epicness
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The Daily Grind: What makes you feel epic?
On a very basic level, MMOs are all about trying to make the player and the player's character feel epic in some way. You're supposed to feel big and important, like you're making a difference in the world. But there are a lot of games that offer a lot of different paths to epicness, and while one player might want to be an Ascended fighting against rifts in, well, RIFT, other players feel more epic by being an influential farmer in Star Wars Galaxies. Maybe you feel epic banding together with a huge group of people to defeat an endgame raid. Maybe you feel epic working your way through small-group content with your closest companions. Maybe it's PvP, or crafting, or something else entirely. Whatever your game of choice, today we ask you -- what makes you feel epic? What sort of experiences make you feel really important in the game world around you? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. Please be advised that there's no need to make a joke about anyone's genitals on today's Daily Grind. (We see that one coming.)
The Maelstrom: Now with epic video turned to 11
A couple of weeks ago, Valnoth, lead world designer at Blizzard, reported that the Maelstrom is now "10 - 50x more epic." For some people, a giant whirlpool surrounded by lightning and crashing surf wasn't epic enough. What was clearly needed was a flying shark with a giant laser mounted on its head, being ridden by a dinosaur that was in turn being ridden by an undead wailing away on the guitar. WoW.com has now exclusively learned that a video of a flying-laser-shark-dinosaur-guitar-wailing-mage is far more epic yet than that pitifully un-epic picture we posted last week, and we are happy to share this video with you. Are you ready to rock?
The Maelstrom is probably epic enough for you now
A week or so ago, someone on the Cataclysm beta forums complained that the Maelstrom's appearance in the upcoming expansion just wasn't epic enough. It's a pretty silly thing to say. Valnoth, aka WoW Lead World Designer Alex Afrasiabi, apparently agreed and responded with the following: Re: The Maelstrom? Maybe I missed the memo on levels of "epicosity" or something, but I'm pretty sure the Maelstrom is a CLASS 10 epic zone. Though I guess it is missing sharks with laser beams patrolling the waters and Arthur Fonzarelli jumping across it with water skis. And dinosaurs. source And then, a bit later, posted: Re: The Maelstrom? After reading this post I called for a meeting with TOP TOP MEN (that's two tops) in order to figure out a solution to the problem at hand. Frankly, I think we hit a home run. The next 4.0 build (or the one after) should have a Maelstrom that's between 10 - 50x more epic than what currently exists. Buckle yourselves into your computer chairs or face being blown away! source And sure enough, as promised, this latest beta build has turned the "Epic" dial up to 11 where the Maelstrom is concerned. Flying around it is Epicus Maximus <Paragon of Epicosity>, a level 90 elite shark, who is being ridden by an elite rare devilsaur named <And a Dinosaur> riding a rocket and manning (dinosauring?) a laser beam, being ridden by an undead mage playing guitar named <Rock On>. That should suffice.
