WOW Insider

WoW Moviewatch: The Warchief Debates 2008, Episode 1

Moo Money — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Machinima, Humor, WoW Moviewatch

(Warning: Some of the humor in this machinima borders on offensive.)

EgadPit, a machinimator on WeGame, has spliced together an interesting debate of sorts for the position of Warchief in 2008. Warlords Zul'Amabo and McWalkingstick face off on a number of topics, trading jabs and sometimes agreeing on things. While this is just part one of a series, we think that they covered a lot of ground!

We're not sure whose platform is best. Who would you vote for?

If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.

Previously on Moviewatch ...

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Azeroth comes through on the love hunt

Mike Schramm — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:00:00 EST

Filed under: Night Elves, Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Humor

This is one of the sillier articles that PC Gamer UK has probably ever written about massively multiplayer online games, but still, I enjoyed it. One of their writers went (only half seriously) looking for love in a few popular virtual worlds, and he found it, surprisingly enough, in Azeroth.

Neither EvE Online or City of Heroes were very helpful in the love-finding department -- despite finding a fetching young lady superheroine in CoH, the writer was a little disappointed to find out she was a he behind the keyboard. But WoW, as usual, provides the best of MMO experiences -- the writer finds some cute love in the Night Elf starting area.

Sure, it's silly (and probably not true -- just because someone says they're a Finnish college student means nothing at all online). But I found it strangely touching, the thought that a real human connection could be made in an online game. And isn't that why we play these in the first place?

[via WorldofWar.net]

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Guildwatch: "I done runs with him before same then"

Mike Schramm — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 03:00:00 EST

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, Guilds, Instances, Humor, Bosses

The guild above, Natural Order on Steamwheedle Cartel, has graced these pages before for dramatic reasons, but just to show there's no bad feelings, we're highlighting them in the downed section this week -- as you can see, they were able to topple Archimonde, and that's an achievement for any guild. As long as you can keep progression going, no drama is all that bad.

Unless you run into some of the really harsh drama found in this week's GW, which starts right after the jump. Drop us a tip (anonymous or otherwise) at wowguildwatch@gmail.com if you've got news about drama, downings, or recruiting notices from around the realms, and Sargeras-willing, you'll see it here next week.

Continue reading Guildwatch: "I done runs with him before same then"

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BigRedKitty: "Exotic" declassified

Daniel Howell — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: Hunter, Humor, (Hunter) Big Red Kitty, Wrath of the Lich King

Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the Hunter class, sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary.

Once upon a time, there was a comedian who did a bit about Troy Aikman. Mr. Aikman is a famous, former Dallas Cowboys quarterback who was forced to retire due to receiving multiple concussions over his career. The joke went like this:

"Troy, you've been a Super Bowl MVP and are one of the greatest quarterbacks of the 20th century. How do you feel having to retire after receiving your 10th concussion, and how has that incredible series of blows affected your brain?"

"Ummmm... I like... pudding!"

How is this pertinent to WotLK and hunters? Well, the new 51st talent point in the beta of the Beastmaster tree is named Beast Mastery. As written, it's kind of obscure, a little open-ended, and the programmers don't seem to have a clue what it could really mean:

"We're still working on implementing this particular talent. The talent will allow you to train a different "class" of pets which we're calling "exotic" right now. Only hunters with this talent will be able to train those pets. They won't necessarily be "stronger" (though will all have unique abilities that you can only get from exotic pets), the extra power you should get from the talent will be from the additional pet skill points (pet talent points).

"Devilsaur anyone?"

So when pressed for an answer on the WotLK beta forums for what "exotic" entails, the blue-poster basically said, "Pudding!"

But did you ever have a doubt that BigRedKitty wouldn't know what "exotic" is? We sure hope not! We're totally on the case, ready to spill the beans on "exotic" pets, and announce what you 51/15/5 Beastmaster hunters can expect to find come expansion-time.

Devilsaur, indeed.

Continue reading BigRedKitty: "Exotic" declassified

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Death Knight class page slip-up

Eliah Hecht — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:30:00 EST

Filed under: Blizzard, Humor, Death Knight

Remember a little while back, when someone accidentally added the Death Knight to the Classes page on the official site? Now the DK class description page is there, although it seems that this too is probably an accident (the DK entry is still gone from the Classes page). As expected, it contains nothing in the way of new information, aside from a fetching misspelling of "Alternative" and a frankly terrifying picture of what looks like a Dwarf Rogue (obviously faked; everyone knows there's no such thing).

Still nothing mentioned in "standard bars" about runes or runic power. Also the "Allowable Weapons" (listed as Axes, Defenses, Polearms, Swords, Two-Handed Axes, Two-Handed Swords) still doesn't match up with what we expected (one- and two-handed Axes, Swords, and Maces are what we've been told before). And Blizz doesn't usually call it "Plate Mail;" typically it's just "Plate." Anyway, I vote "slip-up" on this one as well - anyone want to take bets on how long it'll stay up?

[Thanks, Hasseo]

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Sleeper Cartel holds their Summer party (and Horde Diplomacy)

Mike Schramm — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:30:00 EST

Filed under: Realm News, Tips, Events, Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, Humor, Leveling

Those wacky folks of the Sleeper Cartel guild (on Perenolde) emailed to let us know they are having their annual summer party this coming weekend, July 26th at 7pm server time, and it looks to be a hootenanny. They'll have player-run quests, trivia contests, and scavenger hunts, there'll be a snowball fight and fireworks aplenty, and they're even planning to give away an honest-to-goodness epic. If you're a fan of player-run events, this is the Super Bowl -- as you can see from their last party, they do it up right. Roll Alliance and show up in Perenolde on Saturday if you want in on the fun.

And here's another player-run party: on July 27th, a couple of Hordies on Steamwheedle are planning a "Tribune of the Horde" RP event -- ~~apparently they think the Horde needs leaders, and Thrall and the rest of the gang aren't cutting it.~~ (see Update) So they're having a Horde meetup in ZG to talk things out -- one Horde member of each race has been chosen as diplomat, and diplomats will give their own speeches, while those in attendance will be able to ask questions and speak their mind as well.

Sounds interesting -- we always love hearing about (and hopefully attending) events like this. If you're putting one on, feel free to tip us about it, and if you go, take lots of screenshots and send them back to us so we can see what players are up to in the realms.

Update: I never did understand RP -- the people running the Horde event emailed us to say that they're not looking to replace Thrall at all. Instead, they're convening a Tribune of the various Horde races to voice their concerns and working up a scroll to take to the Warchief himself -- they're working in complete concert with the current Horde, they just want to make sure the voices of the little people (and trolls, and Undead, and so on) are heard. Our apologies for the misunderstanding, especially for the suggestion that anyone was trying to take over from Thrall. For the Horde!

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Sunday Morning Funnies: Fighting naked

Amanda Miller — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Features, Humor, Screenshots, Bosses, NPCs, Comics, Fan art, Arena

This week we have a fair amount of humorous adventures, including an ill-timed leak, success in disguise, a handy brick, a clever wolf, and even some snakes.

Humorous Plot

Dark Legacy Comics has seen an end to the NPC tyranny, as "Whitemane" exposes The Horace Hypocrisy.
Shakes and Fidget discover The Altar.
In LFG, an alliance is sought. It isn't going well.
The Road to BlizzCon continues, with Now you're just being silly and The Dead Mimes, Part 1.
Kissybear's friends are giving up; or are they?
Teh Gladiators has alchemists for murlocs, and a statement is made on Yolanda.

Humor

NoObz has some insight on patch days, from the mobs' points of view.
This week's installment of The Adventures of Disgraph T. Dwarf almost didn't happen, and the announcement of the delay is worth reading itself. Fortunately, Episode 23: WoW TV arrived in time for Sunday Morning!

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Blizz accidentally puts DK description on classes page

Eliah Hecht — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:25:00 EST

Filed under: Humor, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King

Ooh, someone on the Blizzard web team is going to get in trouble. I took the above screenshot straight from the official Classes page, and obviously it wasn't ready to be published quite yet (click for a slightly bigger version). But can we actually glean anything new from the Death Knight text? (The "Find out more about death knights" link returns to a 404, so no help there.)

No. There is absolutely no new information here. There are some obvious mistakes though:

Type: should probably be "Tank and melee DPS" or some such (so should Warriors, come to think of it).
Available weapons: as far as we know, DKs won't be able to use daggers, fist weapons, staves, or polearms. I guess that may have changed, but I'm just not seeing "rune staff."
Standard Bars: no mention of runes or runic power.

And it's pretty amusing that they clearly made the Death Knight section by copying and editing the Warrior section (which is how these inaccuracies crept in there). Anyway, I take this as a sign that development on Wrath is moving forward and the beta is approaching (after all, the alpha is over).

[Thanks to Fennrahn and Iggo]

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Patches, addons and drama in the forums

Amanda Miller — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Bugs, Blizzard, AddOns, Humor, Forums

While surfing the forums this morning, I came across a little gem of a thread protesting against Blizzard for the following:

Breaking "our" addons and mods.
Incorporating features from popular addons into the default User Interface, and thus breaking addons and mods. There's also a sentiment that Blizzard is "stealing" these ideas rather than being innovators.
Fixing "their" bugs which in turn breaks "our" addons and mods. The suggestion is that they don't care, or could take steps to prevent this.

As you can imagine, all sorts of responses cropped up, including the usual people who get into arguments with other posters, players in agreement, joking and sarcastic responses, and of course, an awesome string of blue responses.

Gallery: Patch drama

Continue reading Patches, addons and drama in the forums

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WoW Moviewatch: The Invisible Pink Unicorn

Moo Money — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Machinima, Humor, WoW Moviewatch

Oxhorn is back, and he wants the world to know that there is a higher power ... in the form of an invisible pink unicorn. For ages, people simply believed in the pink unicorn because it was written in the cookbook. However, when several scientists question one man's beliefs, will he be proven wrong?

Oxhorn decided to mix machinima and religion in his latest piece, mocking the scientific community and their beliefs. For those not offended by that, check out the script! Now who's up for a trip to Candy Mountain?

If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.

Previously on Moviewatch ...

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WoW Moviewatch: How to Paladin XXX

Moo Money — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Machinima, Humor, WoW Moviewatch

The day we've all been waiting for has finally arrived. Shepiwot has made a large number of movies in his How to Paladin series, but XXX officially marks his 30th. In what is possibly my favorite one yet, he hops around, dances, and kills things to epic music, but with a special flair.

While having no plot, no style, and no substance, we wouldn't have it any other way. Shepiwot's brand of machinima is so uniquely bad that it has spawned insults, death threats, and declarations of love at the same time. It reminds me of my very first machinima, where I jumped about without a care in the world ...

[Via Warcraftmovies.com]

If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.

Previously on Moviewatch ..

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Project Lore aims to play WoW and get you to watch them

Matthew Rossi — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, How-tos, Podcasts, Podcasting, News items, Instances, Humor, Burning Crusade

Alex Albrecht, prolific pod and vodcaster and formerly of Tech TV's The Screen Savers, has come up with what I think may be the most sublime and brilliant way ever to get people to support his World of Warcraft gameplay. He's going to record instance runs!

Well, okay, Project Lore looks to be more than that. But tell me that the first thing through your mind once you read what they have planned isn't Oh My... why didn't I think of this? It's brilliant! I play WoW and people watch me doing it! They're clearly aiming for more than that, with instance guides, WoW news, and a glossary as well as the video feeds. The first few videos are of them at level 70 running normal Hellfire Ramparts, which is not really what I was expecting. To be honest, I felt a little bit like they were doing too much with camera angles, loud music and video effects and not letting you see enough of the gameplay.

But I know that as we head into Wrath of the Lich King this could have the potential to be very useful for people running those instances for the first time. Our own Daniel Whitcomb said that at present, it reminded him of an old EQ commercial.

We'll see if it evolves into the one-stop shop for WoW gameplay videos and strategies that it seems to be aiming for. And at any rate, the ability to watch videos of various instance runs, if executed properly, could be a real boon to new players, giving them context into ideas like tanking, DPS, CC and other dungeon roles that are hard to grasp if you've not seen them in action.

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Are tanks the most drama prone?

Adam Holisky — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, Humor, Raiding, Death Knight

My tanking corps rocks. They really do. I'm quite happy to be their officer representative. We all play our role as the meat shield very well, rarely do we miss a shield block in our rotation or forget to pop a health stone as healers make transitions in and out of the demon realm in Kalecgos. What is interesting about any tanking corps I've been apart of is the inevitable drama that comes up.

Since I've been in a few different guilds with a few different tanking corps and this drama always seems to happen and happen the same way, I have to ask: are tanks the most drama prone?

It's best to define what drama actually is. Drama is any whining and moaning from anyone about things out of their control. If they complain about things in their control, well, then they just fail miserably and probably should spend some time outside to recenter themselves.

For instance, a tank complaining loudly that his healer always is the first to get constructs in Gorefiend and demanding that they get a soulstone before the fight even starts, is drama.

A tank complaining that they need healers X, Y, and Z, in the raid or else they won't do anything but auto-attack Illidan, is drama.

A tank complaining that they deserve extra guild repair money for their expensive plate armor, is drama. And since the tank is special, they also need their own rank to let everyone know this (but it's also practical because only they should be able to withdraw 300g a night in repair money).

Continue reading Are tanks the most drama prone?

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Sunday Morning Funnies: A new day

Amanda Miller — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Features, Humor, Screenshots, Comics, Fan art

This week we are going to approach the Sunday Morning Funnies in a new format. Hopefully this will improve reader understanding of the purpose of posting the artwork. Voting will be removed. Please let me know what you think, as well as other changes you'd like to see!

For laughs:

Sympathy for the Reaver almost makes you feel bad for using a fel reaver's corpse. Almost. GU Comics.

Laughs and plot:

Pinky built the gnomes some lodging in LFG.
Sacrificial Lamb from Dark Legacy Comics involves a plot, some lambs, some scissors and a sandwich.
Along Came the Murlocs opens up a mystery about the two murlocs on Teh Gladiators. When all is revealed on And Then They Were..., hilarity ensues. Well, maybe not for Vallant.

Differently structured humor:

We hated that boat neway from Road to BlizzCon, sees the lovable characters thwarted by their own shedding. Strangely, there is no fatigue produces an invisible man.
On the latest Adventures of Disgraph T. Dwarf, we encounter March of the Dwarf. If you've ever wanted to see these adventures done like they'd do it on the Discovery channel, look no further.

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Some literary humor for your Saturday in Warcraft

Mike Schramm — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Blizzard, Humor, Lore, Fan art

Here's two bits of literary fun for your Saturday afternoon.

First, earlier this week, I saw this nice little piece of fan fiction over on WoW Livejournal. I'm not usually a fan of fan fiction, but this one just explains so much. And I really do hate those things, too.

And then yesterday, swampers put together this terrific little Shakespearean parody in the World of Warcraft style. "To quit, perchance to /afk" -- that's great. "Out out, brief arena match -- life's but a walking Shadow Priest, a poor player, who struts and QQs while the tank goes down, and then runs OOM."

Great stuff. Literary humor is always fun, and mixing it in with WoW makes it even better. Laugh and enjoy.

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WoW Moviewatch: The Bountiful Chest

Moo Money — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Machinima, Humor, WoW Moviewatch

(Viewers be warned that this will probably offend some of you. For regular readers, on a scale from Tunasushi to The V-Day Riot of '08, The Bountiful Chest will be somewhere in between.)

As a female, what happens in this video is a regular occurance. Well, besides the end part. However, Blizzard must have felt it special enough to award it their top prizes for the machinima contest at the recent Worldwide Invitational. Olibith machinimated a short story, The Bountiful Chest, written by Vilaeryn and narrated by Shockdingo. Since it's not very long, I'll sum it up with the moral of the story being to look us in the eyes. You're not fooling anyone!

[Via Warcraftmovies.com]

If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.

Previously on Moviewatch ...

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WoW Moviewatch: The BS-1337 Nuclear Rocket

Moo Money — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Machinima, Humor, WoW Moviewatch

While most of Baron Soosdon's entries into the 2008 Blizzard Worldwide Invitational were disqualified due to private server usage, he did manage to place second in the commercial part of the machinima contest. The BS-1337 Nuclear Rocket is part evil and part awesome at the same time. For the true villain in all of us, the rocket offers 9000 megatons of fun in a convenient package. What will ACME think of next?

If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.

Previously on Moviewatch ...

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The Guild DVD is available for pre-order

Amanda Miller — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:25:00 EST

Filed under: Fan stuff, Humor, WoW Moviewatch

Many exciting things have been happening lately for fans of The Guild, the 'sitcom webisode' that we often post about on WoW Moviewatch.

Not only did they recently open a web store that sells shirts and other goodies, but the complete DVD for season one just became available for pre-order.

It's actually a great deal. For $20, you'll get the entire first season, two exclusive gag reels, commentary, interviews, subtitles, and even audition footage. Better yet, you get free shipping, and you'll have your DVD shortly after it releases on August 1st.

For fun facts about The Guild, check out the statistics and links on their Press Page. Did you miss the season finale? We have links and opinions for each episode.

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Guildwatch: The thread you are looking for has been deleted

Mike Schramm — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 01:00:00 EST

Filed under: Guilds, Odds and ends, Instances, Humor, Raiding, Guildwatch, Forums

There's a disturbing trend happening on the forums lately -- all the great drama threads are getting deleted. It's not like it's not out there -- this week's GW, as usual, is full of good drama, and the truth is that drama threads on guild forums are better anyway. But it seems like every time a tipster kindly sends us a link to an official forum thread, it's mysteriously disappeared? Could someone at Blizzard... not want us to make fun of drama? We'll keep an eye on it.

Until we figure that out, keep sending us the tips, whether they be about drama, downed news for your guild or others, or recruiting notices for up-and-coming raiding groups. The place to send it all is wowguildwatch@gmail.com, and clicking the link below will show you just what we heard about from the realms this week.

Continue reading Guildwatch: The thread you are looking for has been deleted

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WoW Insider Show Episode 45: Turpster every four minutes

Mike Schramm — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: Mage, WoW Insider Business, Virtual selves, Humor, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King, WoW Insider Show, Worldwide Invitational

Last Saturday, as always, we sat down and spent about an hour discussing the latest and greatest in the World of Warcraft, and the results are now online for your listening enjoyment. Turpster and I were both on, as well as John "BigBearButt" Patricelli, and Kyle Horner, a blogger on our sister sites Massively and Big Download.

Turpster talked with us about WWI, what he thought of the big event in Paris, what it was like to play a Death Knight, and why he thought it was even better than last year's BlizzCon (including why this year's BlizzCon might be even better).
Kyle spoke with us about being a player who's just now getting back into WoW, and what he's excited for in the next expansion.
We talked a little bit about TCG cards, and whether it's fair for Upper Deck to give away the TCG loot.
Mages didn't get a lot of news during WWI, so we chatted about what they might get before Wrath of the Lich King.
We talked about the timing of the beta, and what the plan is for the rest of the Wrath release.

Definitely a fun show (and it features the only time I've ever gotten really angry at Turpster, though it turned out to be no big deal, and he's probably not fired from the show. Probably.). Give it a listen over on the WoW Radio page, and if you have a question comment, or insight about something we said, don't hesitate to email the show itself -- theshow@wowinsider.com is the address.

Thanks for listening as always, we'll see you next week.

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