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Ghostcrawler and Dave Kosak switch jobs for an evening on Twitter
When the Ghostcrawler is away, apparently the Kosak will play -- or at least, take over Ghostcrawler's job for a few days. Those following Dave "Fargo" Kosak or Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street on Twitter may have caught a flurry of tweets from the two. It all began with an innocent enough notification from everyone's favorite crustacean, letting followers on Twitter know that he would be fairly quiet over the next few days. Dave Kosak decided to respond and note that he would be taking over class tweets in the interim. Chaos, of course, ensued. Rogues? Nerf. Mages? Nerf nerf. Shaman? BUFF. 4th Shaman spec uses HATS instead of totems. Done. - Dave Kosak (@DaveKosak) January 27, 2013
Know Your Lore: Lore 101, Part 2
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 the last Lore 101 segment, I went over resources -- the novels, manga, comics, source guides, games and everything else that make up the story behind World of Warcraft. It's a lot of material to follow, and the sheer volume of it can be daunting, but there's no better way to sort out the story and what happened to who, when and where, than by following the original sources. While this is all well and good, today's post covers why everything in part one may or may not be... well, invalid. That's right, the novel you just picked up and read through may very well not count in the long run. The comics may not actually apply. A later novel may wipe out the timeline of existing events in one fell swoop, and the information you thought you had a solid grasp on might be invalidated in an instant. And that's perfectly okay. Let's take a look at what makes a story like Warcraft tick.
Breakfast Topic: Race Change, your personal retcon
Just about every wall has been broken down now. The only thing left is the ability to change one's class, which probably won't happen anytime... soon®. Yesterday, the highly anticipated Race Change service went live, and I'm sure a lot of players rushed to get their makeover. Take Gregg, for example, who went on and changed his Level 70 Tauren Hunter into a weed-loving Troll. I mean, he's wanted to do that for a while. I know I've been hankering for race change myself, but now that the service is here, I haven't exactly jumped the gun. Why? I said I wanted to turn my Blood Elf Death Knight -- I'm quite happy with just one Sin'dorei -- into an Orc, but now I'm kind of wondering. I still want to change my character's race, I'm just not quite settled on which one to switch to. Race change is kind of like a retcon in the World of Warcraft, more so than name changes or customization of appearance. It's right up there with gender changes. Faction changes are different because it kind of take away your character's entire continuity, and I'm sure a lot of RP'ers made completely different back-stories for faction-changed characters. Race change allows you to have essentially the same character but with a major difference. We asked what race you'd switch to about a month back, but now that the service is here, we're going to ask who's up and done the change? What race did you switch from and what race did you switch to? Tell us why! Personally, I'm just kind of bored with another Blood Elf, and I want one of each race (I know, I should've thought of that to begin with). Lame, right? On the other hand, I'm holding out for that Undead Hunter I've always wanted. Now that World of Warcraft's personal retcon is a paid service, have you taken advantage of it? Have you changed anything else besides your race such as gender or name?
Retcons, non-combat and superpowered travelling in Champions Online
The first Ask Cryptic for Champions Online in February spends a lot of time clearing up questions concerning travel powers, non-combat features and, well, even more non-combat features. Yeah, this set of questions definitely run the gamut -- but that's how we like 'em!What caught our attention in this one was the reveal of respecs in the game or as Cryptic is calling them, "Retcons" It sounds like we may actually be able to get Retcons on specific power choices in Champions Online. Our reason for thinking this comes from the line saying, "Up to a certain level, retcons are fairly cheap, but the higher the level of your character, the more thorough the retcon, the more expensive." While this could simply be some miscommunication, it does sound like less thorough Retcons will be available to those looking for only a little take-back.Additionally, there's a good amount of discussion on how physics and the balancing of travel powers in combat works as well. Mostly it's concerning the functionary bits on how it'll all work in the game come launch, but if you're interested in that you should definitely check this one out.
All the World's a Stage: Raiding and RP don't mix, or do they? -- A question of continuity.
All the World's a Stage is brought to you by David Bowers every Sunday evening, investigating the mysterious art of roleplaying in the World of Warcraft.The Warcraft storyline is part of a great tradition of fantasy literature, and, as with any form of storytelling, the entire span of WoW lore involves a series of events and changes. Arthas wasn't always the Lich King, Illidan used to be able to wear shoes, and your character was once a little child, with no spells or epic weapons at all. All these things fit together in a single story universe, in which the progressive changes taking place in the story made the world what it is today.But what is it today? Is Illidan now dead or alive? Is VanCleef dead or alive, for that matter? As a gaming environment, any boss you kill today has to be there for me to kill tomorrow. The WoW game world needs to remain basically unchangeable -- but over time this can stifle a roleplayer's sense of immersion in its narrative. To illustrate the impact this sort of immutability has on storytelling, let us take a page from a certain fantasy story you might have read, and see how it might work as a WoW raid instance.Welcome to Mines of Moria! This raid instance will reset in 6 days, 10 hours and 41 minutes.[Raidleader] [Gandalf]: Beware! There are older and fouler things than orcs in the deep places of the world. Follow my glowing staff! [Raidleader] [Gandalf]: ... and um... get ready to pull that first group of orcs. Kill order is skull, x, circle... Gimli, can you offtank that cave troll?
