Posts tagged Frostmourne at WOW Insider

Posts with tag frostmourne

Draw Frostmourne, win fabulous prizes

Posted May 7th 2008 2:30PM by Daniel Whitcomb
Filed under: Items, Blizzard, News items, Contests, Wrath of the Lich King

You know, I've always wanted a bit more drawing talent, but never more so than right now, as Blizzard has just announced a new fanart contest. They're looking for the best ~~European~~ fanart of Arthas wielding Frostmourne.

The entries will be judged by a panel of developers, and if you win, you'll not only receive one of Epic Weapons' Frostmourne Replicas, but a guaranteed slot in the upcoming beta for WoTLK. 2nd and 3rd place runners up will also receive a slot in the beta.

It should be noted that the contest is currently being announced on the European site, and the rules state that the contest is open only to residents of France, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Luxemburg, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Spain, or Ireland. There doesn't appear to be any word yet on whether we'll get an American version of the contest, but here's hoping we see that soon. It seems likely that Blizzard had to create two seperate contests because of legal requirements, and is still working on getting the US version up.

Check out Blizzard's official announcement here and the official rules here.

EDIT: The American version of this contest can be found here.

[Thanks to all our tipsters for sending this in!]

Frostmourne goes for $20k

Posted Apr 3rd 2008 3:30PM by Mike Schramm
Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Odds and ends, Wrath of the Lich King

So yes, Frostmourne is a sweet sword, and yeah these real-life replicas are great (like a couple of thousand dollars great). But $20,000? That's how much the winning bidder put up in the Weaponmasters auction to get a limited edition low number sword, a gaggle of extra goodies, and of course the real reason someone would spend five figures on a collectible: membership in the Arthas' Army of Disciples club. That's a lot of cash.

Blizzplanet has a list of all the bidders (for public humiliation purposes?) -- the "winner's" (if you can call someone out $20k a winner) name was Xeophonix, apparently from Italy. Only the first two bidders went all out -- there's one more $20k bid, and then it drops to $12k, $5k, and then on down from there to the much more reasonable bids around $500. But grats to Xeophonix -- hope the $20,000 sword is worth it. And watch your back -- we don't know exactly how you kill a Lich King, but if Weaponmasters didn't quite get Arthas' sword away from him for good, you might have an angry Menethil/Ner'zhul showing up at your door.

[Via MMO Champion]

Blizzard and dealing with the expanded WoW universe

Posted Mar 17th 2008 5:00PM by Mike Schramm
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Economy, WoW TCG

Zv of Destromath has an interesting argument on the forums -- he says that Blizzard has overextended themselves, and that by producing everything from trading cards to credit cards to WoW minis, the board game, and the upcoming movie (and he even forgot the FigurePrints and Dell deals), they've lost sight of what they should be working on: the game itself. While Zv does admit on the second page what Bornakk points out on the first (that it's not the same people or even the same company working on all of this stuff, and that the devs are still working on designing the game, not writing a script for the movie), there is still the same old argument here when anything goes mainstream and starts selling a brand: has the original material been neglected?

It's up to you, of course, whether you think that's the case or not, but there's no question at all that Blizzard is a completely different company because of World of Warcraft. Before this game, they were a popular-but-still-boutique games studio famous for just a few quality titles in even fewer franchises. But now, they're part of not one but two multinational corporations (one of which shares their name), and they oversee a global empire not just of rights and license releases, but of millions of players and financial interests all over the place. As Zv says, why are they making more deals for expensive swords when they still claim they don't have the manpower to let us use flying mounts in Azeroth?

The problem here is that you can't really second guess Blizzard -- despite the fact that you may agree or disagree with the decisions they've made, there's no question that they've got a successful game on their hands and that they've done nothing but make money with it. But though the Warcraft licensing universe seems to be growing at an exponential rate, we hope (and we'll find out, we guess, with the release of patch 2.4 and the expansion), that the core game is still as strong as ever.

Behold Frostmourne!

Posted Mar 14th 2008 3:30PM by Matthew Rossi
Filed under: Fan stuff, Blizzard, News items, Economy

No, seriously, behold Frostmourne! (Block of ice trapping the undead soul of Ner'zhul sold separately.) Now, I generally don't collect mechandise. I ignored the t-shirts, I didn't get the toys, I only read the comic book because I'm a lore geek.

But look at it.

It's Frostmourne. It's a 47 inch replica of the greatest, most evil runesword yet seen in game! This thing is aimed directly at my wallet. It's actually a huge mistake on my part to even post this because my wife reads the site and now she'll know what she's getting for our anniversary.

I'm just kidding, this baby's all mine.

I do wonder if it will be disappointing if I get it and it doesn't tear away my soul and drive me onward to serve the malevolent will of the Lich King. I mean, that's part of the draw, right? I mean, just check out the stats for this thing! (Warning, stats are a joke from Blizzcon.)

It's apparently being sold and also there's an auction if you want to try and get a special, low numbered edition. Sadly, I'll have to miss that, I like being able to pay rent and eat too much. But if you have the money to spare, and you want to have a chunk of decorative metal in the form of a licensed copy of the dread runeblade, now's your chance!

The legends of non-Legendary items

Posted Jan 12th 2008 1:01PM by Mike Schramm
Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Raiding

Blizzard has a torrid history with the Legendary items in World of Warcraft. The first such item to raise a stink was probably Ashbringer, the sword of Highlord Mograine of the Scarlet Crusade. Though stats have been found in the game (and a Corrupted version is available), the item itself isn't obtainable by players at all (though it still may be in the future). And reader Scott recently brought another one of these not-quite-Legendary items to my attention: the Skull of Gul'dan. This is probably one of the most powerful items in all of Azeroth-- it's been used to close and open the Dark Portal, it's responsible for tearing apart Felwood, and it turned Illidan from just an emo elf into a superpowerful demonic badass. And yet, it's no more than a rare trinket in the game.

Shouldn't an item with that much legend behind it be called Legendary? Illidan's twin blades are labeled legendary, but they're hardly the stuff of modern legend-- Illidan took them from a doom guard commander 10,000 years ago, and they've done nothing but sit in his whirling hands since then (heck, they couldn't even take down Arthas). I agree with Scott-- there's no reason those blades should be Legendary when the skull isn't. Sure, the skull might not be as powerful as it used to be, but it's still got a load of legend behind it.

And the Legendary debate isn't over yet, because there is one more big item looming on the horizon: when we head to Northrend, we'll all, Horde and Alliance alike, be looking to find the item that kicked off this Arthas trouble in the first place: Frostmourne. Will that be wieldable by players, or labeled Legendary? If Blizzard's previous experience with Legendary items is any indication, the answer may not be what you expect.

Azeroth's bad guys aren't always that bad

Posted Sep 25th 2007 2:02PM by David Bowers
Filed under: Expansions, Lore, RP, Wrath of the Lich King

Malygos is a new kind of antagonist for the Warcraft universe in that he's probably the enemy with the least actual evil we've seen so far, in sharp contrast to the Burning Legion, the Scourge, the Old Gods, and a host of others. As we've already noted, some players think he may actually be right: he wants to protect Azerothians from the magic they're dabbling in, for fear that they might end up bringing the Burning Legion back with it, except that he goes about "protecting" the people by waging war on them, which somehow eerily familiar....

Anyway, Malygos is just the latest example of an antagonist in WoW that we can almost sympathize with, a bad guy that isn't all that bad. Malygos' particular place at the other end of our attack buttons can be attributed mainly to his conflicting point of view rather than an evil and corrupted soul. His ultimate aim is still the greater good of all life -- he just believes (wrongfully, we hope) that he needs to destroy the minority of magic users in order to save the remaining majority of all other life on the world.

Continue reading Azeroth's bad guys aren't always that bad

The claiming of Frostmourne

Posted Aug 15th 2007 2:15PM by Mike Schramm
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Lore, NPCs, Wrath of the Lich King

Blizzard has posted Chapter 2 of their little "Rise of the Lich King" series on the official Wrath of the Lich King website. It's called "The Claiming of Frostmourne," and it covers Arthas' descent into corruption, the razing of Stratholme (remember that place?), and the finding of the sword Frostmourne in Northrend.

If you've played Warcraft III, of course, this is all old news, as all these events are actually shown in that game. But if you haven't played Warcraft III (and its expansion, the Frozen Throne), now might be a good time to do so. While the Burning Crusade reflected more old school lore, including the creation of the Orcs and the opening of the Dark Portal, Wrath of the Lich King's history is pretty recent. Yes, Illidan appeared in the expansion, and others in Outland did as well. But since the beginning of Warcraft III, the story has been all about Arthas, and how bad things are done in the name of believed-to-be-good intentions.

With the next expansion, it'll be great to finally return to that story. Of course, my favorite part of Arthas' story is actually the scene that comes after "The Claiming of Frostmourne"-- what Arthas does after he obtains Frostmourne and is corrupted by the Lich King. Echoes of that are still heard (literally) in the world of Azeroth today.

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Draw Frostmourne, win fabulous prizes

Frostmourne goes for $20k

Blizzard and dealing with the expanded WoW universe

Behold Frostmourne!

The legends of non-Legendary items

Azeroth's bad guys aren't always that bad

The claiming of Frostmourne

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