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Old raids for new raiders
Rog on MMOROG has an interesting discussion of World of Warcraft's old raid content. Some of the original Azeroth raid content has excellent encounters and interesting story-lines, but adding another ten levels to the game hasn't made them any more accessible to more casual players. "But Elizabeth," I hear you say, "I'm level 70 now! Surely Ragnaros, in his puny level 60 dungeon, holds no real challenge!" But that, dear readers, is where you go wrong, because raid bosses do not have set levels -- all of them have a skull displayed where their level should be, which means that their level is 3 levels above the highest level player in the instance, and that no matter how many levels are added to the game, they'll always be tough fights. While this adds some sense of realism to the world (from a lore point of view, Nefarian, son of Deathwing, should never be soloable, duoable, or even 5-man-able -- though his smaller sister Onyxia is getting there), it also means that more casual players will never be able to check out some of the game's coolest content. Any above-your-level boss requires some decent +hit gear for you to be able to touch them, and if you're geared out well enough to tumble with level 73 monsters, why not just do existing raid content?From my perspective, the old Azeroth raid content was great fun and should be as accessible to players as possible. It's not like a level 70, even wearing only quest rewards and green drops, is going to be getting any gear upgrades from Molten Core or Blackwing Lair, so why not let them have the chance to experience the content for fun?
A sacrifice for the victory!
Xalit has a good question in the WoW LJ: which boss do you always die on? Being a Shaman, I'm pretty good at not dying (in boss fights where we don't wipe, at least)-- I'm far enough away from the battle to avoid crazy AoE, and the fact that I don't top either the heal or the DPS meters means I'm pretty far down on the aggro lists.But even more common than me dying every battle is our main healer. He always seems to bite the dust during a battle, whether we win or wipe-- even on a trash fight, he's usually the first to go. And our guildleader, a DPS Mage, was the butt of a joke for a while in the guild-- we laughed that he had to die for us to beat the boss. If he didn't die, the boss didn't get the sacrifice he needed, and we didn't get the loot.I don't know that it ever got to the point where we were actually killing him during the fight just to make sure a down happened, but I'm sure it was joked about. Are there any fights you've been to where, even with a victory, someone just can't stay alive for some reason?
Two Bosses Enter: Instructor Razuvious vs. Ragnaros
Two bosses enter... but only one of them will get to leave in our series of fantasy deathmatches. Here at WoW Insider we're pitting some of the game's most fascinating bosses against each other until we come up with a final victor in the end. And the best part? Every week, you get to decide who wins.This week we're going to consider a fight between Instructor Razuvious in Naxxramas and Ragnaros in Molten Core. Who will win and who will lose? Read up on the abilities of each and then let us know what you think!
Two Bosses Enter: The Four Horsemen vs. The Twin Emperors
Two bosses enter... but only one of them will get to leave in WoW Insider's own series of fantasy deathmatches. We've made a list of 32 of the the most dangerous and the most interesting bosses within the World of Warcraft and now we're pitting them against each other one at a time. In the end, we'll wind up with a single winner to claim victory over all others. And the best part? You get to decide who wins -- your vote tells us who wins and loses each round.Today's matchup pits The Four Horsemen from Naxxramas against the Twin Emperors from Ahn'Qiraj -- while this does make it a two on one, I don't think anyone can argue that it's not a fair fight. Want to learn a little more about these bosses -- and have your chance to voice an opinion about which one might come out on top in a fight? Read on!
One Boss Leaves: Jin'do vs. Moam wrap-up
The battle between Jin'do and Moam was our most closely contested battle to date -- with Moam emerging victorious by only a slim margin. You decided Moam would come out on top in this fight by a mere 26 votes! Your comments suggested that Jin'do's totems would be a challenge -- but that Moam's mana drains would overcome them in the end. So one fight is over -- but stay tuned, because our next fight is coming soon! (And for those of you keeping score at home, here are our current standings: though be warned, they can still be shuffled around.)
The ridable flightless bird boss
Attention mount collectors! In the process of completing the quests involved in acquiring his or her Swift flight form, any dedicated druid friend of yours will get an item that allows access to a special boss, called Anzu, the Raven God. It behooves you to make this druid like you very very much, and take you to fight this Raven God many many times. Rarely, this boss will drop a very very special mount: itself. That's right! One of the items a lucky few will be able to loot from this dead bird's corpse is the dead bird itself, raised to life as a ridable mount. This may be the only item in the game where you can summon a boss and ride around on him to your hearts content, and look pretty spiffy while you're at it, too. The only odd thing about this bird is that it can't fly; this is a land mount only. At least it doesn't look anything like a penguin. If one wants a real flying raven mount, the only option is to level a night elf druid up and learn how to shapeshift into a raven form. But in the meantime for all other classes (as well as greedy druids who want this mount to go with the theme of their Flight Form), this is the next best thing, or even better, depending on your point of view. This is the indisputable number one top right answer for today's breakfast topic, "Neatest Land Mount." Discuss.
Essence of Souls killed by Nihilum (world first)
Nihilum is really on fire these days. Fresh from seven world firsts in the past week or so, they have now achieved the world-first kill (on the live realms, anyway) of the Essence of Souls, a Black Temple boss. No details have emerged about the fight that I've been able to dredge up, although WoWWiki speculates that the boss has a different phase for each of its three different faces.In their comments thread, Nihilum deem the Essence of Souls "the hardest encounter we've met so far in WoW, ever" and "likely the hardest and most intense encounter in the history of world of warcraft," so my guess is it was probably pretty hard. Congrats! And in an unusual turn of events, they actually got their loot upon killing the boss: MMO-Champion has this boss's full loot table, thanks to PTR kills.
Japanese hardware sales, May. 7 - May 13: Office Space edition
David: Hey, Jason, yeahhhh, I'm gonna need you to get on those JHS reports ... did you see the memo?Jason: Uh, yeah, I saw it. Thanks, Dave.David: Good, good. I'll let you get to it, then.(Jason sighs, and begins to type frantically.)Alisha: Heyyyyy, Jason, did you see the mem--Jason: For the love of God, yes. I'm on it.Alisha: No need to snap, Jason. Sounds like someone has a case of the Fridays.(Jason mumbles as Alisha walks away. JC and Eric approach.)JC: I can't believe it. I told those fudgepackers I liked JC's music. Me! I've never despised any form of sensory input as I do those songs.
Method Man and Vashj
As a society we are not always interested in seconds. We prefer firsts, the first man to walk on the moon, the first man to swim the English Channel, heck even the first woman got plenty of notice in her day. And yes, Nihilum did managed to down Lady Vashj first, but I have been following the story of the second guild to kill the snake-headed wench, and I am happy to report their day has finally come. For those of you not obsessed with minutia the way I am, the guild Method from the Sylvanas (EU) realm killed Lady Vashj on May 5th. Something happened though that makes this kill more interesting than just any old world 2nd. The encounter bugged out and the guild, after all their hard work, lost the chance at looting the corpse. That's right folks, imagine watching Lady Vashj's corpse despawn in front of your very eyes. I know I would cry wet, salty tears. Naturally members of the guild contacted a GM, but to no avail. It was a whole day before the guild finally got resolution. They did get a mail message though that told them that their loot would indeed be delivered. World of Raids says Method received a Krakken-Heart Breastplate and Gauntlets of the Crestfall amongst other things. Congrats to them for getting their just rewards. If you're interested in learning more details about the fight, Method will be interviewed by WoW Radio on May 13th at 12:30 EST. I'm sure they'll have some fascinating insights. [via World of Raids]
Nihilum gets Vashj to 3%
Superstar guild Nihilum (H-Magtheridon-EU) has apparently gotten Lady Vashj, the final boss of Serpentshrine Cavern and Illidan fangirl extaordinaire, down to 3%. This means the world first kill is probably not far off. In the grand tradition of end bosses for large raids, this follows after a hotfix nerf to Vashj a week or so ago; Ragnaros, Nefarian, C'thun, and Kel'Thuzad (I think; not quite positive on KT) were all nerfed before they were first defeated.Being as how nobody's ever killed her before, we don't really know much of what she might drop (other than probably T5 tokens like the rest of SSC and the Eye). But we do know one item: the Fang of Vashj, a one-handed (i.e. not restricted to main or off-hand) dagger with the following stats: "92.8 DPS, 133-201 damage, 1.8 attack speed, increases attack power by 50 and increases dagger skill by 14." We know this item exists because it's listed in the official Bradygames strategy guide, although besides its name we have no actual confirmation that it will drop from Vashj. If those stats are accurate, it would be the highest DPS one-handed weapon in the game, aside from the epic weaponsmithing weapons (Blazefury, Dragonstrike, and Wicked Edge of the Plains).[via MMO-Champion]
Happy Snake Man theme music day
The Mega Man series is known for its excellent music, but one theme from the series stands above its contemporaries. This masterful work of digital audio art sits alone and exalted as the finest of the fine, as the Hope Diamond might sit among a pile of lesser gems. The true beauty and nuance of this piece is remembered but once a year, today, on Snake Man theme music day, a new holiday that continues in the tradition of game music days past. Come celebrate with us, won't you?
B.O.S.S. shopping cart follows you around
If you're scouting out colleges to showcase your robot crafting skills, make sure the University of Florida is given some very strong consideration. Fresh off of a second straight victory at the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition, the kids in Gainesville are flaunting another robotic creation that can make shopping a lot easier (and a lot safer). Gregory Garcia, a graduate student in mechanical engineering, developed a shopping cart that not only follows you around the store, but keeps a steady pace while cruising and throws on the brakes before clipping someone's heels. Garcia got the inspiration for the B.O.S.S. (Battery Operated Smart Servant) from his (presumably mischievous) little sister, who enjoyed ramming into his legs as a child while manning the buggy. A number of sensors aid the cart's maneuvering techniques, including a color sensor which allows the shopper to hold a piece of fabric behind them for the B.O.S.S. to keep track of -- it apparently accelerates and decelerates based on the speed and distance of the fabric ahead, and Garcia made quite certain that the shopping cart could stop on a dime in order to prevent those awkward heel injuries. While we're not sure how the cart would perform during the madness of holiday shopping, especially if it tried to follow every white (or green, or red) article of clothing around, but we're sure Gregory had a grand 'ole time finally showing that heel-biting cart who's boss.
BOSS crams USB, SD and Bluetooth into a car stereo
We've seen all of these fancy add-ons like USB, SD and Bluetooth show up in all sorts of separate car stereos, but BOSS is the first we've seen to get up the chutzpah to throw them all into one stereo for the ultimate in nerdy in-dash entertainment. Thanks to our complete inability to read Korean, we're not really sure what these stereos, the 638B and P255B, do beyond the obvious, but the pretty pictures tell us that you can plug your USB phone in for charging and possibly other functionality, and that there is iPod functionality of some sort. Sounds good to us, now all we need is a car and we're set.
Breakfast Topic: Certain death
I think I have an addiction to dying. Especially on characters I don't really care about. I was recently playing on the test servers and decided to run my orc all the way to Stormwind (not so bad with an epic mount!), just to see how far I could get. Mage District, in case anyone's interested.A week later, I was passing some time fishing in pleasant solitude -- just me and the rod -- when an orc ran past me. Again, this was in Stormwind, but this time I was playing as Alliance. I admired his guts, but then moonfired him to death after a guard had softened him up a little. It's karma.Ever since these oddly similar orc incidents, I've tried to get my alts into strange and dubious places to die. Jumping off tall rocks -- check. Seeing how many fast-running mobs I could kite before they overwhelmed me -- check. PvP flagging in Hillsbrad -- check. The unnerving thing is that the deaths of all my alts combined are outweighed by the deaths of my main character -- PvP and raiding on a new boss all combine to make so much mincemeat of me. Have you an addiction to death? Do you enjoy death, see it as an inconvenience, or try to avoid it altogether? Are you attached to the happy smiling face of your wisp or ghost more than your flesh-and-blood character?
