Posts tagged Gryphon at WOW Insider

Posts with tag gryphon

All the World's a Stage: How to roleplay your way to level 70

Posted Jun 22nd 2008 1:01PM by David Bowers
Filed under: How-tos, WoW Social Conventions, Virtual selves, Quests, Leveling, Guides, RP, (Roleplaying) All the World's a Stage

When you decide to roleplay, a whole new world of imagination opens up to you -- soon you realize that all the World of Warcraft is a stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players.

A friend of mine recently complained that lately leveling has been extremely tedious. Even with characters he might feel excited about at first, he eventually gets bored after just a few quests. We talked about this for a little while, and he brought up the fact that if he was going to play WoW by himself he might as well play a single-player game instead.

It got me thinking that, in spite of all the demand people have for more solo and casual content, this is significantly better when we play it together. Even when I play by myself, my eye is always on my friends list to see if someone I know is going to show up and chat with me. Thinking about my friend's problem, I thought maybe it would really help if he and I were to go questing together -- so we found the two characters we had with the smallest level gap between them and we decided to go at it. Rather than just just going through the motions of killing the various enemies listed on our little quest sheets as if we were buying groceries or something, we made it into a neat little roleplay experience.

In fact, there are lots of quests in the game that are very appropriate for roleplaying. When you get together with your friends to level up and quest together, you can focus on the quest that has the deepest possible connection to your own character, or the one with the most intrinsic storyline. Of course there are many other throwaway quests you can do along the way, like "kill 10 Generic Humanoids" or whatever, but it works best to pick one that seems to have some meaning to you or your character and start there.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: How to roleplay your way to level 70

Breakfast Topic: Flying Mounts and Professions

Posted Mar 2nd 2008 8:00AM by Daniel Whitcomb
Filed under: Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Engineering, Leatherworking, Tailoring, Enchanting, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast topics, Jewelcrafting, Lore, RP, Mounts

The Engineering flying machine has been out for a while now, and it's been a pretty big hit. It's a nice classic piece of Warcraft tradition and lore and good unique reward for someone with enough gumption to craft what may seem like hundreds of Adamantite Rifles on their way to 375 Engineering.

Of course, something that shiny is going to attract admirers and tons of people who want one for themselves. The issue crops up every few weeks on the general forums or the suggestion boards: Someone wants a crafted flying mount of their own without switching professions. If they got themselves up to 375 in their chosen skill and want to spend another thousand gold or so on expensive trade skill items for a flying mount, why shouldn't they? It'd be a great way to show pride in your trade skilling prowess and give one more way to shed that plain old Wyvern or Gryphon and set yourself apart from the crowd. You could go with, say a nice flying carpet for the tailors, maybe a flying mortar and pestle for the alchemists. Now, I tend to agree that it's probably good enough that Engineers are unique in getting a flying mount in the same way that, for example, Leatherworkers get drums or Blacksmiths get weapons and armor. But then again, I also have to say that Engineers already get some pretty awesome goggles for a unique reward anyway, and a flying carpet would be pretty sweet.

So what do you think? How about a leather-winged glider for Leatherworkers? Or do you think that it's enough that the Engineers have a mount that's taken from previous lore and people should stop asking for silly stuff that's never appeared in Warcraft before?

Patch 2.4 has better ways to go

Posted Feb 19th 2008 5:30PM by Ryan Carter
Filed under: Patches, Blizzard, Expansions, Wrath of the Lich King

Blizzard has started to realize that travel (as in real life) can be boring in the game. On the Public Test Realm (PTR), they have put a few new ideas to good use when forcing players to travel long distances to get to new content.

I copied my character to the PVE test server (once it started working again), and began a flight to Quel'Danas from Ironforge. First off, I already had the flight path, which was refreshing to start with. The odd thing is that upon reaching the gates of Ironforge, the bird rocketed straight up vertically which panicked me a little until I realized that it was on purpose. All the sudden, welcome to a loading screen appeared. I was dropped on the far side of the Ghostlands gate and continued my flight all the way north to the new content at Quel'Danas. This shaved off several minutes flying time and provided an easy way to bridge an old flight path to a new one easily. A flight path spanning from the original content to the content now in the expansion (technically a patch is both and neither) is the type of crossover innovation I knew Blizzard was capable of doing.

Another new idea is to provide a quest reward to transport you to Shattrath, Darnarian's Scroll of Teleportation from the new quest Know Your Ley Lines. This is as opposed to the hearthstone you get. This item only has a 20 second cool down, so at least the outbound trip from Quel'Danas to Shat will be quick and painless.

Blizzard is adding some creative ideas to help travel become a bit easier especially for those who have run around the world and picked up every last flight path during the course of their rise to 70, and now are tired of flying everywhere.

Now what I wonder is how travel to and from the floating city of Dalaran will work, not to mention other destinations, once it has blasted off from Hillsbrad and begun to hover over Northrend. Perhaps travel will be done in much the same way. This isn't all that new, since boats already use a very similar mechanism from Darkshore to Azuremyst Isle. I imagine things will get even trickier to manage with 2 expansions up and running, from a technical perspective for Blizz, so it is nice to know that they are thinking ahead on how we will get there, get back, and generally move about the world we love. Nice to know indeed.

I spent how much on my alt?

Posted Feb 17th 2008 11:00AM by Alex Ziebart
Filed under: Paladin, Items, Economy, Mounts

Just this weekend I did something I never expected I would do: Spent 5,000 gold on epic flight. On my main? Oh no, I've had that for months now. I spent 5,000 gold on my alt. My alt! Good gravy!

Honestly, I don't really regret it, it's mostly the shock of spending that much gold on an alt that gets me. I'll definitely be putting the epic gryphon to good use, I play my alt quite a bit. Like I mentioned in another recent post, my alt is almost my second main. Pretty much full epics, has seen the insides of Zul'Aman, Tempest Keep and Serpentshrine, capped Blacksmithing, all of that. The fact remains, though, it is an alt. 5,000 gold on an alt!

I can't be the only one crazy enough to do this, am I? Surely there are others with alts that have epic flight? Most of my friends poked fun at me about it, but besides waiting for Wrath of the Lich King, what am I going to use that money for anyway? I suppose I could feast on Stormwind Brie instead but I have a feeling an epic gryphon is a little more useful, no?

Around Azeroth: Safeguarding Stormwind is hard work

Posted Jul 27th 2007 10:00AM by Elizabeth Harper
Filed under: Screenshots, Around Azeroth

Reader Ted of Gurubashi sends in this interesting shot taken inside Stormwind City. Up along the city walls, and entirely unaccessable, are a scattering of Gryphons. No doubt there for the safeguarding of the city -- but they are so distant from the ground that I imagine they often go completely unnoticed.

Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! Or perhaps you'd just like to see more of your pics from Around Azeroth.

Gallery: Around Azeroth

WoW Moviewatch: Epic gryphons on crack

Posted Apr 20th 2007 2:16PM by Eliah Hecht
Filed under: Machinima, Bugs, Features, WoW Moviewatch, Mounts

This video is pretty short, and is just for the purpose of showing off what those of you who haven't been on the test realms are missing. I'm sure this'll get patched any day now, but seeing an epic gryphon freak out is just something you should do at some point in this world (of Warcraft). As you can see, the bug only happens when you fly forward for more than a couple seconds; strafing or hovering doesn't have the same graphical glitch. Still, seeing my bird behaving like this makes me wonder if it really was worth that pile of gold. After all, I don't even have that many miles on it! I wonder if it's still under warranty...

Previously on Moviewatch...

Around Azeroth: Sheep on a Gryphon

Posted Apr 1st 2007 2:00PM by Elizabeth Harper
Filed under: Screenshots, Around Azeroth

Bugs happen. Like the one you see here, in which player Abelard is stuck appearing as though he's riding a gryphon. Sure, you don't see players running around on gryphons every day, but it's not so uncommon as to be worthy of note, for the most part. Well, except, maybe, for this shot, sent in by moink, which shows a player in such a situation who has just been polymorphed. Tee hee.

Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! You can attach a picture file or send us a link to one -- and don't worry about formatting, we'll take care of that part.

See more of your pics from Around Azeroth.

Gallery: Around Azeroth

Around Azeroth: Follow the leader

Posted Sep 30th 2006 2:00PM by Elizabeth Harper
Filed under: Odds and ends

Reader Grunt, of Anub'arak (EU), sends in this great screenshot that of a full raid flying out to Stranglethorn Vale to turn in the Heart of Hakkar and receive a swank buff. And, well, when you have 40 players clicking on the gryphon master at nearly the same instant, asking to fly to the same place, this is the effect you get -- sort of a gryphon conga line!

Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! You can attach a picture file or send us a link to one -- and don't worry about formatting, we'll take care of that part.

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Event	Date
Midsummer Fire Festival	6/21 - 7/5
AV weekend	7/4 - 7/7
Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza	SUN 2p - 4p
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#	Blogger	Posts	Cmts
1	Mike Schramm	89	13
2	Daniel Whitcomb	70	22
3	Alex Ziebart	50	31
4	Amanda Dean	49	0
5	Michael Gray	43	0
6	Zach Yonzon	41	0
7	Elizabeth Wachowski	41	2
8	Natalie Mootz	34	46
9	Moo Money	30	12
10	Adam Holisky	24	5
11	Matthew Rossi	17	46
12	Robin Torres	14	3
13	Lisa Poisso	11	6
14	Eliah Hecht	11	11
15	Elizabeth Harper	10	0
16	Jennie Lees	10	0
17	Amanda Miller	9	0
18	David Bowers	8	16
19	Krystalle Voecks	7	11
20	Sean Forsgren	7	1

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All the World's a Stage: How to roleplay your way to level 70

Breakfast Topic: Flying Mounts and Professions

Patch 2.4 has better ways to go

I spent how much on my alt?

Around Azeroth: Safeguarding Stormwind is hard work

WoW Moviewatch: Epic gryphons on crack

Around Azeroth: Sheep on a Gryphon

Around Azeroth: Follow the leader

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