to-the-ground-baby
Latest
WoW Archivist: Patch 3.0 -- Echoes of Doom
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? Patch 6.0 is finally upon us. Like all pre-expansion patches, it has been both invigorating and chaotic. Almost exactly six years ago, a similar patch went live to begin a new era in WoW. Blizzard called Wrath of the Lich King's pre-expansion patch "Echoes of Doom." On October 14, 2008, this third version of the game gave us the brand-new achievement system, inscription and glyphs, 51-point talent trees, the zombie plague event, and TO THE GROUND, BABY. Read on to see what WoW was like for those turbulent few weeks before Wrath of the Lich King's launch. Dalaran, where art thou? Through all of classic and The Burning Crusade, Dalaran sat in northern Hillsbrad, but players couldn't see it. An opaque purple dome walled off the Kirin Tor from the world at large. At the time, the enormous structure was one of the most striking landmarks in Azeroth. Although a few quests hinted at what lay beneath it, players new to the WoW universe had no idea what was there. And then it was gone. All that remained was a city-sized crater. I remember making a pilgrimage to this site during the 3.0 prepatch just to see it for myself. We couldn't go to Northrend yet to see the city first-hand. We had to wait for the launch of Wrath to do that. But looking at that crater certainly fired the imagination. I couldn't wait to find out what had been lurking under that dome for the first four years of the game. I have to say, the city lived up to my high expectations.
WoW Archivist: Many memes, handle it
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? Last week, Archivist celebrated the Ulduar raid, including Thorim's famous IN THE MOUNTAINS speech -- one of Wrath's most memorable memes. In its eight years, World of Warcraft and its players have spawned dozens of memes. Today, Archivist remembers some of the best and most enduring. If you've ever wondered where some of these memes come from, read on! The earliest memes WoW memes began almost instantly after the game's release. One of the first was Mankrik's wife. For an early Horde quest in the Barrens, the orc Mankrik sent you to locate her. His directions were rather vague, so many players had trouble locating her. It didn't help that she wasn't an upright and alive NPC, but rather a dead body laying on the ground -- killed by marauding quilboars. Confused players asked where they could find her in the zone's chat. Many, many players. Because the massive zone spanned 15 levels, everyone leveling through it saw that same question asked over and over again. It got to the point where people would ask just to troll the chat channel. The quest is no longer in the game, but players can now visit her grave near Grol'dom Farm. Trolling Barrens chat became something of a hobby for early players. Many in the Horde didn't know about the other leveling zones across the ocean. Some who did ran up against the ongoing Tarren Mill/Southshore lagfest wars and took the first boat back to Kalimdor. The combination of a captive audience and a high saturation of new players made the Barrens the perfect zone to troll. In time, Barrens chat became its own meme, even inspiring T shirts.
The Ghostcrawler Experiment
Greg Street, aka Ghostcrawler, is the lead systems designer at Blizzard for World of Warcraft. It's his job to make sure all the numbers work right, that the talents are spiffy, and all that "other" stuff. He became a presence during the Wrath of the Lich King beta, posting daily about updates to the game and interacting with players in a way that hasn't been seen before.The daily activity by Ghostcrawler has lead to him become a staple of sites such as WoW Insider and MMO-Champion. Every day you can see at least one or two items from him. We here at WoW Insider are particularly watchful of what he says, since his posts usually contain detailed information about why something was done and what might be done in the future. That's great content that we like to talk a lot about.However despite the volumes Ghostcrawler publishes each day, some people feel that his welcome has ran out – that this experiment of him providing community interaction has failed. Some feel that his penchant for forum interaction is time wasted, that he's done nothing more than incite riots with certain classes, and that his demeanor is less than appealing. There was a forum post today about this very topic, but that in itself is nothing new as lots of people have been QQing over Ghostcrawler for a while.Don't let all the crying fool you however – he has some major supporters throughout the community.
Forum Post of the Day: Angry title and coffee with gin
I don't know why I laughed out loud when I read the following quote from Ghostcrawler on a trollish forum post, but I did: DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO EXERT A CALMING INFLUENCE WHILE NOT ACCIDENTALLY INSULTING ANYONE AND/OR SHOUTING EXPLITIVES AND/OR REVEALING THAT I HAVE GIN IN MY COFFEE MUG.Yup. Just like that. Caps spam and all. Throw in a "Don't nerf me, bro!" or "To the ground, baby!" at the end of that and you have yourself a real Ghostcrawler statement.Now this might be some unabashed fanboi-ism on my part, but the question I have after reading that is "What kind of gin do you drink?" I have to imagine Ghostcrawler is the kind of guy who enjoys some top shelf liquor. I'm sure he's making enough at Blizzard to afford it. Perhaps some Tanqueray Rangpur? Or some Anchor Junipero?Personally I enjoy Bombay Sapphire and the Rangpur, though I've been known to grab some Beefeater if that's all that's available. If Ghostcrawler is reading this, we'd love to know what kind of gin you drink. Feel free to drop us a note on our tip line and we'll update this post.
