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WoW Moviewatch: The Lich King: Part 4: The Wrath Gate
This intro is going to be a little brief because I think this piece can largely stand on its own two feet. The Lich King: Part 4: The Wrath Gate is a creation of Mathew McCurley (you might have heard of him) when he asked the question, "What if Ken Burns had created a video to document the events of the Wrath Gate?" The result is an evocative, moody piece that questions the history of Wrath of the Lich King's most memorable quests. The music is incredibly well chosen, and the low-key, laconic documentary dialogue lends the video a sense of gravitas. Check it out and let Mat know what you think. 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 email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.
The Queue: Deconstructed
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.For a brief moment, I considered embedding 10 Minutes of In The Mountains in place of the XT-002 remix, but come on. That joke is already dying a slow death, and I don't want to be the guy that puts the last nail in Thorim's coffin. I'll leave that to the guy that made the video. No, today is an XT-002 day. It helps that the Deconstructor remix is actually good.eevul asked..."Do you think the faction transfer will allow us to carry over heirloom items in order to help level our Worgen/Goblins?"
The Queue: Nobody expects the Druid Inquisition!
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Allison Robert will be your hostess today.Adam and Alex are busy packing for BlizzCon, so I've sneaked into the Queue offices to answer some questions this evening. There's no consistent theme here, folks; we're all over the map today with BlizzCon, lore, and player textures. If you don't see your question here, I still have a few in mind from the last post to answer tomorrow.Smapdor asks...There are 3 historical scenarios that can be found in Yogg-Saron's "brain room"...What is the Shadow Vault event? I would guess that it is something as important lore-wise as the (other) two, but I have no idea.It's widely believed that the Shadow Vault "memory" depicts a very recent and very unfortunate occurrence that took place (without player knowledge) after the Wrath Gate event. The NPCs in question are thought to be the souls/spirits/incorporeal whatsamajiggies of Saurfang the Younger and Bolvar Fordragon, who perished in the fight, victim to the Lich King and the Royal Apothecary Society respectively. The Wrath Gate cinematic implies that the Arthas has at least Saurfang's soul to toy with (which would explain the Orcish Turned Champion), but the identity of the Immolated Champion is less clear. Bolvar is by far the most likely possibility -- after all, the Immolated Champion is wearing the same armor Bolvar wore going to his death -- but nothing's been confirmed. Bottom line? Expect to see both Saurfang and Bolvar show up in the Icecrown Citadel raid in some capacity.
Breakfast Topic: The joy of phasing
Rayless on the General Forums asks a question that I've always wondered about but never poked into; how exactly does phasing work? If you've leveled through the Death Knight starting area, done the Wrath Gate questline, or quested in Icecrown (and you should really do all three), you've had the opportunity to see Blizzard's most intricate phasing in action. However, Zarhym and Crygil are pretty cryptic on how it's done, and it's up to players to fill in the details. In a nutshell, phasing is all about the information that's sent (or not sent) to your computer by the game server; Blizzard can toy with anything that's not client-side, affecting which buildings and NPCs you can "see" but not affecting the game's basic geography. I was surprised to discover that phasing has technically been in the game since launch -- ghosts and stealth are a form of phasing, as are (I would assume) the ghosts of Caer Darrow -- but the hugely elaborate set pieces of Wrath are simply a more complicated evolution of the same mechanic. Given the success of phasing, players have been kicking around suggestions for instances or zones that could do with a touch of it, and Gnomeregan seems to be a pretty consistent pick. I'd have to agree, but I'd also add the Echo Isles (the Gnomes and Trolls have overcome their low-level foes by now, surely?) and perhaps Duskwood for starters. Is there any other zone or instance that you think would benefit from a little reality-bending?
The Queue: Last rites
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. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Another day, another Queue! Let's jump right in, hm?meme asked... What's the situation about the aesthetic minor glyphs? Could we see them in a future? What's the last thing Blizzard told us about them? Are people in the official forums still demanding them?
Blizzard releases Wrath Gate trailer in HD
With the release of Wrath of the Lich King and its inclusion of world-changing phased events, Blizzard's stated goal of ramping up their dynamic storytelling seems more and more like a success, but it doesn't stop with quests alone. The in-game cinematic for the final legs of the epic Wrath Gate quest line really shows what Blizzard is capable of outside of CGI with the in-game engine and a bit of creative tinkering. Not to mention it's a huge lore explosion that fuels the story for the rest of the expansion!Yes, yes, old news for some. For those of you among us who haven't yet experienced this particular quest line, of course, it's not to be missed. For those who've seen it in-game already or who just can't contain themselves, though, you can stream the incredibly spoiler-heavy cinematic in full HD on Blizzard's site now or download it directly from BigDownload. If you're into it, there's also a nice short story/summary of the momentous events directly under it.We can hope for two things--that Blizzard continues to put these kinds of awesome scenes in the game, and that when they do, they give those of us with nice monitors/TVs the ability to watch them all pretty-like.
Ask a Beta Tester: Tradeskills, training, and rep gains
As the beta winds down, Ask a Beta Tester becomes a little more infrequent, but as long as we have questions, we will answer. Let's start with Rob's question...Are they planning to put in recipes for green items between 350-375 to make it easier to grind up professions? Or should i just suck it up and make (obsolete) blue/purple items to level up.Many professions start with new recipes at 350 skill in Northrend, and some of them at 360. Nobody starts at 375. 360-375 is usually taken up by 'end-game' items so you won't have to grind those out to skill up before Northrend. I recommend checking Wowhead to see where your particular profession starts out.Locke asked...I know there's the Wrath Gate cinematic and so on, have you come across or know any other cinematic events like this, or was this the only one? I'm sure there has to be in game scripted events. Thanks.
Blizzcon 2008 DVD production panel reveals WoW tidbits
Here's a secret gem from BlizzCon from our sister site, Big Download: The DVD Production panel. The DVD Production team, despite the name, actually oversees most of the video produced by or at Blizzard. That means that they had a hand in the South Park episode "Make Love Not Warcraft," as well as the "What's your Game" and "Lawgiver" commercials.They also work on the gameplay trailers from World of Warcraft, and walked us through the creative process for the patch 2.1 Black Temple trailer, revealing some interesting lore behind Akama's betrayal. Finally, they revealed that they were the force behind the Wrath Gate cinematic. It's no wonder they were able to make such an epic cut scene though: One of their team members was a member of Rufus Cubed Productions, the creations of the epic machinima Return.There's some other nice information from the panel, including the real identity of the villain from "Make Love Not Warcraft" and a preview of the lore of Diablo 3. Be sure to go check it out at Big Download!
