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WoW's Singing Sunflower sweetens the Lament of the Highborne
The voice of Laura Shigihara will forever be synonymous among WoW fans with the Singing Sunflower pet -– that ineffably perky little companion so fond of cheerfully reminding you "There's a zombie on your law-awn ..." It's been a while since the Plants vs. Zombies theme song composer has sung any music related to World of Warcraft, but she's got a new tune out and it's one that Shigihara fans have been clamoring for years to hear: "Lament of the Highborne." "At first I didn't want to cover this song, since there are already so many lovely covers out there (and the original is already so perfect as is)," she admits, "but hopefully folks are still able to enjoy it." Whether it's zombies on the lawn or the haunting lament of Lady Sylvanas' banshees, we suspect that enjoying Shigihara's work is probably a safe bet. Enjoy!
Breakfast Topic: Mine, all mine
Today we're going to talk ... addons. Or rather, one specific addon, followed by a question. There's this nifty little addon out there that I've used a little bit called Gryphonheart Items. GHI allows you to actually make items in game that you can then trade with other players that have the GHI addon, and by "item" I mean anything from a book to a ring or trinket to a statue or an engineering trinket. If you can loot it in game and carry it in your bags, you can make it in GHI. The exceptions of course are items of clothing -- you can't design a shirt to wear or something along those lines. The best example I saw of GHI in use was a friend of mine who made a present for a roleplayer's "baby shower" event. Instead of getting something tangible with gold or crafting something with their chosen profession, my friend decided to use GHI to make something completely unique. The item was labeled as a gnomish baby-rocker, with a description that indicated it was a self-rocking cradle that played a lullaby for the baby as it rocked. The best part was that when the player clicked the item, it would play the sound file for Lament of the Highborne, making it a fully interactive little trinket for the "pregnant" player. As far as unique items go, the only thing in my regular bags that by all rights shouldn't be there is Taretha's Necklace -- the one mentioned in Lord of the Clans that is retrievable via a horde quest. The last leg of the quest has you obtain the necklace because Thrall would like it back. This is all well and good, but when I looked at it from the eyes of my rogue, all I could think was that it was shiny, and pretty, and she would probably enjoy keeping it. So I did -- I never turned in the quest, and it is one of a few that are left unfinished in my quest log. But with the introduction of GHI, I could make other odds and ends that suited my character, like the journals of Arch Druid Fandral Staghelm pictured above. In addition, I could make copies of every readable book in game and carry them around with me as my very own mini library! I wondered though, what with the particular ingeniousness of this addon, what sort of items other people would make for their characters. What would represent them, what would they consider something that their character just "had to have" whether it be for looks or just a fun trinket to play with. Would it have a sound file linked to it, or would it just be something to read? With GHI, the possibilities are nearly limitless. So if you guys could make one thing for your character to carry around, what would it be?
Creative posts World of Warcraft teaser
Computer audio manufacturer Creative Labs sent us a note that their Soundblaster page has a brand new teaser on it, which appears to be hinting at... something. Something World of Warcraft-related, apparently: the Lament of the Highborne song plays in the background while an image of the Maelstrom and some circular hardware gives way to a glowing Horde symbol and the message "to be continued..."What is it? Given that Creative makes audio equipment, it's probably something audio-related, and given that BlizzCon is later this week, it's probably something released in partnership with Blizzard. But other than that, the guessing is up to you. A new WoW-branded sound card? Something music-related? It's anyone's guess. Stay tuned to WoW.com to find out more soon.
WoW Moviewatch: Lament of the Highborne fan video
The timing of Elizabeth's tip for Lament of the Highborne by katethegreat19 could not have been more fortuitous for me. For the first time, my fiancee and I have created and actually played Horde for more than a few levels. It was only yesterday that she encountered the in-game version of Sylvanas' song. While we've both certainly seen the videos before now, this is the first time we've seen it in game. And there's just something about having done the quest, and seeing the performance happen "live" in Undercity that's just a little special.That's why I was pretty happy to see this video in the tip line. The video is not earth shattering, and I'll admit I debated with myself whether or not I could actually put it on Moviewatch. However, the musical work katethegreat19 put into the video was so amazing to me that I felt it overcame the lackluster visual portion of the piece. She basically recreated all the singing and acoustic pieces herself.Don't get me wrong. The author found a lot of great art on Deviantart and pieced it together into an attractive montage which complemented her performance. It's just not a "movie" in the sense of what we usually feature here. Ultimately, I really liked kate's performance here, and will be downloading this to my iPod as soon as I figure out how. 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.
BlizzCon Flashback: The Panels of BlizzCon 2008
Tickets are sold out for the day, and most of us are probably a little angry, but don't forget! There's another day of ticket sales on the 30th! If you haven't made your decision on whether you want to go or not yet, you're running out of time and it's probably a good time to look back on the BlizzCon that was. BlizzCon 2008 lacked any major World of Warcraft announcements, Blizzard's other franchises stole the spotlight last year, but that doesn't mean WoW wasn't there in spades. Let's take a moment to look back on that, shall we? The Opening CeremoniesBlizzCon 2008 kicked off with the opening ceremonies, hosted by Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime. Morhaime delivered many facts and figures about the World of Warcraft at the time (if WoW were a country, it would be the 75th largest in the world), and announced a new class for Diablo III: The Wizard.
BlizzCon 2008: The awesome of the ending ceremony
On Saturday night the walls of the Anaheim Convention Center rocked with the cheers and laughter of thousands of BlizzCon 2008 attendees. This year's two-day event was packed full of excellent panels, cool gameplay and of course, lines that seemed to stretch from here to eternity. (I personally clocked in 3 1/2 hours in the store line - but I got awesome goodies out of it.) However, it was this final event that put the crown jewel in this year's BlizzCon event. Curious as to what all went on? Click through the gallery to check out the sights (and some sounds) from the front lines! On to the pictures! >> %Gallery-34307%
BlizzCon 2008: Blizzard sound panel
I am, I must admit, one of those people who frequently plays World of Warcraft with the sound muted. I've been playing for a long time and, well, I've heard it all before. So, as a person who doesn't exactly consider sound an essential component of their gaming experience, I wasn't entirely sure what I was getting into when I attended the Blizzard Sound panel at BlizzCon, featuring In attendance were Russell Brower, Director of Audio and Video; Glenn Stafford, who founded the audio department; and Derek Duke, a full-time composer. But, presented with live musical performances accompanied by enthusiastic explanation from people passionate about making music a part of the game, I have to say I'm a believer.
Lady Sylvanas' model updated
In one of the more unexpected moves in World of Warcraft's upcoming expansion Wrath of the Lich King, Lady Sylvanas, leader of the Forsaken, has finally gotten a new look. Lore purists have argued about why she was modeled on the Night Elf model when Sylvanas was originally one of the High Elves. (Thus her look should have more closely resembled Blood Elves from the Burning Crusade expansion) There's now an equally loud contingent who are complaining that Sylvanas' new look is perhaps a little too... valley elf. To see things for ourselves, we jumped into the Wrath of the Lich King beta and went through the Lady's Necklace quest arc that triggers off her singing Lament of the Highborne. We were curious as to just how the new model would play out in this player favorite arc. If you've never seen the event, are curious about how it looks with the new model, or just like to listen to the song -- join us after the break for an updated look at Sylvanas' Lament!
To soothe the savage player
Skyrender over at the WoW LJ asked a simple but interesting question I thought I would pass along to you guys: What is your favorite in-game music?Recently Blizzard added a lot of great new music tracks to the game, but some of my personal favorites happen to be the older, traditional compositions if you will. I have actually found myself missing the old Inn music, despite getting the new tracks stuck playing in my head (as is happening at this very moment, as a matter of fact.) As much as I am in love with the Lament of the Highborne, I find the music in Auberdine to be equally stirring. Perhaps it's the simple fact that I know the original music so well. My characters grew up with that music, and it seems strange to walk into a place and hear something unfamiliar. I suppose music makes me more nostalgic than I realized.
Sylvanas' song, remixed
After the Lament of the Highborne video released last week (if you haven't seen it, check our video analysis of it), I saw lots of comments in lots of different places about how much people liked the song. Lots of the Warcraft music is good, but it's true, the Lament of the Highborne song (sung by Vangie Gunn, who we saw live at BlizzCon with Video Games Live) is definitely terrific.That's why I was so excited to see that Reggie over on LJ put together a remix of it. You can check it out over on his Myspace page (or here's a direct link to the file itself). It does get a little repetitive (he cut it all together in Reason, and looped a lot, as you can tell), but hopefully it's the first in a new batch of Warcraft remixes. I've heard the music used in all kinds of media (lots of podcasts and machinima "borrow" the official music, legally or otherwise), but I think this is the first time I've heard it remixed into a techno beat. So get to it, remixers! There's at least three soundtracks of Warcraft music out there, and while Reggie's beat sounds good, I'm sure someone else could make something that sounds even better.
WoW Insider's Lament of the Highborne video analysis
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/WoW_Insider_breaks_down_Lament_of_the_Highborne'; Last week, Blizzard released a new machinima movie called Lament of the Highbourne, featuring Sylvana's performance of the old Quel'dorei song and a retelling of what went down between her and Arthas Menethil, now known as the Lich King. WoW Insider, being the extreme lore geeks that we are, has put together a video analysis of the movie that Blizzard released, featuring an almost frame-by-frame commentary about Sylvanas' story. You can see the finished product above-- prepare to be lore-geeked out.Two things that didn't make it into the commentary above in time: reader Lift sent us a bit of insight about Arthas riding an Undead mount-- does that mean, he asks, that Death Knights will get their own Warlock/Paladin-esque mount? And one more thing we noticed-- the spectre behind Arthas as he resurrects Sylvanas may well be the Lich King himself. By all means: discuss.
Around Azeroth: The Lament of the Highborne
There's a lot of talk about the Lament of the Highborne lately due to a recent Blizzard machinima release. However, the Lament of the Highborne made its first appearence in the World of Warcraft as part of a Ghostlands quest, from where reader Lee snapped this shot. (Video of the event may also be interesting for those of you who have never done this particular quest line.) WoWWiki provides us with a rough translation of the song, as follows: By the light, by the light of the sun, Children of the blood, Our enemies are breaking through, Children of the blood, By the light, Failing children of the blood... 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%
New movies to download from WorldofWarcraft.com
Blizzard has two new movies to download from their movie page on worldofwarcraft.com. One is a highlight video from BlizzCon 2007 which includes clips from the costume and dance competitions.The other is a gameplay trailer of Lament of the Highborne. For those of you not familiar with the quest, you find a necklace when questing in Ghostlands and are told to turn it in to Lady Sylvanas in the Undercity. When you do, after angrily sending you on your way, she sings the Lament of the Highborne, accompanied by some Highborne ghosts. This is one of my favorite quests in WoW and the song is hauntingly beautiful.The video does more than just show the gameplay footage of Lady Sylvanas singing her lament. It shows the actual story and loss of the necklace while the song is sung. It does not explain why Sylvanas is displayed as an undead Night Elf normally but is a Blood Elf in the video, but I can get over that. Maybe Blood Elf Banshees look like Night Elves for some reason.The BlizzCon video is good if you want to see the fun of the event, but for me the real treat is the Lament of the Highborne video.
