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Know Your Lore: The Deceiver Awaits
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. Sargeras is of course more powerful. Archimonde more directly destructive. But for sheer malice, for spite, for a turn of mind so devious and sinister that it pursues vengeance for over 25,000 years for the slight of not wanting to become a monster, you can never find evil more cunning and persistent than that of Kil'jaeden the Deceiver. Make no mistake. Even Gul'dan pales in comparison to the hate, greed, and wanton cruelty that motivates Kil'jaeden. The demon lord par excellence, when we look at many of the greatest ills of the modern age it was the hand of the Deceiver that shaped them. The corruption of the orcs? The creation of the Scourge and the Lich King? The Third War? Others may have taken these actions, pursued them to their ultimate conclusion, but it was the mind of the Deceiver that brought them forth and worked to make them a reality. Indeed, it's fair to say that Kil'jaeden is often far more successful when he can resist taking an active hand in events - his most recent defeat at the Sunwell took place because he chose to attempt what Sargeras had failed to do and what had killed Archimonde, namely the bodily invasion of Azeroth proper. So let us look now upon the Deceiver, lord of lies, spreader of falsehood - liar and betrayer of betrayers.
Heroes of the Storm: New hero Murky and other changes coming soon
The Heroes of the Storm team held their fifth Developer Q&A on Twitch.tv today. The developers discussed sweeping future changes coming to the game's alpha including a complete overhaul of the game's UI. Other major additions and changes include: New hero Murky. This week is Murky Week, so a great deal of information about him is on the horizon. Many heroes will be receiving a talent overhaul based on data collected on talent usage. Not only talents chosen most often across the board, but talents chosen most often in winning and losing games. Arthas, Illidan, and Tyrael are receiving complete redesigns and are unlikely to be the only ones. Their current iteration doesn't fit the vision of the hero and were early designs, too bland/generic to be such iconic characters. Players tend to consider these three underwhelming at best. Personal achievements are being added so you can better gauge your personal performance in-game. Currently, in-game achievements only display team efforts. In addition, themed maps from all of Blizzard's IPs will be coming eventually. The current Haunted Mines is being reworked. So, too, is the Cursed Hollow, which has a tendency to snowball in favor of who gets the first round of idols.
Blizzard store now offering full Halloween costumes
Halloween is fast approaching -- are you prepared? If not, the Blizzard Store might just be your ticket if you're looking for a quick solution and simultaneously wanting to show off your gamer pride. Three new costumes by Rubies have been added to the Blizzard Store, and unlike previous mask offerings, these are full-body outfits that will dress you up from head to toe. Along with the standard green orc, Illidan and Arthas are both available -- keep in mind, however, that if you're looking for a pair of Warglaives or Frostmourne, those don't come with the outfits. They may not be the height of cosplay perfection, but they're good enough for a Halloween party or three. The characters are pretty much instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with Warcraft, and really isn't that all anyone hopes for out of a Halloween costume? Head to the Blizzard store to check them out and perhaps pick up a costume of your own.
Warcraft and its "Joker Problem"
The "Joker Problem" is, in its simplest terms, based around the old Batman villain, first introduced in 1940. In his original appearance, the Joker was a homicidal madman who used complicated toxins to murder people as part of a crime wave that only he really understood. In his original appearances, the Joker was slated for death, because back then Batman routinely killed people or allowed them to die, but the editors realized that if they went around killing off all the good villains they'd run out of them, and so the Joker was spared. He went on to become Batman's greatest adversary. World of Warcraft has a Joker Problem, because we keep murdering our Jokers. Oh, it's hard to blame us - how many times have people pointed out how ludicrous it is that Batman or someone else hasn't murdered the Joker at this point? Plus, they drops shiny goodies when we kill them, and there's nothing players in an MMO like more than trinkets and baubles. Tirion Fordring once held a death sport that was entirely based around bribing us into gladiatorial combat with goodies, and we totally went for it. Sometimes we'd run that thing four times a week. But the fact remains - we barely get a good villain rolling for an expansion before we storm his or her castle, keep, subterranean lair, floating sky palace, old temple... you get the picture, I'm sure... and do war upon said villain. At the end, a sparkly corpse is left at our feet, the day is temporarily saved, and then someone else ignores all the evidence to the contrary and starts the whole thing up again. Not all of the dead Jokers in our track were Jokers, of course. Some were Riddlers, or Penguins, or even just barely Calendar Mans. But we've definitely left a few Jokers strewn among the pile of dead would-be world destroyers, conquerors, and assorted evil people. Lady Vashj, Illidan, Arthas, Deathwing, Ragnaros, Al'Akir, Kel'Thuzad, Malygos, we've taken out some important figures with a great deal of significance to the setting. The up side is that it demonstrates the stakes and gives a player a sense of accomplishment to finally take down an archnemesis. The downside is, they're gone.
The Queue: Serpent racing, soloing Black Temple, and more
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'm stuck in downtown San Francisco until Friday. I apologize to everyone who lives in or around San Francisco, but this place kind of sucks. darkpanda asked: Did Cloud Serpent Racing never take off? (No pun intended). I've heard barely any mention of it since MoP launched. Whenever people talk about non Raiding activities, it's completely ignored. Did it get lost in the shuffle or was there never any longevity to it to begin with?
Know Your Lore: Top 10 magnificent bastards of Warcraft, part 2
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. Last week, we talked about some magnificent bastards. At least one of those choices (Garithos) is, for me, kind of a controversial one, and I'm going to suggest a replacement for him in this post, because I think many readers made a valid point regarding him. Garithos is absolutely the second part of the equation, but there's no magnificence to him. He's a bumbler, a cretin, and his great impact on the world was entirely due to his utter inability to succeed at anything. MBs are more like Doctor Doom or David Xanatos; they have a kind of epic quality to them and a real feeling of threat. So there you go, readers -- you've already convinced me that one of my choices from last week was not the right choice. Therefore, this post will begin at #6 and count down to #1. Just take Garithos off of last week's list, and let Wrathion sit at #10. This moves Nathanos down to #7 and makes room for this week. You convinced me, guys. Garithos is out. Can you pull it off again this week? This week, we look at my top Magnificent Bastards in World of Warcraft. I will tell you right now, certain characters will not be appearing on this list because they're either not magnificent enough or not bastards enough. I'm looking at both the King of Stormwind and the current Warchief of the Horde here.
Know Your Lore: The Burning Legion
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 burn worlds to ash. They render the verdant uninhabitable. Theirs is not the evil of mad chaos, leaping to corrupt for amusement or decadence. They are the means by which the mad Titan seeks to unmake everything. They are the Burning Legion, and it is their purpose to end existence. Nothing less will satisfy Sargeras. Yet even within the seemingly monolithic forces of the Legion, there's room for political intrigue of a sort. While Sargeras has seemingly caused his own exile from the seat of power, his former lieutenant Kil'Jaeden now leads the Legion, a position he seemingly aspires to hold indefinitely. And Azeroth is directly in his crosshairs.
Limited edition WoW cups coming to ampm stores
Upset over the cancellation of BlizzCon 2012 and looking to drown your sorrows in a massive cup adorned with one of your favorite Warcraft characters? Blizzard is teaming up with ampm to promote World of Warcraft cups featuring Arthas, Kil'jaedan, Illidan, and Deathwing. We don't have a release date for the cups just yet, but look for more information as the promotion gets closer to beginning. World of Warcraft is entering over seven years of operation and still going strong, enough so that regional advertising campaigns at widespread retailers are an attractive move. WoW has definitely eclipsed the video game market and is instead focusing on attracting new players because, for the most part, a lot of the home team market is dried up. By putting WoW in places where less typical gamers might encounter it, Blizzard has a great chance of attracting new people. Can we please get the dataminers on this and tell us what size cups these are, as well as the materials used to make them? I love those study plastic cups. I'm waiting patiently.
Breakfast Topic: Would you vote-kick that NPC from your party?
Pokey-slow NPCs on escort quests have long been the butt of player jokes, but with more extensive NPC participation in the patch 4.3 5-mans, I've started wondering if things are going from bad to worse. Shortly after patch 4.3 hit, I wrote on Twitter that Tyrande, Illidan, and Malfurion in the Well of Eternity are all shining examples of players who would be vote-kicked from the average PUG. Really! Think about it: Tyrande runs out of arrows, still manages to pull aggro, and then stops DPSing entirely past a certain point during the Mannoroth fight. Illidan thinks he's leet and never shuts up, and he's also the archetypal Go Guy from Wowcrendor's How to win at PUGs and Gear Score. Malfurion goes AFK before the boss fight and then (conveniently enough) shows up while loot is being distributed. So does this mean that the average person with a bit of common sense is a better player than three major lore figures? I think it kinda does. This is not to say that all NPC participation in your questing or 5-mans is bad (Anduin Wrynn during the Alliance's pre-Twilight Highlands quests is pretty cool), but I hope this isn't a sign of more to come. Oh, and Thrall -- epic ground mounts are not expensive these days. You have no excuse.
Breakfast Topic: Has the time come for Outland story updates?
After Chris Metzen's seeming joke at BlizzCon concerning the possible reappearance of Illidan in future WoW storylines, it occurred to me that we really haven't seen much of Outland or its storylines lately. Well, maybe that's not fair -- if you're leveling a character between 58 and 68, I imagine you've seen all too much of Outland and are heartily sick of the whole continent and its dungeons by now. Still, The Burning Crusade featured some great stories, and if Illidan ever does come back, there are a few people I hope he'll (metaphorically) drag alongside him. The two that come immediately to mind are the Netherwing Dragonflight and the Ashtongue Deathsworn. What's up with the Netherwing since Deathwing's demise? Do they even know about it or what's happened with the Aspects? And what's going on with Akama now? I'd argue that he, more than Kael or Vashj or Illidan, was the greatest and most compelling character of WoW's first expansion, and he had one hell of a unique model. The brains behind the Ashtongue's high-stakes Batman Gambit (warning: TV Tropes link) has got to be up to something these days, and if Blizzard ever revamps Outland questing, I hope it gives players a peek. Then again, that's assuming that yanking Illidan back from the dead is even a good idea to begin with (is it?) or that Outland stories can be made relevant to their modern counterparts. Thoughts, readers?
Know Your Lore, Infinite Paths: The golden-eyed
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. Last week, I talked about Murozond and the End Time. Some astute readers noted that upon confronting the players and Nozdormu, Murozond claims, "I have witnessed the true End Time. This? This is a blessing you simply cannot comprehend." What does this mean, exactly? Granted, we could simply dismiss this as insanity brought on by the Old Gods. But what if the issue isn't insanity? What if the Old Gods didn't drive Murozond mad at all? Aman'Thul, the Highfather of the Titanic Pantheon, granted Nozdormu a vision of his own death. It is said to be this very fate that Murozond is attempting to avoid by fracturing time. What, however, if that's not the case at all? What if in his case, much madness was and is divine sense? Murozond's End - End Time Murozond: You know not what you have done. Aman'Thul... What I... have... seen... Nozdormu: At last it has come to pass. The moment of my demise. The loop is closed. My future self will cause no more harm from this day on. Nozdormu: Still, in the future, I will... fall to madness. And you, heroes... will vanquish me. The cycle will repeat. So it goes. Nozdormu: What matters is that Azeroth did not fall; that humanity survived to live another day. Nozdormu: All that matters... is this moment. source Why does Murozond call out to Aman'Thul in his moment of death? Beyond his own death, what has Murozond seen? Did the Infinite Dragonflight seek to break this clockwork universe, and if so, has it already done so? This week's KYL continues based on last week's Tinfoil Hat Edition and presents an entire alternate time line based on the question What if Murozond was the hero all along?
Know Your Lore: Illidan Stormrage, The Betrayer
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're plKnow Youaying 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. The story of Illidan Stormrage, born well over 10,000 years ago in the ancient city of Suramar alongside his brother Malfurion and their childhood friend Tyrande, would change the entire world now known as Azeroth. Without them, the Burning Legion might well have succeeded. The machinations of demons, the corrupt Highborne, even Queen Azshara were balked by this trio. But Illidan himself was often his own worst enemy. He is one of the greatest manipulators of arcane power ever to live, the first to ever seek to stalk and kill demons, a prodigy and a madman. He betrayed his own people in order to save them and the entire world, but he always served himself first. Selfish, mercurial, brilliant, resentful and tormented by himself, Illidan Stormrage helped make Azeroth everything it is today.
Know Your Lore: The Sources of Magic, part 1
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. Where does magic come from? Specifically, in the Warcraft universe, where does it come from? That's actually a complex question, because there are many different kinds of magic practiced in the setting as a whole. We know of the nature magic of the druids and the elemental magic of the shaman (and that these two disparate types of magic often seem to relate to each other while remaining discrete; we know of the fel magic practiced by warlocks and the Burning Legion, and the pure arcane arts of mages. There's also the Holy Light as demonstrated by priests and paladins, the shadowy magics also tapped by some kinds of priests and warlocks as well, and even the raw necromantic power that seems unique to the Scourge, some Forsaken, and death knights. All of these different kinds of magic are magic, and yet each seems to draw from its own source. Just on Azeroth, we have seen many kinds of magical power and many focusing points, or fonts, of various kinds of power. Several have descended from one another, while still others have intruded due to the interference of various entities. One thing is clear, that there are many paths to power beyond that inherent to the average denizen of the world. What, therefore, are these sources of magic?
Know Your Lore: Interbellum Part 3 - To rule a world
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. So now the stage has been set. The exiles have all arrived on the blasted remnants of Draenor, once the home of the orcs and last refuge of the draenei. Following the events of Ner'zhul's attempt to lead the orcs away from their dying world, the planet was shattered and torn asunder, pulled violently into the Twisting Nether that Ner'zhul's portals linked to its surface. Now Outland, a world drifting in the nether, is the remains of that destroyed place. A world where natural laws are often suspended, it hung overripe waiting for a clawed hand to pluck it. That hand belonged to Magtheridon. Second among the pit lords only to his master Mannoroth, Magtheridon was the one the Legion chose to conquer this world, unique among all the planets formerly taken and crushed by this army of demons. For Ner'zhul's portals still worked, making Outland a kind of nexus wherein the Legion could pull entire armies through at will and easily stage them for new conquests. Holding Outland therefore gave the Legion a strategic foothold, one they were loath to give up. However, circumstances were unfolding that would lead to exactly that. Part 1: Forcing Fate's Hand Part 2: Into the Outland
Know Your Lore: Interbellum part 1 - Forcing Fate's Hand
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. If you began playing World of Warcraft when the game came out, then you played through a period of interbellum. The Third War ended four years before World of Warcraft started, and the mortal races that banded together on the slopes of Mount Hyjal to defeat the Burning Legion were now beginning to approach a war footing once more. We talked before about the Third War (in two parts, in fact), and in the next few weeks, we'll talk about the period between the Third War and the original story of WoW, the events of the 1-60 game that was remodeled in Cataclysm. Why did the people of Azeroth turn away from the unity established in the fight against the Burning Legion? Why did the former high elves turn away from their once-allies? Why did Illidan raise the naga? How did Arthas Menethil transition from a death knight into possibly the most powerful mortal-born entity ever to exist on the face of Azeroth? These were the times that blasted souls.
Breakfast Topic: Who will be the ultimate boss encounter of WoW?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. Illidan. Arthas. Deathwing. Gamon? In WoW, we kill a lot of things. From x number of boars to 10,000-year-old, demon-juiced night elves, we gear up for and defeat just about everything that comes our way, assuming we can stay out of the fire. But at some point, even WoW, as with all good things, must come to an end. Both for the game and for players in the game, a last boss will almost certainly arrive. For me, the last boss was simple: Arthas, the Lich King. As players, we've been following his rise, fall, and next rise for years. We watched him succumb to the dark side -- queue evil laugh -- and fall from his perch as a hero of Light into a twisted master of undeath. Then he taunted us throughout the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Finally, we vanquished him, fulfilling years of adventure. Unfortunately for my ideal ending, I still enjoy and want to continue playing the game. Now we have Deathwing flying around, killing folks. Will he be the fated endgame boss? More Old Gods, maybe? Or perhaps even the Titans themselves will come back to purge the world of our meddling. Who do you think should be the last boss of WoW? Do you think there will be a last boss?
BlizzCon 2010: Costume contest gallery
The BlizzCon costume contest took place yesterday afternoon with roughly 90 entries (give or take a few, depending on how you count group efforts). We did have a screenshot of one entrant in black that was unfortunately too dark to include, but this is an otherwise comprehensive gallery of all contest entrants, the five finalists and winner. There were a number of extraordinary costumes this year, and we highly recommend giving them a look. However, I think Jay Mohr was correct in observing that it's only a matter of time before someone's going to topple over on digitigrade stilts. Please, folks -- it's okay to suffer for your art, but it's not okay to break your ankles over it! The five finalists (you'll find them toward the end of the gallery) portrayed Ysera, the female monk from Diablo III, Jaina Proudmoore, the female witch doctor from Diablo III, and Illidan Stormrage. The eventual winner was Christina Estrada as the female monk. %Gallery-105850% BlizzCon 2010 is upon us! WoW Insider has all the latest news and information. We're bringing you liveblogging of the WoW panels, interviews with WoW celebrities and attendees and of course, lots of pictures of people in costumes. It's all here at WoW Insider!
Know Your Lore: Elven evolution
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. I love reading the comments on KYL. Sometimes you guys have some really great ideas, and sometimes you guys know just where to poke a hole in whatever fanciful theory I've got out for discussion -- but by and large, it's just nice to see people asking questions and thinking. The bonus to having comments, however, is that I can see where people are confused and put together something to straighten it all out. The subject today is elven evolution -- the difference between the night elves, blood elves, high elves, Highborne, Shen'dralar, quel'dorei, sin'dorei and all those other terms thrown out there that make the simple process of figuring out where all those elves originated incredibly confusing. Elven evolution is fairly straightforward; it's just the extra terminology that throws people. All elven ancestry starts with the kaldorei, which means "children of the stars" in their native tongue. These guys are night elves, and they are the first elves that ever existed and the elves from which all elven ancestry on Azeroth originates. Don't think of them exactly the same as the night elves we can play in Warcraft today, but as a slightly older version, though they looked virtually the same. Malfurion, Illidan, Tyrande, Azshara ... All of these elves were descendants of the original kaldorei. Where the kaldorei came from is up in the air, though there are multiple theories. The night elves believe that the kaldorei were originally their own race, a primitive group of nomadic, nocturnal creatures who settled by the Well of Eternity and were blessed by Elune, transformed and subsequently adopting the name kaldorei. Ancient troll legends suggest that those nomads who settled by the Well of Eternity were actually trolls that were turned into the first kaldorei. This is where the crux of that argument about the elves' origins stems from. The elves believe that the primitive group of nomads were simply early elves who hadn't evolved into "proper" elves yet, and the trolls believe that the primitive group of nomads were actually primitive trolls who split off from the Amani Empire.
The Queue: Little things
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. I feel I've done one of these far too recently to do another one so quickly, but we're going to do another listening music day anyway. In yesterday's Blood Sport, Colby introduced me to Pomplamoose, a musical duo from Youtube. Considering most of my procrastination hours are spent on YouTube, I am amazed I've never heard of them before, but they are great. Plus the girl is way cute. She practically emits that kitty face emote when she talks. Seriously. So today's listening music is Pomplamoose's Little Things. Grumbly Stuff asked... "What's your (or anyone's, really) favorite proc or on-use effect for any piece of gear/weapon/trinket?"
Raid Rx: A history of organizational healing
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related. Organizing healing continues to be one of the many intriguing challenges that raiding groups face today. In some cases, there are pre-set players assigned to do specific things. Sometimes they are even worked out in advance on a forum or a white board. In looser groups or pickup groups, there isn't the luxury of planning healing in advance and the organizers have to go with their gut feeling and "stereotype" classes in order to figure out assignments. Examples, any holy paladins are told to heal a tank. Restoration shamans are told to heal a specific group and holy priests are told to heal another group. It wasn't always entirely like that. This week, I want to take you back in time to the era of vanilla raid healing, through the Burning Crusade and to now. I'm also going to include my thoughts as to what Cataclysm might be like.
