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The top ten most desolate spots in WoW
A little while ago, we did a "Top ten most beautiful spots in WoW" post, and many commenters had an interesting request: a companion post of the ten most desolate places in WoW. We thought it was a great idea, so we're taking the suggestion to heart. This was an interesting topic to think about, because the desolate spots in WoW are the ones I tend to avoid. For the most part, I don't want to spend my fun WoW time in virtual wastelands! Then again, sometimes those deserted, eerie places have a haunting beauty all their own. Check out our list, and tell us your own favorite desolate places in World of Warcraft!
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.
Breakfast Topic: Your character's quest
I like quests. I like reading quests. Sure, every now and again it's a straightforward "Please go kill x animals for y body parts and I will give you z gold," but sometimes the stories involved with the quests or the quest NPCs themselves are tremendously entertaining. Take Ragged John, for example -- while the little weirdo no longer gets to tell his epic tale, listening to his story while working on the Onyxia chain was a ... rare treat. Or one of my personal favorites, Jenal over in Darnassus. There's not much to Jenal, but the tiny bit of character interaction when you speak with him always left me wondering what exactly Jenal's full story was. As for the Horde, I always loved Valormok out in Azshara and the story of the little band of Horde that had been sent out there, especially Jediga and her little, uh, side business of stealing artifacts for people. I have to admit while I'm looking forward to seeing the "new" Azshara come Cataclysm, there's part of me that is going to miss the little wayward band. One of the other things I like are the realm forums. Sure, there's an unending supply of depressing drama and whining. But sometimes you end up with a little chunk of gold in the middle of it all, and those gold moments make it worth trawling -- well, to me, anyway. The gold for the day today is from Nozz over on US Sisters of Elune, who brought up an old topic from way back that ties my love for quests together nicely with my love for playing the game in general: If your character were a quest giver, what would his/her quest be? The thread already has some interesting answers, but I'd love to see some answers from you guys. Would it be a straightforward "Kill 20 zhevras and pray they have hooves?" A simple request to listen to a story? A long chain sending players all over the world? Or a simple "I'm hungry; go get me some bread"? What would you give as a reward, if anything? Have at it, readers!
Free EU character transfer destinations revealed
Toward the end of August, European CM Vaneras had announced the closure of a few English-speaking EU servers due to the great success of their Russian localization, with a note that destination realms for free character transfers would be announced later on. Later on is, apparently, last night. Thundgot has posted the destination realms, and each set includes one that is part of the same battlegroup as the realm of origin. From Molten Core you can transfer to Burning Steppes*, Deathwing, Dentarg From Shadowmoon you can transfer to Boulderfist, Spinebreaker*, Xavius From Stonemaul you can transfer to Ahn'Qiraj, Burning Blade, Jaedenar* From Warsong you can transfer to Auchindoun, Bladefist*, Haomarush If you call one of the four closing realms home, I strongly recommend you go research your options and choose your destination while you still can. If you haven't moved yourself somewhere by the time their nebulous deadline (post-patch 3.0.2) hits, you'll have your destination chosen for you when the realms are ultimately brought down. Make sure you end up somewhere you'll like.
Neth hints at getting ready for Wrath
Mookou asks for a "51-point talent preview" before the expansion, and while we probably won't actually get that, what we'll get is likely the same we got with the Burning Crusade release -- about a month before the expansion, there'll be a huge downloadable content patch for everyone (we've heard before that it will be patch 3.0) that will contain all of the updates everyone is getting: all of the talent updates, game mechanic changes, model updates, and so on that we're going to see in the expansion. Blizzard will make all the changes and fixes around that patch, and then when Wrath is actually released, you'll just be installing Northrend content, and the game itself will be (supposedly) ready for all of it to work together. And Neth confirms that this is probably the plan -- it should work much like last time around, though the patch will probably be closer to release day.Now, Blizzard is much better at this than they used to be, so we'd imagine that (hopefully) things will go a little smoother this time around, and we won't have nearly as many problems or hotfixes as we saw last expansion. But then again, we do know they are planning things a little differently this time around -- they've divided the entry and exit zones up, so we won't see a big mess like we saw in Burning Steppes or Hellfire Peninsula. And there are rumors that we'll see a World Event go down before we actually go to Northrend, and as of right now, we don't know if there is going to be a testing phase for that or how long it might take. Last time around, too, you'll note, everyone got a free respec (and some even got two), and we haven't heard anything about that this time yet.Of course, as always with Blizzard, time will tell. Given that we're expecting a November release, that would put a big 3.0 patch in October, and we already know Brewfest is going to have some changes then, so 3.0 could come in conjunction with those changes or around them. We'll have to wait and see.
Free character migration on EU realms
Some free character transfers going down today for you EU players:From: Crushridge, Grim Batol, Outland, and StormscaleTo: Burning Steppes, Jadenar, and Vek'nilashMore info on transferring your character, if you need it, is over on Blizzard's FAQ. Color me a little jealous-- despite all the alts I have on all those different servers, not one has ever been offered a free transfer. Then again, I've never really had a reason to switch servers, so I guess it all evens out. But if you've been having queue trouble on any of the realms above and nothing to tie you down, congrats-- today's your lucky day.
Around Azeroth: Looking out on Morgan's Vigil
From the top of Dreadmaul Rock in Burning Steppes you can just barely see the small Alliance encampment at Morgan's Vigil. However, while the sky and distant mountains may be picturesque, what really catches one's eye in this shot (sent in by reader Iggo of Argent Dawn, who is clearly no friend to the Ogre!) is the Ogre head on a pike in the foreground. However, in Iggo's defense, I'll say I'm sure this was a very bad Ogre! 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%
