World of Warcrafts

Filed under: Warlock, Patches

Soul Shards: love them or hate them, they’re iconic of the Warlock class. Most choose to hate them, but I think locks are just full of hate in general and need to vent it somewhere. Along with a tantalizing note about “exciting changes to how soul shards might work,” European CM Vaneck has just let us know that one common shard-based ability, Ritual of Summoning, is going to be changed Before the 3.1/Ulduar Patch (a promise I’m seeing a lot of lately; we can only hope that patch is soon).

Essentially, the new RoS will create a meeting stone-like object. It’ll still take two players in addition to the Warlock, as well as one shard, but once the ritual has been cast, the stone can be re-used to summon as many people as desired within its five minute duration, and that summoning action will merely require any two players, just like a meeting stone. You can also summon multiple people simultaneously, and all just for one shard. You won’t be able to summon in situations where you currently can’t (Netherstorm, battlegrounds, in combat), but this will make summoning much easier, quicker, and less shard-intensive. A great idea.

Ritual of Summoning revamped originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Quests, Lore, Wrath of the Lich King

There are a few quests I’ve done so far that have really made me squirm. I play Horde, and you just know that most things the Forsaken are wrapped up in are going to be kind of dodgy. A lot of our early questing in Northrend concerns the Apothecary Society’s attempts to find a Scourge-specific plague (…right), and that doesn’t end particularly well. I can sort of accept that, because the quest series skates a thin moral line between plausible deniability on the character’s part as to the apothecaries’ true intentions, and what actually ends up happening. But there’s one quest in particular that has nothing to do with the apothecaries that really gave me pause. It’s actually one that has an Alliance equivalent as well, although it ends somewhat differently there.

If you’re not that far into Dragonblight quests and don’t want to be spoiled, I’m putting it behind the cut.

Continue reading That sinking sensation

That sinking sensation originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: World of WarCrafts

Every Thursday, Shelbi Roach of The Bronze Kettle guides you in creating WoW-inspired crafts using real world mats with World of WarCrafts.

Though some of you may not have made it outside since the release of Wrath of the Lich King, I assure you that in some places the weather is quite cold.

One way to keep warm this season is by adorning these 100% hand-crafted scarves sold in Wingo’s Crochet Shop. Each scarf is reversible and is perfect for the coming winter. She currently has both Alliance and Horde scarves in stock.

World of WarCrafts: Faction scarves originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Podcasting, Blizzard, Interviews

The 6th episode of BlizzCast was posted today, and though it contains very little WoW-specific information, the podcast still contains a ton of information general Blizzard fans would like to hear. When listening to it, keep in mind that it wasn’t recorded in the last few days or anything like that, it’s a few weeks old at least. They mention Wrath of the Lich King still being in beta testing and Sylvanas’ custom model hadn’t yet been implemented, for example.

Their guests this time around are Lead Tools Programmer Monte Krol, Senior Art Director Samwise Didier, Lead Game Designer Dustin Browder, and senior artist for Diablo III Anthony Rivero. That lineup of guests really offers up a cool look at the early design and development of Blizzard games, and the guests actually offer a little insight into just how you can start working for Blizzard yourselves. They also have another installment of their Q&A portion with various developers.

Starcraft and Diablo fans will find the gameplay information in this BlizzCast more interesting than people who are exclusively WoW players. As always, BlizzCast is available for download through the official website (EU has it as well), iTunes, or you can read the transcript right on their website.

BlizzCast episode 6 available for download originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Events, Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, Blizzard, WoW TCG

Blizzplanet’s got the news that Upper Deck is offering a break on shipping in the next 24 hours, so if you’ve been thinking of picking up any WoW TCG-related items for a friend, now’s the time to do it.

It’s a pretty terrible deal though — you’ve got to order $50 worth of stuff to get the free shipping, and at Upper Deck’s official prices, you’re probably just better running out to a hobby store and picking the things up yourself. But who knows. Maybe there’s one of you in Alaska who have wanted to buy tons of stuff from UDE without paying shipping, but don’t have a hobby store for miles around — if so, you’re in luck.

The sale inexplicably ends on November 21st, which by my calculations is tomorrow, so get your order in fast. But seriously, someone needs to teach Upper Deck how to have a holiday sale — who buys all their gifts by Thanksgiving? Maybe we’ll see a better sale on Black Friday.

Upper Deck offers free shipping on WoW stuff originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Druid, Hunter, Rogue, Shaman, Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, Guides, Classes, Talents, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King

Honor’s Code has a great post up about the secondary gear stats that often get overlooked in favor of the main attributes. Everyone knows that Hunters need Agility and Warriors need Strength, but after that, things tend to get a little fuzzy — just what does Expertise or Hit do for you? HC breaks it down from a Pally perspective, but what they say about these stats is helpful for any class that has to deal with attacking the bad guys.

Defense comes first — defense rating, for tanks, allows you to make sure that bosses can’t crit you. Each class has its own defense cap, and the cap has changed from 70 to 80, so you’ll have to keep an eye out for your own cap when you get that far. Block is next — a high Block rating means you’re pushing other attack options off the table when you’re hit, so that when something does hit you, you block the damage on it. Both of those stats are mainly for tanks — other classes, who aren’t getting hit, won’t have to worry about them at all.

But Hit and Expertise you will have to worry about if you’re DPS — Hit will make sure that you don’t miss your target (the fewer misses you have, the higher your DPS), and Expertise makes sure that those hits don’t become dodges or parries. This is tough stuff, and it shows up much earlier in Wrath, it seems, than it did in Burning Crusade, But the good news is that there’s a lot of help around — Honor’s Code offers a great overview for what everything means, and from there, you can search our site or others for what you need to know about each stat and how it works with your class.

Checking your caps: Defense, Block, Hit, Expertise originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Wrath of the Lich King, The Queue

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider’s daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.

Daily quests and reputation has been a really hot topic lately, not only in The Queue but across WoW in general. Some of our questions today will focus on that, but I’d also like to let you guys know that WoW Insider will overall have more information on those things coming really, really soon. Keep an eye on the site today and in the coming days for all of that good stuff.

Alright, let’s gets started with my2cents‘ question…

Where, if anywhere, is the quartermaster for Valiance Expedition? I’m almost revered and I’m curious to see if there are any rewards available.

Continue reading The Queue: Reputation, daily quests, and performance in Dalaran

The Queue: Reputation, daily quests, and performance in Dalaran originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Shaman, Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Guilds, Odds and ends

I’ve had a political dream for a while now that I think all of us WoW players can agree on: someday, I hope, we will have a President in the White House that plays videogames. We’re not quite there yet, but we’re closer — apparently, Obama’s FCC transition co-chair is a WoW player, and has played in two different endgame guilds, including Joi Ito’s famous We Know guild. This is a guy who knows all about the communities that these MMOs create, and just how awesome it is to run through Karazhan, or grind PvP for a Merciless Gladiator weapon… and he’s been selected by the incoming President of the United States to run the FCC. That’s beautiful.

Too many government officials (both Democrat and Republican, this isn’t partisan at all) suffer from the “series of tubes” mentality – they are being asked to regulate and coordinate things that they don’t understand at all. But getting guys like Kevin Werbach in there, no matter what your political affiliation, is a great step forward for all of us gamers — we’ll have people behind the regulatory wheel who know how important and wonderful virtual worlds like Azeroth can be.

Waltermonkey on Livejournal actually uncovered the guy’s Armory profile (and has some great insight), and yes, though I’m sure some of the comments below will be about how you’d never be able to run a transition team AND get to level 80 at the same time, Werbach’s been playing recently — while he’s still only level 70, he’s actually got the Jenkins title. We’ve got a Resto Shaman helping run the FCC — how awesome is that?

Obama’s FCC transition co-chair is a WoW player originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Shaman, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Expansions, Leveling, (Shaman) Totem Talk, Wrath of the Lich King

Okay, I admit it: my experiment with 2h exnhancement lasted until I got a fist weapon I liked. My threat was too bursty, my DPS too low and I really missed being able to play with Lava Lash. I’m currently running slow/slow with Windfury Weapon on both, but once I have tine to sit down and really look at the numbers I may switch to Flametongue on the offhand for the benefit to Maelstrom Weapon procs like Chain Lightning.

Since I myself am finally done with Howling Fjord and Borean Tundra, I thought this week would be a good one to look at the gear you can get while questing in Dragonblight or running one of its two instances, Azjol-Nerub or Ahn’katet. As is usually the case for this column, we won’t be going over every green item that drops… you’ll stumble across those in your leveling push and there’s a lot of them… but we’ll do our best to cover drops for all three specs both in the instances and through general questing.

Dragonblight has some of the best lore-related quests in the game. Since I’m focusing my leveling efforts on my alliance warrior and horde shaman, I may have missed some quests from either faction but I’ve made my best effort to be comprehensive. Please feel free to mention anything I didn’t catch in the comments.

Continue reading Totem Talk: Dragonblight and Azjol-Nerub

Totem Talk: Dragonblight and Azjol-Nerub originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Machinima, WoW Moviewatch

I don’t usually do a lot of WoW music videos, because I tend to be more of a story-buff. But Polystyrene Dream by Yume caught my attention. I’m not sure if it was the ethereal quality of the video, which lined up very well with “Fake Plastic Trees” by Radiohead, or maybe the hints of narrative that persisted through the piece.

I could probably drive myself crazy projecting motivations on the two central characters, and trying define relationships, reasoning, and results of their actions. In summary, two blood elves repetitively walk up to an increasing variety of critters, stab them, and take their stuff. It could just be meant to be pretty, and it definitively is pretty.

I don’t have much to say about the audio track, since it is essentially a nice song by a widely known band. It’s possible that if I knew the song or band better, I might see more relevance in the imagery. Still, if you’re talking about “Fake Plastic Trees,” I guess it’s fair to use a pair of Blood Elves as protagonists.

[Via WarcraftMovies]

If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.

Previously on Moviewatch …

WoW Moviewatch: Polystyrene Dream originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments