World of Raids and MMO Champion both have lists of new gear on sale, come patch 2.3, in exchange for Badges of Justice from the heroic instances, and now Karazhan and Zul'Aman raid instances as well. That's exciting, of course, but let's stop and look at these pics of the new gear for a moment, shall we?Now, naturally, this gear is designed to fit with the general trollish theme of the patch, which lots of people are understandably excited about. The armor looks pretty good as armor goes, and it definitely brings some new visual design elements to the game that haven't been represented in any previous armor sets. But, let's stop and consider for a moment just where this armor is coming from. It looks like trollish Zul'Aman armor, but do we find it in Zul'Aman? No, it's up for sale by the only known Naaru retailer, G'eras. Does its method of acquisition have anything to do with Zul'Aman whatsoever? Well... it might if your guild has finished raiding Karazhan and gathers the heroic badges in Zul'Aman soon, then yes; but if you still focus mostly on Karazhan or heroic instances, then you might very well acquire some of these armor pieces without ever visiting those Amani trolls even once.
What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is the appropriation of the Amani clothing design brand by the Shat'ari Naaru in Shattrath, copied illegally by G'eras, and put on sale with no proprietary settlement with trolls they are mimicking. Who knew that the Naaru could be capable of copyright infringement? If the trolls were down with that whole "I'll see you in court!" thing, their lawyers would be all over this right now.
Seriously, why is a being of pure holy light selling trollish armor with skulls and tusks and voodoo dolls on it? -- or does nobody care?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
10-15-2007 @ 4:09PM
Michel said...
I care (a little ;) )
it's too easy for blizzard to simpley sell it by G'eras.
by the way, funny article. It was surprising. but true
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10-15-2007 @ 4:16PM
Greengreen said...
It looks like utter crap.
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10-15-2007 @ 4:16PM
Todd said...
The face for the plate looks a lot like Venom.
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10-15-2007 @ 4:20PM
Argent said...
i had a nice chuckle when i saw the graphic of a plate healing helmet -- it looked like a wooden tiki mask.
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10-15-2007 @ 4:20PM
Shalmaneser said...
The Naaru are secretly evil. Get on board.
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10-15-2007 @ 4:25PM
Byron said...
Looking forward to seeing female characters in the cloth and leather sets. [runs out of room]
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10-15-2007 @ 4:28PM
Stop said...
I believe it's because the bosses in ZA can drop the new badge reward items. So selling them for badges is just a new alternate way of getting some raid level gear.
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10-15-2007 @ 4:29PM
Xonate said...
The mail set looks pretty good, especially for shamans. The plate looks good as well, except for the helm, which looks retarded. The leather and cloth looks... blah... at best. At least that's my humble opinion.
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10-15-2007 @ 4:31PM
esumiwa said...
Just a mild cultural correction: voodoo is not dark and evil. Nor is it as menacing or corrupted as protrayed in the movies. Yes, it is an intense ritual based practice, but that doesnt make far from the light the naruu.
Also, in STV, the voodoo trolls there are on the alliance side - in a sense - so the troll voodoo isn't necessarily evil either in the WoW universe.
Esu Miwa (an actual Lucumi priest)
New Orleans
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10-15-2007 @ 4:32PM
luchifer said...
looks like an angry duck
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10-15-2007 @ 4:35PM
Sylythn said...
Why do you think the Blood Elves enslaved one? Stealing the power of the light is just an added bonus - he's actually imprisoned down there for copyright infringement.
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10-15-2007 @ 5:13PM
Neowar said...
Now you are saying that the plate set looks cool, but let me ask you this: does it look like plate? Hell no! Its made of wood and cloth, and a lot of paint...
How is wood going to protect me from swords and axes? And what about those fire mages who will just set me on fire...
---
A concerned warrior.
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10-15-2007 @ 5:44PM
daniel said...
@2 - agreed, this is what happens when you substitute game designers for monkeys to save a buck.
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10-15-2007 @ 5:48PM
luchifer said...
@12 You really should be complaining about wearing plate next time you got struck by a lighting bolt.
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10-15-2007 @ 6:38PM
Nati said...
I was afraid this would happen - it's another AQ with horrible looking armor. I mean, okay. I can see how that'd look cool on an orc or a troll. But that plate set - on a human or blood elf paladin? Seriously. Blizzard needs to understand that there are some of us who actually do care about how we look, and that themeing -all- equipment from a particular dungeon around that dungeon's theme is a bad idea. I mean, sure, it makes sense to have troll armor there - but even the stuff specifically named as "elven" gear (that the trolls have stolen from the high elves) looks trollish!
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10-15-2007 @ 6:42PM
draeth said...
Naaru please, them sets is off the heezey. I think they look cool, and it will mix up the look of things around major cities when you have venom running around in his tribal skull emblemed samurai gear w00t
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10-15-2007 @ 8:01PM
Anonym said...
What makes you think this is from badges? This cleatly must be the design that actually drops in ZA. They just datamined it out. Jumping to (your own totally wrong) conclusions FTL.
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10-15-2007 @ 10:21PM
Wlerin said...
We know it's from badges because people are actually playing on the test server right now, nubling.
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10-16-2007 @ 2:55AM
lordfrikk said...
I actually like the looks a lot and I hate such nickpicking at things you do.
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10-16-2007 @ 5:12AM
Pål said...
Reminds me of Ryuk...
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