RIP Capital City Raids

I took a short spin around the public test realm to have a look at new possibilities for World PvP. While the removal of dishonorable kills will no doubt have a positive effect, there was one other change that can cancel the benefits and potentially make the situation even worse. Blizzard has buffed all level 55 NPC guards to level 65. Since the level cap will still be 60 until the expansion, this will make town raids quite difficult.

Since even the average guards will be 5 levels higher than maximum-level players, they both resist and dodge most attacks. Melee will find that their attacks are reduced to glancing blows, and that the guards hit them with crushing blows quite often. Raiding builds and gear that add +hit, weapon skills and defense skills will be quite important.

How does this work with the removal of dishonorable kills? Simply put, the civilians still act the same way and call guards when you approach or attack them. Even if you kill the civilian with one blow, he still gets to call a guard to attack you. If you attack a settlement that normally has level 65 guards, the spawned guards will be level 65 as well. If a raid group passes a civilian, one guard is spawned for every character. Even with good gear and concentration, killing a level 65 guard on your own will be quite hard. In a chaotic situation like a town raid, a level 65 guard zerg will probably kill your whole raid group. This means that town raiders will have to seek out and kill all civilians in their path to limit the amount of guards that spawn.

However, Blizzard was hardly thorough when they adjusted guard levels. They only touched the level 55 guards, leaving everything else intact. This oversight will create serious imbalances between factions. With the exception of Highlord Bolvar Fordragon, all Alliance racial leaders are guarded by standard-issue level 65 guards. Horde racial leaders are guarded by level 60 non-elite special guards (with the exception of Sylvanas Windrunner, who has level 60 elite guards). This means that once you get to Horde racial leaders they are much more easier to kill than their Alliance counterparts. Also, since it will be much harder to clear the way to the racial leader than to kill the leader itself, raid groups will try to find ways to skip most of the fighting, and will end up summoning their raid groups in the vicinity of the leaders themselves.

Finally, the addition of level 65 guards means that druids and rogues will have a much harder time stealthing inside enemy cities. Say goodbye to ganking someone at the mailbox.

Faction Wars

Wowzer recently tackled the old issue of competing factions. Currently, there are three sets of competing factions in the game. The Gelkis and Magram Centaurs, Steamwheedle Cartel and Bloodsail Pirates, and finally Ravenholdt and the Syndicate. Of these three, only the centaur factions can be compared to teach other, because they are equal in power. Choosing between an unique hat and access to four important cities should be a no-brainer, so the Bloodsail mostly get ignored. The disrepancy is even greater with Ravenholdt and the Syndicate. While it is possible to gain reputation with the Syndicate by killing Ravenholdt personnel, there are no Syndicate NPCs that would talk to you. None. The faction exists in the game, but the various Syndicate at Hillsbrad, Arathi Highlands and Alterac Mountains do not count as members. You can kill them without losing Syndicate reputation. In fact, a very patient person could go kill some Ravenholdt personnel and then go pickpocket some Syndicate Emblems to regain their reputation with Ravenholdt. This can be repeated as long as necessary.

In addition to these, there were the Wildhammer Clan and the Revantusk Tribe at Hinterlands, but since you could gain reputation on only one of them, they were never really a choice and were removed as factions a few patches ago.

Fortunately, Burning Crusade will add one other pairing into the game, and this time they are equal in power and have rewards. In the neutral city of Shattrath, there are the Blood Elf Scryers and the Draenei Aldor, who compete for the favor of the Naaru A'dal. Working for Scryers decreases Aldor reputation (and vice versa), but working for either increases reputation with the Naaru. In addition, there is one more unrelated faction in Shattrath, the Lower City, which is mostly composed of refugees.

Wowzer did miss one important aspect of the factions, though. Too many of them are simply worthless. For example, there is a faction for the surviving Highborne in Dire Maul, the Shen'dalar, but the reputation bar is just for show. They offer no new quests and no new rewards depending on your reputation. The viability of high Timbermaw Furbolgs reputation depends heavily on your crafting skills. Unless you want the novelty trinket, many players never have a reason to grind their reputation higher than Unfriendly, which is required to pass Timbermaw Hold in peace.

The remaining factions have better rewards, but they are also tied to their respective dungeons. For example, the only way to gain Zandalar Tribe reputation is to clear Zul'Gurub repeatedly. Achieving high Thorium Brotherhood reputation requires your guild to farm Molten Core. What makes it worse is that you need the reputation to obtain enough fire resistance gear to eventually kill Ragnaros. Argent Dawn is somewhat better. While you can get to Exalted by grinding alone, it's much faster to run Stratholme and Scholomance with a good group. However, the best faction currently in the game is the Cenarion Circle. They offer both tangible items and crafting patterns. You can solo farm reputation, but there's also quests for parties and raids of all sizes, ranging from two-man parties for Field Duty to 40-man raids to Temple of Ahn'Qiraj. In addition, there are three-item sets for all classes obtainable from Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj.

Stranglethorn Heaven

Relmstein and a few others are agonizing over one of the most action-packed zones in the game, Stranglethorn Vale.

Personally, I love the place. Why? Because it teaches you how to survive in a changing environment. You learn to conserve your health, mana and cooldowns. It teaches you to pay attention to your surroundings, the dangers of respawn waves, select escape routes, deaggro mobs, how to approach hot spots, the value of friends and so on. It's excellent practice for other shared questing areas, like Tanaris, Searing Gorge or Silithus.

WoW Raids Compilation 2006

Curse Gaming has a neat video made by Conquest which makes even Molten Bore look exciting.

RP, lol

What follows is a clearheaded, comprehensive discussion about the state of roleplay in World of Warcraft.


..just kidding. If you are still unconvinced, the nice folks at Something Awful have found some more samples.

Maltrake

Maltrake,
originally uploaded by Shalkis.

Ah, Blood Elf diplomats. Such grace and elegance. I'm going to have so much fun with these guys.

Video clips from a goldfarming operation

Although gold farming operations are usually quite secretive, one San Diego grad student has scored some interviews with goldfarmers and even has footage of their daily operations.
(Shamelessly stolen from Tobold)

Joking about suicide

For some reason, this guy had trouble convincing the police that he was just kidding after he threatened to kill himself after getting banned by Blizzard. Could it be that if he had killed himself, Blizzard would have been sued because of neglicence? Naah.. I'm sure it's just Blizzard bullying poor innocent players.

In defense of the gold farmers?

Friggingawesome.com has an article written by an author who, strangely enough, advocates buying gold. He first tries to justify the advantage gained by buying gold:

It's unfair for those players who does not have the extra cash to spare or would prefer to play it the old fashion way. But for example, we all know what Nintendo is right? Well when game shark came out did Nintendo try to stop or prevent them from selling? No, they didn't.

Although Nintendo did temporarily shut down the sales of Game Shark's precessor, the Game Genie, let's allow him to refute his own arguments:

But of course, for those who chose to cheat the game was not required to play with others that didn't want to cheat.

Incidentally, this is the same reason why game verification addons were very popular emong FPS gamers before they were integrated into the game engines themselves. Nobody wants to play at a clear disadvantage and lose.

Let's move on to the distruption caused by farmbots stealing all the kills. Let's allow him to describe the problem:

Yes I'm sure we've all experienced that farming now a days have been a little difficult due to the overwhelming population of WoW gold farmers. If gold wasn't able to be sold using real money the farmers wouldn't exist and players would probably be able to enjoy the game more.

Shock and horror, players being able to enjoy the game more? We can't have that.

Perhaps blizzard should enforce a law to farming? Or allow players to tag a mob and allow them preparation time to kill the mob they were targeting? Well, Blizzard is not a government and even if so, the government today isn't perfect either.

Fortunately, we don't have to rely on the big bad government. All you need to do is to contact a helpful player on the opposite faction. Tell him where the farmbot is and he'll take care of it. You'll be able to resume your farming and he'll get some free honor. Win-win. Unfortunately this doesn't work on PvE servers, so you'll just have to tag mobs just before the farmbot attacks them.

Let's move to economic effects, shall we?

Another reason why I can understand players hate the idea of buying/selling gold is because it disrupts the economy. If there is excess gold, then the value of gold drops and the value of the item will rise causing players to spend more gold on the item than what they would normally need to pay. Basic economics 101, inflation and deflation. A player can only farm an X amount of gold over a given period of time. The more gold there is, the more the item will cost, the more a player will have to farm unless they purchase the gold of course.

In other words, goldfarming results in a vicious circle that requires you to keep buying more gold. Surprisingly he doesn't want to refute his own arguments, and instead blames the almighty Blizzard:

Well with all these problems involving selling gold, why hasn't Blizzard done something? I believe they probably are working on a solution but believe it not, farmers do make up about 30% of their population. Somewhere in the back of their mind I'm sure they don't want to get rid of all subscribers. What they do instead is ban a few at a time and they would be required to buy a new world of warcraft cd key. Extra cash flow for the mighty O Blizzard. Yes farmers and sellers do get their accounts banned. But have not heard of any buyers getting banned however. Lucky for us?

While the buyers can be tracked, it might not be worth the trouble. Cutting the gold supply and making goldfarming unprofitable is most likely more effective.

He then moves on the topic of developer-sanctioned gold selling:

The Sony Exchange is a secure market place for players to auction their currencies and items to other players for real cash. In return SOE of course takes in a small fee for themselves. Charming isn't it?

Of course Sony can do whatever they want with their own games. Of course, it might have some consequences:

Believe it or not, but World of Warcraft subscriber base more than quadruples what SOE has in total.

I'm not saying that Blizzard's gold selling policy is the sole reason to WoW's success, but reactions to the Station Exchange weren't exactly favorable.

As you can see SOE is accepting the new trend and making a huge load of profit, I'm sure Blizzard would follow up on the idea as well. EverQuest was the first mmorpg hit ever, Blizzard known for their real time strategy games now has the most popular mmorpg as well. I wouldn't see why they won't follow and collect some of the cash themselves.

How about not wanting to kill the golden goose? Blizzard's competitors are already lining up and promising not to repeat their precedessors' mistakes. While the network effect might provide WoW some protection, customer goodwill can only go so far. Blizzard does need to keep their customer base happy, even if it means passing on some short-term profits.

Farmbot maker vs Blizzard

This is quite interesting. Blizzard tracked down the maker of a farmbot software known as WoW Glider. Blizzard told them to stop making it. Farmbot maker denies any wrongdoing and requests a jury trial.

World of Warcraft Roleplaying Wiki

I've recently started to write a biography of my character to the WoWRP wiki. Feel free to join in and add your own characters.

Pre-Burning Crusade Public Test Realm

PC: WoW-1.12.0.5590-to-2.0.1.6114-enGB-patch-downloader.exe

Mac: WoW-1.12.0.5590-to-2.0.1.6114-enGB-patch-downloader.dmg

Patch notes:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- World of Warcraft Test Patch 2.0.1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The latest patch notes can always be found at
http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/underdev/


General

• All players will have talent points reimbursed and will have access to new talents throughout their trees; this includes the 41-point talents. Several new abilities have also been added for all classes.
  
• All pets now receive a percentage of their master's armor, spell damage, spell resistances, attack power, and stamina.
  
• Low-level spells cast by high-level players will receive smaller bonuses from +healing and +spell damage.
  
• HoTs, DoTs, and channeled spells have been re balanced to receive a more appropriate (higher) percentage of +spell damage and +healing.
  
• HoTs from different sources will now stack (i.e. multiple druids can cast the Rejuvenation spell on 1 target).
  
• New item property "Resilience" has been introduced. Resilience reduces your chance to be the victim of a critical strike, and reduces the amount of damage critical strikes do to you.
  
• Weapon Skill now does the following:
  
  • Weapon skill will no longer reduce the percentage damage lost due to glancing.
    
  • The player will gain 0.1% to their critical strike rating per weapon skill against monsters above their level.
  
  
• When casting a buff on a low level target, the appropriate rank of the buff will be automatically be applied.
  
• Crowd Control effects in PvP will last no longer than 12 seconds instead of the full duration, with a chance of a heartbeat resist.
  
• Players will no longer lose faction when under the influence of "Mind Control" or the Gnomish Mind Control Cap.
  

PvP

• Honor System Revamp
  
  
  
  • Current honor totals have been reset.
    
  • Players may display their highest lifetime rank title (accessible from character sheet).
    
  • Honor points earned each day may now be spent as a form of currency. Check the PvP tab of your character sheet to see your honor information.
    
  • PvP rewards are no longer unique.
    
    
    
    • Marks of Honor earned from battlegrounds are no longer turned in for reputation or honor. They are now used in addition to honor points in order to purchase rewards.
      
  
  
• Two New Arenas are now available in three different modes.
  
  • 2v2, 3v3, and 5v5 matches
    
  • Players may queue up at Goblin NPC's in Stormwind, Ironforge, Orgrimmar, Undercity, and Gadgetzan
  
  

Druids

• The talent "Swiftmend" will now include bonus healing from the talents "Improved Rejuvenation" and "Empowered Rejuvenation".
  

Hunters

• Traps can be set while in combat, but require a 2 second arming time.
  
• Auto shot will be automatically enabled if the Hunter steps out of melee range while in combat with target.
  
• 1 agility will now grant 1 ranged attack power.
  
• Auto shot is now reset when casting Aimed Shot.
  

Shaman

• Shaman with the appropriate talent spec are now able to dual-wield. Both main and off-hand weapons can be affected by self-weapon buffs such as Windfury.
  
• Rockbiter's weapon functionality has been changed. It is now a damage proc instead of a flat attack power bonus.
  
• Windfury Weapon and Rockbiter Weapon enchantments will only benefit the weapon with the enchantment on it.
  

Warlocks

• Range of "Drain Life" and "Drain Mana" spells have been increased.
  

Warriors

• Rage generation from dealing damage has been normalized.
  
  • All Rage awards are averaged with our expected rage per swing (adjusted for weapon speed).
  
  

Items

• The "Far Sight" effect has changed so that the camera now zooms in to a distant location, rather than instantly showing the distant view. This also affects the items: Ultra-Spectropic Vision Goggles, the Ornate Spyglass, and the Hunter ability "Eagle Eye."
  
• Spells can now require either a totem item or a totem category item to cast a spell. This means that the Enchanting Rods now count as all of the lower level enchanting rods as well, so you only need a single enchanting rod instead of all six. This also means that "Finkel's Skinner" now counts as a Skinning Knife. Several weapons that are picks have been flagged as counting as a Mining pick as well.
  
• Items that give bonuses, such as + to crit, have been modified to adhere to a combat rating system.
  
  • All current items will provide the exact same benefit from ratings at level 60 as they provided before the ratings system.
  
  
• Thrown weapon items no longer stack, but use durability instead. One unit of durability is lost per throw, and these items can be repaired.
  
• The tool tip for the Great Staff of the Guardian now shows the proper increase of 28 to the party spell critical rating.
  
• Items that are useable from player inventory with a cooldown will now update the cooldown in real-time.
  
• Players will no longer be able to sell the "Blue Skeletal Horse" to vendors.
  
• The damage Proc from the item "Misplaced Servo Arm" will no longer break the Rogue ability "Gouge".
  
• The "Skull of Impending Doom" has been changed and will now increase run speed by 60% for 10 seconds, but deals damage equal to 60% of your maximum health and drains 60% of your maximum mana for over 10 seconds.
  
• The Backfire effect on the "Net-O-Matic" will no longer break on damage.
  

Professions

• All of the profession-made items that have been created up to now have been given proper stats based on the current expansion item level progression table.
  
• Most of the items made by Tailoring/Leatherworking/Blacksmithing have had their creation time reduced. Now the cap on time required to make an item in those professions is based on quality and level.
  
  • New Max times required.
    
    • Level 31+ Green Items at least 8 sec
      
    • Level 31+ Blue Items at least 15 sec
      
    • Level 31+ Purple Items at least 25 sec
  
  
• Skill level now determines what items you can disenchant.
  
  • Skill 1= Level 1-20
    
  • Skill 25= Level 20-25
    
  • Skill 50= Level 25-30
    
  • Skill 75= Level 30-35
    
  • Skill 100= Level 35-40
    
  • Skill 125= Level 40-45
    
  • Skill 150= Level 45-50
    
  • Skill 175= Level 50-55
    
  • Skill 200= Level 55-60
    
  • Skill 225= Level 60-65
  
  
• Players will no longer lose an item when attempting to disenchant on a boat when the loading screen appears.
  

User Interface

• Meeting Stone gossip options have been removed from Innkeepers in preparation for the new LFG system.
  
• LFG/LFM UI
  
  • Tips have been added to Loading Screen tips and new player tips
    
  • Meeting Stones now function similar to a Warlock Summon spell.
    
    • Player's select party member to be summoned and right click the stone.
      
    • A second party member then clicks the portal to summon.
  
  
• Enchanting UI has been vastly improved.
  
• Raid UI now supports frame for Main Tank.
  
• Spell Alert (Enemy Cast bar)
  
  • Defaults to off
    
  • Enabled through Interface Options
    
  • Displays targeted enemy's cast bar when they are casting.
    
  • May also be displayed with "V" key functionality.
  
  
• Auto-loot may be enabled with just one click in the Interface Options.
  
• Character sheet UI now displays more precise melee, ranged, and spell stats.
  
• Players can now cast item targetable spells on items that are in your action bar. For instance you can cast feed pet and have the food you want the pet to be fed in one of your action bars.
  
• Semi-charged items can no longer be placed in the Auction House.
  
• A knowledge base has been added to the in-game UI.
  
  • Searchable database of FAQ's and common support issues.
  
  
• Keyrings have been expanded to hold more key-type items and will now size dynamically for the number of keys in possession.
  
• The Hunter ability "Mend Pet" will now turn red when a pet is out of range.
  
• Players will now be able to disable ability messages in the floating combat text.
  
• Players will now be able to scroll down their ignore list if it extends beyond one page.
  
• The tooltips for the Show Dispellable Debuffs and Show Castable Buffs options will now specify they only apply to raid pullout groups.
  
• Significant changes have been made to User Interface customization. For specific details, please visit http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=36975623&sid=1 .
  

Bugs

• The Rend Blackhand arena event in Upper Blackrock Spire will now properly reset after a wipe.
  
• Players will no longer resurrect with low mana and health if they died and released on a Zeppelin or Ship.
  
• Fixed an issue where effects with 100% chance to be applied were being resisted.
  
• Fixed an issue where high level players were not being properly credited the right amount of faction reputation.
  
• Party members will now be properly credited for completing the "Dead Man's Plea" quest when a totem or pet gets the killing blow on Baron Rivendare.
  
• Slowing abilities and spells will no longer decrease the speed of a player when traveling by Gryphon.
  
• Fixed an issue where players were re-taining talent based abilities even after re-training.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Warlock spell "Shadowburn" was improperly consuming two Soul Shards.
  
• Fixed an issue where players were unable to click on anything if they had any add-ons installed.
  
• Fixed an issue where players were able to use "Mana Burn" on mobs and players without mana.
  
• Fixed an issue where spells that proc while a player was standing would not proc if they were sitting or lying down.
  
• Fixed many interface overlapping graphic issues.
  
• Fixed an issue where Seal of Justice (Rank 2) will now refresh with melee strikes.
  
• Blood Elf mobs in Azshara will now have the correct model.
  
• Fixed an issue where a spell with two procs would be reflected and one of the procs would still hit the player that reflected the spell.
  
• Fixed an issue that was putting Hunters back into combat when they have the "Spirit Bond" Talent or have the Cryptstalker set bonus.
  
• Fixed an issue where players were being awarded the wrong item when double looting a corpse under the master loot option.
  
• Fixed an issue where players interrupted while casting would have a longer cast time than normal.
  
• Fixed an issue where players could not see enchants when inspecting another player.
  
• Fixed an issue where extra attacks from "Windfury Weapon" would not proc "Flurry" when they crit.
  
• Fixed an issue where players that were killed in freezing traps would be stuck there until releasing.
  
• Fixed an issue where Warlocks were able to despawn a pet to gain a free "Soul Shard"in the Battlegrounds.
  
• Warrior "Shield Slam" and "Shield Bash" will no longer trigger a proc from an equipped weapon.
  
• Fixed an issue where players were able to consume a Mana Emerald at full mana.
  
• The totem, "Wrath of Air," will no longer be useable in "Ghost Wolf" form.
  
• Fixed an issue where Warrior "Battle Shout" was causing too much threat.
  
• Fixed an issue where computers with ATi video cards were sometimes having problems when displaying a certain texture.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Warlock spell "Death Coil" gained double the benefit from the talent "Shadow Mastery".
  
• Player pets will no longer attack CC'ed targets while in Passive mode.
  
• "Prayer of Spirit" will no longer cast on the user if there is no other target selected.
  
• "Lightning Shield" will now have the appropriate cool-down time between uses.
  
• Fixed an issue where materials were being consumed if a player logged out before an enchantment had finished being applied.
  
• The Hunter, "Auto Shot," ability will no longer activate on resurrection.
  
• Fixed a bug where "Inner Focus" was not being consumed when using "Mind Soothe."
  
• Fixed a bug where Rogues were able to use the ability "Ghostly Strike" when not facing their target.
  
• Warlock pet dismiss sounds will now play properly.
  
• Fixed an issue where Fist weapons were sheathing improperly.
  
• Bags will no longer overlap the Bank UI when the game window is resized.
  
• Players will no longer be able to whisper to enemy players in Battlegrounds.
  
• The Skeletal Gryphon ride for the Eastern Plaguelands PvP event will now fly at its correct speed.
  
• Players will no longer be able to whisper to enemy players in Battlegrounds.
  
• Players will no longer be able to jump onto the top of the Dun Baldur Fortress in Alterac Valley and get behind the terrain to attack other players.
  
• Shapeshifting will now break "Nogginfogger Elixir" effect.
  
• You will no longer die when Feign Death is finished channeling.
  
• "Scatter Shot" will now properly do damage even if the target is immune to the confuse effect.
  
• "Aspect of the Cheetah" will now properly trigger with absorbed damage.
  
• Casting a lower rank polymorph on a target that is already under the effect of a higher rank will cause an error message and not consume mana.
  
• The talent, "Master of Elements," will now properly proc off of totems.
  
• Players will no longer be attacked by same faction guards when using mind control on an enemy player to attack.
  
• "Vanish" will now properly un-target the Rogue from the attacker when the attacker is in the same party.
  
• The talent, "Improved Chain Heal," will now properly add to the base healing done.
  
• "Healing Wave" Ranks 11 and 12 will now benefit from the Shaman talent, "Healing Way."
  
• "Improved Curse of Agony" will now properly increase the base and spell power.
  
• Warlocks will now be properly credited a Soul Shard from their pet when they take a flight path.
  
• Warlocks will now be properly credited a Soul Shard from their pet when they are dead at the end of a Battleground match.
  
• Warlocks will now be properly credited a Soul Shard from their pet when they enter an Arena.
  
• Casting "Dark Pact" after exiting combat will no longer put you back in combat.
  
• The tool tip for the "Great Staff of the Guardian" now shows the proper increase of 28 to the party spell critical rating.
  
• Several Chest spawns in Dustwallow Marsh will now properly spawn above ground.
  
• Items that can give +Stamina/Intellect from random suffixes will now properly apply while dead.
  
• "Beastmaster's Gloves" will now give the proper 2% crit chance for Hunter pets.
  
• Various graphical errors will be noticeable while viewing maps.
  

Hell hath no fury..

After de fiasco in de Arena, I set tings into motion. I was hopin' dat de enemy of my enemy could be my friend. At least unwillingly, if not odderwise.

I had heard reports of attacks against Grom'Gol, so I set out to investigate.



At first, nottin' interestin' seemed to be happanin'. Just a lone elf lurin' guards out from the protection of de walls. Wait.. I know dis one. Melaisis. Melnerag had informed be dat dis one had hired de clumsy assassin who tried to keel me in de Council meetin'. Hmm..

I used my trusty spyglass to take a closer look. Nottin' at de back or side gates, but at de front.. Perfect.



Several members of de Shinin' Strand, includin' Trollbane, de gnome known as Tiberio and odders. Even de clanky assassin from de meetin' had shown up. I see dat dey got my message and acted like I had foreseen. But dis play also required de villain, and de Empire was nowhere to be seen..



Hmm, only a handful. Oh well. Dat'll have to do for now. De board is set and de pieces are movin'.



Of course, it was over soon, and ended just like I predicted. De Gurubashi would be lickin' deir wounds today and proddin' deir.. Prophet into action. But.. wat's dis?



Perfect. I did not intend for dis.. Taerak to be here, but perhaps it's best dat someone odder witnessed dis as well. Dis is not over yet. Not over at all. Perhaps dere is some part in de web for him as well.

Theory of Magic on Azeroth

Here's my theory on the source of magic and how the Well of Eternity, Sunwell and the Eye of Dalaran fit into it:

All magic on Azeroth originated from the Twisting Nether. When the Titans arrived, they created the Well of Eternity to speed up the terraforming of Azeroth. Norgannon, being the cataloguer of magic, was probably responsible for it's creation. Using the Well of Eternity as a conduit to the raw power of the Twisting Nether, they amplified their own powers, kicked the Old Gods around, shaped seas and mountains, made things grow and so on. The Titans finish their work and teach/modify five dragons on how to use the Well of Eternity. They leave the dragons to guard it, pack up and leave.

Note that at this point, magic only exists near the Well of Eternity, in the Five Aspects and nowhere else.

An unnamed troll tribe wanders near the Well and mutates into Night Elves. They begin to dabble on magic. This dabbling catches the attention of Cenarius, who becomes their mentor. The ancient Night Elf civilization is born. Despite Cenarius' warnings, they continue to dabble with magic and build the magical city of Zin'Ashari around the Well. They catch the attention of Sargeras.

Having lived in the Twisting Nether for ages, Sargeras and the rest of the Burning Legion have started to consider it their turf, and don't like the Night Elves siphoning "their" energy. The Burning Legion convinces Xavius, Azshara & co to shut down the spells distributing magic to the rest of the Night Elf civilization. This accomplishes two things. First, there's more magic to be used for enlargening the portal, and it stops the Night Elves from stealing "their" magic. Felhounds are dispatched to leech magic back from any beings that contain it. However, these events alert Malfurion, Illidan and Cenarius. After some fighting, the Highborne and the Burning Legion forces that already arrived get beaten back, the Well implodes and scatters large amounts of magic energy around the world. However, Illidan did have time to scoop up a few vials of concentrated magical energy from the Well before the implosion. A few of these vials are used to create the new Well of Eternity, an another conduit to the Twisting Nether. One vial is used by the Highborne to create the Sunwell in newly found Quel'Thalas.

The implosion of the Well created the current conditions where magic can be wielded all around Azeroth. The ambient magic can be accounted for the natural mana regeneration of the mages of various races. In addition, experienced mages can tap directly into the Twisting Nether (Evocation) whenever they need more power. This is both tiring and dangerous, though. Because the Burning Legion is continously looking for thieves stealing "their" energy, long-term conduits need to be shielded. Otherwise the Burning Legion will track them down and kill or enslave the spellcaster.

Fast-forward a few thousand years. Forest trolls keep attacking the High Elves, and they have to enlist the help of the humans. Dalaran is founded, and yet another conduit, the Eye of Dalaran, is created to power the spells around the city. While magic can be wielded anywhere, it is much easier to use it in the vicinity of established conduits, because there's more ambient energy around. In addition, the output of the conduit can be increased when necessary for large spells. Having lived in a magic-saturated environment for generations, the High Elves get used to it, just like their Highborne precedessors got used to living near the Well of Eternity.

Fast-forward a few more hundred years. Horde invades and steals the runestones protecting Quel'Thalas from detection. The demon-controlled Horde ultimately fails in it's task, but Quel'Thalas is nevertheless exposed and becomes known to the Burning Legion. Ner'zhul orders Grom & co to steal the Eye of Dalaran. He uses this conduit to power his portal spells, but lacks the know-how to keep them stable. After failing to create stable portals, Ner'zhul escapes from the doomed Draenor and is captured by the Burning Legion. He is turned into the Lich King and is sent to Azeroth.

Fast-forward a few years. Dar'khan screws things up and severs the connection the Sunwell has to the Twisting Nether. Nevertheless, enough magic remains in the Sunwell for Arthas to reanimate Kel'Thuzad. Kel'Thuzad summons Archimonde, who immediately punishes the mages of Dalaran for "wielding our fire as their own". Now that both the Eye of Dalaran and the Sunwell are out of commission, the only remaining conduit on Azeroth is the Well of Eternity under Nordrassil. The Burning Legion travels to Kalimdor.

Archimonde ultimately fails and the Burning Legion is unable to both shut down the remaining "leak" and to reclaim the magical energies still remaining on Azeroth.

Meanwhile, the High Elves are in serious withdrawal and are having difficulties adjusting to the normal levels of ambient magic. Kael'thas finds Illidan, who instructs him on how to tap into magic-saturated demons themselves. Rommath is sent back to Azeroth to instruct the remaining Blood Elves and brings along the Naaru captured from the Tempest Keep. Armed with both the knowledge originated from Illidan and the Naaru, the Blood Elves rebuild Silvermoon using their new magical energies. The big green floating stones found around the city are captured demons used to power the gravity-defying architecture of the Blood Elves.

Symbolically cast... in a bad light

The Pig's significant other gives him an important lesson on WoW masculinity, while the Pig himself is trying to get accustomed to his new identity as John Elfovich.

Reunion

*cough*

Nothing seems to work out how it's supposed to. First the failure at the Arena and now this. I had just by chance encountered the nephew of Syskae Anahain, recently reawakened from the grave. I thought it was a prime opportunity shake up the paladin's beliefs, but.. Their words are polite and regretful, but their eyes betray their true feelings. Disgust.



There was nothing new in a Forsaken that hates what he has become, but I had underestimated just how strong the disgust the humans have against the undead is. Family bonds are the only thing that are keeping this reunion from exploding in a shower of bone splinters. The girl.. Nieve is too busy trying to keep her last meal in to say anything, and even this.. Trianon has problems controlling himself. If this was anyone else but Illan Anahain, the meeting would already be over.



*cough*

And the stubborness of this.. Illan is something quite remarkable indeed. Even though there is living, breathing evidence that he did not fail in protecting his family, he still blames himself. I had hoped this would make Syskae more receptive to things I have planned for him, but I fear it's having an opposite effect. How is he supposed to get along with likes of Sir Leonid Bartholomew if his own nephew spews this crap?



*cough*
Using my wounds as an excuse, I allowed them some privacy. Illan did not wait even until I was out of earshot. The moment I said I'd be moving further away for a while, his tone of voice changed into anger and his words to Common. No doubt he is sowing mistrust and hate into their minds. Why can't they just understand this is for their own best interest?



Still, I had to play out my part in this chapter with elegance. Altruism can be a very powerful mask. Hopefully powerful enough to stay their hand and overcome their minds with guilt. Their belief in their own virtue will be my shield. I will need one in the months ahead. If things are lat to progress on their own weight, I'll have plenty of enemies in both sides soon.



After Illan's tearful goodbyes, it was time to set things in motion. I may have failed in the Arena, but I would make sure that the He would have to fight to the death for every scrap of power. It was time to let the enemies of my enemies to be my friends. It was time to let them know.

The Gurubashi had a new Emperor, and blood would yet again flow like rivers in Stranglethorn.

Googling for Warcraft

For all your Warcraft-related searches, there's a customized Google search available. This one automatically understands the context, so search results from WoWWiki, Thottbot, Allakhazam and other WoW-related sites are usually found at the top.

Google Maps & Azeroth

This Google Maps version of Azeroth is pretty cool. Google Maps Mania also reports that all of the trading cards are viewable with the same interface.

Carbon Copy WoW?

What is the WoW Island? Apparently it's a fan-created web-based MMOG that rides on the name and success of the real game. While imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, this one is outright plagiarism. A lot of the content seems to be datamined straight out of WoW, including graphics, items, monsters and so on. I can't see how this could be legal. Blizzard did get a lot of flak from the fan community when they lawyered up and shut down bnetd, the Battle.Net emulator for the RTS games, but I doubt many tears will be shed when this one gets shut down.

Warcraft Encyclopedia

Blizzard has recently released their official Warcraft Encyclopedia. While it is nowhere near as comprehensive as the WoW Wiki, it does seem to be written in-character. Because of this, it is unlikely to contain major spoilers to in-game quests or events. However, this also restricts the scope of the Encyclopedia severely. On the other hand, the Encyclopedia authors do have one major advantage over the more numerous WoW Wiki authors. It is much easier for them to get clarifications to unsolved issues from Chris Metzen or any other Blizzard employees responsible for the lore. WoWWiki staff will have to rely on in-game sources, books, the roleplaying game, interviews or even mere speculation.