As the first guild to have killed M'uru, SK-Gaming has now released their video of the fight. You can see it above (if it's working; there seem to be some server issues on their end), or go to their site to download it in full-res glory. There are two different points of view: a BM hunter, and an enhancement shaman. I haven't been able to watch it yet because it's been down, but I'm sure it's an exciting fight.
The SK guild leaders also gave an interview a couple of days ago on their site. Here are some things they said that I find interesting:
SK is very impressed with the tuning on the fight, and think Kil'jaeden, the next fight, "might turn out to be the best encounter ever made."
Everyone gets to take an active role in the fight; for instance, there are adds that can only be killed by an offensive dispell, and melee gets to use stuns, mages get to polymorph, etc.
The viability of feral druids has been increased; they think Resto shaman is the "strongest overall class."
Most of the loot is pretty good, although they would have preferred a token system.
And of course they're looking forward to Kil'jaeden; who wouldn't be in that situation?
Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the hunter class, sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary.
Everything you ever wanted to know about The Lurker Below, Serpentshrine Cavern, The World of Warcraft, Hunterism, and Life Itself is right here, right now, oh yeah!
OK, OK. That's overboard, even for us.
Ahem.
We hope you like our little movie on how we play our hunter when fighting The Lurker Below in SSC. Better?
For those interested in WoWWebStats reports, here's a link to the anonymous report of this fight. We are Titan, Hobbes is Aristocat.
You are most welcome to download this movie (36.4MB) by right-clicking here.
A great big Thank You to the WoWInsider editors for allowing us to publish this movie both here and on our little blog at the same time!
Daniel Howell continues his quest to enslave... NO, EDUCATE! yeah, educate the WoW-playing masses as the hunter-pet duo extraordinaire known to lore as BigRedKitty. More of his theorycrafting and slanderous belittling of the lesser classes can be found at www.bigredkitty.net.
If you're looking for your next parody fix, the wait is over. The first installment of MMOvie is finally out. However, if you've seen the trailer, I don't think you'll be as impressed by the movie itself.
I realize that the trailer and the movie are cut differently to serve a purpose, but I thought that all of the good material came from the teaser video. I was able to recognize many of the real films that the trailer parodied, and only a certain few in the final cut. Despite the weak storyline, I thought that it was really well done. Hopefully the second installment will hold more exciting material!
WoW is a fairly good-looking game, especially when compared to some other MMOs, but let's face it: it hasn't had much of a change to its graphics quality since its release in 2004, and you can tell. To give you an idea of how pretty it could be, Youtube user qelss has rendered several models from WoW with more light and some additional filters; you can see one above, and more on his profile page. As MMO-Champion notes, these are fan-made and not previews of anything, but it's still fun to look at the gleaming swords and armor.
I'm so excited about this pet that it's getting silly. Last time on "Tiny Phoenix Obsession," we discovered that it's acquired as a drop from Kael'Thas, in his incarnation as the final boss of patch 2.4's 5-man Magister's Terrace, and speculated that it's probably a pretty rare drop. WOWDB has it at a 1% drop rate, apparently in both normal and heroic mode, although it doesn't say how many kills that's based on.
Now we have in-game video! It's just as appealing as its picture, and I really like the fiery aura that surrounds it. And that calm, confident hovering...I must have it! Look out, Kael'Thas, the day 2.4 goes live I'm coming after you, and I'm taking your cute little fiery bird. Are you prepared?
If you remember the Kalecgos video from a few days ago, and how massively loaded with spoilers it was, then you'll either damn me or appreciate this spate of Brutallus videos. They are also massively loaded with spoilers.
I was going to link to this video, but it already seems to be down. I provide the link anyway in case it comes back up. Instead, I'll provide you with this video (you will either love or hate the music - I didn't make the video, remember) showing a successful Brutallus kill, as well as linking to this World of Raids thread showing a Brutallus enrage.
Since commenting on the videos could be seen as a spoiler, I'll simply leave those links for you to examine yourselves. If you want to watch a bear druid attempt to solo the big man, here's another video for you. It doesn't end well for the poor guy.
That's the World of Warcraft that You Play. Guards. The University of Stormwind. Azerothian Supervillians. Some of the best and most popular WoW machinima has come from the mind of one man: Ian Beckman. I met Ian at the WoW Insider meetup during BlizzCon last month, and just recently, we got together to do an interview about how he makes his movies, whether machinima has made the mainstream or not, and what's next, both for Azerothian Supervillians (Episode 4 coming soon), and a "crazy project" that he says will "blow everyone's pants off."
The interview starts right after the jump. Thanks very much to Ian for sitting down with us.
Originally, I thought this trailer was just a joke, but no-- it's real. Someone out there (from a site named Voig.com, apparently) is actually going to put together a feature length film featuring scenes from famous films redone in the World of Warcraft. Crazy.
That link above goes to an interview with the directors, where they talk about filming on a PvP server (why would you do that?), getting the costumes to match up just right, and the fact that it took 100 hours of capture, and "weeks and weeks" for their editor to get the whole thing done. Other than the interview, there's surprisingly little news going around about the movie-- no release date yet, and to be honest, I'm still not completely sure there is a full length movie, as the only note about that is in the small excerpt on the front page. At any rate, the trailer looks pretty sweet-- maybe we'll get to see more eventually.
Mookysolo of the Ner'zhul server has written a PVP guide for Restoration druids. And by "guide" I mean eight enormous posts that take up almost an entire forum page.
In that marathon listing, you'll find the three best pieces of equipment per slot, recommended enchants, jewels by color, different talent builds, recommended strategies, theorycraft, mathcraft and a FAQ. To say that it's thorough would be an understatement. He also provides twomovies of his PvP exploits for your enjoyment.
For another perspective on the same subject, be sure to check out another Resto PvP Guide on the European forums. Many interesting strategies listed and more movies at the end of that post.
EDIT: I've rewritten the tone of the post to reflect the lack of surprise on behalf of PvP players of the dominance of Resto Druids. Clearly I don't PvP, but my intent here was to pass on an excellent guide I came across. I've altered the tone of the post to be more informational and in the future, I'll put my reaction in context.
That being said, I'm always impressed when players manage to excel with a "gimped" spec. I'll see if I can find such a case for PvP and post it for you guys.
Here we go with the movie panel at BlizzCon, so exciting! We're starting a bit late, but so are they. Come along for the ride and let's have the time of our movie-loving lives!
Fresh from Blizzard today, here's the trailer for Wrath of the Lich King. My first impressions? It looks surprisingly similar to old-world Azeroth -- which shouldn't be surprising, I guess, because it is in the same world, after all. "So come then, you heroes" is the new "You are not prepared." I can't wait to make a Death Knight.
Here's our first video from BlizzCon (don't worry, they'll get better). I just went down the "line" for the passes at the Convention Center, and by "line," I mean it's a bunch of players standing around waiting for Blizzard to show up. They've even taken up residence inside the actual booths where passes will be given out in about 5 or 6 hours from now.
That'll be around 4pm, so these guys have a while to wait. But they're diehards, and the reward will be the first passes given out at BlizzCon 2007. Wait on, linewaiters!
BlizzCon begins tomorrow, and with it comes the world premiere of Azerothian Supervillains Episode 3! Ian Beckman has crafted it as his entry in the X-Fire Video contest they'll be holding there. Hopefully Episode 3 will be available to those of us who can't attend BlizzCon in person tomorrow too. If you are attending though, be sure to find Ian there and tell him his movies are really funny!
While we wait for the real deal, I bring you two teaser trailers to whet your appetite.
(Click on the jump below for Teaser 2, or click the following links for Azerothian Supervillains Episode 1 and Episode 2).
After a player says he thought he'd heard something he'd never heard before on the PTR, Hortus says that yes, there is new music in inns all over the world of Azeroth.
Which seems like a strange addition to make, and an even stranger change to leave out of the patch notes. Personally, I have music turned off maybe 90% of the time-- while grinding, I'm usually listening to my own music or watching a movie, and while raiding, I'm listening to my guildies on Teamspeak. While I like the Warcraft music as much as the next guy, I can only hear it so many times before I'm ready for something else.
But I supposed after the next patch comes on, I'll have to flip it back on again and have a listen. You have to wonder why they're spending time implementing new music when there seems like so much else to do, but maybe these are leftovers-- music written for Outland or other new content that Blizzard didn't have anywhere else to put.
At his keynote address for the Hollywood & Games conference, Thomas Tull, Legendary Pictures chairman, talked briefly about Legendary's work with Blizzard on the upcoming World of Warcraft movie. Of course he doesn't give us anything concrete, but some of the things he's saying gives me a good feeling about the film's prospects. For example:
I have very strong feelings -- from the movie side -- that making movies based on games just because they sold well is a really bad idea. There've been some like that that weren't up to snuff just out of the gate. It doesn't matter to us if it's based on a graphic novel like 300, or a TV show – if there's a great universe and story, that's what's interesting to us.
A well-done movie based on the lore of World of Warcraft could be a cool thing -- and it certainly sounds like that's what the people at Legendary want to do.
[Fan art by Ya Lee, and thanks Simon for the tip!]
If you remember the 
Mookysolo of the Ner'zhul server has written a 
After a player says he thought he'd heard something he'd never heard before on the PTR, Hortus says that yes, t
Subscribe
