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Breakfast Topic: What tabard do you wear?
So I have to admit, one of the most annoying parts of Beta testing my Death Knight is that I don't have access to any decent tabards. It's annoying, and I feel almost naked without one, but I don't have the time to grind exalted with any factions. Thinking about that got me thinking about my tabard choices for my other characters. Of course, in Wrath, tabards are going to get all mixed up a bit, what with that new championing system, but I'll probably keep my favorite tabards on hand for swapping in when I'm not grinding faction. Actually, I may just tend toward my guild's tabard in Northrend, since our guild's backstory is intertwined with Northrend itself. Besides, I like to show a little guild pride when I can, and it's been a while since I wore a guild tabard on any of my alliance 70s. Currently, my Druid wears the Cenarion Expedition tabard. Not only does the green and brown go well with his leather, but it's the closest there is to a Cenarion Circle tabard. For my Dwarf Hunter, it's an Argent Dawn tabard, since she's an especially zealous enemy of the Scourge. For my Warlock, the Scryer's Tabard, because he admires the Blood Elf race and (what he sees as) their dedication to knowledge at any price. So why do your characters wear the tabard they wear? Do you plan to do any tabard swapping for Wrath of the Lich King?
SwagDog and Blizzard team up to offer custom t-shirts with guild and toon info
The BlizzCon tickets are slowly (and unsurely) being sold, and the first few lucky buyers have been linked to a "BlizzCon Exclusive" from SwagDog.com -- apparently they've teamed up with Blizzard to offer real-life versions of your guild tabard on a t-shirt, and folks who attend BlizzCon will get their pick of the first shirts off the presses.Note to Blizzard and SwagDog: feel free to send the royalty checks over to me whenever you want. The bad news is that they've eschewed the idea of "t-shirt as tabard", and instead it looks like they're making a custom-printed shirt for everyone, so it'll have not just your tabard on their shirt, but your guild's name, and your character's name and realm, race, class and faction as well.As neat as these are, I think I'd like something a little more subtle -- all that text and the icons muddy it up a bit. But otherwise, definitely seems like (assuming the prices and shirt quality are respectable) a fun way to show off a little guild and toon pride.
Saving Space: Should tabards be next?
Blizzard really does seem to have finally realized that can give us a few more decent ways to save space without breaking anything or trivializing the game. The new vanity pet and mount skill system has done wonders to clear up bag space on my characters on Beta, and I just can't wait to be able to do it on live. Of course, there's tons more stuff that a good, solid pack rat can keep in their bank to take up space, from cool looking quest rewards to old gear sets to tabards. Tabards are an especially massive space investment. Even with just the basic battleground and unique event tabards, we're talking at least half a good bag taken up in the bank, and that's with deleting all the easily re-obtainable tabards to save space.
Personal Tabards may be a possibility in Wrath
A lot of us have probably had this problem before: We join a guild, and we like it. It has the right combination of people we like (or can tolerate), interests we share, and or what have you, and we're doing fine. Unfortunately, there is the problem. The tabard sucks. That whole green crying bear on pink background thing is just so tacky, and does not go well with any of our stuff. Sure, you can replace it with one of the factional tabards, in theory, but not until 70, and not until you grind exalted, and most of those tabards don't look much better anyway. Wouldn't it be nice if you could just go design your own personal tabard at your local town hall instead? That may be coming. In a thread by Beta tester Talid, Tigole said that the idea of personal tabards was actually pretty cool, and that he'd look into it. Yeah, admittedly, that means personal tabards could be in before Wrath goes live, or it means they could be a year off, or they could still discard the whole thing. Still, it often seems to this WoW Insider staff member that getting Blizzard to agree to any major type of personal character customization is like pulling teeth, so seeing Tigole act favorably toward this is pretty exciting. It'd be a great gold sink or achievement reward for Wrath.
Real-life, handmade Tabard
I was amazed by the Scarlet Crusade T-shirt tabard (and, you know, for wearability in public, it still kind of wins -- I still think my "custom tabard as t-shirt" business idea is a great one), but this is awesome, too -- Ammana of Dying Breed on my own home server of Cenarius-A was encouraged by her friend to send us this one, and we thank her for it -- she handcrafted a real-life, wearable version of her guild's tabard (you can click the picture above to see a bigger version of it). The crest is apparently hand-embroidered. She says she also made the dress and circlet herself, and the belt was crafted by a friend.Very cool. Now all she need is those Pauldrons and that big axe and she's ready for some adventuring! I'm actually surprised by how well the tabard works in real-life. In game, it's kind of the least interesting thing on your character -- it's there for decoration, but the real show comes from your shoulders and helm. But when it's just the tabard, it's a much cooler piece of apparel. Not quite enough to start a new fashion trend, I think, but it does look good.
Real-life Scarlet Crusade t-shirt
Reader Richie has done something genius -- he is a big fan of the Scarlet Crusade, having collected all of their armor and their tabard ingame. And when one of his guildies hit a birthday, he decided to take the design from the tabard, and put it on a T-shirt. You can see how well it turned out above, and there are pictures of the box (probably my favorite part of the whole thing -- he actually printed the "tooltip" for the t-shirt on the front, in the official WoW font, called Friz Quadrata) over on his site. The whole thing looks terrific.More pics of the shirt, including the front of the box and a pic of the shirt in action, in the gallery below (hopefully we won't murder Richie's site, though it was loading slowly when I first pulled it up). This is a brilliant idea -- what other Tabards should be t-shirts? Forget Figureprints, Blizzard should let you print your own guild's tabard out as a T-shirt for sale on their site.%Gallery-26473%
Level 80 legendary tabard spotted
Like Bigfoot, it's so elusive that photographs are rare, but some WoW players have caught a glimpse of what may be an upcoming PvP reward from Wrath. Or maybe it's just a bug. Or -- and I have a nickel bet on this one -- it's a nice little prank Blizzard's playing on us in return for our snooping around for information on the expansion. Whatever it is, though, it has left at least one footprint. We've gotten a few tips that upon inspecting a player's Tabard of Summer Flames, the Horde side reward from the Shards of Ahune quest, the tabard's tooltip describes a very different item called Tabard of the Victor. Even though the tabard's design matched the Midsummer quest reward, the description was quite different. First of all, the Tabard of the Victor requires Level 80, which was our first clue that it was probably not meant for pre-Wrath eyes. The tabard binds on pick-up, provides 250 Armor, +20 Stamina, +10 to All Resistances. Upon equipping it, your resilience rating improves by 15 and it increases movement speed and life regeneration rate. The funniest part -- and what makes me think this could be a prank by our dear game designers -- is the tabard's use is described as: "Use: Show how heroic you are! (55 Secs Cooldown)" and the bottom line description is, "The Mark of a True Hero." It seems that perhaps the glitch was caused by an error in the cache because when it was cleared the tabard's description correctly matched the Summer Flames tabard.[Thanks, Jagoex and James Vertovec!]
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 --
Tabard design contest winners!
I'm sure you've all been dying with curiosity while waiting to hear the winners of last week's tabard design contest -- and to find out which tabard would become the official guild tabard of WoW Insider's It Came from the Blog guild on Zangarmarsh. so, fortunately, I'm here to announce the winners! In first place, and showing off the tabard you see to the right, is Hellbena, whose eyes tabard snagged first place. Yep, this is the tabard you will soon see on ICftB members all over Zangarmarsh!In second place, we had Zungaba with this lovely bunny tabard and in third place we have Sylvina's excellent octopus design. (To see the rest of our entries, check out our tabard gallery!) All of our winners are taking home an I'm Only Here Because My Server Is Down t-shirt from J!NX (think of them as a RL version of your tabard), so if you meet any of them in-game, be sure to congratulate them!
It came from the Blog: Vote for your favorite tabard!
First off, I'd like to thank everyone who participated in our tabard design contest! We have some excellent entries, which the WoW Insider staff has combed through for the best of the best -- and now it's your turn! I know we had a tough time narrowing things down to ten finalists -- every entry would have made a lovely tabard. (If you don't believe me, check out our gallery of entries, including commentary from some of the designers.)Take a look at our finalists and pick the one you'd like to see as the official It came from the Blog tabard! Polls will be open for 48 hours, so you have until Monday at 9:00 AM EST to get your vote in. And remember, the top three winners get to take home a "I'm Only Here Because My Server Is Down" t-shirt! Voting, after the jump!
Reminder! Tabard design contest ends tonight!
Interested in designing a tabard for the fine players in WoW Insider's It came from the Blog guild? If so, today's your last day to send in your entry! To have a chance at your design immortalized as the It Came from the Blog official tabard, all you have to do is: Visit the tabard designer (near the guild master in any major city) and play with the tabard designs until you find one you like. (You can also use IGN's tabard designer, though in-game screenshots are much prettier!) Take a screenshot of your work E-mail it to us at icftb@wow.com before 11:59 PM EST tonight! Tomorrow we'll be voting on our finalists, with the top three winners taking home a "I'm Only Here Because My Server Is Down" t-shirt from J!NX!
It came from the Blog: Tabard design contest! [Updated]
If you aren't familiar with WoW Insider's own guild, It came from the Blog on Zangarmarsh, let this be your introduction. We're a relatively new guild -- only a few weeks old -- and what that means is that we don't have a tabard yet! And I know everyone in the guild is eager to have one, but in order to get the coolest looking tabard possible, we're asking you to design them for us. Here's what you've got to do: Visit the tabard designer (near the guild master in any major city) and play with the tabard designs until you find one you like. (You can also use IGN's tabard designer) Take a screenshot of your work E-mail it to us at icftb@wow.com before 11:59 PM EST on Thursday, June 28th. Over the weekend, we'll vote on the finalists to determine the winners, with the top three each taking home a "I'm Only Here Because My Server is Down" t-shirt from J!NX! (You know, your out of game tabard.) Of course, the top tabard will be immortalized forever as the official tabard of It came from the Blog. Be sure to check out the contest's official rules, but if you've already done that, what are you waiting for? Get designing!Update: Sorry, everyone -- but as of 11:59 PM EST Thursday, the entry period is closed. Check back on Saturday to vote for winners!
Tabard or not tabard, that is the question
brkn_doll over at WoW Ladies rolled a Draenei shammy to join up in her friends' guild, and when she picked up the tabard for it, she saw... well, unless you're color blind, you can't miss it*. As she says, she looks like a pumpkin.What do you do when you finally put on a guild tabard, only to find that you wish you could take it back off again? For April Fool's Day, my guild leader turned our tabard hot pink, which I actually thought looked kind of good on my female Blood Elf mage. My shaman wouldn't have looked good in it, but he's wearing the Tabard of the Protector anyway, so there's one option: get a new tabard.Not all of them are bad-- my gnome warrior was in a guild for a while with a blue and gold tabard, and that little minitank looked good. Have you ever confronted a guild leader about their bad tabard choices? Or if you're a guildleader, what made you choose your tabard colors? If they're orange and green, you should probably just go ahead and pay the 10g to fix it, because if doll's experience is any indication, it's hard to look like a badass when you're wearing a pumpkin.*Because I know someone will ask, her strikingly clean UI is apparently built with Tet's UI. You're welcome.
Phat Loot Phriday: Tabard of Laos Flipor
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gaming_news/The_Tabard_of_Laos_Flipor'; When Blizzard introduced the Tabard of the Protector, it was pretty much a given that before long, we'd see more useful tabards coming in the game. And now, after the latest patch, players have unearthed this piece of phat loot.Name: Tabard of Laos FliporType: TabardArmor: NAAbilities: It's a tabard with stats! +10 Strength, +10 Agility, +10 Stamina, +10 Intellect,, and +10 Spirit (kind of like The 1 Ring, but ten times better!) You may not think +10 is much of a bonus, but +10 Intellect means an extra 150 mana. And +10 Agility actually grants a whopping +20 Armor. Added up, these all mean a lot, and the fact that they're on a tabard makes them just icing on the cake. Laos Flipor, if you weren't already aware, is a little-known lore figure-- she used to be a jester in the Court of Lordaeron. She was known for telling bad jokes, and apparently she told one too many and got Arthas angry at her. Right after he murdered Dad in WC III, he offed her, too. How to Get It: If you've ever done the CLUCK! quest in Westfall, you'll be able to do this one. You can get the tabard from (where else?) the guild tabard vendor in every capital city. But they won't offer it to you unless you can prove, like Laos, how funny you are. So just go up to a guild tabard vendor, target them, and do the /silly emote 200 times.200 jokes later, a ? will pop up above the tabard vendor's head, and this baby is yours.Getting Rid of It: It's BOP, but any vendor will give you 4 silver, 1 copper for it. Then again, at that price, you'd be a fool not to keep it!Update: Pishnaa (thanks, this is awesome) has given us photographic proof! And if it's in a screenshot, it must be true.
Tabards: A guide to cool things to hang over your pants
Tabards can say a lot about your character. They can be a way to show pride in your guild's ferocity or skill, or a way to show that you have a twisted, sadistic guild leader who makes everyone wear a pink fuzzy bunny tabard. They can proclaim your skill at PvP, your exalted status with certain factions, or your luck in the WoW card game. They can even show that you were a hero at the Battle of the Dark Portal or that you've earned a somewhat misleading "victory against Illidan Stormrage." What kind of tabards can you get in WoW? Read (and look) on ...
