Welcome to Know Your Lore, where each week Alex Ziebart brings you a tasty little morsel of lore to wrap your mind around. Sweet, sweet lore. Mmmm.
Before we start this week, I'd like to let you guys know about a neat little thing we've set up for you. If you have requests for Know Your Lore or questions for that other column that I do, you can e-mail me at lorenerd@wowinsider.com ! I can't guarantee that I'll fill all Know Your Lore requests, but I'll certainly do my best. Now, on with the show!
My original intent with Know Your Lore this week was to go back to our preparation for Wrath of the Lich King with Kel'thuzad. I was pretty excited, because I adore the Scourge and c'mon, Kel'thuzad has to be awesome, right? Uh... no, not really, he isn't. He was shockingly boring and was only interesting in the context of the Scourge as a whole. He's definitely a pawn. He didn't stand up well on his own, so we're stepping away from the Road to Wrath a little longer.
Instead, we're going to focus on a topic suggested by my buddy Danny Whitcomb. Today we're going to look at Malorne, which conveniently goes pretty well with this past week'sAsk a Lore Nerd. Malorne is one of many demigods in Kalimdor's history, but is/was generally regarded as one of the greatest. This makes sense, considering he and Elune hooked up once upon a time
When I started playing World of Warcraft, I decided to start off by making a TaurenHunter. Mostly because every single game I've ever played, I am usually a healer-type character. I decided that I did not want to be the healer this time around, but I was far from ready for the tank job, so I went halfway into what I figured would be a decent solo and damage support class. I was so unprepared for what playing a Hunter would be.
One of my major obsessions, however, was to find a pet that was an uncommon sight. I did not realize at the time that Echeyakee was a Horde side quest, and was really excited at having gotten a "rare pet" when a friend offered to help me tame him.
Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, the column that answers your questions about the story and lore of the Warcraft universe. Click the Comments link below, ask your question, and blogger/columnist Alex Ziebart will answer you in a future installment!
Two weeks ago, when I was going through my queue of questions, one stuck out as especially complex. Sean Riley inquired about the beliefs and practices of the various Azerothian religions. This topic really excited me as I kind of have a thing for analyzing religion and faith. I would never claim to be an authority on theology, but it's stlil something that is very interesting to me. Warcraft lore combined with theology? Yes please! Obviously this isn't really the place to analyze and debate religion, but taking time out to research the gaps in my knowledge on this particular topic was incredibly fun for me.
Unforunately, I didn't have the space in that week's column to fit the answer to that question in, nor did I really have the time. It was a broad question and needed to invest a hefty amount of time into it. This one question has filled today's column, and while that may be disappointing to some that are waiting their turn, I hope it's an interesting read regardless.
This is just beautiful, from the title ("Brave Noob World") to the idea -- a geographical survey of Azeroth. James Wallis, the director of Hogshead Publishing, gave this presentation at an "unconference" called Interesting '08, in which he tried to do a survey of Azeroth, in the same way that Tobold did -- by walking from one end to the other. And he discovers that Azeroth is pretty small and pretty dense -- it's about 12km across, according to him (I really like his comparison image of the Death Star), and using a Female Tauren, he even comes up with the force of gravity, which is about equal to Earth -- about 1g. Which makes sense; Blizzard would want the virtual world to feel the same as our world, no matter how big it is.
There's a problem with that, though -- if you have a small planet with the same gravity as a much larger planet, the only answer is that the mass of the planet is much more dense. And when you get a really small, densely packed mass, you start to mess around with the flow of time. So Wallis actually ends up explaining one of the more annoying features of Azeroth with actual science. Very nice.
It's definitely a fun example of looking for more in this MMO than Blizzard probably put there, but Wallis covers it with enough zest and logic that it works, strangely. Now if he could only explain the weather...
First of all, a huge thank you to Mike Schramm last week for covering my rear with his hunter comic. And it wasn't so much "kindly accepted" as it was "oh thank goodness, I'm saved" for the record, Mike. Thank you Turpster, also!
Now, back to business (or tomfoolery, I haven't decided which it actually is yet). This week brings us a comic that actually took place in the Barrens. Crossroads to be specific. So once again for those of you who complained commented that the comics should take place in the barrens, your wish has been granted.
That Murloc was just the beginning -- since the Spore creature creator demo dropped officially yesterday, and along with this cute little C'thun (thanks, Andrew!), there are a whole crowd of Warcraft-related creatures showing up on the Sporepedia. We've collected our favorites so far in a gallery below -- while you'll need to actually put the creatures in game to see them shuffle, saunter, and dance around in Spore, you can get a pretty good idea of just how versatile Will Wright's little creator is. I've said it before and I'll say it again: while everyone is expecting Warhammer to give WoW a run for its money, the PC game that Blizzard should really be worried about this year is Spore.
If you see any other great Warcraft-related creature creations in Spore, feel free to send them along and you just might see them here. And in the meantime, our sister site BigDownload (who are also hosting the demo) is holding a creature creator contest -- send them your best creature and you could win a EVGA NVIDIA e-GeForce 8800GT, EVGA NVIDIA e-GeForce 9600GT or a free upgrade to the full version of the creature creator game. It's Sporelicious!
Seriously, look at the C'thun. We haven't seen a tentacled, ancient monster this cute since, well, Hello Cthulu.
Here are some tips every new shaman player should know. Casters can be some of your easiest kills, whether in PvP or PvE because Shock is your middle name and spell interruption is your game.
Earth Shock, baby! At level 4 you'll get Rank 1 of this spell. Its cooldown is 6 seconds, just like all your shock spells.
Keep Earth Shock (Rank 1) somewhere on your toolbar in addition to higher levels of the spell. It only uses 30 mana and it still stops an enemy in mid-cast just as effectively as higher ranked versions of the spell.
Mages can be taken down easily if you're quick to get close to them and stop them from casting Frost Nova. Pound them quickly, continuing to shock them when casting.
Level 24+ Mages and level 32+ Priests can stop your Lightning Bolts with Counterspell or Silence. Although both of these spells will impact your casting for up to 8 seconds, remember that shock spells are instant cast and can't be interrupted.
In the case of Mages' Counterspells, their silencing effect only stops one school of casting. So if they hit you during Lightning Bolt (a Nature spell), you can still cast your Flame or Frost Shocks, but not your Earth Shock. You can also drop Searing Totem for damage.
After the jump, five more tips for shamans against casters.
I have these questions about some of the random things I find in World of Warcraft. One the one hand, I'm intensely curious as to the answer to these questions. On the other hand, I'm really not sure I want to know.
One of the most enjoyable aspects of playing the game sometimes is imagining what it is that is really going on behind the scenes. With an imagination like mine, this can sometimes lead to really interesting ideas as to just how things work.
Engineers frighten me. Mostly because I tend to be the guinea pig in anything and everything I find myself involved in, and because of the things they do when we're not looking. But also because I don't understand a single thing they're trying to tell me.
I don't know about you guys, but anyone who thinks a good time involves playing with dangerous things with electrical charges, and trying to outrun explosive sheep is a little bit on the crazy side.
Gallery: Barrens Chat
Every week, Barrens Chat drags its readers through the clutter-filled, cobweb infested mind of Megan Harris, and exposes the readers to her decaying sense of humor. So if you're interested in soft, fluffy delights, or are more into a quick and tasty snack you... wait. Why are all these comics focused on food so far? Maybe next week our starving artist will be a little more well fed and provide less food-for-though, and more funny.
I am a terrible leveler. I started playing back in January 2007, and in all that time have managed to produce a single 70. Admittedly, I think she's a very good 70 and she stays busy, but you would think that nearly 1 1/2 years would be a sufficient period of time to level another class to the endgame. Guess not.
Lately I've been trying to fix this and have gone back to leveling a few alts. While talking to a friend last night about his propensity for leveling alts at the approximate speed of an SR-71, it occurred to me that I have two warriors, only one of whom has leveled quickly. The other just can't seem to fill up the XP bar. Obviously there's no class difference to cite as a possible reason, so I started thinking about what affects the leveling speed of an alt, and why I've got so many unsuccessful ones littering the character selection screen:
Before I start this post, I should warn you that every single post we do about the size of something ingame must, by contractual obligations, contain a risqué double entendre somewhere within. Be warned.
Reader Veras was nice enough to point out to us that as of the 2.4.2 release, Tauren two-hand weapons have returned to normal size as planned. It seems to me that this got fixed fairly quicker than other size issues that Blizzard has had. We still have no idea how their code works (and what they're changing that causes all of these weird issues), but at least they're getting better at fixing things.
Of course, as any Tauren Fury Warrior will tell you, it's not the size of your two-hand weapon -- it's how you use it. Contract fulfilled.
Many of you might remember that a while back, we organized a Stormwind Stampede, where a bunch of us created a herd of Tauren over on Zangarmarsh, and then had a little footrace all the way to Stormwind. Our friend BigRedKitty is apparently putting something similar together this weekend -- he's calling it the Cinco de Mayo Running of da Bulls, and the final goal appears to be from Mulgore to Hammerfall (which means there's an Org to Undercity zepplin ride in there somewhere).
The whole event kicks off this Saturday, May 3rd over on Cenarion Circle. BRK is organizing the thing along with Ratshag of Need More Rage (he's the one who created the route, and it'll be his friend you're hunting for in Hammerfall). He's got more on his blog, including that the race is a tribute to a friend of theirs who passed away, and all the Tauren will be saying "moo" in respect.
Sounds like a lot of fun. If you want to join them, meet up in Mulgore on Cenarion Circle at 4:00 server time (which works out to 7:00 Eastern). And make sure to take some screenshots. For the Herd!
This has been one of the most-requested Know Your Lore subjects over the months we've had this feature, but I've held off because until recently there just wasn't that much information about the Grimtotems. With the new Dustwallow Marsh content in 2.4 and the revelations in the WoW comic book, it's finally time to explore one of the most mysterious factions in the game -- Magatha Grimtotem and her tribe of tauren outcasts.
Who: The Grimtotem Clan.
What: 1,430 members of a powerful Tauren clan.
History: Way, way back before Cairne Bloodhoof met Thrall and created a new tauren homeland in Mulgore, the tauren were organized into clans, each with their own leader. The Grimtotem were NOT one of these clans. Instead, the Grimtotem name passed down through generations of survival in other clans, until the Tauren were unified under Cairne. Then the Grimtotem banded together as, basically, an opposition party, defined by their distrust of Cairne's alliance with the orcs and trolls.
The Eagles Pride guild on Malygos US had an interesting idea for a guild event. They all rolled level 1 Taurenalts and staged a raid boss encounter where they had to take down a level 70 mage. Apparently, a lot of thought went into the encounter, with the mage's gear and abilities tuned to create a realistic opponent for the little cows. Additionally, the mage, Belise, limited himself to using his abilities on certain cues and made good use of emote macros to further mimic a scripted boss encounter.
You can check out the thread on the official WoWforums which includes links to the twovideos of the entire event. The thread also contains more information regarding how they balanced the event and speculation concerning how similar fights would work with other classes. It would also be a good place to express your interest if you'd like to participate in another similar event in the future.
I've heard of some interesting guild events in the past, but personally, this one trumps them all. Have you ever taken part in something like this?
That Murloc
Here are some tips every new shaman player should know. Casters can be some of your easiest kills, whether in PvP or PvE because Shock is your middle name and spell interruption is your game.
Every week, 
Many of you might remember that a while back, we organized 
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