In fact, I’d love to see something like this come to the game at large — maybe Blizzard could provide a bonus to crafting when it’s done at a certain time in a certain place, like create a “crafter’s market” weekly on Saturday mornings (scheduled just like the Sunday fishing tournament), where crafters can make sure to be in a certain area ready to craft for any players who might need it, and can get bonus items or currency or mats for their trouble.

For such a social game, combat seems to always end up being the only way for players to connect regularly (not that there’s anything wrong with that, but the only way to bond in game seems to be killing things). It would be nice to see more of this type of connection encouraged by Blizzard, with players using the skills they’ve earned to help each other and both sides getting a nice reward for it.

I love this idea a whole lot. A group of folks on Steamwheedle are holding an RP even (which they’ve done before), but it’s a different kind of event than the usual party or dueling tournament. Instead, it’s going to be completely peaceful — they’re having a Saturday morning crafting bazaar. Down in the empty vendor stalls of Undercity, they’ll have crafters of all types and levels, some with their mats, some where you’ll have to bring your own mats, making items aplenty for players. On January 24th, they’re holding a “Black Market”, where you’ll be able to get almost anything crafted that you want (providing you’ve got the goods). They’re also having a raffle, and they’ll be serving food and drink as well. What a great idea.

I was right in that there are no laws against virtual pandas getting shivved or whatever, but there definitely was an issue with the Pandaren race, culturally. It’s much more likely it just ran into a lot of friction when it came down to dealing with censors and the cultural shift, and it became not worth it to risk losing players over. I’m sure the fact that the Pandarens’ original design was much more Japanese (see above) than Chinese didn’t help, but that was shifted in the right direction eventually and may not have had an actual impact at all. And with that said…

My answer was based off of something I talked about with a random Blizzard employee, but in hindsight that’s a pretty poor move on my part, they wouldn’t necessarily know the little inner workings of one or two departments within the company. What I said was refuted with quotes from J. Allen Brack and Chris Metzen, which I’m willing to put more weight in as far as game lore goes. The Chinese did, indeed, have a problem with the Pandaren being in-game.

I have questions on 25 man Naxx, why did Blizzard constantly say you should bring the player not the class this expansion yet made Instructor Razuvious and Grand Widow Faerlina in heroic need priests to MC their adds? Read the rest of this entry »

That dynamic is all but dead in Season 5. Players output such a high level of damage compared to other players’ health that healing is almost a non-factor in most matches. My friends, Ghostcrawler is aware of this dynamic, and is looking into it. (It turns out, Ghostcrawler mostly plays a healer in the Arena.) As stated by the crab himself, the Arena should not simply be about burst damage. (Nor, however, should it be solely about healing or solely about crowd control.)

Of course, Ghostcrawler does admit he has difficulty saying what the long terms plans are going to be. The design team hasn’t had enough whiteboard time to say anything with complete honesty. But he also hopes that as more Resilience gear enters the PvP system, the damage might scale down to be more reasonable. (To quote, “It’s mostly just math.”) Still, there’s hope that future teams will include more than just seeing which team can burst down the other first.

If you’ve been in the Arena during Season 5, you probably have noticed a particular change to the way gladiators fight. It can be summarized in a single word: “Damage.” In the bygone days of Season 4, drain teams and Mortal Strike debuffs were all but an entry requirement to high ranked play. Without a strategy to reduce or nullify your enemy’s healing, you were unlikely to produce sufficient burst DPS to actually kill anyone. A few double-DPS teams managed to thrive, but for the most part, a gladiator’s number one priority was shutting down the healer.

Now here comes the next question: Will we see a Warlock walking around with Thunderfury just for the heck of it soon? And will we see the class restrictions come off of Illidan’s Warglaives? This certainly would seem to open the door to just that. I have to admit, a pair of those might look cool too. But I’ll still laugh at you if you try to roleplay a Death Knight Demon Hunter.

But of course, there’s a pretty big question that’s simple enough: Death Knights can get Thunderfury? Yes, the bindings are now usable by all classes. German CM Rynundu confirmed this, and added that a future patch will get rid of the class restrictions on the tooltip. I have to admit, I may be a 2-hander diehard, but I’d have to reconsider dual wielding if one of those weapons was the Thunderfury. The DPS is nothing to write home about anymore, but damn if it doesn’t have style.

The first Death Knight with a Thunderfury! Night Elf Death Knight Dragoth of Frostmane-EU grabbed the legendary sword a couple weeks back, and has the achievement to prove it (It’s under the Feats of Strength category). Certainly, this was no small task in and of itself. Sure, you can probably do most of the questline with four or five people now, but you’ll still find yourself in Molten Core begging for the bindings to drop for at least a few weeks, and that doesn’t even count the elementium.

Things are different now. Nowadays, when you hit level 70, your experience bar doesn’t vanish, never to return. We have ten new levels and an entire new continent to adventure our way through, new talent points to spend, new gear to pick up, and several fresh and exciting ways to barbecue zombies. It’s an exciting time to be a Mage, and Arcane Brilliance is here to open a portal to level 80 for you.

If your Mage is at some other point along the leveling continuum, you can find the previous leveling guides here, here, here, and here. You can find the new one by clicking the words “read more” directly following this period.About a billion years ago, when Warlocks still ruled the world, back in those dark days before Arcane Barrage, spellpower, and elementalist specs–in that bygone era before Death Knights appeared in Azeroth, bringing with them their ridiculous magic resistances and eighty-seven different ways to silence or interrupt–Arcane Brilliance brought you a series of Mage leveling guides. In those days, we didn’t have any of this crazy “rock music” you kids listen to now, and when we fought Illidan, we had to chain pot. We walked naked twelve miles to school through nineteen feet of snow while fending off wolves and dinosaurs with our bookbags, and we liked it.

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 BigRedKitty. For January, BigRedPriestess is the new hotness with Wild Winter Pilsner. When you take a swig of the brew, you will sometimes get a buff: The Beast Within. It doesn’t have the crazy powerful effect of the actual Hunter ability, but it does turn you big and red, and the buff lasts 5 minutes. When the buff wears off (or you click it off yourself), you’ll Unleash the Beast. You roar, and give everyone’s screen a little shake. Yes, everyone nearby, not just your screen.

For a little bonus trivia, you might be amused by the fact that Pilsners are named after their place of origin, here on Earth. Pilsners probably wouldn’t exist in Azeroth, at least not by that name. Does it matter much? Not really, but maybe you’ll find it interesting.

It’s not a huge effect, so it won’t make you ill when everyone nearby is getting plastered, but it’s definitely something you’ll notice. I had fun freaking out all of the lowbies in Ironforge on New Year’s Day when this first hit the vendor. Yeah, you heard that right BRK. My BigRedPriestess can move the world. Can your eccentric flamboyancy do that? Huh? No, I didn’t think so.

Sure, it loses a little something in the translation from polygons to frozen water, but remember the medium. Considering it’s handmade with snow, that’s a pretty good snowshaman. The horns on the head must mean it’s a Draenei, right? Though I have no idea what the sticks are coming out of the front.This is briliant — after Anna joking asked for pictures of Snowshaman, she actually got one. Niyahti and her husband built this snowshaman, complete with two totems (though we’re not sure which ones they are — Wrath of Air and Frost Resist maybe?).

Which is true — if you’re actually the one in charge of groups. I’m of the opinion that it’s very possible to play a game like WoW and get a nice boost to your leadership skills (leading a guild is often a job in itself), but I think it’s also very possible that you could play WoW and not get a thing out of it — I know quite a few people I’ve grouped with that I’d never want to have sitting next to me in a real office.

The bottom line, as always, is somewhere inbetween the two opinions. If you’re already interested in taking charge and being a leader, WoW is a great simlulation to let you do those things. And if you’re already a lazy worker and interested in helping yourself more than whatever team you’re on, WoW probably won’t cure you of that (there are certainly plenty of selfish people running around the game every day). WoW players comes this article from the BBC, quoting an IBM executive who says that gamers are actually exactly the kind of people you want on a team: David Laux, global executive in charge of games and interactive entertainment (wait, maybe that’s why he’s so keen on game players) says that casual games can improve memorization and the abilty to discern details, first person shooters can help with rapid decision making, and games like World of Warcraft can boost leadership skills. He says WoW specifically helps players learn how to work well on a team, assess risks, and put the group first to achieve a common goal.

If you’re wondering who the Hodir that the Sons are sons of is, well, some clues are revealed in the quest Fate of the Titans, given by the wandering Titanic construct Creteus. Hodir is apparently one of a class of Titans or Titan creations (it’s hard to tell which) called Watchers, and was entrusted with guardianship over the Temple of Winter after the Titans stuck the Old Gods into their prison within Azeroth. If you’ve run Halls of Stone and witnesses the Tribunal of Ages event, it’s implied that the various entities like Loken, Thorim, Freya and Hodir himself were either appointed to watch over “Aesir and Vanir or in common nomenclator Storm and Earth Giants” or they were Aesir and Vanir themselves, meaning that Hodir is either a very old and powerful giant himself or a form of Titan or Titan construct.

 Not only are we unaware of exactly what Hodir is, we’re not even sure exactly where he is, or most of the other designates either. All four of the watchers mention in Fate of the Titans, including Hodir (the designates mentioned in the quest are Tyr, Mimir, Freya and Hodir) are missing from their appointed temples. Investigating the Temple of Winter reveals that sulfurous entities of some sort killed the guardians there.Since I happen to be exalted twice with these guys, it seems a fair enough question to ask who they are and where they come from. So far, we have fragments of the story, but not the whole picture as yet. If it even needs to be said at this late point, I will be dropping spoilers for Storm Peaks quests like they were remarkably heavy antiques that you asked me to help you move into your new apartment on the 17th floor and I wanted to make sure you never asked again.
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We caught up with all but a handful of this year’s interviewees for fresh updates. Click into our gallery, just below, to find out what they’re doing today.So how have a year’s time and a new expansion been treating our subjects? Some dove into Northrend with gusto. Many reported inspiring new developments and directions, stemming from the publicity they received here on 15 Minutes of Fame. Other players have stopped playing entirely.

“I never thought of playing WoW like that!” – and neither did we, until we talked with these players. 15 Minutes of Fame profiled a whole host of World of Warcraft players last year, from multiboxers to disabled players and even people with the patience to build a Booty Bay entirely out of Legos.