Icecrown Citadel is just full of news tonight. Hot on the heels of the Lich King’s entire loot table being revealed, it appears that the Icecrown raid weeklies are now available. There seem to be five different raid weeklies (here’s the list), existing in both 10- and 25-man versions, and they appear to be given by a different questgiver within Icecrown Citadel for each quest.
Tonight Anne, our new lore columnist, did the 25-man version of Securing the Ramparts, and she reports back that the frost giant (a special mob that appears only for the quest) was “friggen HARD” and that although they got it in a couple of tries, a PuG might have trouble. There was an interesting fight mechanic in the form of a disease debuff that must be passed to another player within 30 seconds, or else it kills the target. The original target is now immune for 30 seconds (no tagbacks, I guess).
The giant dropped no loot, but for completing the quest you get Sack of Frosty Treasures, which contains 5 Emblems of Frost, some gold, and a chance for epic gems. Has anyone else had a chance to try the new weeklies yet?
Kins World of Warcraft
Welcome once again my friends to the lore that never ends, we’re so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside Know Your Lore.
In the past two weeks we’ve talked about the formation of the Old Horde on Draenor, and the resulting rise of the Alliance of Lordaeron to oppose them. Unfortunately we were forced to give the actual events of the wars slightly short shrift in the interest of being done someday. So this week, we cover the First War. (Note: there are spoilers for the original Warcraft game and several books and comic books contained in this post. Be warned if you continue to read it.)
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Kins World of Warcraft
The World of Warcraft armory page has just been updated with new features and tools!
As stated on their updates page:
Every character profile now has a 3D model viewer that displays the character in his or her currently equipped gear, and accurately displays the character’s physical features, hairstyle, and helm/cloak display as they appear in-game. Mousing over the character model window brings up a control panel with the following controls
Camera controls: To rotate the camera around a character, click and hold the left mouse button while moving the mouse left and right, or click the arrow buttons in the top left of the window. To zoom in and out, use the mouse wheel while hovering over the character window, or click the zoom buttons in the top left of the window. To move the character within the frame, right-click and drag the character in the window (or on the small square in the bottom left corner of the window).
Animations: Each character has a selection of animations that they can perform. Use the arrows next to the animation’s name to cycle through them. The available animations are determined by the character’s class and currently equipped weapons.
Capture pose: If you are logged in, you can set the default pose of any character on your account. Use the camera and animation controls to create a pose, then click the save icon to set it as the default. All visitors to the character’s profile will then see the character in that pose.
Play controls: The rewind, pause, and fast forward buttons allow you to fine-tune a pose for a character.
Fullscreen mode: You can view the character in a fullscreen display against a selection of backgrounds. All controls will continue to function in fullscreen mode.
Embed: You can embed a standalone, interactive version of the character’s model viewer in a compatible website, such as a social networking site, guild website, or forum.
Options: Extra options include selecting a background in fullscreen mode and toggling the display of a character’s helm, cloak, or tabard.
That’s freakin’ cool! I like the ability to embed the model viewer and the ability to stick a preset pose for people looking up your character is a plus.
Kins World of Warcraft
Now, what’s a purty little thing like you doing in this here bank? Gonna take out some money to buy yourself another nice dress to hang on your ugly little meat frame? You know, this here’s a tree bank, and we don’t cotton to you fleshy types hanging around here, chopping off our limbs and eating our fruits. Y’all best go back to Silvermoon if you don’t want to end up decoratin’ our homes next Winter Veil. (Thanks to David for the screenshot!)
Do you have any unusual, beautiful or interesting World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We’d love to see them on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!
Kins World of Warcraft
A question for the readership this morning (well, two) — is a recent nerf to a specific class a strong incentive against playing it for you? Conversely, does a buff to a class make you more likely to play it?
Blizzard’s observed in the past that there’s often a correlation between the perception of a class as overpowered and the number of people who choose to play it (witness the proliferation of rogues in classic WoW, for example), so it seems fair to say that at least a portion of the player base’s class choice is impacted by the conclusion they reach on design decisions. Then again, my own experience in-game — and the pattern of comment votes here on WoW.com concerning class changes — leads me to believe that yo-yoing between classes based on which one is doing “best” at any given time is not the overwhelming trend. The Warcraft Census’ numbers on class population also seem to be evening out, slowly but surely, from a little bit over 6 months ago (which was itself an improvement over very lopsided numbers in favor of death knights and paladins shortly after Wrath went live). This would seem to suggest that, over the long term, people continue to play the class they like most for reasons that survive design changes. Or is it just that each character represents such a significant time investment that most people don’t think it’s worth it to switch mains?
I’m sure that arena and PvP as a whole wind up driving a portion of this, but what impact do class nerfs and buffs really have? If your main was ever nerfed, did you wind up playing a different toon, or did it just not matter that much to you? If your main was buffed, was it genuinely more fun to play?
Kins World of Warcraft
The Icecrown Citadel raid overview here on WoW.com has been updated with even more information on the bosses contained in the Plagueworks, which has opened this week. You’ll find summaries on the new bosses along with links to other resources like loot, videos and detailed strategy for Rotface, Festergut, and Professor Putricide. If you’re just setting foot in the instance now, don’t worry as there are resources for the first bosses in the Lower Spire.
Enjoy and good luck!
Kins Uncategorized
Weekend’s done, it’s back to work. How was everybody’s New Year’s celebration? I hope everyone’s sober and up and running to start your Monday. It’s the start of the week, after all, hopefully you’re all not still hungover from the very long weekend. Then again, it’s not always a bad thing to be a little out of sorts, especially when playing World of Warcraft. Some of my most memorable raids have actually happened when one or (regrettably) more raid members have been, how do we say, ah, rambunctious with the help of a little liquid courage. We didn’t necessarily have smooth runs, but they sure were a riot, especially over vent.
Did you guys use the long break to play the game? Or did you use it to actually catch up on real life? If you guys played, did you do it with a little more eggnog than necessary? Or maybe you loaded up on sweets like candy canes and played with a little sugar rush? Did you go through the break wearing real life Beer Goggles? With the long vacation over and the new year ushering us all back to work, school, or anything that isn’t inactivity, let’s use this sobering breakfast topic to talk about what we did over the long holidays. Heck, regale us with tales of inebriated raiding or playing. Since I’m something of a teetotaler myself, reading those stories should be a vicarious treat.
Kins World of Warcraft
After four weeks of repeatedly storming the citadel, the next wing in Icecrown Citadel should be opening soon. Specifically, the Plagueworks should be available on January 5th. At least, that’s what Muradin here said. The screenshot above shows that there are still 28 days remaining even though it was taken this week. I’m not sure if there is a glitch in the Matrix or what. In theory though, we should be breaking through the gates with next week’s raid reset. More bosses available, means extra loot and more Emblems of Frost to pick up.
The bosses
Festergut (My impressions)
Rotface
Professor Putricide
Some loot
Black Bruise (Festergut)
Trauma (Rotface)
Tiny Abomination in a Jar (Professor Putricide)
I’m getting impatient. I want to kill Arthas already. Don’t you? But we’ll just have to wait. This will help satisfy our raiding cravings a while longer.
Kins World of Warcraft
Blue posters in the official forums have started leaving comments about the earthquakes happening in-game, which as we reported the other day, appear to be linked to in-game mobs that are potentially ushering in the beginning of the Cataclysm world event.
The comments are somewhat cryptic, but that is par for the course with Blizzard. They like to tease — to hold the carrot in front of you and make you run for it. But the evidence we presented Monday was pretty solid, and it’s gained even more traction in the community and around the net; so this is an interesting follow up to it all.
The comments thus far after the break.
Wryxian says in response to “Did Any of you saw that? There was a shake in Dalaran…. Is this the beginning of the Cata Pre event?…Or was it just me?”:
It was just you. Seriously, earthquakes leading up to some kind of cataclysm? I lol’d.
*the earth shakes a bit* o.O
He goes on to say:
You see how my temporary snowman avatar appears to bob from side to side? Well, the thing is, I’m standing perfectly still. The earth is moving, I tell you! *cough*
In response to “Is it only me laughing on the Earthquake in a flying City?:P” Wryxian replies:
The Kirin Tor want to ensure that even though their city is no longer actually in the ground anymore, it still receives the same treatment as the rest of Azeroth… or something. 
We try not to read into blue comments too much, since reading in-between the lines can be a crap shoot sometimes. But in this case we think it’s notable enough, especially with the absence of Blizzard outright denying any linkage, that it’s worth bringing to everyone’s attention. Read into it what you will, but we think the meaning of Wryxian’s comments are quite clear: there is some linkage between the earthquakes and “some kind of cataclysm.”
Kins World of Warcraft
Classes are one of those central components of our MMOs. From the early days of Dungeons & Dragons to the use of class based systems in MUDs, we’ve been relying on the concept of characters with unique sets of skills working together to get the job done.
Andrew Vanden Bossche over at Gamasutra has recently sat down and looked at everyone’s favorite FPS, Team Fortress 2, to analyze how classes have gone beyond their original roleplaying roots. While the article isn’t exactly MMO-focused, it certainly does have bearing on our genre as we too begin to branch out away from the sword-and-board fantasy and into FPS territory with games like Global Agenda and Darkfall.
So if you want to see how experience and bullets go together while making gameplay more social and fun, check out the full article at Gamasutra.
Kins Uncategorized
Friends, gamers, Earthicans — lend me your ears.
One of the things that has increasingly struck me while reading peoples’ accounts of the new LFG system is the frequency with which people cite getting kicked from groups due to a low gear scores, or scathing comments from other players on the extent to which they are being “carried” after damage meters are posted. Now, while I don’t believe that this is an overwhelmingly common practice (most players have had positive experiences with the dungeon finder, and I’m one of them), it’s still a problem. People have complained since the beginning of WoW about damage meters and the jerks who spam them, and we’ve all seen our fair share of the unhappiness wrought by the misuse of GearScore, but this is different. At no point in WoW’s history have so many players who don’t know each other from Adam been tossed into relatively intimate 5-man situations with the total freedom to be angels or asshats to each other (and, speaking of the Adam we do know, even he’s given up and started to expect some bad play in his PuGs).
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Kins World of Warcraft
When faction warfare went live with EVE Online’s Empyrean Age expansion back in the summer of 2008, It was a magnificent success. It was intended as a way for newer players to get into PvP and as a stepping stone from the safe haven of empire to full-on sovereignty warfare. It wasn’t long before large fleets were duking it out in low security space and for a time, it was great. Eventually, problems began to come to light that demanded developer attention. Capturing exploits and a lack of rewards were causing players to leave the war and after a year with no development, faction warfare was looking abandoned.
Rewards were eventually implemented in an attempt to revitalise the ageing faction warfare system and promote PvP. With the Dominion expansion came the most anticipated of those rewards – new tier 1 navy battleships available only from the faction warfare loyalty point store. Since the announcement that they were coming, mission-runners have been farming faction warfare missions like crazy for loyalty points. The promise of unique rewards from the missions was intended to revitalise the game and give pilots something to fight over. But did the rewards really improve faction warfare and promote PvP or was it a huge mistake?
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Kins World of Warcraft
In the vein of Phaelia’s Vestments of the Sprouting Seed and the BRK-1000, Blizzard honored several community members with items named after them in Patch 3.3.
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Kins World of Warcraft
This is great — it’s probably more WoW playing than I could do in one day, but maybe I’ll try it this weekend anyway. loztaylor has designed a heck of an instance run that rolls through thirteen Heroics and will nab you 53 Emblems of Conquest (along with all of the other spoils of war) in one day. Basically, you’ll be sweeping across the land of Northrend, hitting every Heroic you come across, and if by some chance you’re able to keep the group together the whole time, and keep from passing out from all the WoW playing you’re doing, at the end you’ll end up with 53 Emblems, more than enough to purchase most of the Emblem gear, and almost enough to pick up a Tier piece.
Of course, if you’re wearing a rep tabard, you’ll also rein in a ton of dungeon rep. And if you hit the new Trial of the Champion, you’ll pick up your Champion’s Seals as well. And you’ll have 13 Frozen Orbs to divvy among the group, a few extra Emblems and gold from doing the daily quests, and if you’re good and/or lucky, you might even be able to clear up a few of the achievements or snag that blue proto-drake. Of course, doing this much of anything in the game will probably nab you plenty of rewards. But here’s a tuned route to follow all the way around the world of Heroics. If I can find a willing group of suckers guildies, I think I’ll give it a shot.
Kins World of Warcraft bosses, instances, Making money
Sure, you know about dual spec, the Argent Tournament, and Ulduar. But patch 3.1 was a patch of many changes, and some of them seem to have flown under most people’s radar. Here are a few changes that have been surprising some people recently, judging by the tips we’ve been getting.
Siphon Life is no longer a separate spell. The talent now adds a self-healing effect to your Corruption, as well as boosting the damage on Corruption, Seed of Corruption, and Unstable Affliction.
Emblems are now automatically distributed to everyone upon the first person looting them, similar to gold. This means no more forgotten emblems, and no more rush to the corpse as everyone goes to get theirs. It will also make loot chests much less unpleasant.
Many spells with ground effects, such as Rain of Fire, Blizzard, and Death and Decay, are not showing the same as they used to. This is because there is a new video effects option, “Show Projected Textures,” which controls whether things like the rune circles from RoF/Blizz/DnD are rendered on your client. It also appears to control my framerate in 25-man raids.
The 10% experience bonus from heirloom shoulders now applies to quest experience as well as experience gained from killing mobs.
Kins World of Warcraft emblem-of-valor, patch-3.1, wow-live