asric
Latest
Breakfast Topic: Your loyal followers
We've kicked this topic around a little previously, but developer Jeremy "Muffinus" Feasel, in reference to garrison followers, posed the following question to the community: .@Cladriah Great question for the community: who do you really want as a follower? I mean anyone. Like, aaanyone. - Jeremy Feasel (@Muffinus) April 24, 2014 If we could have anyone of our choosing as followers in our garrison, I foresee countless requests for raid bosses. Sure, I'll have Deathwing as a buddy! Approaching the question seriously, though, I'd love to have many of the true-and-blue Alliance questgivers we've seen in recent years. Joanna Blueheart from the Swamp of Sorrows tops my list. Questing through that zone, she was an excellent example of the Alliance's approach to war -- though, if you play the Horde side of things, the Alliance ultimately loses in the Swamp of Sorrows. Maybe that says something about Alliance warfare. Regardless, Joanna's the kind of person I'd want on my team. Members of the SI:7 team from early Mists of Pandaria would be wonderful. Mishka and Amber Kearnen are great. I guess Sully can come, too. Also awesome? The Wrath-era members of the 7th Legion. Responses to the aforementioned tweet include Anren and Tholo, Asric and Jadaar, Cro Threadstrong, Thisalee Crow, Sky Admiral Rogers, and Captain Placeholder, among others. Who (or what) would you enlist in your army, given the freedom to choose anyone?
Patch 4.3 PTR: Darkmoon Faire video tour
This morning, I hopped onto the public test realm and hit up the brand new Darkmoon Faire island coming in Patch 4.3: Hour of Twilight. The Darkmoon island will be available to players for one week at the top of every month, with portals to the island in major cities and in the abandoned sites that the Darkmoon Faire operates in, Elwynn Forest and Mulgore. Once through the portal, you are free to roam the Faire to play all-new games, win tickets, complete profession quests that award skill points, and complete quests for reputation with the Darkmoon Faire. Old fan-favorite characters like Asric and Jadaar even make an appearance. Check out the video above for a romp through the all-new Darkmoon island. Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!
Know Your Lore: NPC evolution from TBC to Wrath 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. Last week, we talked about the evolution of NPCs from classic WoW to The Burning Crusade. It was a quiet beginning to the evolution, starting with just a few NPCs in classic WoW that spawned world-altering events like The Great Masquerade. But in The Burning Crusade, we not only saw major movements from major-name players like Thrall, who actually got off the throne in Orgrimmar and traveled all the way to Nagrand to visit his long-lost relatives, but also minor players. These seemingly minor players gradually won the hearts of the playerbase through storylines that progressed with each patch in the expansion. Characters like Cro, Jadaar, Asric and even the shifty Griftah weren't just NPCs. They were subtle reminders that those characters we barely interacted with had lives of their own, and it breathed a new energy into the game. Suddenly, the world wasn't just about you and whatever quest you happened to be on. It was also about Griftah's "unfair" persecution, or Cro's struggle to get that blasted fruit cart out of the way -- mundane, ordinary, everyday events, the sort of events we witness on a daily basis in the real world. Bringing the mundane to the game made Outland feel just a little more real, too.
Breakfast Topic: Are you a fan of Azeroth's sheer size or fine detail?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. World of Warcraft certainly has a wide appeal. One need only look at the motley crew assembled on this news blog to take notice of that. Along with such a vast fan base come varying ways to appreciate the game world. Depending on who you ask, Watchmen is either a great piece of popular literature, a great graphic novel, or an overhyped piece of junk. If you talk to somebody who falls in one of the former camps, you're likely to hear that one of the key reasons for the novel's success are the small details. Throughout the novel, a minor backstory involving Soviet aggression and the escalating chances of nuclear war in Dr. Manhattan's wake plays out in the form of newspaper headlines. It's one of those blink-and-you'll-miss-it plot points, but it really helps to create a sense of reality in the novel's dystopian alternate history. Such minor details are often the key to success in most artistic media -- and gaming is no different. Look no further than WoW's famed arguing NPCs Asric and Jadaar, or on a smaller scale the shifty vendor Griftah, whose magical amulets prove a little less than spellbinding. Such small aspects of a game world so massive can often go overlooked, yet it is there that the game finds its heart. On the other hand, few game worlds are as expansive and in constant flux as Azeroth. With four continents to explore and a growing story that evolves every few months, it's hard to downplay the brilliant sense of scale and scope that Blizzard has brought to Azeroth. What sells the game world for you -- the details, or the big picture?
The Queue: Barely coherent
Welcome back to The Queue, our 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. Just so all of you are aware, Michael Sacco literally scraped me off of a hotel room floor so I could write The Queue today. No, I am not misusing the word literally there. There was a cartoonishly oversized spatula involved. Xantenise asked: Is there any news on the location of the awesomeness that is Asric and Jadaar in the new expansion?
