The fine folk over at DeathKnight.info have posted a video of the unique Death Knight voices we've all been promised. They don't have an entirely new set of voice emotes (at least not yet), they took a slightly different route. There's actually a sound filter over the voices, making them sound echoey and spooky. The females have been described as sounding like banshees, which is pretty accurate I think. If you're not a fan of the voice effects, you're allowed to turn them off in your Sound control panel so you won't have to hear it. Other people still will, unless they do the same.
I'm definitely a fan of this for most of the race/gender combos. Some of them are lackluster (in my opinion) such as the Female Dwarves. The best? Male Blood Elf by far. That laugh? Awesome. Just awesome. I'm sure we'll see a couple of tweaks to this before the end of the beta period, but they're definitely on the right track, I think.
All the World's a Stage returns today to shine a brutal but loving eye on the intricacies of roleplay. We do this by looking at the craft of roleplay itself, and the people who love it. We might not be ready for Jerry Springer, but we're pretty sure this week's column is going to have a little debate behind it. Michael Gray fills in this week for David Bowers, and talks about letting roleplay exclude some other forms of play in the World of Warcraft.
We're not a big Guild. All told, we probably have about twenty to twenty five people who come online at various times to talk, chat, and play together. We have some structure, but we're mostly a motley of friends who hang out. Our raiding effort takes place because our raid leaders woke up one day and said "By Wrath of the Lich King, we're going to be able to progress in ten man content."
We're also a roleplay-ish kind of Guild. I say "ish" because we're not full immersion players. We have some light story notions. For example, I have the vague idea that our raid's main healer is the son of our raid's main tank -- that's mostly because they're the same human model, but one has light blonde hair, and the other has old, graying hair.
So, when we come across folks into the roleplay and immersion a little more than we are, we're sometimes not quite sure what to make of it.
Welcome back for another Barrens Chat comic. I would up front like to say that I am very excited about exotic pets. So excited, I had to poke fun at fellow blogger Daniel Howell for his post last week on the topic of exotic pets. Although I think I might have been a little misleading when I first ran the idea of what I wanted to do past him.
Either way, I'm still playing with a few drawing and coloring changes here and there. I didn't darken the outlines this time around, but I think it makes it a bit harder to see in places.
Thank you, Daniel, for pointing me towards your banner for a reference, even if I didn't specify what it was I was referencing exactly.
See you next week!
Gallery: Barrens Chat
Barrens Chat is a weekly comic installment created on caffeine and pixy sticks. Although we've yet again decided to abuse Hunters in any way we can find, sometimes we go after the tankier players, too. Stop by every week to see a new comic, and hope that the sugar stash has run out by then.
Now, I know last week I said in a comment that I am trying something entirely new this week. However, that plan sort of backfired when I found out my scanner is no longer in the realm of the living, and those Spirit Healers apparently don't speak binary.
I've Wanted to put this comic up since I saw the movie. If you have not seen it, you might not get this unless you watched the movie previews, or have someone explain it.
I don't get to play World of Warcraft very often anymore. Real life comes up and gets in the way all the time, and then you have to sit back and listen to your friends talk about how much fun they've had in the past few weeks you've been away. So you sit, and you wait, and eventually you get time to log on again, run around, and have a jolly old time. Especially when you get to hang out with good people.
I've never had Ventrilo or any other sort of microphone attachment that would broadcast my voice across the Internet. For one point, I'd have to break down and buy a headset of some sort. Knowing me I'd likely break it within a week, so I'd actually need to buy two, but that's alright. The other reason is, I'm not entirely sure I want the ability to hear other absent minded people like me babbling to themselves, forgetting the rest of the world can hear them.
More politicians are coming out of the WoW closet. Jeanne Stevens is a WoW player -- with a 70 Orc Hunter, a 58 Troll Shaman, and a 53 Blood Elf Rogue -- and a Republican running for the Connecticut state legislature. And she freely admits it in a new interview with Wandering Goblin, as covered by our sister site, Massively. Her hunter is balanced between marksman and survival, her shaman specs elemental (close to my heart!), and her rogue climbs the assassination talent tree. Will she be able to master the beasts in her political race? (Okay, you go ahead and insert your own shaman or rogue wordplay here.) Maybe she'll hold some in-game speeches or rallies. She could hold forth on top of Orgrimmar's bank, or maybe lead a raid to Stormwind as a metaphor.
Is it surprising that a Republican chooses Horde? I think you could make a case for either faction going with either political party. Personally, I love to see that she's middle-aged and a woman, which defies Blizzard's assumptions about the majority of WoW gamers. She also chooses pirates over ninjas. I'm not sure there's a political comment there, but I'm sure someone will show me the light.
In a bold move that is perhaps indicative of the direction Blizzard will be taking with the game and lore progression, Patch 2.4 saw the removal of M'uru from Silvermoon City and the displacement of Lady Liadrin from the chamber in Farstriders' Square. In a scripted event that reveals what happened to the captured Naaru, Lady Liadrin pays a visit to A'dal in Shattrath City, eventually pledging the service of the Blood Knights to the Shattered Sun Offensive. In the blink of an eye, Lady Liadrin become Exalted with the Shattered Sun Offensive (where'd she get that quest, I wonder!) and leaves Shattrath wearing one of the coolest tabards in the World of Warcraft.
What does this imply for Blood Elf Paladins? Gameplay-wise, not much. Although I would've welcomed a change in the quests for Horde, the biggest changes were that all the quests that were previously available from Lady Liadrin are now obtained from Lord Solanar Bloodwrath. Obviously moved for logistical reasons, the quests are virtually identical to the ones that Lady Liadrin dispensed. The one noticeable change is in the early quest Claiming the Light from Knight-Lord Bloodvalor. In the original quest, players were to fill a Shimmering Vessel with power from M'uru, whom the Blood Knights used to hold captive. The updated quest now requires the player to draw the lingering energies from the Blood Elf Magisters rather than M'uru, indicating that what remains are mere vestiges of the power that the Blood Knights once wielded.
He Said / She Said is a new feature at WoW Insider, which looks at the game from masculine and feminine points of view. Today, Amanda and David discuss the age-old question: are male night elves and blood elves "gay?" Does Blizzard intend to give us that impression, and if so, why? If that's not what Blizzard intends, then why is gayness such a big deal when people think of elves?
As promisedearlier, we've brought the sexy back of Reader WoWspace of the Week, just in time for you to enjoy on downtime Tuesday. (Although we make no guarantees about consistent amount of sexy....) This week's submission comes from Violetly, level 70 Blood Elf priest on Mal'Ganis who somehow has managed to show up in the armory twice. Violetly's chief complaint is that we're not doing enough justice to the girly WoWspaces out there -- so she did her duty and sent hers in for us to enjoy! Violetly writes:
I have long felt it is my duty to provide WoW Insider with a much needed "girly" WoWspace, so here we are ladies and gentlemen. I have been playing WoW since 2005, first leveling an Alliance hunter to 60 before crossing over to the Horde with the arrival of BC. Violetly has always been PvE shadow for raiding. However, after returning to school to pursue a Master's degree in education, my raiding came to a screeching halt; so to spice things up, I recently switched to PvP discipline. I'm finding discipline to be very entertaining and equally as frustrating for my opponents (even in my welfare epics)!
For more details on this great girly WoWspace, (and another picture with moar fuzzy cat) read on after the break!
Player Kyprianos of the Icecrown server was in Serpentshrine Cavern with his guild Indecisive after their very first kill of Leotheras the Blind. After being forced to "face his inner demon" by the Blood Elf Demon Hunter, Kyp decided to take a breather in Leo's chair. But shouldn't there be two seats?
Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? Because we'd love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!
Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. We prefer full screen shots without the UI showing. And please, no more sunsets. No, really. Ok, only if it's a sunrise in new Patch 2.4 lands. We'll take those anytime. Oh, and no more shots of Omen killed in Ogrimmar. It's cool, we get it. A lot of it.
You've gotten the PTR client downloaded, you've read all about patch 2.4, and you've managed to create a character (because your level 70 uber toon of pwnage isn't copied yet). What do you do?
Go north towards that big new island, and that means you're going to need to swim. As you can see from my screen shot below, you can actually see the island off in the distance.
Twice a week, our writers will tell you more about themselves, and let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read moreAbout the Bloggers. What do you do for WoW Insider?
I blog about whatever seems interesting at the time, and I also write the roleplaying column, All the World's a Stage. I'm especially interested in writing about roleplaying and PvP, too, because they're the things I participate in most often. Everything and everyone in the game is interconnected, though, so even if I'm not a big raider, for instance, I still care a great deal about the things raiders are going through.
What's your main right now?
My current main is a draenei hunter, pictured above, but I'm spending just as much time with other alts right now, trying to decide which one will be my main Horde character. My most-played Hordie is currently a warlock. Previous mains I don't play as much anymore include a druid and a rogue, both Alliance.
For the Horde or Glory to the Alliance?
Heh. For both! I used to be all for the Alliance because I couldn't relate to the whole deformed and inherently violent look that many Horde characters have, but I'm one of those people for whom blood elves really opened up access to the Horde and see them in a new light. I like to appreciate the stories of the monstrous Horde races without actually having to play a monstrous character myself.
Many people are predicting that "everyone" will make a new death knight character when the new expansion is going to come out -- so many that the world will seem full of them. While it is true that everyone may very well try out the first couple levels of the new death knight hero class, it's not true that every server will be overrun with them. Here's why:
The addition of death knights to the game is in many ways like the addition of blood elves and draenei in The Burning Crusade. Many people made new characters just to see the new zones, but many others wanted to level their mains through Outland first. Many of those players who tried out the new races only played up to a certain point and then stopped to go back to their main characters. We never saw a flood of draenei and blood elves outnumbering all other races of Azeroth, and for the same reason we will not see a flood of new death knights. There are different things to do in the expansion, and different people make different choices about which to do first. There may be a contstant stream of new death knights, maybe even a river sometimes, but death knights will just feel like the newest kid in the WoW class, not a plague of locusts infesting the entire town.
There's also a huge difference between trying out a death knight, and choosing one as your new main character. Wherever death knights start out in the world may be a crowded area for a while, but most players won't ever level them out of that starting zone. Unlike the Jedi in Star Wars, death knights are only one of many types of characters in Warcraft. Besides, the death knight play style and thematic mood simply isn't going to appeal to everyone, in the same way that most WoW players today do not play warlocks, notwithstanding the fact that warlocks are undoubtedly a powerful class. Most players prefer to do healing, shapeshifting, stealthing, ranged shots, totems, or any number of other abilities that death knights will never have, and they will stay with their favorite classes and play styles. Some players, like myself, probably just won't like their armor decorated with skulls all the time.
Here's a question for all the female WoW gamers out there: are any male models in the game that you consider to be attractive? We often talk about how very appealing some (though not all) of the female models are to men, but when it comes to male models, the Blizzard art team doesn't seem to be going after the "appeals to the ladies" look at all. Apparently afraid that the males will look too much like "pretty boys," they tend to strive for that gruff "I'm gonna kill ya, sucka!" attitude many male gamers seem to love -- the more monstrous and intimidating, the better. Indeed, although the most "attractive" of all the males in Azeroth are probably supposed to be the blood elves, I have never once heard a woman say, "that elf is handsome!"
And yet in my travels through Azeroth, I have observed such remarks as "I think Tauren butts look cute," and "You! Human male! You have a cute nose!" ... though that latter one was probably said in jest. Human male noses look like they've been hit with a shovel. Many times.
So... are there any male characters in the game which actually appeal to the ladies somewhat? If not the whole model, perhaps some parts of it? The tree-trunk sized wrists, perhaps? Or the barn-sized shoulders? How about the permanent frowns and rugged scowls men wear all the time? Anything at all?
Selserene weaves a tale of the Blood Elf people, their trials and tribulations, and ultimately, their deaths. When two lovers are separated during a scourge attack on Silvermoon, they end up joining opposite factions. When they cross paths again, they are forced to make a decision that will change their lives ...
All the World's a Stage
He Said / She Said is a new feature at WoW Insider, which looks at the game from masculine and feminine points of view. Today, Amanda and David discuss the age-old question: are male night elves and blood elves "gay?" Does Blizzard intend to give us that impression, and if so, why? If that's not what Blizzard intends, then why is gayness such a big deal when people think of elves?
You've gotten the 
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