blood-elves
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Samwise's holiday wallpaper available now
As usual, Blizzard artist Samwise has presented us with a holiday-themed wallpaper, and here it is on Blizzard's site (you can use the links at the bottom to choose different sizes obviously). Just like the art in years past, the pic tends a little more cutesy than most Warcraft-themed creations, but hey, it's the holidays-- drink some cocoa and melt that frozen, war-torn heart of yours.And this also tells us what we originally suspected about the Blood Elves joining the Horde-- not only did players enjoy playing a "good-looking race," but it looks like the little Horde ladies did as well.
Tuar Annwn's Date Auction on Moon Guard this Saturday
Here's something different-- RP guild Tuar Annwn is going to host a "date auction" this Saturday on the Moon Guard server, to raise money for their Winter Ball being held next month. They say it's going to go down near the North Sanctum in Eversong Woods on the 15th at 9pm server, but they don't exactly say how it's going to go down-- gold, it seems, will be paid, but what exactly does a "date" entail? A romantic trip to the Hinterlands? An evening walk through the magical city of Silvermoon? Dinner and a Deadmines run?Looks like it'll be fun no matter what happens. Also of note is that apparently only women are being auctioned off (fine with me, but rich people of all sexes might want something to spend their gold on), and as far as I can tell, there's no guarantee that the woman you "buy" is actually a woman out of game-- ah, the magic of roleplaying. Of course, for the Blood Elves, it may not matter-- Mortarian contributes this gem of a comment: "Most of Silvermoon City probably thinks that monogamy is a type of wood." Funny.Should be an interesting event. As always, if you go, take pictures and send them to us. We always enjoy seeing interesting player-run events around the realms.[Via WoW LJ]
Grading the Horde mounts
Reader Justin sent along this witty little guide he wrote rating the Horde starting mounts in the game. From skeletal horse to the Chocobo hawkstrider, he slaps a letter grade on each mount. And although he doesn't actually ever list his criteria for grading (coolness? looks? rideability?), he does come up with some interesting ratings.The winner? The skeletal horse comes out on top, with a grade of A-, while at dead last is actually my personal favorite, the hawkstrider (although I like the horse, too). He says the Chocobo is "only cool to 4-year-old girls and seriously deluded 17-year-old anime fans," but hey, I'm neither, and I rolled not one but two Blood Elves just to ride one. Then again, he also rates the raptor below the kodo and the wolf, so there's obviously no accounting for taste.What do you all think? I know from experience that most of you don't like the hawkstrider (that just means my tastes are exclusive), but does the kodo deserve such a high spot on the list? And if we made an Alliance list of mounts like this (and graded them on the three criteria I listed above), what would come out on top? I'm guessing you lot would like Night Elf cats a lot more than my personal favorite, the mechanostrider. But beauty, as they say, is in the eye of the Broggok.Update: I made a mistake-- I thought these were listed in order of rating. As our wonderful commenters point out (thanks for catching this, guys, you're the best), the ratings are as follows:Undead Horse: A-Troll Raptor: B+Orc Wolf: BTauren Kodo: C-Blood Elf Hawkstrider: FSo the raptor does beat the wolf and the kodo on this list. My fault completely.
Idealizing avatar bodies
There is an impressive and fascinating study on avatar bodies from World of Warcraft over at the Iris Gaming Network. The main thrust of the article is how much the average avatar skews toward traditional tropes of beauty, even (or especially) the non-human races. This addresses a couple of the issues I wrote about in this post -- namely, the lack of a wide range of body shape choices other than heroic.The article mentions the controversy surrounding the introduction of the males of the Blood Elf race, and how Blizzard changed them from their original thin forms to a more muscled shape, and how the community reacted. A great quote from the piece: "From a player's point of view, Blizzard has denied many people the ability to play a character like them, or a character they would like to be. The extreme sexual dimorphism in the races, and the way that Blizzard is quick to "fix" avatars that do not properly fit the ideal, has sent the message to those outside of that body type – not just women, but men as well – that they are not worthy of being represented, that their body types are not good enough for even one avatar in the entire game to represent them."Have a read of the entire article, and post your thoughts.[Via Iris Gaming Network]
Honoring a Hero quest bugged for BC races
While doing my morning surf, I stumbled across some good-to-know news from the WoW LJ community. In this post by Platonic, she points out that the quest Honoring a Hero for the Harvest Festival is currently bugged for both the Blood Elves and Draenei. She also spotlights something else I thought was funny -- GMs apparently have telepathic pie powers! As the Harvest Festival just started today on live realms, I'm sure the reports of this problem has already reached the developer's ears and they're undoubtedly working on a fix for it. As always, as soon as we hear any news, we'll be sure to let you know. For now, looks like the Draenei and Blood Elves will just have to content themselves with some free festival food and drink to take away with them. (After all, free food and drink means Mages get a break, and the rest of us get to save some gold!)
The Light and How to Swing It: The great divide
Once upon a time, there was a class called the paladin. Paladins were mostly humans, with a couple of dwarves thrown in for good measure. They could heal or do damage depending on what gear they wore (effective paladin tanking was a long way away.) They fought their way through the nerfs and the buffs, raiding from UBRS to Naxx, PVPing in battlegrounds and Hillsbrad, but through it all, they always had two things in common: hatred of the Horde and reverence for the Light. Then, one winter, some new long-eared paladins began showing up. Their women were skinny, their men had funny hair, and they seemed to jump an awful lot. What's worse, they worked for the filthy Horde, and instead of revering the Light, they twisted its power for their own dark ends. Soon, many of new paladins began showing up on the paladin forums with a mindset that was radical to the old pallies. They hadn't become paladins to swing hammers like Uther, the new pallies said. Instead, they had watched how paladins worked for Alliance for two years, and had rolled them for their strong healing power and nascent tanking ability. They called the old, damage-dealing paladins "retnoobs" and "retardins." The Alliance paladins grew to hate the young, know-it-all upstarts, while the Horde paladins considered their compatriots hopelessly stuck in what they WANTED paladins to be, rather than what they were. And there we have things today. But it's the same class, right? Is there really that big a difference between blood elf paladins and Alliance paladins? Why all the fighting? I can think of a few reasons.
WoW Moviewatch: So that's where that dance came from!
We've all seen the videos of different dances. We've had ones where they all dance together, ones where the original source is cited. We've even seen video of a guy dancing like a Night Elf Female. Now we have another dance movie. There's one thing about this one that sets it apart, however. This is the first one I've seen that does a really good job of putting the dances side-by-side with their inspirations. As Bowzerblack on the WoW LJ said: "I didn't know that about ogres!" All I can say is that I didn't either. And yes, I know it's the Boomkin dance too, but you don't see a lot of (completely-bare) topless Boomkins running about. Which, now that I think about it, is probably a good thing.Previously, on MovieWatch...[via the WoW LJ community]
Then and Now: Pretty addicts & space squids
Flash back to six months ago. There were people swearing up and down that the Blood Elves would ruin the Horde with their silly antics and their overly-pretty looks. Many on the Horde side had misgivings that we'd be dealing with a slew of switchers who were just rolling Horde to play pretty characters, but otherwise would bring little to the table. I remember seeing forum postings saying that Blood Elves would be outcast and unwelcome, and even a couple of "boycotts." Many other people were complaining about the "space shaman" that the Alliance were getting. Well, okay, most of the complaints were about the male models -- I don't think anyone on the Alliance side disliked the female Draenei models. Then of course, there were those who were just as unhappy with the changes to the Blood Elf models made towards the tail end of the open beta and swore they wouldn't roll one due to the larger chest.Flash forward to now. My guild has one Blood Elf paladin who is approaching endgame: an old guild mate who re-rolled. We also have a host of Blood Elf alts in various stages of being run up through the ranks. None of us are even batting an eyelash at any of them. There again, none of these are new players to the guild, so we aren't dealing with any potential switchers. Another of my guild mates is doing the faction grind to get her undead a chocobo... err... thunder chicken... whatever those things are. The forums are no longer ablaze with "Blood Elves suck!" or "Just say no to space squid!"I know for me, despite misgivings, the Blood Elves have largely been a blip on my personal radar. I have a Blood Elf hunter (stereotypical, had to do it) who is all of level 19, and has been collecting dust for some time now. I saw the content and experienced most of the new quests, which was pretty much what I set out to do. None of it has made me want to level a Blood Elf to endgame to take the place of my Troll/Tauren/Undead characters. And that's even including the Blood Elves having some extremely awesome racials that I'm sure will eventually make me level one. Have the Draenei or Blood Elves totally changed your gaming landscape? Have you noticed a lot of faction switching, or did you switch to the other side yourself? Did people really boycott, or were prejudices eventually left behind? For those of you who rerolled or switched, have you been treated any differently?Just curious, since there was so much fire and vitriol about the new races before Burning Crusade went live.[many thanks to Sean]
A look at Blizzard's stats, post-Burning Crusade
Last November, Blizzard finally made public a page full of stats for what's happening to all of us in game-- the most dangerous creatures, most gathered items, most completed quests, and so on. Ever since, I always find it fascinating to stop over there and see what's new, but today I realized that I haven't really seen it since Burning Crusade dropped. So let's take a look at what players are up to since the Dark Portal opened, shall we?Netherweave has jumped right to the top of listings in the Auction House, while Arcade Dust makes a nice showing at 7th. Of the Primal elements, only Earth is on the first page (most likely because it's the most farmed from all those Earth Elementals in Nagrand). It also comes from Mining, so it makes a good showing on the Most Gathered Items as well-- Copper leads that category by double everything else, though, most likely because of all the jewelcrafting going on. In fact, while Soul Shards are still number one, Copper Bars are the second Most Created Items in the realms, too. Interesting that you have to go to page 3 before you see a jewelcrafting item, though-- two sets of battleground tokens (Arathi Basin and WSG) are being made more than any Delicate Copper Wire.Warlock pets remain on the top of the Most Dangerous NPC list, but King Bangalash and those nasty Defias Pillagers have company-- apparently people are back playing their mains, and raid bosses like Shade of Aran, Gruul, Nightbane, and the Maiden are killing players by the thousands. The Most Complete Quests screen has interesting info, too-- almost all of the quests are newbie Blood Elf quests (there is at least one Draenei newbie quest mixed in, but BEs have the clear majority). You'd think people would be completing quests in Outland to level, but three months after BC release, maybe that's not the case anymore. According to the stats, it seems like the large majority of players has gotten their mains to 70, are raiding Kara and Gruul, and leveling up their Blood Elf mains.
Know Your Lore: Kael'thas Sunstrider
The second fellow in this week's Know Your Lore is one of the most influential figures in the Burning Crusade expansion. An entire zone, Netherstorm, is twisted around his plans and his personality. The blood elves practically worship him as a god and the draenei see him as their most bitter foe. And yet, no one knows quite what he's up to in his suspiciously pink floating ship. So quick, before someone kills him, meet ... Who: Prince Kael'thas Sunstrider. What: Blood elf. Yes! Finally! Someone who has stayed one race without being turned into a fish/corrupted by demons/etc.! History: Kael'thas Sunstrider is the last of a dynasty of high elf kings that date back to Dath'Remar Sunstrider, the old leader of the Highborne. As a young man, he studied magic in Dalaran and became an accomplished mage. While in Dalaran, he met a human mage named Jaina Proudmoore and fell for her, even though she was a teenager and he was an ... immortal-type guy, so probably pretty old. But she decided that her studies were more important, and didn't respond when he courted her. Then Jaina started seeing Prince Arthas, and Kael'thas was devastated. Wow, Jaina kind of got around. I guess that's what comes from being one of the few female characters in an RPG. She's single now, though, unless you believe those rumors about her and Thrall. Anyway, Kael was studying in Dalaran when Arthas went nutzo. Arthas marched his army of undead into Quel'Thalas and defiled the Sunwell, killing many blood elves and sickening more. Kael's father was among the dead. He hastened back to Quel'Thalas from Dalaran and took command of the remaining high elves. The bitter Kael renamed them the Sin'dorei, or blood elves, in honor of the dead. He and his troops joined the Alliance to fight against the Scourge.
The Burning Crusade -- you vs. your guild
New races, new (to your chosen faction) classes, 10 more levels. That's the short-form of what The Burning Crusade is going to deliver to us, come January 16th. Many guilds are focusing on the push to 70 and refining strategies for 25-man raiding. Many players are understandably eager to try out the new races and classes available to their chosen faction. Can these two goals mesh, or are we going to see a shift in the player-guild dynamic? My earliest guild wasn't started to beat endgame content. It was there for a group of people who enjoyed playing in each other's company and so that these people would have an easily accessible pool of resources for leveling and grinding up to 60. When we hit 60, the usual drama set in, as not everyone hit the level cap at the same time. Some people got bored or frustrated with the lack of progression at 60 and went off to look for raiding guilds. Others were happy just hanging out with friends, and still others were a bit upset that they were left behind and were feeling pressured to level to 60 so the guild could progress together. Now that the expansion is going to be upon us, I see the potential for the same type of splits amongst guild memberships. Some are going to want to power level to 70 to get back on the raiding wagon, while others will start fresh new characters that they hope to one day get to level 70. Then there are those people who want to savor the new content and while do a bit of leveling and a bit of playing around with the new low-level content.
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Adventures in Beta: Blood Elf Paladin, Level 1-5
Having successfully leveling my draenei shaman to 6 without breaking the beta, I decided to skip over to the other server and check out how my beloved Horde are handling their new blood elf pals. Since I had made a draenei shaman, I decided on a horde paladin -- though not without trepidation, because I might want to play one in live someday. Unfortunately, most of the blood elf faces and hairstyles scream "I would have made fun of you for playing World of Warcraft in high school!" I finally made a kind-faced, black-haired paladin and entered the new starting area. It was just as I feared. Although the blood elf area was beautiful, it was also filled with dancing, flirting Paris Hilton clones. It struck me that unlike the draenei, the blood elves were clearly a well-organized society. Their area is clean and beautiful, and whereas with the draenei you're a survivor and one of the few that can save the race, with the blood elves, you're ... just another blood elf.
Blizz bulks up beta build Blood Elves
When the Blood Elves were first released, it was pretty clear that Blizzard was trying to give the Horde a "pretty" race. Not that they need it (Horde FTW), but one reason for the imbalances on some servers between Horde and Alliance populations is the lack of a race on Horde side that can not only kill stuff fast, but look good doing it. Yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but it's true that the Blood Elves were the first Horde race to, err, look a little less than rugged. I wouldn't say this myself, but some fans even called the coming of the Blood Elves "the Flaming Crusade."Blizzard has apparently put a stop to that. In the latest build of the beta, which WoW Guru says is Build 5866, the Blood Elves have been bulked up (males are the only shots we have, but the difference is clear). The males are no longer wiry ballet dancers-- they're not quite as bulky as, say, Orcs, but they've got a little more heft to them.Of course, given the "beholder" thing, fans are split (aren't they always?). A large number of players aren't real thrilled with the loss of the leaner, meaner Blood Elves-- not only did the thinner frame give them more of the "evil magic" look (I'm sure the voiceovers helped with this as well), but apparently some female players think the bulky Blood Elves look less--let me make sure I get this right-- "sexy." Some ladies even say the change represents a lack of female artists in the Blizzard ranks.Now, it is important to remember that the Burning Crusade is still changing, so this might not be the final form of the Belfs. But they sure do look... different. I'll leave it up to you: good different or bad different? Two more comparison shots, courtesy of Ephraim on the forums, after the jump.
First steps into the Burning Crusade beta
Yesterday, I rolled a blood elf. I didn't exactly plan to, but what else is one supposed to do while waiting for high-level characters to transfer? And besides, they're so pretty.I found myself alone -- but for fifty paladins -- on Sunstrider Isle, armed with nothing but a dagger and some lurid green clothes. For the first time in months, I didn't know what to do next -- and I liked it.
Breakfast Topic: Favorite New Mount?
The title says it all. We now know what the new mounts are for the Draenei and Blood Elves, so what's your favorite? While we don't have screenshots of either yet, we know that the Draenei will be riding the elephant-like elekk, and the Blood Elves will be riding on cockatrices. While a number of posters seem to think that a cockatrice is some sort of chicken (I've also seen comparisons to Final Fantasy's Chocobo), but the half-bird, half-lizard has the chance to look awfully interesting. Of course, there could be a lot of differences between our perception of these creatures and Blizzard's perception of these creatures. But I'm personally looking forward to a gnome riding an elephant...
Rob Pardo on The Burning Crusade
Computerandvideogames.com has posted an interview with Blizzard VP Rob Pardo in which he discusses the eagerly-awaited Burning Crusade expansion pack. Aside from the usual questions (What's the new level cap? What about the new races?, etc.), Pardo also gives some insight into his background as a game tester, and offers his opinion on WoW's economy spilling over into the real world with players buying & selling items for real cash (he doesn't like it).No earth-shattering revelations here, but the most exciting bit of information in my book is Pardo's claim that PvP will be expanded in Burning Crusade to include the much-rumored contested PvP zones, which will allow the controlling faction access to new flight paths & more. Great news for those of us who shun the battlegrounds, and long for a return to the days of world-PvP. You can read the full interview right here.
Burning Crusade Updates
There are several new tidbits of information regarding the Burning Crusade today. The bestiary and screenshots sections have both been updated with some new images, as well as official word on the racial abilities for the Draenei and Blood Elves (though they may still be tweaked in the future). Keep reading for the official racial abilities.
Breakfast Topic: New Races
As we all know, the upcoming Burning Crusade expansion will include two new races - the Blood Elves and the Draenei. For me, the thought of a new race to try out has reinvigorated interest in the game. After having played around with nearly every class and race combination at least a little, the thought of something new is exciting, and I'm already planning out what I'd like to play. Is everyone else equally eager to have a chance to play with the new races, or is there something else you're looking forward to seeing in the expansion?
Expansion Map Previews
It looks like some enterprising soul managed to snap a couple of pics at E3 of some maps that are supposedly of the new Blood Elf & Draenei starting areas. MapWoW.com has posted the images on their site for the interested to check out; you can see them right here.The Draenei area is called Azuremist Isle, in Amman Vale. The Blood Elf area does not identify itself on the given image, so the name is still a mystery as of now. I vote for Bloodelphia...
WoW Moviewatch: Napolean Blood Elf
Well, we knew someone would do it sooner or later. Now with added soundtrack music & jealous spectators, the new & improved Blood Elf dance!
