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A friend for life, or pet of the week?
00hshiny is asking a question about what Hunter pet to get for raiding on WoW Ladies, but something even more interesting struck me about her situation: she's made it all the way to 67 with a pet she's had since the beginning.I know it happens (my friend went all the way with his first pet), but I've leveled one Hunter and am now working on a second, and I can't imagine leveling all the way up with just one pet-- it would get too boring after a while! Hunters, have you done it?Of course you'd need to train other pets at some point, just to get more skills. And it's very common for Hunters to reach 70, and then get different pets for different activities-- a PvP pet vs. a soloing or raiding pet. But I wonder exactly how many pets Hunters actually play with (as in, fight with enough to reach the highest loyalty levels). BRK apparently changes pets all the time, but what about the rest of you Hunters? How many pets have you had, in terms of actually using, not just taming for learning skills, from 1-70?%Poll-3004%
Hearthstones and crafts
I thought we'd covered this Hearthstone jewelry before, but no-- those were Anhk earrings. Lady Kildare has posted some of her WoW crafts on WoW Ladies, and they are pretty sweet. The coasters are apparently made out of cork, and the art on there is familiar looking, but other than that, I have no idea how she put it together, and I love the way the borders look.And the hearthstone stuff is terrific, too. Those of you who were at BlizzCon know that Blizzard gave out a little hearthstone kind of like these, but I like the look of Kildare's better. And the best part is that she's working on one with a blue LED inside, so it'll glow! Now that's cool.For now, everything else is available (for $1 shipping "ftw") on her Etsy page. Always love to see cool WoW crafts like this.Thanks, Jessica T!
Tuesday morning misery on a T-shirt
Jenny posted a t-shirt design on WoW Ladies that I just thought was too good to pass up. You can't actually buy it yet, but apparently she's entered it into a contest over at SplitReason, and if enough people vote for it, they'll offer it as a real t-shirt. You don't have to vote for her or anything (I have no idea who she is, except that she posts on WoW Ladies and made this funny shirt), but if you like the shirt as much as I do, feel free to show your support.Is it just me or are there a lot of WoW-related t-shirts over there? Must be something about you guys and voting for t-shirts.
The voices of Azeroth
Last week we looked at who made the soundtrack of Azeroth (and I heard-- and saw-- those very people at the Video Games Live BlizzCon concert), and this week, olanthe on WoW Ladies wants to know who's behind the other, very memorable part of WoW's audio: the voices.Unfortunately, just like the music, Blizzard doesn't actually credit the talent part by part, so while it's easy to find a list of who's voiced something in game (the IMDB entry is probably the most comprehensive, as it contains all the names from the booklets to both shipping WoW and Burning Crusade), finding out who's done what is a little harder. Tony Jay did the intros for all the races, and Cam Clarke has been pegged as the male Blood Elf (among others, including Nexus-Prince Shaffar and Medivh). Voice actress Erin Fitzgerald has done quite a few voices in Burning Crusade, including Dorothy and the Wicked Witch, as well as Sarannis and the Essence of Desire in the Black Temple. Kath Soucie, another well known voice actress, has also done voices in BC, as has Michael Dorn (yes, Worf).But most surprising on the list is probably the sheer number of Blizzard employees-- some, like Samwise Didier, Chris Metzen and Mike Morhaime, are well known, but others, like Tracy Bush, Derek Duke, and Glen Stafford, are usually working on the music of Azeroth. And even others-- Michele Arko, and I'm sure a few other names that I just don't recognize, work in completely different departments of Blizzard, from QA to Administration. So it seems like they invite a lot of their local employees to come in and record voices for their games, and not until recently, with the Burning Crusade, have they turned more often to more high profile actors.Unfortunately, that doesn't exactly answer the question of who the female Night Elf is. But especially for the shipping game, odds are that it's someone who works at Blizzard, not a professional voice actor.Update: You guys are the best. A reader of ours is friends with the Night Elf voice, so here she is: Debi Mae West. And yes, her goods really are of the highest quality. Apparently, she was also Meryl in Metal Gear Solid.
An open letter against a dysphemism
Elizabeth's post about getting the word "gay" out of the game got tons of feedback from you all (some comments more intelligent than others), and now a poster on WoW Ladies has another language sensitivity that I agree with. The word "rape" is used by some players in game for all kinds of things, and most of the time it's used without thought to what the word really means.Personally I don't use it (not because I have a specific abhorrence of the word, although the act itself is pretty abhorrent), but every once in a while you'll hear things like "boy, our guild raped Hakkar last night," or "stupid elite Son of Arugal just came out of nowhere and raped me." The word for this kind of usage is actually "dysphemism," the opposite of euphemism, in which you specifically use a harsh word in the place of a more polite one.And that's the problem-- just like "gay," it's not polite to use, not least of all because you may hardly know the person that reads it or their situation. In some cases, the word can be downright offensive. Fortunately, I don't know anyone (that I know of) who's experienced real-life rape or abuse, but especially in an MMO situation, there's no reason to use the harsher word, especially if, as Elizabeth said about "gay," it costs you respect (and possibly your account).As the WoW Ladies contributor says, "realize there are a lot of women in guild, as well as a lot of married members and members with children. Realize that 1 in 6 women are raped in the US. Realize that each person in the guild is either female themselves, and/or has multiple loved ones and friends that are female. Realize that rape is a deeply traumatic experience, for the victim and their loved ones." Even if you're joking, or even if you didn't mean it that way, it's just not worth saying.
Breakfast topic: WoW in the world
It's been a while since we last did this, so let's do it again: Where have you seen WoW in your real life world?Umi on WoW Ladies sees BOP, and automatically thinks Bind on Pickup. I was once driving around looking for a party, and had been playing WoW so much lately that when I realized I was lost, my first thought was to type /1 (without a computer in the car, mind you), and ask where the party was in General chat. No one was in the car, but I felt pretty stupid after having a thought like that.And my favorite lately came from that post on boss quotes the other day. Here's what happened to commenter Thingy at work:Person 1: "How about we get that stuff in next week?"Person 2: "Too soon"Me: "You have awakened me too soon, Executus."*odd looks from the rest*Me: *finally realises what I just said*Funny. Where have you seen WoW in the world?
New noncombat pet found in Zangarmarsh
I'm no noncombat pet completist (I am proud to have gotten Willy on my Shaman, but all of my other alts run with storebought pets), but the aptly named mfirefly of WoW_Ladies has uncovered a pet I've never seen before. Firefly must have come in with patch 2.1 (or was it in with the expansion, and I just haven't seen it till now?): It's a [Captured Firefly] that drops from the bugs in Zangarmarsh. How... cute?She says she got this "very rare" pet after 586 Bogflare Needler kills, which seems like a lot, but then again, it might be worth it: the flavor text on the pet says "Still flying..", which is a great reference to the super fun and canceled-before-its-time Joss Whedon TV show that this little guy seems to be named after. If you don't want to kill bugs for the rest of your life, the pet is BoE, so you might keep an eye on the Auction House as well. Grats to mfirefly for such a cool pet!With all the crazy pets that are coming out lately, can anyone really be a noncombat pet completist any more? Is there anyone out there that really has caught them all?
WoW Ladies community, mods come out from hiding
The WoW_Ladies livejournal group is one of my very favorite WoW communities, so I was disappointed to see last week that their latest posts were closed to everyone but members of the community. They'd been dealing with an expanding audience lately (brought on partly by attention from WoW Insider), and apparently there were a few issues arising among the membership.But the community has started posting again (bringing about this completely awesome crochet Draenei), and the mods (formerly pretty unknown-- I've been watching them for a while, and I had no idea who was in charge over there), have made a very public statement about the future of WoW_Ladies. In addition to taking a more high-profile position, they have said that the recent closing was not their choice, but rather either a glitch, or the work of someone not a mod. And they've landed on a great compromise: all posts will be public by default, with an option for each poster to lock them to the community only. They've also made the very great choice of leaving the community open to men-- some men with significant others, they say, "like seeing the women here post - it helps them identify with their partners and helps them get ideas on how to join." Personally, I completely appreciate a place where a woman's perspective on the game gets placed front and center, rather then consigned to a minority, as in many other games media outlets.The other good news is that they're working on a brand new layout for the community, so it seems like things are jumping over there. We're glad to see they made it through the drama, and are back as one of the most intelligent and interesting groups in the WoW community.
Starting from scratch with the same class
Kraylessa on WoW Ladies has a problem I've been thinking about lately as well. When I first started playing WoW, I rolled an NE hunter (yes, I know it's a cliche noob class and race but I was young and impressionable at the time), and while I was able to get her all the way up to 60, I've since abandoned her for another server (because a friend made me move) and for the Horde (because, come on, Horde rocks). I've since rolled up a shaman, a rogue, and a mage, but even after playing and enjoying those, I still long to play a hunter again-- the combination of crazy ranged DPS, traps, and a powerful pet is like a siren song to me.So I'm faced with the possibility of rerolling the same class I already played, and, like Kraylessa, this is not really something I want to do (at least I wasn't made to reroll because of an accidental character deletion). True, it has been a while since I've played the hunter, so things have changed a lot (not to mention that I've learned a lot as a player). And I'd likely try another spec-- my hunter was a marksman, so I'd probably try a BM (Kray doesn't want to level her priest shadow, but I have no idea why-- shadow priests are hella fun, and if she missed out by leveling with holy the first time around, she owes it to herself to level a face melter).But it still seems like it would be boring, like a suspense movie I've already seen. Have you ever rerolled the exact same class? Was it definitely worth it or completely a pain? I'd really enjoy having a brand new Blood Elf hunter as a main, but I just don't know if I'd enjoy grinding all the way to 70 again.
Real life wedding rings get Soulbound
A member of the WoW Ladies livejournal group, Tsuraibara, and her husband figured out a completely awesome way for them to customize their wedding rings. Since they "met on an online game, the engraving was free, [and] 'soulbound' sounds nice even if you aren't familiar with WoW," they actually went out and got "Soulbound" carved on the inside of each of the rings. That's great!I liked the plush Shammy a lot, but I think this might be my new favorite real life WoW item. Of course, this does mean that they won't be able to put these on the AH anymore. But if for some reason an upgrade drops (maybe on a wedding anniversary), a vendor could probably offer them a few gold at least.
The onset of expansion burnout
fianakara over on WoW Ladies has an interesting tale of woe: her guild is completely burnt out on playing WoW before the expansion hits. After downing the twin emps a week ago, she says she's having problems even getting a 40 man together for BWL. And other players are responding in agreement-- guilds and raids all over the place can't seem to find enough players interested in playing "old" content before the new expansion.For me, the reaction has been almost the opposite-- my guild is pretty energized lately, and partly because of the expansion. We're hurrying to get into the endgame dungeons, and personally I'm putting in a lot of time trying to get my alt up before the December patch hits. But this problem is more widespread than even Blizzard might admit-- also on Livejournal, Thena B says she just can't find the urge to play WoW when everything is changing in just a month or two. Why play characters now when everyone's going to be rolling new characters as Draenei and Blood Elves?I've said before that just because the expansion's coming out doesn't mean the game we have is any less fun-- I'm still enjoying myself. But I can't argue with experience, and lots of players are saying they just plain aren't feeling it lately. Is the game (and participation in general) slowing down because of the imminent expansion release? Are you playing more or less when you realize that almost everything is Azeroth is going to drastically change in the next few months?
