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Posts with tag velen

Best starting race


I've been leveling a few Draenei alts off and on and finally figured out just why it is that I keep rolling the damn things in addition to my beloved Tauren; their starting quests rock. You wake from stasis, meet the locals, save a princess, make early ties to the Alliance and find out why there's a good reason the some of 'em won't trust you right off the bat, discover nefarious deeds afoot, fight a dragon, and then save your people and get a cool tabard. "Find your way back to the Outland, Hero of Argus," Exarch Admetius tells you, in a nice preview of things to come, and Velen has a good lore moment with you shortly afterwards.

Having leveled a toon out of every starting area to at least 20, it's hard not to notice that some areas make it a lot easier than others. I don't mean the general ease of leveling per se, but just how fast the time seems to fly by. For all that a certain percentage of the playerbase frowns on RP on non-RP servers, most peoples' favorite quests do have an element of RP to them, or at least the RP sense of being fully engaged with the world. And in that respect the Draenei starting zones are, in my opinion, unparalleled. If I had to rank them --

Continue reading Best starting race

Awesome WoW art by pulyx


Reader and artist pulyx sent us a link to his profile on Deviantart, and before I went, I wasn't sure to expect, as the stuff on DA seems to run the gamut. But once I got there, I was surprised to find some pretty amazing WoW art.

Quite a few of his pieces are just colored by him (with line art done by someone else), but what's there looks great in terms of both lines and colors. Don't miss his own character (which I thought looked a little Hellboy-ish, and I discovered pulyx is no stranger to the work of Mike Mignola), as well as some great renditions of Arthas (before he got creepy), Uther's Tribute, Kael'thas, the Prophet Velen, Illidan, and even a rip-roaring Ragnaros battle that he did as a present for a guild he's friends with. Love the Thunderfury-wielding main tank.

Good stuff. He mentions that he has done some character commissions, and his prices aren't too bad. He mentions that he can't send the original lineart (shipping problems), but it seems like either that won't be necessary, or that you could work something out with him. If you've been thinking about immortalizing your character with some great WoW art, this might be the guy to do it.

Six North American realms to open for BC


Blizzard has been telling us for a while that they will be launching new realms when the Burning Crusade hits (they'd be crazy not to). But what they haven't told us was how many, which kind, and most importantly, what their names will be. Haven't told us until now, that is. I present to you the following post from Drysc:
  • We'll be launching the following six realms with the release of The Burning Crusade expansion on January 16, at 12:01 AM EST.

  • Nagrand - PvE, Oceanic - Bloodlust battlegroup

  • Velen - PvE, Pacific

  • Coilfang - PvP, Pacific

  • Terokkar - PvE, Central

  • Exodar - PvE, Eastern

  • Auchindoun - PvP, Eastern

  • The majority of these realms will be placed in a new battlegroup, the name of which has yet to be announced. These are new non-transfer realms and as such the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj will be closed and they will not be open to character transfers for six months.
Six realms seems a little skimpy to me; I think it's a safe bet that they'll be opening more either with the BC launch or shortly afterwards. The names follow the trend of BC-themed names that we saw with the European servers, which is cool. I like the new flavor they bring to my realm list. Speaking of the names, Drysc tells us that Auchindoun is pronounced "Aw-kin-dune." Good to know.

Will you be rolling on one of these new servers when you get the expansion, or staying with your old home? Me, I could never leave Shadow Council, but I'm sentimental like that.


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