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Posts with tag dwarves

Inside the mind of Metzen

Cecil Vortex has a long interview up with none other than Azeroth's rockstar mastermind, Chris Metzen. He actually describes himself as a "world creator," and that's about right -- he's the guy (along with everyone else at Blizzard, obviously) who's come up with the entire universe that the World of Warcraft exists in -- from Orcs to Dwarves to Titans and Old Gods, Metzen is the guy who dreamed it.

And for a guy who's created everything in this gigantic universe, he's remarkably "geeked" about it -- he still talks like he's a guy sitting at his basement table creating D&D quests (which, don't lie now, we've all done at one point or another). The second part of the interview is even more interesting -- Metzen talks about his creative process and just how much of a group process it is at Blizzard. Since they're all in the target audience, every group member censors each other and pushes each other to bigger and better heights of storytelling.

Metzen also mentions a non-Blizzard project called Soldier: 76, about a guy making his way through a second American Civil War. It came out a while ago, apparently, but would definitely be interesting to see what Metzen does outside of Blizzard continuity. And as if there was any doubt that Metzen was a rock star, he ends the interview exactly the way you'd expect a creative superstar to end it: when "you've tapped into something beyond the individual," then "it's off to the races."

[Via Blizzplanet]

Your least favorite races

We all have our favorite races, whether we actively play them or not. Personally, I have a thing for playing Humans and I desperately want to play an Ethereal one day. At the very least, have an Ethereal presence in Wrath, even a small one.

What about your least favorite races, though? We all have those, too. We don't always have good explanations for it, but for one reason or another there's just something that drives us absolutely crazy. My #1 most hated race in Warcraft would have to be Gnolls. What do they even do? Their most famous member is Hogger, who doesn't even do anything. Okay okay, they kill people and that's bad, but they don't do do anything. At least Kobolds mine stuff up.

Tell you what, I'll go ahead and give my Top 5 after the jump. If you're interested, go ahead and read on!

Continue reading Your least favorite races

AddOn Spotlight: Fizzwidget's Trackmenu

Do you suffer from buttonitus? (I'm amused that word didn't trip a spell-check alert.) Symptoms of this dreaded disease include having more spells and abilities than you have buttons, exploring assorted action bar add-ons that allow you to have more buttons than the default UI, and overall general frustration. Although this plague is not limited to a single class in World of Warcraft, hunters in particular have it worse than most.

In addition to the usual combat abilities, the shots, the traps, and whatever other profession-based buttons a hunter may have setup they have an added burden: tracking skills. I'm pretty sure it's safe to say that nobody can track as many different kinds of things as hunters, especially if the hunter is a miner or herbalist as well, or even a dwarf.

So, listen to me hunters (and others). Look at your action bars and all the tracking skills you have hot-keyed there. Now describe to me in a hundred words or less (in the comments section if you wish) the happy dance you will launch into if you could reclaim each and every one of those buttons and use them for something else. Allow me to introduce you to Fizzwidget's Trackmenu.

Installation of the add-on could not be simpler. Simply open it in your archiver of choice and extract the folder into your \Addons folder as per usual. Then launch World of Warcraft and look where the tracking indicator used to be on your mini-map. In it's place is the Trackmenu button. Click this button, and a list of all your tracking skills will drop down allowing you to make a selection. Unless there are some you want to hot-key you can now safely remove all your tracking abilities from action bars.

Enjoy one of my absolute favourite add-ons. You can look forward to further reviews of other Fizzwidget products in the future. He's got what you need!

WoW Moviewatch: Betty and me

In this edition of Moviewatch, we drop in on an excited Dwarf and his lovely Night Elf wife who are expecting their very first baby! With a little help from their Doctor, that is...




Kind of makes you appreciate just how strong that Dwarven ale must be if he hasn't been able to figure it out. Although when taken together with Oxhorn's Anti-Elf Anthem, suddenly you begin to understand why those Dwarves don't trust Elves either.

Previously on MovieWatch...

Body images in World of Warcraft

I know, I know, I mentioned the WoW Ladies just yesterday, but they talk about such interesting stuff over there. Today it's body images in WoW-- one of them, Tsuraibara, saw someone on the EU forums calling human female characters fat "couch potatoes," and couldn't believe what she heard.

Personally, I'm with Tsuraibara-- I find the human females pretty darn attractive. I'm even one of those guys that plays a human female priest just so I can watch that holy body do its shadowy casting thing all day. Of course, I have a male gnome warrior, too, just because I love the look of a tiny bundle of doom charging Horde in PVP. Although I have to disagree with Tsuraibara about the Tauren females-- she plays two, and I don't think there's any way I could ever stand to look at one of those enough to get her past level 10. Elsewhere in the thread, someone sings the praises of Dwarf females, and I have to admit, while they're not classically attractive, the emotes especially make it seem like Dwarf females might be fun to hang out with. UD females are another matter entirely, though...

Now, we're no Guild Wars-- I once attended a conference where a professor of game studies couldn't believe how those women ever made it out of a battle with so little armor on. But at the same time, this ain't no text adventure, either-- WoW's graphics are cohesive and defined enough to make judgements on what the "models" look like. Have you judged your characters or other characters' looks? Is it wrong to do so? And the other question brought up in the thread is interesting, too-- is it only the female characters that are judged? Or are male Night Elves and Orcs getting checked out, too?


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