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.

Slavers

There had been rumors in the air about an attack. Distant sounds of cavalry, moving around at the Highlands. The smell of death was in the air, and it wasn't from the Defilers. They would come tonight. Slavers.

Hammerfall was a thorn in the humans' behinds. The empty cages swayed quietly in the wind, as a reminder of what was. The guards were sharpening their blades, and a single thought was apparent on everyone's faces. Never again. It had been a prison. A place where the orcish race would wither away, out of sight, out of mind. A place of utter and complete defeat. In mind, soul and body. Especially soul. It had worked for a while. Until..

The sound of hooves interrupted my thoughts. My spyglass revealed their frontman. And.. oh crap. The pointman is heading straight towards the gates, too quickly for the guards to close it. The others were not far behind. Humans, with some gnomes, dwarves and even elves. This spearhead charge has no doubt been preceded by hours of talks of camadaderie, virtue and justice. The humans are no strangers to bloodlust. They just have prettier words for it. No matter. Spears can be broken and their morale can be shattered by killing their pointman. A sudden reminder of their mortality will take the force out of their charge.

And here he comes, straight into my trap. Now I'll just..

I awoke moments later with my face in the dirt. I felt I had been stepped upon, repeatedly. They had descended upon me like a swarm of wasps. I smell smoke. And I hear screams. It's not yet over. Good. I lift myself up. The ground is filled with hoofprints. I must have underestimated their speed. Their main force seems to be busy with the wyverns, but the hospital seems untouched. I run to the hospital while the enemies are still busy with the rest of the guards. Doctor Victor seems worried. It's only a matter of time before they are spotted. The patients wouldn't even have a chance of dying in battle. It would just be a slaughter. No doubt a messenger has already been sent to Tarren Mill. All I need to do is to keep them occupied long enough. I sneak out of the main gate, past the dead guards.

Ah, there. Hubris was quickly taking hold of them. While the others were busy slaughtering everyone at the inn, a single warrior was left at the back gate. Easy prey. Others had already started to arrive, and the gnome's life was forfeit in mere seconds. Her screams would attract the rest, so I circled around the main building, looking for my next target. And yet another slowpoke felt the chill of death. Confusion is starting to take hold of them. I snuck inside the empty inn, knowing that they would see me.

Predictably, they followed me in. I backed away, luring two of them after me while the others were delayed by the patrons. With cold steel swinging right above my head and arrows being deflected by my protective barrier, I ran to the top floor. And they followed me. Perfect. Before they could react, I leaped over the railing and back to the first floor. The main group didn't even react when I made my way through the battle.

The cat and mouse -game seemed to last for hours, but eventually they were forced to regroup outside the gates. Several of their more foolhardy comrades were cut down by the barrage of spells and arrows. It was almost time to end this. A final charge to shatter their spirits. With spinechilling battlecries, the orcs took the point, with me following right behind them. I danced among the chaos. And then.. I was cut down.

When I regained conciousness, it was already over. I limped back inside the walls and let the others drag the bodies back. The doctor was busy counting the dead at the courtyard. He was already in a fouler mood than usual, so I did not want to bother him. I leaned against the inner metal fence and started bandaging my wounds. Too many died, but at least Hammerfall stands.

For now.

Thrall's grandma

Jaynez recently witnessed an event where Thrall returns to Outland to see the folks. Apparently the event is so well-made that even PvPers /kneel when he arrives.

Interview of a Gold Farmer

RPG Beacon has interviewed a gold farmer. Apparently the mass bans by Blizzard are effective in shutting these "no-pollution factories" down.

World of Warcraft trading card game is the spawn of Satan

Apparently Elüna was right. Slashdot is reporting that other people are also quite unhappy about the cost of the in-game benefits available by collecting the cards.

Jewelcrafting after 300

I recently spotted a jewelcrafting guide linked from Tobold's blog, which also includes a shopping list to level jewelcrafting from 1 to 300.

240 copper, 120 bronze, 40 iron, 60 mithril, 255 thorium, 110 gold, 30 truesilver, 50 flask of mojo, 10 large fang, 30 malachite/tigerseye, 30 lesser moonstone, 100 shadowgem, 35 jade, 40 citrine, 45 star ruby, 35 aquamarine, 40 large opal, 20 azerothian diamond, and 20 huge emerald.

While I'm not switching from Engineering to Jewelcrafting, the information about new ores is useful to all miners. Unfortunately I have smelt all my thorium already, so, I can't take advantage of all those people buying stuff to powerlevel their new professions.

The Devil wears Black Mageweave

The Society is organizing a fashion show outside the Stormwind Cathedral.

Burning Crusade delayed, new patch for Christmas

As everyone has probably heard by now, the Burning Crusade release date has been postponed. However, Blizzard is planning to release a patch before Christmas, which includes the new honor system among other things.

Scourging the Wickerman

Apparently the Scourge took advantage of the festivities and attacked.. the Wickerman.

Burning Crusade talent updates

WoW Insider has the scoop on new talents. Arcane tree gets a quite intersting 30-point talent called Spell Power, which increases critical strike damage bonus by 50% on all spells. Combined with Ice Shards, that means +150% crits. I suddenly feel tempted to reconsider my deep frost spec..

Pictures from a Burning Crusade betatester

Alizia has gathered a bunch of fresh screenshots from the Burning Crusade Beta to her Flickr album.

Tactics progression in Burning Crusade?

After listening to the latest Farm Status, I started to wonder about the tactics and coordination required for Burning Crusade endgame raid instances.

Currently the level progression, tactics progression and gear progression goes hand in hand when you go through the game. The first instances are fairly simple and require only basic coordination to complete. When you level up, you'll be able to access harder instances, get better gear and be able to handle more complicated encounters. This progression continues up to level 60.

At level 60, the levels cease to matter. Instances continue to progress through better itemization and more difficult encounters. First tries in Molten Core always seem to be quite complex if you are used to 5-mans or UBRS. When you master Molten Core, your guild has the gear required for Blackwing Lair, and knows how to arrange healing for multiple tanks. When you get better gear, you also learn how to handle more complicated encounters. This holds true all the way to Naxxramas.

Then let's add the expansion into the equation. Obviously the level progression starts again, and so does the gear progression. According to preliminary reports, simple quest rewards rival or exceed Molten Core and Blackwing Lair gear. This means that the vast majority of players will skip the current 20-man and 40-man instances altogether, because they can get better gear easier and faster in Outland. But what about tactics? How hard will the Burning Crusade endgame boss encounters be? Will the 5-man instances teach new raiders the skills they will need in endgame? I would feel pity for the guild master who tries to convince his guild to go back to Ahn'Qiraj to learn group coordination and caster tanking, for example.

New Burning Crusade music, meeting Gul'dan

The Burning Crusade Closed Beta is now in progress. Although I didn't get a beta key (hint hint), I did some digging. Apparently the expansion contains about 4.4h of new music, compared to the 2.2h of the original WoW. This should help alleviate some weariness players have with the soundtrack. All of the new zones have several different themes and have different themes for night and day. Although Zangar Marsh does sound very similar to Ahn'Qiraj..

In other news, it seems that we'll be seeing Gul'dan again. He got his own theme music in a folder called "Musical Moments". While the first orc warlock is quite dead, there is one place where he probably will be seen. One of the scenarios in Caverns of Time is the first opening of the Dark Portal. Medivh worked on the Azeroth side, while Gul'dan worked at Draenor. My hunch is that when the scenario is completed and the portal is succesfully opened, Gul'dan will be among the first to step through it. This will be a boon to lore freaks such as myself, because it has never been seen in any of the Warcraft games. Even the events of Warcraft: Orcs and Humans take place 15 years after the opening.

Roleplaying is serious business

This one is blatantly stolen from Warcraft Weekly, but still.. Roleplaying is serious business.

Elves!

Someone doesn't like elves.

More Marx

Marx is at it again, dealing out scary Reckoning bombs with his Ashkandi.

A Charade of Peace

Where is he? The meeting is supposed to start soon, and there's no sight of him. Considering that Beggar's Haunt is probably the best known secret location, it won't take long before I'm spotted. The one couple I saw at the grove probably doesn't want to attract attention either, so they should leave me alone as well.

Ah, there he is. Melnerag should reconsider his wardrobe, though. Monk robes don't fit well with a Dreadsteed. My outfit is a bit flashier. Regal, yet not too intimidating. A show of power, but not overtly so. Still, I wanted them to think twice even if they decide to attack me, so I brought my staff along.

I could not understand what he was saying at first, and he didn't understand me either. Judging from his face, he had anticipated that this would happen. After he gave me a magical necklace to aid with the translation, he explained. An artifact that had been used to form the mental link had been shattered. The cultists that he was formerly affiliated with had called it the Dark Sphere. Apparently his master had returned and reclaimed his property. But the fate of some telepathy-inducing artifact was not why I was here. We started to ride west, avoiding the town of Darkshire. At this time, the road would be completely empty.

After some riding, we arrived to the keep. Melnerag assures me that the guards had been bribed to let me in, but I don't want to take any chances. Protected by a layer of translucent ice, I carefully stepped inside the keep and made my way to the dining hall.



After waiting for a short while, a human female walks in. She is dressed in a light orangish robe. Melnerag introduces her as Gwealyn. I smell.. the faint stench of felfire. Apparently it is a fairly common practice among humans to dress nicely when not dabbling in damonic arts. I imagine it helps other sleep better at night. Out of sight, out of mind.



I hear several people rising up the stairs and walking towards the dining hall. The first one to enter the room is Syskae in full armor, looking around nervously. He is certainly expecting trouble. He is followed by a few gnomes and a few humans. I recognise one of them. I think I.. yes. He was the paladin that confessed to serving a demon at the road to Hearthglen. I think they called him Maelmoor. The gnomes don't seem to be anything noteworthy, but one of the female humans wears a similar robe to Melnerag's own.



And then Seiken appears. This may yet turn out just like I predicted. The already tense atmosphere of the room is amplified by his arrival. He tried to capture me and Melnerag months ago, but failed miserably. However, this time.. I do not detect any of his "companions". He says something angrily, with perhaps.. a hint of disappointment in his voice. And then he leaves. Melnerag explains that he was indeed disappointed that the Council was meeting with an enemy. What enemy? While I did make some preparations, I'm hardly a threat. Unless they consider truth to be threatening, that is.



From the seating around the meeting table, it was obvious that sides were being taken. The gnomish observers stayed at the side, but the rest moved opposite to me. However, I do not see any of the "moderates" Melnerag assured would be here. This whole charade would be pointless if nobody would witness the zealots in action. To top it off, Maelmoor positioned himself halfway, apparently taking the leader's role.



As expected, the accusations started flying quickly. The woman in monk's outfit was clearly highly excitable and begins shouting something about me. She is clearly winding herself up for a nice rage before Melnerag can even translate his first sentences. Syskae is forced to step in to calm her. If my mere presence can agitate them so, what about my responses? A few well-placed words and her rants will echo all the way to Stormwind.



Maelmoor steps in and changes the topic from whatever it was to something he refers to as "Dark Pact". Melnerag clarifies that he must mean Gul'Dan's betrayal. Finally, a good topic. I use easy words and simple concepts, but it soon becomes apparent that I'm not telling them what they want to hear. As I tell them about the deception and corruption perpetrated upon the orcs, their shouts become more and more vocal and angry. They had already made up their minds. They refuse to acknowledge anything that proves that the orcs weren't all rampaging demon-worshipping monsters.



Knowing that they cannot refute the truth, they decide to ignore it. The topic is quickly shifted to the Forsaken and they try to put me on the defensive. They start off with a clumsy accusation about the Apotechary. Perfect. I effortlessly strike it back at them by reminding them of the torture chambers and orc bones in the Cathedral. Unwilling to argue the point further, they move into the topic of Forsaken offensives. I retort by reminding that northern parts belong to Lordaeron, not Stormwind. While the citizens of Lordaeron might not be alive, they are still there. If a dead human can decide via a will what happens to his land, why can't an undead human do the same?



Seeing that the have yet another defeat in their hands, they move into more direct methods. Finally. A silent human priestess from the back row tried to throw something at me, but it was deflected by Gwealyn. The female monk is shouting something again, and I hear a pair of metal-plated boots on the stairs. A human in full plate runs in, hesitates for a moment and tries to smite me with his hammer. Amateur. Before his hammer can reach me, it is blocked by my barrier. A follower, doing whatever others want. So be it. A short incantation later and he is ready to be sheared. I allow the polymorphing spell to wear off, and he still tries to hit me. Slowed by the ice protecting me, I could dodge his blows in my sleep. He is not a problem. But if the others join in.. I have to take this outside. He swings at me once again, but this time his hammer smashes down on the wooden floor harmlessly. I am already out of the keep.

I hear the clumsy assassin's heavy steps echoing in the keep. He is coming after me. He runs out of the main gate, shouting profanities. I lure him to the edge of the forest. I glance around my shoulder at him. He has a victorious glee on his face. Perfect.

The glee turns into disbelief and he almost falls over. His boots are frozen into the ground, and his eyes meet mine. And there I see it. The one thing I love most about combat. It's that look of a man that just realizes that he's about to die. Right here, right now. Everything seems to slow down. He tries to look away from me, but cannot. His other hand is reaching towards his shield, but it is much too late. Poor fly, caught in a web. The winds seem to die down.

Together with a bolt of ice, freezing winds blow from my hands. Tiny shards of ice puncture the joints of his armor. The bolt hits him right in his chestplate. I hear him gasping for air. He falls backwards and tries to crawl away. His eyes are still locked into mine. I raise my right hand in front of my face to show him the flame that dances on my fingertips. And then..

I stop.



I allow him to crawl back up. Syskae runs out of the keep, sword in hand. I smile. There's no need for knights in shining armor here. We both got what we needed. I got my.. satisfaction and he got an important lesson in mortality. For the rest of his life, he knows that the only reason he lives is.. that I let him.



The clumsy assassin heals himself, only to be confronted by Syskae. He makes some feeble excuses of me calling him fat, but we all know he is lying. He was sent here by someone. Someone that he would now have to go back to to explain his failure. Or run and be hunted down by someone more skilled than him. He leaves, and so must I. There is no point playing a charade if the intended audience is not present. Melnerag can use this incident as proof of his.. "prophecies", so at least someone got what they wanted from this. I grab my whistle from my pocket and use it. A few minutes later Windclaw runs out of the woods to greet me. I say farewell to Syskae and ride south.

Forgotten sins

It was yet another cold morning in Silithus. Shalkis rode back into Cenarion Hold, stained with goo and blood as usual. The guards paid little attention to her, for she has been coming and going for the past month. And as usual, the female troll waited patiently while the elven tailors sew together tears in her clothes. During the weeks, they had even grown accustomed to the everpresent smell of combat around the troll. After they were done, she walked to the one called Baristolth and gave him a gooey sack.

"Here's yer fragments. I'll bring more in a few hours. Bye."
"That won't be necessary."
"Wat? Will yer master finally speak to me?"
"It is time, Shalkis. I must apologize for keeping so much in secret. Enemies abound, even under our very noses. Please, read from this tome and learn. Take the knowledge I give to you and seek out our master."
"A book? Freshly inked.. If I read dis, will Anachronos finally speak to me?"
"Yes. However, I cannot understand why you insisted on doing this. Others had already assembled the Scepter. The gates have been open for months."
"I have to see, I have to know. I have to know why they waited for so long. Why wasn't dis threat dealt wit earlier?"
"Be careful what you wish for, troll. Now go. Even the Timeless Ones' patience has limits."

Shalkis closed the book and put it into her backpack. The way to Tanaris was long, and she wasn't exactly presentable. Minds and actions of dragons werre often incomprehensible for mortals. The Bronze dragons even more so. Even a slightest insult could jeopardise months of work. She could not risk offending him in any way.

At the hot springs of Un'Goro, Shalkis opened the book. It told the tale of the War of the Shifting Sands. She already knew much of this from decrypted cultists' texts and the tales of the dwarven geologist. However, other sources focused on the actions of mortals. This told of a plan to close the gates, using the powers of the four Dragonflights. It was a desperate plan for a desperate time. She already knew that the Night Elven forces had lost morale when Falstann was slain and retreated to Un'Goro. But she didn't know that the advancing Qiraji forces had bypassed the "Gods' Land" and the hiding Elven forces. They reached Tanaris. They had even arranged a raid against the Caverns of Time themselves. Although the attack was repelled, it showed the Timeless One that he could not count on the Elves to repel the threat.

He had sent his own offspring, Anachronos to the fray. He was soon joined by Caelestrasz of the Red Flight, Merithra of the Dream and Arygos of the Blue Flight. Each of them had brought many of their younger brethren with them. Even the Night Elves regained some degree of fighting spirit and rejoined the battle after seeing the skies darken from the very numbers of the Flights. Although losses were devastating, the book mentions that they did mow a way to the Scarab Wall to seal the Gate. And then.. the story ends.

"Typical."

The Caverns of Time. Dressed in her finest, Shalkis carefully avoided the three drakes guarding the way. Having Bronze Dragon blood on her would not make a good impression. Anachronos was waiting. She could already feel his eyes on her, and the sandstorm seemed to be strengthening. Eventually the shape of a great dragon formed among the storm.

"In the southern desert of Silithus, near the sacred barrier, exists a single crystalline tear. This tear serves as a symbol of the great losses beset upon us during the War of the Shifting Sands. Locate this tear and gaze into its depths to gain enlightenment."

The shape seemed to dissolve back into the storm.

Just like the dragon had said, there was a brilliant red crystal shard half-buried into the ground. Shalkis kneeled down and touched it.



"And now you know all that there is to know, mortal.."

Anachronos' words echoed within her mind. Some crimes cannot go unpunished. Even Staghelm cannot avoid the sins of the past forever.

New hunter pet talents?

WoW Insider has the scoop on new hunter pet talents.

Selling/giving epics, roleplay and endgame

Recently, I finally got a chance to catch up on WoW Radio's Farm Status show. One of the topics discussed was endgame guilds inviting people to instances and selling them epics.

On my server (EU Defias Brotherhood, RP/PvP), there's plenty of players who have no access to Molten Core. Not because they don't know how to play, but mainly because they don't apply to endgame guilds at all. Why? Roleplaying. Many guilds on our server were founded for that. For example, a tauren-only guild would lack the numbers, attendance, interest and the classes required to do endgame. However, there are always some players that like their RP guild atmosphere and their events, but would like to see endgame.

I was one of them. I started in a troll-only guild Second Gurubashi Empire at day 1 when the server went online. Because the guild had been planned for a while, it was one of the largest for quite some time. Because trolls have access to most classes (except druids and warlocks), we were planning to do at least Zul'Gurub on our own. However, problems started arising when the first people dinged 60. While they were happy doing other instances for a while, they eventually got the gear. Endgame was the only way to go to progress in PvE. Because not all of us were level 60, doing endgame in-guild was not an option. Eventually, they got frustrated waiting for the rest of us and joined endgame guilds, one by one. When a few more people dinged 60, some other 60ies left. We were almost able to do Zul'Gurub for several months.

The inability of the guild doing even the planned endgame (Zul'Gurub) was creating a lot of guild drama, causing tempers to flare. In-character grievances got mixed up with out-of-character grievances. Nasty stuff. Eventually, a solution was worked out. Raiding alliances. Find a few other large roleplaying guilds and do endgame with them. Raiding alliances have their own problems, so I'm not going to discuss them at length. Raiding alliances are not an option to everyone. Very small guilds would get rejected from raiding alliances, and managing a big alliance is hard due to incompatible egos and guild dynamics (how much weight should a small guild's voice have?).

At the same time, some endgame guilds on the server were getting bored doing Molten Core. Some people still needed one or two pieces of gear from there, but doing a full clear felt pointless for just a few items and a bunch of Nexus Crystals. Attendance suffered.

So there were plenty of good players interested in endgame scattered around the realm, but would not want to leave their current guilds due to various reasons. At the same time, there were endgame guilds with a temporary shortage of players.

Some time ago, one of the major endgame guilds (Last Stand) on our server started inviting people with them to Molten Core. Write a good application, and you can join them and pick up any epics they don't need. The guild gets a little temporary help and still gets plenty of core leather, fiery and lava cores, the loot they still need and other stuff. The lucky applicants get gear they couldn't even dream of, and valuable experience. They also get to stay in their own guilds and not "compromise" their characters' personality by giving up IC principles. Win-win.

WoW addicts at Australian TV

In other news, Australian TV discovers that it's not easy to play WoW when your guild is several timezones apart from you. In addition, getting angry over a videogame can leave lasting marks on your walls, sleep rhythm and even accent.

South Park Warcraft

The South Park episode about World of Warcraft is now online. Enjoy it while you can.

Pay no attention to the missing guild bank behind the curtain

AFK Gamer tells us about one of the most interesting ways to steal a guild bank.

Can DKP ever be fair?

Tobold raises an interesting point about the fairness of DKP. In my opinion, no loot system is perfect, and you need to take everything into account about your guild when choosing a loot system. Mine uses a loot council. While it can take into account a lot of different things, it's not perfect either. It's just better than the alternatives for us.

The Unguildables

AFK Gamer continues his adventures in the land of Guild Drama.

Screenshot of the new LFG system

The Nogg-a-holic team has released a screenshot of the new Looking For Group system.

Jeklik got a buff

About time.

Game theory in action

Apparently the PvE ruleset encourages cross-faction cooperation, even with PvP quests.

Ganking contest

Apparently there's a new contest in progress on the other side of the Atlantic. Gank someone, get a screenshot and you can win gold coins.

Absinthe elves

Lore Sjöberg gives us his.. unique view on the upcoming expansion.

Sons of the Storm

This extended maintenance has given me a chance to go through some of my link backlog on del.icio.us. While shifting through the links, I realized that I never checked out the galleries of Samwise & TwinCruiser on Sons of the Storm. I even found a bigger version of the gnome warrior I talked about earlier.

Extended Maintenance

Apparently Defias will be down for the day. I had some RP scheduled for today, so it must be rescheduled. Oh well.

Patch 1.12.1 imminent

Tomorrow is patch day. Included in the changes is the overhaul to the mount system I mentioned before. Other changes are fairly small, mostly bugfixes to the Silithus and Eastern Plaguelands World PvP objectives.

/me needs a hug!

The Emo Tank needs a hug.

Virtual sweatshops

The Times has an article about virtual sweatshops, as they call goldfarming operations. Nothing new there. But they are also mentioning "virtual muggings", where someone's account is stolen via a keylogger, his gear and items sold and profits mailed to the goldfarmers.

Interview of a Gold Farmer

Black Enterprise has interviewed a Gold Farmer.

Pictures of Burning Crusade bases

I stumbled upon some pictures of Burning Crusade bases, courtesy of the Second Gurubashi Empire.

Getting multiple mounts will be cheaper

Apparently, Blizzard has completely turned the current riding skill around. Learning to ride normal mounts now costs 90 gold, and learning to ride epic mounts costs 900 gold. Conversely, a normal mount costs only 10 gold, while epic mounts cost 100 gold. While this will practically have no effect on people who are just buying their first mounts, it will make having multiple mounts much easier. Because the riding skill is shared between all of your faction mounts, getting a different racial mount will be much cheaper. All you need is Exalted reputation and 100 gold per mount, not 1020 gold per mount (riding skill 20g, mount 1000g). However, the mounts are now bind-on-pickup, so you can't ask your friend with both the PvP and reputation discounts to buy the mount for you.

Update: Blizzard has now confirmed several times that the net effect will be the one that I described above. In addition, there will be a seamless transition for characters who already have mounts. Warlocks and Paladins will receive their appropiate riding skill when they finish their respective mount quests. AV and PvP mounts are a bit different, though. PvP mounts will only require the apprentice riding skill, despite being as fast as epic mounts. Alterac Valley mounts will require the journeyman skill. However, players who own either a PvP mount or an AV mount will receive the journeyman skill. All in all, it seems that this change should not cause any concerns for players that already have their mounts, and will help players who wish to own more mounts.

The festivities have started

The Anniversary War is in full swing. One of our "celebrities", Eain/Faye/Jhess wrote a piece about what Defias Brotherhood means to him.

Welcome to the Great Show

Relmstein is having some problems with one of my favourite bosses, Jin'do the Hexxer. He's got some of the tactics required right, but there's a few tidbits his guild hasn't noticed yet.

First of all, a feral druid tank. Bears can't get mind controlled. Secondly, DoTs are very effective on shades. They continue to tick even when the curse expires. Multishot and Chain Lightning also work. Finally, I think that they are not switching targets fast enough. Anyone who has the curse on him should DPS shades. If there's no shades in sight, then healing totems should go down ASAP. Then mind control totems. And only if there's nothing else to DPS, then the raid should DPS Jin'do. Thanks to the healing totem, you can't slack off even at 1%, because he'll quickly heal himself.

And to those who are wondering why I'm posting it here, the answer is simple. I have a Blogger Beta account, and those accounts can't currently post comments on normal Blogger blogs.

Burning Crusade mage clarifications

The Defias Messenger got new information on upcoming mage changes on the Burning Crusade. Apparently the Water Elemental is not on a timer, and won't despawn on his own. It's not intended as a tank, but as a source of extra ranged DPS. This makes the reagent cost much more tolerable. Ice Lance is currently underperforming, and will probably be changed as well. Invisibility will wipe aggro, but the post doesn't say whether it can be used on raid bosses.

Interactive Outlands map

Blizzard has released an interactive map of Outland. The interesting thing about is the large number of neutral and capturable towns. Almost every zone has one.

Packrat syndrome

I'm not alone. Other players also have problems with bag space. I also have to carry around my roleplaying gear and any trinkets or novelty pets I have.

So angry over a radio show!

Apparently there have been some.. differences in opinion at WoW Radio. KikiJiki, the former guild leader of Violent Noise and co-host of EPIC is leaving:

Just a small post to let any fans that I do have that [EPIC] shall not be airing again with it's original hosts. It's been made clear to me that the station doesn't want my input so I'm off.

There's no reply from TotalBiscuit yet, so I'm hedging my bets and waiting what he has to say.

TotalBiscuit has replied. Nothing on the reasons of the departure, but apparently if there is going to be a new show, it won't be called EPIC. He will tell more on Saturday.

A Voice from de Past

Melnerag,
originally uploaded by Shalkis.

One day, my work was interrupted by someone who I had.. worked wit in de past. I gave him a quick tour of de place, explained wat de bugs were and why I fought dem.

He filled me in on de news of de world. De Strand was movin', and mutual threats were once again on de verge of bein' forgotten. To fix dis, he had a plan dat required my cooperation. An overly optimistic plan, ya. But perhaps a leetle charade would prove useful in odder ways.. I agreed.

The Ones That Shall Not Be Named

Bot hitlists are once again a hot topic on Defias Brotherhood. And as always, I'm two minds about it. On one hand, interfering with bots can put a damper on their income. On the other hand, it's easy to slip into vigilantism and griefing of innocent players. In any case, there is a better place for bot sightings.

Scammers abound, film at 11

Apparently scammers are at it again. And like many other scams, World of Warcraft scams rely heavily on others' gullibility instead of some undetectable trick.

Trouble in de North

Reports are comin' in dat de Shinies are pickin' a fight in de North.

The Anniversary approaches

Defias Brotherhood, the server I play on, is almost 1 year old. To celebrate it, there are several World PvP events planned, ranging from normal town raids to capital city assaults. All of it is roleplayed, of course.

Tempers are flaring due to renewed fighting in Silithus and the Plaguelands. Old hatreds fester beneath the calm surface. Agents of chaos will try to assassinate a well-known and respected voice of peace. The resulting blame game will send both sides into a frenzy. Retaliation after retaliation fans the flames of war, driving all towards the brink of destruction. Meanwhile, guilds and individuals on both sides are trying to find the real perpetrators before all hope of peace is lost. And hope that there is still someone alive on the other side to talk to.

And of course, I won't be able to attend any of this.

Andonsius

Apparently, there are rumours of a little bonus available for people who reassemble the Atiesh.

Casual raiding

Jennie Lees of WoW Insider recently talked about hardcore raiding. I've been doing endgame raids for a few months now. I first started raiding in a roleplaying guild that was part of a raiding alliance, then moved to a mixed RP/PvP/PvE guild, and then moved into a PvE guild. I'll probably qualify as a casual raider. My current guild raids 5 days a week. 3 days on 40-mans (mostly BWL) and 2 days on 20-mans (Zul'Gurub, Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj and Onyxia).

Looking back at all that, raiding was most stressing in the beginning. Raid encounters have less room for error, and coordinating 20 or 40 people is a challenge in itself. We started in Zul'Gurub and eventually proceeded up to Hakkar. In the beginning, the most difficult thing to understand was cause-and-effect on bosses. Once you saw all their attacks in action and wiped due to them, the tactics started to be obvious. But that took a lot of wiping and a lot of bitter moments acknowledging that a certain boss wouldn't go down that night.

At the same time, I got my introduction in the so-called purple fever and the drama it can cause on guilds. Especially on bosses that you can down only rarely, seeing that once piece of loot you want drop can induce the "me me me"-syndrome in the best of people. If you don't know when you'll get another chance, you'll want to make the most of the chance you have now.

With the second guild, I got a taste of an another frustration in raiding: Not being able to kill a boss solely because of bad class balance or poor attendance. On day 2 in the new guild, half of the members left and founded a new guild. They were killing Majordomo Executus when I joined, and couldn't even get a Zul'Gurub group up at the worst.

So, on to guild number three. Jackpot. A casual guild that was close to killing Ragnaros when I joined. While being able to breeze through those encounters that were a headache before was certainly a bonus, the best thing was the atmosphere. Raids were not all-serious, nor required intense blame games after wipes. They were places to joke around and chat while getting nice loot.

In my opinion, there were two major reasons contributing to the atmosphere. First of all, it was a PvE guild, pure and simple. Everyone knew that PvE was why everyone was there for. Raids were not a distraction or something you did to keep existing members. It was the primary purpose of the guild, so people actually did prepare for raids. People did read tactics and discuss about what they needed to do. People who didn't know some details, were instructed without judging. People prepared their gear and consumables. And when the fight started, everyone was focused. Knowing that people next to you were doing their best was very reassuring.

The second major contributing factor was the loot system. Unlike the DKP system we used on the other guilds, this one uses a loot council. Because the councilors do reward sportsmanship, good attitude and generousity in addition to the usual metrics, boss kills ceased to be bloody fights about loot. Allowing someone else to get loot meant that you had better chances of getting loot later.

Sure, we wipe. Sure, sometimes tempers do flare afterwards. But day-to-day raiding is mostly hassle-free. We go in, have fun and kill bosses and get nice loot while doing it. We do focus just enough to take farmable bosses down. We're the kind of people who run to Garr's adds to get a free flight across the room. We have healers that moonfire Mandokir down. Our rogues tank Vaelastraz if the tanks are down. Our warlocks tank Onyxia. But we do have full focus on progress raids. We might not be the fastest guild progressing in endgame, but we do have loads of fun on the way.

Burning Crusade pics

Burning Crusade models have been dug out from the Alpha with the WoW Model Viewer. Some of them are untextured, but look quite interesting nevertheless. For example, the Naaru do look the same as they did in the early pictures. Apparently being an energy being gives you some liberties when it comes to body shapes.

Groundhog day

Have you ever felt that no matter you do, nothing changes? How many times have the town criers proclaimed victory against some for or another, only to do so again tomorrow? Congratulations, you have figured out that you have been living the groundhog day.

In World of Warcraft, the world is static. Anything you kill will be back sooner or later, even players. Why? Because a dynamic world would need an army of content developers and gamemasters to maintain. Let's deal with PvE first, because it's easier.

The current method allows the content to be re-used. Let's say that we start with a new server, and everyone starts at level 1. Eventually people are going to level up enough to clear the Deadmines and kill Edwin Van Cleef. Now what? Since he's dead, nobody else can kill him. The content designers will have to design something else for players to do. Now imagine that you have a few hundred other servers full of players as well. Even if you had an army of developers and gamemasters inventing new quests, you still wouldn't have enough. You'd always have more customers than staff.

The sad truth is that content is consumed faster than it's created. This is even clearer when dealing with endgame content. Let's look at Naxxramas, for example. It had been under production for months, maybe even years. Only bugs are holding the leading guilds back from completing it. Static PvE content is all about reusability. Players that have just recently started playing World of Warcraft have a huge amount of content for them to explore. Even players who have played WoW from the beginning still can enjoy a nice instance run or a guild raid. And if they start a new character, they have as much content as a newbie at their disposal. If they have played on just one faction, they have almost half of the game's content still unexplored.

PvP content is a bit trickier. A common complaint about PvP in World of Warcraft is that it doesn't change a thing. No matter how overwhelming you are in Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin or Alterac Valley, the next match is basically the same as previous one. The effect is even more apparent in World PvP, especially town raiding. Any guards you kill will be back in a few minutes. Even faction leaders will respawn in few hours. Even the skeletons disappear in a day.

But what would dynamic World PvP look like? We now have a glimpse of it in the form of Eastern Plaguelands towers. These can be captured, and the faction controlling them receive zonewide buffs. So far, so good. The buff's effect is minor enough not to unbalance the factions. No important NPCs are near the towers, so PvE content is not disrupted. The frequent killing of NPCs and the resulting impact on opposite faction PvE was the reason why dishonorable kills were implemented in the first place.

Those who were playing World of Warcraft at the time the honor system was introduced probably remember the Tarren Mill battles. While Blizzard did design the Hillsbrad Foothills as a hotspot, I doubt they anticipated the effect the introduction of the honor system had. Because Alliance had the majority on many servers, the Forsaken town of Tarren Mill was frequently sieged and all inhabitants killed. Combined with the major latency caused by several hundred combatants, the whole zone was practically unhabitable for Horde. Even if you could reach Tarren Mill before dying, all questgivers, vendors, innkeepers and even flight masters were dead, so there was nothing you could do there.

Due to the latency issues and resulting server instabilities, Blizzard had to intervene. They implemented two new features to discourage these crippling town raids. First, there was the concept of dishonorable kills. If a player killed a low-level important NPC, he would be penalized immediately with loss of honor. Somewhat paradoxically these civilians were also given a new skill: calling for backup. Civilians could yell for help and spawn some guards. At first these guard spawns were just a mere distraction, but then Blizzard changed it that guards would spawn for every player that wandered too close to a civilian. That meant that a 20-man raid group would spawn 20 guards per every civilian they passed. Even with a full level 60 raid, that is a significant hindrance. Pass a few civilians and you suddenly have hundreds of guards upon you. Thus, if you wanted to survive, either you stayed well away from the civilians or killed them very quickly.

The introduction of instanced Battlegrounds solved many problems. They offered lag-free combat among willing participants with no risk of dishonorable kills. The queuing system tried to ensure even teams. However, this PvP heaven came with a cost. Because it was simply faster to gain honor (and thus tangible rewards) with Battlegrounds, World PvP simply withered away on many servers.

In all it's flaws, World PvP had something that Battlegrounds have been unable to achieve: immersion. Defending the free orcs of Hammerfall against the human enslavers is completely different than chasing a piece of cloth in Warsong Gulch. Fighting on the blood-covered streets of Stormwind is different from spending a few hours fighting on an icy lake.

What would dynamic World PvP look like, then? In the early days, Blizzard promised plenty of World PvP, even siege engines. There are ballistas and catapults scattered around the world, but they are simply props. They serve no functional purpose whatsoever. Even if we stay at the level of Warcraft 3 and allow siege engines to destroy only trees, buildings and units, implementing them will be quite difficult. The concept of destroyable buildings is already in the game. The World of Warcraft engine is not capable of true structural damage (like in Red Faction or Silent Storm), so buildings would have hitpoints. Even controlling siege engines and designating firing zones would not be a problem. Mind Control and various devices already allow players to control other units. The details have been already solved by several real-time strategy games (including Blizzard's own).

However, the whole concept of destroyable buildings is troublesome. But what does this have to do with a static world? The sheer scale of World of Warcraft continues to be a problem. Even in it's miniature from, Azeroth is large. If destroyable buildings were implemented, the world servers would not only have to keep track of every mob and player in the world, but also the buildings. It also has reprecussions on client side. A common trick in many 3D engines is to include only those parts of the world in the calculations that the player can see. Because these visibility calculations can be costly, they are usually done beforehand. World of Warcraft also uses such visibility calculations. In addition to terrain, static objects like buildings, bridges and tunnels block visibility. But if those objects can be destroyed, the calculations cannot be done beforehand and thus the game cannot take advantage of them. Imagine how slow Stormwind would be if you could see the whole city from the Trade District.

But enough about mechanics. Let's get to the true killer of a persistent world: Lack of faction balance in numbers, attendance, levels, gear, skill and organization. Eventually, one faction will gain the upper hand. In a persistent world, they will be able to press that advantage, further skewing the balance. And eventually, they will capture or destroy all enemy settlements and defeat the racial leaders. A miniature version of this happens every day in Alterac Valley. So once the racial leaders have been killed and the capitals are in flames, now what?

While the war up to the final victory/defeat might be fun, it is also anticlimatic. And unless you want to run into the same problems in PvP as in PvE (running out of content), the world would have to be reset after every conclusion of the war. Or the ultimate victory/defeat would have to be prevented by a GM. Both distrupt immersion. Which is more immersion-breaking? Moving from one nondescript day to an another, or having a continent in ruins miraclously restored?

More serious problems arise after a few rounds of the war. Due to human nature, we prefer to be on the winning side. So if one faction starts to dominate, they will attract more people. The faction balance will only get worse. The winners will be bored of easy victories, and the losers are frustrated with fighting against impossible odds. They will switch factions, servers or quit altogether. Eventually, there will be nobody to fight. New players will shun the losing faction, because leveling up when the enemy controls 90% the world will be quite difficult. There are already servers where the faction balance is 90-10.

There are of course games which try to have a persistent PvP world. But they have once advantage over World of Warcraft: Multiple factions, or even player-created factions. A three-way struggle for power is more likely to end in a stalemate. Warcraft, on the other hand, has always been about two warring factions, only deviating slightly in Warcraft 3. The only currently possible candidates for the third faction would be either the Goblin Cartels, or Illidan's servants. With the inclusion of Blood Elves in the Horde and the Draenei in the Alliance, Illidan's possible faction lost a lot of the uniqueness, leaving only the Naga as an unique race. And the goblins currently have a very cushy position as a neutral faction, with an income flow from both factions. Open warfare would be quite costly. So it is very doubtful that there will be a third faction anytime soon, and thus no persistent game world for PvP.

Burning Crusade profession rumors

Apparently alchemists can now get specializations, and engineers are deputized to help in potionmaking. Enchanters get a bunch of new enchants, including a +12 spell damage ring enchant. Judging from the engineering item names, the new metals will be Fel Iron (probably minable near Hellfire Citadel), Khorium, Adamantite and Eternium. There's one thing that caught my eye, though. A portable mailbox. Great, now I have two things I can make for raids.

I want you to.. %&!?!% my $#&%¤

Shiro got her hands on some Draenei and Blood Elf voice emotes. While the Blood Elves seem to be able to make friends among their new allies quite quickly, I think that the real winners are the Draenei. Any race that beats gnomes and uses goblin jumper cables in their mating rituals can't be that bad.

Delusions of Grandeour

Boosting can be dangerous.

Light in the Dark

Silithus. The land of sand, crystals and forgotten sorrows. The wars are over, the armies returned, old horrors forgotten.

The champion of the Bronze Flight has not been seen for months.. Rivalries have once again arisen, and former cooperation is only a distant memory. Former comrades in arms fight over.. dust, and the Bronze Flight has turned away in disgust. The Spider Queen has not contacted me, so I have spent my time on trivial things. But that was about to change.

It was quite a surprise when they proposed it. To re-establish contact with the Timeless One and his servants.. A reasonable plan. Among the chaos, potential friends must not be forgotten. But.. why me?

I am not the most diplomatic one among the Noise, nor the most heroic. Sure, I had made a small contribution in the Second War of the Shifting Sands, but.. Me?

The desert was as repulsive as always. The everpresent humming had not quieted down, quite the contrary. Sand still got into every nook and crevice. And the heat.. This is no place for a Frostmane. Windclaw's nervous movements suggested that he was not fond of this place, either. Most wildlife had tough exoskeletons, and those that could be cracked open were often poisonous. I would have to do most of the hunting without him. I rode towards Cenarion Hold. The guards have stopped giving me dirty looks. But the mistrust of others still lingers in the air like the breath of a dwarf. I best do my business here quickly and start my work.



Nalith picked up his glaives from the rack. The freezing winds howled around the tower of Cenarion Hold. This is the shift he hated the most, just before sunrise. Elune's light would soon be replaced by the blinding, scorching, merciless sun.

"Elune'dora, Nalith."
"I hate mornings."
"We all have our burdens to carry, Nalith. You were lucky that Commander Mar'alith let you off so easy. A month or two and you'll be back on night shift."
"The sun isn't up yet, and it's freezing."
"You could have ended up in the midday shift."
"Point taken. Wait.. what was that?"
"What was what?"
"That flicker of light.. Over there, in Hive'Ashi."
"Oh, right. You haven't been on the night shift."
"Stop reminding me. What is it?"
"It's a troll."
"Troll? You're not making any sense. "
"She sets off every evening. She always picks up some combat assignments, and then comes back in the morning. She doesn't even read them."
"What did you expect? It's a troll, right?"
"What do you think is causing those flashes? She has the stench of magic on her. I think she can read well enough."
"But if she.. It is not there for serving the Circle, why.."
"I know what you are thinking, Nalith. She is not one of the cultists."
"How can you be so sure?"
"You'll see, or rather smell it yourself when she comes back. Last time Innkeeper Calandrath sent the troll to Un'Goro to bathe before she allowed her to touch her beds."
"Ugh. Savages."
"It seems that you'll have to wait a bit longer, though. The flashes are moving towards one of the entrances to the hive."
"Enough of the troll, please. It's almost dawn. You should get some sleep, esteemed sister."



High up in the sky, a lone beast glided along, blocking out the stars..

Choose Your Weapon

Baromir is at it again, this time lecturing about primitive guns and their effectiveness against armor.

Anatomy of a Gold Farmer

There are five stages in any gold farming operation:

1. Gathering
2. Storage
3. Marketing
4. Sales
5. Delivery

There are ways to interfere with any point of the chain.

First, gathering. This is done via a small army of automated programs. In other words, bots. These bots are usually hunters, and are equipped with easily obtainable loot, like bind-on-equip rare items. These bots are then sent to work on carefully selected areas of the world, where there's appropiate prey that can be safely killed with the limited intelligence of the bot, yet drop good enough loot to be sold. Popular places for bots are Felwood, Burning Steppes, Blasted Lands, Deadwind Pass, and pretty much any area where there's high-level non-elite mobs or easy elite mobs. Hunters are the most popular bot type because of their pet and Feign Death. The pet keeps the bot itself from any harm, and it can Feign Death when necessary to save it's life.

The gatherer bots generally don't do a very good job at impersonating real players. They rarely responed to interference, unless the bot is directly attacked. While the bot is clumsy and can be easily dispatched by a human player, attacking the bots is in general a futile attempt. Blizzard has a hard time detecting these bots, because they technically do nothing that could automatically be monitored and detected. Vigilante players can hunt the bots and even make the bot lose gold instead of gaining it. This is accomplished by tagging the target mobs before the bot can hit them, causing the bot to gain no benefit from killing that mob. Unfortunately, the only loss at this case is the wasted use of ammo, which is quite cheap. Another trick that can be used is to either draw additional mobs to the bot, or weaken the bot by attacking it so that the mob it is fighting can finish it off. This results in repair costs, and if done enough, can force the bot to return to a city to repair. However, even this effect is neglible. Why? While it does make the bot less efficient, it is still relentless when compared to human players. No human will harass the bot 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When the human gets tired, the bot will resume making pure profit. In addition, there are usuall multiple bots scattered around the world, so distrupting one will only make a slight dent in profit. Reporting a bot can shut it down altogether, but a smart goldfarmer uses multiple bots to make sure that the gold keeps flowing. In addition, Blizzard seems to favor banning lots of bots at once, instead of banning them one by one.

Secondly, there's storage. After the gold has been gathered, either by farming or selling the gathered items, it needs to be stored to wait for potential buyers. A naive way to detect storage accounts would be to monitor the amount of gold in the account. This is easily thwarted by distributing the gold evenly across multiple accounts. In addition, this reduces potential loss if Blizzard does shut down one of the storage accounts. A better way to detect storage accounts is to follow the money. Unlike normal exchanges between players, the flow of gold is overwhelmingly one-way. Farmer bots get gold and send it to storage accounts. Storage accounts then send it onwards. While the goldfarming operation might try to "launder" the gold by sending it through multiple accounts, the general flow still remains. If Blizzard were to employ a retired financial crime investigator, for example, methods could be devised to detect these flows of gold automatically.

Third, there's marketing. Once the gold is collected, the goldfarming operation needs to find buyers. This is mostly done with website ads. The websites are beyond Blizzard's control, so they can do little to stop this. There are plenty of ISPs that do not honor takedown requests from American companies such as Blizzard. However, some marketing is done in-game by throwaway accounts. Bots spamming advertisements in-game are easily detected. Not only they use predetermined phrases, they also tend to annoy a lot of legit players, which in turn results in the advertisement bots getting banned quickly. However, the profit margins of gold farmers allow them to just buy (or otherwise acquire) a new license and resume advertising. Advertising bots do not even try to hide themselves.

The fourth phase is making the sale. This is overwhelmingly done via the goldfarmer's website, so there's little Blizzard or individual players can do to stop it from happening.

Finally, there's delivery. While the goldfarmers might try to "launder" the gold or items by funneling them through several accounts, the buyer still needs to receive an unusual amount of goods. Large transfers of gold can be detected easily, so a smart goldfarmer will probably use several accounts to transfer the merchandise in small amounts. Still, the end result is the same. A certain player received a sudden influx of money. And this is what Blizzard can easily detect automatically and start to follow the flow of gold back to it's source. However, this process is somewhat slow, because verifying each chain of the link requires some manual labor. Blizzard does not want the bad publicity of accidentally banning large amounts of innocent players, who might have bought items in-game from the farmers, not knowing that they were doing so. Eventually, Blizzard will map the whole network of the goldfarmer and then ban all of the farmer's accounts in one sweep.

It has been argued by TotalBiscuit and others that banning accounts in batches is not enough. While Blizzard tracks down the farmer's network, he can continue making profit. So when Blizzard finally closes down his operation, he can simply start over with the profit he has already gained. On the other hand, banning farmer bots quickly will reduce the time they will generate merchandise for the farmer. However, this leaves the rest of the farmer's "network" intact. While Blizzard can obviously follow the money from the banned account and track down at least some other accounts, it will not shut down the farmer's operation altogether. All they have to do is to acquire some more licenses and set up more bots. In addition, banning only certain bots will alert the goldfarmer that Blizzard has caught up to them. Unless the gold farmer itself is caught by law enforcement, banning individual bots is a hindrance at best.

The Four have fallen

Death and Taxes have downed the Four Horsemen. That's an another world first for them.

New Forums

The new Forums of Defias Brotherhood are now online.

Addons are bad, mmkay?

Whily I symphatize with healbots that raid, some addons can simply be hazardous.

It's a small world

Athlithuil points out that the Azeroth we know is severely scaled down, so there's lots of room for locations for roleplaying stories.

As always, I'm two minds about it. On the other hand, I am for promoting realism, not being constrained by game mechanics and thus improving immersion. But on the other hand, I am against taking too much liberties with the lore. It can easily lead to a bunch of player-made retcons whenever a new RPG book or a novel is published. And there is always the temptation of godmodding and making yourself a bigwig of some imaginary village.

The Azeroth we know is a miniature version of the true Azeroth. Even traveling between zones would take days. In "Day of the Dragon", it takes days to fly from Southshore to Wetlands. The in-game flight is five minutes at most. This miniaturization is necessary to keep the game interesting with the current amount of content. We'd need a lot of semi-randomly generated filler content, like in Oblivion. But Oblivion also has a time-accelerating autotravel to keep players from getting bored when they do not want to explore all of this fluff. That can't be done in an MMORPG. So players need to imagine all of this. Imagine if just getting to an instance took 45 minutes or more. Imagine if just moving a PvP raid to the location took hours instead of 30 minutes. Miniaturization is necessary to keep the game interesting.

The Sandman

It seems that there's a new super-villain in town.

Kill, kill, kill

Another day, another whine. The Alliance Watch, the largest guild doing World PvP on Defias raided Tarren Mill. And then they raided it some more, until there were nobody to raid. Then the resurrection timers started running out, and there was again people to raid.

Having been on the receiving end of a TAW raid on several occassions, I have to say that resurrecting is a challenge, to say the least. The question is whether this is intentional or just a side effect of town raids. Especially when you attack places with a big guardspawn, like Tarren Mill, Refuge Pointe or Stonard, it is hard to see whether that enemy on half health just resurrected or was simply wounded from fighting one of your friends.

Resurrection timers are also problematic, because it's easy to think that you gave your enemies time to mend their wounds and regroup properly, when they have simply been waiting for a chance to resurrect. Making an another attack whenever the resurrection timers are up can easily be seen as corpsecamping, even if there was no ill will.

The Chapter

The Chapter is recruiting. It is a roleplaying guild that mixes the medieval Catholic Church with the official Alliance belief in the Holy Light.

This is interesting for a variety of reasons. First of all, the Holy Light is obviously inspired by the real Catholic Church. In fact, in Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, there are direct references to God, angels and demons. These references were later replaced to references to more generic terms. God got replaced by the non-personal philosophy of the Holy Light. Angels got replaced by the Naaru and demons got replaced by the various races of the Burning Legion. The Chapter attempts to change this back somewhat. While I'm not a Blizzard developer, I would guess that the change was originally made to avoid any clashes with current religions. Warcraft was originally released a year after Doom, in the middle of the controversy about Doom's infernal imagery. Warcraft 2, which was released a year after Warcraft 1, had already gotten rid of God, angels and demons.

Now the Chapter is adding elements from medieval Catholicism into the mix. This can open a huge can of worms. There are already Christian guilds on many servers that actively recruit only Christian players and try to convert others. What happens if someone cannot keep the in-game religion separate from the real-world religion? Let's say that a Christian member of the Chapter encounters a staunch atheist, and tries to convert him in-character. Any insults could be taken very personally. Religion in general is a subject where calm, rational discussions are somewhat rare.

The second interesting aspect of the Chapter is that they rewrite some lore. They claim (at least in-character) that their holy book has been written by Uther Lightbringer himself, a very important (and deceased) NPC in the Warcraft universe. They also claim that prominent paladin NPCs in the game endorse them. This smells strongly of metagaming, because the NPCs can neither endorse or rebuke them. In essence, the Chapter is latching on to the credibility of the NPCs, so this decision can result in heated discussions (both in-character and out-of-character), of what Uther did and did not do. Again, these discussions could turn personal quite quickly.

End of the Bell Curve for PvP, Bloodlust for Shamans!

WoW Insider is reporting some big news about the Burning Crusade.

First of all, the current ladder system of PvP will be abdolished. This is great news. This eliminates the problem of having to compete with your own faction. This means that your team will no longer focus on killing enemies instead of trying to capture the flag in Warsong Gulch, exclude you from their Arathi Basin premade group, or have to work out High Warlord / Grand Marshal rotations for different weeks.

Second, there's information about the new shaman and paladin skills. Paladins get an AoE taunt buff that will help them function as offtanks in an emergency, and shamans get bloodlust. Finally. While it may not be as powerful as in Warcraft 2 (+50% melee damage), it's still great news.

What they didn't mention was how they are going to keep the factions different enough from each other to make the choice matter. Personally, I would love to have racial spells and skills for each class. The priests have them, and fighting a dwarven priest is somewhat different from fighting a Forsaken priest.

Torment, And A Woman Starts to Die

Heresy is feeling moody once again.

New Born

Gharb is feeling romantic again. And what better way to woo undead females than a killing spree?

Honor?

WoW Insider has done some math on the new Honor kill diminishing returns.

Basically, instead of losing 25% honor each kill, you only lose 10%. So opponents will stop giving honor after the 10th kill, instead of 4th kill. While this does increase honor received from each kill, it does not result in getting ranks faster. Everyone else is also getting more honor, so the net advantage is zero.

The other changes are more interesting. Blizzard will also tweak the maths to increase the allowed number of top-rank players on a server, so getting ranks will be easier. But the real kicker is a rumored change to the honor decay formula. In effect, you currently have to regain 20% of your total contribution points every week to avoid losing contribution points. While the effect is barely visible in lower ranks, it does make the last few ranks a grueling experience. Think of it as an accelerating treadmill. You have to run faster and faster just to stay where you are. Getting the last ranks does require unhealthy amounts of PvPing.

The rumored change would reduce the decay rate to 5%, which means that keeping ranks is easier and the majority of effort actually goes to advancing in ranks instead of maintaining the current rank. This can dramatically cut down on the time that aspiring Grand Marshals and High Warlords need to invest in full-time PvPing.

In the heart of the plague

Etienne is rescued in the brink of time, Syskae can breathe easily. At least for a moment.

The Cat that tamed the Dawg

Jondalar, the poetic elf, has a new female on his sights.

Chronicles of the Gold Farmer 2- Ni Hao This!

Continuing on the goldfarmer theme.. TotalBiscuit is at it again, tormenting goldfarmers. The previous episode of the Chronicles is also available.

Hunting season

Apparently some players on Defias Brotherhood have become sick and tired of bots and started dealing out vigilante justice. While I despise gold selling and acknowledge that the server ruleset allows and encourages hunting, I also expect that this vigilantism has all the downsides as real vigilantism. In other words, lots of innocent people get ganked.

Roleplaying power?

How do you roleplay differences in power in a world where game mechanics say that everyone is equal?

I recently got engaged in a flamewar about a roleplaying incident, which led to accusations of godemoting. Basically, in the incident a noble was talking with his friend in a known player-run bar, the Smoking Blade. He was repeatedly asked to leave, but he refused. Was this bad roleplaying or not?

If you look at the incident in pure in-character perspective, the bar staff would probably have been unable to eject the said noble by force. Still, there would have been consequences to be involved in a bar fight. Yet, because of game mechanics, there were no consequences. Actual fighting was impossible, and the NPC guards would not interfere. And both sides knew this. If the noble didn't want to move, the bar staffers could not make him to do so.

Out-of-character, the incident was much tougher to judge. Both the bar staff and the noble (along with his friend) are completely equal. Both pay the same amount to Blizzard. Neither of them can really own the building.

Now let's muddy the waters a bit. The Old Town Syndicate is well-known for Smoking Blade. It is generally accepted that the building belongs to them. So should they be able to dictate what happens in that building? What about the noble then? He has an elaborate backstory which establishes him as a noble. Thus, he should be able to command some puny peasants around, right?

No. The Old Town Syndicate does not own the building. No, the noble does not get to boss people around just because he wrote an elaborate backstory. Why? Both sides' power is all about consent. The majority of people on Defias Brotherhood has consented that the building belongs to the Old Town Syndicate. Similarly, people have consented to be the noble's underlings. But here's the problem. The Old Town Syndicate has not consented to respect the noble's rank. Similarly, the noble is disputing the Old Town Syndicate's position. He has not consented that the Syndicate is the law in that part of the town.

Elaborate backstories don't give you any authority by default. What gives you the authority is other people. People like the Old Town Syndicate's roleplay in the Smoking Blade, so they consent to it. People like the noble's roleplay and backstory, so they consent to be his underlings. Nor does rank 14 give you any real power over your faction. By definition, it just means that you have PvPed more than the most of the server. It says nothing of your leadership skills. If people like your leadership, they will follow you. If they don't, they leave you fuming alone in raidchat or WorldDefense. Similarly, people could walk to the Smoking Blade like the Old Town Syndicate was never there.

Consent is the key to everything in this game. I consent to paying Blizzard to play. I consent to follow the Terms of Use. I consent on getting ganked by rolling on a server with PvP ruleset. I consent to the RP policy by rolling on a RP/PvP. I consent to joining a party. I consent to duels. I consent on joining a guild. I consent to staying in a raid. But when we deal with roleplay within the same faction, the implicit consent is no longer there. Especially when dealing with roleplay involving strong emotions or violence, I have to get the other player's consent.

All it would have taken is a few out-of-character whispers to tell the other side about your viewpoints, so that consensus and thus consent could have been reached. That didn't happen.

In the Heart of the Plague

Unfortunately for Syskae, Etienne is nowhere near Kalimdor.

A Warning and a Plea

Shalkis: *lifts her gaze from a book*
Syskae: By the Light!
Shalkis: I told you that security here could be improved.
Syskae: *syskae throws his cowl back* You are... Shalkis, are you not? Melnerag wished to warn you.
Shalkis: *motions towards the chair*
Syskae: Not here. Catacombs. I have been spied on before.

Syskae: Melnerag did not expect to see you here, but the fact of the matter is that the Shining Strand is going to raid Ogrimmar. He wished for you to be safe, or prepare. Whatever. I speak in his name, I suppose, if only by chance.
***Syskae concentrates on somethign for a moment, as his armor is summoned on his body.
Shalkis: Tell me something that I don't know. Like what is that outfit for?
Syskae: [hesitantly] It is a gift from Melnerag. The Strand knows it, but not my monkish outfit. I would rather be discovered wearing this, than have the outfit spoilt.
Shalkis: Yes, I see his handiwork. I assume he has told you many things that you previously did not want to hear.
Syskae: [wrinkling his nose] Melnerag likes to talk, yes. Many things he says I find agreeable, not the least his goals if not always his methods.
Shalkis: He dos have less success with other individuals, though. Has he recovered his eye yet?
Syskae: No. Though I find the method you recommended quite abhorrent. Surely you cannot be serious, that a human should take up such barbarous practices.
Shalkis: Melnerag does have less messy methods in his disposal, but surely this is nothing new to the humans?
Syskae: True. But the Gearholder has a bizzare lust for experimentation, it would appear. I only follow this curiosity up to a point, as you might imagine. However, I did hear reports that you were in elvish lands earlier on. As I was.
Shalkis: Yes, I was travelling around that area, gathering samples for my research.
Syskae: I was looking for Etienne. Perhaps you caught sight or smell of him?
Shalkis: I encountered only a few humans, but not her.
Syskae: [confused] Her?
Shalkis: It sounds like a female name.
Shalkis: Not that it matters much, humans do not usually introduce themselves to me.
Syskae: He is not aggressive at all. A young Westfaller, but 20 years of age, golden haired, and pretty if I might put it such. If ever you chance to encounter him, I will pay handsomely .... he left me and I know not where he is.
Shalkis: If a human fled into areas the elves have claimed for themselves, the first place that I would look for is Nijel's Point.
Syskae: Why there?
Shalkis: Although I did see no bright-haired humans there. The ones I saw were all wearing helmets.
Syskae: [slowly] I will go look there.
Shalkis: Nijel's Point is one of the few settlements where there are more humans than elves.
Shalkis: Including some of your associates.
Syskae: The Crusade thinks me dead after Melnerag got me out of there. I fear this is for the best, for now, with Stormwind after me.
Shalkis: If.. one wanted to forget things, the barren flats of Desolace would be a perfect place to gather one's thoughs. And an ample ground for a recruiter to instill new ideas into youths searching for themselves.
Shalkis: I have found Shadowprey Village quite.. serene myself.
Syskae: Etienne told me he was safe. I doubt he would go there, but ...
Syskae: I should get going before we are detected here. Unless there is something you wish to convey upon me.
Shalkis: I have just one question. Do you now accept the truth about the Grand Crusader?
Syskae: [gruff] Something may be afoot. I should see for myself one day. Right now, the Grand Crusader is very far away. With the voices of the Sphere in my head he feels quite distant. It matters not, at any rate, as the fight for Lordaeron is a fight against the Scourge.
Syskae: *begins to walk away*
Shalkis: That'll do for now. May the Spider Queen's web catch you, should you fall.
Syskae: I'd rather not be entangled by Troll allies. Light bless you, Shalkis.

Research Journal

Feathermoon Isle
Inspected three guards because of aggressive behaviour. No obvious abnormalities detected, samples retrieved for further study.

Inspected Shandris Feathermoon for abnormal hostility even for an elf. Samples retrieved for further study.

Nijel's Point
Lack of aggression in elves suggests that no interesting mutations would be found. Nevertheless, inspected two specimens and retrieved control samples for further study. Also encountered two Dryads and a Keeper. While they identified themselves as working for the Cenarion Circle, they declined to comment further. Left at their original habitat for reasons of diplomacy.

Footnote: one of the elves showed signs of aggression, retrieved some more samples for study.

Stonetalon Peak
Lack of subjects proved to be a problem. Took samples as control from the local flight master. Obtained several samples from the denizens of the Talon Den.

Ashenvale
Proximity of corrupted water elementals suggested that elves near Mystral Lake might be corrupted, provided they use the lake for drinking water. Obtained samples from the four aggressive ones.

Addeneum: Encountered a highly aggressive specimen. Pacified for sample collection.

Addeneum: While collecting samples from the watchtower near Raynewood Retreat, encountered one highly aggressive specimen. Unfortunately, the specimen vanished before any samples could be obtained.

Addeneum: Shortly after specimen 1 vanished, encountered an another specimen with severely degraded motoric skills. Distinguishing features noted for later sample retrieval.

Addeneum: Attempts to locate specimens 1 and 2 unsuccessful. Collected five samples from Astranaar.

Addeneum: Retrieved interesting samples from an elf maintaining the Shrine of Aessina. Coloration of flora in the area suggests a high degree of corruption. Visible discolorations and abnormal texture of samples noted. Preserved for further study.

Personal note: I am being followed by a stealthy human. His motives are currently unknown.

Addeneum: Sample collection aborted at Maestra's Post. due to human interference. However, specimens showed an unusual lack of response to physical stimuli. Noted for further study.

Addeneum: Encountered a specimen running from Darkshore. Specimen physical structure unable to withstand physical stimuli. Sample obtained for further study.

Darkshore
Encountered a non-hostile Ancient, with no visual signs of corruption. Specimen left in pristine condition for now. Accompanying elves show now isgns of aggression. Elf specimens are thus unsuitable for the purpose of this study.

Auberdine
Aggressiveness of speciments is increased, approaching expectable levels. Two specimens pacified and subdued at the docks. Samples preserved for further study.

Addeneum: Encountered the movement-impaired specimen again. Unfortunately, the specimen fell into water on it's own. Samples still unavailable for study.

Teldrassil

Aggressiveness reached nominal levels., and is uniform among most of encountered speciments. Starting the search for abnormal specimens..

Addeneum: Highly aggressive specimen encountered. Pacification required was comparable to specimens found assaulting Horde settlements from time to time. Several interesting samples obtained for later study.

Encountered a highly durable specimen. Sample collection aborted due to overabundance of specimens.

Research Results
Dissectation performed to samples obtained from Feathermoon Isle. Sample, texture, weight and contents is within nominal levels for specimens. Slight bluish tint detected. Samples frozen for further study.

Footnote: More samples needed from aquatic specimens for comparison.

Dissectation performed to samples obtained from Nijel's Point. Color nominal. Weight slightly more than expected. A slightly rougher texture detected. Samples frozen for further study.

Footnote: Samples delivered to the Royal Apothecary Society for analysis.

Dissectation performed to samples obtained from Stonetalon Peak. Sample coloration, texture, weight and contents within nominal levels. One sample contained oil. Samples frozen for further study.

Footnote: Requested comparison with known samples of oil used within various races, starting with goblins.

Dissectation and analysis performed on samples obtained from Ashenvale. Sample hormone glands are abnormally large. Signs of decay detected in specimen digestive tract samples. Lung sample obtained from the Shrine of Aessina contain a previously unknown substance. Substance is in the form of fine purple powder. Tissue in contact with the unknown substance changed color to a slight purple tint. Bone sample obtained from the final specimen is more fragile than expected. Sample was unable to withstand even nominal force. Splinters collected. Samples frozen for further study.

Footnote: Samples from unknown substance delivered to the Royal Apothecary Society.

Dissectation performed to sambles obtained from Darkshore. Vein samples show increased volume and toughness, but no discoloration. Intestinal tract samples show signs of decay and green discoloration, but lung samples show no unusual characteristics. Samples frozen for further study.

Footnote: Further sample collection required, especially from specimens encountered near bodies of water.

Dissectation performed to samples obtained from Teldrassil. Purple discoloration detected in lung samples and green discoloration detected in intestinal tract samples. Tissue texture is rough in all cases, suggesting increased resistance to physical trauma. Vein volume and toughness increased. Bone sample obtained from the unusually aggressive specimen shows new growth on bone edges and increased diameter. Changes suggest adaptation for combat. Samples frozen for further study.

Tags: In-character, Story

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