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WoW Moviewatch: Castle In The Sky
Castle in the Sky by Zimtower is a short, sweet and beautiful music video. It's somewhat referencing Dalaran as a castle in the sky, but is really more focused on the idea of a "happy place" where each person can revisit their own childhood. And yes, that's totally a reappearance from the fun gnome from Cloud 9. It's a pretty short video, so I wouldn't recommend trying to read too much into it. However, Zimtower has done an amazing job animating his gnomes so that they actually line up against the song's lyrics. The video is beautiful, with a whimsical color palette that serves to magnificently reinforce the song's message. Ultimately, this is a great video. I had a fun time watching it, and expect it to be one of my go-to "pick me up" films in the future. Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.
Patch 3.3: Teleporting in and out of instances
The most recent patch notes answered something I've been wondering about the "summon-from-anywhere" LFG system since I first heard about it: what happens if you get summoned into an instance and then you leave? The answer, apparently, is that you go not to the instance's entry portal, but instead you get sent right back out from whence you came. That's a bummer and a benefit -- unfortunately, you won't be able to use the feature to do any cross-world teleporting (leaving Violet Hold, for example, won't work as an extra hearthstone to Dalaran), but on the other hand, you won't have to stop what you're doing wherever you are. In fact, porting in and out of any instances you run may change your positioning in the game completely. Nibuca doesn't see any need any more to leave a hearthstone in Dalaran -- that was previously the most central location for collecting daily dungeon quests and flying out to meeting stones, but with neither of those things necessary any more, you can park your stone anywhere you want. It'll be very interesting to see how movement patterns change after the new system goes live. I doubt Dalaran will be a ghost town (if nothing else, there will be plenty of people there sitting in LFG chat), but certainly the LFG is mixing up the reasons that a lot of people are hanging around there. Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.
Phat Loot Phriday: Jeweled Fishing Pole
If you're planning on heading out to join the Kalu'ak Fishing Derby in patch 3.3, you might as well look good doing it, right? Name: Jeweled Fishing Pole (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory) Type: Rare Two-hand Fishing Pole Damage: 410-610 / 3.00 (169.3 DPS) Attributes: 1603 Feral Attack Power. Yes, it's true. Just in case you druids leave this on while in a different form. Requires Fishing 300, which as we've said before, isn't too hard to do. Go over to El's Anglin' take a few hours and follow their great Fishing/Cooking guide, and you'll be done before you know it. %Gallery-33600%
Phat Loot Phriday: The Mischief Maker
This one comes to us from @Aeire on Twitter, who said we should do this item, because it's "weird and different." True on both counts!Name: The Mischief Maker (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory)Type: Uncommon ConsumableDamage/Speed: N/AAttributes: It's a wand (though not really -- it's just an item you right-click to use up) that will sheep any friendly player or NPC, and unfortunately only in Dalaran. In other words, it's a party favor -- there's no real use to it, but if you happen to see your buddy wandering around Dalaran, you can sheep them for 15 seconds, and then wait for their "wtf?!" to roll in on guild chat. %Gallery-33600%
Pacifist Priest dings 80 on Friday
Reinisch is the pacifist Undead Priest who's aiming to make it to level 80 without killing anything at all (he's the same player as Noor, who we interviewed way back when and followed up with a while ago), and apparently this Friday, he's going to do it. He's inviting everybody out to a party on Friday afternoon, September 4th, at 6pm server over on The Venture Company. He's going to turn in a Dalaran fishing quest to do it, and he's got quick and easy directions posted on how to get to Dalaran as a level 1.Though there might not be as much going on as other big server parties, it's probably worth going just to see him ding level 80 and the level 1 chaos in Dalaran that will ensue, but it's quite an achievement for sure, especially considering that this Priest was actually created before Noor -- he's named after a German priest who stood up to Hitler in the name of peace and was executed for it. It might be nice just to stop by and give the guy a grats as he dings -- pretty impressive to take a goal that most people would say was impossible, and do it in the game not once but twice on two different classes and factions.
The Queue: Nobody expects the Druid Inquisition!
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Allison Robert will be your hostess today.Adam and Alex are busy packing for BlizzCon, so I've sneaked into the Queue offices to answer some questions this evening. There's no consistent theme here, folks; we're all over the map today with BlizzCon, lore, and player textures. If you don't see your question here, I still have a few in mind from the last post to answer tomorrow.Smapdor asks...There are 3 historical scenarios that can be found in Yogg-Saron's "brain room"...What is the Shadow Vault event? I would guess that it is something as important lore-wise as the (other) two, but I have no idea.It's widely believed that the Shadow Vault "memory" depicts a very recent and very unfortunate occurrence that took place (without player knowledge) after the Wrath Gate event. The NPCs in question are thought to be the souls/spirits/incorporeal whatsamajiggies of Saurfang the Younger and Bolvar Fordragon, who perished in the fight, victim to the Lich King and the Royal Apothecary Society respectively. The Wrath Gate cinematic implies that the Arthas has at least Saurfang's soul to toy with (which would explain the Orcish Turned Champion), but the identity of the Immolated Champion is less clear. Bolvar is by far the most likely possibility -- after all, the Immolated Champion is wearing the same armor Bolvar wore going to his death -- but nothing's been confirmed. Bottom line? Expect to see both Saurfang and Bolvar show up in the Icecrown Citadel raid in some capacity.
Around Azeroth: The Two Towers
Submitter Beastotem of the guild Arise on Spinebreaker-EU sends us this photograph, freshly snapped from the back of his flying mount. When I saw it, I have to say, I was filled with a sense of foreboding doom. That's right, everyone, brace yourselves. The Two Towers are back. It looks like Sauron decided that the big flaming eye on the spire was so last year, but Saruman, strangely enough, seems to have decided to redecorate Orthanc in neon greens and blues. I think that whole "Saruman of Many Colors" shtick is going to his head.Do you have any unusual, beautiful or interesting World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We'd love to see them on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.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. Please include the word "Azeroth" in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing -- use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, gold seller ads with dead gnomes, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran. %Gallery-1816%
Dalaran Orphan Quest Walk-through
One of the small blessings of patch 3.2 is the brief addendum to Children's Week. You'll recieve a note in the mail (if you're of the appropriate level to recieve such mail) to go help the orphans of Northrend.Note: While this guide is obviously focused on Roo the Oracle, if you choose to help out Kekek the Wolvar, it will still work. It just means you'll get a taste of the Wolvar flavor instead of the Oracle speech.After you've gotten the announcement in the mail that you need to talk to the Orphan Matron of Dalaran, you simply walk to her and turn in the quest. You can find her near the Eventide. Be sure to talk to her again, as that satisfies the requirements to get your little orphan Roo.The remaining quests all come from little Roo. He simply gives you three quests to visit three locations. Like the previous Orphan quests, little interactions at each location will help you understand your orphan's life a little better. (My beloved Draenei fiancee spent about the whole time 'dead from cute!')-- Playmates!: No, not like that. Your Oracle Orphan wants to visit Winterfin Retreat, where he heard some brave chap rescued a bunch of murloc tadpoles. As soon as you get there (at location 43, 13), a baby murloc will run up to your Oracle. And they'll play together! Be sure to pay attention to the interaction between Roo and his new murloc friend, because oh my god it's cute.-- The Bronze Dragonshrine: Roo is familiar with the "great rain stone" back home in Sholazar Basin. So, like any good, curious orphan, he wants to go check out the draconic equivalent. He'll get a glimpse of the future, when you see High Oracle Soo-roo come bounding up to you!-- The Biggest Tree Ever!: Soo-say has told Roo the tale of Grizzlemaw, the Biggest Tree Ever! C'mon now, if you heard there was a "biggest tree ever," wouldn't you want to see it? (You can get the turn in at 51, 42)Once you've completed these three simple steps (I started at Winterfin, then did Dragonshine, then jumped over to Grizzlemaw), you'll get two more quests. -- Meeting a Great One: Remember the Etymidian? Return to it, so that Roo can meet the Great One. You'll need to go through the waygate portal in southern Sholazar, which is located at 40, 82.-- The Dragon Queen: Roo's so much fun, you need to share the love. Take him back around to the Wyrmrest Temple so that he can meet Alexstrasza. I was never so big a fan of the Dragon Queen as I was when she showed some affection to my mini-Gorloc buddy.After you've knocked these two quests off, there's one more place to go. You're carting around an orphan child. If you were a kid, with a big brother or sister, where would you want to go? The toystore!-- A Trip to the Wonderworks: In case you've never been there because you're roleplaying a dour, un-fun Death Knight, the Wonderworks toy store is found in the north-west of Dalaran. For the quest, buy a special Small Paper Zepplin, which you throw to your orphan. Don't worry, he shares. Roo will immediately throw it back to you.After that, you get a quest to return little Orphan Roo to the Orphan Matron. If there is anything but a dark, cold, dead lump of coal serving as your heart, you will immediately start missing your orphan buddy. No fear! Check your mail.Roo totally mailed himself to you, and is ready to adventure in Azeroth with you as your non-combat companion. It's a little creepy that he went through the Azeroth Postal Service, sure, but now you never have to be without him. As a warning, it does sometimes take a few moments for the mail containing your little buddy to show up.Patch 3.2 will bring about a new 5, 10, and 25 man instance to WoW, and usher in a new 40-man battleground called the Isle of Conquest. WoW.com will have you covered every step of the way, from extensive PTR coverage through the official live release. Check out WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2 for all the latest!
One Shots: This is a no-fly zone
Hey, if you've got to spend time hanging out in Dalaran in World of Warcraft, you might as well have fun with it, we think. Today's One Shots comes to us from Pascalin of the Steamwheedle Cartel (EU) server, who decided to risk getting unceremoniously tossed off his mount by Dalaran security to snap today's lovely shot. He writes in: Dalaran, city of a thousand magical splendors - and an annoying no-flying zone. Still my mage had a go, despite breaking the rules. Are you spending time flying through the skies in World of Warcraft? If you've snapped a lovely screenshot from your favorite game (no matter the MMO) we'd love to see it! Send it in to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a quick description of what we're seeing in the screenshot. Yours could be next!%Gallery-9798%
Need flying mounts? Mei Francis has you covered
Patch 3.1.2 brought it with the usual slew of undocumented changes, but here's one that appears to have flown under the radar for a while -- Mei Francis, Dalaran's exotic mount vendor, now sells basic Outland flying mounts (read: gryphons and wyverns) at both regular and epic speeds. This is great news for, well, anybody who doesn't want to go to Outland! I know that when my shaman hit 77 and I bought all of my flying skills, it was a pain to have to go to Shadowmoon Valley to buy my mount, so I can certainly appreciate the change. Of course, there are even more mount changes in store -- a 150% speed flyer at 60, for example -- so this is obviously part of the devs' mission to streamline the leveling and traveling process for players of all levels. A welcome and unexpected change for quality of leveling life -- that's what I like to see.
Forum Post of the Day: Dalaran Classified Ads
Crawford of Gorefiend posted a pretty amusing post recently on the official forums: Dalaran Classified Ads. The post lists a variety of help wanted, services offered, and even personals ads from various personalities around Azeroth. There's some pretty amusing ones in the mix. Inspired, I thought I'd come up with one or two myself: HELP WANTED: Day Laborers for bridge construction. Must bring own tools, or recover stolen tools from Murlocs. Payment is 2 armor patches a week plus all the Sauteed Sunfish you can eat. Work hours very flexible. Contact Oslow at Lakeshire, Redridge. Projected completion time TBA.It's not that great, admittedly, but hey. For some real good ones, check out the post.
Beating Cheese for Glowergold
I could not agree more -- of all of the cooking dailies, Cheese for Glowergold is my least favorite. All of the cooking collecting quests usually involve a little shoulder rubbing with people doing the same quest -- Infused Mushroom Meatloaf is another one where it's usually every man for himself down in those sewers. But none of them are more annoying than Glowergold's quest. I don't know if it's just that the respawn time seems longer, or that there are fewer spawn points and more to collect (you need six glasses, which doesn't seem like much as collecting quests go, but it's a lot while doing it), or that there's no specific place to find the glasses (they're littered around tables, usually in restaurants, around Dalaran). But yeah -- every time the wine and cheese quest comes up, I sigh, knowing that I'm going to be standing in the inn straight across from the cheese shop waiiting for a spawn.But just so this isn't a complete QQ post, let's give you a few tips for next time. That inn is usually where I stand, but it's pretty crowded -- it's definitely worth, after just picking up the quest, looking around the faction inn where you get the cooking daily as there's usually one or two in there. And I didn't know this, but apparently there are a few spawn points downstairs in The Cantrips and Crows tavern (so when you run down there for the Jewel of the Sewers, keep an eye out for glasses also). And there are four spawns in the Violet Hold as well (so you can stop by and grab those while picking up the Heroic and dungeon dailies).This might help a bit, but the fact is that this is an annoying quest, made more annoying when someone swoops in and grabs that glass you were headed for. Bornakk rightfully says it doesn't need a nerf (and as more people get everything they want out of the cooking dailies, we'll probably see less competition out there), but that doesn't make it any less frustrating.
Disappointment with the patch 3.1 game world
The last few days I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out why I'm not particularly enjoying Patch 3.1 when I'm doing something besides raiding Ulduar. I should be enjoying it! When I first checked it out on the PTR, I was extremely excited about it. The Argent Tournament especially. The whole jousting deal, the Arthurian themes, the potential for story progression, the whole thing. It looked great! Unfortunately... I'm finding it pretty boring.The Argent Tournament feels lifeless. Completely and utterly lifeless. I say it all of the time, but patch 2.4 was my favorite patch of World of Warcraft thus far, no contest. Patch 2.4 brought me more joy than even the Wrath launch. Not only did it have content for absolutely every aspect of the game, but it also actually changed the world. Storylines progressed in an in-your-face way. Sure, patch 3.1 moved the Ulduar and Yogg-Saron story forward, but would you know it if you didn't read fansites or watch the patch 3.1 cinematic? What's different? What indicator is there that something new is happening in the Storm Peaks?
The OverAchiever: Guide to Children's Week achievements
All right, folks, we've got another sub-achievement needed for What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been (and thus the 310% speed Violet Proto-Drake) on our hands here. I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that most of the achievements for Children's Week are fairly straightforward, and should be easy (and even fun) to complete. Appropriately enough for a mini-holiday, most of the achievements are simple, amusing, and not too time-consuming. The bad news is that one of the achievements may be a huge headache to get done, and unlike Noblegarden, your character has to be at least 75 in order to get all of the achievements needed for the year-long meta. Children's Week runs from Friday, May 1st at midnight through Thursday, May 7th at 11:59 PM. Got your kiddo? Let's get cracking.EDIT: This article's been revised and updated to reflect new information and the hotfixes that have gone live since initial publication. All information herein should be accurate as of 11:30 AM EST Saturday May 2nd.
The limits of Video Mode Ultra
I think I've found the limits of Video Mode Ultra -- when we first hard in the 3.1 patch notes that Blizzard was adding in a superspecial video mode for high-end computers to use, I was excited. I just recently "updated" my PC (read: "it broke and I had to spend a lot of time and money to fix it"), and it's been running like butter, so I was interested in putting it to the test. The day after the patch dropped, I flipped the switch to Ultra, and had no problems -- until this past Saturday. While wandering around Dalaran, I noticed my framerate had dropped quite a bit. I lowered a couple of the environmental settings just a bit and I was fine again, but apparently even with a 2.5 GHz quad core CPU, 4gb of RAM, and a GeForce 9600GT, Video Mode Ultra is still just a little too hardcore for me.What's interesting is that I ran Wintergrasp a few times before having those slowdowns in Dalaran, and never had a problem. But then again, Blizzard did say that they had spent a lot of time making sure Wintergrasp was streamlined enough to run huge battles with minimal slowdown, so maybe Dalaran didn't get that same makeover. And I should say as well that I had no issues anywhere else in the world -- even my Naxx run the other evening looked perfect with Ultra flipped on.Having a "future" graphics mode on PC games is nothing new -- for most games, the highest graphics setting is usually "experimental," so there's a little leeway in terms of release time (the game looks good with current hardware, but even better with next year's gear). And Video Mode Ultra is just that -- Blizzard trying to send a shot across the bow at those who are already saying the graphics look a little dated.
One Shots: A well-balanced idea
In World of Warcraft, you'd think you'd seen most of what the game had to offer, then you run across someone getting creative with balancing things. Take, for example, today's rather silly One Shots of a dried-up waterfall in Stormwind courtesy of Cotys from Nordrassil (EU). Someone obviously thought that maybe adding some water might help get things going again. So, presto-chango, one scrying bowl later, and... Well, okay; there's still no water flowing in the fountain - but it was a nice thought! Cotys explains this choice of screenshot: The Statue/Waterfall of Stormwind with a scrying bowl on his head. Just thought it was funny, and unusual to see. Hope you enjoy!Calling all MMO players! We need your screenshots for One Shots. If you've seen anything fun (holiday events are awesome) imposing, interesting, or silly, we want to hear from you. If you haven't, gather up your group of friends and go have some fun, then send some screens of that in. All MMOs from large-budget to tiny indie games; from East to West are welcome. Send them to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name/server/game and a quick description of what we're seeing. Reader submissions keep One Shots running, so send some in today!%Gallery-9798%
Neutral Auction houses (and putting them in Northrend)
You've probably heard, by now, the reason why there are no auction houses (or class trainers) in Dalaran or Shattrath. Blizzard doesn't want the old world towns (like Ironforge and Orgrimmar) to become ghost towns. Ghost towns like, for example, Shattrath -- have you been there lately? But as Gnomeaggedon pointed out last week, there's another option: neutral Auction houses.We haven't talked about the Neutral Auction houses in the game for a long time -- they exist only in Winterspring, Booty Bay, and Tanaris, and pretty much have only served the purpose of trading items back and forth between the two factions (or scamming between them). But Gnomeaggedon has a new idea: why not reintroduce them to the newer cities, and create another option for people rather than having to go all the way back to the old world (and waste a hearthstone cooldown)? Not only would you bring people back to the Neutral Auction houses (they really are empty right now), but you'd bring the auction house back to the people, at a slightly higher cost.I like it, and so does Mend Pet, though she sees a few issues: even with the higher cost, you might still get people forgetting about the normal Auction houses and then you've just switched where the problem is (not to mention that people leveling wouldn't see anyone in the big cities when they went). And Dalaran is laggy and crowded as it is -- creating another mess of characters won't help. And finally, this is a solution without a real problem: we're getting the Hearthstone cooldown lowered anyway, so it's not that big deal to go back home occasionally (or just use a bank alt). Still, the Neutral houses are just sort of sitting there. Giving us more access to them might be worth it.
Breakfast Topic: Your wish
When I was first exploring the Wrath of the Lich King beta, I thought that the Dalaran Wishing Fountain was one of the coolest things ever. I'm an avid angler in WoW, and I'm a huge lore geek. Combining the two is a recipe for success, I think! I really enjoyed the ability to get a little glimpse into the mind of various lore characters, and it was offered up in a pretty interactive way. It's not only the fun quotes, but a sense of discovery accompanies each new coin.The contents of the fountain has inspired a question that's been making the rounds through the WoW community: If you had a coin in that fountain, what would it say? What wish or musing would be left on it? I posed the question to the WoW Insider team to see what they would come up with, ranging from the silly to the serious, from speaking in-character to speaking as a player. Here's what they (we) had to say...
Tips on completing Higher Learning
Higher Learning is one of the most peaceful achievements in the game (all you have to do are read a few books that spawn around Dalaran), but it's no less desirable for that -- the achievement grants a miniature Arcane Elemental pet that looks awesome. Teniblue over on WoW Ladies has a few good tips if you're trying to get all edumacated in Dalaran -- she's got links to two addons (including the perfectly-named Dalaran University) to use to help you track spawn times, and she's got a link to Breanni's great guide over on WarcraftPets.com (which our own Allison R. touched on briefly in a recent OverAchiever post).What's fun about this achievement is that reading the books won't delete them, so it can be very social -- people have created #bookclub channels on many servers to keep track of when and where books are appearing in the city. That makes it a lot more fun than the, say, cooking daily quest that sends you after mushrooms in the sewers. It actually makes this social game, well, social.So next time you see a book sitting around the city, be sure to give a shout to the chat channel -- here's one in-game situation where everybody can benefit from a little extra chatting.
Technical issues in Dalaran makes the PTR nearly unplayable
So you're on the PTR wanting to enjoy all the gooey goodness that is Patch 3.1. You have this urge to go to Dalaran. I mean, it's so pretty right? And there's a bank there, and your hearth stone is probably set to their as well if you don't have a Ring of the Kirin Tor.Wrong. Move.There are hundreds of reports coming in from around the net going up on the official Blizzard forums, tons coming into the WoW Insider Tip Line, and the problem has been experienced by every staff member here that's been on the PTR.You can move no more than a few dozen paces in Dalaran without there being a critical error that causes WoW to crash.There were some early reported rumors that the problem is linked exclusively to ATI video cards, but I can say beyond a doubt that such is not the case – I have an nVidia GeForce GTX 260 I'm getting crashed every few minutes while in Dalaran.
