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The ghosts of Azeroth
I love ghost stories, and one of the nice things about WoW is that Azeroth is full of them. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that one of the nice things for us is that Azeroth's full of them, because lore-wise it's hard to argue that the existence of any ghost is a happy occurrence. While I could (and probably should) turn this into a giant feature cataloging all the ghosts in the game, I have my personal favorites: Caer Darrow The inhabitants of Caer Darrow are my favorite ghosts, not least because you can't see them at all until you've done a bit of work on their behalf. The island seems utterly deserted barring the Sarkhoff couple...until you realize that it's not, and that there's an entire town full of people trapped on its "happiest day," going about its business, oblivious to how the world's moved on. That there's a ghostly vendor you can't otherwise talk to without a Spectral Essence is even better.
Western Plaguelands not so plagued anymore in Cataclysm
We addressed the implication that the Alliance might be retaking some lost lands in Cataclysm thanks to some mutterings by blues on the official forums. Now we've got confirmation from the latest Twitter dev chat that while Eastern Plaguelands will still be a hellhole, Western Plaguelands will be free of the plague when the expansion hits. Twitter developer chat Q. With the Lich King defeated, in Cataclysm, will the Plaguelands be green and beautiful again? A. Western Plaguelands will finally be free of the plague in Cataclysm. It's hard for the Scourge to survive without their beloved Lich King. I guess this means we need to rename the zone? source Just awesome. This is the kind of change I was hoping for in Cataclysm, to be honest -- not just earthquakes and floods, but actual passage of time and logical storyline progression post-defeat of Lordaeron's traitor prince. Wonder what this means for Scholomance or Andorhal! But, also, what does it mean for the name? I guess Eastern Plaguelands will likely become just The Plaguelands, but what will WPL become? East Lordaeron? New Lordaeron? Or, given the zone's proximity to the zone that's basically Azeroth's armpit, they could just go with the one that makes the most sense: Pennsylvania.
Is the Alliance aiming to retake lost lands in Cataclysm?
Derthelz on the official forums asked a good question -- why is the Alliance prepared to kill Arthas but not to try to retake their lost city of Lordaeron? After all, the upper half of the Eastern Kingdoms is almost completely lost to the Alliance, despite the area being the former home of some of Azeroth's most powerful nations. Why doesn't the Alliance try to take them back? Crygil says that, actually, they just might: "Who said that the Alliance wouldn't attempt to reclaim these lands? That is a very dangerous assumption to make, especially if you're of the forsaken persuasion. The Lich King is a threat to all the inhabitants of Azeroth and, as such, he needs to be put down before territorial disputes can be resolved. Leaving those claims for the future only makes sense; far easier to fight one war at a time. For now, it's better to focus on the task at hand."
The Queue: My, what big teeth you have
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Why yes, that is the most disgusting whale you've ever seen. Unless, of course, you've witnessed local authorities taking dynamite to a beached whale to get it out of the way since they couldn't move it just by pushing the thing. That is disgusting. Whale guts landing on cars a mile away? No thanks. I'll take the guy pictured above over that. Moonkinmaniac asked... "On the WoW calendar there's an undead whale picture. What the heck is it? Is it a rejected project for the current expansion or possibly one for Cataclysm?"
Theming the login page
Toussaint is exactly right -- this took me back. Way back to the original login screen and music, when level 60 was the max and everyone was running UBRS and the Plaguelands instances, and "heroic" was just something us players were. Even the Burning Crusade login screen, right, brings back some memories, of wandering around Hellfire Peninsula and raiding in Netherstorm. The roar of the frost wyrm we have now is nice and all, but sometimes we long for earlier days.Which brought me to the question: what about a theme-switching system? There's no real reason the login screen has to be set to the current expansion -- while it's nice to have a new look to that interface every time we reinstall the program, there's nothing the new one really does that the old one couldn't. You'd think they'd be easy to change around, and if Blizzard just gave us a drop-down switcher in the options, we could choose whichever one we wanted.Let's not forget, however, that their code is weird -- you wouldn't think that they'd hard-wire the new Battle.net login code to the newest login screen, but maybe they did something silly like that, which would probably mean we'll never see the "classic" login screen again. But still, if there's a way to do it, it would be nice to see that old portal and hear that rousing anthem yet again.
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?"
The Queue: Cats rule, dogs drool
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 will be pretty short and sweet. Many of the questions that were asked yesterday have since been answered in other places around the site, so I just went ahead and skimmed over those ones to answer what hasn't been addressed already. Ready? Set? Let's go!Becky asked..."I may be wrong but it seems to me of all the in-game non-combat pets, there are no dogs but plenty of cats. What's with the lack of dogs? My mage wants a puppy."
Oh, the cleverness of me!
I'm not in the beta. I'm kind of uncomfortable with the notion of spoiling myself completely, and I'm a terrible leveler. I have the lurking feeling that leveling my main to 80 before Wrath actually went live would wreck a leveling pace that might otherwise have been driven by exploration and discovery. I want Wrath to be a fantastic new experience that will recapture the sense of wonder I felt leveling my first toon in a strange new world. Also I never got a key, but the other reasons are more important and influential.Yeah, even I don't believe me.While I'm certain I'll never make a Death Knight my main, I'm sure I'll enjoy leveling one. I'm sure I'm not going to enjoy trying to level one alongside 50,000 other people and their cousins and their friends and their friends' dogs and their friends' dogs' fleas leveling a Death Knight. So it's occurred to me that, OK as I am with the notion of waiting a few months to get started on my bouncing baby bundle of risen-corpsified merriment, I can capitalize on the coming rush of Death Knights in a completely different fashion simply by exercising a little foresight. All Death Knights are melee, right? None of them can really heal, right? People are already noticing un peu problem in the beta in this vein, right? And I can't level an alt worth beans, right right? Right. What's the one buff that makes all melee salivate, provided by an excellent healing class, during a time in which healers will never have to worry about finding a group or a tank?Bingo. I'm getting a resto Shaman to 58 and parking him in Eastern Plaguelands to twiddle his thumbs in anticipation of the descent of the Death Knight legion come Wrath's release. See you there!
Scholomance to be revisited?
Everybody's favorite trash bin, Scholomance, might be getting a revisit by Blizzard. Late last week, CM Wryxian posted on the WoW Europe forums asking players for their thoughts on the expansion, and since then, people have given it a general thumbs up -- while Scholo has always had issues with too much trash in too cramped quarters (in fact, it was already revamped a few times to be tuned down -- it used to be a 10 man raid equal in difficulty to UBRS), players still frequent it, and they have really enjoyed the fact that it was a branching dungeon that had some pretty cool lore associated with it -- the story of Darkmaster Gandling and his school of Necromancy (and all the hot teachers there) is a good one.Of course, what Blizzard might do with the instance, we have no idea -- at this point, it's soloable at 70, but it still does provide a great source of Argent Dawn rep, and there are actually a few epics dropping in there now. Maybe they'll revamp it like Naxx, or it'll be the first "old world" instance to be given a Heroic setting? Or maybe Blizzard is asking players what they think about the instance because they're thinking of cutting it -- in order to introduce some new leveling content in the Plaguelands. The fact that they're asking about it at all means that there must be something in store for Gandling's old school, but what that is, we have no idea.
Staying out of Outland
If you listen to me (or anyone else around here, it seems), the major consensus seems to be to head to Outlands right at 58, period. The leveling is faster, the quests are more interesting, and the money is plentiful, as are the drops. But cyanrose over on WoW LJ makes an amazing case for exactly the opposite: staying in old Azeroth from levels 58-60.She's been rolling around Hearthglen picking up items and XP, and from the way she tells it, things are almost as good there as they are in Outland. A dropped Orb of Deception (which was sold for a whopping 700g) didn't hurt, and there's lots of Rich Thorium around as well. Since old Azeroth is so empty, she hasn't had any problems with PvP, and apparently there's some good AoE grinding to do around there as well.Great example of going against convention and finding your own way to play through the game. Outlands is there if you want it at 58 -- you can replace your gear in just a few quests, and get started on the new reputation grinds early. But don't let the popular opinion stop you from exploring the old world if you want -- there's lots of loot and fun to be had there, too.
The evolution of World PvP rewards
Relmstein has a good post up about how Blizzard's world PvP has evolved over time, and what we might expect from Lake Wintergrasp, the PvP zone in Wrath of the Lich King. When world PvP began, it was very much an ad-hoc environment, which lead to a lot of 1v1 battles that eventually escalated when wandering guildies or alts showed up. As Relmstein says, the large majority of battles started with that stealthing noise (that used to inspire chills in the spines of those on PvP servers), and ended with an all-out brawl with no rewards but to get the other guys back.Nowadays, world PvP is much more organized, in the sense that there are specific objectives and goals to go after. The original reward was a zonewide buff (in Silithus and the Plaguelands), but Blizzard eventually morphed this into something more permanent -- in Auchindoin, you fight for a buff that earns you tokens for rewards, and in Halaa, you fight to get the rewards themselves.Which leads Relmstein to suspect that Wintergrasp will have direct rewards of its own, almost equal to the gear you get from endgame dungeons and Arena PvP. He predicts that it will be token-based (not a bad idea, considering all the badge changes Blizzard has put in lately -- in fact, Blizzard might even cut a corner and have Wintergrasp reward players with WotLK's version of badges directly), and that it will be updated with each Arena season, to keep players fighting there. All good ideas -- Blizzard has definitely innovated (successfully or otherwise) in the area of World PvP rewards, and we'll look forward to Wrath to see what they come up with there.
Phat Loot Phriday: Felstone Good Luck Charm
Now's a good a time as any to talk about a "husky loot" item (one that anyone can get) that will give you the luck o' the Irish, and one that has a pretty good quest story behind it too.Name: Felstone Good Luck Charm (Wowhead, Thottbot, WowDB)Type: Uncommon AmuletArmor: N/AAbilities: +13 Shadow Resistence, which was pretty good back when this was gear you picked up right before the endgame. But not so much anymore. A leprechaun did tell me that this thing will grant you good luck, though. How to Get It: This is the fun part -- this is actually the quest reward at the end of a fun little self-contained questline that will take you from either Stormwind (for Alliance) or Undercity (for Horde) into the Plaguelands. Yes, the Plaguelands -- it's that little lobby right before you enter the Ghostlands. Just look for those poor, lonely Argent Dawn questgivers (or just follow the sounds of them whining under their breath that the expansion isn't here yet).To start the quest, you've got to grab Janice's Parcel, which you can find on the Felstone farm while in the Western Plaguelands. That will send you off to the capital city of your faction, and then take to you some familiar faces (apparently the Felstone family roots reach far and deep). You'll meet a few Felstones, and eventually you'll be able to collect the Felstone Good Luck Charm, which, in true luck o' the Irish fashion (it's actually a curse), is being handed down to you from a family that hasn't had much luck at all.Kind of a fun quest, not too long, and has some good flavor text in it. And if nothing else, you can consider this Blizzard's holiday reward for you, since there is no "Aldor Patrick's Day" in Azeroth.Getting Rid of It: Sells to vendors for 71s 64c or disenchants into a Dream Dust, Lesser Eternal Essence or a Small Brilliant Shard. Happy St. Patrick's Day, everybody!
Around Azeroth: The town of Caer Darrow
Reader Jalia sends in this touching picture from Caer Darrow, the ghostly town surrounding Scholomance in the Western Plaguelands. Upon completing a number of quests in Scholomance, you are rewarded with the Spectral Essence trinket which allows you to see "visions of the past" and relive the days of a Caer Darrow bustling with people. The ghostly city is full of tragic sights, one of which shown in the image above.Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing a copy to aroundazeroth@wow.com, with as much or as little detail as you'd like to share with us. %Gallery-1816%
EVE Online Mac client works great
I was a little surprised to hear all the cheering over on the EVE Online post the other day-- I have to say, I had no idea you TUAW readers could get so excited about an MMO (and by the way, my name in game is Frank Dante, if any of you more experienced pilots want to take me on an Omber mining mission).But now that I know you're out there, I've got even more good news for you. The Mac client has been available to download for a little while now in beta, and it supposedly works great. Plaguelands got it running terrific on a pretty well-fitted MacBook Pro running Tiger. There have been rumors about Leopard not working well, but considering that CCP (the company that makes EVE) specifically mentioned Leopard in their announcement, it should run just as well.And tomorrow's the day-- EVE players are getting both the new patch, and the new Mac and Linux clients. I'll see you all out there among the belts, mining asteroids and fending off rats.
Around Azeroth: Sister Pamela
You may wonder how this relatively drab shot, sent in by reader Conak of Stormrage, made it into our Around Azeroth location. It's not an impressive locale or an interesting site -- however, this little doll is found in just one part of Azeroth and it is the hallmark of one of the game's saddest quests, the Sister Pamela chain. In this short series of quests, a ghost sends you to Darrowshire in the Eastern Plaguelands to find her younger sister. The sister is easily found, but a ghost herself, wandering around and wanting only her doll, which we see above.Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing a copy to aroundazeroth@wow.com, with as much or as little detail as you'd like to share with the world! %Gallery-1816%
Around Azeroth: Gryphon ride
If you're anything like me, you'll take one look at this shot from reader Atrius and wondered what the heck kind of new mount he'd uncovered. Of course, you would also, like me, not have participated in the world PvP objectives in the Eastern Plaguelands -- because this fine mount is a spectral gryphon that flies between the towers, assuming your faction holds them. Glowy!Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! You can attach a picture file or send us a link to one -- and don't worry about formatting, we'll take care of that part.
