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  • Know Your Lore, Tinfoil Hat Edition: Timelines, timeways, and Karazhan

    by 
    Anne Stickney
    Anne Stickney
    11.17.2013

    The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. What is time, in Warcraft? Is it a straightforward line, or a tapestry of events that can be changed or altered with a simple pluck of a thread? While the bronze dragonflight may be masters of the various pathways of time, we mortal players are most definitely not. We've been sent through the pathways of the Caverns of Time on more than one occasion, but always at the behest of the bronze flight, to complete the tasks they have set and keep the timelines pristine. But this mysterious maze of time wasn't left unexplored prior to our travels through Tanaris. Obviously the bronze dragonflight has been up to a great deal over the thousands of years that it has existed -- Nozdormu's long absence predated even our first journeys through the Caverns of Time. And for one player in the next expansion, time had absolutely nothing to do with the dragonflights, and much more to do with the mysterious home of his enigmatic master, Medivh. So how does it all weave together? More importantly, when is time travel not really time travel at all, as the developers seemed to be so insistent on saying at BlizzCon? Today's Know Your Lore is a Tinfoil Hat edition. The following contains a small amount of speculation on datamined material. These speculations are merely theories and shouldn't be taken as fact or official lore.

  • BlizzCon 2013: World of Warcraft Adventure Continues Q&A

    by 
    Anne Stickney
    Anne Stickney
    11.12.2013

    The World of Warcraft: The Adventure Continues panel during Friday's action-packed BlizzCon featured Lead Narrative Designer Dave Kosak giving a short presentation on the story behind the new expansion, Warlords of Draenor. Along with the history lesson, which was summed up by Matthew Rossi, the panel also featured a brief Q&A session that wasn't advertised in the program, but proved to be a pretty good list of questions and answers about the new expansion and what we can expect to see. Along with some clarifications on whether or not this is a time travel expansion (it isn't), there are also a few new lore reveals regarding the next expansion, and some tasty tidbits of odds and ends that have yet to be addressed. Read on for the full list of questions -- some of the answers may surprise you.

  • Blizzcon 2013: Iconic Characters of Warcraft

    by 
    Sarah Pine
    Sarah Pine
    11.09.2013

    The Voice Actor Stage is a new addition this year at BlizzCon, and I certainly hope it becomes a staple. I sat down for the 3:00 - 4:00 panel "Iconic Characters of Warcraft" which, as the name implies, featured the voice actors for several of the most influential WoW characters in the Mists of Pandaria expansion. Our esteemed guests were: Keone Young, voice of Chen Stormstout James Sie, voice of Taran Zhu Patrick Seitz, voice of Garrosh Hellscream Aaron Phillips, voice of Wrathion Josh Keaton, voice of Anduin Wrynn Laura Bailey, voice of Jaina Proudmoore In addition, the panel was hosted by Andrea Toyias, Casting and Voice Over Director at Blizzard, and two writers whose names were announced but unfortunately not written on the projector. Andrea hosted the panel by asking each of the actors, one by one, a series of questions about the characters they voiced -- how they saw that character, how they got into the appropriate headspace to play that character, and so on. Each answer was unique and very interesting. Keone Young spoke about how his experience growing up on Hawai'i, before and during its annexation by the United States, influenced the way he perceived the struggles of the pandaren people, and also how his knowledge of the Hawai'ian patois informed his development of Chen's unique accent.

  • Metzen reveals Garrosh "sets things in motion" in Warlords of Draenor

    by 
    Matthew Rossi
    Matthew Rossi
    11.08.2013

    Following the Opening Ceremonies, Chris Metzen sat down with the hosts (Kat Hunter and Geoff Keighley) and revealed a few new tidbits about the upcoming expansion. Garrosh Hellscream is not the end boss of the new expansion. However, Garrosh 'sets things in motion' with the aid of an unknown accomplice with mysterious time-travel abilities. Once put on trial, Garrosh escapes before he can be judged, and returns to Draenor in the past to prevent the one great mistake that led to the creation of the Old Horde - the drinking of the Blood of Mannoroth. At present, they don't know who will be the orcish faction leader. While Thrall is the obvious choice, Metzen would prefer Saurfang or Eitrigg "but we may change it later". Thrall will be using his hammer more in this expansion. So there you have it, more details on how the Warlords of Draenor arise.

  • The disconcerting sensation of contentment

    by 
    Matthew Rossi
    Matthew Rossi
    10.21.2013

    Spoilers for Patch 5.4 in this post Guys, I'm happy with patch 5.4. I know there's lots of people who don't like the Timeless Isle, but for me it's perfect - head on over, do a few quests, blow some coins gambling with a monkey person, head on out. I very much enjoy Siege of Orgrimmar. I feel like progression has been at a decent clip and I really, REALLY liked the after quests (and my wolfie mount who is now my favorite mount ever) including the bit in the Vale that I won't talk about before the jump for spoilers. I'm even happy with my class - protection is better (it still needs a ton of gear to be viable, but it always has), arms is much improved and is great for AoE, and fury is solid if unremarkable (and there's something beautiful about Storm Bolt for fury right now). In short, I really have to work to find something to complain about. I admit, I don't really know what to do with myself. I'm an infamous curmudgeon - to find myself logging on, enjoying myself, and then logging off is somewhat confusing for me. Now, I've always enjoyed playing World of Warcraft - if I didn't, I wouldn't still be doing it this many years later - but it's always been an enjoyment tempered by this or that thing that really bothered me. Right now, nothing in game does that. I still have my concerns, of course - I am never going to stop hating Dark Shaman, because no matter what I do, it's possible for two or three things to pop up at once and do 750,000 damage to everyone in melee in one second, and when that happens I almost always end up sniffing the dirt in the Valley of Strength. But that's a minor quibble.

  • Know Your Lore: The fate of Garrosh Hellscream

    by 
    Anne Stickney
    Anne Stickney
    10.13.2013

    The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. In a recent edition of The Queue, one of our readers asked a question regarding the fate of Garrosh Hellscream in patch 5.4. It was a question that many players have actually been asking ever since Garrosh's fate was revealed. In the interests of avoiding spoilers, I won't mention that fate here, but be forewarned that this edition of Know Your Lore is chock full of spoilers for patch 5.4 that discuss the situation in full. Garrosh Hellscream's journey began as leader-in-training for a remote, tiny village in Outland. Clouded with shame over his father's misdeeds, Garrosh was listless, depressed, and convinced that he was destined to lead his people down the same dark path that his father had. In the years following his introduction, Garrosh has discovered his father's heroic sacrifice, strove to live up to his name, eagerly sought to strengthen the Horde, and then promptly fulfilled his own sad vision of the future, leading his "True Horde" down a path of darkness that eerily echoed the familiar refrain of the Old Horde from so long ago. Please note: There are spoilers for patch 5.4 immediately following the break. If you are avoiding spoiler content for the Siege of Orgrimmar, run away!

  • Know Your Lore: A brief summary of the Pandaria campaign

    by 
    Matthew Rossi
    Matthew Rossi
    10.09.2013

    The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. There will be spoilers for every patch of Mists of Pandaria, including 5.4 and the Siege of Orgrimmar raid, in this post Leaving aside blame for a moment, let's just look at the results of the past year or so in terms of what actually happened. To heavily summarize events: Horde and Alliance forces discovered Pandaria, landing in the Jade Forest. Both factions mobilized local allies (the Horde made pacts with the Hozen, the Alliance joined forces with the Pearlfin Jinyu) and waged a proxy battle through these cat's paws. The result was the desrtuction of the Jade Serpent's next incarnation and the release of the Sha of Doubt, leading to the Sha infestation of the Temple of the Jade Serpent. Both factions pushed onward into Kun-Lai Summit, where they fought the yaungol and set up base camps, converting local pandaren to their cause. They did not actually join in battle at this time. Scouts and agents of the Horde and Alliance penetrated deeper into the continent, in time exploring the Townlong Steppes and Dread Wastes. In time these advance forces even managed to convince the August Celestials to allow both the Horde and Alliance to set up bases within the sacred Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Both the Horde and Alliance made large-scale military bases in the Krasarang Wilds and began using these to wage resource war against one another, fighting over territory and raw materials as well as ancient mogu artifacts buried below the surface of the wilds. This period of hostilities led to a culmination wherein Warchief Garrosh Hellscream attempted to use a mogu artifact, the Divine Bell, to infuse his own soldiers with the power of the Sha. The fallout from this action caused the neutral Kirin Tor to eject the Sunreaver pro-Horde faction from Dalaran and declare themselves for the Alliance under their leader, Lady Jaina Proudmoore. Prince Anduin Wrynn nearly died in the attempt to destroy the Divine Bell, which succeeded. Garrosh Hellscream, however, was not balked from his goal of finding a new weapon. There's more, of course. Things had only begun to heat up at this point.

  • Lichborne: Downfall raid loot and patch 5.4 world boss loot for death knights

    by 
    Daniel Whitcomb
    Daniel Whitcomb
    10.08.2013

    Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. This week brings us to the end of our patch 5.4 raid gear guide as we take on Garrosh and the bosses guarding him. In addition, we'll take a quick look at what the world bosses of this patch have to offer a death knight. The disclaimers from previous weeks still apply, so keep those in mind. Read on for the breakdown.

  • Warcraft as a whole: story balance between RTS and MMO

    by 
    Matthew Rossi
    Matthew Rossi
    10.07.2013

    I was perusing the forums (like you do) when I came across this forum thread from poster Xewie, and I found it an interesting place to start thinking from. Xewie's points aren't entirely ones I agree with - I frankly found Mists of Pandaria one of the richest expansions in terms of lore and story and feel that anyone who dismisses it simply because there are pandaren in it is deliberately and willfully blinding themselves to an excellent ride with some astonishing highs and lows - but there's a certain truth in the points about the RTS vs. WoW itself. As others (including our own Michael Sacco) have pointed out, Garrosh Hellscream is really one of the first big lore characters we've had in World of Warcraft who was born in the MMO, evolved over its course and became a faction leader and finally an end villain. I think part of the problem is that the RTS features these characters, so even when it kills a few (like Terenas Menethil) it offers up a few more. But the MMO features us, ultimately, so when we put down Lady Vashj or Arthas, there's no immediate replacement. To be sure, there have in fact been tons of new faces over the course of World of Warcraft - Ragnaros, C'thun, Nefarian were all first introduced in classic WoW, not the RTS. The problem is, we introduce these characters and then, well, we dispatch them. Sometimes, like Ragnaros, our first encounter with them isn't a final one, but even if we know they'll eventually be back, it's not like their luck will hold out forever. I called this the "Joker problem" once, and to a degree I think it is an issue for the MMO. However, does it follow that we need an RTS to create stories? Since I think Mists of Pandaria did an amazing job of building up the story, and in fact I'm really much more of a Cataclysm booster than most, I don't agree with that idea. In fact, in many ways, WoW has done more to broaden and expand the Warcraft setting than the RTS ever did.

  • A lack of triumph

    by 
    Matthew Rossi
    Matthew Rossi
    10.01.2013

    There's no real way to discuss this without sounding critical, which isn't my intent, so let me try and front load this one: I believe that Mists of Pandaria may be the first expansion to end, not with a feeling of victory, so much as a feeling of exhaustion. And I believe this to have been a deliberate choice on Blizzard's part, and moreover, I believe it to be the correct choice, because it highlights the ultimate futility of the Horde/Alliance conflict as the main conflict of the World of Warcraft MMO. There can be no ultimate winner as long as the Warcraft setting continues to exist, only a series of temporary highs and lows as each trades blows. In The Burning Crusade, we ultimately defeated Illidan Stormrage (who, I admit, I was never really clear on the reasons why we were fighting him -- yes, he could have eventually been a threat, but he didn't actually seem all that interested in fighting us) and Kil'Jaeden, a much more real and present danger whose defeat saved all of Azeroth from a repeat of the Burning Legion invasion. In Wrath of the Lich King, we defeated the Lich King, slaying Arthas Menethil and halting the Scourge. In Cataclysm, we defeated Deathwing, balking his plans for annihilating the world entire. These felt like victories. Whether you were Horde or Alliance, you could feel pride in your efforts to hold back the shadow of destruction and save everything you knew from a grisly end. At the end of the Siege of Orgrimmar, yes, we've toppled a tyrant. But for Horde players, it comes at a monumental cost - the guilt of being complicit in Hellscream's actions, the trauma of having to have raised arms against one's own faction and storm your own city, deaths of those you've known and even liked on the other side of the civil war (Alas, poor Nazgrim, and flights of wolfriders bear thee to thy pyre) and having to see what depths a former hero of the Horde could sink to, throwing away his father's weapon and his father's final legacy in favor of the same naked grasping for power that damned the orcish people once before. And Alliance players? Well, we get to fix the Horde's mess. On the one hand, it is a victory, and a decisive one. Both factions made a statement with their role in the siege. Both can be proud of what they've done. But can it be called triumphant? I submit that it cannot, that it is no triumph, merely an end to madness.

  • Asia first Garrosh Hellscream heroic kill goes to Tianqi

    by 
    Adam Koebel
    Adam Koebel
    09.29.2013

    Congratulations to Chinese guild 天 啟 (Tianqi) for their Garrosh Hellscream kill in 10-man heroic mode! If you're wondering why this isn't visible on WoWProgress as a world first kill, it's because they have certain advantages over players in other regions. To start, there are separate weekly lockouts for 10-man and 25-man, allowing a guild in Asia to run both in the same week. Secondly, the loot in 25-man is 8 ilevels higher and the boss health and damage is also 8% higher. This allowed Tianqi to acquire higher ilevel loot in 25-man before going into 10-man to achieve their Garrosh kill. At least one of the players participating in the kill had a average ilevel of 575 along with a ilevel 588 weapon. These circumstances should in no way detract from their achievement, but the traditional world first race is still very much on for both 10-man and 25-man.

  • Know Your Lore: This Was All Necessary

    by 
    Matthew Rossi
    Matthew Rossi
    09.25.2013

    The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. You pandaren tried to bury your hate and your anger, but such power cannot be contained. It must be unleashed! - Garrosh Hellscream to Taran Zhu The more I think about it, the more I believe it. This was all going to happen, with or without the presence of the Horde or Alliance. In fact, the presence of those two warring forces may have ultimately saved Pandaria from complete destruction. When Garrosh Hellscream defeated Taran Zhu and hurled the Heart of Y'Shaarj into the waters of the vale, he mocked the Shado-Pan's leader first about the pandaren and their tendency to suppress violent emotion. It's an understandable tendency in a land where emotions like doubt, anger, fear, and hatred can give rise to the Sha, but it was a tendency mired in one crucial error - there was always one Sha who wasn't imprisoned when Emperor Shaohao freed himself of the burdens of the others. For over ten thousand years, Pandaria dwelled in isolation, believing itself special among all the places in the world, believing that it had nothing to gain and nothing to learn from the outside. And in its special exceptionalism, its beautiful but stagnant isolation, the people of Pandaria settled into an eternal and endless cycle that allowed nothing to change it. But a thing that does not change is not alive. It's painful to look upon the Vale of Eternal Blossoms after Garrosh's actions, to see the blasted, corrupted land where waters flowed freely, to see the destroyed and defiled beauty. Taran Zhu blamed all those who came from outside Pandaria, and he's not wrong - it is because, at long last the mists have parted and new peoples have entered Pandaria that the Vale was destroyed, just as it was because of the same outsiders and their foreign war that the Sha of Doubt erupted and the serpent pillar fell. Destruction had indeed followed in our wake.

  • Know Your Lore: Requiem for innocence lost

    by 
    Anne Stickney
    Anne Stickney
    09.22.2013

    The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Two households, both alike in dignity (In fair Verona, where we lay our scene), From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. I have to admit it -- Siege of Orgrimmar is one hell of a raid. Not only is it full of epic encounters, but there are little moments of lore sprinkled throughout the raid, for those that pay attention. In this, the final raid of Mists of Pandaria, we see our fair share of loose ends wrapped up, and learn the fates of many of the cast of characters that we've helped throughout our journeys in Pandaria. Of course we have Lorewalker Cho, there for the last raid just as he was there by our sides in the first. And we find out what happened to Taran Zhu after the Siege of Orgrimmar cinematic, in which he confronted Garrosh Hellscream. Yet there are other pandaren involved in Alliance and Horde affairs -- pandaren played by people like you and I, who came from a Wandering Isle, not so long ago. And that story, too, reaches an end of sorts ... and not the kind ending we might have hoped for. Please note: This post contains spoilers for events that take place within the Siege of Orgrimmar raid.

  • Know Your Lore: The future of the Horde

    by 
    Anne Stickney
    Anne Stickney
    09.15.2013

    The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. It's been an interesting couple of expansions for the Horde. Cataclysm saw Warchief Thrall step down from the leadership role that players were accustomed to, and appoint Garrosh Hellscream as Warchief in his stead. Mists of Pandaria saw Hellscream take that leadership role to an extreme that resulted in all-out war between Alliance and Horde, with the pandaren and the continent of Pandaria unceremoniously chucked into the middle of it all. Hellscream's reign has been brought to an end in patch 5.4 -- but where does this leave the Horde? Warchief Hellscream's notorious visions of a new future ended up dividing the Horde, and his caustic treatment of the non-orc races drove a wedge into the faction that ultimately culminated in the events of 5.4. The end of his stint as Warchief brought about a new leader ... but what comes after the dust has settled? Will the Horde recover from the damage done by Hellscream? And what does the future of the Horde hold, now that Hellscream's reign is over? Please note: There are spoilers for patch 5.4 immediately following the break. If you are avoiding spoiler content for the Siege of Orgrimmar, run away!

  • Siege of Orgrimmar and the world of the idea

    by 
    Matthew Rossi
    Matthew Rossi
    09.13.2013

    Last night while raiding Orgrimmar, specifically while coming into the gates of the city past the Iron Juggernaut, I had this intense feeling of recognition layered with the discontinuity changes bring. It's a similar feeling to when you go back to the city or town you grew up in after a few years. Things have changed, but you still recognize most of it - tiny flashes of memory jump out, saying (in this case) "Hey, remember hovering over Grommash Hold in your flying mount waiting for raid" and then "This was always my favorite Auction House, I wonder if I left anything up before I switched factions" but at the same time the cages and wandering Kor'kron mobs lent a surreal air to the whole experience. I'd spent the whole night distracted anyway by the little touches of the raid so far - the fight with the Fallen Protectors started a chain of thought that stayed with me. These people were dead because, in part, of actions I'd taken while I was playing as Horde. After all, I stood next to Garrosh in the Shrine of Two Moons as he said that he would learn from the mogu. I helped him steal the Divine Bell from Darnassus. I watched him use it on Ichi, discarding a loyal servant like a broken toy when it didn't work. And more of course - I served Hellscream in breaching the Jade Forest, bringing the war that my faction was waging to foreign shores, and disrupted the cycle of rebirth for the Jade Serpent, loosing the Sha upon the forest. I snuck into Theramore and freed the Horde agent who helped keep Alliance civilians in the city for the bomb to destroy. Now of course, I didn't actually do any of those things because it is a game. Garrosh Hellscream is a voice actor's craft and a mass of pixels reading lines written by Blizzard's team of writers. What I find interesting, and overlooked at times by players like myself, is the opportunity to muse on the ideas presented to us by the game. What would it be like to return to Orgrimmar as a soldier invading it? What would it feel like to bear a certain responsibility for the ruin of a peaceful valley, the destruction of people who had only sought to protect their home? To see a beautiful land scarred by a monstrous act, and know that the act couldn't have happened without your assistance, however small, and however deeply you regretted it? For me, part of the fun of playing the game is in thinking differently than I usually do, to explore the ideas presented by the story as I move through it. I mean, at one point we actually have to kill pride. That's the subtext leaping forth from the head of the text, that is.

  • World of Warcraft reveals the next Warchief of the Horde

    by 
    Eliot Lefebvre
    Eliot Lefebvre
    09.12.2013

    If you have even a peripheral interest in World of Warcraft, you've caught wind of the fact that Garrosh Hellscream has not been a very good leader of the Horde. He's managed it so badly that he's the final boss of the expansion for both factions, which is not the sign of a capable leader. And his ultimate defeat means it's time for a new Warchief to step forward... a leader named... Basic campfire? You didn't think we were going to spoil this right here on the front page, did you? If you're still playing the game and want to see the end on your own, that's fine. If you would rather just find out the answer now, though, you can find the answer buried within our sister site WoW Insider's considerate-of-spoiler-warnings post right over here. (It's actually a Sickly Gazelle riding on a Spectral Tiger mount, but that's just a placeholder model.)

  • Know Your Lore: The History of the Warchief

    by 
    Matthew Rossi
    Matthew Rossi
    09.12.2013

    The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. This post exists because of the massive spoilers in this link, but the post itself will be spoiler free. As long as you don't click on that spoiler-heavy link, you will not see any spoilers in this post. (Edit - actually, there's one spoiler at the very end of the post - it's clearly marked as such, and it is a minor spoiler at best, but it is there. Let that guide your actions.) Instead, we're going to talk about the position of Warchief - how it came to be, how it evolved and then devolved, and how Garrosh Hellscream's reign as Warchief set the stage for what could be a completely new direction for his successor (whose identity I will not discuss). The position of Warchief actually began as a complete figurehead, and the first orc to hold that position, Blackhand the Destroyer, was placed in that position due to his combination of physical fearsomeness and egocentric self-aggrandizement - so easily was he misled and directed by Gul'dan, head of the Shadow Council and architect of the Horde, that he never once proved himself a threat sufficient for Gul'dan to ever consider replacing him. It's not that Blackhand was either a fool or an idiot, he was in fact a canny tactician and a respected warrior. He simply believed his own hype - so convinced was he in his own superiority that when Gul'dan presented to him that he would be a respected equal and his position as Warchief would be one of real power, he believed it, because he believed in himself. Throughout the war with the draenei and later, the invasion of Azeroth, Blackhand ruled as Warchief and allowed himself to listen to Gul'dan's words - allowed himself to listen because they were telling him what he wanted to hear. Even as the humans balked the orcs, and Blackhand's series of victories became defeats, he continued to listen to Gul'dan. This would be his downfall.

  • Dear Jaina Proudmoore

    by 
    Anne Stickney
    Anne Stickney
    09.12.2013

    Dear Jaina, I'm not in the habit of writing letters to fictional characters, but in the face of what we've all seen yesterday, it seemed like as good a time as any to start. Look, I realize this is going to be hard to accept, but your fate isn't exactly in your hands. What you want, and what you'll get, are two entirely different things -- and it might not be fair. It might not be particularly right. It certainly isn't going to feel very good, but the influence you hold only goes so far. And in this case, you can't exactly order around a king. But let's look beyond that for a second, all right? Because honestly, you seem to be more than a little irritated, justified or not. And I remember who you used to be, a long time ago. I remember a lady who was a bastion of rational thinking, one who looked before she leapt, made sound judgments, and realized that in this big, wide, crazy world of Azeroth, things aren't always black and white, good and evil. Sometimes, most of the time in fact, they lay somewhere in between. So I'm wondering, Lady Proudmoore -- who are you? This post contains huge spoilers for patch 5.4, including the end cinematic for the Siege of Orgrimmar. Reader beware!

  • WoW Insider talks 5.4 with 3D artist Fanny Vergne-Vicente

    by 
    Anne Stickney
    Anne Stickney
    09.11.2013

    Patch 5.4 is here, and those that aren't gallivanting around the Timeless Isle have likely already taken their first steps into the Siege of Orgrimmar. The boss fights are exciting enough on their own, not to mention the awesome loot waiting to be found in the depths of the newest raid. But what many players don't think so much about is the raid itself. I'm not talking about the bosses or the mechanics of the encounter, but the actual bits and pieces that make up the space in which we're destroying all those new bad guys. We've had plenty of developer interviews leading up to patch 5.4, but Blizzard was kind enough to give us an interview of a different sort. 3D artist Fanny Vergne-Vicente is one of the many artists at Blizzard that helped put together the Siege of Orgrimmar raid from the ground up, designing textures for everything you'll see while you're merrily murdering Garrosh -- the walls, floors, spikes, and everything else that makes the encounter come to life. We had a brief chat with Fanny about just what a 3D artist at Blizzard does, and what it was like bringing the Siege of Orgrimmar to life.

  • Enter to win World of Warcraft: Bloodsworn

    by 
    Anne Stickney
    Anne Stickney
    09.10.2013

    Patch days full of new content to play are always good, but why don't we make this patch day just a little bit better? We've got not one, but two copies of World of Warcraft: Bloodsworn to give away, and today seems like the best day to do it! This brand-new graphic novel from DC Comics follows the adventures of a motley group of individuals brought together under the banner of the Horde. Written by Doug Wagner and featuring artwork by Jheremy Raapack, the book clocks in at a solid 152 pages jammed full of action. Thanks to Blizzard Entertainment, we've got a couple of these graphic novels to give away. Take a look at our spoiler-free review if you'd like more information on the graphic novel -- while the events in the story take place shortly after Cataclysm, the book is very much worth the read and an even better addition to your bookshelf. Interested? To enter for a chance to win, leave a comment on this post before 11:59 p.m. ET, Tuesday, September 17, 2013. You must be 18 years of age or older and a legal resident of the United States or Canada (excluding Quebec). You can only enter once. Two winners will be chosen at random and we will contact you via whatever method you've used to comment. Official rules here.