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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.
WoW Moviewatch: Black Temple
This movie was created by RedEyeLobine for the Baron Soosdon's Starcraft 2 beta key contest. Black Temple is probably the finest raid movie I've ever seen about the Burning Crusade raid instance of the same name. Not only are some favorite fights represented, there are call-outs to some very well-known internet memes. Not to mention, it's sheer 8-bit genius. I'd ditch WoW to play this version in a heartbeat. I got obsessed with watching the warrior's rage bar, though. I don't know. Just, something about my inner power-gamer kept staring at the number. And the big rage climax at the end was not disappointing. I guess now we know who really wasn't prepared, emo-nelf-demon-guy! 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 machinima AT wow DOT com.
Breakfast Topic: Your favorite lines of spoken dialogue
While video game voice acting never really seems to draw the amazing big names, it's definitely steadily improving from the old day when it was spare members of the coding team and a couple people pulled off from the street or something. WoW seems to combine the best of both worlds here, in that Warcraft's Voice acting seems to run the gamut from awesome to pretty decent to painfully over-hammy. Still, to its credit, it's produced a whole lot of iconic lines, from the first "zug zug" to "You are not prepared" and beyond. With so many iconic phrases, both breath taking and amusing, I'm interested to know what lines of dialogue stick with you and why. Is it the turn of phrase? The delivery? The context in which the line is spoken that adds to the drama or humor?For me, it's all about Eadric the Pure. Pretty much every line of dialogue he gets in the Trial of the Crusader 5-man is amazing. Well acted, well scripted, with just the right balance between pomposity, noble righteousness and a sort of bemused sense of humor and enjoyment about the whole concept of the Argent Tournament. If I had to pick one line, it would be his final one: "I yield! I submit! Excellent work! May I run away now?"Yes, you may Eadric. But please, come back again soon. You're awesome.
Players respond to the cinematic
Welp, the cinematic is out now for your viewing pleasure, and the response is... mixed. While pretty much everyone praises the technical quality (Blizzard's got that cinematic magic, which makes it all the more surprising that they went with live action for the movie), there is some back and forth on whether this cinematic stands up to the other two. While fans of Arthas definitely got their fill (and it was interesting to hear Terenas' voice echoing from the past, which hearkens back to perhaps the best cutscene Blizzard's ever done), other players were disappointed to see that this cinematic doesn't follow the standard "various classes and races battle it out" formula. And that only shows that this expansion will be very much more about the guy in the Lich King suit than anything else.We'd point out, too, that this trailer didn't really have a "You are Not Prepared"-style catchphrase (though the word "King" definitely echoes with significance right at the end there). Clearly, Blizzard chose to go a different direction this time around, and whether it worked or not, of course, is up to you.Unfortunately, Gnomes didn't get their day... or did they? When players cry foul on the forums, Vaneras (in official blue text) answered with the picture above. Can you see the Death Knight Gnome hidden in among the Undead army? I like Schwick's answer even better, though -- there's probably a Gnome Rogue stealthed right behind Arthas. Those little buggers are everywhere.Update: A few people are suggesting that there is more to the trailer that we haven't seen, but Nethaera has confirmed that that's everything. She commented on the forums that the trailer only showed half the battle, but later confirmed that she meant the story was incomplete (and that we needed to complete it by going to Northrend), and not that there was more of the trailer to show.
Describing WoW in four words
Theantipoet of the World of Warcraft LJ community has a challenge for us in the spirit of the ten word and Wow-ku challenges: Sum up the Burning Crusade raiding game in four words or less -- his was "Fire bad. Tree Pretty." The community stepped up to the challenge quite nicely, offering answers that ranged from the obvious ("You are not prepared!") to the cynical ("Let's just farm badges"), and from the silly ("Making Coffee -- Kael's Talking") to the sublime ("Sometimes there is fire"). Myself, I think my raiding experience on my Druid can be best summed up thus: "Damn Dire Bear butt!" Seriously, whenever I tank a boss, that is all I see. The scenery gets boring. And furry. When it comes to my Hunter, I think it would be something like: "Why won't Wolfslayer drop?" The rifle never dropped for me. Of course, we hardly need to stop there. Why not expand the challenge to what you're looking forward to the most in WoTLK ("Fear my undead army!"), or what is frustrating you about your trade skill ("Drowning in Mithril Spurs"), or an ode to your favorite quest reward("Alliance has Boot Flasks!")? Give me your four word descriptions in the comments.
