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PC Gamer UK gives you 50 reasons to play Cataclysm
WARNING: This post contains spoilers for Cataclysm, the upcoming expansion to World of Warcraft. If you'd like to keep everything a surprise, don't read any further. If you'd like to know more about the upcoming content, read away! Issue 212 of PC Gamer UK has hit the stands, and includes a fascinating six-page article with fifty reasons why lapsed subscribers should probably return to Azeroth. Forget the lapsed subscribers, there's enough information in here for current subscribers to drool over with unbridled glee. For those of you on this side of the pond, some highlights from the article. We requested comment from PC Gamer as to whether this information came directly from Blizzard, but we haven't yet received a response, so keep that in mind as we cover the highlights: Reason number twelve: Cataclysm chooses fun over efficiency. The talent trees will be completely redone, something we've covered a little with previous posts on the new mastery system that will be made available. A quote from Tom Chilton states "I'd expect to see a further pruning of critical class buffs and debuffs, because it's still a little more restrictive than what we'd like to see. A lot of what Mastery and the talent changes are about is making sure that the choices players make about their character are interesting. Hopefully that will add character depth without making the game more complex."
Breakfast Topic: The future of the Horde
One of the things that's continually surprised me since news broke on the likely changes to the Horde's leadership is how many otherwise die-hard Horde players have considered going Alliance. Yeah, yeah, most of it's probably idle threats anyway, but the real issue is one that's simmered for the length of Wrath's storyline. Lots of traditional Horde players are happy to fight under Thrall. Lots of traditional Horde players are...not so happy to fight under someone else. The issue seems to be the growing rift between players and Horde leadership in Northrend, and the degree to which many of us can't identify with the sub-faction that eventually hijacks the Horde storyline. I burned Saurfang's letter as he asked. I nodded alongside Golluk Rockfist as he told Horde players, "You are leaving to the Ruby Dragonshrine. This is not a request." I sat with Thrall in his darkest moments in the Undercity throne room, when he realized that everything was lost. By contrast, I /facepalmed my way through Icecrown. Spoiler material past the break.
Garrosh, a raid boss?
I don't necessarily agree with everything we highlight here on WoW.com, but just because a post seems wrong doesn't mean it isn't interesting to talk about. Such is the case with Loregy's latest post -- they suggest that after all is said and done, the much beloved (whoops, not) Garrosh Hellscream will end up at the wrong end of our weapons. They say that the big fight between Garrosh and Thrall (rudely interrupted by the Wrath of the Lich King) means that Garrosh is in for a whooping at some future point. Matt basically said as much in his post a while back -- Garrosh is a flawed hero, to say the least, and it's likely that sometime here, those flaws are going to catch up with him, possibly in the form of us players.Now of course whether that's true or not is an entirely different question from whether that's what you want or not. Kisirani has already said that there are sides of Garrosh we haven't seen yet, and Blizzard could go either way with him -- either put him through some troubles and teach him to learn some lessons (right now the guy is pretty dumb), or do what Loregy is suggesting and turn him into a raid boss (wouldn't be the first faction leader with such a fate, to be honest). Personally, I think Garrosh is headed for a little redemption -- all he really needs, to my mind, is a little experience and humility, and, as I understand it, war can teach those pretty well.
Patch 3.3 PTR: New Tauren skins found
Handclaw of the Scrolls of Lore Forums has uncovered something very intriguing in the Patch 3.3 PTR data files: New Tauren skins. Specifically, it looks like tribal war paint covering the face, arms, and chest, taking the form of bleeding wings on the chest. There's red, white, and blue color versions for both males and females. There's quite a few Tauren fans on the WoW.com staff, and we've been having quite a few conversations about the new Tauren lore and their place in Cataclysm, so you can bet this new discovery has us all atwitter. What could it mean though? There's a few possibilities.
Kisirani on the world post-Icecrown
Obviously, if you've been paying attention to what players are saying about Garrosh Hellscream, confidence isn't high in the guy. Especially if, as rumored, he's going to be getting a promotion very soon. But lest your fears about the guy are overtaking your Horde pride, just wait -- Kisirani says that we haven't learned all there is to know about the son of Grom. He may yet show a more palatable side, as we're told that we "haven't seen the entirety of who Garrosh is."And what better place to do that, she continues, than in the run up to Cataclysm. We already know there's going to be a world event, but Kisirani hints yet again that it's going to be quite sizable -- considering that she mentions it between Icecrown and the expansion release itself, we could just be talking about a whole content patch on its own. However it all plays out, it's quite clear that Icecrown is definitely not the end of this round of content, and the world we'll be playing in when Cataclysm actually releases will be very different than the one we know today.
[1.Local]: How?
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week.No summons, no buffs, we're not even going to clear the trash. [1.Local]'s going hardcore and pulling the reader e-mail of the week right away.Name: [redacted]URL:Subject: howRelated URL: http://You can practically smell the desperation on [redacted]'s breath as he pecks out an agonized cry for help, painfully tapped out with three searing characters. But never fear, there's a new warlock in town. Currying favor as the new kid on the block, Dominic Hobbs lets it be known that he's up to the task by dropping this DoT on the WoW.com team list:I'll look into this one.You have fun with that, Dom. After the break, the WoW.com staff points out some of the week's more remarkable reader comments.
A critical examination of Garrosh Hellscream
I hate to admit it, but he's starting to grow on me. Yes, he's an arrogant, petulant, mercurial and often ridiculously bellicose orc who has no direct reason for his ridiculous hatred of humans, but he's also out there doing things, which is more than certain other orc heroes can claim. Even if some people think a basic campfire could lead the Horde better than he could. It's possible that the fact everyone hates him made me want to give him another look, I'm weird that way.Yes, I'm talking about Garrosh Hellscream. Everyone's favorite "Oh I hate that guy" guy. And to be frank from the first time my Tauren Warrior stepped off of his kodo in front of the fire in Garadar I've kind of disliked him. He was whiny, dismissive, and petulant, (yes, I said it twice, you're lucky I didn't just type it 3000 times) and frankly even after I went through one of the longest (in terms of what it had me do, anyway) quest chains in BC to finally, finally get Thrall to come out and slap some sense into the kid (which he did with a kicking lightshow - remember Laser Floyd? Yeah, even Laser Floyd didn't have demon lords) I didn't like the new, reinvigorated Garrosh any more than I liked him before. Granted, I didn't expect to ever see him again.
Ask a Faction Leader: Garrosh Hellscream
WoW.com's prestige in the community has afforded us the opportunity to speak to major Horde and Alliance leadership figures on any subject, and we're letting you, the reader, Ask A Faction Leader! We recently spoke to Genn Greymane, King of Gilneas and leader of the Worgen, and he shed some light on several key issues, such as how hot Vereesa Windrunner is, why losing the Blood Elves was no big loss, and how to treat mental illness in the undead. This week, we've got incredibly popular Orc leader and captain of the Horde's Warsong Offensive, Garrosh Hellscream. Sitting in with him is Overlord Varok Saurfang, right hand of Warchief Thrall. Our first reader question: Dear Garrosh, There is a growing number of Horde members who believe "a basic campfire" would make a better Warchief than you. What's your response? Thank you, Brakkas
The best of WoW.com: September 1-8, 2009
Cats and dogs, sleeping -- well, you know the drill. Blizzard introduced faction transfers to World of Warcraft last week, and as you might imagine, it has us WoW.com folks in a tizzy. Trolls becoming Humans? Night Elves becoming Tauren? It's one big scandal all around. Here's that story, and nine more popular ones, from Joystiq's World of Warcraft-obsessed sister site WoW.com. News Faction change service now availableFor the first time in the game's history, players can switch from Horde to Alliance or vice versa. Patch 3.2.2: 5-man Coliseum jousting woes addressedThe next patch will smooth out some issues folks have been having with the new 5-man instance. Play safe, because a trojan can get you bannedBlizzard's Warden isn't just working for you: if it finds some malware, you might be asked to leave the game for good. Garrosh is not well-likedThere are rumors going around (spoiler) about Garrosh Hellscream, and players aren't real happy about it. Yogg-Saron in bluesThink you need epic gear to be great? Think again. Features Spiritual Guidance: 12 reasons you don't want to play a PriestOur Priest columnist looks at the bad side of the clothy healing class. Officers' Quarters: Loot rageAnd how to deal with it. WoW Rookie: How not to be a noobJust imagine if this was required reading when you first started playing games. No more noobs! Ask a Faction Leader: Genn GreymaneIt's an advice column and a lore story all in one! Survey: Figuring out the faction transfer numbersBreaking down who's transferring where.
Garrosh is not well-liked
There are some possible lore spoilers in this one, so we're pushing it after the break. If you're not worried about hearing some crazy future lore and enjoy a good laugh at the son of Grom Hellscream, read on.
Breakfast Topic: Who do you want to see in the Expansion?
So a while back, I asked you what races and organizations you'd want to see show up in the next expansion. But while races and organizations bring a lot of flavor and purpose to an expansion, there's nothing like a good charismatic figure to really stir things up. Be it Garrosh or Varian, Bolvar or Brann Bronzebeard, the figures of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion have certainly done a lot to inform the story and drive discussion and debate in lore.With that in mind, I've been thinking of who I'd like to see take a starring role in a future expansion. Turalyon and Alleria are definitely the biggest stars I can think of who have yet to make an appearance. I'd love to see them come back through a portal from whatever world they're on, with all the drama that would bring. Does Turalyon still hold a grudge against the orcs for the death of Lothar? What will Alleria think of the Blood Elves and of what her sisters have been up to?
What If We Lost: An argument for losing a major lore-based battle
Warning: This article does contain spoilers for the Argent Coliseum Raid. If you want to be surprised, skip this article!There's a pretty long thread going on in the General Forums right now that makes an interesting request of the dev team: Let us lose. The argument goes that we've been sort of steamrolling our way through massive challenges and insurmountable odds pretty much the whole raid game, and it's just getting boring. Nothing feels like a threat anymore. We know we're going to defeat it and move on. We need to shake things up.The more I think about it, the more I like it. Why not let us be on the losing side, at least for a few patches? The Lich King himself could use a bit of help in that vein, for sure. The early leveling game did manage to conjure up a few heart-stopping moments where Arthas "let us win," but when it was time to take that to the next level, it seems like Blizzard's sort of backed off and gone stale. Now, we're holding a Ren Faire on his front lawn while his scourge mostly mills around aimlessly and doesn't make more than a token attempt to do anything threatening.There would be no quicker way to get him to burst back on the scene by having him or one of his lieutenants deal us a devastating blow, one which we will find it hard to recover from.
The Queue: The holy cow it's a crab edition
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com'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.Half of our questions today are actually about WoW.com rather than... you know, WoW itself. Which is odd, but am I going to complain? Not really! It means you guys care, and that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Well, I guess that could be food poisoning. My crab rangoons were a little odd last night. Oddly delicious.Of course, if you don't really give a hoot about the inner workings of WoW.com and strictly want questions about the game, the other half of our questions cover that, so we have things for you, too. Read on!brasilnut13 asked..."Do you think Blizz will ever put class related titles in the game?"
The Queue: Buzz buzz
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com'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.Today's edition of The Queue is a pretty short one, but it's an important one. I'm making a change to the format of this column, which will be explained in our very first question of the day. Why is it so short? When you read the answer to the question, you'll understand. I just ran out of steam after pulling that off. elstor asked... "What's with the music lately? Why did you have to start this?!" It's something we did for giggles once, people liked it, we kept doing it just for kicks. I'm pretty bored of it though! We should pick a new Whatever of the Day instead of songs. Extreme Stunt of the Day?Read this edition of The Queue while doing a kickflip out of a burning building and through the moving blades of a helicopter, then land in the middle of the ocean where you will wrestle a shark. While covered in bees.
Why Varian Wrynn is a fool (and why it may not matter)
For a while now I've been mulling over points raised by Daniel in his much-discussed article, "Why Varian Wrynn Is Right," and we've received a number of requests to address the issue from the Horde's point of view. Well...this article isn't going to do that. It started off that way, and then I realized that Varian's personal issues and the Horde's approach to the problem are really two entirely separate matters. At some point in the future, I'd like to examine the Horde's take on the newly-resurgent antagonism between the factions, because it's not something I can adequately address here without turning this into a 10,000-word tract. Today, we're going to deal almost exclusively with Varian and his share of responsibility for the current mess. I'm a little ambivalent over Blizzard's decision to include most of the backstory and explanations for Varian's behavior in a comic series, because I think it's one of the factors that's resulted the character's being poorly received by most players. Choosing to include so much of his characterization out of the game in a product most players will never read necessarily impacts how Varian's motives are going to be evaluated. If all you've got to go on is what you see of the king from ingame events...he doesn't look so great. This isn't a defense of Varian so much as a commentary on the somewhat inconsistent approach to his character that's resulted. I haven't read each of the comics, but I'm familiar with the storyline, and this article doesn't assume that you need to have read the out-of-game books or comics in order to follow the argument.
The Daily Quest: Rise of the Wordy Warrior
We here at WoW Insider are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Still looking to get your hands on some BlizzCon tickets? WoW-Achievements.com is currently running a trivia contest, so head on over and give it a shot! Sideshow and Syrana take Memorial Day to Azeroth, honoring fallen heroes of the Horde and Alliance. We're a few days late, but have you roleplayers out there seen Too Many Annas' Friday Five this week? A good opportunity to take a look at the Varian/Garrosh conflict through the eyes of your character! One of our favorite blogs, The Wordy Warrior, has a brand new site and keeps the great content flowing: Check out An Officer's Guide to the Trial Period. Lorecrafted reviews the latest issue of the World of Warcraft comic. Click here to submit a link to TDQ
The Queue: Mercenaries
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.Today's edition of The Queue is nice and lengthy again, after a spree of shorty-shorts. See, good things happen when people actually ask questions! Although since it's being posted so late in the day, I bet Adam will have trouble again tomorrow. Do him (and yourselves) a favor: Ask Adam a bunch of completely absurd questions so he has something to write for all of you tomorrow!Airleagan asked... "In the Ulduar Cinematic, the Horde and the Alliance both reject the idea of going into Ulduar, yet the players go into Ulduar and are on the Factions of the Horde and the Alliance, Why do we not Listen to our leaders or do they even matter because it seams the Horde just does whatever they want no matter what Thrall says?"
Varian Wrynn is Right
Warning: This article contains spoilers of varying intensity for the Wrathgate world event, the new Arthas Novel , and the Warcraft Comic Series. It is also 3 pages long. Be sure to click the links at the bottom to head to the next part!Among WoW players these days, it seems to be a popular opinion that King Varian Wrynn is a narrow minded short-sighted bigot who will lead the Alliance to ruin. This is an easy opinion to have, since he does show a considerable amount of anger at times when dealing with the Horde, and it's long been the general opinion that "no-one is truly evil" in the Horde and Alliance conflict. This is even the opinion of some of my fellow writers.Here's my problem with this: The underlying causes of Varian Wrynn's anger are all unconditionally justified. Varian Wrynn is not angry at the Horde because of a series of misunderstandings and misinterpretations. He's been witness to or victim of multiple wrongdoings and atrocities perpetuated by the Horde time and time again, both the new Horde and the Old. Most, if not all of these times, the wrongdoings have been the result of outright maliciousness on the part of the Horde or its members, and in the case the so-called "peaceful" New Horde, there's been no sign whatsoever that Thrall is punishing or disciplining the perpetrators of these acts, and at the least, it is clear that he is not properly dealing with the consequences.
Ask a Lore Nerd: The heads and tails of the Horde
Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, where each week blogger and columnist Alex Ziebart answers your questions about the lore and history of the World of Warcraft. Ask your questions in the comments section below, and we'll try to answer it in a future edition.This week on Ask a Lore Nerd, we're only answering a small number of questions, because they're really good ones and I want to dork out over them a little. Let's get started, shall we?Mornash asked...Speaking of Garrosh Hellscream, what do you think Blizzard has in store for us with his story. They're portraying him like his father was, a bloodthirsty, arrogant, loose cannon. Are they going to have him repeat past mistakes? Maybe bring about another downfall? Or will Saurfang and Thrall get through to him and have him ultimately become a hero?
That sinking sensation
There are a few quests I've done so far that have really made me squirm. I play Horde, and you just know that most things the Forsaken are wrapped up in are going to be kind of dodgy. A lot of our early questing in Northrend concerns the Apothecary Society's attempts to find a Scourge-specific plague (...right), and that doesn't end particularly well. I can sort of accept that, because the quest series skates a thin moral line between plausible deniability on the character's part as to the apothecaries' true intentions, and what actually ends up happening. But there's one quest in particular that has nothing to do with the apothecaries that really gave me pause. It's actually one that has an Alliance equivalent as well, although it ends somewhat differently there.If you're not that far into Dragonblight quests and don't want to be spoiled, I'm putting it behind the cut.
