tauren-druid
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Mists of Pandaria Beta: Incarnation druid cat forms appear
Wowhead has datamined some pretty cool new models, which are apparently new druid cat form models coming in for the new druid talent Incarnation. Even though they're not a whole new model, they look slick, and I cannot imagine Blizzard won't have something more to say about them soon, now that we've seen them. Ghostcrawler said that new forms are coming for Incarnation, and this might be the first salvo of models for druids. Personally, I hope the new forms are a subtle hint at a Blizzard reversal in its reluctance to add in some class-specific content again. While doing something cool for every class is a daunting process and the required resources are extensive, it's been shown that players react favorably to that type of content. In the meantime, check out the epic cat forms for worgen, night elves, tauren, and trolls over at Wowhead. It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Shifting Perspectives: Why (or why not) to play a tauren druid
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This week, welcome to Thunder Bluff. This week, we're continuing our series on why (or why not) to play a particular druidic race in Cataclysm, and today we'll continue with the tauren. Fair warning: We tread on some expansion spoilers in this article. The full series is available here: Shifting Perspectives: Why (or why not) to play a night elf druid Shifting Perspectives: Why (or why not) to play a tauren druid Shifting Perspectives: Why (or why not) to play a worgen druid Shifting Perspectives: Why (or why not) to play a troll druid
The Queue: Saturday, what a day
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mathew McCurley will be your host today. Those were some adorable kittens Sacco posted, huh? Yay, it's Saturday! After this Queue I'm going to one of my favorite places for lunch, and I am eagerly awaiting some delicious spicy orange chicken lunch special. Mmmmm ... Stay on task, Mat! Stay on target!
Shifting Perspectives: Fun with race choice
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week, we have absolutely no excuse for the column we've written. I'll be honest; I wrote this week's column purely for brainless fun. You won't learn anything (not that you do normally), there are no insights to be gained (not that there are normally) and I don't have any new Cataclysm alpha information. I am very sorry to anyone who came here looking for a solid, informative column, and if you wish to excoriate me in the comments then I encourage you to do so. Anyway. When it comes to druids, the deal with race choice is that you don't really have any. If you play Alliance, you have to play a night elf; if you play Horde, you have to play a tauren. We're the most race-restricted class in the game, and even in Cataclysm, that's not really going to change. Some of you might recall a bug from a little while back that allowed you to model-swap between characters on the same realm by "choosing" two of them at once. I'm pretty sure it's been fixed now, so I wouldn't bother trying it if I were you, but I had lot of fun swapping non-druid races into our various tier sets and wondering what it might have been like to play them. I screenshotted like a maniac while doing so and then set them aside for a future column whenever I felt like doing something just for fun. That would be today. %Gallery-94013%
Zarhym explains Druid form colour combos
Doubtless Druids all around the world are still absorbing the new-look Night Elf cat form which was announced yesterday. We know Blizzard was going for something of a colour-coded approach, trying to match skins to that of their owners but what does it all mean? Well, blue Zarhym posted on the forums this morning and went into a little more detail.It seems that rather than being able to go 'oh I'll have the white kitty with the cut pink gem on it's collar', that your form is actually linked to your toon's physical appearance. Yes, you can easily change how your bear or cat form will look but the only was to do this, in my understanding, is by visiting a barber shop and changing the skin tone (and/or hair) of your Druid in humanoid form.Zarhym puts it better than I:"Now that everyone has had a chance to check out the new art for druid cat and bear forms, we'd like to share with you the current break down of Tauren skin tones and Night Elf hair colors associated with each form color. Please note that, while we have attempted to associate each form color as carefully as possible, this list is subject to change before the next major content patch goes live. All options for skin tone (Tauren) and hair color (Night Elves) are listed below followed by the forms that will be associated with each set of tones/colors."Click on the jump to see what your druid is going to look like.
New Tauren druid kitty forms revealed
We mentioned last week that new bear forms for Tauren and Night Elf druids were rocking the World of Warcraft. Well now Blizzard have revealed the new Tauren kitty forms with the updated Night Elf forms following later in the week. The somewhat naff and ugly lionesque melee form finally gets a makeover, becoming more realistic and doubtless millions of Tauren druids are crapping their pants right nowOur sister site WoW.com have been discussing the new forms and the consensus seems to be positive but, lets be honest, anything is better than the old cat form. At least these new skins look realistic, even if the horns remain seriously pointy. Remember these forms will hit in the upcoming patch 3.2 (also known as Call of the Crusade) and you'll be able to switch skin tones by visiting your friendly barber in any one of the capital cities. We'll bring you more on the Night Elf forms as soon as they are revealed.
Shifting Perspectives: Let my kitties go!
Every Tuesday/Wednesday/some sort of day occurring midweek, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting Druids and those who group with them. This week Allison Robert yanks John Patricelli's column again, hoping to make good on a threat previously made concerning her "dissatisfaction" with Tauren cat form. And by dissatisfaction she might mean something else.I'll level with you; we have a huge Druid post in the pipeline that's going to round up the changes to the class in Wrath, new talents, new skills, new everything, and frankly I'm sick to death about reading or writing anything having to do with the expansion. So, just to buck the overwhelming trend that threatens to drive us all to the nuthouse, I'm going to turn to a topic that's plagued Druids for a while.By this I mean the perennial form issue, something that my Druid colleagues on the blog have previously termed the Same Old Animal Posterior, or SOAP. But it's one that we've been given reason to believe will change in...Wrath. Well, that didn't last long. You'll note that David's article was written in October 2007, more than a year ago, but the same thing could have been posted in 2006 as well. Druid forms haven't changed since launch*, and while they were never really at the cutting edge of Blizzard's art direction as a result**, they look more and more shabby in relation to the higher-polygon models and landscapes. As everything around you gets better and better -- more evocative lighting, more intricate details, fantastic animation -- it's hard not to feel a strange sense of displacement as you shift into a 2004 form within a 2008 game.But at long last we may see Druid form customization, an overhaul to the default forms themselves, or possibly (hopefully?) both.
The Battle of San Romano ... FOR THE HORDE [UPDATED]
Paolo Uccello's 'Niccolò Mauruzi da Tolentino at the Battle of San Romano' gets an updated treatment with 'Understanding Art for Geeks', a Flickr set by 'paulthewineguy' (a worthy 'Friends' reference, by the way), that takes classic art pieces and updates them to fit in with our modern times.In this particular piece, we see that apparently Mr. Uccello's a Tauren Druid. Who knew? Check out the rest of the set, they're wonderful![UPDATED: paulthewineguy has taken all the photos off his Flickr page. He states 'I reckon I've made a mistake, i.e. modifying pieces of art with no right whatsoever of doing so.' You can read the rest here.]
