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WoW Archivist: What has never changed?
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? With WoW's tenth anniversary fast approaching, one thing is clear: virtually everything in this game has been changed, updated, or replaced at one time or another. The UI, the stats, character creation, raid systems, class abilities, questing -- all have undergone necessary overhauls to keep the game relevant and modern. A question for the Queue last month asked a very interesting question: What in WoW has never, ever changed? You might think so, but no Many aspects of the game seem like they have never changed, but they have. The act of gathering: Sure, Blizzard added bonuses to the professions in Wrath such as the crit bonus for skinning or the HoT from herbalism. And as of Cataclysm, you can now earn XP by gathering. Gathering no longer requires tools. Yet the fundamental mechanics have always been the same: you right click stuff, get the stuff, and skill up so you can click on better stuff. Right? Back in classic, gathering actually had a chance to fail. Orange difficulty nodes would not cough up their resources to anyone who wandered past with the minimum required skill. Failing three or four times on a node before a successful gathering attempt was not unheard of. This led to some interesting "PvP" gathering scenarios, even on PvE realms. If two players converged on the node, the first to click it didn't necessarily get the goods. This situation sometimes led to a hilarious "duel" in which both players failed at gathering over and over again. It became a matter of luck, persistence, and rapid clicking. Mining was especially bad, because it used to take multiple strikes to clear out a node. Two players could spend minutes trying to outmine each other on a single rock. Racial bonuses, enchantments, and items that boosted gathering skills all mattered much more, not just to save time from the failed attempts, but to beat other players to the punch.
Celebrating the dances of Guild Wars 2
What's the most important thing about next week's launch of Guild Wars 2? Is it deciding which race/gender/profession combo you'll make for your main? Is it deciding which server you'll play on? Or is it figuring out which dance emote looks best on your character? Thanks to our own livestreamer extraordinaire, Richie Procopio, we have a look at each race's and gender's dance emotes in the game, which were just introduced with yesterday's stress test patch. Skip past the cut below to see the fun little video for yourself -- all in glorious HD! Even a Bookah like you knows that Guild Wars 2 is on the way, but it takes an Asura's intellect, a Human's charm, a Sylvari's wisdom, a Charr's passion, and a Norn's love of strong mead to dive into beta and make sense of a game this complex. Fortunately, we have all five on the Massively staff. Enjoy our previews, guides, and our weekly GW2 column, Flameseeker Chronicles!
Mists of Pandaria Beta: Male and female pandaren dances are live
Rejoice! Pandaren dances are in. I won't take up your time -- just watch. The male pandaren are doing some variation of the Party Rock Anthem dance (maybe?), and the female pandaren is distinctly the caramelldansen meme. Very well animated, as usual. What do you guys think? It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Breakfast Topic: Which race is the dancing queen?
In a shift from usual form, let's talk dancing! Now, I can't dance for toffee in reality. Really, I'm dreadful. I do my best to avoid it. But in WoW, I'm forever dancing. I don't know why -- it just seems to be my standard response to situations where I have to wait around somewhere or for something and I've run out of Potions of Illusion. If I have potions of illusion, I'll use one, then get to dancing. Dancing was also one of the few things that has led me to consider rolling my first-ever male character. I found out while rolling alts for a guildie to turn into Christmas turkeys that male trolls dance like Zanzil of Zul'Gurub fame. I never minded people going AFK at Zanzil -- I could watch his hilarious dancing for hours -- and when I found out the male trolls dance like that, my mind was made up. I just haven't got 'round to it yet. So tell me, which race are the dancing queens or dancing kings?
Exclusive: Lucent Heart shows off the Scaena expansion's dance moves
Anyone can win in a fight where your mettle is tested by firearms and swords, but Lucent Heart is pushing players to battle in the arena where true victories are forged: the dance floor. That's the central feature shown off in the new trailer for the upcoming Scaena expansion, in which characters will be able to create custom dances set to custom music and then fight for dominance on the dance floor in exchange for powerful new rewards. Yes, this a real thing. There's more to the expansion than just the opportunity to set your dance troupe on fire with a Nyan Cat-based dance routine. There are new guild-vs.-guild battles, new areas for players to explore, and new enemies for players to fight. But you don't have to take our word for it; the trailer is just past the break to show off all of the coming update's moves. (And the Nyan Cat dance is also a real thing, for the record.)
Breakfast Topic: What's a deal-breaker in your love for a particular race?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. When word of the Cataclysm races came out, I admit I was excited about the worgen. I had once played a werewolf character in a game of D&D, and it amused me at the idea I could recreate her in some aspect within WoW. Then the dances were released. At first I was undeterred; I play my gender, so the male dance didn't bother me much. However, things changed when the female dance was finally released on the internet. I was quite displeased at the choice for the female's dance. It was too much; I decided then and there that I wouldn't roll a worgen, purely because of the dance. I know it sounds petty, but the racial dances are a bit of a deal-breaker for me. When I was first introduced to WoW by my cousin and friends, I looked up the racial dances to see which ones I liked best. Having only a trial account, I went with tauren as my first choice, as all my friends played Horde, and I thought the Electric Slide wasn't a bad dance, trolls being a close second. What about you? What sort of thing about a race or faction breaks the deal, causing you not to choose them?
Breakfast Topic: Worgen and Goblin dances
Reader Andy sent us a good topic to talk about this morning: dances for the new Cataclysm races. Every time we've sat down to play the new expansion, we've punched in the /dance and /silly emotes, and we haven't seen a single thing implemented for Worgen or Goblin males or females, so as far as we know, it's completely up in the air on what dances they'll choose for each one. You have to think that Blizzard has some idea already (or maybe they'll just be included in those long awaited dance studios), but we haven't seen it, so what do you think?Andy says Goblin males should go for a West Side Story-style classic number, while Worgen should definitely do Thriller. For some reason, I see Goblins breakdancing, but I have no idea what the Worgen might be doing. If it's something befitting their starting area, I have to think something boring like ballroom. But they may actually have different dances for their human and wolf forms (at least you'd hope so -- surely they'd be able to do more in Worgen form than in normal human form, right?). What do you think? World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it. Nothing will be the same. In WoW.com's Guide to Cataclysm you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion. From Goblins and Worgens to Mastery and Guild changes, it's all there for your cataclysmic enjoyment.
Ancilorn wants to know your favorite form dance
For some reason, this post in the WoW Europe general forums asking what shapeshift form has the best dance moves makes me suspicious. The poll itself is innocuous enough, although I don't understand why Tree of Life and Moonkin carry such a commanding lead (Cat is my personal favorite). No, the suspicious part is: why are they asking this now? New dances were a much-hyped feature in Wrath of the Lich King, although they have so far entirely failed to materialize. If they're still working on them, for 3.3 or 4.0, this might be some market research to see what sort of dances we like. On the other hand, it may just be an innocent piece of fun from Ancilorn. Who knows?
The Queue: Eight
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.In yesterday's edition of The Queue, my partner in crime Adam Holisky did some speculation about Battlestar Galactica that was taken as a huge, massive spoiler. As far as I know, it wasn't actually a spoiler. I'm here to fix that. I'm here to give you a real, true spoiler. Are you ready for it?They shoot Old Yeller.hold up asked...Is the Realm First Ulduar Achievement based on completing Ulduar on Easy Mode or is it based on clearing the entire place including the optional Algalon "the Raid Destroyer"?
Ask a Beta Tester: Raid zones, plot, and more on phasing
I decided to do something a little different with the image above for today's Ask a Beta Tester. Instead of beating you over the head with another of my awesome Dalaran screenshots, I've plugged in some music you can listen to while you read, if you'd like. Just hit play, and get in a Wrath kind of mood.Milkgas asked quite a few question, but many of them involve story spoilers that I don't think readers would appreciate seeing in this particular column. What I don't answer, you can truck over to Ask a Lore Nerd and I'll squeeze them in on the bottom behind my usual "spoilers be here, yarrrr" line. We can definitely hit a few of them though.Has there been any hints in the quest text of either the Uldum or the Karazhan Basement as a raid or dungeon in this expansion or the next?Nothing that I've seen! We'll have Ulduar as a raid zone in Northrend, so to me that seems like a definite no on Uldum. I don't think they would put two Titan raids in one expansion, unless Uldum turned out to be a 5 man dungeon. We've seen nothing about the rest of Karazhan.
Forum post of the day: Moving moments
Since its inception World of Warcraft has been an evolving game. Someone who played only shortly after release would hardly recognize the game now. Blizzard has always welcomed feedback, but some changes have elicited more feedback than others. In a thread entitled "Epic moments in WoW QQ history," Gatsukaa chronicled some of the most upsetting events that have occurred in the evolution of our game: Moment 1: WoW is first released. Hunter and warlock pets could be one-shot. Hunter dps was pretty lackluster. Soulstones gave you rez sickness (I think). No soulshards from PvP. The first emo whiners in WoW were born: Hunters and Warlocks. World of Roguecraft video is released showing how a rogue in crap gear could wtfpwn people while warlocks were so gimp. Result is that warlocks went on to get buffed in nearly every patch as they were on their way to god-hood. No more world of roguecraft videos. Hunters saw substantial improvements as well, but weren't made into demigods.
Changeable hairstyles at last! Long live new dances!
I was talking with some friends of mine the other night about the new expansion and we were giggling to ourselves about how the expansion video presents us with the amazing new features to be revealed in Wrath of the Lich King. "New Continent: Northrend!" it announces, "Destructible Buildings! Siege Weapons! New Profession: Inscription! ....Changeable Hairstyles! New Dances!"It does seem rather incongruous that in a game called about warcraft, changeable hairstyles and new dances would be a big deal, but it's true! This is something we've been wanting for a long time, but I never for the life of me imagined it would be an expansion feature. I always thought it would be like voice chat and guild banks, added in with some patch or another just like so many other things.It begs some frightening questions: Are we going to have special hairstyles and dances only available to those who have bought the expansion? Will we have to quest for that really epic hairdo, or spend hours and hours grinding for the reputation to access that one faction haircut we want? After all, we do it for special mounts whose only claim to fame is looking cool, why not for hairdos too?I suspect there won't be such thing as an epic hairdo quest, nor rep-grind barber shops, but really any which way Blizzard manages it will be fine with me. I do hope there will be new skin colors, faces and other characteristics be available too, though one could argue that should those be set in stone. Also, one would wonder if it's just new hair and dances which they have in store for us, or are there going to be a whole slew of new social features? Dare we hope for a proper /hug animation?
WoW Moviewatch: Starcraft 2 boogies down WoW style
Reading through WarCry I came across this fun little morsel. Evidently, it looks like the devs for Starcraft 2 are having a little fun with their game play, at least in pre-alpha. I knew that the WoW dances are infectious, but I didn't know they bridged genres. In this video, note the dancing figure on top of the building to the right. It's WoW's own Night Elf female making a cameo appearance. The caption might be slightly off, but they are right about the figure being an elf, though not a Blood Elf. I imagine that this image will eventually be replaced by unique animation, but for the moment the placeholder certainly looks familiar. Previously on Moviewatch... [via WarCry]
The Inspiration for the Draenei Dance
I admit, I was wondering about the unusual Draenei dance from the moment I saw it. Well, WorldofWar.Net seems to have found the dance's inspiration - in the form of this music video from India's music star Daler Mehndi. WorldofWar.Net warns that "the Mehndi video is crack," and, well I don't think I could explain it any better myself.
The Question on Everyone's Mind...
Beyond racial skills and available guilds, I know everyone's just dying to know what the new race's dance is. Well, here's one of them - the male blood elf dance. The voice commentary in the video also does a good job of addressing the obvious questions brought to mind...
