gamesavor

Wrath of the Lich King to get its own bear mount

Wed, 28 May 2008 11:19:37 GMT

"If you've been reading up on our World of Warcraft posts, you may have noticed an update stating that the acquisition of the bear mount from Zul'Aman would be disabled once Wrath of the Lich King comes into play. A recent update, however, adds a bit of a silver lining to this sad news, as it seems another bear mount will be made available when Wrath goes live. We found the announcement over on a forum thread that was discussing the announced plans for the Zul'Aman bear mount. Post number 165, written by Bornakk, expressly states that ""For players who are focused on romping around on a bear, there will be another one in Wrath of the Lich King."" Certainly some good news for fans of the behemoth mount. We're hoping to see polar bears as mounts though, seeing as the climate of Northrend would make it feasible to have such beasts as mounts. In any event, we'll have to wait and see what Blizzard has in store for players, we suppose. Keep checking QJ for more updates as they happen. London Games Festival 2008 officially announced This is certainly an early announcement, but at least it gives us time to prepare. We're letting the readers know that preparations are now underway for the London Games Festival 2008. This year's celebration of everything that is pixelated goodness is scheduled to begin on October 25. No exact details have been announced yet, although if it's going to be anything like the previous fest, expect it to be crowded. Last year's LGF garnered a total of 100,000+ attendees, and carried over 50 events catering to both casual and hardcore gamers. Highlights for last year's event included the arrival of the Royal Philharmonia Orchestra, who performed their rendition of popular video games themes like music from Super Mario Bros., BioShock, and Metal Gear Solid.

LGF chairman Keith Ramsdale had this to say regarding this year's festivities: Last year��s London Games Festival was a huge success and we were thrilled with the feedback from many of those who attended and the publishers who took part. The Trafalgar Square event looked fantastic and it was great to see so many families come down and enjoy it. We��ve got plenty in store for 2008 and a whole host of major partners lined up with full support from the industry. We��re really looking forward to bringing the gaming industry to life in the capital again. In related news, we remind readers that this year's BAFTA video game awards have been postponed to 2009. wow gold Here's to hoping that the upcoming festival won't be marred by its absence. Further details are available over at the official London Games Festival 2008 site, via the source link below. " "Once upon a time, before Burning Crusade was released, my Alliance druid was hanging out in Felwood and a Krol Blade dropped. I was able to sell it on the AH on the first try for 700 gold, which in those days was a lot of in-game cash. More recently, my Horde druid picked up an Eye of the Sea from the Fishing Quest reward. wow gold I sold it for 379 gold which was 21 gold less than my first asking price. Not as big of a haul as my first big sale, but still a welcome addition to my Epic Flight fund. What is the most you have sold anything for on the Auction House. Was it your first asking price. mp3 Trade peanut gallery pissed its pants when I was advertising. I got so much grief in tells and Trade. But THAT'S when you know you have something good, because people only complain (and wow, did they complain) when they're really envious; they want the item for themselves, or they want it to sell. Anyways, it sold, as I said, wow gold for 3000 gold. So, of course, I went and farmed another for a friend, and that one sold too. I remember getting a lot of crap for trying to sell a Sentry Cloak for 100g or so.

wow gold I eventually sold it in the AH for that much, and when I saw someone else getting slack for charging 50 I whispered them and told them to charge more! ^^ My best haul though was 700g roughly for a Netherdrake Helm recipe. Not an epic amount by any means, but still pretty hefty for me. buy wow gold 2 Glowing brightwoods for 500+ g within days of each other right before I hit 60 back when ZG was released. Epic plate chest for 800+g right before I hit 70. Enchant Weapon recipe: Spellsurge - 1k, right before I hit 70. Rogue/Mage FYI - I bought my flying mount 1-2 days played after dinging 70 :) "

An illustrated guide to Kil'jaeden's hats

Wed, 28 May 2008 11:17:31 GMT

"With M'uru now apparently substantially nerfed, and several guilds having been past him for a few weeks anyway, the top guilds are now biding their time until they can face off against Kil'jaeden himself. Before they can do that, one last Sunwell Plateau gate needs to be opened; my guess on when that will happen is May 27, two weeks from yesterday, but no-one knows for sure. So I thought I'd jump the gun a little and give you all a preview of the loot we should be able to expect from what will almost certainly be the final raid boss of The Burning Crusade, thanks to MMO-Champion. None of this is confirmed, of course, because nobody has actually fought him yet, but given the item levels, and the fact that we haven't seen them anywhere else yet, we can be pretty sure these are KJ drops. And an odd number of them are helms. Ding, dong, the orc is dead! This seems like it would be one of those traps at Gringotts, but it's actually just an unfortunate accident at the Netherwing Mines. From the look of things, this particular miner got buried in his work. *rimshot* *waits for applause* *realizes joke was terrible* Anyway, Crowblood of Garona swears this miner was like this when he found him, so he tried to help by removing the quest item crushing weight. But the miner had already perished, so Crowblood did the sensible thing and ate him. Hey, you can't let a good meal go to waste. Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder. We'd love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene.

You could be featured here next! Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. We prefer full screen shots without the UI showing -- use alt-Z to remove it. And you've actually been very good at not sending in sunsets, so I need to figure out a new ending joke. Curse you all! " "The Australian branch of CNET (CNET, by the way, just sold to CBS for $1.8 billion) is little late to release their notes from the Wrath of the Lich King preview party, but I forgive them, because they contain a few new nuggets of information that I don't remember seeing elsewhere. As I speculated last time, it seems a Death Knight will have to ""go to a specific locale"" in order to pick a new configuration of their six runes. wow gold I would still guess that it would be an inn, or stable master, or some other building/NPC found in every town. They saw an escort quest wherein the escorted NPC mounts the same horse as the player; the player was then able to use some attacks on enemies. Sounds like a sort of ground-based bombing run -- not quite mounted combat, but a step in that direction, anyway. The Oracle/Wolvar faction choice is meant to be less permanent than the current Aldor/Scryer divide; CNET reports ""it appears that you'll be able to juggle favour between the two groups."" This sounds good to me, since I'm currently regretting my choice on one of my characters (missing access to some recipes). wow gold On the other hand, it will contribute to further homogenization, and what's the point of splitting faction allegiance if it's easy enough to go back. ""Second half of 2008"" could theoretically mean July, right. wow gold Yeah, who am I kidding -- it'll probably be November or December. Insomniaddict Productions is back with a trailer for his new series, Narien Asks.

wow power leveling The series will be about a Blood Elf with lots of questions, and his quest for the answers. I can't say much about the machinima, as it would give away the surprise! We previously featured Insomniaddict's BeoCraft comparison earlier in the month. wow gold What's interesting about Narien Arrives is that he used Second Life to build and chromakey objects for certain scenes, as many machinimators do with WoW Model and Map Viewers. mp3 players The virtual world is highly customizable, which allowed him to create a branded truck for his show. "

"WoW Model Viewer updated for 2.4.2

Wed, 28 May 2008 11:15:31 GMT

"If you're a machinimist or just someone who likes to poke around the game files trying to see what The Ultimate Druid would look like (yeah, I'm guilty), good news; Wow Model Viewer has been updated for patch 2.4.2. I haven't used it since the patch hit, but according to the mod's site a few twitchy issues popped up that have since been fixed. The developer warns that this version will not work with any version of Wow pre-2.4.2, so if you haven't downloaded and installed the patch yet, don't install this update until you do. WoW Model Viewer's main site Download page for the updated version If you haven't had the chance to use WoW Model Viewer previously, give it a shot -- it's a wonderfully addictive little mod and a great way to get a closer look at the detail that goes into the game. Hello again! This week's strip has been done in memory of Children's Week. That wonderful and joyous celebration that gets you a cute little tag along to play with, all in exchange for running everywhere in the entire world. I have somehow managed to miss out on Children's Week every year, but knowing my luck, it's for the better! It would likely lead to a catastrophe not unlike what is featured in this comic. Want to know what kind of catastrophe I'm talking about. Check out the Barrens Chat gallery for this and other comics! As you can see, I'm still playing with the panel layout and color style in my comics. As time goes on, I'm sure that these changes will likely become fewer as I find a groove, either by my own personal preference, or your (yeah you, readers) feedback. The idea for this comic actually came to me during lunch at work one day, although Daniel Whitcomb and Dubothe helped pick out which of the two ideas I was juggling would be the better to follow through.

I also stole the name for the wind serpent from Dubothe, but if we don't tell him, he'll never know. " "Last week, on Totem Talk, we escaped a burning warehouse only to discover that Diego really isn't the father... Oh, wait. No, sorry, that was something else entirely. Last week, we talked about direct damage totems. This week, we're going to talk about those signature abilities of the shaman class, those lovely shocks and the lightning bolts we can throw. The fury of the elements in the palm of your hand. The ability to chain a bolt of lightning to hit multiple targets. Shamans can do these things. The two DPS specs use them differently (Enhancement shamans rarely use lightning bolt or chain lightning, while Elemental shamans are less likely to use shocks since they don't really need to be all that close to their targets, although of course you'll see an elemental shaman using a shock to kite or interrupt and an enhancement shaman throwing a few bolts of lightning when told not to engage in melee for whatever reason) but together they make up the offensive spellcasting options of the shaman class. There are at present three classes of shock spells that shamans can use. wow gold These are Earth Shock, Flame Shock, and Frost Shock. As you might expect, each has an elemental affiliation (Earth, Fire and Water respectively) and its own special characteristics that recommend using it in specific situations. wow gold All shock spells are linked, meaning that if you use one shock you lock out the other two as well for the duration of the shock cooldown (which is six seconds) meaning that you have to be careful when using them to some degree. wow gold It's not a terrible burden, just something to keep in mind as you explore what each shock does and what situations each is best for. Earth Shock is the first shock spell shamans gain access to, at level 4.

It deals nature damage, and like all shocks is an instant cast spell with relatively short range (20 yards). mp3 player While the damage it does is good, especially as you level (beaten only by frost shock) earth shock's real benefits are twofold. wow First, for an enhancement shaman, this shock is an easy source of nature damage to follow up a Stormstrike, the signature melee strike of the enhancement spec. Since Stormstrike is an instant cast melee attack which increases the target's vulnerability to nature damage, having an earth shock waiting to follow, especially after a windfury proc, can lead to a devastating chain of high damage in a very short period of time.wow gold Many shamans hold stormstrike and earth shock in reserve and deliver both directly after a windfury proc to help increase the amount of burst damage a target takes which can be enough to kill an unprepared target. "

Forum menus tweaked, cleaner and easier to browse

Wed, 28 May 2008 11:12:51 GMT

"If you've visited the main page of the official forums lately, you'll notice that things are a little different -- they've replaced the simple links to class, realm, and battlegroup forums with a dynamic interface. All the forums that were there are still there, but the navigation to them is a little faster and less cluttered. It's not Flash or anything fancy, so it should work just fine across any number of widely used browsers. Something like this was probably inevitable, considering how much Blizzard's WoW forums have been multiplying -- there's one for every release, event, and topic Blizzard can think of. And considering they have only so many people running them, it means the threads further off the beaten path, especially realm threads, can run rampant with forum violations. Not that that's a problem -- what's in those threads can be pretty entertaining. But Blizzard moderates the forums for a reason, and the more threads they have, the harder time they'll have moderating them. Chain Lightning, with a 2 second cast and a chance to deal 210% of its regular damage (100% on the first target, 70% on the second and 40% on the third) would probably be the spam of choice for elemental shamans if not for the fact that it has a 6 second cooldown. The typical rotation will be three lightning bolts (with Lightning Mastery reducing cast time to 2 seconds) followed by a Chain. (This is without taking spell haste into account.) PvP caster shamans will most likely use their talents to ensure that they can cast an instant Chain with each hop guaranteed to crit in what is often considered the 'insta-gib' for 3x3 arenas. It can put out an impressive amount of damage to all three of your opponents at once if done properly, making chain lightning a popular option for both PvE and PvP. Okay, we've covered pretty much every direct damage spell shamans have access to.

Next week we'll go more into detail on how the talents in each tree contribute to these spells and abilities. There's a lot of ground to cover, and a plethora (yay, I got to use it in a sentence!) of talents to discuss, so we may have to break it up by spec and focus on elemental first. We'll see how it goes. " "Gamedaily has the report that Xfire, the online service for gamers (that we have coordinated a few events with in the past), has broken a whopping ten million users. That, you'll probably realize, is just as many as World of Warcraft, and in fact, while Xfire apparently has support for over 1,200 games, World of Warcraft always seems to rank pretty high on the list. In fact, our friends at Xfire have another number that they've shared with us: in the month of April alone, Xfire users spent 16,000 years online -- that is, if you add up all the time spent online by all the users of the client just in April, you get a time period longer than pretty much the whole history of civilization on Earth. That's huge. Which makes us wonder just how long players actually spend in WoW -- surely not all WoW players are using Xfire, so the number has to be much bigger than that. At any rate, Xfire is apparently banging, and odds are that WoW is playing a big part. Those of you who have been around for a little while will no doubt know about one of the most useful resources in this World of Warcraft: WoWWiki. wow gold If you're new to the party, let me tell you about it. WoWWiki is, as the name suggests, a wiki about all things Warcraft. From boss strategies to patch history to insanely detailed lore, if it's about the Warcraft series, it's probably on there somewhere.

wow gold And if not, it's a wiki, so you can write it yourself! The occasion for this particular post is that they have just completed some major upgrades to their software and infrastructure. mp3 players Here are the highlights: WoWWiki is now hosted in a distributed fashion across the Wikia network, which should mean more stability and less chance of catastrophic failure. A new default skin, which looks nice and classy. cheap wow gold The OpenSearch plugin is now working again, so you can add WoWWiki as a search engine in Firefox or IE (though I still prefer Firefox's search keywords). Click on the menu by your search field while browsing WoWWiki to check it out. wow gold A proper sidebar menu, with links to important parts of the site. wow gold This fixes my single biggest complaint about the site, which is that it was hard to navigate. "

"How to convince tanks to PuG

Wed, 28 May 2008 11:10:51 GMT

"I'm getting back to WoW Insider after a month's real-life-related absence and have been spending some time playing catch-up on the site. One of the articles that caught my attention was Matt Rossi's popular ""One reason tanks won't PuG,"" in no small part because I play a tank and my own PuG runs have been few and far between of late. My main, a Tauren Druid, respecced from balance to feral at level 69 because there were so few tanks on my server, and I literally spent months and months tanking PuG's to get experience and gear. During that period I saw everything from rogues rolling on +healing maces to warlocks needing on tanking cloaks, and I learned that you never can tell what you're going to get from a PuG. Yes, you'll get hunters who can't trap, mages who never resheep, rogues who mistakenly believe they leveled a warrior, and priests who Power Word: Shield you straight off the pull -- but you'll also find people who know their class well, or are in the process of learning just like you are, and who are fun to be around. I have now killed Illidan with a contingent of people who showed up to my PuG's back when I was a wee lolbaretank in quest greens and Heavy Clefthoof, so as a matter of personal experience I think PuG's are a somewhat underrated way to meet people who will later turn out to play crucial roles in how you experience the game. I don't PuG as frequently anymore due to time constraints and increased time spent leveling alts, but I still hang out in LFG from time to time for the pure enjoyment of meeting new people. Yes, it is often difficult to PuG tanks and healers (I would submit, as someone who typically tanks or heals in dungeons, that it is also difficult to PuG skilled DPS), but a lot of people could make it easier on themselves than they do.

If you're having problems finding a tank or healer for your PuG's, try these. A note; this applies to anyone who's looking for more people (regardless of what role they're meant to play), but let's be frank; any given PuG is much more likely to be hunting down a tank or healer than they are to be hunting down more DPS, and it's tough to argue that these folks don't have a little more leverage. Nevertheless, these are the same rules I obey myself when I track down good DPS for my own 5-mans. For the record, these don't just apply to PuG's; even guildmates will have a tough time procuring a tank for their runs if they constantly ignore the following rules. " "Blizzplanet has a new Wrath of the Lich King related video from G4TV. It has interviews with Jeffrey ""Tigole"" Kaplan and J. Allen ""No nickname I'm aware of"" Brack and very short previews of the new zones, the Death Knight hero class, quests and raids. It also has a very annoying soundtrack underneath the interview snippets which made me want to rip the speakers off of my computer when I watched it the first time, so be warned. A few notes of interest during the interview: They definitely want to make sure that the Horde and Alliance experiences in WoTLK are different: ""While some of the story threads will be the same, how you get there will vary for Horde and Alliance."" We will apparently not just ally with, but also have to fight some of the Tuskarr. wow gold This makes me sad. I don't want to kill the Wilford Brimley's of Azeroth. I mean, I'll do it if there's a shiny copper piece involved, don't get me wrong, but it still will make me sad as I rip that purse off of their blubbery corpses.

wow gold I just dread the ""Gather x Tuskarr tusks"" quests I fear are coming. I saw tusks right on him! What do you mean he doesn't have any. They're planning out all their patches in advance this time. buy wow gold I didn't actually know they didn't already do this, so it was news to me. David has a great tip for roleplaying a rogue: Don't be up-front about yourself. wow gold Charging into situations going on and on about your tale of loss and sorrow and heartbreak and your thirst for revenge doesn't exactly fit in with the mysterious ways of your class. wow gold Instead, listen to what other have to say, and only drop tidbits of information about your life when it seems like you can trust them. If you're truly a spy, thief or assassin, why would you broadcast that to the world. Plus, if you're RPing a member of an assassin's or spy guild, gathering information on PCs is going to be one of your character's main goals. mp3 players Not to mention it can lead to a lot of fun on the forums. "

Roleplaying as a rogue

Wed, 28 May 2008 11:09:38 GMT

"Hey, fellow rogues! It's been a while! Well, more like nearly two months. Sorry. But we're back with some fresh ideas, one of which is this: how can you roleplay as a rogue without seeming like a cliche. Admittedly, I'm new to RP, and my RP character is a draenei priest -- about as far from my beloved troll rogue as one can get. So this article is geared to people who, like me, are new to RP. The more experienced RPers can correct all my horrifying, glaring errors in the comments. So, let's start out with: Picking a race Each race has different rogue traditions, heroes, and senses of morality. Here's a quick overview: Humans control several rogue organizations: the Ravenholdt guild, their archrival Syndicate organization, and SI:7, the official intelligence agency of Stormwind. If you're interested in ""joining"" any of these organizations (or the vaguely rogue-ish Defias Brotherhood), human would be a good choice. Night elf rogues would seem to have some difficulty fitting in with their peaceful, nature-loving society. However, night elves have skills at stealth, and every society needs its enforcers. The night elf police force, known as the Wardens, always has room for a good rogue -- and the archdruid Fandral Staghelm might not be above employing some sneaky folk to advance his political goals. Dwarves don't have as strong a rogue tradition as other races, although some of them do belong to Ravenholdt. Dwarf rogues are good choices for PVPers or someone interested in roleplaying an outcast. Gnome rogues tend to be quirky, rather than broody, and often use engineering or other technology to enhance their skills. They're also well known as escape artists, a skill that provides an excellent opportunity for roleplaying a thief. The most famous rogue in Azeroth's history is Garona, a half-orc, half-something-undetermined assassin from the First War.

As such, orc rogues have a strong tradition to build on, including their own assassin's guild -- the Shattered Hand in Orgrimmar, who serve Thrall and destroy the Horde's enemies. Orcs are known for their brutishness and skill in combat, as opposed to stealth and subtlety. Many troll rogues also belong to the Shattered Hand and are famous for their skills in tracking enemies. wow gold The troll tribes also have a long and storied history of interfighting and assassination, providing a rich background for someone wishing to roleplay a troll rogue. Blood elf rogues don't have quite the same status in their society as paladins, as high elves used to disdain thievery, but they are now accepted as a necessary measure to defend the Sin'dorei after the devastation of Silvermoon. Valeera, from the WoW comic, is a blood elf rogue. wow gold If you're interested in playing a character with a thirst for vengeance, or playing a mage-killer, a blood elf is an excellent option. Undead rogues can also be avenging the deaths of their loved ones, the destruction of their cities, or they could simply like killing and eating people. Rogues guard the Undercity and its outposts through their guild, the Deathstalkers. Unlike orcs, they are more known for stealth, cunning, and quick assassinations than their skill at face-to-face combat. world of warcraft gold Keep in mind that undead have no need for sleep, food, or human comforts. " "In the wake of the recent confusion regarding Scare Beast, once again some hunters have gotten to complaining a lot about the state of their class. While on one hand, there are certainly problematic issues hunters are having, it's really not fair to say that the class is broken. It isn't -- being a hunter is more fun than its ever been, and it looks like this class will only get better in the future. Nonetheless, looking at the problems we do have might give us a clearer sense of where we're going in the future.

wow gold With more and more information coming out about Wrath of the Lich King, and especially since Blizzard started asking for feedback from hunters, it's worthwhile to have a look at what holes do exist for our class, and how future changes might seek to plug them up. Mana Hunters don't like running out of mana in the middle of a fight, but other mana users don't like that either. Are hunters entitled to something like rage or energy as physical damage dealers like warriors and rogues, or are we just being picky. Since we aren't really wizards of any sort, does our use of mana cause more problems than it solves. mp3 player One thing to keep in mind is that intellect helps out casters a lot by providing spell crit in addition to mana pool, whereas for hunters it only provides a larger mana pool, often at the expense of physical crit. My wild brainstorming mind imagines: what if hunters had a ""focus pool"" much like mana, except that it was determined by agility rather than intellect. This way, it would let us focus in on fewer important stats which benefit us in more ways than one. wow gold On the other hand, perhaps having to juggle more stats than usual is one of the things that makes choosing hunter gear a more interesting task. This is a big problem on lots of hunters' minds -- but what's Blizzard going to do about it.