Matters of Faith

The soothing rays of the sun wake me. I spend the first few hours of the day scouring every inch of my spire. If there was a way up, there must also be a way down. I carefully examine the drawing, because it seems to be my best hope for now. It has three concentric rings, surrounded by runes and joined by a few lines. I try to remember how the inscriptions on the translocator orbs back home looked like. There are some similarities, but this crude drawing won't respond to my touch. I break a small chunk from the bread to serve as my breakfast.

Then.. the runes of the drawing light up. Rings of light rise from the inscription and I hear a familiar three-phase hum. Someone's coming. Friend? Foe?

The figure materializes before me with it's back turned. It has a blueish robe filled with intricate patterns of grey runes and ornate shoulderpads with similar patterns and.. blue dreadlocks! It's the troll! Where's my weapon? That damn troll took it.. I'll just use my own body as a weapon. I sprint towards the she-troll and ready my shoulder for the impact. She hears my footsteps and turns, but way too late. My tackle forces her off-balance and tumbling towards the edge. I press my advantage and pin her to the ground, leaving my arms free to choke the life out of her. But before I can get a good grip, her left arm shoots up to my neck, and my shorter arms no longer reach hers. Her grip is cold and I'm.. having trouble... breathing. Each breath I take... is filled with freezing cold air. My... strength... escapes me.

"Get off me."

I look down. I was not just seeing things in the cave, this she-troll is hideous, even by their own standards. Dim red eyes, burn marks everywhere. One ear missing and the another hanging on a few strands of flesh. A gaping wound on the neck. A featureless expression on her face, if you can call it that. Her grip tightens around my neck and the cold intensifies. I gasp, but all I accomplish is to fill my lungs with even colder air.

I slowly fall to the side and try to breathe. From the corner of my eye I see her get up. I hear flesh tearing and her other ear drops in front of me.

"Are ya Horde?"

"*cough* What are you blabbering about, freak?"

"Let's do dis in de long-winded way, den. Are ya loyal to de Nation of Quel'thalas and Regent Lord Lor'themar Theron, who rules by de decree of Prince Kael'thas Sunstrider, heir to de throne of Quel'thalas?"

"*cough* Of course."

"Are ya aware of de Regent Lord's edict dat proclaims dat Quel'thalas has entered a mutual defense treaty wit de nation of Lordaeron, led by Dark Lady Sylvanas Windrunner, de Nation of Durotar, led by Warchief Thrall, de Nation of Mulgore, led by Chieftain Cairne Bloodhoof and de free trolls led by Shadow Hunter Vol'jin?"

"*cough* *cough* Yes."

"Are ya aware dat dis alliance is commonly referred to as de Horde?"

"*cough* Yes. Get to the point, beast!"

"I ask ya again.. are ya Horde?"

She points her left hand towards me, opening her three fingers like a claw, conjuring a blue mass of sparkling, whirling energy. The sky seems to darken, and the winds swirl towards the spell, which seems to dominate my field of vision.

"If ya are not, I am well within my rights to end yer life right here, right now. Are ya Horde?"

"Yes!"

The energies intensify and swirl around her arm.

"Are ya aware of de penalty for an unprovoked attack on a fellow member of de Horde wit an intent to keel?"

"You threatened me in Silvermoon! You are the one who should be on trial for treason!"

"But I dinna attack ya."

"You only got what you deserved, beast!"

"And wat exactly is dat we deserve?"

"All of you beasts should be put to the flame! Beasts with tusks who grovel before their heathen gods like worms! Vile green brutes who the humans should have exterminated during the war! We eat cows, we don't invite them to our dinner tables! And just because they call themselves the Forsaken shouldn't spare them from burning in righteous fire!"

"All of you beasts should be put to the flame! Beasts with tusks who grovel before their heathen gods like worms! Vile green brutes who the humans should have exterminated during the war! We eat cows, we don't invite them to our dinner tables! And just because they call themselves the Forsaken shouldn't spare them from burning in righteous fire!"

She is using my voice, replicating my words exactly, with every intonation in place. The graceful movement of my lips do not fit on her grotesque face. I feel sick. If she would repeat those words, even in Silvermoon..

"Such cruel words. However.. I believe in second chances. I tink ya are.. salvageable."

She presses her fingers together and a shockwave of energy shoots outward, barely missing my head.

"Ya still cling to de lies of de Alliance, even after dey left yer people to rot. Dose who attacked de lands which formerly belonged to Zul'Aman are not de Horde as it exists today.."

"An orc is an orc! And a troll is a troll! Even a freak such as yourself!"

"Are dey now? Tell me, wat was de color of de orcs dat ya fought against before? Gray? Green? Blue? Brown? No. Dey were red. And not just plain red like mine. Seethin', burning red. Each and every one of dem. And as for de trolls.. did ya known dat Shadow Hunter Vol'jin's tribe was banished? Did ya know wat deir crime was?"

"I can hardly think of anything the trolls would be beneath of doing."

"We have done more dan our share of mistakes, ya. But to answer my own question.. dey refused to grovel before a heathen god like worms. Dey refused to practice de old ways yer people know so well. To dis day, all trolls of de Horde are forbidden from practicin' cannibalism."

"Why are you telling me all this propaganda? To brainwash me?"

"I have no such intentions. However, ya lack.. faith in yer fellow Horde."

"So you want me to worship you? Never! Let me go this instant!"

"Me? Of course not. Dis is no prison, and I am not yer jailor. Dere are no bars, no locked doors, no guards. Yer equipment is waitin', nottin' has been stolen."

"Not a prison? How am I supposed to get down?"

"Ah, but dere's de trick. I doubt dat ya'll believe me even if I told ya, so... I tink it's better to show ya."

She starts walking towards the platform.

"I checked that already."

"De platform itself is nottin' special. Dis is a leap of faith of sorts."

"You seriously expect me to jump?"

"Expect? No. But dat's wat ya will have to do."

She takes a step past the platform and falls. I hear her robe flutter in the air and I crawl to the platform and look down. She's gone. A trick. All of it. She's trying to fill my head with lies. To confuse me enough to kill myself. There must be a different way..

Too good to be true?

Taken from the preliminary 2.3 patch notes:
Mage

• Damage coefficient reduction is removed from Improved Fireball/Frostbolt. (Source)
  
• New spell : Ritual of Refreshment. It will allow players to pick up their own stack of food/water, similar to a Soulwell. (Source)
  
• Evocation restores 15% of your total mana every 2 seconds instead of being a spirit-based mana regen increase. (Source)
  
• Arcane Meditation is being increased to 10/20/30% mana regeneration. (Source)
  
• Ice Barrier gains additional benefit from spell damage bonuses. However, the base absorb values of ranks 5 and 6 have been reduced. (Source)

Engineering

• New Recipe - Field Repair Bot: Dropped(?) by Gan'arg Analyzers in Blade's Edge Mountains
• New Field Repair Bot is able to buy/sell
• Flying Mount added for Engineers. Regular and Epic version.

Fishing

• Fish Tracking may be learned from a journal, fished from crates
• New fish added near Karazhan and Zul'Aman

Cooking

• New Daily Quests
• New recipes added for fish found near Karazhan and Zul'Aman.

Mage and Engineering buffs in the same patch? Who are you and what have you done with Blizzard?

Meditations at the Edge

Wh.. where am I? I'm.. back at Eversong. I feel.. numb. That troll really did a number on me.. I have to find a physician. Maybe there's someone in the capital..

Where are all the guards? How would they dare desert their posts? Why are the gates open? And what's that smell? Oh no.. burning flesh! I try hurry inside, but my legs have lost their vigor, and I think I'm missing a tendon.

The capital.. A thick plume of smoke rises from somewhere near the Sunfury Spire, and there's blood on the cobblestones. Are we being invaded again? I crouch and reach towards the blood. I hope it's trollish. My hand is gray and withered. I need a physician.. and soon.

A scream interrupts me. I turn, and see a lady, wearing the colors of the house Sunfalcon.

"Miss, no need to be alarmed. I am a ranger, and will defend you as long as I'm able." At least, that's what I try to say. All I hear is gurgling. I sprint towards her. But why? There's no immediate danger.. She tries to run. I jump and grab her. She tries to struggle. Tasty.. What?! What am I thinking? My.. claws sink into her supple flesh. I cannot control myself. I wish to scream, but I know it won't help.

"Vile abdomination!", I hear from behind me. My head turns, and I see a Magister in golden robes, conjuring a spell.

"Kill me!", I yell. The fiery blast tears through my chest, and I feel cold. Cold?

The pain in my elbow draws me back to reality. My body aches and the wind bites into my flesh. I'm lying on a rocky surface with barely any clothes on me. I open my eyes, and the night sky fills my vision. Where am I?

I'm.. still in Thousand Needles. Or rather.. on one of them. There's "needles" as far as my eyes can see, and I have a hard time approximating my location. However, this one seems to have a wooden platform built into it. I don't see any ropes, elevators or other means of escape, though. There is a curious drawing on the rocks, apparently of tauren design. And.. a brown leather bag. I pick it up and open it. I slowly reach into the bag and my hand finds a bottle. Judging from the blue color, it seems to be a mana potion, so I drink it immediately. Judging from my thirst, it's been at least two days since my defeat in the cave. I absent-mindedly grab a loaf of bread from the bag and sit down for my meal. What happened after I passed out? Who brought me here? And why here, of all places?

RP, PvP and improvisation

Drama in four easy steps, Defias Brotherhood-style:

1. Hold an RP event


2. Interrupt the said event with an opposite faction raid


3. Accuse the defenders of being carebears


4. Accuse the attackers of being OOC

Add some forum trolling for flavor and leave it to fester for a while.

Apparently some people still think that RP and PvP are mutually exclusive concepts. If you PvP, you can't be RPing. And proper RP doesn't include PvP, especially the sort where you lose. I've seen the same arguments before on my first server, Argent Dawn Europe. Fortunately, there were some guilds who showed the third way. That RP can be adapted to PvP, and that PvP raids can be motivated by RP. A lesson that has been forgotten by too many. What better way is there to kick off some random RP than to having to organize an ad-hoc defense? But no, instead of even trying to actually react to the actions of other players, their actions are labelled as OOC only because they don't fit in your idea on how the event should have progressed.

If you want total control over your RP, I suggest that you stick to writing stories. But if you want to improvise and actually play with other players.. I'll see you in the game.

Paying 10k for.. nothing

In a move that surprised nobody but the buyer, Blizzard has banned the player who bought a Black Temple-geared, Twin Blades of Azzinoth-wearing rogue for $10,000.

Gold sellers changing tactics

Apparently Blizzard's mail filters are so effective that gold sellers have switched to using the Auction Houses. Of course, this should be easy to detect as well, just monitor the AH for wild anomalies in item prices.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't

Defias forums keep supplying me with drama, and today is not an exception. This time someone's quitting the game and blames Blizzard for banning a pedophile-friendly guild.

Granted, that's only a small part of his argument, and I even agree with him on some of the points, particularly on Blizzard's habit of making large parts of the world obsolete. However, like in many other quitting posts, the point is not about making valid, constructive criticism. Instead, he opts to disguise his opinion as the general consensus of the player base. Because he mentions all the alternative games and singles out a few people for praise, I think he's only testing the waters. I think his purpose is just to see how many people would follow him. In other words, a last-ditch attempt in attention-seeking.

Well, he's got mine. Flamewars are fun to watch.

Out of Your League

Being a Farstrider was not exactly as glamorous as Lieutenant Dawnrunner had claimed it to be. Yes, one of the first assignments was to reclaim our land from the vile Scourge, the barbaric Kal'dorei and the sadistic trolls. A noble and just cause, one that I had been privileged to be part of. And as a token of appreciation for Lordaeron's help, my superiors had ordered me to assist in the defense of Lordaeron. Seeing the camps, the hanged and the empty graves revealed all too well the truth about our former.. "allies". A fate of slavery, disgrace and death that the Prince was wise to reject. All in all, re-enlisting had seemed like a good choice. Until now.

Dust. Wind. Cliffs as far as my elven eyes can see. Man-horses and mongrels everywhere. The wisdom of my superiors eludes me. I try, but I cannot see how I can serve the High Home in this ravaged place. I should be waging war against the Kal'dorei in Ashenvale or recovering manuscripts written by ancient masters in Azshara. Not.. scurrying favor with the bull-men.

Airin growls. She has discovered an unusual smell. I slight nod from me, and my graceful lynx bursts into action, her fur-tipped ears perking up. I can feel her excitement, and it's almost intoxicating. Maybe it's one of the Kal'dorei or even a dwarf? Maybe they'll leave me alone if I bring back some proof of an enemy scouting party..

Airin blazes through a narrow passage, and stops to wait for me. There was a small clearing behind the spires. As I catch up, I see that the clearing has been stained red. Airin slowly manouvers past the two bodies, not even stopping to smell them. The bodies belonged to harpies, but I'm having a hard time figuring out what killed them. No lacerations, no crushed bones.. but it's as if there's something missing from them.

Airin growls again. She's found something. An empty bottle. Airin resumes tracking the scent while I examine the bottle. Clearly the type used by alchemists. A few drops of a greenish liquid are still within, but I cannot identify the substance by smell alone, and I am not going to taste it. Beyond the opening lies a sloping path upwards, towards a cave. There is an another bottle at the top of the slope, and yet another at the mouth of the cave. Cries of the harpies echo from the cave. Airin carefully steps into the cave, moving as silently as only the finest felines can. Three more dead harpies lie on the path. Whatever entered here had no problem dispatching them. Airin's ears perk up right before the cries of the harpies crescendo. They are fighting the intruder. I hear sharp claws tearing flesh. Airin continues on her steady pace. She is no stranger to the ways of the hunt. Wait until the prey has tired itself out, then strike. I ready my bow.

The cries stop. With my nod, Airin dashes around the corner, and moments later I hear her vicious growls, a thud and her claws tearing flesh. I run past the corner and aim. Airin has felled a some sort of a humanoid and ripping apart it's back. Torn cloth flies in the air. Airin grabs the humanoid's neck between her jaws and drags it away from the cave wall, allowing me to make the finishing blow. The blood has colored the prey's blueish flesh purple. I see two-toed, bare feet. A troll. My lucky day. But then I hear something I have not heard before.

Airin yelps in terror. It takes me a moment to realize why. She's been impaled by.. something. Her precious blood drips along the shaft of the troll's weapon. Then she yelps as she is impaled yet again. She goes limp, but the beast won't stop. It impales by beautiful Airin again. And again. And again.

"You'll pay for your crimes in blood, beast!", I find myself yelling in my native Thalassian. I release my arrow and immediately prepare an another.. but it was right there.. behind me!

I reflexively shield myself with my bow as I turn, but to no avail. It impales my elbow with something cold. I dive to my left and out of it's sight. I grab my Sin'dorei Warblade from my back, but my elbow is complicating things. I'm having trouble holding it high. I will not be able to do much damage, but this will have to do. I hear the beast's footsteps, and some sort of a grating sound.. like metal on stone. Of course. Not even a troll could have much strength left after that beating. It is handicapped as well. As it walks around the corner, I swing my sword low. Just as I'm about to cut it's feet off.. the blade strikes an invisible barrier, elicting a small hum. I look up towards the she-troll..

Ow! The bitch slashed my face! How dares she?! A low hum reaches my ears and I roll behind a rock, slamming my injured elbow to the cold stone. The patch of stone where I lay just moments before freezes instantly. Great. A troll witch. I look at my bloodied hand.. since when was my blood black? And it's awfully cold in here.. I need a breather to bandage my elbow and then.. the witch will taste justice. I look around, spot an another cave entrance and sprint towards it.

...

This cut really stings.. what did it hit me with? And how can such a small cut bleed so much? I need to get this quickly under control. With my good arm, I grab a roll of bandages from my pocket and roll it over my face. There. That should stop the bleeding. I take a look at my elbow and to my surprise, I see an icicle sticking through it. I grab the thick end and slowly pull it out. By Sun, this hurts.. After three very long seconds, the icicle dislodges from my elbow and shatters on the floor of the cave. I wrap the remaining bandages around my elbow. After this I will need to pay a visit to a priestess. Or if I'm fortunate, I'll encounter a Blood Knight in a good mood..

I listen to the scraping sound. The she-troll is moving closer, dragging her weapon along the floor. I sneak a peek around the corner. Her tattered robes are stained with her blood. One of the shoulder straps has been torn, and the other one is barely holding the robe together. Blood slowly flows from her neck, and her dreadlock-covered head is resting on her shoulder pad. Good old Airin. Even in her death throes she managed to inflict a mortal wound to her foe. The she-troll keeps her weapon behind her, but it seems like a some sort of a sword. A long one, judging from her posture. Her other arm hangs limply. But how is it still standing, let alone walking? I have seen trolls succumb to less grievous wounds.

She clumsily swings her sword up front, and then drags it back behind her along the floor.. Are my eyes deceiving me? The blade seemed to cut the air itself, revealing the darkness behind. What sorcery is this? The she-troll does it again, and now I see the blade clearly. It's as black as the darkest night, drawing my gaze in..

The she-troll stops. It slowly raises the blade and starts to cut the air.. Gah! She's cutting my face again! How? The cut on my face reopens and black blood seeps through the bandages. Is this the "voodoo" the Forsaken mentioned? How am I supposed to fight that? I turn back behind the wall and try to stand up, but my legs are powerless. Augh! She's doodling on my chest with her cursed blade! I need to get away.. I need to get away.. I crawl along the wall, trying to find an another entrance. I hear the scraping sound again. I turn around to my back.

The she-troll is deteriorating in front of my very eyes. Her robe is moth-ridden and her skin ashen gray. The blood has dried and is as black as mine. The sleeve on her limp arm is torn, revealing her gray bones underneath. One of her ears drops to the floor unceremoniously , but she does not bleed. She keeps swinging her sword in front of her, leaving a trail of black.. smoke in it's wake. The scraping sound is loud, loud enough to tear into my skull..

"I killed you! Stay back! Stay back!"

I blink, and she is standing right next to me. The pungent stench of death fills my nostrils. she raises her sword-arm across her maggot-ridden chest, starts the swing and..

The (moral) choices we make

WoW Insider has an interesting discussion about the appeal of the Horde.

To me, the Horde just seemed like the more interesting faction of the two. Not only pretty much everyone wants to kill them, they also struggle with themselves. Take Thrall and Grommash Hellscream, for example. Their stories present very interesting questions. Can you stay honorable when your enemies have no honor and your own people are all too ready to be ruled by their instincts? Can you turn a life of violence into something positive and not lose yourself in the process?

To me, whether someone thinks of themselves as moral is a moot point if they have never been tempted. You can truly be moral only after you've successfully resisted the worst in you. The Alliance are in general raised to believe that they are moral, honorable and just. But in their day-to-day lives, those morals are never put to the test. And when they are, the results can be disastrous. Can one forgive dragons who were unable to save your son? Can one stick to your promise to pay the craftsmen who built a city for you, even if you couldn't really afford it? Can one recognize a common threat instead of clinging to old hatreds? Can you admit that your way might not be the best way to deal with an overwhelming threat, and that your end may not justify all your methods?

Sylvanas Windrunner is also one of the more interesting characters in WoW. Can you cope with a situation where unspeakable evil was done to you? Can you overcome your bitterness, self-hatred and not lash out at everything? Can you still appreciate the beautiful things in life, even if those things never will be yours to enjoy ever again? I like to think that Blizzard is exploring these same things. For example, one of the lowbie Blood Elf quests ends up with the player delivering a memento from the past to Sylvanas. Although she claims she doesn't care about things like that anymore, she still feels for the Highborne.

I've tried to explore the same aspects with my characters as well. My first character was a Forsaken priest who tried to cling to his humanity through all the hatred and evil he witnessed. Shalkis, on the other hand, is trying to balance her desire to do good with her violent nature. She may be megalomaniacal, scheming, bipolar, violent and sadistic. But evil? No. If the common good requires slaughtering a city full of her own kind worshipping a long-lost god, she'll be knee-deep in the dead. If someone needs some children rescued from the Arakkoa, she'll be happy to help. If the common good requires her to set aside her prejudices and smash Scourge together with humans, dwarves, gnomes and night elves, she will. If the best chance for peace includes joining forces with glowing thingamajics, a human mage, snobby elves and buffoonish squidfaces, she will do it with a smile on her face.

RMT driving away core players

Nerfbat argues that RMT drives away players that an MMORPG requires to survive. In other words, core players, the early adopters, the enthusiasts.

Nerfbat compares RMT to monthly subscriptions. If a company uses subscriptions it's overcharging the casual players and undercharging the hardcore. RMT on the other hand is closer to microtransactions. You pay for what you use. If RMT is prevalent in a game, the casuals will most likely get more bang for the buck while hardcore players end up paying much more to stay on the bleeding edge. If the L33t Sword of Uberness drops only from The Nigh-Impossible Boss of Doom, they'll kill it. If it can be bought for 50€, they'll buy it. To them, it's all about getting everything out of the game. If RMT is banned, the hardcore will get a lot of value for their subscription. This is one part that keeps them playing: great value for their money.

But why would a company cowtow to the hardcore? Surely the casual player market is larger.. It is, but the hardcore are the early adopters, the grassroots recruiters, the review-writers and the fansite creators. They have extensive knowledge of the game, and the casuals do listen to them. They are the initiators of the network effect that attracts the casuals into the game. Without them, there is no casual market. Their opinion can literally decide a game's fate.

Block inter-account gold transfers?

Tobold has come up with an idea to distrupt gold farmers, and it's surprisingly simple: Block gold transfers between accounts by mail.

Roleplaying subconciously

According to the Daedalus Project, the avatars used affect our behaviour within the game. For example, players using beautiful avatars were more likely to initiate contact and players using tall avatars were more confident and aggressive in negotiations.

In other words, people roleplay subconciously.

Shake that booty!

The best parties are always at private servers.

The Karazhan Mistake?

Foton has taken a look on Blizzard's comments and argues that Karazhan is popular because the shift to 25-mans is too hard.

I've touched upon the subject myself and there's a discussion about raiding on my realm's forums. Although the approaches are different, the identified problem is the same: It's too hard to move on from Karazhan. WoW Jutsu's statistics confirm this. 66% have cleared Karazhan, but the popularity of the instances drops very rapidly after that. It's not that Karazhan is popular, it's the only choice for too many.

Ni Hao

There's a new WoW music video maker in town, and the first track is out. No wonder that Nyhm likes it enough to make a guest appearance.

Anyone who stops people grinding through constant killing is corpse camping!

This comment and other gems are available at the latest trainwreck in action, courtesy of the Defias Brotherhood forums.

This story is as old as the PvP servers themselves, but it deserves retelling. A boy meets a girl. The boy and the girl go and blackmail people. They gank someone. The gankee refuses to pay up, fight back or leave. They gank him again. The gankee posts on the forums. The feeding frenzy begins

Ghost towns?

Kill Ten Rats is wondering about ghost towns in WoW and Asheron's Call. To me, there are two factors that decide whether a city becomes a ghost town or not. And geography is not one of them.

Geography only matters when your only means of transportation are your legs or your mount. WoW has many other forms of transport. You can fly, ride a zeppelin or a boat or teleport. The reason why Silvermoon, Darnassus and Exodar are empty is that they're dead-ends. The contrast becomes obvious when you look at Orgrimmar or Ironforge. Orgrimmar has numerous flight paths to almost every Horde outpost in Kalimdor, and has two zeppelin routes to Eastern Kingdoms. Ratchet is just a short flight away, and provides yet another path to Eastern Kingdoms. Conversely, Ironforge is only a short flight away from Menethil and has ample access to most Alliance outposts in Eastern Kingdoms. In other words, Orgrimmar and Ironforge are travel hubs, while Silvermoon, Darnassus and Exodar are not. The contrast becomes even more obvious when you compare these cities to the current de-facto capital, Shattrath. Not only does this cross-faction city provide flight path access to all Outland zones (the only zones that matter to the majority of players), it also provides portals to every other capital. It is a travel hub on steroids. Even if you didn't have anything to do in Shattrath itself, you most likely travel through it.

So, if you wouldn't want to go to ghost towns to travel past them, why would you go there? Auction houses? Every capital except Shattrath has one. Class trainers? Nope. Stormwind has a shaman trainer and Undercity has a paladin trainer. Profession trainers? At pre-60, that is the only valid reason for a jewelcrafter to go to Silvermoon or Exodar, but that doesn't help Darnassus. After level 60 you can do your business in Thrallmar, Honor Hold and/or Shattrath. That leaves other players. But nobody goes to Silvermoon, Darnassus or Exodar because.. nobody goes there.

Unless the designers can provide a compelling reason to go there, the three cities will remain ghost towns. One such compelling reason would be new boat paths. The two boat paths to Theramore and Menethil at Auberdine should be moved to Teldrassil or Azuremyst, and there are two unused harbors at the outskirts of Silvermoon. If these harbors would be the only link to Northrend, the population of these ghost towns would change overnight. Flight paths should also be enabled, although this would require "de-instancing" the Draenei and Blood Elf zones.

Flying in Northrend

To be frank, I was somewhat disappointed when Blizzard said that flying mounts would not be usable in Northrend until level 78. In my opinion, flying in Northrend at low levels should be hazardous, not impossible.
Blizzard's primary motive in disabling flying mounts is to prevent players from skipping content. One should not be able to just take off at the starting zones and fly straight off to Icecrown Glacier. But banning flying mounts altogether is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Just like having T6/T7/Arena gear will give you an advantage while leveling, so should a flying mount give you some benefit, especially the epic ones.

Fortunately, there are ways to limit the advantage gained from flying mounts without banning them altogether. Here's a few suggestions:

• Liberal amounts of air defense, especially around points of interest. Just like in Warcraft 3, flying over a fortified Scourge base alone should be fatal. Some sort of homing attacks that could only be avoided by flying behind obstacles would be ideal. Such as.. ziggurats' energy blasts. The bases should also have gargoyle patrols. This would encourage the players to land some distance away from the base and fight their way in.
• Winds. The usual counter to air defense is to fly beyond it's reach. Winds are a way to prevent players from skipping content by flying over everything. If you rise above the air defense, your mount should slow down and get a fatigue meter for struggling against the freezing winds. Eventually, your mount would lose conciousness and fall. Of course, a skilled player should be able to wake up their mount and regain control before crashing into the ground. Afterwards, your mount would be too weak to fly unless you let it rest for x minutes. For added realism, the strength of the winds should be related to your distance to Icecrown Glacier. The closer you get, the stronger the winds become. And when you finally reach level 78, you can acquire your 375 riding skill and ride the winds unencumbered.
• Air superiority zones. In some zones the airspace should be swarmed with hostile airborne units. For example, the Dragonblight could initially be heavily patrolled by blue dragons. Those developers who designed the Netherwing Ledge races, you know what to do. You would be better off just moving along the ground to avoid attention. Later on you would so some quests for Dalaran to cull the numbers of dragons and gain temporary air superiority. Or smack some sense into Malygos to turn blue dragons neutral.
  

Learn From the Masters

Bask your eyes in the ultimate in raid specs.

WoW is the new Everquest?

Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. What makes this funny (in a sad way) is that Tigole and Furor were active (and vocal) Everquest players..

More character customization, please

Nerfbat hates current MMORPG character customization, and I can't blame him. Either the artists cop out and force the players to screw up their characters' propotions or they offer a very limited set of options from which to choose from. You then spend 90% of your time looking at the characters from a faraway viewpoint where you can't even see their faces, even when they're not helmets or or other armor. And when they do, it feels like you're surrounded by clones. Everyone wears the same gear and thus look the same.

However, there are games that do customization right. Wrestling and boxing games are a good example, and GTA: San Andreas isn't bad, either. These games do allow you to customize everything from body shape and facial features to clothing. They have presets but allow the player to fine-tune their avatars up to the most minute detail. But this model also has caveats that MMORPGs can't ignore. In most fighting games, your character's clothing has no effect on his statistics (except in Def Jam series) and all action is up-close and personal, leaving ample opportunities to marvel at your avatar.

MMORPGs are a bit tougher, because your gear is a direct gauge of your character's strength. Even if a particular item looks like crap, you have to wear it for the stats. And most of the time, there are only a few or no choices if you want the best gear. A tauren warrior in full tier 5 gear will always look like every other warrior in tier 5. In WoW, this problem is made worse due to the fact that only a few of your items change the way your character looks, especially with casters. A robe covers your pants and boots, and gloves cover your bracers. Your ranged weapon and your offhand are hidden when you're not using those. That leaves your main weapon, robe, gloves, belt, shoulderpads and your hat. And if you wear a tabard, that hides your chestpiece.

Having the tier 0-2 sets available as different recolored versions is a good start. So is having both robe and vest versions of cloth gear. But a better solution would be to increase the ways to customize your character. Animations should be changed to display pants and boots under robes. All enchants should be visible, and so should ranged weapons, gems and trinkets. But WoW could also steal one idea from the venerable Ultima Online: being able to wear clothes over your armor.

One other improvement would be decals. Decals are partially transparent detail textures on top of the existing textures. Other games use decals for tattoos, facial hair, logos, scars, fractures, bullet holes, scorch marks and other additions. With these, even a fully armored character could be made to look distinct from others.

An Inevitable Outcome

"..and make sure that you pick up the next shipment of bandages from Nutral. Oh, and don't forget the letter to Baron Revilgaz about our purchase order. Those jumper cables will be direly needed if the Betrayer makes a move."

"I'm on it. Is that all, Sha'nir?"

"For the moment, yes. Also.."

Sha'nir did not finish her sentence. She heard a scraping sound from outside. Like metal on stone. She glanced over the shoulder of the human volunteer and at the tall figure standing in the doorway of the Shattrath Infirmary.

"Can I help you?"

The figure took a step forward. As Sha'nir's eyes adjusted to the light, she could see the figure better. It was a slim one, obviously a female. It was wearing a blue robe, tattered with blood. The right arm was hanging limply and the left arm was lazily holding a long sword. The tip of the blade was being dragged along the floor. The arms ended in large, ornate shoulder guards. The head was resting on an unnatural angle on the left shoulder guard, with dirty dreadlocks covering the face. An undead?

Before the figure could answer, it collapsed on the floor.

"Quick! Get my kit and prepare the table!"

---

Sha'nir's report on unnamed female troll admitted into the infirmary at the eighteenth hour of the sixteenth day of the month.

Third and fourth ribs broken on the right side. Right shoulder dislodged from it's socket. Right elbow shattered and flesh peeled off. Deep lacerations on abdomen, possibly caused by a large feline or other wildlife. Superficial horizontal cuts on both sides of the face, neck and torso. Small amounts of salt found in several wounds. A horizontal burn mark on the left side of the face and a small, deep burn mark in the middle of the chest. Several tendons on the neck severed. Both ears cut off by a large blade. Severe blood loss. Numerous vertical cuts on the back. The formation of scar tissue suggests that these wounds were inflicted much earlier than others.

Treatment: Subject stabilized. Elbow reinforced and immobilized with temporary metal bars and shoulder re-attached. Wounds cleaned and bandaged. Head supported and tendons stitched together. Prescribed Strong Troll's Blood intravenously. Subject is still unconscious, but is responding to treatment.

At the time of admission, the subject was wearing an enchanted blue robe with gray trims. Andrion Darkspinner indentified the material as Frozen Shadoweave cloth, but declined to identify the subject. The subject was also holding a long, deep purple, ornate sword. Superficial examination revealed that the sword is enchanted, but offered no hints on the subject's identity.

Gold selling ads on Nihilum's site

After months of denials, Nihilum has finally introduced blatant goldselling ads on their site.

The Grand Crusade

Aah.. there they are.

Shalkis adjusted the zoom on her goggles to get a better view. With a quiet whirring sound, the ragged band of humans came into view. Their numbers had halved since they had fled from their ill-fated assault on Brill. Among the withered plants lie at least a dozen of the survivors. A few of the figures were standing and judging by their gestures, having a heated conversation.

Shalkis adjusted the zoom again. Unsurprisingly one of the figures was Seiken Trollbane, but she did not recognize the others, but there was one of the humans' holy men among them. Apparently Trollbane now had official approval for his.. crusade. Of course, by now it was obvious that the crusade had turned out less glorious than they thought. She had heard that the bulk of the forces were now maggot food at Arathi. Additional reports spoke dismissedly of the combat prowess of these forces. Just a few soldiers, but many apprentrices, younglings, old people, feeble human females and other rabble. These were the hard core, the zealots. And even among them, the morale was obviously crumbling.

Shalkis heard a growl behind her. Before she could turn, the growl was followed by the dull humming of her barrier. One of the mangy beasts inhabiting the area had made the grave mistake of picking her as it's next meal. Without looking behind her, she extended her arm and grabbed the wolf's muzzle with her hand. Her soft whisper was followed by a muffled yelp, and the beast struggled for a second to free itself from her grip. The struggling stopped. She released her grip and pulled her arm back. With her other hand, she broke away the bloodied icicle extending from her palm.

With the distraction out of the way, she was free to monitor the humans once again. The wounded were being helped back to their feet. The conversation had stopped, and the Trollbane was standing in front of the others, barking out commands. Whatever disagreements they did have were now resolved. Those who still had horses mounted them.

They started to move at a walking pace south, towards Brill. Surely they were not foolish enough to attempt an another assault against the heavily guarded town? She followed them, making sure to keep at least a hill or a tree between herself and the humans. When they reached the outskirts of Brill they broke formation and started running, past Brill and towards Undercity. But a few of them could not run anymore.

This is insane, even for him.

That move made no sense whatsoever, but one should not doubt such obvious blessings. If Trollbane really wanted to die, all he had to to was to ask. But to bring so many down with him.. She took off her goggles and strapped a wooden mask to her face. The pale glow from her hands illuminated the grim features of her mask.

Shadra, bless these fools.

A frozen missile erupted from her hands and pierced the lung of an elf. The next one found his heart.

For they have listened to the lies of the infidels.

An another bolt struck the leg of a dwarf, shattering it and sending him tumbling down a hill.

And know nothing of your grace.

An icicle impaled the dwarf, halting his fall and his life.

Let them fall into your web, and not to the darkness.

A female Draenei's head was engulfed in ice, causing her to fall backwards and shatter her head on the gray cobblestones.

Let them not be judged by the sins of others in the afterlife.

A gnome was completely encased in ice. Shalkis saw him futilely gasp for air.

And may their next life be a trollish one.

The frigid winds shattered his prison, along with him.

A single voice yelled from inside the city. She still couldn't understand Gutterspeak, but she knew the meaning of this particular phrase.

Once soldiers of Lordaeron..

The yell was answered by a chorus of voices behind her.

Always soldiers of Lordaeron.

What followed was inevitable. In a few minutes, there was nobody left to bless.

Mage vs Warlock itemization

I've been watching the "debate" about Evocation with some amusement. Like most mage issues, this is about feeling inferior to warlocks. And in a way, is more of an itemization issue than a specific skill issue, not unlike the one protection paladins face versus protection warriors.

Simply put, a PvE mage needs more types of stats than a warlock.

Mage:
+Spell Damage
+Spell Hit Rating
+Spell Critical Rating
+Mana per 5 seconds
+Intellect
+Stamina
+Spirit

Warlock:
+Spell Damage
+Spell Hit Rating
+Stamina
+Intellect
+Mana per 5 seconds

Each item has a set amount of "item points" at their disposal, depending on item level and rarity. These points are used to "purchase" stats. Different stats also require different amounts of points. For example, Stamina is cheaper than Intellect and Spell Damage is cheaper than Spell Critical Rating.

If we assume that mage and warlock items have the same amount of item points at their disposal, warlock items will always have superior stats, since the item points are spread between fewer and cheaper stats.

If you are a smart mage who wishes to optimize your damage, it is very tempting to skip mage gear and use warlock gear exclusively, even if you won't benefit from all that stamina as much as a warlock could. Many have done exactly that, and I'm one of them. I'm offsetting the negative sides of this choice with a liberal use of consumables.

In a sense, the mage itemization is also a vicious circle. If you are running out of mana even after all of the tricks mentioned in the original thread and here, you might feel tempted to stack up on spirit, but that gimps your damage. Since you do less damage to the raid boss it won't die as quickly and thus the fight gets longer. Which of course requires more spirit gear for you _and_ the healers.

Corpse graffiti spam - a way around spam reporting

Apparently the gold spammers are now using hacks to transport a bunch of gnomes to Ironforge and having their bodies spell out the URL of the goldselling site.

While many commentators find this hilarious, there is a very strong reason why the goldsellers are doing this. With the current reporting feature, the spammers are up against every single player that doesn't like spam. With the corpse graffiti, only a GM can stop the spam. It's much easier to overwhelm a bunch of GMs with spam than to overwhelm all WoW players.

Azeroth Movie Top 3

Beware the wrath of Murkzilla.

If it walks like a duck..

Apparently Wandering Goblin isn't convinced that Affinity Media is out of the goldselling business.

Beyond the Dark Portal Novel

Apparently the novel version of Tides of Darkness was fairly good, since there's a sequel in the works. The new novel will follow the plot of the Warcraft 2 expansion, including Grom Hellscream's antics at Azeroth and the shattering of Draenor. Too bad Tides of Darkness isn't available as an ebook (hint hint)..

Poor downtrodden gold farmers

Anda's Game, a goldfarming sob story by Cory Doctorow.

Won't somebody think of the poor girls in the sweatshops?

(Via MapWoW)

WoWDigger, an alternative to Affinity Media sites

Well, that didn't take long. Just mere days after Affinity Media almost got a monopoly on WoW database sites, IncGamers (owners of WorldofWar.net) launched their own database site. Unsurprisingly, their announcement emphasizes IncGamers' anti-RMT stance. A good move.

WoWHead sold to IGE?

There goes the neighbourhood..

Update: The official announcement is out. John Maffei, the (former?) Senior Vice President of IGE says that Affinity Media has nothing to do with IGE anymore. I'm trying to verify that claim now.

Serpentshrine and the Eye attunements removed!

Lo and behold, someone at Blizzard is listening.

Tigole:
After a lot of thought and deliberation, we’ve decided to remove the attunement requirements to enter Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep: The Eye. While many of our attunements in the Burning Crusade have been good progression checks, a few of the attunements have turned out to cause unnecessary stress on guilds either doing the content or attempting to do the content.

Gold farming in raids? Unlikely.

New York Times has a new article about gold farmers. Most of it is the usual whining about poor downtrodden farmers working in sweatshop conditions and being harassed by racist westeners. However, the article gets more interesting near the end. The writer laments how mean old Blizzard has shut out the farmers from a large part of the game: raiding. And then offers a solution: Goldfarming guilds. 24 skilled goldfarmers who take you (for a price, of course) to the raid instance of your choosing, kill the boss for you and let you loot the item you wanted.

This caught my attention since several guilds do this already, although not for real-world money. Pre-TBC it was not uncommon to see a high-end raiding guild advertise runs to Molten Core, Blackwing Lair or even Temple of Ahn'Qiraj. You paid them a certain amount of in-game gold and they would let you tag along and grab any epics that their own members did not need.

However, I think this article has more hot air than glimpse of future gold farmer tactics. Why? Gold farming raid groups are a very risky business. TBC had already diminished these "charity" runs since the importance of a single raider increased when Blizzard shrunk raids to 25 people. The goldfarmers would have to be overgeared for the instance to complete it while being handicapped by the presence of their customer(s). Getting that gear requires a whole lot of effort and thus carries a significant risk. Playing and gearing up 24 hunter bots takes a whole lot less time than playing and gearing up a 24-man balanced raid group in full epic gear. And all that effort can go to waste if Blizzard bans your goldfarming guild. Getting your main raid group banned would be a devastating blow to many gold farmers.

There are also limiting factors. The raid timers prevent you from killing a specific boss several times in a week, so only one of your many potential customers would even have a chance to get that piece of loot each week. If the piece doesn't even drop you have an unhappy customer on your hands. Unhappy customers don't like to pay you money. Raid IDs prevent the customer from joining other raids, so you can't sidestep the problem with multiple groups, either.

Diablo the Movie

Apparently Legendary Pictures did negotiate rights for more than one Blizzard franchise..

The Trollish Art of Diplomacy

Shalkis had spotted a contingent of Red Blade works exiting the jungle outpost of Grom'Gol. Windclaw tilted his head quizzically. The raptor was as intrigued as his mistress. With a tug of the harness, Windclaw darted into the jungle. It was not time to reveal herself yet.

Shalkis directed Windclaw on a small hill overlooking the road to the Arena. She sent the raptor away and sat next to the tree. She adjusted her goggles to get a better view of the road without compromising her position. And waited.

Eventually the orcs came into view. Young orcs. Old orcs. Strong orcs. Weak orcs. Even Taerak. Leading the group was a female orc with a wolf at her side. She must be the Matron. Akesha. As Shalkis had guessed, they were heading towards the Arena. And there was only one group that called it home. The Second Gurubashi Empire.

The Empire and the Red Blade? Odd. Ever since Tziak had taken over, the xenophobia had run rampant within the empire. Why would they even allow the orcs inside their Arena? It had to be a trap. And although the orcs would probably consider it dishonorable to even think to avoid a head-on confrontration, they would always appreciate some tactical advice. Shalkis dug deep into one of her pockets and retrieved a small whistle. If the Empire was indeed there, one extra raptor call would not be considered odd.

In less than a minute, the familiar figure of Windclaw appeared from the bushes, his fangs gleaming with fresh blood. He had eaten his fill, and would not mind waiting outside the Arena. She mounted the blue raptor and rode to the road and towards the Arena.

The orcs had taken up positions at the southern end of the Arena, and the Empire was at the north side. The ramp was filled by Blood Elves. Their presence was not surprising. A few months ago the Empire had sent a crate of elven heads to Silvermoon. Now they sought to return the favor. But since they were still not completely accepted into the Horde, they could not act rashly. There would be no point in charging the trolls, only to have the orcs charge them. They had to wait for the orcs' approval.

Rlaris, one of the Blooddrinkers was acting as an announcer. The standards had indeed been dragged through the mud if they allowed him into the esteemed ranks of the Blooddrinkers.. Once they were trolls of the highest honor, champions in the fight against the Hakkari, upholders of the law. Now they were simple thugs..

Shalkis heard the words and could not believe her ears. A negotiation for peace? Preposterous. There had to be a trick. Something that gave the Emperor leverage to force the orcs to submit. The Blood Elves around her were as sceptical as she was.

The two forces circled around the arena edge towards the ramps. As the orcs passed her, Shalkis spoke.

"A word of advice about trollish politics. Always prepare for a fight."

The warning had been given.

The orcs settled on the southern end of the Arena floor, and the trolls on the northern end. Akesha and Tziak approached each other, flanked by bodyguards. They were ready to start. But one of the orcish bodyguards eyed the crimson sand with suspicious eyes, aimed his flare gun and fired. The flare landed on the western part of the arena, right next to the ramps. And right next to the brightly burning flare was a very surprised assassin. An orc, but her tabard was one of the Sixty Thieves, an organization that recognized no wows or racial unity, only the will of the highest bidder. The female looked around sheepishly and leaned on the arena wall. Maybe this was Tziak's plan? To get an orc to assassinate Akesha to spark a civil war among the orcs? No.. there had to be more to this.. What about that Forsaken at his side? He was in plain sight and clearly in the favor of the trolls. If he acted it would be too obvious. There had to be more.

The trolls were shouting insults, mocking the blood elves and claiming that they had ridiculed the orcs' ancestors. No doubt it was true, but.. the orcs remained relatively calm. A few stinging rebukes were uttered. This can't be Tziak's grand plan, either. A shouting match?

Shalkis adjusted her goggles to get a better view, but the two negotiatiors had started to walk back towards the ramps. Was it over already?

At first the trolls did not notice him and walked right past her. Akesha, the matron addressed the blood elves. Tziak did the same, although he spoke no words himself, but instructed Rlaris to speak for him in Orcish. The Blood Elves were asked to leave. They of course resisted and wanted their revenge. But for a change, the cooler heads prevailed and the Blood Elves moved back to the entrance of the Arena. With the issue of hecklers somewhat resolved, the negotiations continued.

Oh yes.

Shalkis adjusted her goggles to get a better view. She could not hear Tziak's words from this distance, but the reactions of the orcs were more than enough. Their anger grew, word by word. Distrust turned into dislike, apprehension turned into disgust. Slow, calculated gestures turned into sharp, rash movements. What could he be saying to them to anger them so? And yet, he seemed oblivious to the effects. His face was hidden by his mask, but his gestures were as disinterested as always. Then.. Akesha's surprisingly strong voice echoed in the Arena.

"You all heard, Tziak admits he plotted to kill me."

That.. was Tziak's grand plan? To admit his treachery to people who value honor more than their lives? Before Shalkis could fully grasp the meaning of Akesha's words the warcries of the orcs.. and the elves filled the air, along with blood, fire and death of various colors and forms. The trollish bodyguards were cut down in seconds and the masked face of Tziak vanished in the veritable sea of angry orcs. Scores of elves were already jumping into the arena, raining down death and destruction upon the shocked trolls. In less than a minute, there were only orcs and elves standing on the Arena.

"What a mess", a male voice spoke in trollish. Shalkis was sure that she had heard him before.. but when she turned she did not recognize him.

"Ah yes. Tziak still has the touch. I have to admit that this was quite impressive. Not only has he allowed the Alliance to roam the vale, he also brought the wrath of thee orcs and the elves upon the trolls.", she replied.

That comment sparked an angry glare from the unknown troll male. But before he could act, he spotted the orcs walking up the ramp and wisely stepped aside.

---

The orcs were celebrating, brawling and drinking at Orgrimmar, under one of the few palm trees still left in the city. A veiled figure, dressed in blue from head to approached them.

"Matron Akesha of de Red Blades, a few words if ya will..."

The luck-based reputation grind

Shalkis on a Netherdrake,
originally uploaded by Shalkis.

After a few weeks of grinding, I got my Netherdrake. It's time for a few words on this new type of a reputation grind.

I had gotten my epic wyvern about a week after I dinged 70, so I had already cleared the largest hurdle in the Netherwing questline. I had also defeated Zuluhed the Whacked in some of WoW's most memorable and epic fights on top of the Dragonmaw Fortress. With the two prequisites out of the way, I started my reputation grind on the day after the 2.1 patch went live.

The daily quests were a good idea. You only require an hour (more if you're playing on prime time) to finish the quests. And since you got new daily quests on each reputation level in addition to the previous quests, your daily experience gain ramped up every time you moved up a notch on the reputation-o-meter. In addition, the daily quests solved many problems relating to reputation farming. Since there are several quests, you can always go elsewhere if one particular spot is crowded. And even if it's crowded, you can tolerate fellow players since they'll be there only for a short while and then be gone for the rest of the day.

At friendly you become the proud owner of the infamous booterang and get to re-experience the joy of smacking people in the Valley of Trials. Only this time you can do fly-bys. Quite hilarious.

At honored you can start racing against the Dragonmaw. The first few opponents are quite easy, but once you reach Ichman and Mulverick, the races become quite interesting. I couldn't help thinking that the races are a test on how aerial PvP could work. Basically, the racers fly on a set path and try to dismount you by throwing turnips, lightning bolts or even meteors at you. While the NPCs are easily bested by memorizing their paths and staying out of their range, fighting against fellow players could be quite interesting..

So.. Neutral to Revered. So far so good. Thanks to the ramping-up daily quests, there's now 9 quests you can do each day. Nice varied quests at different areas, which only take about two hours in total to complete. Quite casual. Except... There's the tenth quest, which is not a daily quest. It's a normal repeatable quest for the Netherwing Egg, a Bind-on-Pickup drop from any resource node or mob at the Netherwing Ledge. Since the daily quests are enough to gain a reputation level until Revered, you don't pay much heed to the eggs until that.

Why is a normal repeatable quest a bad idea? Because it undermines the attempt by Blizzard to make the reputation grinds more tolerable by limiting the amount of reputation you can gain per day. The Netherwing Eggs are an incentive to farm the Netherwing Mines over and over, even after you have completed all your daily quests there. Since the eggs are rare and have a very significant effect on your reputation gain, there's also quite a lot of competition. You can't loot eggs in combat, so be prepared to have people train mobs to you and steal the egg while you're trying to fend them off. If you live in the mines, you can shave off days or even weeks from the time it takes to complete the grind. Or not. You might not find any eggs at all, while others find dozens of them and complete the same grind much faster with the same or even less effort. Why try to control the amount of reputation gained per day if you aren't willing to go all the way?

IGE sued.. poorly

While suing a gold seller is all well and good, one should take a look at your legal arguments before filing the lawsuit. Handing a favorable precedent to the gold sellers is counterproductive at best.

Raiding is from Satan..

.. and other insights are now available, courtesy of WoW Insider. A prime example of hilarious WoW Drama.

Blizzard vs Peons4hire

Blizzard is going on the offensive against gold sellers. They have sued Peons4hire. Interestingly enough, Blizzard is not suing them for gold selling or Terms of Service violations per se. This lawsuit is about spamming. Since there are successful precedents of email spam victims and ISPs suing spammers, this lawsuit might even succeed.

World Of Warcraft: Dancing

A video showing where the various WoW /dance emotes originated from. It's missing a few races, though. For example, trolls, Forsaken, gnomes, female orcs, female tauren and female humans. I hope a part 2 is in the making. :)

TBC raiding: linear and non-progressive?

Tobold recently post his impressions on patch 2.1. The general consensus seems to be that raiding currently requires a full-time commitment and it is killing WoW. While WoW is quite unlikely to collapse outright, because the effects of MMORPG interia will reduce the collapse to a slow bleed. Would you abandon a character and the community that you spent the last two years overnight? I don't think so, because there is no alternatives available that are significantly better.

While I agree that WoW endgame has several outstanding issues, I don't think that the problem is as bad as the doomsayers make it sound. Patch 2.1 did have a lot of changes that should make somewhat easier. They do not address the major flaws, though.

What are the major flaws then? In my opinion, strictly linear progression and non-progressive content.

One thing that TBC has done really well is the 5-man instances. There's lots of them and they stay a viable option at level 70 thanks to the Heroic system. They are and remain challenging to even raiders, but are not too difficult. Since every individual heroic instance has a 1-day reset timer, people are encouraged to try out different isntances to stop them from getting bored. However, this freedom of choice vanishes the moment you start raiding.

Although the attunement chart suggests that Karazhan, Gruul's Lair and Magtheridon are your starter raid instances, the only real choice is Karazhan. Gruul and Magtheridon will wipe the floor with your raid unless you are epicced out from Karazhan, PvP or Heroics. Gruul is generally considered to be the easier of the two, so once you are farming him and Nightbane, you can enter Serpentshrine Cavern. Once Magtheridon goes down you can enter the Eye in Tempest Keep. Once both Lady Vashj and Kael'thas Sunstrider die, you can enter Mount Hyjal. Once you have killed the first boss there (and A'lar, the phoenix god boss in the Eye), you can enter the Black Temple.

Do you see the prevalence of preconditions there? Let's compare it with Vanilla WoW.

Zul'Gurub, Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj and the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj are instantly accessible. Molten Core, Blackwing Lair and Naxxramas require a single attunement quest each, are not linked and at most require a single instance run. Onyxia has a lengthy attunement quest, but is required only after you have progressed deeper into Blackwing Lair. While the relative difficulty of the instances does set a recommended sequence, you can switch instances if you choose to do so.

TBC raiding is strictly linear, with the trouble spot at Gruul and Magtheridon. These are very difficult encounters at first, and you cannot proceed any further until you defeat them, leaving Karazhan as the only place you can go.

The status of Gruul and Magtheridon as gatekeepers is enforced by the nature of their instances. These are very short instances in the style of Onyxia. A handful of trash mobs, followed by a boss. The trash mobs do not drop any interesting loot, nor do you gain any crafting materials or reputation in the process. If you keep wiping, there's nothing to show for your efforts, just a hefty repair and consumable bill. This discourages guilds from even attempting these encounters.

In small-group/solo PvE content, PvP and vanilla WoW raiding, the idea of progressive content worked. Any effort was rewarded by something, be it random epics from trash mobs, reputation or crafting materials. Even if you wiped horribly on some boss in Molten Core, you did gain something which made the next raid slightly easier. This is not the case with Gruul and Magtheridon. Each time is as hard as the previous one.

Gatekeeper encounters are fine when they are buried in the middle of normal raid instances, since you can clear everything up to the gatekeeper encounter. However, Gruul and Magtheridon are Onyxia-like encounters, not full instances. The progressive content model breaks down, which discourages guilds from trying these encounters. So, they return to Karazhan. So if you were looking forward for endgame raiding consisting of 6 instances instead of one, it's no wonder people became frustrated. As well-designed as Karazhan is, I can see myself become bored of it eventually. The upgraded loot will keep people interested for a while, but will it be enough?

The introduction of Zul'Gurub back in the day was a very welcome addition to raiders who were burned out by Molten Core (pardon the pun). I hope Zul'Aman has the same effect for TBC.

You gotta know who's the boss..

A gnome explains the fundamentals of a relationship to all those silly females.

Even the mighty can fall

The Dark has claimed an another casualty. A long time ago, Sargeras, the champion of the Pantheon, despaired in the face of his great task. And just like him, Tseric has now succumbed as well. He too fought forces that desired only chaos and strife. And just like Sargeras, his eventual downfall was foretold by the numerous cracks and fissures on his metallic skin. Once the fiends got under his skin, the breaking point soon followed.

Quag Done Quick

One of the great things about the Internet is that there's billions of people that come up with stuff that you've never thought about. However, this is not one of them. Soloing bosses by making them run back and forth is an old trick, but this time.. there's epic loot involved. While Blizzard should have prevented things like these from happening long ago, it's still a neat video.

Blood, Fire, Death

"The Weaver has certainly blessed me today.", Shalkis thought. No bodyguards.. no sycophants.. not even servants. The prey is completely exposed. He slowly walked around the edge of the arena, oblivious of the two red eyes starting at him through the thin slits of Shalkis' wooden mask. She carefully walked around the outer edge of the stony steps of the auditorium. Too much was at stake to be caught now.. She followed him around until he sat on the edge of the Arena. She was now convinced that he was alone and approached.

"Hello."
Tziak turned slowly and gazed towards Shalkis.
"Greetings."
"I didn't expect to see you here, but.. Could you step into the Arena?"
"Hmm...A familiar voice...Shalkis?"
Shalkis drew her sword and held it lazily, with the tip pointing towards the ground.
"Pretty please?"
"Planning on making a sacrifice? Not wishing to converse? How unlike you, Shalkis..."
Tziak stood slowly.
"Of course not. An example."
"An example of what?"
"Patience.. you'll find out soon."
The pair started walking towards the ramps. Tziak in the front, and Shalkis following at a swords-length behind him.

"Very well... You wish to fight, yes? Not exactly my strongest skill, but still...i shall fight, if you will speak with me first.."
Shalkis stayed silent.
"Answer me?"
She prodded Tziak with her sword. Tziak eyed the dark blade and then chuckled.
"A sword in the stomach, hmm?"
"Keep moving."
Tziak rolled his eyes and walked down the ramp onto the crimson sands.

"Good."
"Spill his blood all over the sands!"
"Feast upon his heart!"
The voices were still whispers, but loud enough to be heard clearly. Shalkis could almost smell Tziak's delicious blood, pumping in his veins.. then he turned and spoke.
"Now, shall you speak?"
Before Shalkis could reply, he heard an another voice from behind her.
"It is an honor to be in your presence once again."
Hidden behind her mask, she smiled. Audience. And judging by his words, a Gurubashi. The blessings are numerous today, she thought. And before she realized it, a red haze filled her vision and words escaped her lips:
"This might sting a bit."

...

Tziak was lying on the ground.. frostbitten. As was the other troll. Shalkis would have preferred if he was conscious, but one cannot have everything.
"Now.. get up.", she barked towards Tziak.
"The reason why we're here.. I've been thinking what the warcry of the Empire really meant.."
Tziak slowly opened his eyes, and his flesh was already regenerating rapidly.
"P-pardon...wait till my ears r-regrow...", he smirked and coughed up some blood.
"The Blood.. that corrupts us.", she bellowed and drove her blade through Tziak's hand.
"The Fire.. that consumes us.", she continued yelling. Flames danced on her fingertips and jumped to Tziak, burning away the regenerated flesh.
"The Death.. that sets us free.", she screamed on top of her lungs, drowning out the wailing winds circling around her.
Tziak was trying to whisper something.
"Of course.. you're not getting away that easily..", she spoke and smiled.
"Of course not, Shalkis.", he replied and then whispered..
"But answer me one question....Do you regret that your lips, who even now quiver with jealousity, shall never again grace my skin?"
He started to laugh, but it quickly turned into a cough.
"Now sleep.. and dream of horrid things..", she spoke omniously and pointed the tip of her bloodied sword right at Tziak's face.
"Wait..", he smiled again.
"Will you not answer my questions?"
"I have no regrets. My task in this world is done. This.. is just a bonus.", she replied from behind her mask.
"That was not my question."
Shalkis heard someone walk towards her from behind. She turned, still keeping her sword pointed at Tziak. An another Gurubashi.
"I did not come here for you. Wait your turn.", she quipped and turned towards Tziak.
The other troll spoke: "Me be ´ere to ´elp me Emporah."
Shalkis ignored the troll and carefully cut Tziak's tabard off him with her sword. When the blade nicked Tziak's skin, the wound closed even before it could bleed.
The troll behind her started to chant: "From da earth yah call da Powah..."
Shalkis grabbed the tabard and held it up, marveling at the handiwork. Even in it's burnt and tattered state, the twin snakes still looked majestic.
"This.. is now mine..", she spoke to herself. She then turned her gaze back towards Tziak.
"As for your life.."

Shalkis' sentence was interrupted by a snarl from behind. Before she could turn, she could feel and hear metal grind against bone. Blood gushed out of her back. She whispered a word and she was beyond the axe's reach. The troll wielding it pulled the axe up from the ground and started running towards her. The other two trolls were already hurling lightning towards her, and from the corner of her eye, she saw Tziak, shimmering with frost and an elemental at his side. She had a wicked grin behind her mask, but that was only a facade. Of course he had only been stalling, waiting for more Gurubashi to show up. Each second here would increase the chances of him winning. It would have to end now.

Shalkis muttered a long-forgotten blessing, and she too was protected by both a frozen shield and an elemental. The elemental turned it's featureless face towards one of the shamans while Shalkis was already introducing the berserker to his ruminant side. Bolts of lightning, ice and water criscrossed around the Arena. The first shaman succumbed.. then the other. She looked back at Tziak, and the blood haze filled her vision again.

...

Shalkis stood next to Tziak, looking down on him.
"Now.. where were we?"
"I believe you where going to take my life? Amusing, really.", Tziak grinned.
"All things have an end. You are fortunate to encounter yours so soon. However.. your end will not come today."
"You know, if you let me live, what shall happen..", he shook his head.
"You.. will bring your own downfall. This.. is simply a long overdue reminder.. of your mortality. That even a 'God-Emperor' can bleed."
"Breaking my body serves nothing to remind me of 'mortality' ...you should know, as an 'Aspect' ...the Flesh means nothing", he replied.
"Of course.. so here's something for you to dream about."
"I have long stopped dreaming....but continue.."
Shalkis' sword flared briefly as she thrust it towards Tziak.

...

"Sleep, Emperor of the Gurubashi.. and dream of your fate that you have brought upon yourself!", Shalkis bellowed. Her work was done, for now. The wound on her back was not bleeding anymore, but she could not handle any more Gurubashi. With great effort, she climbed on top of her raptor and rode north from the Arena.

Snacky's Journal - Episode 2

There's something about gnomes that always makes me chuckle. Especially when they're getting beat up and thrown around.

Curse Gaming & Markee Dragon?

I was a bit surprised to see a post in Curse Gaming which denounces the most recent wave of bans for botting, trading gold and trading accounts. Although it appears in their "Editor's Notes"-section, it was not written by the staff of Curse. The post was submitted by AlexandraMD, but the post itself mentions that it was written by Marcus Eikenberry of Markee Dragon. And sure enough, Alexandra is one of the editors there.

The Markee Dragon site doesn't hide the fact that they do support botting, gold trading and account trading. WoW Glider links, IGE ads, botter interviews, links to gold selling sites. .. you name it, they've got it. Apparently Markee Dragon has personally been banned by Blizzard as well. One other thing that I found was an utility called FreeGameCam (not to be confused with the GameCam), which can be used to monitor your bot's progression remotely.

If I were a Curse staffer, I'd be more careful who I allow to post on their front page.

Misguided Alleigances

Sigh.

Shalkis looked at the tabard one more time. The crimson background had faded some time ago, and the edges were frayed. Only the black sword motif remained, as sharp as ever. She carefully straightened the tattered cloth, then folded it. Once, twice, thrice.

They had failed offer any answers, either. Those who had once challenged the dominance of Frostmourne now.. just gave up. To some, the call of the grave proved to be too seducing. Others returned to whatever places they called home. Some found new employers. Whatever they did was now irrelevant. There would be no voyage to the north.

With a thud, the male Draenei set a metallic box on the counter and opened it. Shalkis' eyes lingered for a moment on the stack of cloth in it, each one with different markings. Only the top one with a hellish mouth motif was visible, but Shalkis knew the others as well. A golden scepter, a silver sun, a blue wolf's head, a red drake, poison-green eyes, golden twin spires, a red Naaru motif.. and the twin snakes.

"Too many..", she thought.

Shalkis snapped out of her reverie and set the latest tabard on top of the pile. The Draenei put the lid back on the box and unceremoniously picked it up. The self-devouring snakes reminded her of one other thing she needed to do now. News of the collapse would eventually reach their ears and lure the scavengers in, looking for an easy kill. She glanced on the Draenei, who nodded slightly and vanished into the back room for a moment. A few minutes later he re-emerged, carrying an another box.

The stench of forbidden magic greeted Shalkis when she opened it. She would use their superstition to her advantage. In their eyes, she was the betrayer, the heretic, the corrupt. Fine. Let them come and test their bravery before their strength. The first item she removed was a fiery robe with intricate patterns. Then a set of shoulderguards. Three monstrous mouths, locked in an eternal howl stared back at her. Finally, the most important part.. a wooden mask. The dried blood still lined it's insides. The draenei looked at her with a well-hidden frown on his face. She nodded, and the metallic container was sealed and hurried out of sight.

The robe was gentle to the touch from the inside. Like finest silk, straight from the Spider Queen's chosen. Yet the outside looked like it was molten and would scar from the slightest touch. As soon as she slipped it on, the faint whispers started to circle in her mind. Barely recognizable promises of power, of vengeance, of dominance. For such a small price.. yet too steep to even consider. Still.. detecting and fending off the temptations would be good practice. There was no leeway to let delusions of grandeour fester. Any overestimations would be the death of her. Literally.

Next, she grabbed one of the shoulderguards and attached it to her right shoulder with the leather straps. Then the other. From the corner of her eye, the eyes of the beasts seemed to flare. In her mind's eye, she could see the false prophet writhe and scream in agony. Her mouth sharpened into a grin. The price he would pay for his betrayal would be high indeed. But.. not now. Patience. Discipline. These would be her allies in the coming months. Not the rage that was offered to her.

Finally.. the mask. As soon as she lowered it to her face, all seemed so clear. Short-sighted fools. Heretics. So many times she had offered the ingrates the truth. And an equal number of times it had been rejected. Their downfall would be of their own doing. All she needed to do was to watch.. and judge. With their dying breath, they would all admit that they were wrong. But then again, she had been wrong so many times before. So many misguided alleigances. So much trust for those who never deserved it in the first place.

But maybe there would be some who would be worthy. Those who also see the mistakes of the past and follies of the future. It would be so good to talk to someone who would understand. It has been too long since the last time. As she saw it, there was now two alternatives before her. She could stay in the shadows, in the sidelines, to catalogue all the mistakes of the world. It would serve as a warning for the future generations, should there be any. Or.. Perhaps..

Oh yes..

With a smile hidden beneath the mask, Shalkis climbed on her wyvern's back and guided it towards the sky.

Engineering will get this, and much, much more!

Just kidding. Apparently the Engineering patch got turned into an Alchemy patch, and Ommra picked the short straw to deliver the news. The major Engineering overhaul is as follows:

• 11 goggles, which you may or may not be able to use.
  
• Engineering bags can now contain some Engineering items.
  
• 1 new grenade.
• Engineering bags can now contain some Engineering items (just in case you missed it the first time).
• When skilling up Engineering, you now have more than 2 items you can craft at any time.
  
• Craftable Fused Wiring, because not every raid instance comes built-in with repair NPCs.
  
• Next rank of Seaforium Charges, which can now actually open locks. You have to farm rep for it, though.
  
• An item that sells for 50g might now cost less than 1.5k to craft.
  
• Nigh-Invulnerablity Belt kills you less often now.
  
• Gnomish Poultryizer makes your opponent /lol less.
  
• Goblin Rocket Launcher can actually help you catch someone instead of giving them a head start.
  
• New icons for mana and health injectors (Ya rly).

That's all folks.

Professions preview and the trouble with Engineering

Nethaera has come forward with a professions preview, and I have to say.. it's not much.

First, let's get the obvious out of the way. Limiting elixirs to one per type is going to hurt raiding a lot. I'm not even near Serpentshrine or Magtheridon and I'm routinely using at least two elixirs. On paper this is doing exactly what Blizzard promised it would do: reduce the money needed for consumables in raiding. However, if the encounters are not balanced accordingly, it will just mean that the cost is transferred from consumables to repair costs. It's not the end, however. It will simply slow down raiding progress on gear-dependant encounters.

Next up is enchanting. The changes are nothing to write home about, simply some slight tuning. Making the spell damage bracer enchant cheaper is always useful, and changing spell damage enchants to both spell damage and healing will help healers in soloing stuff, and is in line with previous changes.

Fishing buffs are always welcome. Starting up fishing with 300 fishing and +25 skill fishing pole in Zangar Marsh was a pain. Since cooked fish are actually useful nowadays, this will hopefully inspire more people to take up fishing.

Jewelcrafting got the UI changes it needed, and got a few of the gaps filled out. I'll be ordering some spell hit gems as soon as possible. I'm also stockpiling ores for the improved Prospecting.

Leatherworking got a few cosmetic changes, so I won't comment on those. But I'll comment on my profession, Engineering.

The listed changes miss whatever feedback that has been given to Blizzard. 11 goggles? With any luck, they'd all require Engineering and/or are Bind-on-Pickup. Nobody's going to pick Engineering because they can craft 9 goggles that are useless to them, even if they are epic. If you pick Blacksmithing, you are a melee class, most likely a warrior or a paladin. If you pick Tailoring, you are a clothie. Rogues, druids, hunters and shamans pick Leatherworking. Everyone can use Alchemy potions, and you can always sell them. Ditto with Jewelcrafting. Now compare all of the other crafting professions to Engineering.

90% of the Engineering items require Engineering to use, and only a handful require a specialization to craft. This means that the market for Engineering items is nonexistent, especially when the guns are substandard. Currently, the only classes that get the most out of Engineering are Hunters and Warriors, and even then there's some clothie items left.

IMHO, Blizzard has to do some soul-searching with Engineering. What do they want it to be? Do they want to limit it by class like Tailoring, Blacksmithing and Leatherworking are now? Or do they want it to be a general-purpose profession like Alchemy or Jewelcrafting? Or just a novelty profession with some minor benefit on very limited circumstances? Because that's what it is now, a novelty. And if this is the best that Blizzard can do, it isn't going to be enough to make Engineering viable anywhere.

The mechanics of Death

The debate about death mechanics in WoW has continued for a while, and recent nerfs in Vanguard's death mechanics sparked my interest, since their system is relatively close to an another Blizzard game I used to play.

Diablo 2, the previous Blizzard net hack n' slash had a very similar death mechanic to Vanguard. You lost experience and gold upon death, and your character would spawn at a friendly city naked (figuratively speaking). If you successfully made your way back to your corpse, you'd retrieve all your gear and regain some lost experience. At no point you would lose a level through experience loss, though.

Interestingly enough, this death mechanic scaled throughout the game. Dying at low levels was relatively harmless, since the amount of experience and gold lost was small. But after you went past level 85 or so, a single death could set you back significantly. At level 90+, going to a dangerous situation was simply stupid.

How did it affect the game? Obviously, risk-taking decreased when you progressed in the game. High-level characters would not even go near hazardous situations, like Iron Maiden-casting Deathknights in Chaos Sanctuary, Nilthalak's Corpse Explosions, Arreat Summit's Barbarians or Lister's deadly loading lag. A high-level player would pick a risk-free spot and farm it. While the death mechanic did instill a healthy aversion to death upon characters, it also made the game boring, since increased risk was very rarely met with an appropriate increase in rewards. It was much more worthwhile to farm Mephisto than to risk dying without even reaching Baal.

Contrast this with WoW, which has one of the most forgiving death mechanics ever used in an MMORPG. The only penalties are a monetary penalty in the form of repair costs and a time penalty for corpserunning. You only lose experience if you really want to. Death in PvP only incurs a time penalty with no lasting effects. The difference in player mindset when compared to Diablo 2 is striking. WoW players are much more receptive to the idea of trying something different and quite likely fatal. Like attempting a raid encounter that could even be untested and completely unbeatable. This in turn is both a blessing and a curse. It lets players try to perform at the very edge of their gear and abilities and thus provide them that much-needed challenge. On the other hand, many players do get an optimal performance out from their characters, which sometimes results in players finishing off content at a faster pace than Blizzard would like. This results in bored players. To keep them interested, Blizzard has to keep making more and more content and new encounters.

A harsher death mechanic is not really a solution, and it could even backfire. One of the things that keeps the so-called casuals playing is that even short sessions benefit them. A short grind session, a quest or two, a bit of PvP, an instance run. Even though the benefits might be neglible, you always gain something, be it a bit of honor, some reputation, some gold or a sliver of experience. You never lose anything that would take hours upon hours to reacquire. That's currently reserved for bleeding-edge raiders.

Speaking of raiders.. A raider can currently burn several hundreds of gold in consumables when trying to down a new boss. If they also had to regrind experience and reacquire lost gear, raiding progress speed would grind to a halt. A few dedicated guilds would keep trying the new content, the rest would stick to farming easy encounters. Blizzard's current focus on new content development would most likely be a waste, since only a handful of people would even try to reach it. Raid encounters would stay bugged for months and months until Blizzard would eventually give in and nerf them enough for safe farming. If you think that having to clear trash mobs after a few wipes and farming 500g worth of consumables for a night of raiding is bad, you haven't seen anything yet. It could be much, much worse.

Dynamic music and World of Warcraft

Melmoth is annoyed by the randomness of WoW's music and wants it to change according to the situation. While I agree that dynamic music would add a lot to immersion, there are several significant hurdles that make dynamic music hard to implement.

First of all, time and cost. If you want appropriate music for every situation, someone has to compose, arrange and perform all of it. When we are talking about a game with dozens of zones, thousands of subzones and an incalculable amount of different situations, that's a whole lot of music. A lot of video game music, including WoW's, is composed for a full symphony orchestra and a choir. Hiring an orchestra, a choir and managing the logistics of getting them all into the same place to perform your music before the deadline is a lot of work.

However, there have been some instances where games have used dynamic music successfully. Probably the most well-known is LucasArts' iMuse. The reason why iMuse worked was that games of that era used MIDI. The music was stored as notes, not raw sound. This allowed iMuse to rearrange and remix the human-created soundtrack on-the-fly. Nowadays many of the soundtracks undergo extensive post-processing and use vocals. A home computer would have a hard time redoing the post-processing in real time, and adjusting and replicating vocals would be very hard.

So, now we have to settle for the next-best alternative. WoW uses around 3-4 different themes for each of the capital cities, and 6-8 (one set for daytime, and one set for the night) for every type of zone. Each theme lasts less than a minute, and has manually created transition points. Normally the capitals have an intro theme that is used whenever the player enters them, and then the game plays the other themes randomly. In addition, there are some themes that are triggered whenever a player enters a specific sub-zone or activates an event. For example, demon- or Scourge-infested areas have a specific theme. Certain NPCs, like Jin'do and Gul'dan have their own themes. In theory, WoW's system could be extended to include more triggers, like combat, population density, type of enemies and so on. However, there's still the question of time and cost. Currently, Blizzard has introduced more music only when a new raid instance was released. AQ, Naxxramas and Karazhan were accompanied by their own soundtracks. Creating more music for a raid instance is relatively straightforward, since you have a specific theme every individual piece of music revolves around. Adding triggered themes that would not sound out-of-place in any of the zones currently in game is much harder and much more time-consuming, because you have to create a lot of new music.

In the end, the issue boils down to a more generic question: Given the resources Blizzard currently has at their disposal, should they use those resources on creating new content or improving the old? Remember that for most of WoW's history, Blizzard has simply been working on the backlog of content they wanted to have ready for the release, but couldn't finish. When the game was released, some of the zones were blatantly unfinished, like Silithus or Searing Gorge. Blackwing Lair, Ahn'Qiraj, Zul'Gurub, Naxxramas, Caverns of Time, Maraudon, Dire Maul and Karazhan were eventually implemented. Gilneas, Kul Tiras, most of Timbermaw Hold, Grim Batol, Uldum and present-day Hyjal are still missing. Nazjatar and the Emerald Dream are somewhere deep in the backlog (although parts of them are in the game files), with the Black Temple currently occupying the top spot. After the Black Temple is implemented, Blizzard will hopefully finish some more of the backlog and improve Azeroth before setting their sights on the next expansion. Although I do roleplay an ice troll, I'm not in a rush to see Northrend.