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Ask a Beta Tester: Exotic weapons, furbolgs, and more
Hi there, and welcome back to Ask a Beta Tester after its little Sunday break! If you're new to the column, then just 'welcome' instead of 'welcome back' and if that's the case allow me to explain! Have a question about the Wrath beta? We have an answer! Probably. Just ask in the comments section below, and we'll try to answer you in a future episode. Now, let's get started!CactusHam asked... I noticed on the Description of the Shaman's Maelstrom Weapon (and maybe its in other places as well, but this is where I saw it) that in addition to requiring axes, maces, staves and daggers it also requires "One handed Exotics, Two Handed Exotics" as well as "miscellaneous". I'm curious about what seems to be a new weapon type? Is this a new weapon type? If so, what classes can use "exotics"? And what exactly is an "exotic?" Exotic weapons are unique NPC items. If you've ever used something like WoW Modelviewer, the Exotic category contains things such as Maiev's huge chakram thingy or whatever it is. It's not something players will ever get their hands on. It's sort of like the armor sets you see on Wowhead and Thottbot that have the listing of which races can wear it, and races such as Fel Orc and Naga are listed. That doesn't mean we'll get playable Fel Orcs and Naga, it means if they're putting together an NPC that uses those racial models they can use that armor to play dress up with. Fel Orc did technically come into play at the Netherwing Ledge, but meh. Yeah, that's right. Meh.
Oh, what fresh hell is this?
Teech from Cenarion Circle penned a brief note on the forums today about the utter agony of farming Timbermaw Hold reputation at level 70. It seems like a lot of people are revisiting this particular rep grind in the interest of obtaining "The Diplomat" title and Achievement in Wrath, for which you need to be Exalted with Sporereggar, the Timbermaw, and the Mag'har/Kurenai. I'm giving some thought to doing it myself because I've already gotten to exalted with Sporereggar and the Mag'har on my main, but Timbermaw is...something else entirely. As a matter of fact, Timbermaw makes no sense. I can understand getting a Diplomat title for being an Alliance or Horde liasion to the embattled peoples of Outland no matter how bad their sense of tabard design, but someone's going to have to explain to me how committing genocide on behalf of a pissed-off subgroup of bears in loincloths does anything to advance the cause of diplomacy in Azeroth. Why are we so willing to believe the story being peddled by the first furbolg we see in Felwood? For all we know there's nothing wrong with the other furbolg tribes that some micro-lending couldn't cure. And let's face, it, there are other factions in the game for whom both the Alliance and Horde would be much better served by maintaining close diplomatic ties. Take the Consortium, for example. They ask you to lay waste to their colleagues all the time, but at least everyone concerned makes a buck off of it. What do the Timbermaw have to offer but a tunnel that you can fly over? Isn't the national interest of the Horde or Alliance better served by pursuing ties to factions with lots of money or weapons, or at least a massive grudge against things we already hate, rather than involving ourselves in some pointless internecine spat among NPC's whose death animation makes me squirm?Yeah, I might just be mad I have to kill so many of them. I'll grant that the dubious honor of most legendarily awful rep grind of all time still seems to belong to the Wintersaber Trainers (although the Cenarion Circle is also getting a lot of grief in the thread), but at least the Trainers' rep isn't linked to an amusingly ironic new title. Now if you'll pardon me, I have to go slaughter another several dozen bear men in the interests of social justice for...I'm not sure. Other bears who claim it's the right thing to do. But I get something out of it anyhow, and that makes me an ambassadorial hero.
Retroactive achievements and how they'll work
I was away at E3 last week when the big news dropped about achievements coming to Wrath of the Lich King, but that doesn't mean I'm any less excited about them -- I am a huge fan of achievements on Xbox 360, not only because it's really fun to see what other people have and haven't done in game, but because they definitely extend my own gameplay. Despite the fact that the only reward on Xbox Live is meaningless gamer points, I often find myself going the extra distance in games just to earn those achievements, and considering that the achievements in WoW will actually offer tangible rewards like tabards, titles, and whatever else Blizzard can dream up, I'm all for them.Of course, the biggest question players have asked so far is whether or not the achievements will be retroactive. The short answer is: yes. The longer answer is: most of them will be. Starting with Wrath, Blizzard is going to be tracking an astounding number of things about our characters, and obviously some of them haven't been tracked the whole time -- it'll be very hard to determine how many yetis, for example, that you've killed, and so something like that will likely not be retroactive. But it's easy to know, for example, whether you've turned in a quest or killed a raid boss, and so that stuff will almost assuredly be retroactive.My guess is that Blizzard will tune some of the old world achievements to make them more easily checkable (i.e. instead of "Kill 1,000 Furbolgs," it'll be something like "Be Exalted with Timbermaw Hold" -- something they can very easily know about your character). In the future, we'll probably have a few more silly achievements (Blizzard is already working on implementing a few more in-depth stats). And the real question is how/if this will all be shown in the Armory -- if websites can determine guild progress just based on the gear characters are wearing, imagine what we'll be able to do with all of this achievement data.
Your least favorite races
We all have our favorite races, whether we actively play them or not. Personally, I have a thing for playing Humans and I desperately want to play an Ethereal one day. At the very least, have an Ethereal presence in Wrath, even a small one.What about your least favorite races, though? We all have those, too. We don't always have good explanations for it, but for one reason or another there's just something that drives us absolutely crazy. My #1 most hated race in Warcraft would have to be Gnolls. What do they even do? Their most famous member is Hogger, who doesn't even do anything. Okay okay, they kill people and that's bad, but they don't do do anything. At least Kobolds mine stuff up.Tell you what, I'll go ahead and give my Top 5 after the jump. If you're interested, go ahead and read on!
Phat Loot Phriday: Dartol's Rod of Transformation
Blood Elves and Draenei haven't shown up in the game yet, but today's piece of sweet loot lets you play that other new race, the Furbolg.Name: Dartol's Rod of TransformationType: Quest ItemDamage/Speed: NAAbilities: Transforms you into a furry, angry looking Furblog for three minutes Furbolg form even has its own animations for fighting and casting spells. As long as you don't take any damage, you could run raids looking just like the picture above. So far, I don't believe a dance has been implemented yet, but no matter where you are, everybody loves a Furbolg! One minute cooldown - taking damage will interrupt the spell Unlimited charges! How to Get It: Sorry Hordies, this one's Alliance only. Around level 28 or so, Alliance can find a Night Elf named Raene Wolfrunner in the inn in Astranaar. She starts off a long quest chain that ends with a mission where you are given this rod, and told to use it to speak to a Furbolg (the local population has been cursed, and you're supposed to find out why). But via a nice little loophole, you don't actually have to turn in the quest, and the quest item never expires, so after completing the chain up to the point you recieve the Rod, just never talk to Raene again. She'll get over it (she's got two big cats to talk to), and you'll get Dartol's Rod.Fun, completely unnecessary lore fact: Dartol apparently was a Wizard interested in druidic magic. He hung around Astranaar for a while trying to figure out why, you guessed it, the Furbolg had gotten corrupted. He created this rod to move among them and speak to them, but unfortunately, tragedy struck when he was found out.... and killed by the Furblog. But hey, now you've got his Rod, and you can run all over Azeroth looking just like his murderer!Getting Rid of It: Well, you could just turn in the quest (seeing as it's a quest item, it's unique, soulbound, and vendors won't take it). At the end of the chain, you've got your choice of a nice green axe or mace, but seriously-- how are you going to choose a standard quest reward over an item that you can use again and again all the way to 60?
Dartol's Rod of Transformation
A great favorite of my guild, Dartol's Rod of Transformation is a bit of an unusual item. It doesn't have any stats, and it doesn't do any damage; no, this is a far more potent piece of loot. It transforms you into a Furbolg for three minutes. And let me tell you, there's nothing quite like a Furbolg charging up to bubble-pull Onyxia, followed by a dozen more Furbolgs and assorted other folks. The effect breaks if you receive damage, but the cooldown is only one minute, so it shouldn't be too hard to stay furbied up most of the time.How do you get it? Simple, just follow the quest chain "Raene's Cleansing" in Ashenvale (18 is the level of the first quest). Sorry, Hordies, but this one's Alliance-only. There's one catch: you can't finish the quest line, because if you do, they take away your pretty rod. The best way to go about it is just to not accept the follow-up: as soon as you get your rod, walk away smiling. Unfortunately, a few of us Alliance folks have completed the entire quest chain; for us, as for hordies, there's pretty much no way to get Dartol's Rod. But at least we still get Paladins on our side! (What's that? Horde Paladins in the expansion? Yeah right. Screenshot or it didn't happen.)
