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The Soapbox: In defense of consequence
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I've gathered you here today to present to you a defense for a feature that has been all but forgotten in recent MMOs, and which tends to solicit uproar from entire communities if it's so much as mentioned. That feature, as you may have guessed from the title, is consequence. One of the things that initially drew me to Massively, and inadvertently led to my writing for them, was Sera Brennan's columns, which frequently covered the topic of persistence in MMOs. I'm a die-hard, borderline militant advocate of increasing the levels of persistence in games, and I feel that implementing consequences for players' actions is a huge part of taking MMOs from generally mindless games to true persistent worlds. "But Matt," you say, "I don't want a persistent world. The one I live in is hard enough as it is! I just want to play a game and unwind, not have to master goblin economical theory as it relates to the sociopolitical climate of an imaginary universe." And that's just peachy! There are dozens of games on the market tailored to players such as yourself, but only a select handful tailored to players such as myself who desire a more immersive world to live in during their spare time. The incoming rant, obviously, is geared toward that type of player.
Phat Loot Phriday: Hood of Disgrace
Throgg and the druid sat around a campfire. Turkey roasted on a spit, and the worgen sipped quietly from his tea cup. "I will give this much to your Warchief," the druid said, flipping a piece of cloth in his hands. "The Hood of Disgrace will be an elegant message." "It's not going to go well," Throgg said. He stabbed the ground aimlessly with his knife. "The Grimtotem will see this message and make a new message out of me. Magatha will not let this stand. They will wish to punish me." "Us," the druid said. "Me," Throgg said with an unmistakable tone of finality. "And Garrosh gave you no indication about why? What could have happened to bring orc and tauren relationships this far?" "I can't be sure," Throgg responded. "But I do not think that this is all tauren. I think this is just Grimtotem. Well. If this is how it is it to be, I will kill many Grimtotem before I die." Hood of Disgrace Type: Cloth Head Armor: 90 Stamina: 14 Intellect: 9 How to get it: Complete the Grimtotem chiefs quest line in Thousand Needles. How to get rid of it: It sells for some silver. Or, alternatively, you hand it to a Grimtotem, who is highly likely to be unhappy with you. Phat Loot Phriday brings you the scoop on some of the most ... interesting ... loot in the World of Warcraft, often viewed through the eyes of the stalwart Throgg and indelible Lolegolas. Suggest items you think we should feature by emailing mikeg@wowinsider.com.
BlizzCon 2010: The official BlizzCon store
The official BlizzCon 2010 store is where you went in Anaheim to get some epic loot. T-shirts, pennants and even water bottles could all be had by BlizzCon attendees. Most of the items ran out by Sunday afternoon, which meant that you had to risk the hours-long lines. But check this stuff out. It was totally worth it. %Gallery-105859% 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!
Phat Loot Phriday: Zod's Repeating Longbow
Reader Matthias C. wrote in with a special request to see this item here, so here you go. Name: Zod's Repeating Longbow (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory) Type: Epic Bow Damage/Speed: 541-887 / 2.80 (255 DPS) Attributes: +34 Agility, +51 Stamina On equip: Your ranged attacks have a 4% chance to cause you to instantly attack with this weapon for 50% weapon damage. This one's interesting -- the tooltip actually says the chance to hit. It's not the first time that's happened, but plenty of tooltips will say "a chance of" proccing rather than mentioning the actual percentage. %Gallery-33600%
Phat Loot Phriday: Unspeakable Secret
Mindor asked us to please do a caster staff this week, so here's one you can go find in the new Frozen Halls instances this weekend. Name: Unspeakable Secret (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory) Type: Epic Staff Damage/Speed: 281-519 / 2.80 (143.1 DPS) Attributes: +81 Stamina, +81 Intellect. %Gallery-33600%
Phat Loot Phriday: Sharpened Obsidian Edged Blade
Taveena recommended this one in last week's comments, so here you go. A big, bad sword. Name: Sharpened Obsidian Edged Blade (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory) Type: Epic Two-hand sword Damage/Speed: 715 - 1074 / 3.50 (255.6 DPS) Attributes: +146 Strength, +179 Stamina Improves critical strike rating by 69 and expertise by 103 %Gallery-33600%
Phat Loot Phriday: Mystifying Charm
Here's a spooky looking offhand for current endgame casters. If you have an item you'd like to see here next week, shout it out in the comments below, please. Name: Mystifying Charm (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory) Type: Epic Offhand Damage/Speed: N/A Attributes: +65 Stamina, +65 Intellect, +57 Spirit Improves crit strike rating by 57 and spell power by 100. %Gallery-33600%
Phat Loot Phriday: Worldcarver
A big, bad axe from Ulduar this week. Name: Worldcarver (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory) Type: Epic Two-hand Axe Damage/Speed: 632-949 / 3.40 (232.5 DPS) Attributes: +137 Strength, +136 Stamina %Gallery-33600%
Phat Loot Phriday: Parrot Cage (Hyacinth Macaw)
I'm kind of surprised we've never done this one on PLP (in fact, I think we may have, though I couldn't find it in the archives at all, and it just changed recently anyway). But just in case you don't want to spend $10 of real money on an epic in-game pet, you can try to get this one anyway. Name: Parrot Cage (Hyacinth Macaw) (Wowhead, Thottbot, WarcraftPets) Type: Epic (yes, Epic) Noncombat Pet Damage/Speed: N/A Attributes: Allows you to summon the Hyacinth Macaw companion pet, one of the most beautiful "parrot style" pets in the game. %Gallery-33600%
Phat Loot Phriday: Clemency
Umm, drool. This staff is so awesome it makes me want to go back to playing a caster. Name: Clemency (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory) Type: Epic Two-hand Staff Damage/Speed: 280-518 / 2.10 (190.1 DPS) Attributes: +153 Stamina, +153 Intellect. Yes, that much. +86 Spirit, too. A Blue and a Red socket, with a +7 spell power bonus if you match both up. Remember, you don't have to if you don't want to, and this is certainly a socket bonus that's probably not worth going for. If you need an extra gem for your meta, this is probably the place to put it. %Gallery-33600%
Phat Loot Phriday: Jeweled Fishing Pole
If you're planning on heading out to join the Kalu'ak Fishing Derby in patch 3.3, you might as well look good doing it, right? Name: Jeweled Fishing Pole (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory) Type: Rare Two-hand Fishing Pole Damage: 410-610 / 3.00 (169.3 DPS) Attributes: 1603 Feral Attack Power. Yes, it's true. Just in case you druids leave this on while in a different form. Requires Fishing 300, which as we've said before, isn't too hard to do. Go over to El's Anglin' take a few hours and follow their great Fishing/Cooking guide, and you'll be done before you know it. %Gallery-33600%
Phat Loot Phriday: Blade of Tarasque
Been a while, I think, since we've done a dagger. Plus, this one will show off a little of my D&D lore knowledge, and I don't get to do that as much as I like. Name: Blade of Tarasque (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory) Type: Epic Main hand Dagger Damage/Speed: 108 - 343 / 1.80 (125.1 DPS) Attributes: +48 Stamina, +65 Intellect. Used to be that Stamina on a caster item meant warlock, but I think this is just an endgame item -- any caster who needs it could use it just fine. Plus, there's a blue gem socket on it, so you can put whatever you want in there, with a socket bonus of +5 spellpower. Just because it came up on the site earlier this week, I'll use this opportunity to remind you that any gem can go in any socket -- you just won't get the socket bonus. Yes, really. %Gallery-33600%
Phat Loot Phriday: The Mischief Maker
This one comes to us from @Aeire on Twitter, who said we should do this item, because it's "weird and different." True on both counts!Name: The Mischief Maker (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory)Type: Uncommon ConsumableDamage/Speed: N/AAttributes: It's a wand (though not really -- it's just an item you right-click to use up) that will sheep any friendly player or NPC, and unfortunately only in Dalaran. In other words, it's a party favor -- there's no real use to it, but if you happen to see your buddy wandering around Dalaran, you can sheep them for 15 seconds, and then wait for their "wtf?!" to roll in on guild chat. %Gallery-33600%
Phat Loot Phriday: Frostforged Ringhelm
We haven't done a piece of armor in a little while (it's been mostly weapons lately), so here's a cool helm from the updated Onyxia with an interesting historical twist.Name: Frostforged Ringhelm (Wowhead, Thottbot)Type: Epic Plate HeadArmor: 1925Attributes: +83 Strength, +154 Stamina +10 Frost resistance, +10 Shadow resistance. These are on here because this is the updated version of the Tier 2 helm for death knights. %Gallery-33600%
Phat Loot Phriday: Ancient Hakkari Manslayer
We've had some requests for husky loot lately, and so here's an item that isn't quite phat these days (just a little husky), but used to be quite interesting.Name: Ancient Hakkari Manslayer (Wowhead, Thottbot, WoWDB)Type: Epic One-hand AxeDamage/Speed: 69 - 130 / 2.00 (49.8 DPS)Attributes: This is how you can tell this weapon is old-school: it has just one bit of green text, and that text is "Steals 48-54 life from target enemy." Which doesn't, on its face, sound quite that nice. But at the time this weapon was current (ye olde patch 1.7), that was a hot proc. Because the proc actually scaled along with spell damage -- if you had 150 spell damage, and this proc hit, you wounded the enemy for 150 shadow damage, while healing yourself with same. %Gallery-33600%
Phat Loot Phriday: Black Jelly
It's the third anniversary of Phat Loot Phriday and in celebration we bring you an item that we can all enjoy. So raise a pint and enjoy the feast before you!Name: Black Jelly (Wowhead, Thottbot, Real life)Type: Common FoodDamage/Speed: N/AAttributes: Why are we featuring a food on Phat Loot Phriday? Because it's only the best food in the game right now -- this baby restores 45,000 health and 38,400 mana in one sitting. For both of those, this is the biggest gain you can get. %Gallery-33600%
Phat Loot Phriday: Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat
Yes, I did just get this last night, but actually, we're doing this one based on @ronaldscott's Twitter recommendation.Name: Weather-beaten Fishing Hat (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory)Type: Rare Cloth HeadArmor: 127Attributes: +40 Stamina, +40 Spirit On equip: increased fishing +5. This hat isn't to be confused with the Lucky Fishing Hat, which also gives this fishing bonus, and is available only through turn-ins at the Stranglethorn Fishing Tournament. +5 bonus isn't a huge bonus to fishing at all (your main +bonus comes from your fishing pole), but given that it's an extra +5, it's worth having. %Gallery-33600%
Phat Loot Phursday: Onyxia Scale Cloak
Special edition of Phat Loot Phriday this week, on a Phursday! Why? Because tomorrow is gonna be full of fun in the California sun.We did Quel'serrar a while back, so with Onyxia headed back to the game, we'll look at the other piece of gear that involved the black dragon we love to hate.Name: Onxyia Scale Cloak (Wowhead, Thottbot, WoWDB)Type: CloakArmor: 43Abilties: +7 Stamina, +16 Fire resistance. Ah, the days of level 60, they seem so far gone now. Compare this to a prime tanking cloak nowadays, and take a look at just how far we've come. On equip, protects the wearer from being fully engulfed by something called Shadow Flame. What is Shadow Flame, you ask? Here's where this item really gets interesting: sit back and enjoy a tale of old level 60 raiding. Shadow Flame is actually an ability used by Nefarian, Onyxia's brother, and a few other bosses in Blackwing Lair. He casts a huge unblockable AoE during his fight -- unblockable, that is, unless you're wearing one of these cloaks (although since then, Ice Block and Divine Shield will both stop it). %Gallery-33600%
Phat Loot Phriday: Marrowstrike
Here's something for you Hunters to go after in the 5-man Trial this weekend.Name: Marrowstrike (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory)Type: Epic PolearmDamage/Speed: 570-856 / 3.50 (212.3 DPS)Attributes: +106 Agility, +101 Stamina Yellow socket (nice for +Hit gems, though you can put whatever you want in there) with a +4 Agility socket bonus %Gallery-33600%
Phat Loot Phriday: Wisdom's Hold
Not all shields are for blocking. If you're a Shaman or a Pally, this caster shield is probably droolworthy.Name: Wisdom's Hold (Wowhead, Thottbot, WoWDB)Type: Epic ShieldArmor: 8130, 227 BlockAttributes: +70 Stamina, +48 Intellect, which means lots of HP and Mana for you. Improves crit strike by 40, haste by 47, and spell power by 75. Nice set of bonuses there, too. And a blue socket, with a socket bonus of +5 spell power. It's a slight upgrade over Voice of Reason, the other big caster shield near endgame, but enough of an upgrade that you want this one if you can get it. %Gallery-33600%
