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| I
wrote this song a long time ago, a real long time ago Posted By: Foghorn Deadhorn - Dec 16th, 2006 1147 PST |
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ver·bose (vər-bōs')
I was going to post a definition of "cliche" but it wanted to insert a bunch of HTML and I'm just not really that interested. As I promised, more TBC coverage. In order to make up for the fact that this is about two weeks late, it's going to be the largest update ever. Enjoy.
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| One
thing I was a bit surprised by is the fact that Tauren are still the
largest race in WoW. Good. Fuck those Draenai assholes
trying to step in our territory. Your crew don't mean shit to us
bitch.
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| One
of the first things you will notice when you pass through the gate is
that the sky is really astounding. You've all seen the
shots. They, as usual, do it no justice. But we're going
to try.
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| This
is Hellfire Peninsula, a fine place with fascinating NPCs -- FOR ME TO
POOP ON.
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| Of
course it is Beta. I love watching the artists' hands at work:
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| There's
some pretty nice loot out there. Big shocker I know.
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| Want
to know what's hot? Demon chicks in thongs. Team Diablo
knew it, now Team WoW knows it.
(For the record, Team WoW, the Diablo succubi were also topless. Word to the wise)
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| ^
I'm sorry if you don't get it. Well...not really. Overall
questing in Hellfire is surprisingly satisfying, I've never been much
of a quester, I do them to level and am relieved when they aren't a
pain in the ass/tedious, or are, like, cool. Between the
atmosphere, storylines, and special details put into the quests in
this zone I really have to say if you don't like questing here you
probably won't like questing anywhere.
While Outlands overall is not exactly "huge" it is very, very dense. Artistically they have done an outstanding job on every zone I've seen, either personally or not, and of the zones I've explored myself, you are constantly running over points of interest, whether they are visual or functional, and usually they are both.
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| Some
love for the warlocks, or something...don't you wish your VWs looked
like this?
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| There
are backgrounds absolutely peppered throughout this update, FYI.
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| Lots
of new models in the zones so far, gotta be happy with that.
We've largely been fighting the same shit since launch in some size or
another, they added one single totally unique model in MC, one single
totally unique model in BWL, a handful of bugs in TAQ, and mostly more
of the same shit in Naxx.
This thing is called a Ravager, I have adjusted the color levels a bit so you can actually see him here:
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| Now
-- totally coincidentally -- I was randomly browsing images at Google
and came up with this oddly similar model:
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| This,
apparently, is a "scarab" from Oddworld: Abe's
Oddysee. Well I had to investigate this a bit.
Wouldn't you guess what I found, some other shocking similarities:
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| Would
you check THAT shit out? Fucking shameless -- SHAMELESS.
There can only be one conclusion:
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| Looks
like Oddworld has been busy ripping off Blizzards IP just like those
Warhammer upstart fags.
In Thrallmar, the first town you will encounter in Hellfire and its major quest hub, you will be given PvP zone control quests, very much like the EPL towers, except not mostly pointless, and you actually get tokens to turn in for some gems.
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| OK
there are these big ass fucking things called Reavers out here, and by
"big" I mean fucking huge. They're so big you'll be
like "O, for that is big!" They will also squash you
like a goddamned tin can. The good news is they largely do not
patrol directly through heavy questing hotspots.
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| There's
a bombing mission out here you can do right off the bat. I
didn't take any shots worth looking at, but it's pretty cool.
Just trust me. Yes I mean bombing, like from a wyvern. If
you haven't heard about this, check YouTube out.
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| On
to the instances. In Hellfire you have two you can do right
away. They yield very nice experience at the right level, are
pretty short, and start to yield MC quality loot. In some cases
you can get TAQ+ level loot from the second, Hellfire: Blood
Furnace. Speaking of instances, the LFG tool works really
well. I didn't take a screenshot for you but here's how it goes:
You type /lfg or click on the little button among your other options buttons. This will give you three popup menus, so you can indicate for more than one zone. What's neat is that it will automatically filter for you what is level appropriate. When you first get out here, at level 60, it will still show BRD, but that drops off right away. It will give you the option to LFG for places you haven't been, which is a nice little indicator of where you're going next. To make it even better, meeting stones are now basically summon stones. They act like a warlock with infinite shards: select a party member and click the stone, as long as you and one other person are there, you will summon that person to the stone. Yep, two people total. Hot. This is the loading screen for the zone of pink orcs:
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| I
did forget to show the main TBC loading screens earlier, so here you
go:
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| Additionally:
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| Total
non sequitur, but have I mentioned how much I liked X-Men: Age of
Apocalypse?
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| Hellfire
Ramparts is really easy if you have a non-retarded group. I had
the pleasure of getting a retarded group for it once so I can say it
is definitely necessary to not be a complete drooling retard, but
other than that it's not difficult. The loot is very good for a
non-raiding character and you will even find an upgrade or two for
middling raiding ones.
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| That's
one boss and the only pic you're getting. There is a Rend-like
encounter, minus the waves. Overall visually not much to it,
looks all right but nothing special. This guy is fun because he
makes a yo-yo out of you.
Blood Furnace, on the other hand, is pretty fucking sweet looking:
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| The
encounters aren't half-bad either. Not spectacular but remember
these instances are largely geared towards casuals so they can start
catching up in gear. I'm sure with worse equipment they are a
bit less brute-forceable.
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| This
encounter will actually rape a disorganized or really-badly-geared
group. In the words of Beetleguise: NICE FUCKING MODEL.
It's called Blood Furnace for a reason. A certain someone is in here, and he's not happy. And he's listening to Tool, apparently.
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| A
little peek at the old chap, you can see him clearly through some
clipping if you orient your camera just right. No, he's not in
the zone. He's going to be a raid encounter, anticipate and
enjoy.
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| The
final encounter in this zone actually yields shoulders which are
superior to Deathdealer (they are unsocketed). Not bad stuff
overall, but definitely worth doing for the XP and the fun alone.
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| I
do believe that covers Hellfire Peninsula. Back to BE land for
just a bit, then we shall return to Outlands. I have excellent
news: I have discovered a Chili's Bar and Grill.
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| You
have to use the little portal clicky thing to get to the hostess who
is very likely making sure the counter doesn't float away, as
hostesses are wont to do.
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| Some
new Troll architecture. Neat!
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| There
is a green instance line behind that gate. If they're intending
to release a low-level instance here they had fucking well better do
it soon when people will actually want to bring level-appropriate
groups to it or it's going to be a waste of resources. If it's
high end...kinda odd placement. I don't know what it is.
Nifty BRD-like carvings in the stone around this area though.
Apparently the Trolls discovered fire at one point. So easy a
Troll could do it!
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| Back
in the city, my poor little pally girl is trying to find her
identity. Is this what I am to grow to become?
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| Seeing
the males run around really reinforces the fact that I would rather
play a female character than a metro one. Check this out:
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| I
feel like I'm stuck between the Roxbury guys dance-humping me,
but instead of being the target of their affection, I'm merely in
the way.
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| Apparently
even Blizzard thinks the cocks are lame.
Hey look, it's the source of the Blood Elf's paladinic powah (again). More lore on these creatures further down:
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| There
actually is a good bit more BE stuff but I haven't gotten to it yet
and very well may not. Haven't been able to play much (at all,
actually) in the last couple of weeks and when I get back to it I
doubt I'll be wasting time on my Paladin, even for the sake of awesome
journalism such as this.
So, on to Shattrath or however it's spelled, the main city in the Outlands. When you arrive, you will meet a very familiar character.
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| By
which I mean Khadgar. Have some lore:
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| This
city fairly large and you may find it a bit confusing. Thankfull
there's a guided tour you can take, which gives you a good bit of lore
while showing you the points of interest. That tour, however,
will not show you the real city, little things like this:
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| Yes,
the famous "Epic" Malone.
Wait...
What?
More of the real city, what the news media won't show you:
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| Tragic.
Oh! The one on the bottome left DOES have a tail. High
five!
Niftily, in the center of the city, there are portals to the cities in Azeroth.
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| Now,
there is what appears to be a somewhat half-assed SoV-like faction
implementation here. There's a Draenai faction and a Blood Elf
faction, they have their own areas in the city, and when you faction
with one you lose faction with the other. I call it half-assed
because I don't see them changing your raid targets based on this and
the rewards are mostly the same with different names. So, kinda
cool but SoV it aint.
Since I'm not a double-dipping alliance lover, I chose the faction that is populated with our own Blood Elves: the Scryers. This is their platform:
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| It
is here that you can turn in your Tier 4 tokens, or, in most cases,
just try the shit on. Check me THE FUCK out:
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| It's
too bad Tier 5 actually looks worse. This shit is sweet.
On to Zangarmarsh, where you will meet yet more factions, like the Cenarion Expedition:
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| Zangarmarsh
is an awesome-looking zone.
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| If
that's not a badass, oldschool-looking ogre, I don't know what is.
Hey look, it's another faction:
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| And
this is where he lives:
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| And
this is where you faction with him:
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| This
is one of the most stunning areas I've ever seen in this game.
However, I can't stop from thinking about Baron Harkonnen when I look
at it, for some reason.
I ran across a small problem on my adventures here:
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| Yes...it's
a locked...wicker chest. I know as a warrior my int is in the
low double digits, but let's rewind a bit:
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| For
some reason I was able to solve this problem, vs. one of the most
powerful beings in D&D, largely through use of my axe. And
yet I am stymied by a wicker...fucking...chest. I don't care if
that shit has a lock on it or not, I want a wicker chest open, I'm
cutting that bitch. What the fuck?
You'll also find this guy in one of the towns, I don't really know or care particularly how this works, I just know it's supposed to stimulate world PvP. As long as it doesn't get in my way I really don't give a shit.
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| Some
sort of territory control shit. You want to know what real PvP
looks like? Real territory control? You're
welcome. "Oh but Deadhorn, you're a big carebear, how can you
comment on WoW PvP?" Well, first off, I am Tenderheart
Bear, to be more
specific. Secondly, the implementation of PvP in WoW has
simply never interested me. I am competitive, I have played
many, many games in which I had to get my ass whooped fiercely in
order to improve, but they were entirely skill-based, not
time-commitment based. If I'm going to get into time-commitment
PvP I'll play something where the PvP fucking matters. Like EVE,
which rocks.
On to Coilfang, the quest hub in Zangarmarsh. To begin, the location is pretty cool, but I won't go into it. Below you will see first the raid instance line. It isn't open yet.
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| First
instance here is Slave Pens, which is another really nice looking
zone. There are a couple of ugly trash pulls in here early on,
but not too harsh. The last boss encounter I hear can actually
be hard, we lost a guy but didn't seem to be all that difficult.
We were a largely raid-geared group though, and I as always was backed
against a wall unable to see shit, so maybe it was really frantic and
difficult.
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| Loot
is really not bad and even weapons are starting to approach BWL.
Next up is Underbog, I first ran this starting a little under 63. It's a bit more difficult, the trash can be a little challenging. Go with a good tank and good healing. And good DPS. And maybe crowd control. Maybe a buffing class. Here we found the first boss I've wiped on with a good group, but that was only from bad positioning. He is not shown. Actually none of the bosses from this zone are shown =\ Lazy.
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| OK
so really I only had one really nice-looking shot from this zone but I
didn't promise walkthroughs on the front page. This zone is less
visually cool than Slave Pens, at least after one run-through of each,
but for some reason gives more vid lag. The encounters are
definitely more fun, and the loot starts to get really hot.
Check it out on Thottbot.
All of this was taken with me barely reaching level 63. When I get back to levelling, I'll give some more. Until then!
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| Feed
me, fill me up again Posted By: Foghorn Deadhorn - Nov 27, 2006 1418 PST |
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Once upon a midnight
dreary...I got my beta account. Finally. While the guild
is slowing down in productivity (lol?) and heading for a full raiding
shutdown in preparation for the expansion, I'll take some time to
share with you the awesomeness that is The Burning Crusade as you know
only I can do. Screenshots and quippy comments are serious
business.
Welcome to the slightly redone front by the way, by the time the xpac rolls around we hope to actually have this modernized, and you know what that means! Animated gifs, random calendars in case you want to know what day it is, and RSS feeds giving you the latest Nintendo-fan wiijoicing. It's all very sweet. Also have a move to VB3 on the boards coming soon. Biggest motivator? VB3 Arcade (shown implemented at DnT), soon to be the biggest factor in our application process. Want to play a healer or a tank? Show us your Tontie skeels. Rogue? Finger Footie. Hunter or Warlock? Um...I guess Miniclip Snake should be about your speed. Don't forget Frogger for everyone, which is, for the record, a fucking lot hard than I remember it being. If you can get a good score at this you very likely can do some basic dodging of mobs without training the raid. I'm only kidding in parts. On to the good shit. Having attempted to copy my character, an action Blizzard apparently forgot about for two days until I went back and redid it, I started a Blood Elf Paladin. Female, but the debate was raging on which gender would actually be more gay. Prepare thee, for many, many screenshots. WARNING: Many...many screenshots. If you really don't want to see what beta looks like, I would recommend just skipping this page until beta goes live.
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| Some
devs simply have no shame -- NO SHAME I say. See below.
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| Mmmhmm.
I wonder if that's an in-joke. Did Kariel try to train rogues
specifically?
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| There
are these corrupted Blood Elf types around called The Wretched.
They are known to hang out all day sucking on dark majiks and
listening to Nine Inch Nails.
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| There
are transparent curtains everywhere in Blood Elf architecture. I
don't know about you, but I'm very excited for the gameplay
possibilities one could realize with this new shower-curtain mechanic.
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| General
chat is in fine form, and the Blood Elf race is being taken very
seriously.
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| You'll
find plenty of these big manly robe men about the main city of
Silvermoon.
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| And
occasionally a female one. This is what I believe is referred to
as a beard,
in this case for the entirety of the male BE population.
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| Been
curious about what BE girls look like sitting on benches? Well
there you go. This pic makes you think of Deanna Troi on the
bridge? Welcome to my extremely nerdy club.
There is some lore associated with this thing below, it is being held captive in Silvermoon, and it looks cooler in action than it does in screenshots. It's also one of the few background clickthroughs in the update and the only one I'm going to indicate.
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| That
above is a portal to the undercity. At the time this pic was
taken, I thought it was a very elaborate pretty room with no apparent
point.
For some reason the map art in this area strikes me as more Tolkeinesque than in other zones. Here it is with some mystery still attatched.
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| Meanwhile,
my character transfer, on try two, went straight through...
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| Yes,
that's a non-epic mount. Shut up.
Yes, I will be using transferred guild bank money to amend that. Wasn't the first thing on my mind. What was, is that feeling I haven't had for a long time....
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| To
be continued, beyond the dark portal, more blood elves, and evidence
of this:
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