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Around Azeroth: Mommy?
Darkcow of Gorgonnash sends in this rather sad screenshot. How can such decorations make our druid brethren feel? Darkcow provides an appropriately Larson-esque caption for the scene:Dead as a door... mat? No, that's not quite it. Mom? 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 aroundazeroth@gmail.com! Or perhaps you'd just like to see more of your pics from Around Azeroth. %Gallery-1816%
Fun with guild meetings
My guild is coming up on its next guild meeting here in a few days. As it's the first one we've been able to have for some time due to scheduling problems and other things, we are really hoping that we can make it fun for all who attend it, no matter the level. Previously, we've done things like all-guild PVP in the Gurubashi arena, and a "Running of the Bulls" type events like the ones that have happened on several servers. Our version involved most of our people rolling a Tauren of any class, and then proceeding to run from Mulgore to Light's Hope Chapel in Eastern Plaguelands wearing nothing but a green holiday shirt, and using no abilities/spells/etc. (my favorite name was "EatMorChikn") This time, we think we've hit something a bit more fun to do, but just as potentially deadly. Our original intent was to get everyone out to Shattrath and use our flying mounts to play Nogginfogger Roulette. The problem is that this would have prevented all of our under 70 members from being able to play. That wasn't going to work, because the whole point of the meetings is to spend time together, no matter the level. As such, the officers checked the in-game event calendar, and set our meeting for this Saturday when the Darkmoon Faire is open in Mulgore. Those who can get the elixir will stock up, and using the cannon at the faire, we'll have our competition! The idea for the game is this...
Getting nostalgic about old player favorites
Minkyminky kicks it off on the forums: there's a lot of things that have disappeared from the game that players really loved, and it's pretty nostalgic to think about what we used to have, and have since lost. Plainsrunning was a Tauren racial ability that was in the game before Blizzard implemented Kodos. After a quest, the cows got an aura (canceled with combat, underwater, or indoors, just like a normal mount) that let them move faster and faster up to a certain speed. Swirly ball was what the Rogue's Detect traps ability used to be-- a castable 3 minute buff that showed an annoying swirly ball that could be used to detect lag or just make noise. The old Hunter's Mark (as you all should know, this one wasn't long ago) was just an arrow, not the fancy schmancy (garish, if you ask me) deal we've got now. Baron Geddon's Living Bomb debuff used to be able to hit pets. Hunters would then dismiss their pets-- and resummon them in the Auction House to create carnage. The Hakkar virus was another debuff, this one from Hakkar, that did damage to anyone standing around the player. The debuff hit everyone in an AoE based on the target for a few hundred damage every few seconds for a few minutes, and passed on the plague. So players beat Hakkar, ported back to IF, and spread the disease around the world. This one actually made it to the media, and was used as a study for how disease spreads in a virtual environment. Captain Placeholder (my personal favorite) was a placeholder who went up while the ships between the continents were bugged. Don't miss the Lament of Captain Placeholder. Trolls used to have a "keel two dwarves in the mornin'" emote that got removed from the game, either for violence or drug references, depending on who you ask. Unfortunately, as cool as all of these things are, there's not much chance we'll ever seen any of them in the game again-- most of them are graphics that got updated to something Blizzard thought was cooler, or just simply bugs or placeholders that got "fixed" for good.But the other interesting thing is that almost all of them are clear examples of emergent gameplay-- the devs didn't plan for this stuff to be popular, it just became so. If nothing else, they can learn from what happened with these, and (as with world events) bring them back in other forms. And that's a really interesting thought-- a game designed by the players themselves.
Phat Loot Phriday: Prairie Dog Whistle
Since PLP has been very Outland-focused lately, I promised we'd do something that came from the old Azeroth this week, and considering the holiday, I thought this was apropos.Name: Prairie Dog Whistle (summons Prairie Dog)Type: Noncombat PetDamage / Speed: N/AAbilities: Can somehow accurately predict the weather every spring. Ok, no it can't-- this Prairie Dog just doesn't have the stuff that Punxsutawney Phil has-- he predicted an early spring this year. But he does look cute and is a pretty easy noncombat pet to come by. Bonus Trivia Fact: Did you know that groundhogs can whistle when alarmed? So when you use this whistle, it's not so much that you summon a prairie dog as you call him out of the ground, ready to either see or not see his shadow. How to Get It: If you're Horde, all it takes is a trip to Thunder Bluff-- just to the left of the bridge on the way back across from the Hunter Rise is a small shack in which the Prairie Dog Vendor (named Halpa) sells these little guys for 50s a piece. They come in any color you want, as long as it's brown.Alliance can get these too, but it's going to take a little more time and money-- you'll have to create a Tauren alt, run him to TB, buy the prairie dog, and then sell it through the Neutral AH (probably your best bet is to do a ghostrun to Tanaris).Getting Rid of It: Sells for 12s 50c to vendors, and will bind after you use it to summon the little guy for the first time. Happy Groundhog Day!Update: qsh points out that the Ratchet to Booty Bay trip would be much easier than ghostriding the whip (if you know what I mean) down to Tanaris. Good call.
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Are the Draenei too good?
Sure, anything that looks vaguely like Dr. Zoidberg probably can't be TOO good, but you have to admit that the draenei are almost preternaturally nice. They're all about healing the environment, and helping the needy, and preserving the light. The undead Kendoch of Blackrock says that their goodness has really turned him off from playing one, since it ruins his suspension of disbelief. Other posters add that the Tauren are also pretty much perfectly good, except for the Grimtotem tribe, and that the Draenei might be very nice, but the Eredar -- who are about the same thing, genetically -- have messed up the entire universe. Another thing to keep in mind is that the Draenei are fairly extreme in their pursuit of goodness, and in the Warcraft universe, any kind of extremism leads to bad things. Humans who got too extreme in their pursuit of the Scourge became the Scarlet Crusade. Going to "any lengths" to stop the Burning Legion led Tyrande to free Illidan, and we all know how that turned out. And the Draenei HATE the blood elves -- one of their early quests leads a Draenei chief to exclaim, "They must be wiped from the face of the earth!" More than a little creepy. I know many members of the Horde refer to Draenei as filthy hippies or goody-two-shoes, but what do you think about the Draenei? Is their goody-goody exterior true to form, or is any race that makes sexual jokes about gnomes and the Staff of Dominance hiding some naughty secrets?
British could accidentally make Taurens [update 1]
The BBC reports scientists at Newcastle University and Kings College, London, are attempting to create "hybrid human-bovine embryos." They stress the embryos would not be allowed to develop beyond a few days and will be used for stem cell research. To make a very long story short, human embryos are in short supply, so it's easier to extract the genetic information from cow eggs and insert human DNA in its place. The same thing they did with Dolly the sheep.Why not leave the cow DNA in there and see what happens? We would create our very own Taurens, as found in the World of Warcraft. We could raise them on the plains, teach them to respect the "Earth Mother" and then they'd "pwn" us for raping the land! It would be horrible, but they're sooooo cute.Calum MacKeller, from the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, says, "In the history of humankind, animals and human species have been separated ... you may begin to undermine the whole distinction between humans and animals ... if that happens, it might also undermine human dignity and human rights." Wait, did he just agree that the Taurens would "pwn" us?[Thanks Thraal][Update 1: Apologies to the Newcastle folk, you've been added]
Body images in World of Warcraft
I know, I know, I mentioned the WoW Ladies just yesterday, but they talk about such interesting stuff over there. Today it's body images in WoW-- one of them, Tsuraibara, saw someone on the EU forums calling human female characters fat "couch potatoes," and couldn't believe what she heard.Personally, I'm with Tsuraibara-- I find the human females pretty darn attractive. I'm even one of those guys that plays a human female priest just so I can watch that holy body do its shadowy casting thing all day. Of course, I have a male gnome warrior, too, just because I love the look of a tiny bundle of doom charging Horde in PVP. Although I have to disagree with Tsuraibara about the Tauren females-- she plays two, and I don't think there's any way I could ever stand to look at one of those enough to get her past level 10. Elsewhere in the thread, someone sings the praises of Dwarf females, and I have to admit, while they're not classically attractive, the emotes especially make it seem like Dwarf females might be fun to hang out with. UD females are another matter entirely, though...Now, we're no Guild Wars-- I once attended a conference where a professor of game studies couldn't believe how those women ever made it out of a battle with so little armor on. But at the same time, this ain't no text adventure, either-- WoW's graphics are cohesive and defined enough to make judgements on what the "models" look like. Have you judged your characters or other characters' looks? Is it wrong to do so? And the other question brought up in the thread is interesting, too-- is it only the female characters that are judged? Or are male Night Elves and Orcs getting checked out, too?
Blizzard Will Compensate Bored Players from Offline Realms
Just like you probably are, I'm currently sitting around not playing the game. My realm (T-horn represent!) is in the list of servers Blizzard pulled offline last night and won't put back up until late tonight.And the complaints on this, as you can imagine, are many and varied. My guild was especially distraught, as we were all excited to run AQ20 this evening. Nimrodel of Earthen Ring isn't really happy that the advance notice Blizz gave was easy to miss. A few of the servers, including Laughing Skull, already had an upgrade-- why are they going through this again? And I can't think of another "upgrade" that caused all of us to lose our friends list. Sure, it's not the end of the world, but it is a little inconvenient at least. And we don't even have the new hunter talents to console us-- although Neth seems very happy to sell books to bored players. Maybe this is all a grand scheme...There is a silver lining to all this. Drysc has acknowledged that Blizzard will be "providing compensation" for those realms currently undergoing the 36 hour upgrades, although he won't say how much until the maintenance is over (presumably because it may go on even longer than planned). That's nice, but I won't lie-- I'd rather be in AQ. Meanwhile, feel free to come join me in a few spirited rounds of iSketch! Look, I drew a Tauren!
Another Chinese Coke/WoW Ad
You might remember the Chinese Coke ad that featured the band S.H.E. as World of Warcraft characters-- it showed up here on the site a while back. Apparently that ad campaign was so successful, they're doing it again, and this time the Orc that attacked in the first ad returns with friends-- a Troll and a pretty well-done Tauren. Get it? "Well-done Tauren"? The guy that rescues them, says Terra Nova (who somehow never saw the first ad), is none other than futbol star Cristiano Ronaldo (which explains why he kicks a soccer ball at the Orc). Also, I hear there's more of these floating around. If you see any more, let us know.
Holidaying with another self
What do you do when the pressures of endgame all become too much? When the PvP grind gets you down, and raiding just isn't doing it for you any more?Spend some time away from it all, in an exotic location where everything's new again -- make an alt. Preferably a cross-faction alt.It sounds idyllic, in principle. Start life from scratch again, in a town where nobody knows your name. Learn new skills! Have fantastic adventures! Spend four hours killing wolves and only regain a fraction of your former power! (Eh?)
