proto-drake
Latest
The Queue: Pandapocalypse
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. On Friday I responded to a question regarding Pandaren, and it turns out I'm about half wrong. Partially right, but also partially wrong, which is certainly a problem. My answer was based off of something I talked about with a random Blizzard employee, but in hindsight that's a pretty poor move on my part, they wouldn't necessarily know the little inner workings of one or two departments within the company. What I said was refuted with quotes from J. Allen Brack and Chris Metzen, which I'm willing to put more weight in as far as game lore goes. The Chinese did, indeed, have a problem with the Pandaren being in-game.I was right in that there are no laws against virtual pandas getting shivved or whatever, but there definitely was an issue with the Pandaren race, culturally. It's much more likely it just ran into a lot of friction when it came down to dealing with censors and the cultural shift, and it became not worth it to risk losing players over. I'm sure the fact that the Pandarens' original design was much more Japanese (see above) than Chinese didn't help, but that was shifted in the right direction eventually and may not have had an actual impact at all. And with that said...
The Achievements of Winter Veil
Looking for our 2010 Winterveil Guide? You'll find it here! The Feast of Winter Veil is almost upon us. The festivities kick off on December 15th, and will run until January 2nd. There are plenty of achievements to be had, as well as the title "Merrymaker" for completing them all. If you can complete every achievement from all of the holidays in a year, you will also be eligible for the achievement, What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been, which rewards you with a Violet Proto-Drake. You can refer to this guide for information about completing each achievement for this holiday, including links to maps and our usual comments section that should not be passed over if you're looking for tips. %Gallery-12195%
The best of WoW Insider: December 2-9, 2008
Joystiq's sister site WoW Insider celebrated our third anniversary this week, just after the game we play celebrated its fourth. So it was a week of looking both back and forward, as we checked out our top 10 most popular stories of all time, and covered all of the latest and greatest secrets in Northrend and the new expansion. From polar bears to proto drakes, here's to many more years of both World of Warcraft and WoW Insider. News Loken the most dangerous mob in the gameA look at the game's stats pages shows we've got a new player-killer in town. Storm Peaks daily quests reward a polar bear mountDo your dailies, get a mount. Blizzard legal targets private serversBlizzard lays the smack down on anyone running an unauthorized server. Ghostcrawler's thoughts on Death KnightsA dev tells us what he thinks of Death Knights and where they're at. Seeking the Time-Lost Proto DrakeHere's a practically free mount, a 100% drop from a soloable mob. The catch? Good luck finding it. Features WoW Insider's top ten stories of all timeOn our third anniversary, we take a look back at some of the biggest stories we've posted so far. Wrath 101: The sons of HodirAn endgame reputation grind that's "God of War meets WoW." The Queue: Trinkets, sigils, and death by OrcsOur Q&A column has instant insight every day on what players want to know about most. WoW, Casually: 7 reasons to make a Death KnightSeven reasons for casual players to try out the newest class in the game. Know Your Lore: DalaranHere's a look at the history of the game's new Northrend hub, and these are some historic streets we're walking.
BigRedKitty: Proto-Drake fever
Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the Hunter class, sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary. We've never been this lucky, so of course we had to share it with you. Once you watch the movie and want to learn more about the mounts we discuss, click on through and we'll spill the beans.
Seeking the Time-Lost Proto Drake
I don't know if we've mentioned this before, but even if we have, it's interesting enough to put out there again, I think. There is a dragon in the expansion that can be soloed, and drops a epic flying mount at 100% drop rate -- all you've got to do is find him. A few people have already nabbed the mount, and lots more are on the hunt right now. The mob in question is the Time-Lost Proto Drake: it's a rare elite spawn (but as I said, it's possible to solo it, especially at level 80) that shows up every six hours or so flying around the Storm Peaks. Unfortunately, none of the usual suspects have maps of where he's been seen yet, but we're hearing it's around the southern part of the zone. When he goes down, he'll drop the mount, a good chunk of gold, some Frostweave, and a random enchantment Talisman.An interesting tactic on Blizzard's part -- on the one hand, this is definitely a big change from the huge questlines and rep grind from the netherdrakes: just kill this one dragon and you're guaranteed the mount. On the other hand, the rare spawn rate, and the fact that it is a 100% drop rate means there'll be a lot of competition, at first anyway, for the kill. But the good news is that the odds will only get better -- if you're willing to do some dragon hunting for a few hours and have some keen eyes for what's in the air, you could pick up one of the coolest flying mounts yet.
The Queue: Proto-drakes, Brilliant Glass, and more
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.Since you all need to sit through an extended maintenance today, we're going to have an extended version of The Queue! Well, a little. I guess about two more questions than usual. Or just one, really. Actually, I'm not sure it's extended at all. Maybe if you read through it twice? Yeah, let's do that. Just read it twice, that works.AbsalonPrieto asked...Do Death Knight enchants (rune enchant) stack with regular weapon enchants? If not what would be the best choice rune or regular enchant?
Scattered Shots: Beastmastery in Wrath of the Lich King
Scattered Shots is for Hunters. Your host this week will be Daniel Whitcomb, who will continue his foray into the wide world of Wrath of the Lich King talents. Beastmastery has pretty much dominated the world of Hunters in Burning Crusade, with Serpent's Swiftness alone nearly singlehandedly allowing for the most efficient damaging shot rotations possible -- With a little bit of wrangling between haste and ranged weapon speed, of course. While the changes to Auto Shot clipping in Wrath will likely make shot rotations as we know them a thing of the past, Beastmastery is still looking to be a very viable tree in Wrath of the Lich King, thanks to some clever synergies and some amazing pet buffs.
