, there are others which need more help. And then the conversation get a little deeper, and Drysc reveals more about how Blizzard monitors and controls realm population.First, another player quotes the Warcraft Realms stats page, and says that Zulu actually has less players on it then Azuremyst, a realm that was chosen as recommended. But Drysc answers that by saying Blizzard doesn't take "total players created" on a realm as a sign of population-- they're looking at percentage full (actually logged in) on any average night. Azuremyst is 35% full on average peak, and Zulu is 45% full on peak. He says once they fill those lower pop realms up a little more, they'll change the recommendations, and try to keep player populations as even as possible.He also says (and he wouldn't lie, right?) that player numbers are actually seeing a "steady increase" since the expansion, but with the free transfers before the expansion and all the new landmass, servers might seem a little emptier. If you're cynical enough to think Drysc would twist the truth about player population, then you basically just heard him say "up is down."But the strategist in me sees a mischievous idea here-- if Blizzard is watching actual logins during peak and not just created characters, reroll locusts could affect the recommended realms list. If you somehow got a big group to jump off of Zuluhed during peak, and on to Azuremyst during peak for a week or so, would Blizzard switch the two servers around? Could you actually game the realm population system?
Around Azeroth: Sailing to Azuremyst
Reader Ywain of Eonar (EU) sends in this shot off the coast of Darkshore, highlighting what we now now to be the boat that takes you to the Azuremyst Isles where draenei players start. But when the boat was first added to the game -- prior to the release of the Burning Crusade -- it was a bit more mysterious, as it had a tendency to kill players who tried to ride it. (I'm fairly certain that now, even if you don't own the expansion, it will only tell you that you must have the expansion installed in order to travel here, and dump you right back on Darkshore's docks.)Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! You can attach a picture file or send us a link to one -- and don't worry about formatting, we'll take care of that part. See more of your pics from Around Azeroth. %Gallery-1816%
Breakfast Topic: Azuremyst or Eversong?
By this point, even inveterate Alliance players like me have gotten a chance to check out the Blood Elf areas, and presumably Horde players have looked at Draenei too. There's no question that both Azuremyst Isle and Eversong Woods, as well as their associated next zones, are very well designed. In fact, they may be a little too good: the quests and quest rewards make the old-world starting zones look a little shoddy. I'll be highly tempted to roll Draenei whenever possible for my new characters in the future. (The excellent racials don't hurt, of course.) How do you think the starting zones stack up, both with respect to each other and as compared to the old-world zones? I have to say, I like Azuremyst a little better than Eversong, but then again, I did play it first, and I do have a bit of an Alliance bias.
Starting zone questions answered: Azuremyst Isle
So, want to take a break from the phat lewts in Outlands and try out one of the new races? How about Draenei? Here's the information you need to know so you can avoid asking ridiculously common questions in chat. The nearest mailbox is at Azure Watch, the first Draenei town. To learn Jewelcrafting, go to the Exodar. To get to the rest of Azeroth, take a boat from the docks just south of the Exodar to Auberdine. Your Heroic/Inpsiring Presence aura is working, it just doesn't display on yourself. Draenei Priests get for their racials Fear Ward and Symbol of Hope (mana over time (MoT?) spell for party). The low level character on an elekk has it as party of a quest; it's only temporary. You may need to kill a few furbolgs to get the Bristlelimb chief to spawn. You can only use the tree disguise by the flag. Anything I'm missing? Let me know. And remember the lessons of the past.
