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Yesterday's Moviewatch featured gnomes (ugh), today's not-so-festive holiday machinima has very dead gnomes (yay!). Perfect for gnome-punters among us who enjoy this time of the year in a very different way.
This clip shows warlocks in one of their secret shadowy rites, involving gnome sacrifice, set to "The Cultist Song". The song, produced by The H.P.Lovecraft Historical Society, is a twisted version of the golden oldie - "The Christmas Song".
Thank you Mats for this great video - a reader after my own dark heart!
Gnome raids on Hogger just don't seem to be going away any time soon. At least this latest movie has a little story to it as well as some excellent music and good editing.
Hogger has smashed yet another innocent noob into the ground. But this noob has some friends. Many, many friends. Watch as they stream out of Stormwind and lay down some Gnomish justice on one of WoW's most hated and most beloved mobs.
Today's Moviewatch is another machinima piece by Olibith, which is at once scary and laughably absurd. It's based on a trailer for the movie, The Omen, about a father who finds out that adopted son is actually the son of the devil. The gnOmen uses gnomes instead of humans, of course, but it's still frightening to see bad things about to happen to the adorable little humanoids... or is it just weird? Personally, I like Olibith's Somethin' Stupid much better, but different sorts a people like different sorts of machinima.
If movies like The Omen creep you out with demonic symbols and such things, then I advise against watching this movie. Otherwise, what do you think? Is this horror, or comedy, or both?
Whenever I look at one of my guild's first-kill screenshots, my character stands out like a sore thumb. A seven-foot-tall troll with an orange mohawk tends to look out of place among the legions of undead and blood elf rogues. People even ask me why I rolled a troll character in the first place. It's tempting to say that I picked it because giant tusked cannibals tend to get more loot than anorexic junkies or rotting zombies, but I understand what they mean. Troll racials suck, and that's why there aren't as many trolls out there as there might be otherwise.
Gunnarr, an orc warrior, has noticed this as well. He's sick of seeing undeadd player-characters everywhere, and has asked for Blizzard to normalize racial traits so that some races aren't dramatically better at certain classes than others. His idea doesn't get much support, but a side proposal from the warlock Turana -- no active racials in arenas -- receives more kudos,
On one hand, I can kind of understand where he's coming from. My recently-created undead warrior will always be an inferior tank when there are Taurens around, but I didn't want to have to spend 70 levels looking at a skipping cow just for more health. My troll rogue will always be a minority among the undead (WOTF!) and blood elf (Arcane Torrent!) PVPers. And let's not even get into the pain suffered by human and night elf priests before Fear Ward became trainable. But I also agree with the blue poster Bornakk, who notes that removing the racials would further homogenize the races. If it wasn't for WOTF, who would even play a non-caster undead? Where would the dwarven priests be?
Do you think that racials are overpowered in WoW? What about in an arena setting?
Many WoW based Machinina films employ either dance/trance or death metal for their soundtrack. Not this one. This one is a music video based on a song by Country star Toby Keith, "As Good As I Once Was." It's a story of a Gnome Mage who has an interesting proposition made to him. I'll let your imagination take over from there.
Keep an eye out for the 50 gnome and the half-naked twin gnome ladies. I can't believe I just said that.
Gnomes are not necessarily exclusive only to World of Warcraft, but as a race, the WoW iteration of the people is quite unique. We recently got a chance to see, via the Beer Goggles, what the world would be like if it were populated with gnomes, and a scary, scary distopia it would be. Whenever I am turned into a Leper Gnome as a Hallow's End trick, I spend the hour fighting from their perspective, as if the game camera were hovering just inches off the ground. And that's pretty much it for me, it's all I can take not to turn off the costume at once.
I often wonder what it would be like to live within Azeroth, and try to imagine what it would be like to actually be a troll or an orc. The perspective of a gnome brings all kinds of challenges, and is one I don't think I would ever knowingly pick. I have had two gnome characters in my time, but each time the camera perspective has frustrated me to the point where I had to delete them and move on. Despite the issues with their height, I can imagine that living in Gnomeregan when it was, you know, clean and such, was a complete blast. An entire community of tinkerers and engineers, obsessed with creating their inventions despite how dangerous they might become.
I'm sure the roleplay opportunities are endless when you play a gnome, and I have seen nothing more amusing than a gnome warrior charging into fight Void Reaver. But still, the world from a gnome's eyes has got to be pretty skewed, and I don't know if I could ever get myself to do it long term. Unless, of course, the gnome were a Death Knight.
More good news for engineers everywhere! Those clever gnomes over at Dark Legacy have figured out what the engineeringmount should look like, and they've told us the whole story about how they came up with the idea for designing it. Next, they should really design some more trinkets and bombs and other gadgety items for us to use!... or should they?
There's something about the people who play Gnomes... perhaps it's their diminutive stature or the fact that other races commonly joke about punting them, but they often seem to feel the need to prove themselves, as in this level 1, all-Gnome raid on Hogger (though they seemed to have picked up some friends by the end). Though it's a bit long at 7 minutes, this video documents the perilous journey from the Gnomish starting area all the way to Hogger's domain in Elwynn forest. (Warning: some not-entirely-safe for work language over voice chat when the raid starts the Hogger encounter.)
Well, actually the title of this little video is "Battlestar Galactica opening, World of Warcraft style," but to me it suggests a whole realm of possibilities that could actually fit within the WoW lore. We know already, for example, that a certain gnome in Stormwind has created a Spybot which can take on the appearance of a human girl, well enough to fool a high ranking Defias leader into coming out and meeting his doom. What if some group of evil gnomes or goblins took it upon themselves to create the equivalent of cylons for the Warcraft universe? They could be called "Spylons!"
Well whatever you think of that idea, it would be a cute little easter egg quest to fight against the spylon menace for a little while, at the very least.
Are they toying with the Escape Artist cooldown? I sure thought this thread, after reading the first post today, would get closed down but quick, but instead, after a player asked for Escape Artist to be removed from the game, Drysc offered the compromise of a cooldown.
Wait, what? Was he joking? Escape Artist, the Gnome racial ability that allowed them to ditch any roots once per minute, got a nice buff and was made instant cast at 2.0, but I hardly think it's overpowered enough that it deserves a cooldown. Drysc's comment seems a lot like a joke (and an MVP shows up later in the thread to "deny" the change), but could the ability be facing a nerf in the form of a longer cooldown?
Advocates for it point to Will of the Forsaken, another "break free" racial ability (it allows Forsaken to break fear once every two minutes, and if EA is nerfed, it would probably be given a two minute cooldown). But WotF also provides 5 seconds of fear immunity after being used, and EA doesn't provide any immunities at all.
Hopefully this is all a moot point, and Drysc was just messing with Gnomes (a hilarious pastime to be sure). But it could also mean that the little kneebiters are looking at an upcoming nerf.
Bijez from Zul'Jin asks on the forums whether there will be Gnomes in GNorthrend or gnot (ok, I'll stop). Neth hints at a positive answer, but we know for sure: yes, there will be! Not only do we already know that flying machines are coming to Engineers in Northrend, but in an ingame video of the Borean Tundra, shown during the Wrath of the Lich King demo panel, we saw a Gnome city, with a gigantic tower of some kind, and airstrips (!).
Unfortunately, that's all we got so far. WoW Wiki claims it's an Alliance town, which is a pretty good guess, but not necessarily guaranteed-- it could be a neutral town. Or it could even be an evil Gnome town; you never know. And we don't yet know what it's called, either.
But yes, there will be Gnomes in GNorthrend. Fortunately, us Horde won't go completely hungry.
Over on the official forums, poster Flaval informs us that Gnome hunting season has begun and will last until August 28th. Though Flaval makes this sound like a Horde-only event, I'm sure there are plenty of Alliance who would also be eager to participate. But here's the big question -- when does Night Elf hunting season start? Blood Elf hunting season? Inquiring minds want to know!
So, how many of you will be participating in this year's Gnome hunting?
How well I remember the day I that created my warrior. I had seen a gnome walking around with an adorable name, a cute hat, and all that plate armor much too big for her, and I was suddenly inspired with a character idea that I just had to make real. As a roleplayer, I was fiercely excited to play this undauntedly brave gnome who would proclaim in an adorably child-like voice: "I am NOT cute! I'm the most fearsomest warrior you'll ever see!"
The character was wonderful fun to roleplay for a long time, and brought plenty of laughs with my friends, but after finally reaching level 40 and getting my cute mechanostrider mount, I realized I was getting killed way too often, killing monsters way too slowly, and just not having that much success at the actual "war" part of being a warrior. I had heard of a number of warriors complaining in the forums and it seemed that the class was just way too weak. So I gave up and blamed Blizzard for my bad experience -- but oh, how I was wrong...
So for this PLP, I tried to come up with what I thought was the funniest looking hat in Azeroth. There are some funny looking hats out there (and I almost wrote up the Druid's Tier 4 hat because it makes me laugh every time I see it), but I eventually ended up choosing this Engineering toy with a fun proc.
Name: Gnomish Mind Control Cap Type: Cloth Head Armor: 50 Abilities:
+14 Spirit
And here's the fun part: on Use (see restriction below), "engage in mental combat with a humanoid target to try and control their mind." If you succeed, you get a little hunter bar (not like the Priest's MC) to play around with your new pet.
Unfortunately, it's not as fun as it used to be. The MCC only works out of combat now, so while it's still possible to use it on players with hilarious consequences, you have to plan out your attack. And over level 60, this thing gets a much reduced chance to work, in accordance with Blizzard's wishes of making CC less effective overall in BGs.
But in some of the early twink battlegrounds, you can have a lot of fun with it. Plus, look at it! It's a funny hat!
How to Get It: You've got to be an Engineer of any spec, level 215 (BoE) to wear this one, although if you just want the hat without the MC ability, you can always go get the Ghaz'ridian Detector, which is not nearly as fun, but looks just as funny.
Anyway, you have to be a Gnomish Engineer, at least 235, to make it-- the recipe can be obtained from Oglethorpe Obnoticus in Booty Bay (he's the guy you talk to for the quest to become a Gnomish tinkerer, after it starts in Rachet or Ironforge, depending on your faction). It ain't cheap: 10 Mithril bars, 4 Truesilver bars, a Gold Power Core, 2 Star Rubies, and 4 Mageweave cloth are necessary to roll this one together, but when you do, you'll be able to MC to your heart's content. Well, once every 30 mins. And then only out of combat, and only sometimes. In fact, at this point, the mats probably don't make this worth it, unless you really like that proc enough to wait for it. But it does look funny, right? Getting Rid of It: Now hold on now, this is something you keep forever. But just in case you do want to throw it away, a vendor will give you 55s 2c for it, or you can DE into a Dream Dust, Large Radiant Shard, or Greater Nether Essence. But before you do, take a look at this spinning wheel right here, please. Are you feeling sleepy? No? Me neither...
The year is 2012. WoW fans are excitedly awaiting the game's 5th expansion, Revenge of the Gnomes, which brings two new races to the game (Sporeggar and Goblins, at last!), as well as a new class (the Tinker), and a slew of other features. As everyone knows, this is the expansion where the gnomes finally take back Gnomeregan from the troggs, pushing them back all the way into the "Undergloom," a vast and ancient network of caverns beneath Azeroth. Of course, the gnomes also accidentally stumble upon the long-buried prison of the Old Gods and unleash unbridled havoc on the World of Warcraft, but that's where the fun is, right?
I could go on and on about the new features included in Revenge of the Gnomes, but I'm sure you've heard about most of them already (like the subterranean hovercraft group-mounts and blue-pill, red-pill potions for alchemy). Suffice it to say that the feature everyone is most excited about is that the level cap is once again being raised another 10 levels, to a grand total of 110.
Like everyone else, you're probably wondering how in the world (of Warcraft) are you going to level your new Goblin Tinker character all the way through those tedious levels of 1 to 100? Everyone wants to try out the new content, but no one wants to slave away through Stranglethorn Vale for the 48th time. To complicate things further, Blizzard still doesn't want to add any more 1-60 quests in the lower-level zones (not to mention any of the Outland, Northrend, Emerald Dream, or Great Sea Expansion zones)!
Fortunately, though, Blizzard's got what you need! Are you prepared for the "/level" command?
Whenever I look at one of my guild's first-kill screenshots, my character stands out like a sore thumb. A seven-foot-tall troll with an orange mohawk tends to look out of place among the legions of undead and blood elf rogues. People even ask me why I rolled a troll character in the first place. It's tempting to say that I picked it because giant tusked cannibals tend to get more loot than anorexic junkies or rotting zombies, but I understand what they mean. Troll racials suck, and that's why there aren't as many trolls out there as there might be otherwise. 
Are they toying with the 
Bijez from Zul'Jin asks on the forums whether there will be 
