loremaster
Latest
The Queue: It is a mystery
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. The Queue is a bit short today, and rather than giving you reasons why, I'm going to leave it up to you guys to create wild and zany reasons for it. Was Alex writing The Queue while on fire and ran out of burnable flesh? Was Alex hard at work, but was suddenly interrupted by the president recruiting him for a top secret mission to Mars? Was he watching cartoons while writing, and the cartoons came to life and pulled him into the internet? It's up to you to decide! Tanglebones asked... "I've read that in 3.3 Blizz is making it possible to track uncompleted quests (for Loremaster) via addons. So my question is, are there any addons in the works that do this? Can you highlight it/them sometime before 3.3 goes live?"
Patch 3.3 PTR: New UI function lists completed quests
Over on the WoW LJ community, poster Honem has pointed out something that made me sort of squeal with glee when I first read it: The latest PTR build includes a couple very interesting new functions, as reported by official forum MVP Iriel: NEW - QueryQuestsCompleted() requests that the server send the client a list of completed quest ids. Once the list is received the QUEST_QUERY_COMPLETE event is fired. (There is a limit on how frequently this can be called) NEW - tbl = GetQuestsCompleted([tbl]) populates a table (creating one if necessary) with the ids of completed quests.
The Queue: Questions, comments, complaints...
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 is your hostess today.I have absolutely no idea what the hell the above video is about, but have been required to place it there on threat of firing by Alex Ziebart. Questions, comments, complaints? Send them to him!Pyril asks...(On the faction champions fight in Trial of the Crusader): Why would Blizzard force PvE players to basically learn PvP skill sets now, when they've been so good about keeping them seperate to this point? Any chance the encounter will be reworked? GC has said he doesn't want to force raids to bring certain classes, but if you don't to this encounter it's a 3 hour wipe fest.Is the encounter likely to be changed? No, at least not its basic mechanics. Blizzard fielded similar complaints concerning the Priestess Delrissa fight in Magisters' Terrace, which could be an incredibly ugly experience on heroic if you didn't have CC or weren't well-geared. But are aspects of the encounter likely to be nerfed, or at least tweaked? Maybe, maybe not. It'll depend on how much trouble Blizzard sees people having with the fight. What's certain is that the Faction Champs encounter is a very common target for complaints right now. Some of this is the result of players still gearing up, but others are voiced by people who intensely dislike the arenaesque feel of it all, or who run a raid setup that's less-than-ideal for whatever champion comp they get that week. I think you're entirely correct in saying that the fight becomes significantly more difficult (or at least more gear-dependent) if you're running a raid with limited options for purging/dispelling the mobs' buffs or keeping their healers locked down, and it's probably that aspect of it that Blizzard's keeping an eye on.
Breakfast Topic: Your Cataclysm Bucket List
The Times, they are a-changin'. Cataclysm promises to bring massive amounts of change to Azeroth, reorganizing zones, streamlining quests, and the like. There's a good chance that a lot of the old quests and reputation grinds we know and love will be gone forever, or twisted so much that we hardly recognize them. With that in mind, even while their exact fate is up in the air, a lot of old achievements and titles seem much more urgent.A lot of WoW bloggers, as a result, have been posting their bucket lists, a list of things they want to do in the Old World before the Cataclsym changes it for good, be it grabbing the Loremaster title or even leveling a character of the other faction just to see how their quests differ. For my own part, I've been inspired to start a bucket list myself. It's pretty simple, so far. The major thing is to finally finish getting my Druid Guardian of Cenarius. I'm also thinking my Death Knight could use Loremaster or Seeker. I'll probably also try to make sure my Death Knight gets all the old world raid bosses down, and I wouldn't mind getting an old school Ashkandi for him for fashion purposes. Sure, we still have Patch 3.3 before Cataclysm, so it's not like we have to be in a big rush, but if you're after a title like Loremaster before Cataclysm, it may be a good idea to start now. What do you want to do or see in the old world before the curtain falls? What's your Cataclysm bucket list? World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it. Nothing will be the same. In WoW.com's Guide to Cataclysm you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion. From Goblins and Worgens to Mastery and Guild changes, it's all there for your cataclysmic enjoyment.
[1.Local]: I can haz in-jokes
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week.The green-eyed loot monster contemplating readers from the top of this week's We Have a Tabard appeared to be the source of some agitation for one reader. "I wish each and every person who ever used an 'I can haz' joke was firebombed into oblivion, including the author of this story who posted that braindead image," complained Preston. "Internet memes are some of the dumbest trends on the planet."Readers seemed to feel otherwise, peppering this week's comments with insider jokes, geek references, internet memes and a generally wry outlook on WoW and life. Join hands around the bonfire, boys and girls, and let us indulge in an entire post's worth of internet memes and dumb trends ... courtesy of our very own readers.
The Queue: Guest introduction
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.On the last edition of The Queue, I requested that readers write me an intro for this thing, and I would pick my favorite of the bunch to use to introduce the column. So here we go, an intro from Teregwynn:"Each end every day, except those days when he doesn't, Alex Ziebart takes time out of his busy schedule to sift through your annoying, and often repetitive, questions to find those worthy of answers. Once selected, he conjures answers for these questions which baffle the minds of mere mortals, endowing them with a level of insight which they could not, but for having read earlier editions of this very column, have ever imagined."Search asked..."I have recently started on getting Loremaster and find it quite frustrating that I don't know how many quests I have accomplished in each area. Is there any way to see how much I have already done in an area and how much left still to do? Maybe some sort of clever addon that has eluded my search."
Choose my Adventure: I'm on a mount
WoW.com readers, it's up to you to decide the fate of Turpen the Gnome Warlock with Choose My Adventure. Help test the site's new features by participating in this event, casting your vote toward the many aspects of Turpen and following his exploits on Alex Ziebart's WoW.com profile!Another week, another level. Ten levels, actually. And I guess it's been a few weeks. It sounded cooler that first way though, didn't it? Anyway... Yes, Turpen has hit level 35. The last couple of weeks have been busy around the office due to patch 3.2, so I didn't get as much done between level 25 and 35 as I had between 15 and 25. I only squeezed one dungeon run in, but I did manage to do something else that was asked of me: Battlegrounds.Yes, I did quite a bit of PvP this week on our Gnomelock, primarily in Warsong Gulch in the 20-29 bracket. I tried a round of Arathi Basin (which we won 2000-100) but very quickly decided never to do that battleground in that particular bracket ever again. Running around Arathi Basin without a mount is pretty much the worst thing ever. Patch 3.2 will change that I suppose, but it'll be far too late to be of any use to Turpen. My next alt, maybe!
Finding unfinished quests
Alan on LJ is having a problem I've been thinking a lot about lately -- like me, he wants to go back and finish the Loremaster achievement, which asks you to clean up all of the quests in the old continents. But like me, he's wondering just how he'll find all of those old quests -- unfortunately, there's no way to know which quests have and haven't been done, and while of course, there's a "low level quest" tracking option, that still requires you to run around to all of the different quest locations to find them.A forum thread like this one is a huge help, but still, there's no way in the game to really go back and easily find which ones we've missed. Even with a list like that, you might spend twenty minutes trying for a drop before realizing you've already done that quest. Blizzard promised us a little while back that they'd be changing the "discovery" mechanic (so that we'd be able to see on the map which areas we hadn't discovered for the achivements yet), and an option like that might be helpful for cleaning up old quest -- say that low level quest tracking might work over the entire map, or there might be a magic box in Dalaran that would have whatever quest items we might need.The good news here is that Blizzard has built a fair amount of leeway into the quest achievements -- you won't need every single one to get the points, so the more obscure drop-based quests can probably go undone without worry. But just like the World Exploration achievements, a little more help finding the quests we might have missed would go a long way.
A world without Varimathras
It was probably the least exciting thing to go down during the Wrathgate questline (Wrynn FTW, no?), and I've only played Alliance during Wrath, so I haven't really realized it until now: Varimathras is no longer in the game. He was always my favorite faction leader (even though he wasn't actually the Undead faction leader, so to speak) -- I loved his "You think you can match the might of a dreadlord?" taunt, his story (he always hinted that the Forsaken, a threat within the ranks of the Horde, might have a threat within their own ranks), and his demonic look. And now, after the Battle for the Undercity, he's gone.Fortunately, this is World of Warcraft, and no one in Warcraft really ever stays completely dead -- just ask Kael'thas. But as a more pressing concern, players are currently wondering how they'll be able to do Varimathras' quests (for the Loremaster achievement) with him no longer hanging around the Undercity. New Blue poster Ancilorn says not to worry -- they'll come up with a way for those who can't see Varimathras to do the quests associated with him. Or, and probably more likely, they'll just take them out of the Loremaster requirements.But a moment of silence, please, for one of my favorite lore figures, Varimathras. He was always on the winning side. Except for, you know, that one time right at the end.
Breakfast Topic: New Year's Resolutions
Happy New Year, everyone! It's 2009, and this marks our first post of the year! I specifically locked everyone else out of the WoW Insider HQ so I would have the honor of writing it. Not before I asked them an important question, though. What were their New Year's resolutions for 2009? No, no, not those boring resolutions like "don't drink soda" or "watch less TV" or "stop eating babies." Nobody cares about that stuff. I mean their WoW resolutions! My resolution? Get better at PvP. I'm shooting high and want an arena title. I've never really been into PvP, whether it be battlegrounds or arenas, but it's really the one area of play I haven't had much success in. So I'm gonna give it my all, and I'm not going to do things halfway. I'll settle for nothing less than Gladiator. Okay, okay, I'll accept Duelist, but that's as low as this fella goes. As for the rest of our team...
World of Warcraft PTR 3.0.8 Patch notes
While the PTR isn't up and active yet, we're very likely to see it within the next couple of days given the information that Ghostcrawler has been handing out lately, or even later today. The full patch notes have seemingly already leaked, so we have them for you here as well. It seems that we're getting patch 3.0.8, not 3.0.4 like we've all been saying. Not a big deal in the end, but interesting nonetheless.Reading through these notes, keep in mind that they're probably not complete and we'll see updates to them when the PTR itself goes live. The test realm always has quite a few undocumented changes as well to keep an eye out for. Again, when we know more, we'll let you know.Edit: Updated to reflect the official patch notes.
Breakfast Topic: What's your questing style?
It seems like there's a few basic questing styles I have noticed in Northrend. There's the guys people who just sort of go where the wind takes them, maybe try a few quests out of this zone, a few out of this zone, and play around. Others are focused on the level 80 and rep grinds, so they have the quests they want to take mapped out and plotted, the best to get to that end game so they can start heroic dungeons, raiding, PvP, or whatever else it is they want to do after they're done leveling. Then there's the people who want to get into every nook and cranny of a zone, trying to finish every quest before they move on.I'm generally in the last category myself. There's so much interesting lore and compelling story in Wrath that I don't want to miss risking a questline anywhere I go. Besides, if I finish all the quests, I'm that much closer to becoming a Loremaster, if nothing else. I do mix it up sometimes if I want to head into a zone early to grab a specific quest reward, such as heading into Borean Tundra to get my Axe of Frozen Death before heading back to Howling Fjord, but for the most part, when I head into a zone, I like to get it nice and cleared out from end to end. How do you quest, and why? Do you fit one of the types above, or do you have another method?
15 Minutes of Fame: A guild of achievers
15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about.So – achievements. They're a pretty neat concept for casual players as well as ... well, over-achievers. Fans of the upcoming new feature have already begun setting up for various achievements, farming rep, running old-school content and collecting gear and quest completions in preparation for the expansion's launch.Among the high achievers is <Hells Fury> of Eonar-EU. "Unlike most guilds," writes officer Nerfs in a news tip to 15 Minutes of Fame, "it is not focused on raiding or PvP. We are instead focusing on the achievements that will be released with the pre-expansion patch and the expansion itself." Pretty cool idea for a bunch of folks with mixed-up schedules and piled-on work and school responsibilities! We visited with Nerfs yesterday to see how the guild is pulling it all together – and we have to admit, this sounds like a fun new way to play as a group.
Midsummer Fun: Incense for the Summer Scorchlings
Incense for the Summer Scorchlings' Horde equivalent is Incense for the Festival Scorchlings. I arbitrarily decided Summer sounds better than Festival, so that is what I've used as this guide's title.This quest is about as straightforward as quests can get. The first step is to head over to a capital city that belongs to your faction, and find the Festival Talespinner (Horde) or the Festival Loremaster (Alliance). You are informed that there are emissaries of the elemental plane, spirits of fire, near each of the bonfires around the world. If you wish, you can take some Summer Incense to one of these emissaries to honor them.There are bonfires in just about every zone in Azeroth, including the newbie zones near whichever capital you've found yourself in. However, before you run out and finish this quest there, you might want to pick up your other Midsummer quests first and plot a more efficient route. You can probably hit a bonfire while you're passing through another zone for a separate quest. In this case, your best choice may be to do it in Ashenvale while completing Unusual Activity. Be careful on PvP servers, as many of these bonfires will be a warzone since there are prizes to be gained for desecrating the other faction's flames.Once you've spoken to the Scorchling and given him your incense, you'll be treated to a fun little scene and, of course, your reward: A single Burning Blossom.
Jeffrey Steefel on all things Book 11
Tentonhammer have got a great interview up on their site with the executive producer of Lord of the Rings Online, Jeffrey Steefel, discussing all things Book 11. (LotRO Books are roughly equivalent to major content patches in other MMOs)A lot of the new content in the update is discussed, ranging from the three-piece, 12-man Balrog raids, to... usable cowbell & bagpipe musical instruments. Blue Öyster Cult would be proud. It also features player characters first encounter with the wonderfully crazy Gollum, with promises that he'll play a major role in the LotRO storyline -- although what kind of role is still being kept under wraps, it's probably not a wild guess to assume he'll be causing a lot of trouble. Nassty hobbitses!Player housing (covered just a few days ago by us) is discussed too. It's a strange -- risky? -- move incorporating player housing into a patch, rather than an expansion pack or, as in certain popular other MMOs, not at all -- yet Jeff comes across as enthusiastic about the subject, and Turbine appear to have thought it through carefully. He also does everything except say "there will be an expansion!" without ... actually saying it. But we all know it's coming, amiright?Book 11 also included some love for the Loremaster & Minstrel classes, the latter of which sorely needed some outside of healing.The interview is three pages long, and definitely worth a read if you're a LotRO fan.
