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Posts with tag blizzcon

The Queue: Tooth explosion


Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's (almost) daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

Today's edition of The Queue is gifted to you by my horrifying toothache that has kept me awake at ridiculous times of the day for the past week. You can thank the toothache for this article, because otherwise I may have done something healthy instead, such as sleep.

Mordockk asked...

"Is Quel'Delar going to be a Legendary weapon? If so, does that mean there is going to be two Legendary weapons next patch?"

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Officers' Quarters: Cataclysm's guild revamp -- guild currency


Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

After Blizzard's big announcement about how they plan to improve guilds in Cataclysm, I've been examining the changes in detail. First, I wrote about the lack of guild improvements over the years and how the expansion will, for better or worse, change WoW guilds forever. Then I speculated on possible leveling system options, guild talents, and guild achievements. This week, I'm going to finish up the series by talking a bit about guild currency and suggesting some products that Blizzard should let us buy with this new system.

Here's what we know so far. Guild currency will be earned by players in your guild who earn experience. It remains to be seen if experience (and thus currency) will still be earned by players once they reach the level cap, but I assume that it will.

So far, they've only mentioned a few items that we can buy:
  • Vanity items like mounts, tabards, and standards
  • Reagents like frost lotuses for flasks
  • Recipes
  • Heirloom items that scale with level

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Warcraft movie subtitled on IMDb, likely fake


A few tipsters have alerted us to the fact that the Warcraft movie now has a subtitle on the Internet Movie Database -- instead of "Warcraft," it's now called "Warcraft: Rise of the Lich King." Though keep in mind what we've said before: almost anyone can edit those IMDb entries, which means this is less than even a rumor. It could be that some IMDb editor saw the title of the book somewhere and confused it for the movie's new title, or it could just be that an overzealous fan threw in a title of their own. Especially this early in a movie's pre-production, nothing is guaranteed.

Two other things to note here: back at the BlizzCon panel a few years ago, Chris Metzen did tell us that the movie wouldn't focus on Arthas anyway, so calling the movie "Rise of the Lich King" seems like it would go directly against that plan. Then again, we do know that when Sam Raimi became attached to the project, he brought his own set of ideas, so maybe he's convinced Blizzard to tell the story of Arthas yet again. Secondly, the IDMb crew page has been updated: apparently the Aaron Sims Company has been contracted to do some early character work for the movie. Unfortunately, their work is all over the map -- he's worked on Evil Dead II (great), Men in Black (pretty good), and Doom (whoops -- one of the worst videogame-based movies around). It's early though -- we do know Blizzard won't let Uwe Boll touch the movie, so hopefully they've chosen worthy talent here already.

Officers' Quarters: From the mail bag


Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.


Hello, fellow officers! This week I'm going to try something a little bit different than usual. I tend to focus on one topic that requires a detailed analysis. However, I do receive many more questions that I never feature in the column because they have a more straightforward solution (or, at least, because I believe they have a straightforward solution). So I would write a private reply to the e-mail but never showcase the question here.

I've decided to try an experiment this week and feature several of these e-mails with shorter answers. Even though they may not be the most complex situations, I think the answers will be helpful to other officers. Let me know what you think! Here's the first question.

Too Many Cooks

I was wondering if you could do an article on having too many cooks in the kitchen during raids.

My guild is brand new, 3-4 weeks old, and we run Ulduar 10 and ToC 10 as well as Naxx 25 and Naxx 10 for the new 80s. As of right now, I am my guild's GM as well as raid leader. I have plans in the future to add an official "Raid Leader" to create events and lead some raids although I plan on still leading a few because I really enjoy it.

Right now though, I have a few natural born leaders that attend my raids and it causes some problems.

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Twisted Nether and friends unveil Azeroth United


The Twisted Nether folks have been a huge part of the WoW community for a while now -- I finally got to meet both Fimlys and Nibuca in person at the last BlizzCon, and of course we've mentioned them and their work here on the site before. They've recently announced another big project, in coordination with Stompalina over at Rawrcast and our own Eddie "Brigwyn" Carrington, author of the Scattered Shots column and curator of The Hunting Lodge, and it sounds exciting. Azeroth United is an "Internet media community" centered around World of Warcraft, so it'll be a hub for sharing news and support around not just bloggers, but all WoW-related fansites and online resources.

It sounds like their first project will be a large-scale charity drive, much like the Children's Week auction that Brigwyn put together earlier this year. More news on that, we're told, is coming soon, and we'll keep our ears open to see what they're up to. We've seen the power of the Warcraft community before, both in making a difference with donations and and uniting under a common flag, so a project like this is sure to be fun to watch. Stay tuned for more when we hear it.

Grunty the Murloc Marine arrives for DirecTV viewers



Memories of BlizzCon have started to fade over the last month, but today another reminder of the event pops up. If you watched it via DirectTV you should shortly be receiving an email letting you know that soon you too can have a Murloc Marine shadowing your character's every step. The email comes with a code and a URL to visit in order to redeem the little guy. Be careful of any phishing scams, the correct URL is http://www.blizzcon.com/pet. You must also have a Battle.net account in order to receive him.

Once you have entered you code and gone through the simple redemption process the next time you log on you will have an in-game mail from Master Handler Sylvester. This will contain your special delivery of a Heavy Murloc Egg and a thank you.

Grunty the Murloc Marine, we salute you. When it comes to murlocs, you are the best of the best of the best. Sir! With Honors.

Last day for WoW.com discount at SwagDog


Those awesome folks at SwagDog, who sponsor our Guild of the Month Contest, have released a new guild icon shirt design that is much simpler than their original one. Some folks like Alex really like it, and since the man has good taste, chances are you guys just might, too. That's not the only good news, though. The deal is that those guys at SwagDog have given WoW.com readers a sweet 15% discount when ordering one of these babies (the shirt, guys, the shirt). All you have to do is use the promo coupon wowicon15 when you checkout.

The bad news is that that code is just good enough for today, the last day of SwagDog's cool 48-hour WoW.com promo. These shirts are fully customizable, and even though they're supposed to be guild icons, you can actually customize your own design using one of the game's many fun icons. While skulls and crossbones or dragons and axes might be cool, you can just as easily use a crying bear for that kawaii factor. Or a beer mug. It's Brewfest, after all. What're you waiting for? You've only got a few hours left! Get hopping, people!

WoW Moviewatch: Warrior's Dream


Sam Pierce, the director and producer for Slashdance, dropped us a note to let us know the final, full-length cut of Warrior's Dream is available. And every moment of this breathtaking video is gorgeous. The video scored 3rd place at the BlizzCon 2009 machinima contest, and it's easy to see how it did so well.

Like many BlizzCon machinima entries, Warrior's Dream was originally released in a smaller, 3-minute version in order to conform with the contest guidelines. Now that the contest is over, the Slashdance group retooled the video to its better paced, full featured glory.

This video is just absolutely wonderful. While the authors provide interpretation for the Fantasia-like framing, I'd recommend watching the video before you read that summary. The words "wonder" and "fantasy" can't describe this video adequately, since it really is a soaring, imaginative journey through Northrend. For me, it manages to capture the "wow!" and "look at that!" in the World of Warcraft, and does so in an open, embracing approach.

It's a great movie, and one worth sharing with friends. As a final note, this is a video I immediately shared with both WoW friends and non-WoW friends. It's a beautiful film, and one I think most people will enjoy.

Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.


SwagDog releases new design, limited time WoW.com discount

This past week, SwagDog (sponsor for our Guild of the Month contest) released their newest custom t-shirt design: The Guild Icon shirt. Whereas their Guild Tabard design is a little busy (with your muscled nerd chest being graced with a guild standard of sorts), their new design is more simplistic in comparison. Your guild icon is front and center, laid atop your faction's icon. Your character's name, race, class and server are listed in white at the bottom, and your guild name across the top. If you so choose, it looks like you have the option to leave your guild and character name blank if you really want the icon to pop. The icon itself has a really cool stone texture to it, like it's been carved out. You can check out a close-up sample of that behind the cut below. This is honestly much closer to my ideal guild t-shirt than anything I've seen yet. The simple design just seems better to me.

If you agree, you're in luck! For the next 48 hours, SwagDog and WoW.com are giving you 15% off your purchase if you use the coupon code wowicon15 at checkout. Even if this is something you normally wouldn't wear, you could consider it preparation for BlizzCon 2010. No, they haven't officially announced it, but you just know it's going to happen. Plus, from the picture up above it looks like these shirts have magic powers and put the wearer into a state of rapture and/or nirvana. That's pretty cool. I'd take 15% off of nirvana.

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Officers' Quarters: Cataclysm's guild revamp -- guild achievements


Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

After Blizzard's big announcement about how they plan to improve guilds in Cataclysm, I've been examining the changes in detail. First, I wrote about the lack of guild improvements over the years and how the expansion will, for better or worse, change WoW guilds forever. Then I speculated on possible leveling system options and guild talents. This week, I'm going to look at guild achievements.

Here are the announced guild achievements so far:
  • Working as a Team: Have a grand master in every profession
  • We Are Legendary: Complete a legendary weapon
  • United Nations: Become Exalted with all Northrend factions
  • Insider Trading: Trade 100,000 craftable items among guild members

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Blood Pact: A new Lock in town


A lone shadowed figure approaches the village as it settles down for the approaching night. A hush falls with his passing and all eyes turn to follow. Who can say what has brought him here but there's no mistaking his calling; there's a Warlock in town.

With more than seven weeks since the last Blood Pact column there was bound to be a few things that weren't covered. Not too much though, right? It's not like anything major happened in those weeks. Did it?

I'm kidding of course; the last couple of months have seen huge changes and awesome announcements. There's simply no way I can cover them all, and do justice to any of them, in one article. That said these things can't be left on the shelf to moulder. So I'm going to do a quick run-down of what's been going on in Blood Pact's absence and then we can start plunging into their dark and squishy innards going forward.

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Fan-created documentary about BlizzCon: An event for fans

Reader Encifer sent us a link to this excellent fan-directed documentary short about BlizzCon. Just a few days ago, I kind of panned the LA Times for treating BlizzCon as such an alien thing, but this video kind of takes a different look at the same event -- instead of coming at it from an outsider perspective and treating it as if it's something 20,000 crazy people do over a weekend, it's much more about how exciting it is to be a part of an event this big. I don't know, maybe the difference is just something I see, but this fan documentary, I think, does a really great job of showing just why BlizzCon is so great, while the LA Times piece, in my view, kind of dismissed its subjects even as it was portraying them.

At any rate, Chris Nguyen did a terrific job on this -- he says that he created the short film to prepare for a few doc film classes he's going to be taking, as well as challenge his doc-making skills, and it seems like he did just that. He interviewed two of his former guildies, as well as the winner of this year's costume contest, as you can see in the video. And he says the whole thing was shot over the two days at BlizzCon and then took about eight more days to edit. Definitely a fun little film to watch, and if you've never been to BlizzCon before, it'll give you a nice look at just what it's like to show up in a hall with thousands of people who play the same games that you do every day.

The Los Angeles Times visits BlizzCon


The LA Times has a story up that's about a month late -- it tells the story of a guild meeting up at BlizzCon last month (they were actually at the Lost Bar, a place we at WoW.com know well from past meetups) and doing everything players do at BlizzCon: meet each other face to face, talk Warcraft, and enjoy everything Blizzard has set up on the convention floor. Truth be told, the experience sounds pretty tame to us -- BlizzCon is BlizzCon, it's a ton of fun, but it's not that alien of an experience to go with your ingame friends to a gaming convention.

Then again, maybe we're just biased. Maybe having guildies as friends is really a fascinating thing to someone who's never done it before, and maybe the spectacle of BlizzCon really is so interesting that you can just report it in the paper. They do chat with Morgan Webb (why?) and they get one line from Blizzard COO Paul Sams, but otherwise, it's just basically the story of the Dread Pirates and their trip to BlizzCon (complete with veiled accusations of misogyny and a dictatorial guildleader -- thanks, LA Times!). To folks who don't play World of Warcraft, it might be interesting, but for most players, especially those who've been to BlizzCon already, it's mostly business as usual.

Joystiq interviews J. Allen Brack



Intrepid reporter and all-around cool guy Kevin Kelly over at Joystiq scored an interview with J. Allen Brack during the festivities at BlizzCon 2009. Just in case you're not aware, J. Allen Brack is the lead producer for our beloved World of Warcraft, having joined the team back in 2005. Kevin's a pretty smart cookie, and managed to get some great insight into the game from Brack. The interview's worth a full read, but there's a lot of insight that's worth spending some time talking about.

It's not any surprise that Brack told Kevin that there's no end in sight for WoW, and that he expects the game to survive at least another 10 years. But Brack immediately followed up by saying that Blizzard has changed the way they view the franchise novels recently. Back in the day, it seems, they just let authors go wild. "Go off and create a kind of story in the world," Brack told Kevin. Now, however, it seems like the creative team is spending more time trying to make sure the novels reflect what they plan in the game, as well as vice versa.

Brack confirmed that Blizzard still keeps an eye on what other games are doing, and will bring that into the World of Warcraft by giving it their own take. That comment reminded me of the discussion about upcoming Fishing changes in Cataclysm, and how the new fishing system was inspired by Animal Crossing.

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How I WoW ends its run, Patrick Beja to work for Blizzard


Our good friends Patrick Beja and Shawn Coons (who you've likely heard on our podcast before a few times) have posted the very last episode of the popular and excellent How I WoW podcast. Both Turpster and I have appeared on and enjoyed the show, as we've said before, and they're calling it quits -- the final episode features Scott Johnson of The Instance podcast (who was also on the very first episode, so that's fitting), and besides saying goodbye to their audience, the three guys talk very insightfully about the WoW community and its podcasters, and the kinds of ties we create as players in places as varied as the game, the online community, and real-life events like BlizzCon.

The show is ending (temporarily, perhaps -- Shawn hints that he may revive it, or help someone else to do so) mostly because Patrick Beja, as we heard at the very end of BlizzCon, is off to work for Blizzard in their Paris office. Unfortunately, he says he won't have a very public face at the company, but he's excited to have the position, and we're obviously very happy for him. He won't be able to podcast about World of Warcraft or Blizzard at all, so as Shawn says in the final show, there will definitely be a Patrick-shaped hole in the community. He won't be gone completely, though: he says will be able to continue his other podcasting work, including on The Movielicious podcast with our very own Turpster.

We wish Patrick and Shawn the best, and if you haven't yet tuned in to How I WoW, definitely go give it a listen while the archives are still up -- it's a very interesting take on some of the more familiar faces in the community at large. We'll miss the show for sure.

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