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BlizzCon 2009: Worgen animation
Our own Mike Schramm brings you video of the process Worgen players will undergo when they transform, fresh from the BlizzCon floor. Enjoy your piping hot man to beast-man transformation! I know I'm going to be keeping my Worgen in his bestial form as much as possible, myself, but it's still cool to watch.Update by Mike Schramm: Since we took this video at the Art Panel, I've played the Worgen on the floor, and this animation is now fully implemented in the demos here. Going into combat as a Worgen does a quicker animation that sends you into Wolf form (yes, you must be in Wolf form during combat, and it's purely cosmetic). But hitting the transformation ability while a human will give you this animation -- it looks great. BlizzCon 2009 is here! WoW.com has continuing coverage, bringing you the latest in Cataclysm news, live blogs, galleries, and reports right from the convention floor. Check out WoW.com's Guide to BlizzCon for the latest!
BlizzCon 2009: Q&A with Cory Stockton
The DirecTV stream has been of questionable stability today, but it has brought us an excellent interview with Cory Stockton, WoW's lead world designer. Here's what we learned: Development on Cataclysm was started before Wrath of the Lich King was done. Deathwing is the main boss of Cataclysm, as Arthas was for Wrath. You will not be able to go back to the old world content at all post-Cataclysm. Faction transfer will let you choose any race that can play your class. Archaeology is a secondary skill, like cooking, so anyone can get it. It ties in very closely with Path of the Titans, the new advancement system. It's all about traveling through Azeroth finding ancient artifacts, with a mini-game to decipher what the artifact is, and then you get rewards for it. Rewards will include profession recipes, items, and money, and the big reward will be new glyph slots for Path of the Titans (hopefully more on this later). The Worgen will have their own district in Stormwind. Odds and ends, sure, but some darn interesting ones. BlizzCon 2009 is here! WoW.com has continuing coverage, bringing you the latest in Cataclysm news, live blogs, galleries, and reports right from the convention floor. Check out WoW.com's Guide to BlizzCon for the latest!
BlizzCon 2009: Goblin backstory and zone info
The DirecTV stream cut out for me after the opening ceremony, so it's possible there are a few things I'm missing; drop a comment if it looks like I've omitted anything. Anyway, here's what we know about the Goblins (the new Horde race) so far:BACKSTORYThe playable race is a group of Goblins based on the Isle of Kezan, a new zone between the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. While Goblins and the neutral Goblin trade organizations as a whole originate here, the official site and trailer both hint that the playable group has had (or is that, will have?) a recent and deeply unpleasant encounter with the Alliance that makes the Horde a logical choice when the time comes to pick sides. From the trailer, it would appear that much of the Goblins' starting zone is taken up by the eponymous cataclysm, the need to get away from the destruction, and their induction into the Horde, but we don't have too many details on it yet.The playable Goblins won't be formally associated with any of the neutral Goblin trading organizations we already know and love (figuratively speaking, of course; the Steamwheedle Cartel's been bilking us for years). There's also no mention so far of the other Goblins going anywhere, so I'm assuming that the game's preexisting Goblins will remain in the game in whatever capacity they can post-cataclysm, and the Horde Goblins are a faction unto themselves named the Bilgewater Cartel.
BlizzCon 2009: Cataclysm race-class combo matrix online
With official word that there will be new race-class combinations in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, Blizzard has posted the official matrix of what races will have what classes available to them. Big surprises so far include Worgen Druid and Goblin Shaman!The full matrix is above, and the text list below. All of our previous speculation was correct, so this should give rerollers plenty of opportunity to experience the new, shattered realm of Azeroth! Human Hunter Orc Mage Night Elf Mage Blood Elf Warrior Dwarf Shaman Dwarf Mage Undead Hunter Tauren Paladin Tauren Priest Gnome Priest Troll Druid BlizzCon 2009 is here! WoW.com has continuing coverage, bringing you the latest in Cataclysm news, live blogs, galleries, and reports right from the convention floor. Check out WoW.com's Guide to BlizzCon for the latest!
BlizzCon 2009: Live blogging the Cataclysm new starter zones
Live from the BlizzCon press room it's character creation for Worgen and Goblins. We're going to write up our experiences live, so keep your eyes on this post.Be warned, below there be spoilers!
BlizzCon 2009: WoW: Cataclysm site live
Following the announcement of the new WoW expansion, Cataclysm, at the BlizzCon 2009 Opening Ceremony, Blizzard has just launched the official Cataclysm website.The site currently features story and art for the Goblin and Worgen races, as well as information on their starting areas, a FAQ, and the official trailer.The art is absolutely beautiful! More details as we get them, but go check out the site now! The WoW preview panel is coming up shortly and we'll keep you updated. BlizzCon 2009 is coming up on August 21st and 22nd! We've got all the latest news and information. At BlizzCon you can play the latest games, meet your guildmates, and ask the developers your questions. Plus, there's some great looking costumes.
The Daily Quest: Moonkins Anonymous
We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Gray Matter has a great post on Moonkin Leveling Spec and Glyphs. Patch 3.2 Impressions are all Shamantastic over at Shamantics OutDPS has a guide on how to use a great online Hunter DPS spreadsheet. Oxhorn's take on the new races [spoilers]. Finally, I provided some clarification last night on my personal blog as to why WoW.com does not reveal its sources in things like the Patch 3.2 release date or yesterday's Cataclysm announcement. Click here to submit a link to TDQ
Rumor: Two new playable races in next World of Warcraft expansion
What's Blizzard up to, besides not finishing StarCraft 2? According to a leak from an anonymous source to our bunkmates at WoW.com, the developer is working on the next World of Warcraft expansion, Cataclysm, which will include two new playable races! Both of these have been previously hinted to via in-game Halloween masks. On the Horde (Citrus Cherry Red, in terms of Mountain Dew Game Fuel) side, players will be able to create Goblin characters. On the Alliance (Wild Fruit Blue) side, the new playable race is the Worgen (which is like a werewolf, but with a more Swedish-sounding name). We'd love to see how Blizzard reconciles the "good guy" Alliance with a creature that is "thoroughly evil, delighting in torturing and devouring intelligent creatures."
Cataclysm races leaked
digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Cataclysm_races_leaked'; WoW.com has learned through multiple sources close to the situation some details on the next expansion, to be called World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.As we're getting into the season of news and information, all major leaks and spoilers will be happening after the break. If you don't want your surprises ruined for you, don't read this post. If you want to know, click after the break and enjoy. This policy worked well for us during the testing phase of Wrath of the Lich King and we're pleased to continue it now.After the break, the new playable races of Cataclysm.
The Queue: Wherein The Queue has as much consistency as Smodcast
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today.So welcome back to a full week of The Queue folk, and indeed this week will be a full one for The Queue. As Alex and I have mentioned before, when patches roll around and other big things come up our availability to spend a couple hours writing The Queue and The Daily Quest diminishes significantly. But this week nothing is on the radar, so here we are.Next week though, The Queue and The Daily Quest will only appear Monday and Tuesday; unless something unexpected happens. We have to prepare for BlizzCon and actually spend a few hours away from our computers packing and all that. But this week? We're all Queue'd off and roaring to go.Milesdfreeman asked..."Do we know anything about Patch 3.3 yet? What raids if any will it have? New features?"
All the World's a Stage: Possibilities for worgen and goblins
All the World's a Stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. They have their stories and their characters; and one man in his time plays many roles.Ever since word broke about the possibility of playing either a worgen or a goblin, I've been thinking a lot about how it would be to roleplay them. In terms of lore, each one fits in very nicely -- the goblins have the neutral city of Undermine not far from the great Maelstrom at the center of the world, and the worgen have lots of connections to other dimensions, possibly the Emerald Dream. Assuming the expansion is in fact going to be a combination of the Maelstrom and the Emerald Dream, each race could have a lot to do with why the Horde and the Alliance are eager to go and continue the adventure after Northrend.Some others are talking about how and why these races would join either faction. The goblins seem a shoo-in for the Horde, since they've already got so many connections with one another above and beyond the ostensible neutrality the goblins maintain between the Horde and the Alliance. The worgen connection to the Alliance is a bit tougher to figure out, but there are two apparent possibilities: either the humans of Gilneas have become worgen and wish to rejoin their former brethren, or the original worgen from their own dimension somehow join up with the Alliance in order to fight off a shared enemy such as the Burning Legion or the "Nightmare" of the Emerald Dream.Today we'll discuss both of these possibilities and stake my claim on which I think is more likely, and look at a number of the story hooks that worgen and goblins could create for roleplayers if and when we get the chance to play them.
Insider Trader: Woodworking in the expansion?
Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.Ideas for a woodworking profession have been bounced around for years, but have previously been dodged by Blizzard. Although they assured us that they have plenty of ideas, they've always been working on too many others.Woodworking was not to be for Burning Crusade or Wrath of the Lich King, but what about the upcoming expansion? Considering that Goblins and Worgen could become playable, it might be a real possibility. In late summer 2007, Nethaera posted a list of some of the things that need to be considered before they can even begin to implement a new profession. While it became clear that it wasn't going to work for Wrath, it seems a little more plausible now. Today's column will be dedicated to presenting the crafting community's Woodworking ideas, discussing their implementation using the (incomplete) criteria set forth by Nethaera, and speculating about its possible presence in the next expansion.
More ideas for player housing
Spicytuna has a nice little writeup about a much-discussed but never implemented feature in World of Warcraft: player housing. Blizzard has borrowed (and subsequently improved upon) many of the most common features in MMOs -- they revamped leveling with ideas like rested XP and recruit-a-friend, they changed the endgame with the ideas of Heroic instances and daily quests, and they've tweaked PvP with battlegrounds, Wintergrasp and Arenas. But for some reason they've never taken on the idea of player housing: a place in the game for players to make their own. The reason we've always heard is that they never landed on a good implementation of it -- if they couldn't do it right, they wouldn't do it at all.But Spicytuna proves there's no shortage of ideas. The main thought so far is that such an area would be instanced, as having actual buildings in the game as player houses just leads to emptied out ghettos of buildings left to rot.
Tamed Worgen have become Winterskorn Worgs
And here lies the final chapter in the Taming of the Worgen saga: Mania reports that, just a little while after the troublesome Worgen Garwal was hotfixed to be untameable, Blizzard has magically changed all of the already-tamed Worgen to level 68 (or Hunter's level minus five) wolves. Why level 68? Because, Mania says, they've all been turned into Winterskorn Worgs, a level 63-69 NPC that wanders around the Howling Fah-jord.So that's the end of that. Obviously, no one really expected to keep those pets as their own, and especially with all of the Worgen-as-playable-race speculation flying around, it wouldn't do for Hunters to have one of those humanoids at their beck and call. Some Hunters who went to the trouble of taming probably won't be too happy. But the good news is that the new white wolf in your stable is completely fixed -- it has all of the normal talent trees and abilities that wolves are supposed to have. Guess you and your pet Garwal were just never meant to be.
The best of WoW.com: July 14-21, 2009
Joystiq's sister site WoW.com covers every corner of Azeroth, the virtual world that holds the World of Warcraft. Here's a look at ten of our most popular stories from the last week. News New Halloween masks point to a playable race?Do new masks found in the game files point to Worgen and Goblin as the two new playable races? Blizzard warns against Three Wolf Moon at BlizzConA hint at a wolf-like race for the new expansion? Or just a joke about the most awesome t-shirt ever? WoW Armory for the iPhone releasedBlizzard releases a free Armory app for the iPhone and iPod touch. Mining the Armory for Hunter pet statisticsA study of Hunter stats shows some interesting facts about the pets they're choosing. Is WoW being run by the B-team?Has Blizzard moved on from its biggest cash cow? Features Breakfast Topic: Would you play a Worgen or a Goblin?With the recent speculation about races, we want to know: would you play one? Time is Money: Capitalizing on Patch 3.2How to make some moolah with the brand new patch. Why leveling will always be important to WoWThe leveling grind is an important part of any MMO, and our game is no different. TurpsterVision: Multiboxing, recruit-a-friend styleEveryone's favorite T shows you how to multibox like a madman. Drama Mamas: Of phone calls and slanderersHave some drama? Let the mamas help.
More Halloween masks uncovered, mayhem ensues
In what may be an attempt to throw everyone off the recent speculation that Goblins and Worgen just might be the next playable races in the World of Warcraft, new Halloween masks with both male and female versions were found in the latest PTR build. The discovery sent players into a frenzy, and got everyone speculating about the next expansion and what it holds. During last weekend's WoW.com radio show, Turpster said he wished that the whole Halloween mask thing were planted by Blizzard to confuse the player base, and it turns out that they just might be... except that it might be the other way around and the devs are trying to cover up the Goblins and Worgen discovery.MMO Champion, the data-mining heaven, has the full image of all the "new" Halloween masks, which include Murlocs, Vrykul, Naga, and Ogres, including a never-before-seen-in-game female ogre! However, astute readers point out that the female ogre is actually a "direct copy-paste of an old drawing from one of the RPG books." Closer inspection of the female ogre mask will reveal some rendering inconsistencies compared to the other skins, which were lifted from in-game models. Clever Blizzard - could these new masks be a red herring? Or could the red herring actually be the Goblin and Worgen masks, and this is just one elaborate ploy to obscure the big announcement at BlizzCon? Let the mayhem commence!Oops, forgot this earlier... thanks to Malfural of But Wait, There's Lore for the tip! EDIT: Whoops again! Malfural has nothing to do with BWTL, but says he's a great fan. Thanks for the tip, anyway, BWTL reader!
Ask a Lore Nerd: Speculation station
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.Be warned, ladies and gentlemen. This week's edition of Ask a Lore Nerd is almost purely discussion and speculation on the next expansion and what it might include. Why? Because it's fun! We'll get back to covering anything and everything next week, but this week we're just in an expansion sort of mood.alpha5099 asked... "So, most of the speculation is that the next expansion will be the Maelstrom. Would you agree with that assessment? What all do you expect to see in a Maelstrom expansion? What would you want to see? Any place you're dying to go?"
The Daily Quest: Worgen, security, and charity
We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. World of Ming interviews a Brother/Sister Gladiator pair! Be warned, a few drug references lie within. All Things Azeroth #122 was released this past week. This time around, the podcast covers WoW social networks, Worgen, and all of the recent expansion speculation. Lorecrafted has his own take on the Worgen/Goblin rumors. While not exactly a WoW link, we thought you might want to know about TheSpeedGamers. They're marathon gamers... for charity! They're already been going for over sixty hours. Head on over, cheer them on, and support their cause: ACT Today. GuildOx's admin has a new offering for everyone today: 10 easy steps to secure your WoW account. Click here to submit a link to TDQ
Mining the armory for Hunter pet statistics
With Hunter pet information recently added to the armory, Data Miner Zardoz has wasted no time getting his hands on the raw Hunter pet data and breaking it down. The data is only for level 80 Hunters, and only 10,000 of those at that, but it still gives a very interesting snapshot of what's going with the Hunter's best friends. It might not be too big a surprise that Cats are far and away the most popular pet at a count of around 9500, nearly doubling again the amount of Wolves, who come in just under 5000, which are in turn used in numbers over twice as much as the next popular choice, Gorillas, who are just above 2800 in number. Now mind you, this information does take into account pets that are in the stables as well, and there's certainly the possibility that a lot of them have just stayed in the stables for a long time.
Breakfast Topic: Would you play a Worgen or a Goblin?
So it might just be some fanciful speculation, the product of rampant imaginings after digging through some game files. It could mean something, it could mean nothing. But yesterday's bombshell discovery of Halloween masks, traditionally reserved for playable races, threw a whole bunch of us into a tizzy. Goblins as playable races? That wouldn't be too surprising considering they've had models in the game that could wear player armor, anyway. But Worgen? I mean, wow.It's not that far-fetched, either. The Undermine, the home of the Goblins, is situated near the Maelstrom. Remember how Blizzard trademarked Cataclysm, which in Azerothian terms actually refers to the events around the Maelstrom? That means we just might see The Undermine in the next expansion. So Goblins aren't such a wild idea. But what about the Worgen?
