The comic this week was inspired by an email received from fellow blogger, Robin about something Krystalle says in response to a (sadly) common misspelling over chats. So dual credit for nudging me in that direction, ladies. I had to run with it once I had the starting idea in my head.
The truth is, I am very grateful to both of my fellow bloggers in sparking this idea in my head. I hope they find the result of Robin's email fun, and I look forward to warping more ideas from them in the future.
Gamers on the Street logs onto U.S. servers to get the word from the front on what's going on in and around the World of Warcraft.
This week there was only one choice for where to go and interview players -- the Oceanic realm of Thaurissan has been at the center of realm population issues in the last week, as Blizzard opened up transfers from PvE to PvP realms for the first time ever. I rolled a Dwarf on the Alliance side (where Horde reportedly outnumbers players at huge ratios) to see what things were like and if I could find some people with opinions on the transfers.
Things seem to be better than they were before at first glance -- we'd heard reports that only double digits of people were playing during even prime time, but when I logged on (about 6AM server time), there were quite a few people in the /who list. Ironforge was far from bustling, but I saw groups running around the Isle of Quel'danas, as well as running Magisters' Terrace.
I have to agree with Michael on WoW LJ: it would be nice to have a little more variance in the types of races that we choose at character creation. Of course, due to lore reasons, all the trolls we create are Darkspear Trolls, and likewise, all of our Taurens are of the Bloodhoof variety. But it would be nice to have a few more options, especially since we now know that some of the "foreign" tribes and clans might have a member or two interested in joining the Horde.
None of Michael's suggestions would really work -- the Taunka are almost a completely different race, the Forest Trolls can't be very happy that we've killed their leader, and neither the Dark Iron Dwarves or the Iron Dwarves are very friendly to either Horde or Alliance. But there are possible variants out there -- the Zanadalar tribe might have some members interested in joining the Horde, and certainly the Mag'har Orcs are friendly to players. Alliance doesn't have as many options come to mind, though all players are Bronzebeards, I believe, and surely the Stormpikes are Friendly by now.
We've got new hairstyles coming in the next expansion, of course, but it would be nice to vary up the races a little bit, and have even different backgrounds within the race choices. RPers would love it for sure, and even for other players, it would give a little more meaning and power to playing through the various racial areas in the game.
Forte Gaming, one of the top guilds in World of Warcraft and the world's first to kill Anetheron, disbanded over the weekend. Their web page cites recruitment woes, long delays between content releases, and continually postponed raid times as reasons for the fall. "For many it has felt like a slowly sinking ship for some time and now it's over," says the guild's last post.
Forte was consistently ranked in the top two or three guilds in worldwide rankings and stayed in a tight race with Nihilum for game firsts, snagging no less than nine legendary Warglaives from Illidan in the Black Temple. In their three-year reign, they changed realms three times. Although the raiding arm of the guild (EU Boulderfist-A) will no longer exist, they will still maintain a more casual form of the guild on their previous server (A-Kazzak-EU).
Gamers on the Street logs onto U.S. servers to get the word from the front on what's going on in and around the World of Warcraft.
The WoW roleplayer is a strange creature -- in a game universe almost completely designed for the non-roleplayer (there are enough pop culture references to make anyone sensitive to anachronisms apoplectic), they soldier on insider RP servers, taking their time leveling up, and having perhaps much more fun than anyone who races towards the endgame might otherwise have.
So for this Gamers on the Street, I decided to head to Moon Guard, an RP server. I had hoped to chat about what players were expecting for season 4, and maybe find out what casual players thought of all the new things coming in Wrath of the Lich King, but when I sent out my query for interviewees, what I found were two roleplayers. people who were taking the game at their own pace and having fun doing it.
I also made sure, due to past reader comments, to speak to Alliance this time. After the jump, meet two roleplayers who are playing the game their own way.
I would like to begin by pointing out that this comic was not actually thought of by me. Interpreted, drawn, and displayed by me, yes; but the real mind behind this comic is the same on that brought you the deep and insightful explanation on Engineering (which he also had me draw), Brian Karasek.
Brian has been a friend of mine, and my S.O., for well over five years now. We've stalked followed him through three different games, and ended up following him into World of Warcraft after the two of us were convinced we'd never be seeing him again. Luckily, we were wrong. Brian is a truly wonderful friend, and I am grateful to have him. Now that the obligatory brown-nosing is out of the way, I would like my birthday present now, please!
For those of you who don't know (likely 99.8% of you I'd assume) my birthday is tomorrow, June 6th. I expect lots of lovely supportive comments for this comic, as well as large, unsolicited donations of money from you all, thank you (Just kidding... no really).
No idea where Richard got this Murloc decal (it is floating around on eBay, if you're so inclined to try and grab it there), but it is pretty darn sweet. Forget about the Horde or the Alliance -- I want to brand my car's window with the best race (soon to be faction) in the World of Warcraft.
Unfortunately, according to the Murloc translator, what's printed on the window there is just gibberish, not an actual Murloc saying handed down from the Oracles of years past (like, you know, "honk if you love Murlocs"). Still, I'd laugh if I saw it, no matter what it means.
We've added this pic to our gallery of WoW license plates car-related WoW art. If you've got a pic we should have in here, feel free to send it along and we'll take a look.
Welcome to the first installment of my new column series, Illusionary Tactics. Each episode will bring you the full intelligence on an item or quest that disguises you, enabling you to better carry out those secret missions -- or at least confuse your friends and guildmates.
What does it do? It turns you into a furbolg for three minutes, with a one-minute cooldown. Unlike many disguises, you can still fight while in furby form, although the form is removed if you are damaged, so it's possible (and I've seen it done) to furbolg-heal and furbolg-ranged-DPS. Just right-click the item in your inventory to activate.
Greetings fellow travelers of time and space! Welcome to the first official posting of Barrens Chat, a soon to be weekly implement of random craziness. Although I know I'm not the first comic strip, and likely I wont be the last to grace these glorious virtual pages, I invite you to take a romp with me, Megan, as I drag forth those silly comments people make that they hope no one noticed, and glorify them with fancy colors, and ever-changing art.
I will point out that although all of this is will all be incredibly funny to everyone who reads it, including me; it may end up being a "you had to be there" moment. In that case, come back next week! I'm sure it'll be funnier then. No really, it will.
Because how often do we get to post a hot picture of Mila Kunis? Complex magazine interviewed Ms. Kunis, of That 70's Show and Family Guy, for her new movie, and they apparently got wind that she, along with her boyfriend Macaulay Culkin, was a World of Warcraft player, and they decided to quiz her on the specifics. And surprise surprise, she actually knows her stuff. She's tracking the expansion, she knows most of the races, she's down with Leroy Jenkins, and she's at least been to Stormwind and "Dust Home Marsh."
She doesn't actually say what character she's playing, obviously, but based on her quiz answers, we'll guess she's Alliance, probably a level 25-30 Human priest. Culkin shows up later in the interview, and he knows a lot more -- Complex jokes that he's "Home Alone", but while there are plenty of those in the game, none of them are level 70 paladins.
But pretty sweet. Maybe Blizzard can get wind of this and ask her to bring a more feminine touch to those ads.
There is nothing we love more than a tasty and delicious game-related cake, be it Alliance or Horde (ok, a new content release is nice, too, but beggars can't be choosers on that one). And so this Alliance cake, made by Katalysta on Korgath for her husband's birthday, pretty much hits the spot. The crest looks great, but is that really icing on the "fabric" around the outside? Looks amazing -- no wonder it took her three days to put together. She says it's white chocolate flavored Fondant and plain Fondant, and everything else is done with dyes. Amazing!
By my count, this puts us even on the Alliance vs. Horde cakemaking -- 2 and 2. Who'll be next to serve their faction with some amazing cake-making skills?
It's back! Perhaps of all the new daily quests that have arrived with the goodness-filled Patch 2.4, arguably the most confusing and mysterious one is the repeatable quest called For Great Honor for the Horde and Concerted Efforts for the Alliance. It is a dinosaur quest from the days of the old Honor system but made its stealthy return last Tuesday with a few tweaks. It was so stealthy that it didn't even make it into the official patch notes. It is also not searchable in wowhead through filters (e.g. added in Patch 2.4, PvP, etc.) or by name (e.g. "For Great Honor"). The references to the quest in thottbot or allakhazam both refer to the old repeatable quest albeit the quest description themselves have been updated to include the new requirement -- an additional Mark of Honor from Eye of the Storm.
Unlike the old quest, the new and improved For Great Honor -- which probably has the same ID tag (confusing poor old wowhead) as the original quest -- does not give any reputation for old world Battlegrounds. Players grinding Battlegrounds rep for the Conqueror or Justicar titles are flat of luck and must do it the hard way aside from being crazy for trying (yeah, okay, I'm one of those people). The very first time players complete the quest, it awards 11g 99s and 314 Honor points at Level 70. Subsequent turn-ins will only award the 314 Honor.
Because of the removal of diminishing returns to Honorable Kills, Honor points are available for use immediately, making this quest the most efficient way to earn additional Honor. Because it is repeatable and not a daily quest, players with stacks of 100 Marks of Honor from all Battlegrounds can accrue 31,400 Honor points right away. Of course, it is possible to earn more Honor from more turn-ins. Winning in all four Battlegrounds, for example, can give an additional 942 Honor from Mark of Honor turn-ins. For the many players who have full unusable stacks of these items, it's an excellent way to free up space and gain Honor points at the same time. Needless to say... make sure to save some Marks for those welfare epics! On a final note, try to complete this quest in the less populated cities such as the Exodar or Thunder Bluff, specially if you're turning in a whopping 100 times. Less populated cities will have less lag and less chances of players zoning in from Arenas or Battlegrounds to get in the clickable way of your turn-ins.
Laij of Laughing Skull believes that the new battleground matching system is a blow to PvP guilds.He said, "The new patch and matchmaking system has just nerfed the hell out of any pvp guild. Why run BG premades anymore? All you do is get matched up with other premades that are going to drag games out extremely long."Unsurprisingly, this was not particularly well received.
What is notable is that the thread has elicited a response from Drysc who said "Fair and challenging gameplay? The horror..."This comment opened Drysc (as a Blizzard representative) up to both criticism and support from readers.Some cheered him on for calling out the whining of the original poster, others said that class imbalance makes battlegrounds imbalanced.
Just in case the original $5k was too much for you on that Dell Warcraft laptop deal, Dell has apparently dropped the price to a still pretty high $4k, or $3999. That's still more than our questionable pricing out of the laptop and all of the goodies that come with it, but then again, it is a sweet gaming-spec, Warcraft branded laptop -- can you really put a price on a paradise like that?
And yes, it still does come with all the old stuff, including Alliance or Horde branding, all the Warcraft software, and a bunch of other goodies including those beta keys that we still have no idea are for. Where Dell found $1000 to cut out of that deal we can't figure either, unless... you don't think they were just topping more than a cool grand of straight profit on this deal, were they? Sneaky moneymaking bastards!
Update: Apparently we now know where they got $1000 out of the deal -- it doesn't come with all the extras any more. According to reader DevilStick, who chatted with a Dell sales rep, all it comes with is the mousepad and possibly a laptop bag. So the novels, the beta keys, and all of the books and other goodies were limited time only.
Update II: Dell themselves have contacted us with the news that the sales rep DevilStick chatted with was wrong: even at the lower price, it still does come with all the goodies. So if $5k was too much, but $4k is worth it to you to have "the ultimate Warcraft laptop," order away.
One of the little things that snuck by in the 2.4 patch notes is the ability to inspect players across factions. Horde can look at Alliance folk's gear, and Alliance can look at Horde people's gear. They can only do this when no one is flagged for PvP, however.
This is a really neat feature. My friends and I often times play "guess the gear" on the Horde toons we pass during our PvE adventures. We solve our arguments by looking them up in the armory, but now we'll just be able to right click on the Horde character's portrait and choose "Inspect." Pretty nifty.
Now... the real question becomes, where could this lead? For a long time players have been wondering if one day we'll be able to group across factions. Blizzard has obviously been leaning towards cross faction interaction and friendly support for a while now. We had the AQ gates opening, the recent goings on in the Isle of Quel'Danas, and lots of quests where you have to help out a member of the opposing faction.
I have to agree with Michael on WoW LJ: it would be nice to have 
It's back! Perhaps of all the new daily quests that have arrived with the goodness-filled 
Laij of Laughing Skull
One of the little things that snuck by in the 2.4 
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