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WoW Moviewatch: Guards 3
Work Warning: Lots of cursing and vaguely adult themes. A touch on the adult side. Ian Beckman is a man who delivers. Whether it's a surprising range of comedic voice acting or solid graphics that deliver the funny, his machinima always serves up more than a few laughs. Guards 3 continues to lampoon COPS in this wild World of Warcraft. I like how the small vignette turns into a larger story, and I'll admit the final bit was my favorite. Whether that's because I harbor my own angst about the king, or just because it was the most straightforward joke, the utter defeat of the villain serves as warning to anyone who gets a name wrong. 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.
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.
South Korea plans trial run of robot prison guards
This isn't the first time we've seen a prison turn to robots for a little assistance, but South Korea looks to be going a bit further than most with its latest robotic endeavor. The country's Ministry of Justice has announced that it will be conducting a one-month trial run of robot guards at a prison in the city of Pohang starting in March -- a project that's expected to cost one billion won (or about $863,000). "The robots are not terminators," as the university professor in charge of the endeavor told The Wall Street Journal, but rather monitors that will patrol the corridors of the jail and alert the human guards if they detect any unusual activity. Inmates will also be able to use the robots to communicate with the guards, and the folks behind the bots are apparently doing their best to keep things from turning into too much of a dystopian future -- they're now said to working on making the robots appear more "humane and friendly."
Cataclysm: Guards in starting zones buffed to level 90
Planning on kicking off Cataclysm by killing all the quest givers in newbie zones? Think again: Blizzard has increased the level of starting zone guards in areas like Coldridge Pass and Deathknell to 90. These guards are currently level 65 on the live servers. The change, which guarantees you'll be at least five levels lower than the guards, takes advantage of existing game mechanics to protect lower-level players from mischief. NPCs that are five levels higher than you are exceedingly difficult to hit (spell casters will suffer a 39 percent chance to miss) and frequently wallop you for higher-damage-causing crushing blows far more often. The guards will also have higher health pools as well. This contrasts vividly with guards on the live server, who are prone to dying if a level 80 character accidentally sneezes on them. Level 90 guards are better suited to protecting newbie players from max-level griefers. Note that only starting areas will see these high-level guards. The guards in major cities are now level 85 -- dangerous, but soloable. Players who are upset by this change are encouraged to stop being jerks who grief newbies. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion (available Dec. 7, 2010), from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.
The interplay between faction standings and PvP in Earthrise
Although the post-apocalyptic MMO Earthrise is still in development, the game's creators at Masthead Studios take a question from the player base each week and turn it into a mini dev blog. Granted, some of the mechanics as they exist now may very well change before Earthrise launches, but it's still a nice peek into the development of the game. The latest from Masthead Studios is "Fighting, Factions, and Guards" which explains Earthrise's system of establishing safety near the major cities and greater risk the further you venture from them.%Gallery-48760%
New Year's Eve in Azeroth tonight
Yes it's the end of another year, and it's time to celebrate! Just in case you're not out and about partying this evening, Azeroth is enjoying New Year's Eve as well, and the good news is that you can drink all you want with no hangover at all! This evening in the capital cities, there'll be kegs and holiday food to eat, and fireworks will light up the sky every hour (starting around 6pm server time, if this year is the same as years past). Plus, all the guards in Booty Bay are taking their annual night off, so there'll be PvP aplenty down there. And there are two quests in the game, one for each faction.Enjoy the holiday and stay safe, whether you're in the World of Warcraft or elsewhere tonight. From all of us at WoW Insider to all of you, thanks for making 2008 great, and here's to an even better 2009. %Gallery-12722%
Do summoning stones need neutral guards?
I play on RP servers only, but when they first came out, I tried an RP-PvP server for a while. I kept plugging away at it till I got to my mid thirties and finally gave up. Ever since then it's seemed to me that players on PvP servers are people who like their game to be extra difficult, and they don't mind if that means they have to suffer through the kind of situations that would submerge a "normal" gamer in intolerable frustration. They just accept that leveling up means doing lots and lots and lots of ghost runs, because other high-level characters will gank you and they will camp your corpse, and there's not much you can do about it. That's just the cost of being elite, to them -- having gone through it, it's as though they feel baptized by fire.That's why I'm always surprised when a player from a PvP server asks for some sort of help from Blizzard with such frustrating situations. A blood elf hunter named Arkdemon is asking for neutral guards at all summoning stones -- apparently he's had trouble getting to his instance when there's a bunch of PvP going on there. But isn't that the whole point? Isn't PvP on a PvP server supposed to get in the way of PvE stuff, just like all the other struggles these players go through leveling up? The fact that you can effectively conquer a summoning stone, raid entrance or otherwise important spot on a PvP server is the whole reason people play there. If you take away this sort of challenge, or nerf it until it's not so serious a problem for people who just wanna PvE that night, then what's the point of even having a PvP server to begin with? (Zul'Aman is a possible exception to this rule, since it's so much more accessible to the Horde than the Alliance, but even in that case, a number of hardcore PvPers cried out how much they hate the addition of guards there.)Bornakk seems to agree with me for the most part, but he mentions that Blizzard will indeed add guards (or indeed do whatever they want) if they feel it is necessary. What's your opinion?
Zul'Aman and Scarlet Monastery becoming safer for Alliance
Level 70 Elite Tauren guards (not to be confused with L70ETC) have been stationed outside Zul'Aman on the test server. I agree with Elizabeth that the race choice makes no sense, but according to CM Nethaera, the guards (in some form) are there to stay. This is, of course, in response to the overwhelming complaints from Alliance players that have to go to Horde territory in order to try out the new instance.Nethaera also says that they will be implementing a Contested Area around Zul'Aman to further alleviate the unbridled ganking currently occuring there. She says that in the past, they could only flag entire zones as contested, but now they have the ability to change the PvP status of just an area within a zone. This change will be implemented on the PTR first before coming to live servers.They are also going to be surrounding other instances with contested areas, such as the Scarlet Monastery. Unfortunately for the Alliance players currently trying to farm the Headless Horseman, this change will come a bit late. But maybe it will be implemented in time for next year's event.Players have been voicing concerns about changing the areas in lowbie zones to contested. How will it affect the level 10s trying to quest around these new contested areas?
WoW Insider interviews Ian Beckman
That's the World of Warcraft that You Play. Guards. The University of Stormwind. Azerothian Supervillians. Some of the best and most popular WoW machinima has come from the mind of one man: Ian Beckman. I met Ian at the WoW Insider meetup during BlizzCon last month, and just recently, we got together to do an interview about how he makes his movies, whether machinima has made the mainstream or not, and what's next, both for Azerothian Supervillians (Episode 4 coming soon), and a "crazy project" that he says will "blow everyone's pants off."The interview starts right after the jump. Thanks very much to Ian for sitting down with us.
Town guards: Horde vs. Alliance
Players from way back in the early days of WoW will remember that before there were battlegrounds, there was only the Hillsbrad Foothills. If you played on a PvP server, you were almost certainly killed (sometimes repeatedly) at some point by a much higher level player character from an enemy faction. Due to the close proximity of Horde and Alliance towns, the area between Tarren Mill and Southshore was a war zone and was very popular with the world PvP crowd. Since the introduction of battlegrounds and all the new expansion content, Hillsbrad has become much more quiet, but many players (including myself) still have fond memories of intense battles in that zone.One thing that always struck me as odd was the disparity between the level of the Horde guards in Tarren Mill (level 60-ish elites) and the Alliance guards in Southshore (level 40-ish non-elites). Stealthy Horde players could slip into Southshore, kill NPCs and lower level players with little regard to the guards. However, any Alliance player attempting to do the same in Tarren Mill would be in for a rude awakening if he or she was spotted by the guards.More recently I've found yet another difference between Horde guards and Alliance guards. I'd been testing characters on the PTR, and stopped by Stonebreaker Hold in Terokkar Forest with my undead rogue. When I dropped into stealth, I noticed that many of the NPCs, guards, and peons were able to see through stealth (they had that stealth detection icon floating above their heads). I remember being in Allerian Stronghold with my own human rogue and not seeing anyone that could see through stealth. I decided to sneak in (if I could) to see if the Alliance had trained their guards to detect stealth, and to my surprise, they hadn't!The argument about whether or not Blizzard favors the Horde over the Alliance popped into my head for a moment -- I know it's old hat, and players from both sides have slung accusations and "proof" that Blizzard favors one faction over another, but I've never seen anything definitive.I'm not looking to start up that old argument, but I am wondering -- has anyone else has noticed a situation like this, where the Horde's town guards are clearly superior to the Alliance's guards?
WoW Moviewatch: Guards
It's been over a year since Ian Beckman created this litte gem of a machinima, but it's still enjoyable to watch. I never really watched COPS, but I am quite fond of the X-Files "X-Cops" episode, so I still find this funny in my own way. Since we are showing off some of his newer work, I thought it might be nice to go back and see some of his earlier explorations into the genre.Previously on Moviewatch...[via rogue]
Sex in the Undercity: A guide to finding love in Azeroth
The Valentine's Day event started last week. Love, exciting and new, is in the air in Azeroth, and I sent my undead rogue, Punishment of Thunderhorn, to go looking for love in all the wrong places. He didn't exactly make time with Sylvanas Windrunner (she's such a banshee), but he was able to form a real odd couple. You can see his journey in the Gallery below, and get a firsthand look at just how love works in Azeroth. The event ends Thursday, so go through the guide below to see the ins and outs of finding your soulmate (or mates, as the case may be), and then get to it! Love is in the air! %Gallery-1608%
