Super WOW Guide

Archive for September, 2009

Reader Andy sent us a good topic to talk about this morning: dances for the new Cataclysm races. Every time we’ve sat down to play the new expansion, we’ve punched in the /dance and /silly emotes, and we haven’t seen a single thing implemented for Worgen or Goblin males or females, so as far as we know, it’s completely up in the air on what dances they’ll choose for each one. You have to think that Blizzard has some idea already (or maybe they’ll just be included in those long awaited dance studios), but we haven’t seen it, so what do you think?

Andy says Goblin males should go for a West Side Story-style classic number, while Worgen should definitely do Thriller. For some reason, I see Goblins breakdancing, but I have no idea what the Worgen might be doing. If it’s something befitting their starting area, I have to think something boring like ballroom. But they may actually have different dances for their human and wolf forms (at least you’d hope so — surely they’d be able to do more in Worgen form than in normal human form, right?). What do you think?

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast topics, Expansions, NPCs, Cataclysm, Worgen, Goblin

Breakfast Topic: Worgen and Goblin dances originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apropos of the previous discussion on Dragon Age, I have always loved the following quote by Jane Yolen:

And for adults, the world of fantasy books returns to us the great words of power which, in order to be tamed, we have excised from our adult vocabularies. These words are the pornography of innocence, words which adults no longer use with other adults, and so we laugh at them and consign them to the nursery, fear masking as cynicism. These are the words that were forged in the earth, air, fire, and water of human existence, and the words are:

Love. Hate. Good. Evil. Courage. Honor. Truth.

— Jane Yolen, Touch Magic: Fantasy, Faerie & Folklore in the Literature of Childhood

Perhaps in the process of making a work of fantasy “adult”, you end up robbing it of some of its potential power.

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Don’t forget that the members of It came from the Blog are Brewfesting together tonight:

• When: 11:30pm EDT (8:30pm PDT, 9:30pm Server Time) Tuesday, September 29
• Where: In front of Orgrimmar on Zangarmarsh (U.S.)
• Who: Any Horde character
• How: Send a tell to Robinella or any It came from the Blog Lurker to join the guild

Much fun will be had and all are invited. Unfortunately, we don’t have the funds for an open bar, so bring enough cash for food and drink. If you are planning to attend, please read the event guide after the break.

Continue reading Reminder: It came from the Blog Brewfest event tonight

Filed under: It Came from the Blog

Reminder: It came from the Blog Brewfest event tonight originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EA Bioware sent me some press material for their upcoming RPG Dragon Age: Origins. I loved the Baldur’s Gate games back in the day, and I am looking forward to seeing this new game as it is touted as a “spiritual successor” to Baldur’s Gate.

Bioware also seems to be positioning this game as a “mature” game, heavy on the blood, violence and possibly sex. It will be interesting to how successful they are. I have no idea how this game will be released in Germany. The very logo is formed out of blood spatter.

I must confess that whenever a work–be it a game, book, or movie–announces that they are trying to be “adult” and “mature” by focusing on violence and sex, I get a sinking feeling. Very often these “mature” works eschew laughter, as if laughter is childish. They go all Sturm und Drang, and end up overly dreary and rather boring.

The single best part of Baldur’s Gate was Minsc and his minature Giant Space Hamster Boo. I worry that in Bioware’s attempt to be adult, Dragon Age will actively avoid elements like Minsc, and end up a weaker game. But perhaps the Alistair character will fill this void.

A final tip for EA Bioware’s advertising team: Using Marilyn Manson to backdrop a fight scene does not demonstrate maturity. It demonstrates a teenager’s lack of taste. Let’s hope the game has more sense.

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We recorded our latest podcast last Saturday afternoon, and it was a good one — not only did we have Eddie “Brigwyn” Carrington and Turpster on from here at WoW.com, but we welcomed two special guests: Fimlys and Nibuca from the Twisted Nether Blogcast. They were on to talk about their podcast and what they do with Twisted Nether, as well as their new Azeroth United project and what they’ll be doing with that in the future. And of course, after we introduced everybody, we sat down and chatted about the most popular stories from the last week in Warcraft, including Brewfest and Onyxia, as well as patch 3.2.2 and the bugs contained therein. Enjoy the show.

And if you’ve heard something you’d like to respond to on the show, feel free to drop us a note via email — the address is theshow@wow.com. We’ll see you next Saturday as usual, thanks for listening!

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Filed under: Podcasts, Podcasting, Events, Fan stuff, Humor, Interviews, WoW Insider Show

WoW Insider Show Episode 109: Drakes for everyone originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 28 Sep 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A guild uses basic /random to distribute loot. There are three tanks in the raid: Wendy the Warrior; Daisy the Death Knight; and Patricia the Paladin. All three tanks desire [Ciderhelm's Ring of Effective Health], and it drops in tonight’s raid.

Scenario 1: Straight Roll

All three tanks roll on the ring:

Each tank has a 33% chance of winning the item. I think we can all agree that this is as fair as it gets, absent any other information.

Senario 2: Passing

Wendy and Daisy are best friends. Wendy thinks that Daisy is a little undergeared, and she resolves to pass to Daisy if she can. (By passing, I mean Wendy chooses to nullify her roll if and only if Daisy is the second-highest roller.)

Potential outcomes:

Is this fair to Patricia?

My first thought is to say that it is not fair. But then I considered some more.

On the one hand, Daisy now has a 50% chance to get the item while Patricia only has a 33%. That doesn’t really seem fair. But on the other hand, note that in both scenarios, Patricia has the exact same chance to win the item. Her chance to win the item doesn’t change at all. It’s not less likely that she will get the item.

So what is fair? Does fairness depend on only your own chances to win? Or is your position relative to others important as well?

I am not really sure anymore. If the probability of Patricia winning the item decreased, that would be absolutely unfair (under the given conditions). But if the probability doesn’t change, fairness seems harder to determine.

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Today, All the World’s a Stage continues a series on “how to be evil,” bringing the bad guy back into your fantasy roleplaying, complete with ideas, methods, warnings, and practical examples. Be sure to check out steps 1-3 on the path to evil here.

It’s been said that the secret to writing a good story is not having a really interesting hero, but rather an interesting villain. The hero himself is defined by the villain in many ways, just as a sports team becomes famous only once they’ve defeated the last year’s champions, or a runner breaks the world record for speed, a hero needs someone to test himself against, a great obstacle for him to overcome or destroy. If the villain is interesting, then the hero will be interesting too.

It is natural, then, for a roleplayer to want to test his own heroes or those of his friends against some obstacles as well. Many of us sit down with the intention of creating a really interesting challenge for our guildmates to overcome – but in our creative endeavor we must remember that danger lurks behind every corner, and creating a villain in itself is a task with significant obstacles to overcome. In fact, one might say that the greatest enemy of such a roleplayer is none other than his own self, the ghost of cliché lurking just outside his field of creative vision.

Continue reading All the World’s a Stage: So you want to be possessed

Filed under: How-tos, Virtual selves, Guides, RP, (Roleplaying) All the World’s a Stage

All the World’s a Stage: So you want to be possessed originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Harvest Festival is kind of the garbage holiday. It’s the holiday that all the cooler holidays like Hallow’s End and Brewfest make fun of, trip along the hall, and ostracize in the cafeteria. Harvest Festival is the weird kid who doesn’t have any friends, smells funny, and whom teachers forget when making a headcount on the school bus. As far as holidays go, it’s kind of the nothing holiday. It’s there, but nobody really knows what it’s all about and very few people bother to participate. I mean, hey, feast table outside of Orgrimmar! Then what?

Then nothing! Well, you see all sorts of ghosts all over the place (which is creepy, but hey, it’s almost Hallow’s End, anyway), but there’s really nothing that stands out. At least the ghosts from the Lunar Festival had those cool moonbeams. No, Harvest Festival is the half-baked holiday that doesn’t even have an Achievement. Yep, it’s so bad that even a one day event such as Pirates’ Day trumps it with an Achievement, and was even cool enough for WoW.com to organize some shenanigans around it. No wonder nobody hangs around that smelly kid!

So today, on the beginning of Harvest Festival, let’s dedicate a word or two to World of Warcraft’s most unimpressive holiday. What are you planning to do? Without any Achievements, you can even ignore it! If you’re Horde, there’s that quest to visit Grom Hellscream’s monument in Ashenvale, but his son Garrosh has been such an unbearable asshat that even that has lost its charm. Unless Blizzard plans to hotfix the event and dredge it from the murky depths of suck, here’s a Breakfast Topic to welcome the holiday that’s so uncool that even artwork of a Harvest Golem looks better. And man, Harvest Golems are ugly mothers.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Events, Breakfast topics

Breakfast Topic: Harvest Festival originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 27 Sep 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Arthas needs a victory.

Ever since the Battle at Light’s Hope Chapel, Arthas has lost battle after battle. The players enter Northrend, and from zone to zone, they defeat Arthas at every turn. The closest he comes to victory is at the Wrathgate, but the Forsaken interfere and he has to retreat. Even in the latest patch, he’s all, “Fools, now you face Anub’arak”, and then the players promptly kill Anub’arak. Again.

As a result, Arthas is coming off as a “paper tiger”. He shows up, makes a speech, and retreats defeated. A good villain needs to be respected. In a normal story, the heroes can’t go from victory to victory. They need to suffer setbacks. For example, The Empire Strikes Back is one long acknowledgement of this necessity.

But in an RPG, can the game really impose failure on the players? To me, a game putting you into a no-win situation seems very unfair. In some ways, this is because we already have failure in the game, but it’s just a temporary state. You wipe, and you try again. Victory may be hard, but it is possible. The game forcing you to lose seems like a betrayal of this principle.

But for the good of the storyline, Arthas needs a victory to reinstate him as a real threat.

I don’t think that Arthas can score a victory over the players directly without it coming across as contrived.¹ The best path is probably to kill at least one major NPC in combat at the start of patch 3.3.

I think there are three candidates that would immediately restore Arthas’ credentials as a villain: Jaina Proudmoore, High Overlord Saurfang, or Tirion Fordring. Of these three, Tirion is probably the best choice, as the central opponent of Arthas. As an additional effect, Arthas could shatter the Ashbringer, bringing tears to the eyes of all warriors, paladins, and death knights.

Jaina and Saurfang are also good choices because they tend to be popular with their respective factions. The downside here is that a death would have less impact on the opposing faction.

¹ Though it would be hilarious if Arthas killed your little Argent Crusade squire. It would be pretty hardcore to permanently lose a pet. By WoW standards, anyways.

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Even as inflation and worldwide recession jacks up transportation fares, it seems that Blizzard is bucking the trend and continuing to drive training costs for mounts even lower. Blizzard poster Mumper — a blue so new to posting that even Zarhym was caught off-guard — confirms on the forums that the costs to train for flying have been reduced significantly in Patch 3.2.2. Expert Riding is now available for a the ridiculously low price of 225 Gold, down from the 600 Gold price slash of Patch 3.2 (it was originally a whopping 800 Gold)! But wait, there’s more! Faction discounts apply, too, but instead of Thrallmar and Honor Hold, which Level 60 players are unlikely to have any substantial standing with, these have been changed to Orgrimmar and Stormwind reputations, respectively.

Mumper (gotta love that name) explains that it was unreasonable to expect fresh Level 60 players to have even 600 Gold. He says that Blizzard wants more players to be flying around at Level 60, and the changes should make it easier for even new players to zoom around the Outland in fancy (and faster) flying mounts. It’s good news that Blizzard is being very considerate of the playing community and its economic needs in these harsh times. Now if only we could get discounts off those paid services…

Onyxia returns! The Brood Mother has been revitalized as a 10 and 25 person raid, so you’ll need to be sure you know everything that’s coming at you. WoW.com’s Guide to Patch 3.2.2 will make sure you’re set for Nefarian’s nasty daughter as well as other cool changes.

Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion

WoW Patch 3.2.2 lowers cost of flying originally appeared on WoW.com on Sat, 26 Sep 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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