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Amanda Rivera spends more time in Azeroth/Outland than she would care to admit. Most days you can find her gearing out her Alliance Mage on Elune (US), who she is currently introducing to the world of raiding. When she is not submerged face-first into World of Warcraft, she claims the titles of Amateur Novelist and Internet Ninja.
Entering into the world of raiding, eh? Now that you'vegottenready, it's time to get you familiar with some of the concepts you might encounter during the raid. You may remember some of these terms from the instance runs you have participated in, and some may be new to you.
Personally I like to live my life by the words of Sir Francis Bacon: Knowledge is Power. In raiding, knowing what people are talking about can mean the difference between looking like a newbie or looking like a quick learner. For this reason we've but together a lexicon of raiding lingo for those of you who are looking to get into raiding.
First let's go over a couple basic abbreviations you'll encounter in raid chat.Each of these stands for an important raiding concept, so it's essential that you familiarize yourself with them.
When Wrathlaunches next year huge changes are in store for the people and places of Azeroth. The greatest reason I love this game is because of the compelling storyline underneath it all. We not only have great characters and plot lines to interact with, those plot lines progress, which is not always the case in an MMO. Dalaran, for instance, which has been sealed away for generations, will be opened up as the new capital city for those traveling to Northrend.
But some are not happy with the prospect of another neutral city akin to Shattrath. As Sorun of The Venture Co sees it, shifting Dalaran from an Alliance city to a neutral city would only harm the lore. He says that the factions want to hate each other, want to be pitted head-to-head at every turn, and certain elements in TBC and elsewhere have shown a trend toward cooperation he doesn't like at all. Drysc mentions that no one has yet confirmed that the city will be neutral, and Neth makes a valid point on the subject later on in the thread:
I think it's a bit too early to be worried or upset about what is and isn't going to be in Dalaran. When we are further along and have information on it, we'll share it with you all. In the meantime, remember, Dalaran is filled with the world's most powerful magic users. While they work together, they are also filled with many different personalities and more importantly, have a bit of a crisis on their hands by the name of Malygos. I am going to hazard a guess that the Kirin Tor are going to be using all the available resources they can to survive the onslaught.
Irregardless of whether or not Dalaran ends up a neutral city, the forum thread raises an interesting topic: do players really want to hate members of the opposite faction? I know there is plenty of rivalry between the Horde and the Alliance, some created by the game itself and some created by the players. But I personally play characters of both factions and can't really say I prefer one over the other. Maybe I'm in the minority, I'm not sure. Perhaps you can help out here. Do you prefer hatred and animosity between the factions, or is cooperation more your thing?
We have a couple cool mounts coming to us in the very near future, but as with many cool things in life, there's a catch.You can't have your cake and eat it too it seems, even in Azeroth.
As David mentioned a few days ago, we will get the chance to purchase an epic Hippogryph flying mount when Patch 2.3 err, lands.But Bornakk has let us know that this baby won't be as easy to get as the Skyguard nether ray mount for instance.When asked about the mounts that will be added into the game when Wrathlaunches, he had this to say:
We do plan to continue adding new mounts to the game, but we aren't ready to go into details on Wrath of the Lich King specific mounts yet. Keep in mind we are adding the Hippogryph mount as a Cenarion Expedition purchasable item in patch 2.3 along with the Engineering only flying mount...The Cenarion Expedition Hippogryph mount is a 280% epic flying mount that requires exalted status and will cost 2000 gold
Do you love creating machinima but lack the motivation to publish your own films? You're in luck. Warcraftmovies.com has just announced the opening of The Fabled Few contest. With $2000.00 in cash and prizes to be won, there is plenty of incentive to get your movies made.
The contest submissions begin today and go through November 12th, so if you haven't gotten your magnum opus finished you still have a bit of time. There are three categories you can compete in: Drama, Comedy, and Music. The first prize is $1000 in cash. That's a lot of tacos, my friend. Should you win the grand prize your film will also be featured for an entire weekend on WarcraftMovies.com. Most importantly, make sure you send us info on your submission here at WoW Insider so we can Moviewatch that triumph I'm sure your work will be.
We'vecoveredinterviewsbefore, and there was even an interview with a Death Knight recently on the World of Warcraft website. But I haven't in recent memory been able to recall an interview with a Tauren, especially not one who is also a movie star.So when I saw that Oxhorn, actor, producer, composer and all around swell cow was interviewed by the Alliance Herald, I admit more than the usual excitement.Maybe I'm more of a fan than I let on.
We learned through the Alliance Herald's questions that Oxhorn is both an only child and an orphan. Apparently there seems to be some hints that the elves had something to do with his current familial situation, but no real details were given.Oxhorn spends his days in Kalimdor, mostly roaming Mulgore and Orgrimmar, and has yet to set foot in Outland.
Far be it from me to play guild expert, that's Scott's job, and he does it brilliantly. I am so far in need of guild advice that I take it wherever I can, and when I read the Priestly Endeavors article on Guild Issue Resolution, I found so much of worth for me personally I knew our readers should know about it. Yes, it was written a while ago, but good advice never goes stale.
As Kirk puts it, there are three major complaints that players have when they talk about the guild drama they've encountered with their previous guilds. "I never get any loot," they say. "They waste my time," can be heard echoing off the guild bank walls. "No one ever helps me," the crowd bemoans. Each of these is a major sticking point with guild members, and if you as the Guild Leader can do anything to avoid these big three, you'll go a long way toward creating a content guild populace. The loot issues he suggests can be mostly resolved with a good loot distribution system, but not everything can be handled by organization.
Today's /silly comic deals with one of those concepts in real life that translates beautifully into online gaming: learning from one's mistakes. There are times in the game where you simply say, man that was dumb. But at the end of the day you learned something, and are a better player for it. Some call these life lessons, and file them under the "you have to learn things the hard way" chapter in their gaming careers.
I fondly recall one lovely experience a couple years ago where I hit autorun in Zul'Farrak and hilarity ensued. Twice. We laughed, we cried, we ran until the mob of raging trolls tore us limb from limb. Good times. Have you ever had an experience like mine, learned an in-game life lesson that you would like to share with the class?
Patch 2.3 is adding a lot to the game we know as WoW, including a new ten man instance, Zul'Aman. With the addition of this instance, a question arises on the forums: exactly how will players get into the instance with all the chaos that will be going on outside?
By chaos of course I mean PvP. Like the original poster states in the title to his forum post, "one does not simply walk into the Ghostlands." For some this is a concern, for others it points to an exhilarating challenge looming on the horizon. On PvP realms this sort of struggle is common (can we say Ashenvale kids? Come on, say it with me Ashenvale.), but on other realms, PvE or RP, the sudden forced PvP that must inevitably occur outside the gates of Zul'Aman is something dreaded.
Recently Blizzard guru Jeff Kaplan sat down to talk with Eurogamer.fr about the upcoming expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. Now, I don't know about you, but I have been positively drooling for any information we can get from the Blizz devs ever since the announcement was made at BlizzCon.
The interview asks some pointed questions about the problems encountered with TBC and what Blizz might have learned from them. How about the daunting attunement and access difficulties that hardcore players encountered when they first loaded the expansion onto their computers? Kaplan points to how they realized that access to the instances needed to be tweaked and they did so with recent patches. Blizz would like to have world events that include the whole server again, much like Ahn'Qiraj (and I couldn't agree more, as long as the guild that opens the event doesn't do it on Monday morning like they did on Elune), and they are looking to avoid with Wrath what Kaplan "personally consider[s] a mistake in the Burning Crusade."
In addition to world events and the possibility of unlocking an attunement for all a player's characters once one of them has achieved it, Kaplan also says they are looking into improving the trade skills with Wrath. He points to leatherworking as an example of a trade skill that received little lovin' in TBC. Essentially leatherworking became obsolete as players entered Outland and received dropped items that were superior to anything they could make. "In the Wrath of the Lich King, we want everyone to be satisfied with the trade they choose and we want it to be rewarding. Therefore we're going to analyse[sic] everything we did with The Burning Crusade and previously to work out what was good and what was missed out."
We have often speculated about who will step up to dethrone World of Warcraft in the MMO gaming market, and it appears that we finally may have a contender: Carbine Studios. What makes this particular Aliso Viejo-based development studio so unique isn't what they are working on -- another MMORPG with what appear to be sword-wielding aliens-- but who they are.
The dev team is made up of some of the best and brightest in the industry, including Kevin Beardslee, a lead designer on WoW. In fact, there are now 17 former Blizzard employees working under the Carbine label, and this bodes well for the creation of a game strong enough to rival the WoW powerhouse. NCSoft is very proud to have these guys working for them, and if the concept work is any indication, this might finally be the game that could become the next king of the MMO mountain.
First off, let me begin by restating my original premise: no one can tell you how to play, or in this case who to play.In the end, it is you who log into the game, it is your set of characters that load in with the resounding intro music plays in the background.But maybe you read Arcane Brilliance and said to yourself, "hey, maybe I might like to try my hand at playing a mage."Here's the short and the long of it.
I have a group of friends that enjoy trying out new characters.Sometimes they ask me this very question, and I reply with some questions in return.First is the easy one: where do you prefer to be in a fight?Do you want to stand up close and personal, breathing in the putrid stench that is the monster's breath, hacking away at him piece by piece?If so, then a mage isn't for you.They are a cloth-wearing DPS class, and with the exception of a few fights, we are standing at the back of the crowd dealing death from a safe distance.
Also, I like to ask: How difficult a challenge are you looking for?Mages are not the easiest class to play.They take a lot of juggling.With the various spell resistances of the monsters in Azeroth and Outland, a mage has to keep constantly aware of who they are fighting.Your spell rotation can be totally different depending on who or what you are up against. I've heard it said that anyone can play a mage, but few play them well.
Nerfed is unhappy about the idea of the Ritual of Refreshment, the one announcement that came out of BlizzCon that sent me into a personal state of rapture. As he sees it, allowing players to pick and choose their water is cumbersome and redundant. Luckily Drysc has come to the rescue with some refinement on what the spell will actually entail: Ritual of Refreshment gives Manabiscuits, which restore 7500 health and 7200 mana over 30 seconds. It's just about making life a bit easier for the mage, now everyone can grab what they want. We're not attempting to or currently buffing the water/food you would normally conjure. Mana biscuits are delicious little items that I used to spend an unhealthy amount of scourgstones on back before the Expansion was released. Knowing that the Ritual of Refreshment will have this simple but effective sustenance for my party not only makes me happy, it also makes me a bit nostalgic for those days of grinding Argent Dawn rep. But I digress.
It seems that there is only good news coming about this particular spell, although I would love to see a little improvement in the amount of mana the ritual provides. After all, there are three types of healthstones available from a warlock's soulwell, aren't there?
I've been toying with the idea of putting together my own Kara raid, so when I saw the World of Matticussuggestions for loot distribution I read through them with eager interest. If you are unfamiliar with the concept of DKP, or Dragon Kill Points (a phrase harkening back to the days of Everquest), essentially every person attending the raid gets points based upon what bosses they participate in downing. Each DKP system is very different, from the basic to the complicated, and some are so complex that they require mods to organize.
In the raid I was most recently in, they used zero-sum DKP, supposedly designed to keep people from hording the points, but it ended up being much like what they seemed to be trying to avoid, at least from what I saw. Matticus suggests that we modify the DKP systems, blend them together, and add a very important element: attendance. I also like his ideas on incentives for the spending of DKP, with discounts given for item pieces that are below the guild's current raid progression. It's an idea that allows the newer members of the raid to build their sets without having to wait the long period it normally requires to build up sufficient points.
I'm still not sure how I would feel about Matticus' idea of a guild hierarchy, where certain classes get items first, but I suppose that is mostly because I play a mage. I do, however, see the value in building up the gear of those that are most central to the raid's success, so I guess I see his point after all. Personally, I think his ideas on DKP are sound enough to try. Whether or not they can be implemented by a brand new raid leader remains to be seen.
Terra Nova is rethinking the conclusions the BBC made a while back about using WoW to study the spread of diseases. If you recall the article stated that player's reactions to the spread of Hakkar's Corrupted Blood was an excellent research tool for how epidemics spread in the real world. Not so says Dan Hunter.
All of this discussion stems from a spell called Corrupted Blood that infects players fighting Hakkar in Zul'Gurub. In some cases players took the disease back with them to Ironforge and Ogrimmar, and death spread amongst the populace of those cities. Dan argues against the BBC claim that we can study diseases within online games to find out how real epidemics would spread.
I see his point really. First, there is the nature of the spell itself, created as a game mechanic, not as a virus with incubation periods and deteriorating illnesses that ultimately lead to a victim's demise. There is nothing within WoW to show the ultimate toll on a population when they must live with an illness for long periods of time, where they cannot log out and go watch a movie instead. Once Corrupted Blood had spread it was over with, there was no need for quarantine, for the development of an antivirus, of really any of those elements that make dealing with a large scale deadly disease so horrific.
The reactions of the players to the debuff, their running around to either help or hurt their fellow players, is really an illustration of social behavior in online games, says Hunter. If we study this at all, we should do it from the context of social science rather than epidemiology. In order to truly study viruses in an online virtual world, we would need to create such a world specifically for that purpose a massively multiplayer online roleplaying scenario in which few would participate because there is nothing fun about disease. In such a scenario, players would not be able to simply remove themselves from the game in order to avoid the plague, otherwise there could be no real research into the behavior of the virus.
I see the value in such a project, and would gladly participate, but I can't foresee anyone with the research funding substantial enough to accomplish this spending it on what would be essentially termed a game. Unless of course a company like Blizzard donates their resources to the creation of such a project.
It might just be me, but after reading a recent Blessing of Kings post about the utility of priests I am rethinking my view of them. Coriel discusses the effectiveness of priest heals, and in doing so brings up what some seem to consider a dirty word these days: hybrid.
It's interesting to contemplate, but according to Coriel priests are actually the hybrids of the healing genre. The other healing classes focus on one type of healing. Druids have their great heal over time abilities, shamans have chain heal, pallies have great single-target heals. Now the priest is able to do all these things, but none to the capacity of their fellow healing classes. Therefore Coriel says, they are the jack-of-all-heals, and the master of none. Further down in the comments to this post a commenter also brought up the fact that shadow priests are also hybrids, being a dps/healing class.
Is this why the priests of WoW have been having a tough time competing in the more challenging healing situations? What could Blizzard do to establish priests as the kings of healing once more, or is their very nature holding them back?
We've covered interviews before, and there was even an interview with a Death Knight recently on the World of Warcraft website. But I haven't in recent memory been able to recall an interview with a Tauren, especially not one who is also a movie star. So when I saw that Oxhorn, actor, producer, composer and all around swell cow was interviewed by the Alliance Herald, I admit more than the usual excitement. Maybe I'm more of a fan than I let on.
Nerfed is unhappy about the idea of the Ritual of Refreshment, the one announcement that came out of BlizzCon that sent me into a personal state of rapture. As he sees it, allowing players to pick and choose their water is cumbersome and redundant. Luckily Drysc has come to the rescue with some refinement on what the spell will actually entail:
