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All the World's a Stage: So you still want to be a blood elf
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the eleventh in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class well, without embarrassing yourself. This article is largely a continuation of last week's article, which has been updated for accuracy.There has been a great deal of change and evolution of the world of World of Warcraft, and to a certain extent, all the available player races have gone through changes because of the events that have taken place. The original release content had lots of dungeons and quests and things going on, but each one seemed to tell the story of a place rather than the story of a people. Like each place, the stories told there seemed static, as the players grew and moved on, the places all remained the same.The Burning Crusade, however, began to change all that. Instead of just adding new content with each patch, some aspects of the old content were changed as well, with certain characters and peoples coming to the foreground as major antagonists. Players were no longer merely vague adventurers tasked with saving the world from one giant evil monster or another, their characters had vested interests in bringing about some change in their circumstances. For no group of player-aligned characters was this as true as it was with the blood elves. From the time The Burning Crusade was released, up to now, when the next chapter of the Warcraft story (Wrath of the Lich King) is starting to unfold, the blood elves are the only player faction whose leader has turned into a major boss in a dungeon (not once but twice!), whose capital city has been deprived of one of its most significant residents (who also ended up turned into a major dungeon boss), and whose culture has undergone a complete turnaround over the course of this expansion's expanding storyline. The draenei, of course, played a huge role in the story of The Burning Crusade, but in the end, they were mostly just very strong supporting characters. The blood elves were the stars of the show.
Ask a Beta Tester: The mystery of Crystalsong and other things
I showed you the Alliance airship on yesterday's Ask a Beta Tester, now you get to see the Horde version! And now that that's out of the way, let's start with a couple of questions from Aerei... I've got possibly the most important question ever asked in this column! Are we going to see NPCs rocking the new hairstyles now available? I don't think it's fair only PCs should get them. Yep! You'll spot the new hairstyles on NPCs here and there. Not super often yet, but you definitely see them. A lot of the guards in the Argent Crusade camp are rockin' the new styles. They're very progressive! Also, if Dalaran gets mage trainers because it's the mage city, how come Shattrath doesn't have paladin trainers? Huh? Because Shattrath sucks.
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a blood elf
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the tenth in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class well, without embarrassing yourself.One look at the blood elves and you might think "arrogant pop star," but their story entails much more suffering and tragedy than is at first evident. Like so many in the World of Warcraft, they have very nearly lost everything that was important to them, and more than once their entire way of life has been upset, turned around, and set in an entirely new direction. They are at once brilliant and desperate, beautiful and woefully flawed, addicted to evil magic and yet not yet beyond hope of redemption.The blood elves are the descendants of the original "Highborne" of the night elves 10,000 years before the setting of World of Warcraft, who used to follow Queen Azshara and studied the arcane magical energies flowing through the Well of Eternity. Following the "War of the Ancients," (discussed in the article on night elves), most of their peers at the time observed that arcane energies tended to attract evil demons from the darkest dimensions in the universe, and thought the world would be better off without it. The Highborne who survived that war had gotten very used to the power of arcane magic coursing through their bodies, however, and they suffered from serious magical withdrawal when those energies were no longer available to them. From their point of view, it was cowardly not to try again, to simply conceal themselves from the demons rather than to give up arcane magic entirely. Their addiction and powerlessness made them desperate enough to turn to violence, though they were no match for the new rulers of the night elf people.
Ask a Lore Nerd: Which came first, the Lich King or the Egg?
Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, where each week Alex Ziebart answers your quests about the lore in the World of Warcraft. If you have any questions, no matter how big or small they might be, ask them in the comments section below and we'll try to answer it in a future edition.It's another beautiful Sunday, and it's time for another edition of Ask a Lore Nerd! Let's jump righ tin with realmreaver's question... If the humans turned their back on the Forsaken due to their undead condition. Why are they all lovely dovey towards the Death Knights? Are not an army of undead LOVED ONES a necessary evil too?The Death Knight questline explains their return to the Horde/Alliance, and supplies some reasoning for why their factions are okay with them. Forsaken, on the other hand, are painted by the game to be very anti-Human. Why in the world would Humans accept them, former loved ones or not? One of their battle cries is, "Death to the living!" and they say such things consciously aware of their words. It's a completely different situation.If a group of Forsaken went through the same thing our Death Knights did and atoned the same way our Death Knights are, they'd potentially have a shot of joining the fold, at least for awhile. As it stands, the Forsaken reject Humanity just as much as Humans reject the Forsaken. Sylvanas is their Queen, Varian Wrynn is not their King.
Lume the Mad reviews WotLK and its changes
MMO Blogger Lume the Mad has a nice in-depth review of all the changes coming to World of Warcraft in the form of the game's second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. If you're a regular reader of WoW Insider, there's nothing really new here -- odds are you already know about all the changes (and have a strong opinion of some of them). But as a nice wide general overview of what's going on with the game, Lume's little writeup is very thorough.It is pretty amazing to think that before Burning Crusade released, there were no such things as Blood Elves or Draenei, the only Arena in the game was Gurubashi, and only the Horde ever had Shamans in their raids. But nowadays all of those things are commonplace, and odds are that the game will change just as much with Wrath -- siege vehicles will be a huge part of the game, Death Knights will be everywhere, achievements will be just as big a goal as any other part of the game, and phasing will be the norm (you'll never be sure that the player next to you is seeing exactly what you're seeing in the game world).Lume doesn't go so far as to call it a new game (though Blizzard may want to), but there's no question that even though the most basic game mechanics stay in place (you still use abilities on action bars to kill creatures and gain experience), the quests, graphics, and storylines will look very different. BC changed our game once, and Wrath is set to change it yet again.[via Massively]
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a tauren
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the sixth in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class well, without embarrassing yourself. The first cultural influence you'll probably think of when you see the tauren and walk around in their villages is "Native American." That's fine as far as it goes, but you should remember that they're mainly based on the stereotypical image of what Native Americans are rather than their actual reality. I'm hardly an expert on Native Americans, however, so rather than try and speak for these differences, I'm just going to put the whole issue aside and take tauren as tauren rather than parallels to any human culture. Besides, aside from certain aspects of architecture, music, clothing, and mythology, the tauren are really their own species. They are quite general enough to remind us of all kinds of different cultures around the world, many of whom cherish the earth, revere their ancestors, and try to live in harmony with the world. Some people say that the tauren are the noblest and most peaceful of the races in World of Warcraft, but for most of their history, they have been at war with the vicious centaur -- though not by choice. The centaur have always been very hostile towards tauren, driving them out of their ancestral homelands, slaughtering them and even cannibalizing them whenever possible. In a way, the centaur seem like four-legged versions of the nastier trolls who never joined the Horde. When Thrall came to Kalimdor and encountered the tauren in the midst of their struggle against the centaur, it marked the beginning of one of the greatest changes in tauren history.
Blood Elves and Draenei can run the Harvest Festival
As a few of our readers have noticed, Blizzard has fixed the old problems with the Harvest Festival this year -- the new races of Blood Elves and Draenei can now do the quests that start outside of Orgrimmar and Ironforge. Last year was the first time the races had a chance to run them, and Blizzard hadn't implemented the quests for them yet. But this year, things are A-OK.Unfortunately, there's no acknowledgement that they're new to the game -- while the quests do mention the character's class, they just see BEs and Draenei as just other members of their faction. It was a little weird running to honor Grom Hellscream with my Blood Elf, but if you want to be a good member of the Horde or Alliance (and pick up that nice food dispenser in the mail), have at it.
All the World's a Stage: Sacrificing spells for the story
All the World's a Stage returns today to shine a brutal but loving eye on the intricacies of roleplay. We do this by looking at the craft of roleplay itself, and the people who love it. We might not be ready for Jerry Springer, but we're pretty sure this week's column is going to have a little debate behind it. Michael Gray fills in this week for David Bowers, and talks about letting roleplay exclude some other forms of play in the World of Warcraft.We're not a big Guild. All told, we probably have about twenty to twenty five people who come online at various times to talk, chat, and play together. We have some structure, but we're mostly a motley of friends who hang out. Our raiding effort takes place because our raid leaders woke up one day and said "By Wrath of the Lich King, we're going to be able to progress in ten man content."We're also a roleplay-ish kind of Guild. I say "ish" because we're not full immersion players. We have some light story notions. For example, I have the vague idea that our raid's main healer is the son of our raid's main tank -- that's mostly because they're the same human model, but one has light blonde hair, and the other has old, graying hair.So, when we come across folks into the roleplay and immersion a little more than we are, we're sometimes not quite sure what to make of it.
Ask a Beta Tester: The Argent Crusade
It's that time again, ladies and gents. Alex here with today's round of answers to your Wrath Beta questions. Keep the questions coming, and we'll keep answering. To everyone that asked about Arena points: We don't know anything about that yet, and Blizzard doesn't either. As soon as they know, we'll know, and then you'll know.Gurluas asks...How many high elves are there in Wrath, and what are their role now that they have thier own faction?The High Elves actually have a pretty strong presence, which I'm rather excited about. The High Elves (and Blood Elves to a much lesser extent) are one of my favorite Warcraft races, and it makes me sad I can't play one. Alliance FTW. Dalaran, first of all, is packed full of them. Most of them are under the banner of the Silver Covenant, an Alliance-aligned faction of High Elves that aren't too happy about the Blood Elves being given a sizable section of Dalaran.There are also High Elves scattered throughout the Alliance forces in Northrend. There are a few of them in the 7th Legion (no, they're not all High Elves), the Argent Crusade, and just the Alliance forces overall. The fellow in charge of the Alliance contingent helping the Red Dragonflight at the Red Dragonshrine is a High Elf. He's a total badass, by the way. Check him out up there. Ashkandi is Draconic for Awesome.
Phat Loot Phriday: Golden Staff of the Sin'dorei
Yup, that's it. This baby is pretty much tops if you are a healer who wants to max out Spirit and healing and all of those other good stats that help you keep others alive. This is the kind of staff that even makes Tanks go all Keanu: "whoah." Name: Golden Staff of the Sin'dorei (WowDB, Thottbot, Wowhead)Type: Epic Two-hand StaffDamage/Speed: 146-338 / 3.20 (75.6 DPS)Abilities: +60 Stamina, +54 Intellect, +57 Spirit. Yeah. Red and two Blue sockets, nicely fitted with some +22 healing gems and/or +10 Spirit gems and you're talking about some real power. +4 Spirit socket bonus. Improves spell haste rating by 32 +550 healing, +183 spell damage. Yes, you read that right -- 550 healing. Not since right before the last expansion has there been a staff this nice in comparison to other gear, and even if you could match the healing on a one-hand/offhand combo (you probably can, if you get the right gear and enchants together), the Spirit bonuses on this baby are going to give that duo a run for the money. Take a good look, because this is the kind of stuff that's going to be dropping in endgame raids at level 80. Sin'dorei, you should know by now (we're almost to the next expansion), means Blood Elves, or "children of the Blood" in Thalassian. And yes, the staff looks just like the one in the BC art, as seen above. This is very BC staff, if not the most defining staff of this expansion. Look for a lot less gold and green and a lot more blue and black in WotLK. How to Get It: This is a Kil'jaeden item yet again -- it drops from the last boss currently in the game. And since we've seen so few drops from Killy Jay so far, we're not sure of the drop rate at all. Not that it matters much -- so few players comparatively are going to get loot from the fight with Kayje, that odds are you'll never see it.You can drool, though. And in ten levels, when we're all working through Naxx again, maybe you can convince your raid to go back and help you get it.Getting Rid of It: Sells to vendors for 20g 54s 93s and disenchants into a Void Crystal. But look how shiny! Have a good weekend.
Ask a Lore Nerd: The Evil-o-Meter
Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, the column that answers your questions about the story and lore of the Warcraft universe. Click the Comments link below, ask your question, and blogger/columnist Alex Ziebart will answer you in a future installment!Travis asks... What can you tell me about the other portals around Outlands (the only one that springs to mind right now is the one in Zangarmarsh)? They look just like the one you get to Outlands through, but are just standing there doing nothing. Answer: Those portals were once used by the Burning Legion and their lackies to travel between Outland and various other worlds. Those portals were also used to send Legion reinforcements to Outland. Before Illidan and his posse usurped Magtheridon, they went around shutting down these portals to prevent Magtheridon from being reinforced. Further, they've been kept closed so Kil'jaeden can't come stomping back into Outland to punish Illidan for not being able to kill the Lich King.
Phat Loot Phriday: Orb of the Sin'dorei
Like the ol' Orb of Deception, here's another fun toy -- that's brand new in patch 2.4.Name: Orb of the Sin'dorei (Wowhead, Thottbot, WowDB)Type: Rare ItemDamage/Speed: N/AAbilities: On use, transforms the user into a Blood Elf. Lasts for five minutes with a 30 minute cooldown between uses. Also drops on shapeshift of any kind. One of the cool things about this trinket is that it keeps your equipment looking the same. Always wanted to see what a Blood Elf warrior looks like (since they don't exist in game)? Use this on your tank, and how they might appear. Unfortunately, there is a catch: if you use this item on your Blood Elf, they won't change at all. Lore note: "Sin'dorei" actually means "Children of the Blood" in Thalassian. Before the High Elves got all corrupted, they were the quel'dorei ("Children of Noble Birth") and then they split into the BEs and the Night Elves (who are also known as the kal'dorei -- "Children of the Stars"). Unfortunately, there still isn't a perlman'dorei in Azeroth (though that, of course, would be the "City of Lost Children"). Yeah, this orb thingy is kind of silly, but Blood Elves are, as the kids say, pretty hawt. Who wouldn't want to be one? How to Get It: Drops from any of the bosses in Magisters' Terrace, but on Heroic Mode only. The drop rate is pretty low (about 1-2% per boss, but considering that you get a chance for it to drop every time you down a boss, this is actually a relatively common drop -- definitely moreso than, say, the Baron's mount).And don't forget that to get into MrT Heroic, you've got to finish the quest to kill Kael first. Get that done, get Heroic Countenance, head on into Heroic MrT, and down bosses until you see this pop up.Getting Rid of It: Sells to vendors for 46s 18c, and disenchants into an Arcane Dust, Lesser Planar Essence, or (very rarely) a Large Prismatic Shard. But I'd keep it if I was you -- you never know when you want someone's girlfriend to wish you were "hot... like... me."
Gamers on the Street: Proud of Proudmoore
This was the scene this morning on Proudmoore, as they were the first server around to open up the Heroic Badge vendor on the Isle of Quel'danas. So for this week's Gamers on the Street interviews, I decided to go there and see the sights myself. Unfortunately, just as on the PTR, it's not quite that easy to get a level one Blood Elf to the Isle -- I figured I could just fly from Silvermoon like normal, but no -- apparently I had to run all the way to Tranquilien to even get the Silvermoon flight point. So I did.Fortunately, when I got there, the flight master gave me the flight point to Silvermoon, which would then take me to the Sunwell Plateau. Unfortunately, I was completely and totally broke -- I didn't even have enough cash to fly. I sold everything I had, but it wasn't nearly enough, and instead of begging for gold, I did the next less annoying thing on the list -- I spammed the Trade channel. And I was able to find two nice residents of Proudmoore to tell me about opening up the world event content on Sunwell Plateau.
Downgrading your account (or not)
If you're one of those folks who pines for the days of level 60 and Molten Core, but you've already installed Burning Crusade and made your way to 70, Slorkuz (who?) officially tells us you're out of luck. Once an account has been upgraded to Burning Crusade, there is no going back -- even if you uninstall everything and just put vanilla WoW on your PC, trying to sign in with your BC upgraded account will open up Outland and the latest content yet again.If you really want to see the world the way it was before the Dark Portal reopened, you'll have to create a new account, and not upgrade it to Burning Crusade. But even then, you won't really go back in time -- you'll still see gems on the AH, and Blood Elves and Draenei wandering around. It's one more reason to keep asking Blizzard for classic servers, apparently -- as of right now, there's no way to really go back to the way things were.But why would you want to anyway, right? Gold abounds, epics are easy to get, and most of the PvP problems are fixed. Nostalgia may be telling you that you want to stumble around with 39 other people in Motlen Core hoping for a Tier 1 drop every two weeks, but for most people, things are much better nowadays.
Know Your Lore: The Sunwell
The upcoming patch, patch 2.4, now known as The Fury of the Sunwell, revolves around... well, the Sunwell! I guess there's something in there about a huge demon by the name of Kil'jaeden, but I'm sure he's not important. Like my previous installments of Know Your Lore, I'll give a little bit of background information on our subject, so you understand the foundation of it. This bit isn't quite as exciting as my last installment or two, but this took a lot more research, and a lot more piecing together half-told bits of story from multiple authors. It's a bit like playing Connect the Dots, but instead of getting a flower or a sailboat, I get Richard Knaak flipping me off. Sorry it's so dry, but on with the show!A little over 10,000 years ago, the Night Elves lived under the rule of Queen Azshara and the upper class of society, the Highborne. Their culture was rich in magic and the arcane, very different from the down to earth, nature-centric society of the Night Elves today. Queen Azshara and her Highborne were extremely hedonistic, using the nearby Well of Eternity for personal power and gain. At some point during all of this, Azshara heard a dark whisper, promising power beyond her imagination.Does this sound familiar? Yes, Sargeras was up to his old tricks again. Like he lured Kil'jaeden and Archimonde to the Legion's cause, he did the same with Queen Azshara. Whereas Kil'jaeden and Archimonde seemed to have needed a little trickery from the Destroyer, Azshara was far more welcoming. She was pretty okay with hanging out with demons, and rather enjoyed the whole fire and brimstone thing.
Why is Kael a bad guy again?
A few days ago, Allison posed an interesting question: Why is Kael a bad guy? The answer is pretty clear to me, there's a definite path you can follow to Kael's corruption and downfall. It isn't very well laid out for you in the World of Warcraft, there's some connect-the-dots you need to do, but I think the answer is there. Be warned, there are some spoilers for patch 2.4 ahead, so be careful if you're trying to dodge them.As Allison detailed, a lot of things had happened in Kael'thas's life just prior to Warcraft III, and during it. The captain of the football team steals his girl, kills his pops, and massacres the people of Quel'Thalas. Dalaran gets destroyed, and the remnants of his people are slowly falling into sickness for unknown reasons. Despite this, Kael'thas forges ahead and steps up to lead his people and protect them, no matter what it takes. This may mean allying himself with the remnants of Lordaeron, the people who indirectly caused the fall of Quel'thalas. This may mean allying with the Lady Vashj and the naga, described by Allison as "vicious," despite being what they are. For the good of Quel'Thalas and the Sindorei, anything goes.
Official word on classic servers for WoW
We've hit on the topic of "classic" servers before, and there are even players already carrying the idea out in game. Not everybody thinks Burning Crusade is the greatest thing since Molten Core, and so there are still quite a few players who wish they could play on servers that didn't go past level 60, where Naxx and AQ were still the main endgame, Bloodfang was the hotness, and Atiesh was more than just a few splinters taped together.But while people have asked for classic servers before, Drysc repeats what some of them might not already know: that though Blizzard has "seriously" considered the idea before, they eventually determined that it would be too much to run two majorly different versions of the game at a time.It's worth stating that you can definitely still run vanilla WoW without installing Burning Crusade at all, but even if you do that, you'll still see Blood Elves and Jewelcrafters running around, and people in the battlegrounds at level 60 will probably trounce you with all of their shiny Outland gear. It might be nice to experience the old endgame the way its meant to be experienced, but at least until WoW's population slows down and Blizzard determines they have the resources to do so, you can't go back to Old Azeroth again.
The Legendary Sisterhood shakes up Sentinels
The guys over at the Legendary Heroes podcast wanted to form a guild to play with their fans, but they didn't want to actually make it serious-- they figured that by including everyone, they'd end up with some people who were fun to play with, but weren't necessarily the best players. So instead, they formed a guild. And it's been an interesting experiment-- kind of an anti-RP RP guild.They're formed a guild called "The Legendary Sisterhood" over on Sentinels' Horde side-- it consists only of Blood Elf female mages and priests. It's a weird cross between a cult, a party, and a griefer guild-- the denizens of Sentinels have reacted to their actions with the expected confusion. We only know there are rules: every member of the guild must have a name that starts with "Sister" (as in Sisteramy), and there is a hierarchy within the guild, topped by a dark and mysterious Queen. It's an RP guild for non-RPers-- there are weird rituals, various attacks on opposite faction capital cities, and just general mayhem. In short, it sounds awfully fun.I'm not a huge fan of RP-ing (our own David Bowers knows much more about it than I do), but I'm not sure this is RPing or not-- they're just having fun with an old fantasy mechanic of the secret society and playing together in a way that doesn't necessarily require reaching the endgame. The guild is the character in this case, not the players themselves.[Thanks, Mark!](Post updated after the jump)
Why there won't be a flood of death knights
Many people are predicting that "everyone" will make a new death knight character when the new expansion is going to come out -- so many that the world will seem full of them. While it is true that everyone may very well try out the first couple levels of the new death knight hero class, it's not true that every server will be overrun with them. Here's why:The addition of death knights to the game is in many ways like the addition of blood elves and draenei in The Burning Crusade. Many people made new characters just to see the new zones, but many others wanted to level their mains through Outland first. Many of those players who tried out the new races only played up to a certain point and then stopped to go back to their main characters. We never saw a flood of draenei and blood elves outnumbering all other races of Azeroth, and for the same reason we will not see a flood of new death knights. There are different things to do in the expansion, and different people make different choices about which to do first. There may be a contstant stream of new death knights, maybe even a river sometimes, but death knights will just feel like the newest kid in the WoW class, not a plague of locusts infesting the entire town.There's also a huge difference between trying out a death knight, and choosing one as your new main character. Wherever death knights start out in the world may be a crowded area for a while, but most players won't ever level them out of that starting zone. Unlike the Jedi in Star Wars, death knights are only one of many types of characters in Warcraft. Besides, the death knight play style and thematic mood simply isn't going to appeal to everyone, in the same way that most WoW players today do not play warlocks, notwithstanding the fact that warlocks are undoubtedly a powerful class. Most players prefer to do healing, shapeshifting, stealthing, ranged shots, totems, or any number of other abilities that death knights will never have, and they will stay with their favorite classes and play styles. Some players, like myself, probably just won't like their armor decorated with skulls all the time.
Breakfast Topic: Attractive men
Here's a question for all the female WoW gamers out there: are any male models in the game that you consider to be attractive? We often talk about how very appealing some (though not all) of the female models are to men, but when it comes to male models, the Blizzard art team doesn't seem to be going after the "appeals to the ladies" look at all. Apparently afraid that the males will look too much like "pretty boys," they tend to strive for that gruff "I'm gonna kill ya, sucka!" attitude many male gamers seem to love -- the more monstrous and intimidating, the better. Indeed, although the most "attractive" of all the males in Azeroth are probably supposed to be the blood elves, I have never once heard a woman say, "that elf is handsome!"And yet in my travels through Azeroth, I have observed such remarks as "I think Tauren butts look cute," and "You! Human male! You have a cute nose!" ... though that latter one was probably said in jest. Human male noses look like they've been hit with a shovel. Many times.So... are there any male characters in the game which actually appeal to the ladies somewhat? If not the whole model, perhaps some parts of it? The tree-trunk sized wrists, perhaps? Or the barn-sized shoulders? How about the permanent frowns and rugged scowls men wear all the time? Anything at all?
