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Proudmoore server hits Phase 4 first
Scant hours after the false alarms from the Burning Legion and Area 52 servers, it looks like we have a true winner in the race to Phase 4 of the Shattered Sun Offensive on the Isle of Queldanas. Continuing their streak, the Proudmoore Server activated phase 4 early this morning. Currently, it looks like they're the only ones legitimately at Phase 4, with Cenarius 2nd with 86% accord to us.gorgonnash.info. Congratulations to Proudmoore on continuing your streak. Be sure to check out our Phase 4 daily guides for all the information you'll need to finish strong. The rest of you, check out our Phase 2 and Phase 3 daily guides to get the edge you need to power up to Phase 4 yourself. %Gallery-19980%
All the World's a Stage: Writing what you know
All the World's a Stage is a source for roleplaying ideas, commentary, and discussions. It is published every Sunday evening.Many people don't realize it, but every time you put your fingers to the keyboard to spell out some words, that's the same writing skill that authors and poets take years and years to practice and master. Of course there's a big difference between a simple text message and an epic fantasy novel, but any form of writing shares many of the same the fundamental skills - skills which one must then adapt to suit the particular medium you are using to communicate.As a roleplayer, in particular, one can benefit a great deal from many of the basic principles any writer uses when putting their ideas down on paper, especially principles of good communication within a storytelling medium.Today, we'll explore a particular aspect of the writing craft as applied in roleplaying: Writing what you know vs. writing what seems cool.
Are we the bad guys of Azeroth?
After publishing a recent Breakfast Topic on whether there should be a sense of personal honor in PvP, I wasn't really all that surprised to see a few comments echoing the sentiments of "If it's red, it's dead" and "Don't roll on a PvP server if you don't want to get ganked." These crop up in any discussion about PvP, and while there's an undeniable sense to them -- why would you roll on a PvP realm unless you wanted to, I dunno, PvP? -- I've always felt that they did actual PvP a disservice. You can't frame ganking as true PvP. There's no such thing as strategy, skill, or even combat when a player one-shots another, so I've never considered ganking to be defensible along the same lines that actual PvP is.
Know Your Lore: The Scythe of Elune
In today's Know Your Lore, we're going to take a look at something that has been requested by a few readers(and a blogger). It's not a very well known topic, it comes from a quest line tucked away in the far corners of Ashenvale that sends you running all over the world as if you had absolutely nothing better to do with your time, much like any other quest line in Kalimdor. Regardless of the annoyance of the quest line, it is probably one of the more intriguing side stories in the Warcraft universe.It begins shortly after the destruction of the World Tree. Archimonde was gone, but a great number of demons remained. Like the Scourge, the Legion doesn't simply stop when you tear the head from the beast. Priestess and Sentinel Velinde Starsong was the Night Elf in charge of leading the forces of the Kaldorei in these regions, assaulting the Legion and pushing them back as far as they could. This held up well for quite some time, pushing the demonic hordes as far back as the borders of Felwood. Unfortunately, the Night Elves were only level 20-something at that point, and the mobs in Felwood are like level 50, so things stopped going so well.In all seriousness, the Kaldoreian advance was slowing more and more as they pressed into Felwood, their numbers being utterly decimated. Velinde grew desperate as so many of the Night Elves fell to the Legion, and called out to her final hope: The goddess Elune. She begged the goddess for strength and power, the ability to avenge her fallen comrades.
Kil'jaeden makes first appearance in screenshot?
Boubouille from MMO-Champion has recently posted this "leaked" screenshot of Kil'jaeden in-game. According to the sender, this shot of Sunwell Plateau's final boss was leaked from a GM."Keep in mind that it could be a fake, it's not "that" hard to get the 2.4 running on an emulated server and spawn Kil'jaeden, in this case his scale on live servers could be different," warns Boubouille.Kil'jaeden the Deceiver, as we all know, is the eredar Supreme Commander of the Burning Legion, perhaps only second to Sargeras in the badass pecking order. With his appearance in-game and a chance for 25 intrepid mortals to "take him down", the lore implications are interesting. Granted, we only get to deal with "half" of him (the rest of him is submerged in the Sunwell), but lore-inclined raiders will certainly be itching to take a shot at him, at least until Arthas/Ner'Zhul/the Lich King makes an appearance in WoTLK.I'm not certain of the authenticity of the screenshot myself, but Killie definitely looks constipated and evil enough here to be the real deal.
Does Kil'jaedan's defeat animation hint at further lore?
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/New_boss_mob_death_animation_movie_pulled_from_WoW_files'; Tipster Kronack sent us a link to this video, which shows the Sunwell Plateau's final boss, Kil'jaedan. The animations look to be his initial summoning and his final defeat. I'm pretty impressed by how awesome he looks, but what really intrigues me is what these animations could reveal about the lore behind the encounter - and what follows it. We still don't know much about the Kil'jaedan encounter, since Blizzard is mostly focusing testing on the Eredar Twins these days -- when the dungeon is even activated -- so most of what we have for now is speculation. That said, there's still some pretty good things I can see in these animations. Anyway, I'll be using Black Temple and Sunwell Plateau lore spoilers to explain what I think, so If you don't mind that and want to speculate along with me, please, do join me after the jump.
Know Your Lore: Oshu'gun
Oshu'gun, the largest known diamond in the universe, means many things to many people. To the ethereals of the Consortium, Oshu'gun means profit. To the Orcs of old, it was holy ground. To the Draenei and the Naaru, Oshu'gun is a transdimensional spaceship that was used to save a dying race from their doomed homeworld which had been overrun by demons. Sweet.We all know, or should know, the story of the Draenei by now. It's been beaten into our heads in many different ways in the World of Warcraft. If you don't know the story, let me sum it up for you: About 25,000 years ago, Velen, Archimonde, and Kil'jaeden were the top cats of a race called the Eredar. Sargeras approached them with promises of power and whatever else, with a hidden malicious intent. Archimonde and Kil'jaeden jumped on it, but Velen, being a prophet, had bad feelings about the arrangement. He and those loyal to him avoided falling into the grasp of the Destroyer of Worlds until a savior(...sort of) in the form of K'ure came along. K'ure explained the nature of the Naaru to the Prophet, and Velen gathered the Eredar loyal to him. They loaded up into a ship(later named Oshu'gun by the orcs) and escaped Argus, taking the name "draenei" meaning "exiled ones" in the language of the Eredar.They rocketed around space for awhile, all was good. Then they crashed on some random planet. That's okay though, it was a pretty cool planet so they decided to name it after themselves. They named it 'Draenor' which translates to "Exile's Refuge." It beats me how 'or' means 'refuge' but who am I to question galactic fantasy languages? When Oshu'gun crashed, the Naaru that dwelled within and powered the vessel were severely damaged or outright killed. K'ure was severely wounded and still dwells within the vessel, sitting on the brink between life and death. D'ore, the other Naaru involved in the crash, died on impact. He was relocated to the area now known as Auchindoun and buried there, the first to be buried in the area later known as the Auchenai Crypts.
Know Your Lore: Sargeras
Hard to believe that this friendly soul over to the right stabbing what appears to be an entire planet was once not just a good guy, but indeed, the goodest of the good guys, huh? (Goodest of the good guys? What, am I a drunken five year old all of a sudden? Sheesh, that's just horrible.) But it's true: the ultimate big bad guy in the Warcraft Universe, the ultimate evil, the guy who comes up with plans that involve possessing babies was once the champion of the Titans themselves, before he started stabbing planets and possessing babies.I guess there's no evil, be it big or small, that Sargeras won't engage in personally. He's a real hands on villain.So what's the deal with Sargeras, exactly? How did he go bad? Why did he assemble the Burning Legion in the first place? And what's he up to nowadays? With the Legion running around being killed for loot and Marks of Sargeras in Outland (seriously, what is the big plan for Outland, exactly? So far all the Legion seems to be doing is being mad at Illidan because he promised to be Kil'Jaeden's BFF and then went back on it. Did they pinky swear? I bet they pinky swore. That seems like the kind of thing Kil'Jaeden would do) you'd think ol' Sargy would be in the thick of it, but instead his sidekicks are running the show and he's nowhere to be found. Why?It doesn't help that some of Sargeras' history has changed in the telling. (Hey, I like the Draenei a lot, but you guys really changed the lore around.)Well, you may have a hard time believing this, but it turns out that his whole baby possession scheme wasn't such a good idea after all. I know, I know, how could picking on an infant have gone so horribly wrong? But rather than dwelling on that, why don't we start talking about Sargeras' early days.
Know Your Lore: The Titans
Well, now that Elizabeth has given me her deceptively large shoes to fill, I must step up to the bat and deliver a KYL. The injunction against egg throwing is in full effect.Since Elizabeth is working on the dragons, I decided to talk about everyone's favorite life-making, ruin-scattering, not-gods-but-capable-of-killing-them meddlers, the gals and guys who created the Dragon Aspects, gave the Old Gods a whupping, banished the rowdier elementals to the elemental plane where they could get their brawl on with each other and leave Azeroth alone and who kinda, sorta let Sargeras go nuts and wander the cosmos corrupting and destroying everything in his path. Oops. Yes, I'm talking about the Titans, who I'm sure would hasten to remind you that batting .750 is a damn fine average.For folks who like to just show up on a planet and fix it up so that mortals, like every single person playing the game, can live on it, we don't know a heck of a lot about the Titans. Where are they from? Why do they travel the cosmos, straightening up the place? Are they stricken with a case of OCD or is there some purpose to their pursuit of order? The Titans themselves aren't telling and if anyone else knows, they haven't shared yet. But we do know that they are divided into two 'races', the Aesir and the Vanir. (Norse mythology alert #1, there will be more.) The Aesir are more into storms and oceans, think of them as your classic 'sky gods' while the Vanir are the more cthonic ones, with interest in and power over earth and stone. As a result, the Aesir are the ones who created the mountain and sea giants to take care of the mountaintops and sea floors while the Vanir are the ones who made the Earthen, and if you have ever run a group through Uldaman you know why that's important.Basically, the Titans are the reason that your character has places to go and things to do on Azeroth instead of starting gameplay underneath the tentacles of a horrible elder monstrosity. Sure, some of you might enjoy that, but for those of us who like our tentacles safely battered and fried up calamari style, it's safe to say that we all owe the Titans a solid. So let's talk about when the big guys showed up on Azeroth and what they did from there.
Killing your grandfather: What happens if you wipe in the Caverns of Time?
The Caverns of Time are a pretty neat place. With the recent announcement of Old Stratholme, we'll get to go back and preserve the timeline through four different events: Medivh's opening of the Dark Portal, Thrall's escape from Durnholde Keep, Arthas's purging of the city of Stratholme, and Azeroth's victory at the Battle for Mount Hyjal. The mysterious Infinite Dragonflight is trying to disrupt the timelines for unknown reasons, and we have to keep things the way they were. But why? Yes, any change in the past will have a ripple effect on the future, bla bla bla, but there are people who would definitely prefer that events went down differently in three of the four CoT instances. Blizzard doesn't show us what happens when we wipe, fail or simply choose not to preserve things in CoT ... so we've had to fill in the blanks ourselves. The Battle for Mount Hyjal: Okay, no one really wants to see history changed for this one. Heck, it even looks like the Infinite Dragonflight may not want to change it, since we see none of their members in the battle. If history was changed ... actually, I'm not sure what the Burning Legion really would do if they won the war. Destroy all the mortal races in their quest to bring chaos to the universe? Enslave all the playable characters and force them to become an invading force for another world? Man, that would be awesome. For the Legion. Not so much for Azeroth. The Burning Legion winning at Hyjal is like a big Game Over sign for the Warcraft universe.
This is the arena that never ends
It just goes on and on my friend. Jbangalanga, Weaslelawd, Spiked and Deunan started playing it, not knowing what it was, and they continued playing it for ten hours and twenty minutes just because ... Yes, you heard right: there was a 2v2 arena match that lasted for over ten hours. According to Weaslelawd, the DPSers of the teams -- the warrior and the warlock -- got killed in the first few minutes. This left Weaslelawd, an orc resto shaman, and Spiked, a night elf resto druid, to battle it out. Neither healer could out-DPS the other's heals, and both were too stubborn to give up. The druid was unable to rez his own partner due to cooldown restrictions, but stayed alert enough to interrupt any attempts from the shaman to rez the warrior. Jbangalanga created a character on Spiked's server to try to negotiate a settlement, but talks fell through as neither Weaslelawd or Spiked was willing to throw the match or /roll for it. Weaslelawd actually talked to a GM halfway through, but unfortunately chose to host the picture on imageshack, where they can't be seen due to excessive bandwidth usage. Eventually, it hit 5 AM in Spiked's area and he began to zone out. Also, he said, eight pieces of his gear were broken. He emoted to Weaslelawd that he was ready and let the shaman kill him. Weaslelawd walked away from his ten-hour match with ... 15 added to his arena rating. Wow. Spectators on both Burning Legion and Shadowmoon have suggested that both teams deserve a couple thousand arena points and a Manly Man award for a ten-hour fight. I would probably have given up around the twenty minute mark. What would you have done in the same situation -- fight it out or give up?
Know Your Lore: Kil'jaeden
The Burning Legion are probably the villains that we fight the most in WoW. Sure, the Scourge put up a good battle in a few instances, and the spawn of the Black Dragonflight dominated the level 60 raids, but the Burning Legion has really come into its own in the (duh) Burning Crusade. From Hellfire Peninsula to Shadowmoon Valley, we're constantly fighting demons. But who's leading the Crusade? We never see any of their higher-ups, unless you count Balnazzar (the secret mastermind behind the Scarlet Crusade) and Kazzak, who doesn't really do much but sit on his new throne and yell. With that in mind, allow me to introduce the current Lord of the Burning Legion and a hell of a guy, Kil'jaeden! Who: Kil'jaeden the Deceiver, acting Supreme Commander and Lord of the Burning Legion, former Special Operations and Recruitment Manager for the Burning Legion. Much like evil organizations everywhere, the Burning Legion has tons of bureaucratic titles.
I fought Highlord Kruul and Highlord Kruul won
Hey, everyone who complained about the Scourge world event being too wussy -- the Burning Legion sends its regards. Eliah Hecht has documented that Highlord Kruul is owning everything on most servers, but no one has answered the question: Is it possible to kill this guy? Short answer: Yes. He appears to be a renamed Kazzak with most of Kazzak's abilities, plus he has Kazzak's loot table. He seems to hit harder than Kazzak and enrage sooner, but an organized, or even slightly disorganized, raid of 40 people can kill him. WoWWiki has a good strategy guide for Kazzak. Exo and Trans killed him on Smolderthorn, as did groups on Illidan, Medivh and Kalecgos, apparently. Long answer: Probably not, at least if your server's anything like mine. Kruul heals massively every time he kills a player or pet. So if Kruul spawns near a major city, it's nearly impossible due to the number of deaths. Unless you can clear the area of everything but organized 60s working in a raid group, just get naked, sit back and watch the carnage.
Blizzard launches Warcraft encyclopedia
If you've ever wondered about the true meaning of immortality, or have the compelling urge to brush up on your Darnassian, Blizzard has a new resource for you. The Warcraft Encyclopedia is now available to provide comprehensive details on the story and lore of the Warcraft universe. As of right now, only the elven races of Azeroth are featured, but Blizzard is planning frequent updates to the online compendium. Whether or not this project is intended to supplement or compete with the useful WoW Wiki is unknown, but fans can expect some unique content to go along with the Encyclopedia's fancier window dressing.
Server Downtime Thursday
Blizzard is rolling out new hardware for several US realms this Thursday, and the process of transferring the realms means - you guessed it, extensive downtime. The migration will begin on Thursday at 12:01 AM PST and may last as long as 24 hours. Those of you on effected realms will receive an extra day's credit to your account, which is, I suppose, better than nothing. Following the migration, Blizzard plans to open character transfers from existing realms to new realms (yet to be opened) to further help with performance and overcrowding issues. Realms transferring to new hardware are Archimonde, Dalaran, Khadgar, and Mal'Ganis. Other affected realms include Aggramar, Andorhal, Anetheron, Burning Blade, Burning Legion, Dentarg, Duskwood, Earthen Ring, Eonar, Eredar, Executus, Gilneas, Gorefiend, Haomarush, Kargath, Laughing Skull, Lightning's Blade, Llane, Malygos, Scilla, Shadow Moon, Steamwheedle Cartel, Thunderhorn, Thunderlord, Turalyon, Ysera, Ysondre, and Zuluhed. While these realms are not receiving a hardware upgrade, Tseric explains that current equipment configuration requires this.Update: The schedule has been pushed back to Thursday.
