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The Queue: The cartoonening
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Monday. Yep. JeffLaBowski asked: Is it me or has this expansion flew by? It feels like we are in the pre-expac lull even before 5.4 is out. Anyone else get that?
Complete your For the Alliance achievement before patch 5.4
Last week, with the help of a great group of folks, I was able to complete the For the Alliance! achievement on my priest. But wait... Garrosh won't be around for much longer. I logged onto the PTR to visit Grommash Hold to see who's inside. Spoilers: It's empty. Well, there are a few of the standard NPCs around, including the Archaeology trainer, but there's no warchief to be found. Not unexpected. At this point in the storyline, Garrosh is being the ultimate butt and everyone's pretty distracted. What does this mean for Alliance looking to complete the For the Alliance! achievement if there's no Garrosh? Sure, there will be a new leader to kill, but we really can't guess when the achievement will be updated once patch 5.4 hits. If you can gather a group before then, do so! It's unfortunate that Orgrimmar can't be cross-realmed -- this part of the achievement must be completed with people from your server. To avoid being caught and overrun, arrange the raid via social media or within your guild. Word spreads quickly when these runs go public. Good luck!
Video: A first look at patch 5.4's environmental changes and raid
WoW Insider was able to get into the patch 5.4 late last night, through a slew of disconnects and other server issues, and we managed to capture some footage for you of the environmental changes to one of the areas. Now, this is spoiler-heavy, so if you don't want spoilers for patch 5.4 content, of any kind because while the video doesn't contain that much it could spoil something I never even thought of, please don't click the video. Also, don't click the break and read more of the post, and don't read the comments! Spoilers lurk within.
Patch 5.4 PTR: Datamined NPC, mount, and pet models
Along with the recently released patch 5.4 patch notes, our friends at MMO-Champion have data-mined some new models including armor for tier 16 and season 14 gear. Garrosh Hellscream gets a new look and we get a sneak peek at the latest sha! Everything behind the cut contains spoilers for the upcoming patch 5.4. Click through and view at your own risk! Please note: This post contains spoilers for patch 5.4.
The Queue: Another Monday
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Welcome back to another Monday edition of The Queue, where I stare at my work in panic because nobody likes asking questions on Sunday! Oh, well. We'll make do. Let's begin, shall we? ArliSunblade1 asked: Why do the chickens on Sunsong Ranch sometimes instantaneously combust and die? I'm a rogue, pretty sure it's nothing to do with me.
The Queue: I feel pretty
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Oh, so pretty. JeffLaBowski asked: Now that Mists has been out for a while, what would you have changed storywise? From the way the Pandaren were introduced to how both major plot lines were dealt with? I know a lot was changed in Beta. Do you think it played out as well as was planned?
Know Your Lore: The Lessons of the Lich King
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Thinking again about the Lich King, specifically when Arthas Menethil wore the Helm of Domination, always brings me to speculate on his seeming need to prove something. Everything we experienced in Wrath of the Lich King seemed calculated towards that end. From the encounter with him in Howling Fjord through the complicated Drak'tharon Keep and Zul'Drak storylines to the final showdown atop Icecrown Citadel, Arthas always had a plan, and that plan was in part simply to cause his own enemies to provide him with a cadre of such power that he could turn and use against the world, yes. But more than that, Arthas seemed obsessed with proving that he was right. Again and again Arthas as the Lich King put mortal heroes through situations that served to illustrate his own fall - again and again, he sought not just to torment and inspire hatred and anger just as he had been tormented by Mal'Ganis and grew to be consumed by hatred, but to show by so doing how his own actions had been correct. That the only possible response to what he'd undergone was to become as he had. Even merged with Ner'zhul in the form of the Lich King, Arthas' mind and personality came to shape the entity, and when all roads converged atop Icecrown, it was Arthas' desire to show Azeroth how right he was that shone through.
The Queue: Subscriptions, corruption, and vampire
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. "I am nowhere. I am everywhere. I am the watcher, unseen." Don't kill me if the elf in the picture above doesn't match the quote. You elf-vampires all look the same to me. ATreck1937 asked: Why doesn't Blizzard pick a different venue for Blizzcon? One that could accommodate a lot more people. It's more than obvious that they have the fan base to support it, given how quickly all the Blizzcon tickets sell out every time.
WoW Archivist: Emo Garrosh and the Hero of the Mag'har
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? Mists of Pandaria has many great story lines: the emergence of the Sha, the Mantid war, the history of the Mogu, the Thunder King and the Zandarlari, etc. The overarching story of this expansion has been the ongoing aggression between the Alliance and the Horde, and the central figure of that conflict is Garrosh. Patch 5.3 will bring us the beginning of the Horde's revolt against its current warchief, and presumably we will depose him with extreme prejudice in 5.4. Garrosh's story did not begin in Mists, however, or even in Wrath of the Lich King when he led the Horde's assault on Northrend. Way back in The Burning Crusade, an outstanding quest line called Hero of the Mag'har introduced us to a very different Garrosh: a troubled young orc, helpless, hopeless, wishing for death. If you've only ever played as Alliance, you never got to experience this chain of quests and its many great moments. For Horde players, it's well worth revisiting.
Know Your Lore: The Horde vs. the Horde
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Spoilers for patch 5.3 to follow Back in the day, and be not mistaken the day was well before The Burning Crusade was even a glimmer in our eyes, I rolled a tauren warrior. His name was Vorn. Vorn went on many quests, because questing was my favorite way to level. Vorn went all over the world, exploring the Horde and the lands under its control, and he found a lot he liked about his allies. He could respect the orcish ferocity and skill in war, the trollish craft, guile, and restrained sense of humor (the Darkspears are sardonic in their way), and even the forsaken seemed to have a wide disparity of personality types. I met forsaken in Thunder Bluff who sent me across the world to return a locket to a tombstone, and that quest moved me to explore the forests of Silverpine, and in time to go to Undercity itself. To be sure, I found there to be aspects of their unlives that disturbed me, but they displayed a strength in adversity that I found admirable. And then they ruined it.
Patch 5.3 PTR: Valley of Spirits closed down by Garrosh's goons
It seems that Garrosh's Kor'kron Guard are ramping up their action against the Darkspear trolls in Orgrimmar's Valley of Spirits. Wowhead's Perculia reported on this earlier today, and WoW Insider had to go check it out for ourselves. And it's true, where once there were snake vendors roaming freely, now there are trolls cornered and watched by the Kor'kron overseers. There's no business taking place at all, and almost all the NPCs have different things to say to the would be purchaser, or indeed, trainee. My shaman trainer responded thus when I interacted with him: Not now, shaman. I cannot train you today. [Your trainer's voice lowers to a whisper] The Kor'kron watches our every move. Garrosh has the Valley of Spirits under his thumb. You want to help? Find Vol'jin. He will know what to do. while Perculia reported her rogue trainer saying the following: Ya need trainin'? You picked a real inconvenient time to come pokin' through the Valley of Spirits. [Your trainer's voice lowers to a whisper] The Kor'kron watches our every move. Garrosh has the Valley of Spirits under his thumb. I could be killed if they saw me talkin' to you. Lucky for you, they don't ever see me. Lean in close, [name], we gotta keep this on the down low. The other NPCs have various different dialogs that all tell much the same story: Garrosh's grunts have taken over the Valley of Spirits, and are preventing the trolls from doing their business. Sijambi the innkeeper is the only one who still seems to be open for business, but it's possible she is running some sort of racket, as her hammocks are packed with sleeping Kor'kron.
The Queue: Sweet romance
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Dating advice in The Queue? Seriously? Yep! @aspectofthedork as ked: if your significant other asks you to be "romantizzle," what is an appropriate response?
The Queue: Throne of Thunder ilevel, the undead, and going pantsless
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Oh, Mondays. Why must you follow Sundays? Can't you be more like Thursdays, coming before Fridays? Now that I've made myself sound like a twisted hybrid of Garfield and a certain song that shan't be named, we're going to move onto the Q&A and pretend it never happened. Sainthubbins asked: Has the required ilevel for the 5.2 LFR been officially announced yet?
Know Your Lore: The Blackrock Legacy
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. They claimed to be the true Horde. They may yet prove it. The Blackrock orcs seem, on the surface, to be a relic of a bygone age. A tribe of orcs holding on to a past swept aside by Turalyon's hand clutching Lothar's broken sword, a defeated remnant of Gul'dan's legacy. Once led by Blackhand the Destroyer, the Blackrock clan rose to prominence when Blackhand became Gul'dan's proxy as Warchief of the newborn Horde. And it remained central when Orgrim Doomhammer, Blackhand's second in command, slew Blackhand and seized power, for Doomhammer too was a member of the Blackrock clan. After the final defeat of the Horde atop Blackrock Spire, it seemed certain that the Blackrocks would trouble Azeroth no more. Yet Blackhand's sons Rend and Maim, who had served Doomhammer even after he killed their father as leaders of the splinter clan the Black Tooth Grin, led the Blackrocks into the mountain that bore the same name and set about rebuilding them. When Teron Gorefiend came to Blackrock Spire, the brothers Blackhand refused his call to join Ner'zhul's Horde, seeing themselves as the true inheritors of Blackhand's legacy. In time, the Black Dragonflight came to the mountain, attracted by the reds still held in bondage there, and Nefarian brought the Blackrocks into his service. Maim Blackhand died in the war with the Dark Iron Dwarves to determine which force would rule the mountain, while Rend died when Thrall sent members of the Horde to kill him for his claim to the title of Warchief that Doomhammer had bestowed upon the shaman. And yet, the Blackrocks were not done. Ironically, it may have been one of Thrall's most loyal supporters who brought one of Garrosh Hellscream's most dangerous enforcers into the fold.
Patch 5.1 PTR: Windsteeds get more color, and new audio files
As if one Swift Windsteed wasn't enough, the dataminers have now discovered even more, with the windsteed showing its true colors with three new looks, meaning a total of four windsteeds will be available. Anne Stickney had previously speculated that the windsteed might be a new store mount, that is to say, one purchaseable via battle.net with real money. It seems the appearance of new colors for this mount might indicate that it is available from another source -- there are very few mounts purchaseable for real money which come in different colors but there's always a first time! The source of this new mount could well be reputation with one of the two new factions coming in patch 5.1: the Dominance Offensive and Operation: Shieldwall. The multiple colors of the windsteed are below. Which is your favorite? I think I like the gold one. SPOILER ALERT: There are four new audio files and some description of their contents after the break. If you don't want spoilers, you know what not to do. Don't hit the break.
Gamescom Raid Q&A with the Devs: Nerfs, the raid finder and more
You may have spotted Monday's post on how to design a raid, which was the first half of the Gamescom 2012 Raids and Dungeons round table with Ion Hazzikostas and John Lagrave. The second half of the Round Table was a Q&A session in which many interesting questions were asked, shedding light on some hot issues as well as simply providing a little more insight into the Blizzard Encounter Design Team's creative processes. Again, these aren't verbatim quotations from Ion and John, as I simply can't write that fast, but the overall statements are accurate representations of their responses. Are there any encounters Blizzard have had to alter or leave out due to technical constraints? There was a boss leading up to the Lich King who you had to heal (Valithria Dreamwalker), and that was a huge challenge for their existing technology. If you think about it, Ion explained, up to that point, every healing spell in the game was designed to be cast on a friendly target, that is to say, a player. So the devs were faced with the task of reworking every healing spell in the game. They didn't want players to only be able to use certain spells on her, as that would have been bad, so they redid every healing spell. The technical team changed the game's design so that the boss basically became a raid team member. Ion and John explained that it's all about working out creative ways to implement the designers' ideas.
Remixing an Orgrimmar Guard transmogrification
Two weeks ago, we took the Stormwind Guard on a shopping trip and got them a whole new wardrobe. This week, we're giving the Orgrimmar Guard the same treatment and then stopping at Gallywix Pleasure Palace on the way back for mai tais. When I first started planning a new look for the Orgrimmar Guard, I thought I'd look to Garrosh Hellscream for inspiration. Both his outfits in Wrath of the Lich King at Warsong Hold and now in Cataclysm as the new warchief show off a darker look to the Horde that I wanted to capture. Walking through the streets of Orgrimmar these days, you see a city that has become more militaristic and uniform, and the old guard outfit doesn't quite fit in anymore. Even the Horde banners are a darker red than they once were, which doesn't match the red shoulders and accents of the old guards.
The OverAchiever: In which Alliance has it much worse than Horde
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we are grateful to play Horde. This past week, I was tabbed out of the game writing an OverAchiever on Bloody Rare as a follow-up to our guide on Northern Exposure when something interesting started happening in the background. In the sliver of laptop screen dedicated to WoW, the chat channels exploded with warnings that the Alliance was attacking Orgrimmar. Given that the Midsummer Fire Festival is still going on with lots of players busy stealing enemy fires, this isn't particularly unusual. I shrugged and went back to work. And yet, the warnings just kept coming. Curious, I tabbed back into the game to discover that a full 40-man Alliance raid was fighting its way to Garrosh Hellscream. Other players said that none of the other Horde leaders had been attacked, so I can only assume the raid was starting For the Alliance! with the toughest foe among them. Now, Garrosh is by no stretch of the imagination anywhere near as popular as Thrall was, but lots of Horde players are still willing to defend him from attack because, well, he's got his moments. Orgrimmar's central district quickly became a lagfest of epic proportions as dozens of players who'd been gossiping in trade or loitering around the Auction House rushed to defend Garrosh. The Alliance raid was ultimately defeated, but they rallied and tried again -- unsuccessfully -- an hour later. This was the first of three days that I saw the same Alliance raid desperately trying to kill Garrosh, and something started to niggle at me by day two. Namely, For the Alliance! and For the Horde! are among the very few achievements that are significantly tougher if you play one faction over the other.
WoW Moviewatch: Vote Sylvanas 2014
I'll admit that I've sometimes been a little critical of Slightly Impressive's work. He's got good ideas and seems to be moving in the right direction, but the relatively flat delivery tends to leave me feeling a bit hollow. With Vote Sylvanas 2014, though, Slightly Impressive delivered a hilarious movie. The big laugh for me came during the introduction of Sylvanas herself. I won't give away the joke, since it'd blow the video, but take the couple of minutes to watch Vote Sylvanas 2014. It's Slightly Impressive's best work, and it deserves the attention. Let him know what you think in the comments! 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.
My own private faction bias
There's a lot of talk about faction bias in the game among the designers and even in terms of the playerbase. Some realms have heavy faction representation issues; some players would never, ever play a member of the opposite faction; and so on. Around this time last year, I transferred my main (a character who had been Alliance since his creation) to the Horde to raid with a guild that ended up being an excellent home for me and a great place to raid. I stayed with that guild up until we'd completed heroic Dragon Soul, but recently I transferred to a new guild. And one of the biggest reasons I moved back had nothing to do with either guild (both are fine guilds) or the people in them. My Horde guild was full of people I enjoyed raiding with, cracking wise, doing old content, even making occasional forays into PvP. No, in addition to feeling burned out and needing to raid less, the main reason I transferred back was related to the faction concept in WoW. Frankly, I wish WoW didn't have factions -- at least, not the big Horde/Alliance split. Because it's made my game playing experience less fun over the years.
