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Barrens Chat: Warlocks are, too!
The comic this week was inspired by an email received from fellow blogger, Robin about something Krystalle says in response to a (sadly) common misspelling over chats. So dual credit for nudging me in that direction, ladies. I had to run with it once I had the starting idea in my head.The truth is, I am very grateful to both of my fellow bloggers in sparking this idea in my head. I hope they find the result of Robin's email fun, and I look forward to warping more ideas from them in the future. %Gallery-22361%
Blogging into Mordor: Finding the perfect name for your Man (or Woman)
Having the most available classes and arguably the best racial abilities in The Lord of the Rings Online, the Race of Man is also the most popular. So it can be hard to find a decent name for your human. Everyone wants to be a hero, for their character to be great and achieve fame and glory. But can you do this without naming your character "Aragorrn" or "Boromier"? You bet! This guide will take you through finding the perfect first name and surname for your man or woman. Unlike the other races, a member of the Race of Man's name relies heavily on its origin/nationality. A man from Dale's name is going to sound nothing like the name of a man from Bree. The conventions for both the first names and surnames are highly varied between each culture. This is mostly due to the fact that men live such short lives and live so far away from each other, and also due to war, which has separated members of the race greatly. The cultures of the four nationalities are so varied that if you want a lore-appropriate name for role-playing, you will have to choose the name first based on your character's chosen nationality. With the other races, this isn't as important.
Barrens Chat: On the bandwagon, and off the rocker
I would like to begin by pointing out that this comic was not actually thought of by me. Interpreted, drawn, and displayed by me, yes; but the real mind behind this comic is the same on that brought you the deep and insightful explanation on Engineering (which he also had me draw), Brian Karasek.Brian has been a friend of mine, and my S.O., for well over five years now. We've stalked followed him through three different games, and ended up following him into World of Warcraft after the two of us were convinced we'd never be seeing him again. Luckily, we were wrong. Brian is a truly wonderful friend, and I am grateful to have him. Now that the obligatory brown-nosing is out of the way, I would like my birthday present now, please!For those of you who don't know (likely 99.8% of you I'd assume) my birthday is tomorrow, June 6th. I expect lots of lovely supportive comments for this comic, as well as large, unsolicited donations of money from you all, thank you (Just kidding... no really). %Gallery-22361%
Barrens Chat: Dibs
Hello again! This week's strip has been done in memory of Children's Week. That wonderful and joyous celebration that gets you a cute little tag along to play with, all in exchange for running everywhere in the entire world.I have somehow managed to miss out on Children's Week every year, but knowing my luck, it's for the better! It would likely lead to a catastrophe not unlike what is featured in this comic.Want to know what kind of catastrophe I'm talking about? Check out the Barrens Chat gallery for this and other comics!%Gallery-22361%
Barrens Chat: First posts make me hungry
Greetings fellow travelers of time and space! Welcome to the first official posting of Barrens Chat, a soon to be weekly implement of random craziness. Although I know I'm not the first comic strip, and likely I wont be the last to grace these glorious virtual pages, I invite you to take a romp with me, Megan, as I drag forth those silly comments people make that they hope no one noticed, and glorify them with fancy colors, and ever-changing art.I will point out that although all of this is will all be incredibly funny to everyone who reads it, including me; it may end up being a "you had to be there" moment. In that case, come back next week! I'm sure it'll be funnier then. No really, it will. %Gallery-22361%
The Digital Continuum: Macrotransactions
The subject of microtransactions tends to bring out a lot of different opinions in people and sometimes harsh words are exchanged. I've never really taken a stance on the matter, as I've always been a bit unsure of which side of the argument I fell on. I recently had an epiphany on my stance. Everyone that is talking about microtranasctions seems to be missing something important. They're all a little bit wrong. Michael Zenke (one of our intrepid leads here at Massively) recently brought up the subject in a different light and in doing so made me come to this realization that we'd all been missing an important factor in this discussion.I think we need to stop looking at microtransactions with a black or white lens. Monthly subscriptions and single-dollar purchases aren't the only options available to us. For the sake of argument, let's call what I'm about to discuss something different.Let's call them Macrotransactions.
Does my human female look psycho to you?
Apparently Blizzard spent some time rebuilding all the player models for Patch 2.4 in order to increase performance. What exactly does this mean to us players who loves the way our characters look? Absolutely nothing. You won't notice any differences in the models at all -- except, that is, if you happen to play a human female. Then you might look deep into your characters eyes and notice a certain "Stepford-wife" look, like a "2000-yard stare," as if her "irises are popping out of her head."Asariah noticed this and posted his concerns in the Bug Report Forum (did you know there was a Bug Report Forum? neat huh?). Hortus spotted this report and informed us that the human female was the only one of the multiple races to receive a minor alteration from this, and that "it was decided that this was an acceptable change." Apparently someone up there at Blizzard is a big fan of 2000-yard, iris-popping, stepford-wife eyes in women! For my part, though, I have to get up really close to my human female character to notice the difference -- and then when I do it makes me giggle uncontrollably. It's really no worse, in my opinion, than all those glowy reflections you see in anime girls' eyes. And to be honest, human women have always been a bit vacant-looking in WoW; they're better than human men, of course, but still don't usually look like paragons of profound intelligence. At least they don't bounce up and down like night-elf girls do.[Via World of Raids]
Best starting race
I've been leveling a few Draenei alts off and on and finally figured out just why it is that I keep rolling the damn things in addition to my beloved Tauren; their starting quests rock. You wake from stasis, meet the locals, save a princess, make early ties to the Alliance and find out why there's a good reason the some of 'em won't trust you right off the bat, discover nefarious deeds afoot, fight a dragon, and then save your people and get a cool tabard. "Find your way back to the Outland, Hero of Argus," Exarch Admetius tells you, in a nice preview of things to come, and Velen has a good lore moment with you shortly afterwards.Having leveled a toon out of every starting area to at least 20, it's hard not to notice that some areas make it a lot easier than others. I don't mean the general ease of leveling per se, but just how fast the time seems to fly by. For all that a certain percentage of the playerbase frowns on RP on non-RP servers, most peoples' favorite quests do have an element of RP to them, or at least the RP sense of being fully engaged with the world. And in that respect the Draenei starting zones are, in my opinion, unparalleled. If I had to rank them --
Cinemassively: Mythos trailer
In a press release found on WarCry Network, Flagship Studios Seattle released a new trailer for their free MMO in closed beta, Mythos. The video features new footage of gameplay, and narration by a producer, Brock Jones, and programmer, Marsh Lefler. If this game seems familiar, that's because Flagship was responsible for Diablo II many moons ago.According to the press release, you can play as one of three races, Human, Elves, and Gremlins, in this free-to-play MMO. Players must take on heroic quests in search of gold, armor, and weapons in the fantasy-land of Uld. It is currently in closed beta, but you can sign up on their official site.The video is included after the jump, as it may contain ads ...
PTR Notes: Hypothermia reduced, weapon racials changed
In what must surely be the final build of the patch 2.3 PTR, which was pushed last night, few changes seem to have been made. Which makes sense, because they're only going to have a week to test it. As far as the good folks at World of Raids can make out, here's the list of changes in the latest build: [Mage] Hypothermia changed from 45s back to 30s. Human and Orc weapon racials changed from 1% crit to 5 expertise. Expertise is a new weapon stat that reduces your opponents' chance to dodge or parry your attacks; 5 expertise grants 1.25% dodge/parry reduction. Expertise has replaced weapon skill elsewhere in the game (except on ranged weapons, which get +crit/+hit instead), so it makes sense to see it here, as these racials were in the form of weapon skill pre-2.3. And I assume the Hypothermia de-nerf can only be seen as a good thing. I've seen some quite upset mages around, and indeed, 30s already seemed perfectly long enough to me.Since there were no updated patch notes for this build, it's always possible that there are additional changes that no-body's noticed yet. If so, please feel free to post them in the comments and I'll update the post.
Shifting Perspectives: The human druids
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them, brought to you by Dan O'Halloran and David Bowers.Druids weren't always night elves and tauren, you know. Well, in World of Warcraft they were, but centuries before the first snowflakes started to form in the clouds of Blizzard's creative minds, the authentic human druids actually walked around casting regrowth, shapeshifting, and spamming moonfire.Or did they? How much of the class that we know and love in WoW is actually based on the real life druids of old? How did the word "druid" come to refer to our fantasy fighters rather than some ancient wise men in robes?
More info on the Warcraft comic
BlizzPlanet's got a promotional writeup on the new World of Warcraft comic from DC (which we're supposed to be receiving a few copies of anytime now, I believe, here at WI Headquarters-- I'll go check my mailbox). As we've heard, the comic will have a Human protagionist (boo!). Fortunately, an Orc Shaman will play a big part, too (cheer!). A human is found unconscious on the shores of Kalimdor, with no memory of who he is or how he arrived there. Enslaved by the Orc Shaman Rehgar Earthfury, this man must fight for survival against members of both the Alliance and the Horde, striking uneasy relationships with other races in his quest to find the secrets of his past!Wait, check out that pic-- he was found unconscious on the shores... with Thunderfury? Weird.WorldofWar also points out that the comic may or may not touch upon the Missing Diplomat quest series, which many, many players are very interested in seeing an end do. I think it'd be kind of a cop out if they finished the quest off in the book (and never finished it in the game), but I guess we'll see.Are you guys excited about this or not? Seems like you'd have to be a comic book fan to go for this one, as I doubt many WoW fans will be running into comic stores for the first time to buy it. But if you like both, maybe you'll like this.
Opening FFTA2's Sealed Grimoire
Jeux France has the goods on the races (as well as new images and scans) in the upcoming Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2: The Sealed Grimoire: Human, Viera, Moogle, Bangaa, and Nu Moh. Sound familiar? They should, if you played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. Hey, it's a sequel -- did you expect other furry animal-based races?We know some of you are looking forward to the title (and others, not so much), and though the details are starting to shape up, we're as yet undecided on how we feel about this game. In the end, since it's Final Fantasy, and we're shameless addicts, we'll probably give it a go, despite the question of Tactics vs. Tactics Advance being just as polarizing, if not more so, than the idea of Tingle starring in his own games.
Augmented reality relationship game plays with your emotions
If you couldn't quite make it to the last Wii marriage counseling session, there's still good news coming from Georgia Tech. Thanks to a group of engineering minds at the university, a new augmented reality game (dubbed AR Facade) is placing you in the center of a marital spat with nearly limitless options. The program apparently runs on a back-worn laptop and utilizes an oh-so-tacky head mountable display, and developers suggest that being placed in the midst of an "interactive drama" allows you to choose sides, attempt to mediate, and basically "define your own way to win" as you try to talk some sense into the flustered couple. Interestingly, there's even talk of bringing such games "onto mobile phones" and into the workplace, but it looks like they've got a bit of hardware trimming to do first.[Via The Raw Feed]
WoW Moviewatch: I feel fantastic!
Here's another in a long line of videos made by Spiffworld using the music of Jonathan Coulton. This one deals with a day in the future when we might have a "buff" (pill) for everything, and whether or not that might be a good thing... Also, be sure to keep an eye out for a special appearance by a previous video character who is once again up to no good.Previously, on Moviewatch...
Know Your Lore: Jaina Proudmoore
For today's Know Your Lore, we have the tale of a spoiled rich blonde girl with special powers who saved the world, despite her propensity for dating guys that suddenly go evil and decide to destroy the world/another world/all life on the planet. Yes, we'll be discussing Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Okay, fine, it's about Jaina Proudmoore. But we're going to do Buffy later. Who: Jaina Proudmoore. What: Human sorceress. History: Jaina was born in the kingdom of Kul Tiras, a seafaring kingdom that has mysteriously disappeared from Azeroth in WOW. Her father was Admiral Daelin Proudmoore, the ruler of the land. When Jaina was young, she discovered that she had talent in the magical arts and was sent off to the mage kingdom of Dalaran, where she badgered her way into becoming an apprentice of the sorcerer Antonidas. During her studies, she met and became friends with another privileged blond, Prince Kael'thas Sunstrider, who was then serving the Kirin Tor wizardry. Kael'thas developed a bit of a crush on Jaina, but postponed acting on his feelings because she was a teenager and he was a few hundred years old. That actually doesn't make a lot of sense. Was he planning on waiting until she was a few hundred years old too? Anyway, by the time Kael'thas finally got the nerve to ask her out, Jaina had her eye on another prince -- Arthas Menethil, the heir to the throne of Kul Tiras's longtime ally, Lordaeron. The two met and began a relationship. But according to the lore, Arthas's duties in Lordaeron as a prince and a member of the Silver Hand and Jaina's commitment to Dalaran caused them to end their relationship and be "just good friends." And just like on Earth, their post-breakup "good friendship" was doomed to disaster.
WoW Moviewatch: So that's where that dance came from!
We've all seen the videos of different dances. We've had ones where they all dance together, ones where the original source is cited. We've even seen video of a guy dancing like a Night Elf Female. Now we have another dance movie. There's one thing about this one that sets it apart, however. This is the first one I've seen that does a really good job of putting the dances side-by-side with their inspirations. As Bowzerblack on the WoW LJ said: "I didn't know that about ogres!" All I can say is that I didn't either. And yes, I know it's the Boomkin dance too, but you don't see a lot of (completely-bare) topless Boomkins running about. Which, now that I think about it, is probably a good thing.Previously, on MovieWatch...[via the WoW LJ community]
Breakfast Topic: Would you change your race?
The other night we finished the Path of Conquest quest chain in Shadowmoon, and I found myself running around blasting Colossi as a Blood Elf. It was fascinating to see what I would look like if I had rerolled my character, something I consider on and off just for fun. Often times we get a chance to respec our talents. What if we could respec our race? If there was a free chance to reselect your character's race, would you choose differently? I know despite the faction shift the Blood Elf race is looking very tempting after playing a human for so long.
