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Mabinogi's Easter Egg-scavation
If Easter has taught us anything, it's that chicken eggs are an odd but reliable source of candy. This is generally not good press for chickens, as they already suffer from being tasty and associated with cowardice. Nexon's Mabinogi hopes that your Easter egg hunting skills are strong and sharp, as they invite players to participate in an egg hunt to end all egg hunts. It turns out that these aren't ordinary eggs, either. Laid by the fabled hens of Erinn, their eggs occasionally come out (why not) fossilized. It's these fresh-yet-ancient eggs that demand attention, as players will extract their stony yolk in search of an iconic Easter Egg Capsule. These capsules contain (why not) candy, which, when eaten, bestows the adventurous eater with various stat bonuses and unanswered questions as to which came first: the chicken or the petrified egg. Start your egg-scavating by heading over to the Mabinogi website and firing up this colorful MMO.
Samwise's best memory of the last five years of WoW
Our good friends over at the Orange Country Register have jumped in on the fifth anniversary interview extravanganza, and they've posted information from a short chat with none other than Samwise Didier, Blizzard's primary artist. They asked Samwise for a crazy memory from the last five years, and he came up with a time when he was rolling through a Pollo Loco drive-through, and the guy behind the window called him out by name and said he "liked your show." Which show? Didier is of course the lead singer of TAFKAL80ETC, a.k.a. The Artists Formerly Known as Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain, Blizzard's in-house rock band. Pretty awesome that a video game artist is now literally a rock star thanks to this game. The OC Register (don't call it that -- did you think I'd get through a post about them without saying that?) is also looking for memories from fans as well to be printed in their paper -- you can jump in the comments on their site and share some memories of your own. We'll also be celebrating the game's fifth anniversary here on WoW.com, so stay tuned around November 23rd for a nice look back at where this gigantic game has accomplished in the past five years.
Patch 3.2.2: The clucking draenei (and the levitating tree)
I've talked here before about just how wacky Blizzard's coding is -- they are obviously great programmers (even with all of the 180,000 bugs), but man, when things go wrong in this game, they go wrong in the weirdest, strangest ways. Take the bug above, spotted in patch 3.2.2 by xella over on Livejournal: the female dreanei /train emote is bugged like crazy, but instead of not playing or playing a random sound like you might expect it to do as a software bug, it instead plays a cacophony of the strangest sounds, including a slice of the original sound and then a female blood elf /chicken noise instead. This will surely be fixed soon (and as a few people in the comments over there say, it's probably a bit of file corruption on Blizzard's part), but what a weird bug.Fortunately, as granular and strange as Blizzard's bugs are, their fixes are just as minute: tree druids will be happy to see that, since patch 3.2, their treeform now actually moves correctly after Levitate is cast on it. It's a small change, sure, but every little bit helps with immersion. Maybe someday we'll see mounts do it, too.
Sprite Darters and Westfall Chickens for the Horde
When it was mentioned that Dig Rat Stew is becoming available to the Alliance, our Horde readers quite nearly rebelled and marched to Irvine to kick over Blizzard's statue. Where was the Horde love? I can tell you where! It's coming in the form of pets. In patch 3.1, two of the Alliance exclusive non-combat pets are being opened up to the Horde: The Westfall Chicken and the Sprite Darter from Feralas.The Chicken quest (CLUCK!) can now be picked up by Horde players as well, via spamming /chicken at chickens around the world. While Alliance players buy the Special Chicken Feed needed for the quest from Westfall, the Horde can now buy the feed from "Westfall" William Saldean in Brill. Technically the Horde had access to this pet before, but it was a real pain. You had to wait around for an Alliance player to do the quest, then steal their egg off of the ground before they could loot it. Harsh. Now you can do it on your own, in your own town.The Sprite Darter quest is still exclusive to the Alliance, but there's another way for the Horde to get their hands on it now: Killing the Sprite Darters of Feralas. We don't know how low the drop rate is yet, but it's safe to say that the Horde is going to drive the Sprite Darters to extinction. Alliance players, note that you cannot kill these Darters. We still have to do the quest(s).See? Blizzard loves you, too. They love all of us equally. ...Usually.
Five old world vanity pets you may have missed
It's a good time to be a pet collector. We're getting recognition, cool toys for our pets, and even an achievement series especially for us. If you're new to the world of pet collecting, or have just dabbled in it so far though, you may be struggling a bit to get those last few pets for the achievement. In the spirit of helping out my fellow pet enthusiasts, here's a few rarer or lesser known old world pets that you might have overlooked, especially if you started the game after Burning Crusade.
One Shots: Fowl play
When we first heard about the mechanic to keep over-level players out of lower leveled RVR zones in Warhammer Online, we thought it was a creative way of dealing with potential griefing. Of course, a good sized group decided to get creative in return and figured that it would be fun to try overrunning a lower-level RVR area anyway. Today's One Shots was the rather strange result of it. Telenrion sent this in to us here with the following note: This was taken in the Warhammer Online T1 Open RvR area during Open Beta. An army of chickens showed up. They eventually attacked, and cornered a Magus. Whether one of them got the killing blow, only that chicken knows, but he did die in a mass of feathered fury. Now all we want is for dead chickens to drop drumsticks. Yum!Have you seen something bizarre in your gaming? Have you run a-fowl of a weird situation? If so, you need to send those screenshots in to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com so we can share them with the rest of the world. Remember to include your character's name/server/guild and a quick description. Otherwise we have to keep egging you on to send them. %Gallery-9798%
A LotRO chicken's adventure in Forochel
What's so great about a chicken running around the snowy lands of Forochel? Well, if you're even a moderate Lord of the Rings Online player, you're aware of what Chicken Play is, and how advanced the Forochel area is. Put the two together and you'll realize that running a chicken with 64 Morale all the way from The Shire to the icy Suri Kyla while keeping all your nuggets intact is quite an amazing feat.Not only that, but the player who did this realized that the instant icy death that happens to players when they enter the water around Forochel doesn't affect you while in Chicken Play, so they were able to explore some areas that perhaps have never been seen before. Check out the entire recap in the LotRO forums, complete with loads of screenshots to document this accomplishment.
April Fools in Middle-earth: the Battle of Amon Hen
Okay, this is super obvious, but it's still pretty hilarious. The jokers over at Turbine want to let you know about the next free content update -- no, really -- for Lord of the Rings Online, "The Battle of Amon Hen". Introducing a new playable race, the Fowl Peoples! Grow when you level and supersize your chicken, as you crush your foes into 6, 12 or 20 pieces! We won't ruin all the punchlines here, but there are some real winners, so make sure to check it out. It's a shame it's all a joke -- we're sure many folks would be all over that "Colonel" PvMP rank.
Around Azeroth: Super shadow mini-chicken of death
This anonymous player (the poultry, not the Gnome) was questing at Toshley's Station in Blades Edge Mountains when he got hit with the transporter debuff. He decided to take advantage of it and down a few Noggenfoggers and popped his Cloak of Shadows. And viola! Super shadow mini-chicken of death.Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? Because we'd love to see it 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! Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. We prefer full screen shots without the UI showing. And please, no more sunsets. This means you. I'm not kidding, yours is not the exception. No, really. Sigh.%Gallery-1816%
World of WarCrafts: Buzzard Bite Wraps
Every Wednesday Thursday Maureen Carter brings you World of WarCrafts, which features a recipe or craft that teaches you how to make your own real life version of in-game recipes and items. Hi again sorry I'm a day late on this, I promise not to make it a habit. For today's recipe I am using a bit of creativity and taking the in game recipe a little farther. I am making Buzzard Bite Wraps. For starters lets make the Buzzard Bites and then make them into the wrap.The in game recipe simply calls for Buzzard Meat. To me that didn't seem quite interesting enough. As you know I am more than willing to jazz up a recipe before I present it to you, so let's begin.
Caption Contest: poultry vs. robot in a duel to the death
We're told this type of battle is indeed legal in certain corners of the universe, but we honestly never thought we'd see the day when a gallinaceous bird came to the human's side to fend off the impending robotic takeover. Ryan: "That sound? Seth Green and Adult Swim filing suit over the Robot Chicken trademark."Thomas: "Quit your cock blocking and fight!"Darren: "These wooden posts are such lame excuses for adequate prostheses."Paul: "Look, I know you're scared. We're all scared. But if robots and robo-chickens can't learn to live in harmony, we might as well just let the humans have the earth all to themselves."Evan: "Not surprisingly, the martial arts sequel to Howard the Duck tanked at the box office."Don: "2019: Despite repeated protests from People for the Ethical Treatment of Robots, the title bout between Robo Chicken and BD "Boxy Hands" 209 went on as planned."Josh: "I love you!" -- "It'll never work!"
More Phantom Hourglass commercials for Japan, nothing for us
Whether it's shields or mini-sites, we can't seem to stop torturing ourselves with Phantom Hourglass news. We're actually physically pained by the fact that Japan will be receiving the game as early as next week; meanwhile, we're still waiting for a US release date to be announced, wallowing in self-pity with nothing but Destination Software's Chicken Shoot to look forward to. We want to chase chickens into corners, carry them over our heads, or even slash at them with a sword until a flood of poultry pour into our screens to defend their friend -- not shoot at them! We cry fowl at Chicken Shoot!Nintendo's latest commercial for The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass depicts a young girl finding clues, taking notes, and counting Link's steps to unlock one of the game's many secrets. As you'll see past the post break, no chickens were harmed in the making of the video.%Gallery-3279%
Mario and Luigi take vacation in Vice City
The guys in charge of Robot Chicken, adult swim's stop animation show featuring action figures that takes stabs at pop culture and the gaming world, have shown that when they set out to make something funny, they often succeed with ease. In last night's new episode, their next targets were the Mario bros. and they showed us a much darker side of the brothers than we are used to seeing. Check the video out, which has been embedded into the post after the break.[Via Joystiq]
56K users beware: huge FFIII images
When we say huge, we mean gigantic. Yet, for those with speedier internets, these images from what we assume is a shop display somewhere in the vast land of Japan, which depict some promotional materials as well as images from the game itself, will be a nice treat. Some of the pictures are a bit blurry, but for the most part should only compound upon your already incredible desire for this title to form some sort of Voltron-esque super desire able to vanquish ne'er-do-wells and win dance competitions. Final Fantasy III is currently slated for a November release.[Via QJ]
Weird software: Lonesome Electric Chicken
I wish I had a more insightful or enlightening explanation for what the Lonesome Electric Chicken is, but I'm afraid there really isn't one. As its author, John Schilling, states on his site, it's a: "time and life wasting application that spews forth a gathering of quotations. That's it. Don't look any farther into it than that".Killer app? Or scourge of cyberspace? Either way, John has made the source code available with this Universal Binary app, and he is accepting donations for his most interesting work.[via Hawk Wings]
