the-burning-crusade
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Countdown to Burning Crusade: Vote for day 6 winners!
While we had a lot of excellent entries for the caption contest on day 6 of our countdown to the Burning Crusade, we've narrowed the field down to ten finalists -- and we want you to pick the winner! You have 24 hours to submit your votes, which gives you until 2:30PM EST on Wednesday -- so get voting! Who's the winner of our Horde caption contest? Troll: "Take it easy on the booze Mankrik, it's wasn't your fault she died" Are those leftover Christmas M&Ms coming out of your forehead, or have I had too many Zimas? "You not LOOK twenty one..." On hearing the Horde would soon be flooded with Paladins, an orc consoles his troll friend: "My advice: start drinking heavily." "So you say your a girl IRL..." Unkthar failed, once again, to impress the ladies with his ability to play "Ride of the Valkyrie" on the bottles. "20 gold, same as downtown." "Sorry. Go to an Alliance bar if you want drinks with little unbrellas." "Do you like my barrels?" 6 bottles of troll sweat: 2 gold 3 barrels of Darkmoon Faire Reserve: 15 gold Getting drunk with some friends right before the raid starts: pricle Free polls from Pollhost.com
Faience's adventures in Outland: Welcome to the Cenarion Refuge
I've come through the Dark Portal and fought my way past legions of demons and inward through Hellfire Peninsula... all to get tired of the crowds and almost immediately relocate to the next zone over. That zone, Zangarmarsh, is everything Hellfire Peninsula is not, starting with the color palette. Immediately upon entering the zone, I found myself in Cenarion Refuge, a neutral faction that, no, does not care about that Cenarion Circle reputation you spent so long trying to gain.Lucky for all of us, then, that reputation is more easily gained these days...
Countdown to Burning Crusade: Day 5 winner
We've got a winner for the day 5's four little words contest who's going to be taking home a 60-day game card! For the win, we have:"Choose: Laid or Raid" by DarrenAnd our runners-up include:"Rock, Paper, Scissors, Warlock" by Ravenite"Virtual Characters. Real People." by GG"Kill How Many Boars?" by Noctem"ITS NOT ROCKET SURGERY!" by Unkle"I can quit anytime" by qwertyAnd remember -- you still have until 2PM EST today to get in your entry for day 8's screenshot contest -- so if you haven't already, be sure to mail yours in!
Faience's adventures in Outland: Of quests and bombing runs...
I admit -- I've been playing this game long enough to be a little bored. And not just this-is-my-three-hundred-and-fifty-second-Ragnaros-kill kind of bored, but that the standard quest types have started to loose interest. So many of these quests read like mad libs: kill <number> of <monster type> because of <very convincing reason> and return to me with their <personal item of some sort> as proof of your heroic deed. You will receive <amount> of gold and your choice of <really nifty items>. It doesn't encourage me to do more than skim the quest text. (Though if you do this, you occasionally miss some downright hilarious comments in the quest text.) If you could picture my typical encounter with a quest giver, I think it would go something like this... Quest giver: The Naga have been...Me: You want me to kill Naga?Quest giver: Yes, they're...Me: How many?Quest giver: If you'd thin their numbers by 30, then...Me: Great! Where are they?Quest giver: Around Umbrafen Lake, to the south.Me: What'll you give me for it?Quest giver: Well, I suppose two gold coins and some experience points.Me: Sounds perfect! I'll be right back.Quest giver: Wait! Don't you want to know why?Me (riding away): I'm sure they're all bad. But really, those experience points are all I need to know about!So I must admit that I'm a bit excited to encounter a few new types of quests, which are, to me, at least, tremendous amounts of fun. Want to know what I'm talking about? Keep reading!
Breakfast Topic: What do you expect on the 16th?
Looking forward to release day? A quick poll of the forums suggests that you wouldn't be the only one -- with plenty of players making big plans for the 16th. We've got people taking vacation days and skipping classes, but I have to wonder whether all this is worth it. After all, with so many players new and old planning on hitting up the Outland come release day, how many of you expect the realms to be stable at all, much less playable? So that's today's question -- what do you expect to see on release day? Has Blizzard done enough to lead to a smooth roll-out or are you more pessimistic of playability on the 16th?
Faience's adventures in Outland: Through the Dark Portal
Ah, Faience. A pink-haired Gnome warlock, Faience was my very first level 60 character. (And in full Nemesis, even a pink-haired Gnome can look a little intimidating.) I raided with her through Ahn'Qiraj before deciding I was exhausted of the raiding grind and re-rolled a Horde priest on another realm with the intent of playing more casually. Of course, with all of the recent warlock changes, I've got to wonder what I was thinking... Fortunately, in the Burning Crusade beta, where soling matters more to me than group utility, I've been able to dust off Faience -- renamed, uncreatively, Faiences on the beta realm -- and travel through the Outland. And, if you read on, you get to come along for the ride!
The Burning Crusade: Dark Portal opening event?
There has been a lot of speculation that there will be an opening event but no one has any real evidence of what it will be. The only thing we do know is that there will be one. Discussion on the official forums has sparked a little interest and discussion on the matter, gathering a blue response:Drysc says, "Everything in life is a learning process, and we have learned a lot from every in-game event we have done as to how they can be improved. I'm not going to give anything away, but the player 'clumping' that you have concerns with is something we're specifically attempting to avoid. The re-opening of the dark portal is an event that will change Azeroth as we currently know it, and it's only fitting that the tremble of such an event is felt throughout the world. It's still likely that players will group up at the portal, but the event we're planning won't encourage it as the AQ event did."So what kind of event could it be that wouldn't encourage all of us to mob the portal? There's not been any hint of what the event might be while I've been online in the beta, so I'm left being really curious. Will it be something like the Scourge invasion? Will there be mini-portals? What do you think they will do for the portal opening?[Thanks to Chris McDonnald for the submission!]
The Burning Crusade: Preparing for the Expansion
With exactly two weeks to go, I'm left feeling a little blah about what to do in the World of Warcraft. Not quite enough time to get another character to 60 (well, maybe my shammy), not really in the mood for raiding when my gear is soon to be replaced anyway, and the PvP grind is wearing me out a bit. Fortunately for me (and for you!), I came across a posting on TenTonHammer from about a month ago. So while it may be "old news" to you, I think that it's well worth the read, given that we're so close to launch. The article covers the following topics with some good hints and tips:
