In the interest of full disclosure, I will admit that the choice of this storm-giant-plus-dude-giving-the-metal-horns screenshot was made under the influence of high doses of Brutal Legend. It was sent in several months ago by Jearen of <I Shoulda Been Horde> on Rexxar, a character which seems to have disappeared in the time since this picture was taken. With that guild name, I'm guessing he probably transferred factions.
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Each week Dominic Hobbs brings you Blood Pact. The weak mind fears the darkness because it holds the unknown. Blood Pact knows what resides in the shadows and yes, they should be afraid.
I was afflicted with some kind of corruption of my own last week, not sure if a warrior spell reflected it or what but it had me out of action either way. I don't know how much attention you pay to spell icons but it took me a little while to realize just how nasty the icon for Corruption really is -- nasty enough for China to censor it, in fact. It speaks well of how I was feeling, but hopefully the articles on the PTR changes kept you topped off with warlock goodness in Blood Pact's absence.
This week we're looking at starting a new warlock. This could be for someone new to the game, or rolling an alt. Either way, now is a great time to start leveling as a lot of the world you'll be passing through will be changing with the advent of Cataclysm. So if you've never played a warlock, or even if you have, then get onto that character selection screen and stare blankly at the screen for half an hour while you try to think of that perfect warlock name.
Two Bosses Enter ... but only One Boss Leaves, in WoW.com's series of fantasy death matches. Welcome to Round Two of the five-man originals Wrath of the Lich King season. Grab a seat, and let's get ready to rumble!
In a relatively close contest inside the Two Bosses Thunderdome, Skadi the Ruthless rained down a whirlwind of destruction upon General Bjarngrim, 56% to 40%. The general's electric charge proved to be all-too temporary, as Skadi's relentless pressure left the crowds roaring in the stands. A roundup of reader opinion yields several narratives worth a read (check out Baldagrim and Chipperbane's mini-sagas on page two of the comments) along with some solid rationales in support of both sides.
bob: Bjarn has no problem on this fight. Between Ironform and Def Stance, he can take Skadi's WW and Poisoned Spear; he doesn't even need to run out of WW. Skadi, on the other hand, has zero defense against Bjarn's WW. Bjarn makes it thru the drake phase fine, as he has lieutenants to heal his party up if they take a little frost cloud damage.
Far too often, despite WoW.com's attempts to emphasize this to the voters, these polls come down to which fight annoys players more and has nothing to do with the actual comparisons of abilities between bosses. In that kind of poll, Skadi is def the winner, 'cause his air phase is annoyingly long and there is very little room to maneuver away from his WW on that little platform.
I cleared out the tail end of my afternoon in the hopes of getting a glimpse at the latest raid boss to be tested in the patch 3.3 PTR. Festergut was open for testing on North American servers while the European servers had Rotface. There were some issues with Rotface earlier in the day (namely that the 25 man version of Rotface had health that was meant for the 10 man). Anyway, I managed to get in a few attempts on Festergut here while playing on my priest.
The sneaky database over at MMO-Champion has uncovered a little spell/aura/attribute hidden in the patch 3.3 PTR files that hints at some extra XP from future versions of heirloom gear. Currently, with two pieces of heirloom gear, you can get up to a 20% bonus (the chest and shoulders each give a stackable 10%, while heirloom weapons give nothing). But this Heirloom Experience Bonus +5% "spell" grants an extra 5% experience, so it could be that in the future, we'll see pieces of heirloom gear that have an extra bit of bonus on them -- maybe gloves, cloak, or a belt -- that will bring the total bonus XP up to 25%.
There's no base level or other identifying information on this attribute (we call it a "spell," but really, given its information in the game, it seems like a gear-specific ability), so we can assume that it'll be a full 1-80 bonus, just like the current heirloom gear in the game. Unfortunately, we haven't actually uncovered any new heirloom items yet, so we have no idea if this stuff will show up in patch 3.3 or the expansion. And of course, just because the bonus applies from 1-80 doesn't mean the gear can be worn that whole time -- it sure seems like Blizzard wouldn't necessarily want Worgen and Goblin alts speeding past Cataclysm lowbie content. But we'll see -- in the meantime, look for a little extra heirloom power, coming soon.
Thanks, Gene!
Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's (almost) daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.
Yep. The title says it all. If you hoped, even for a moment, that the image on today's edition of The Queue at all reflected the content within, you're in for disappointment. Also, therapy of some sort. Cronum asked... "I have the mobile authenticator on my iPhone, but I need to send it in for repairs. Can I buy the regular authenticator and use that while my phone is gone?"
15 Minutes of Fame is WoW.com's look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes -- from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about.
This guy's is bigger. Really. In fact, this interview is expressly designed to provoke e-peen envy. Because really now, if I have to interview this chap while squinting at my (admittedly not-so-tiny widescreen) monitor (because it's still T minus 5 days to my optometrist visit, and respeccing my prescription is definitely in order) in the face of this visual largesse, then all of you people need to hunker down along with me. Misery loves company, and once you get a look at this WoW setup, we'll be able to finish this 15 Minutes of Fame in green-eyed envy together.
Because this is an impressive view of WoW. We're sure there are plenty of you out there nodding along right now, muttering, "Oh, that ain't nuthin', little lady - mine's easily as big as that one ..." Well, folks, I've got pictures of this one. And it's big, really big ... 133 inches worth of big, to be exact.
WoW.com's prestige in the community has afforded us the opportunity to speak to major Azerothian leadership figures on any subject, and we're letting you, the reader, Ask A Faction Leader!
We recently spoke to Garrosh Hellscream, leader of the Horde's Warsong Offensive, and he shed light on several key issues, including moral dilemmas, basic campfires, faction changes, draenei donk, and the merits of getting eaten by sharks. In this installment of Ask A Faction Leader, we'll be sitting with venerable draenei leader Prophet Velen.
Dear Velen,
Being a prophet, you are probably aware of forthcoming cataclysm. With Thunder Bluff built on 4 mesas, I am worried about safety of the city and its citizens. Since you guys possess some kind of expertise in crashing things (specifically capital cities) I was wondering if you could lend some advice for case it gets struck down.
Best Regards, Baine Bloodhoof
Velen replies:
Ah, it's good to see Horde leaders initiating a rapport. While I'm certainly not an architect or artificer -- trades better left to younger and stronger draenei -- I have been around for quite a while, so I can give some advice regarding the construction of your city.
It's been a while since we've had a belf-based music video on WoW Moviewatch, which makes me pretty happy that today's piece somehow appealed to me on a fundamental level. Fading Like A Flower was created by My Princess Studios for one of her friends. It features that friend's character, although I'm not sure which of the many belfs might have been the recipient of that dedication.
I definitely enjoyed this video. I'm not sure which pieces "did it" for me, but I was ultimately left with a light, fun feeling from Fading Like A Flower. The video's not ostentatious, and it doesn't put on pretentious airs. It's just, fundamentally, about having a little fun.
As far as I can tell, this is the first My Princess Studios video. I'm definitely looking forward to what they do next.
Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.
Sometimes you'd like to know that there are other MMOs out there, right? Our sister site Massively can provide you with everything you need to know about all those other shiny MMOs! Check out this roundup of the latest news from the wider MMO world.
All Points Bulletin closed beta has begun Urban crime (game) enthusiasts, rejoice! The All Points Bulletin closed beta has begun, according to reports at both Eurogamer and Kotaku. It was rumored that the beta would begin this month and it seems there are presently three windows of gameplay a week in the All Points Bulletin CBT -- Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday evenings, says Eurogamer's Oli Welsh. Those interested in ripping up the streets as either a Criminal or an Enforcer can still apply to become an All Points Bulletin beta tester at the game's official site.
Fallen Earth fan: "Don't play Fallen Earth" You should most definitely not be playing Fallen Earth. How can you tell? Why, because Bio Break recently posted a long article explaining exactly why you shouldn't be playing it. And this isn't coming from a fan who's just disgruntled about a certain update or class rebalancing (though the latter would be pretty funny) -- it's from one of the game's most adamant fans who has no shortage of good things to say about the game. So why would he tell you not to play the game?
We're missing something in our MMOs Game design has certainly come a long way from Ultima Online, the first real example of what we now think of as the MMO genre. We've gone from games with no restrictions on behaviors to games where it's almost impossible to be truly horrid to other people, from ones without any real structure to a clean path of progression, from obtuse game mechanics to transparent and clear information.
Stargate Worlds site returns, but funding still tight Over the weekend the Stargate Worlds site had planned a bit of maintenance which took their site offline on the 9th. From what we know now, the plan was that they would be migrating servers since they've been experiencing problems with their hosting. Many expected the site to be back up within a day or so - a normal time-frame for a DNS change and many cases of forum maintenance.
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