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Capcom steps up to defend Dead Rising Wii
You don't have to be a seasoned photojournalist -- even one who's covered wars -- to recognize inconsistencies between Dead Rising: Chop Til You Drop and the Xbox 360 original. Now, Capcom's Colin Ferris has stepped up to defend the February release, stating that while the company is "quite concerned" over criticism of the title, it "was not designed for side-by-side graphics comparisons with the 360." Instead, the product marketing manager states simply that it "was designed to be a fun Wii game."Ferris openly admits that the Wii-take won't look as "beautiful" as the original, nor will the Willamette Parkview Mall's escalators be as crowded with the recently deceased, facts we have already accepted, albeit begrudgingly. "Does that mean we should deny Wii gamers the joy that 360 owners had in surviving three days in a zombie-infested mall," asks Ferris. "The answer is, obviously, no." Dead Rising: Chop Til You Drop is expected to shamble onto retail shelves for the Wii on February 24.
10 things I learned from a destitute alt on an RP realm
I have a few alts on an RP realm that I visit from time to time, and I remember thinking to myself at one point: "These characters are a bunch of deadbeats." I'd gotten too used to the alts on my main realm being a bunch of pampered brats, spoiled rotten by the presence of a hardworking main, so financial discipline had grown to be a thing of the past. Not so on another realm where you don't have a main, and I realized that unless I went back to a few monetary basics, my alts would wind up dancing naked on mailboxes in pursuit of gold. This is a fine tactic with a long and storied history, but when your most promising alt is a level 16 Undead Mage, you're up the proverbial creek. No one wants to see a rotting, naked corpse.So I started not being a deadbeat, and it was with surprise and delight that I logged on to find the little tyke sitting on a pretty respectable pile of gold by level 21 -- as in, he can afford to pay for his level 30 mount and training several times over, and still have enough left over to train himself all the way to 45 even if he doesn't make another penny.
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Priest
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the seventeenth 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. Priests in the World of Warcraft are a single class that incorporates a wide variety of characters. They are best known for casting spells that call forth the power of the Holy Light, but the priest using these spells in the game mechanics doesn't necessarily have much connection to the Light as such -- rather they have a connection with their own religion which grants them similar effects to those of the Light.When WoW was being developed, Blizzard realized that night elves and trolls, for instance, would not follow the Light in the same way humans and dwarves do, so they tried to represent a bit of this diversity through race-specific spells. It didn't work out, though -- some were too powerful, while others weren't worth reading about, much less putting on one's action bar. The end result was that they made some of these spells universally available to all priests, and completely removed the rest. Here the lore had to surrender to the game mechanics in order to provide the best game balance.In roleplaying, however, there is a lot of room for players of different races to behave differently, and draw their powers from totally different sources. Greater Heal, for instance, could come either from the Light or the power of Elune. A Shadowfiend could either be a spawn of the Forgotten Shadow, or a dark trollish voodoo spirit. If you are roleplaying a priest, the only thing that really matters is that your character have some sort of faith or profound belief, which could serve as the source of their divine magical power. A priest's magic revolves around his or her strong beliefs and ideas -- but what those beliefs are is entirely up to you.
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Mage
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the sixteenth 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. It's also the first installment with a title that rhymes! The Mage is the foremost master of magic in the Warcraft universe. Although all the other classes excluding the Warrior and the Rogue use magic of one sort or another with equally wonderful effects, the Mage is the class that's named after the stuff.But what is magic? What does it feel like to harness it? Does the mage have to do a strange ritual or utter incomprehensible words in an ancient language in order to cast her spells? Other fantasy settings often have one or more of these elements together, but as far as I can tell, Warcraft lacks them.Arcane magic in the World of Warcraft is an ever-present energy field surrounding the whole world. Mages access it by concentrating in the magic energy within themselves, feeling it rush through their body, and directing it as they please. Those spells that require reagents need an extra focusing item with magical properties of its own in order to bring about the desired effect, but for the most part, fireballs, frostbolts and arcane explosions can be created through the mere act of will on the part of a properly educated mind.
Will of the Forsaken nerf is a reason for quitting
Reader Dave M. sent this little gag to us from Blizzard's "Account Cancel" page. He was leaving the game (and frankly, we're sorry to see him go), and he noticed that if you choose "other" as the reason for leaving your account behind, you get another list of more wacky options. And among them (right between "All of my friends quit playing" and "Offline play not available") is that constant point of QQ: "Will of the Forsaken nerf."Pretty funny that in terms of game mechanics, that's really the only listed reason for quitting ("it takes too long to move between regions" is in there as well, though it seems like a strange complaint that the game is too big). You'd think that the Ret Pally nerfs or Shaman QQ would at least be listed in there somewhere. But no, apparently for all the players that are saying "That's it, I quit" in response to nerfs, only the ones angry about the WotF nerf are actually doing it.
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Warlock
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the fifteenth 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. The Warlock is the ideological counterpart to the Paladin. Where paladins strive to wipe out evil wherever they see it, warlocks enslave those evils and use them for their own purposes. Being a warlock is all about harnessing the most wicked, corrupting, and evil forces in the universe. Why are these forces evil, you ask? Aren't magical powers neutral in themselves depending on how you use them? Isn't killing with one weapon more or less the same as killing with another? Well, if you consider that a warrior basically cuts or bashes things, and a paladin cuts or bashes and brings down the righteous energy of justice. But a warlock uses curses and spells, which, like horrifying biological weapons of modern days, destroy his enemies' minds and eat away their bodies from the inside; wreaks massive havoc with great explosions and persisting fire; and sucks the souls out of people and creatures and uses them to power even more horrifying abilities, such as summoning demonic creatures who would just as soon pluck out your eyeballs as look at you.To suffer at the hands of a warlock is significantly more excruciating than the attacks of any other class -- a slow, painful, torturous, agonizing death. If warlocks existed in modern earth, their abilities would be against all international agreements on human rights and rules of warfare; they would be squarely in the evil company of terrorism, drug-trafficking, slavery, and biological germ warfare development.And yet if your warlock works for the Alliance or the Horde, he or she claims to do all of these things all for the greater good.
Ask a Lore Nerd: So You Think You Can Dance, Naxxramas edition
Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, where each week blogger and columnist Alex Ziebart answers your questions about the lore and history of the World of Warcraft. Ask your questions in the comments section below, and we'll try to answer it in a future edition.Today's Ask a Lore Nerd is best read while under the influence of obscene amounts of caffeine and sugar, and while listening to catchy J-Pop (or similar music). Tsuguru is preferred, though most anything the Yoshida Brothers have created is acceptable.Bjara asked...When you are in the DK starting area, you can have a funny little chat with Noth at the plague cauldron and you find out he really, really hates Heigan from Naxx. Do you know why? I'm still trying to find a way to work "slime and crap filled dance studio" into conversations on a daily basis.
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Paladin
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the fourteenth 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. You might say that paladins are the guardians at the gates of hell -- they fight evil wherever it penetrates into their world and they take the fight to the evil's source in the hope of quenching it forever. Although they focus on guarding their people from undead and demonic forces on the rise, paladins actually stand against evil everywhere, including the evil in their own hearts.Being a paladin means that you have a relationship of some sort with the Holy Light, that mysterious force of goodness and faith that flows to some degree within all living beings with positive intentions. Most paladins (and many priests) believe that when you do something that you believe to be good, the power of the Light increases in you and your connection to the rest of creation is strengthened, whereas doing something evil (such as acts of greed, despair, or vengeance) will darken the universe and weaken your connection to it. Whether this belief system is a religion or a philosophy is open to interpretation, and seems to depend in some part upon which race you are.There are three sorts of paladins in World of Warcraft, aligned with the humans, the draenei, and the blood elves. All of these share certain similarities, but each has its own differences as well.
A Vampyre Story sinks teeth into GamersGate
It's been so long since we last heard from A Vampyre Story that we half expected that the undead adventure game from former LucasArts vet Bill Tiller had been sent to the morgue. So imagine as the color returned to our cheeks with news that the Autumn Moon-developed PC adventure was released from its coffin and is now available to stretch its wings as a digital download. While currently it appears that A Vampyre Story is only available from GamersGate, a post on the game's official blog notes that it should begin popping up "on any decent download retail service," including GameTap and metaboli.First announced more than four years ago, A Vampyre Story is set in Europe during the late 1800s. The game casts players in the gown of a young French opera singer who must escape the hand-drawn clutches of her vampire captive in order to rekindle her former life (and, we hope, the genre's relevancy as well).
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Horde Warrior
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the thirteenth 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. The Warrior is not merely a well-trained fighter who loves his weapons and armor and takes great care to wield them well -- inside each one is a boiling cauldron of rage and passion. By and large, warriors feel at home on the battlefield because it is the one place where they can express themselves, where they can finally let go of all the restraint society imposes on them and unleash all their emotions. Without his raging passion, a person would be much better suited to some calmer form of work -- it is this unquenchable fire which sustains a warrior, driving him into action in the midst of mortal peril.Alliance warriors tend to focus more on training and weapon mastery, sometimes downplaying their rage so much that you hardly even see it. Some warriors like this (even in the Horde sometimes) may be so stoic that even they do not believe that they have any emotions whatsoever, although I doubt anyone who watched them fight could really agree. Something's got to make you willing to put on all that armor and risk death every day.But Horde warriors are more likely to display their rage, bloodlust, and other aggressive emotions much more freely. Of course, it's possible that a Horde warrior could have a collection of stuffed animals, write poetry, and even play hopscotch with children, but their rage lurks deep within, and the essence of their profession is to let it loose.
Ask a Beta Tester: The past meets the future
We only have one or two days of Ask a Beta Tester left, ladies and gentlemen. Very soon, it will be no more. Who will care about beta questions? We'll have the expansion in our hot little hands! Forget the beta, we'll have the real deal. We've actually had a lot of fun doing this for you guys though, and we're kind of sad to see it go. I like to think you guys have had fun with it, too. You know, beyond drooling over the Wrath screenshots and information.With that in mind, I'd like to ask all of you a question: Would you like to see something similar to this continue past Wrath's launch? Obviously it wouldn't be about just Wrath's beta, it would be more about the game in general. Leveling, patches, content. Short questions that can be answered in a paragraph or two. I don't know what we'd call it. Ask a Guy Some Stuff has a ring to it, though. %Poll-22189% jared.daniels asked...I won't be getting the WOTLK expansion for a few days after the launch. What do you suggest I do until I can get the DVD?
Zombies!!! board game to eat video game brains
It's time to get the shotgun out of the cupboard, as Twilight Creations announced plans to bring its popular tile-based board game, Zombies!!!, to Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network as well as Steam in 2009. The company describes these as the 'initial' platforms for the project, and we fully expect Zombies!!! to scuffle onto others should the creeping undead take hold. Interestingly, the game is being handled by Wisconsin-based Big Rooster, the same Big Rooster that recently had another tabletop-to-video game translation, Talisman, canned by would be publisher Capcom. Here's hoping that Zombies!!! doesn't suffer a similar fate, or at the very least if it does it can drag itself up from the grave. [Thanks, J]
Phase 4 of the Zombie invasion begins! [UPDATED x8]
The zombie invasion has hit phase four. We can see that the scourge are full out attacking cities now, and the plague debuff will now turn you into a Zombie after a short period of 2 minutes. There are necropolis appearing all over Azeroth.Argent Dawn representatives are being spotted around capital cities. The new raid boss in Karazhan, Tenris Mirkblood, is now active and dropping one Arcanite Ripper (a 2H axe), a Vampiric Batling for each raid member, and two badges for each raid member. You can get to him by going through Attuneman, clearing him, and then moving up the stairs behind his room. We've got a strategy guide up now with details on how to defeat himYou can see the location of the necropolises on the world map - they are indicated by little purple skull icons.A Haunted Momento has been confirmed to drop from rare spawns around the necropolises- it's a leather ball type item that you throw to someone. Whoever has the momento gets to have a wraith follow you around! Pics after the break and in our gallery.Big Update: Click the Arcanite Ripper and play it like a guitar!Late night updates: There are Argent Dawn healers appearing at most flight paths (if not all) around the game. They are making is so the flight path NPC does not become a zombie anymore. We have a semi-confirmation of the Lurch buff increasing in speed to 125%. But we also have conflicting reports.Continue reading after the break for the latest information. %Gallery-35353% Zombies have entered the World of Warcraft in the Wrath of the Lich King world event! Check out our tips for eating brains, our zombie night gallery, or see Blizzard's official zombie infestation guide. They live! Braaiiiiinnnssss!
WoW Moviewatch: Dead Rain 2: Deader
In case there was any confusion about yesterday's post, I intentionally linked only to the films featured previously here on WoW Insider. The other three movies will be covered as we go along this week and the original post will be updated as such. Today you'll see Dead Rain 2: Deader from Bear on a Trampoline, which took Runner Up in the Drama/Romance Category for the BlizzCon 2008 movie contest. Although I'm not a horror/zombie movie fan, I was incredibly impressed with this film, a sequel to last year's Dead Rain. Even though I love the Snacky films, I don't think it's fair that Dead Rain was included in the same category with those films since it's impossible to compare the two films. Deader's story picks up where the first one left off, with our two heroes mourning their losses and continuing to fight off zombies. There are so many things to like about this film: the grainy black-and-white film style, the high-contrast dramatic flashes, the genre homages (forced perspective camera angles, peeking through holes at the zombies, pop-up gotchas), and the wonderful cinematography. The only thing I wish is that the audio volumes were more stable. I had to ride my dial a few times to hear the dialog over the music or sound-effects. But the storyline was fantastic. The twist caught me completely by surprise and made me say, "Holy cow!" (Only, of course, "cow" was not the word I used. I live in a PG-13 household, so sue me.) I thought, "How the heck are they gonna get out of this?" Well, you have to watch it yourself to see.Tomorrow we'll look at Mercy of the Sea by Sleeping Dog Productions and Friday we'll see Fruit of Elune by Myndflame.[Via WeGame]If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.
Ask a Beta Tester: Soundtracks, trinkets, and travel
Welcome back to Ask a Beta Tester! We'll jump right into things today with Graham's question... What is the music like in Dalaran? Is there a web site where I can hear some/all of it?Dalaran's music is some kind of weird cross between Draenei-style and Human-style music. It's like they picked up Stormwind City and dropped it on Azuremyst Isle. I don't think there's anywhere that you can download the entire Wrath of the Lich King soundtrack yet, but for sample you can stream just about anything on Songza if it's somewhere on the intertubes. And really, nowadays, what isn't?
The Shadow Odyssey's Befallen dungeon featured at EQ2 website
SOE posted a preview of Befallen, one of the classic EverQuest dungeons that will be reborn in EverQuest II's upcoming The Shadow Odyssey expansion. Included are several screenshots of the dungeon along with its background in the game's lore. The aesthetic of the old Befallen seems to be preserved -- and amplified -- in EQ2's newer graphics engine.The story goes something like this: a bunch of Knights of Marr built the keep in the Commonlands as a headquarters in their quest to chase off the giants and orcs that terrorized the people in the countryside. Their fortress became their tomb, though, as orcs laid siege to the keep. A warrior named Gynok Moltor came to them to help, but it turned out that he had been cursed. He betrayed the Knights and turned Befallen into the dangerous mass grave that it is today.It's standard fantasy fare. Cool enough, but we're sure most of you just care about the loot. Well met, fellow Norrathian! Make sure to check out all of our coverage of the next EverQuest II expansion, The Shadow Odyssey as well as Seeds of Destruction, the next expansion to EverQuest!
PAX08: WAR's Paul Barnett and Jeff Hickman interviewed, page three
Massively: This one's for all the Warhammer lore fans. Tomb Kings or Vampire Counts? If you had your pick- Massively: Tabletop, let's say...
Ask a Lore Nerd: Things that aren't Deathwing
Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, the column that answers your questions about the story and lore of the Warcraft universe. Click the Comments link below (or e-mail us!), ask your question, and blogger/columnist Alex Ziebart will answer your question in a future installmentCowbane asked...Is there a Heaven or Hell in any Warcraft lore? Or is the swirly clouds when you die about it.That's a good question, and my answer isn't going to be very clear, because Warcraft itself isn't clear on it. Warcraft used to be based much more heavily on Christian concepts. There was a Heaven and there was a Hell, there was God and Angels and all that jazz. It's much more vague and nebulous now. It seems that the Twisting Nether is the current concept of Hell, but that might just mean it's a really bad place and not somewhere that sinful dead people automatically go. I have no idea if there is still a Heaven, but the Priest quest for Benediction/Anathema has you escorting souls of Stratholme's dead to the afterlife. So do they exist? Probably, yes. It is suggested that they definitely do exist. What are they like, exactly? We don't know.
World of WarCrafts: Ghoul doll
Every Thursday, Shelbi Roach of The Bronze Kettle guides you in creating WoW-inspired crafts using real world mats with World of WarCrafts.Who doesn't love a cannibalistic, rotting, undead corpse? With this cuddly ghoul you can be sure to weird out your friends and family while charming them with cuteness at the same time. Here is what you will need: Pre-made Muslin Doll Acrylic Paint Muslin Fabric Pledge Duster Refills Mod Podge (or fabric glue) Paint Brushes Scissors Click on the images below to view a gallery of step-by-step instructions. %Gallery-30117%
Death Knights gain new rune set, new cosmetic changes
It's been said that Death Knights are supposed to be a specifically recognizable class, part of their heroic bearing coming in that distinctness. We've already seen some of it with the inclusion of glowing eyes, and now there's more implemented with these beta builds. All Death Knight Races have the option of taking on a selection of darker skins and gaunt, undead, or angry looking faces. In addition, the Death Knight's glowing eyes now look more more integrated and natural on almost every race, in my opinion. The changes look better on some races. Humans, especially, look very much changed, to the point where Human females can look a lot like Forsaken females without the hunchback or protuding bones. You can see some of the new looks in the Gallery below, courtesy of tipster Damir. %Gallery-29326% Death Knights also got another small cosmetic change in the form of new runes. The new runes are a bit bigger and more distinct, and I personally find them easier to keep track of. I'm glad to see the change. You can see the runes here (thanks to tipster chaud and wotlkwiki for that picture). EDIT: There are no Forsaken pictures in the gallery because there do not seem to be any new looks for Forsaken Death Knights. This is understandable -- They're already dead, after all. You can check our older Death Knight gallery for Forsaken shots, if you wish.
