WoW-anniversary
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Reminder: World of Warcraft 10th anniversary ends January 5
If you have yet to get it done, you might want to hit up Molten Core in the next week or so. The 10th anniversary celebration for World of Warcraft officially ends on January 5, 2015 -- and both Molten Core's 40-man LFR experience, as well as the Southshore vs. Tarren Mill PvP battleground will be taking their leave. Completing Molten Core will earn you an ilvl 640 epic helm as well as the Core Hound Chain that will give you a Corehound of your very own to ride -- but there's also a chance to pick up Hatespark the Tiny, a new Battle Pet, and the Flames of Ragnaros, a special cosmetic item that will give your weapon a fiery glow. As for the battleground, winning a battle on either Alliance or Horde side will net you an achievement as well as a special account-wide title, Southshore Slayer, or Tarren Mill Terror. To queue for Molten Core, you'll need an ilvl of 615, but that's relatively easy to get at level 100. Once the anniversary event is over, these items and achievements will no longer be available -- so you'll want to get a move on if you want to collect and complete them all before they're gone for good.
Raph Koster explains how WoW changed MMOs
There's liable to be a lot of virtual ink spilled over World of Warcraft as it celebrates its 10-year anniversary this month. You can save yourself some time by just reading famed MMO designer Raph Koster's lengthy and informed analysis, though. He covers a ton of ground, both negative and positive, including WoW's roots in EverQuest and the DikuMUD while also touching on all of the genre features that Blizzard cut in the name of "fun" and accessibility. Among the things left by the wayside were features that were proven. Gone were the richer pet systems that had driven so much engagement from players in earlier games. Player housing, past and future source of endless devotion (and revenue) in other games, absent. Never mind stuff like towns and politics and the like. Crafting took massive steps backwards from the heights it had been developed into in [Star Wars] Galaxies or even Sims Online, and went back to being more like that in EverQuest. Even the robust character customization that we slaved over in Galaxies, a system which today is in every RPG on earth, was gone. Koster credits WoW as the true innovator of the quest-led game, but he also points out that the game stifled MMORPG innovation in numerous ways.
World of Warcraft's 10th anniversary preview
Ten years is a long time. Ten years ago, in 2004, I was 20 years old and entering my third semester of college--also entangled in endless piles of paperwork while I prepared to spend a year studying at the University of New South Wales in Sydney for the calender year 2005. Ten years ago, in November 2004, World of Warcraft officially launched. The mark that WoW has left on the gaming industry is indisputable--but we're not here for musing retrospectives. At least, not yet. We're here because there's going to be a whole bunch of fun in-game events to celebrate WoW's first decade of existence, and Blizzard has given us a lovely preview of what at least a few of them are.
BlizzCon 2014 on the way?
Sharp eyes over at MMO-Champion discovered a small change to a page on the official BlizzCon site yesterday. The Terms and Conditions section of the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket page has been updated to read BlizzCon 2014 on the header title. At this time, there doesn't appear to be any other adjustments made to any page on the site -- not even in the Terms and Conditions itself, which still lists the year as 2013. While this is by no means any kind of a definite confirmation that we'll be seeing another BlizzCon this year, it's the first sign we've seen of another event happening. Statements made at a panel at BlizzCon 2013 indicated that Blizzard very clearly didn't want to take another year off from the event. This year marks not only the tenth anniversary of World of Warcraft, but the twentieth of the Warcraft franchise -- which is more than enough reason to throw another convention, even beyond the multiple games being released this year. Although we don't have any real confirmation, information about BlizzCon is usually released in the spring -- so we might just be hearing more about the event soon.
Breakfast Topic: How are you celebrating WoW's 9th anniversary?
World of Warcraft's 9th anniversary is being celebrated right now -- and anyone who's played the game for a while can't help but feel a bit nostalgic for days gone by. You may not have played since launch, but chances are you've been playing for a while, and an anniversary like this is a time to look back and remember the time we've spent playing. For my part, I haven't been playing quite since launch, but I jumped in pretty early... and I have to admit that looking back and thinking I've spent nearly nine years on a single video game seems huge. I'm not sure if a nine-year gaming streak is something to be celebrated, but I'm still here playing... and maybe I'll take this week to revisit raids and dungeons long-forgotten, for laughs more than for loot. But what about you, readers? How are you marking WoW's 9th year?
Happy birthday to WoW
As Anne pointed out in today's Queue, we are wishing the inimitable Chris Metzen a happy birthday today, and it's a pleasant coincidence that Blizzard is also wishing WoW its official happy birthday today, as well. Nine years is a long time for any one game to be going strong--though, of course, we could probably argue that WoW isn't a single mere game, it's a conglomeration of all its marvelous patches, expansions, tweaks, and adjustments from over the years. Blizzard's official happy birthday announcement focuses on the strength of the WoW community, and I feel that whether or not you're entirely pleased with the direction the game is taking at the moment, the WoW community is definitely something that inspires and humbles. We're all just people, and we're not always perfect, but over the last nine years WoW has certainly had an enormous impact on the lives of its many players, myself included. World of Warcraft has catalyzed a complete transformation of my career and has formed the initial glue for some of the most cherished friendships of my life. Earlier this year I was at the wedding of two of my best friends, who met each other through WoW. What an amazing gift this game has been to my life, and to the lives of many others. Thank you Blizzard, from the bottom of my heart, and happy birthday, World of Warcraft.
Reminder: WoW's 9th Anniversary event begins today
Festivities for World of Warcraft's 9th Anniversary begin today! During this two-week event, players can log on and take advantage of a 9% boost to experience and reputation gain for all characters. In addition, logging on during this time period will grant you a Feat of Strength. Players logging on during the event will receive an in-game mail with a Celebration Package attached. Using the item will grant the XP and reputation buff -- but only during the event! Although World of Warcraft officially launched on November 23, 2004, this two-week event surrounding that auspicious date allows players to get a leg up on leveling those pesky alts that they might want to dust off before the launch of Warlords. New players can take advantage as well, of course. The event ends at noon on December 2, so be sure to log in on all your characters and nab those Feats of Strength before they're gone for good.
Blizzard's tribute to 8 years of World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft is eight years old. Coincidentally, that's also the same age as one of my nephews, and it's really odd to think that when the kid was just a baby, I was taking my first baby steps in Azeroth. Eight years is an incredible amount of time, and Blizzard has put together the tribute video shown above as a thank you to all the players both past and present for the years of devotion. It's a really well put together video that honestly sweeps me right back to day one of the game, when I stumbled through the night elf starting experience and delighted in the fact that my night elf sometimes flipped when she jumped. This led to years of compulsive jumping and several keyboards worth of play, all of which were totally worth it. And although I'm Horde now, I still remember those first months of frolicking as Alliance fondly. Take a look at the video, and be sure to crank the music up -- the sweeping blend of soundtracks from vanilla to now is always worth a listen. And while you're at it, why don't you leave us a comment with your favorite or earliest memory?
WoW Insider's first World of Warcraft memories
World of Warcraft's seventh anniversary took place earlier this week. Rather than the dry, impersonal WoW retrospectives you can find almost anywhere this time of year, the crew here at WoW Insider decided to hold our own retrospective instead, looking back on what pulled us so deeply into the game to begin with. Today, we're sharing our very first World of Warcraft memories, whether that was seven years ago, long before the Shattering, or just last year. I'll get things started, then the staff will join in afterwards. My first WoW memory is in Stranglethorn Vale. There are other events prior to STV that exist in some strange nebulous place in my mind, but Stranglethorn is the first event that I can really pin down. I was playing my very first character, my undead rogue on the Silver Hand server, trying to kill an elite alligator for the Excelsior quest. This was in December of '04, maybe January of '05. I was absolutely terrible at the game. I simply could not kill that alligator. Everyone I knew did it with no difficulty whatsoever, but I couldn't manage it at all. The reason I couldn't kill it? I was spamming Sinister Strike while dual wielding white vendor-bought daggers. That was the day I decided I should learn how to play the game rather than hope my friends take pity on me and fly across Azeroth to kill elites for me. Now I'm here, on this site, doing this. That's one heck of a step up.
World of Warcraft turns 7 years old next week
World of Warcraft will celebrate its seventh anniversary next week on Nov. 23, 2011, and all players who log on during the festivities will earn a feat of strength and a cool Celebration Package. This Celebration Package has an on-use effect that will shoot off fireworks, put a cosmetic-only tabard on your character, and grant a 7% experience and reputation bonus while active. That's a pretty sweet deal for logging on and having a fun time during the anniversary. We had heard about a potential tabard item for the anniversary a few months back during the datamining of patch 4.2, so this reward isn't unexpected, but it's still very welcome. The Baby Blizzard Bear and Onyxian Whelping were awesome rewards back in the day, and I love getting cool, fun items each year. The return of anniversary gifts is a welcome change.
The OverAchiever: New achievements in patch 4.2
Every Thursday, The OverAchiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, pet biscuits make us happy ... for a little while, at least. We're going to take another break from our Mountain O' Mounts series to examine upcoming achievements in patch 4.2. We got an avalanche of news on these last Friday via MMO-Champion's datamining efforts on PTR build 14117, and they all look pretty nifty. There are 16 achievements associated with the new Firelands/Mount Hyjal daily quest area, on which I have very little information right now, so we're going to examine those later. However, that still leaves us with new pet, legendary, dungeon, and anniversary achievements.
What's taking the Battlecry mosaic so long?
When the World of Warcraft Anniversary mini-site was unveiled last November, one of its features was a photo-mosaic dubbed the Battlecry which would unlock little art goodies each time a certain milestone was reached. The Battlecry mosaic called for player submissions to submit their pictures with a logo of their favored faction, with a modest goal of 20,000 player-submitted pictures in order to reveal the final artwork created specially for the event. It's come along rather smoothly, and some really cool player pictures have been submitted, with the seeming abundance of Horde-aligned pictures prompting us to ask where the Alliance pride was. But what really surprises me is how long the whole project is taking. When the site was launched, one of the first questions that actually ran through my head was how long it would take to fill up the whole mosaic. With over ten million active players, you'd think getting to 20,000 would be easy. Out of ten million, that's like a drop in a bucket. But after almost two months of the site being active, we're still only at 32% of the goal. Why?
WoW Moviewatch: Stormwind and Ironforge Alpha
In celebration of today ushering in five years of WoW, let's take a step away from traditional Moviewatch material and look at some early alpha and beta footage from Stormwind and Ironforge. The footage is quite astounding when you watch it. You'll notice that there are entire sections of both cities which have changed dramatically, and indeed Ironforge itself was nearly entirely revamped to remove the "second level" from it. You can see remnants of the second level of Ironforge today in that there are some oddly placed balconies and doors -- it all looks normal to us now, but when you watch the video you can see that it looks much more natural the way it was. The "internet consensus" is that alpha Ironforge was changed because people were getting themselves lost all the time in it -- something which isn't very good for a starting city. However as far as I can tell that never came out of published comments from a WoW designer, so take it with a grain of salt. And yes, before some you inevitably ask, Patches of Yesteryear will be returning this week -- although we'll only be running it once every other week due to time constraints. 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.
WoW's 5th anniversary: Our writers' memories
We at WoW.com are a sentimental bunch. I always privately thought that, but now I've got the sort of ironclad proof beloved by canny blackmailers everywhere. In the weeks before WoW's 5th anniversary, a backchannel team discussion sprang up on our memories of the game and the players with whom we've had the great privilege of playing, and we decided to collect them here in honor of WoW's birthday. Some of us are hardcore gamers with lots of experience with other games. For others, WoW was their first (and in some cases, only). Most of us raid, and some of us PvP or theorycraft. A few of us are nuts for hardware arguments, but others are surprised to discover that WoW does not actually play on our toasters. Many of us are pretty easygoing in our approach to the content; others would sell their grandmothers up the river for a server-first. One among us hates warlocks, and everyone else just hates rogues (unless you're Chase). But we do share one thing in common, and that's that we love the game no matter what we're doing while playing it -- and we hope you do too. From all of us at WoW.com, happy birthday, World of Warcraft!
Breakfast Topic: Five years
Today is November 23rd, and that means it's the fifth anniversary of the release of World of Warcraft. That's a long time! Especially in the high-risk world of MMOs, where a bad launch can mean your whole game is doomed, or a sudden change in gameplay can make your whole audience rear up on its hind legs at you. Thankfully, Blizzard has made WoW a living, breathing document, a world that constantly changes and evolves to match its players, which is what makes it so accessible. Throughout dozens of patches, tiers upon tiers of raid bosses, waves of dailies, faction grinds and honor grinds, legendaries and greens, WoW has managed to keep growing and growing along with its subscriber count. And of course, you've been there, too. Maybe not for the whole five years like some of us, but everyone's experienced the game in their own way. So what about you? How long have you been with the game? What's your favorite memory of "growing up" in WoW? Will you keep playing for another five years? Happy anniversary, everybody. Here's to five more!
Night Elf Mohawk grenade now active in WoW
In what appears to be the start of the World of Warcraft 5th anniversary celebrations, Night Elf Mohawks have entered WoW! You can go visit Mr. Night Elf Mohawk outside any of the races starting zones. In particular we were able to see the Night Elf outside of the human starting area of Northshire, and near the Undead starting area of Tirisfal Glades -- on any live server, not on the PTR. This is also only on North American servers right now. Reports indicate that the Night Elf Mohawk will appears on EU and Korean servers starting November 24th. When you get there you'll want to talk to him, make him pity the fool. And in return you'll get a five Mohawk Grenades that let you make others wear a Night Elf Mohawk mask. You can get more grenades once your five are all used up. There is a 50 minute buff called "Mohawked" with the flavor text of "You pity the fool" that gets placed on you when you wear the mask. You can right click the debuff to remove it. Check out the gallery below for images from this little Monday afternoon surprise. And just for kicks, the original Mr. T WoW commercial after the break. When you watch the commercial again, note how Mr. T's in-game self looks exactly like his character does in the commercial, quite neat! Update: There is now an FAQ on the Night Elf Mohawk, which is reproduced after the break. %Gallery-78301%
Blizzard: Arenas were a mistake.
John Funk of WarCry recently interviewed Blizzard's VP of Game Design, Rob Pardo, about WoW's five-year anniversary, and he shed some light on a number of topics, including their total subscriber numbers (twice to three times as much as its current 12 million), what audience their new MMO is meant for, and what he thinks WoW's greatest successes were. But some other very interesting information came up when the interviewer asked what he thought WoW's biggest mistakes were. He begins by saying that he wishes that the servers had been more stable at launch, and that there had been more of them, but he says that in terms of design, Arenas were the single biggest mistake in WoW's history.
Pandaren Monk pet has moves
MMO Champion has datamined up some video of the new Pandaren Monk vanity pet that's been floating around, and as you can see above, it's pretty darned awesome. Just like the Grunty the Murloc pet, this one comes with some fun animations, and they look terrific. Blizzard has been pretty coy about getting the Pandaren into the game, and they're teasing big here, too -- this little bear's got moves that would make the Diablo III Monk hang his head in shame.However, the question remains: how do we get it? At this point, it's just speculation and rumor -- some say it might be a special anniversary pet for people who've been subscribed all five years of the game's life, some suggest it might be part of the Cataclysm collector's edition (past CEs have had a pet in each one, including a Diablo figure in the first box), and still others suggest that the Monk will be a new pet in the upcoming Brewfest holiday. How do we get it, really? We won't know for sure until we hear it from Blizz.
Happy birthday WoW, where's mah cake?
Three years ago next week, Blizzard unleashed the Massively Multiplayer Online experience that is World of Warcraft, changing online gaming forever. Since then, the throng of believers, err players, have ballooned to 9.3 million. Many of those players have loyally played the game since that chilly day in November, watching the game unfold into the semi-polished gem it is today. But with all that time spent in the game, playing since open beta, since closed beta, some even since alpha, these players are receiving no rewards for their efforts, and that, according to Causal WoW, is a shame. Veteran rewards take many shapes and sizes in MMOs today. In games such as City of Heroes, players who have stuck with the game for years receive special abilities and costumes. Not so in WoW. The thing is, yes players like playing the game, otherwise they would play something else. But we as people like to be acknowledged for sticking with it, for being there from the beginning. We love to be able to prove that we were there before all these new people flooded the market with Netherweave and Arcanite Reapers. It seems that despite the call for such a system, Blizzard has left this one out of the equation. This might be simply because there are many other vanity rewards to show off in the game, that we collectors can build a stable of non-combat pets, can grind reputation with every faction possible and ride a different epic mount every day of the week. Perhaps this is enough for us, and perhaps adding veteran rewards to the game would mean cheapening the experience. Personally, I think if you can have a title for your previous prowess in PvP, you should have a title for being a beta tester.
