olivia-grace
Latest
We may be in debt, but the chips on our shoulders are chocolate
Actually, we are not in debt. Not us, plural, here at WoW Insider. Just Olivia. Do you see that screenshot above? That is an IOU note on the wall of the Alliance PvP room in Valley of the Four Winds, where NPC Armsmaster Holinka (named after WoW PvP Director Brian Holinka) usually stands. And the initials of the unfortunate soul who now owes him one million cookies belong to none other than our very own Olivia Grace. It all began with the following: simple tweets back in June from Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street and Brian Holinka about exciting, non gear-related PvP changes to come. And Olivia -- dear, rash Olivia -- replied to them saying that if said exciting changes were cross-realm arenas that she would bake them each 1,000,000 cookies. And now, in patch 5.4, PvP season 14, we have cross-realm arenas. Oh, Olivia! What fate has thy hasty words wrought. For now you must hold good on your promise, and Blizzard will not forget. They've written it into the very code of their biggest game, woven straight into the finality of binary, in black and white and ones and zeroes. I hope you can dual-wield your wooden spoon and spatula. No noodle cart can save you now.
Patch 5.4 pulls WoW Insider team members into Azeroth
As WoW Insider's Editor-in-Chief, it should go without saying that I'm very proud of our team on a daily basis. Every single one of them brings something unique to the table, whether it be style or perspective. They're passionate about their work and love what they do. I couldn't possibly hope for a better team. Last night, in the midst of perusing the latest PTR datamining, it was discovered that select members of the WoW Insider team will be immortalized in the upcoming patch 5.4. Rossi's Rosin-Soaked Shoulderplates bear the name of Matthew Rossi, warrior extraordinaire, our resident Grumpy Gus, and co-host of our podcast. Stickley's Grey-Shade Hood is named for Anne Stickney, our lore (and everything else) columnist, also a co-host of our podcast. Anne has been assured that the errant L in her name will be resolved. Olivia's Graceful Gaze is, naturally, the helm of Olivia Grace, our PvP columnist, roundtable host, source of infinite pandaren screenshots, and so much more. Olivia also contributes to ZAM with Talk Azeroth and to Gamebreaker.tv as a Legendary co-host. I want to offer all three of them a hearty (yet nerdy) high-five and extend the same to all other World of Warcraft community members who will be receiving similar tribute.
Jimmy Fallon's Late Night: We are the World of Warcraft
In honor of Video Game Week, Late Night With Jimmy Fallon's team collaborated with Felicia Day, Chris Hardwick and the WoW community to put a video together of a parody song, as you can see above. The video was aired last night on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, and shows off not only the three aforementioned stars, but also several podcasters, streamers, and content creators, all members of our WoW community. As one of those people, specifically the one swaying gently with the gryphon plushy, I can give you a little bit of background! Blizzard sent out an email a couple of weeks back, asking for people to create a video of themselves singing along to the chorus. There were no other stipulations, and, as Blizzard had no control whatsoever over the finished product, there were no guarantees that your clip would be included. And, of course, we had to keep it under our hats. Luckily, they didn't use our audio. Hope you like it, I was honored to be included!
Video: The top five new features of patch 5.3
A little while ago, WoW Insider's Sarah Pine posted about the top five things you need to know about patch 5.3. I liked her post so much that I made a short video that also, hopefully, shows you how to use some of the in-game features that were added with patch 5.3, that Sarah brought up in her top five. So, we're looking at the increase in XP, which you should all know how to use, but also explaining a bit more about the off-spec loot system, as well as the changes to resilience, along with gems and enchants. We're also showing you how the new changes to mining and herbing work, with the items you gather, XP gained and more. Lastly, we take a quick look at the in-game browser, and how it works. Let us know what else you might like WoW Insider to make videos for!
About the Bloggers: Olivia Grace
About the Bloggers introduces you to the people behind WoW Insider. You can find articles on more of our staffers in earlier About the Bloggers profiles. Today, we're sitting down with Olivia Grace, who resides in southeast England and very occasionally paints herself green. What do you do for WoW Insider? I was hired last year to write Blood Sport, WoW Insider's PvP column, and I've recently taken on Addon Spotlight, which (remarkably) is about addons! I also write a lot of Breakfast Topics and some general newsy bits and bobs here and there -- as much as I can find time to do, really. I also hang out in our Campfire chat room laughing at the silly pictures. I don't think the last bit really counts as something I do for WoW Insider. What's your main? Ugh, that's the question right now, in the lead-up to Mists. I do quite a lot of PvP, as you might guess, and for that, my main is a dwarf restoration shaman. I also have a priest and a mage that I PvP on regularly, a paladin that I PvP on as retribution very rarely, and a few other characters here and there. My only PvP quandary is whether I want to stick with a dwarf shaman or go with a pandaren shaman. I'm leveling a second shaman in preparation, so I can race-change to pandaren.
