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Leader short stories continue with Gelbin Mekkatorque: Cut Short
The gnomes have not had it good over the last 6 years of World of Warcraft. Their home was irradiated and infested with Troggs at the hands of the traitorous Thermaplug. Gnomes were forced into hiding and shelter in the dwarven capital of Ironforge. Even during Operation: Gnomeregan, the plot to reclaim the city for its rightful denizens, gnomes only met with a modicum of success. Gnomes have had it rough. The newest leader short story in Blizzard's series of behind-the-leader lore details Gelbin Mekkatorque, the High Tinker of the gnomes of Gnomeregan. Written by Cameron Dayton, Gelbin Mekkatorque: Cut Short details the High Tinker's fight for Gnomeregan against traitor Sicco Thermaplug, as well as Mekkatorque's coming to terms with his anger and frustration over his people's plight. We are finally treated to some back story about the gnomish leader and his emotional response to his city falling and his people dying, his place in the Alliance of the Eastern Kingdoms, and the resolution to Operation: Gnomeregan. As the battle for Gnomeregan continues to be fought, Mekkatorque finds his way back to his old study, where his memories and introspection begin. His thoughts hit topics ranging from the election of gnomish leaders, Gelbin's first Alliance operation in the Second War against the Horde, and the inconceivable notion that Thermaplug, a gnome himself, would bring about such horrible destruction on his own people.
Know Your Lore: Current Alliance politics -- the gnomes
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. WARNING: The following post contains small spoilers for Wrath of the Lich King. Players who are still playing through the expansion and wish to avoid spoilers may want to avoid this post. In addition, theories behind the new Cataclysm race/class combinations will be discussed. Last time on Alliance politics we looked at the night elves, who have had arguably the largest impact on Azeroth of any race currently living, and a lengthy history, as their current leader has been in power for approximately 10,000 years. The night elves have an extensive amount of history to back up their current political stance, but today we're going to look at a race that doesn't really have a lot of history to speak of (or at least they didn't until the launch of Wrath of the Lich King): the gnomes. The gnomish race has been relatively low profile in World of Warcraft and in the Alliance in general. Friendly to everyone, regardless of faction, the gnomes are quite happy to teach engineering to anyone who will listen. They generally avoid conflict where they can and honestly the main reason they joined the Alliance wasn't due to their beliefs or any strong feelings, it was due to circumstances at the time. Let's take a quick look at the background of the gnomes and how the events in Wrath could potentially affect future political entanglements.
Operation: Gnomeregan Imminent
An Azeroth Bulletin has just been released announcing that Operation: Gnomeregan is imminent. High Tinker Mekkatorque wants you to join him in his fight to finally conquer Mekgineer Thermaplugg and his irradiated minions. "Victory begins in Tinker Town" and "every man, woman and child" is called upon to serve! The staging ground for the offensive will be at SteelGrill's Depot under the command of Captain Sparknozzle. There you will undergo Drill Sergeant Steamcrank's training. You will also be testing the Mechano-Tanks before they go to the front line. Then you will bomb the irradiation vents under the command of Pilot Muzzlesprock. All levels will be able to participate, whether by donating boar skins for siege pilot seats or helping to write the battle cry. But the actual offensive, when ready, will be limited to levels 75 and up, led by the High Tinker himself. For full details, read the Azeroth Bulletin.
Operation Gnomeregan: Transcripts and details
WARNING: This post is chock full of spoilers. Spoilers like you would not believe. If you'd like to be surprised about the Operation Gnomeregan and what is contained within, I wouldn't recommend continuing onward. If, however, you are clamoring for more information, read on! A lot of new sound bites have popped up in the latest PTR patch build for 3.3.3. After some digging, listening, and arranging, we've figured out the basic script of the Operation Gnomeregan event. There's a lot of good gnomish humor in there as well as an explanation of events to come. Please note that this is just an assembly of transcripts from all of the sound files put in what appears to be a proper order.
Pet Bombling and Lil' Smoky available to all Engineers in patch 3.1
With the Patch 3.1 patch notes as long as they are, even we miss a lot of the little things that crop up in them. Luckily, I was reading Kaliope's WoW Crafting Blog (which is fantastic) and happened to spot this little tidbit: All Engineers, regardless of specialization, will be able to get their hands on both Lil' Smoky and the Pet Bombling. You don't need to do the repeatable quest(s) for them and pray to the RNG gods anymore, either.The schemata for Lil' Smoky and the Pet Bombling are now Bind on Pickup drops from Gnomeregan. I know, I know, Gnomeregan is terrible, but most pet collectors are so overleveled for that place that this new method of getting the recipes should be dramatically easier. The Pet Bombling appears to be a 100% drop off of Thermaplugg, the final boss of the dungeon. Lil' Smoky is slightly less reliable, but not by much. He drops off of the Arcane Nullifiers and only the Arcane Nullifiers, as far as testers have found. That makes sense, considering Lil' Smoky shares their model.If you're going to be hunting down these bad (and smelly) boys come patch 3.1, Gnomeregan is the place to be. Kaliope even has some further advice on tracking down Lil' Smoky, should you need it. Good luck on your hunt!
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a gnome
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the fifth in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class well, without embarrassing yourself. Gnomes are probably the easiest race to roleplay in World of Warcraft. They have a strong (and mostly accurate) stereotype that people just get instantly, and there's a childlike "blank-slate" quality about them that means that they don't have to have complicated backstories. In fact, you could define the gnomes as a race without a history to speak of. They are so very curious and inquisitive that they ask questions about everything, that they try to unravel any mysteries they encounter, and consider their personal life stories to be of little account. They've written tomes upon tomes on the inner workings of multi-polar data transfer relays and eletro-magnified parallel power circuits, but it never really occurred to them that they should write down the history of their species. They are a people always looking into the future, and whatever passes beyond the infinitely precious present becomes lost to them in the unseen reaches of the past -- out of sight, out of mind. That's not to say they have no memory -- they make use of their superb memories in carefully constructing their world-renown masterpieces of technological craftsmanship! Rather, it would be better to say that their minds only serve up memories relevant to the inquiry at hand. So if the orcs paved through azeroth a while back and destroyed everything in their path, well that was bad and all but it was a long time ago and who wants to hold a grudge? If the monstrous troggs came from the bowels of the earth and destroyed their cherished technological city of Gnomeregan... well, they'd love to get it back, but it's no reason to be unkind or uncheerful!
