The Naaru's new fashion statement
World of Raids and MMO Champion both have lists of new gear on sale, come patch 2.3, in exchange for Badges of Justice from the heroic instances, and now Karazhan and Zul'Aman raid instances as well. That's exciting, of course, but let's stop and look at these pics of the new gear for a moment, shall we?Now, naturally, this gear is designed to fit with the general trollish theme of the patch, which lots of people are understandably excited about. The armor looks pretty good as armor goes, and it definitely brings some new visual design elements to the game that haven't been represented in any previous armor sets. But, let's stop and consider for a moment just where this armor is coming from. It looks like trollish Zul'Aman armor, but do we find it in Zul'Aman? No, it's up for sale by the only known Naaru retailer, G'eras. Does its method of acquisition have anything to do with Zul'Aman whatsoever? Well... it might if your guild has finished raiding Karazhan and gathers the heroic badges in Zul'Aman soon, then yes; but if you still focus mostly on Karazhan or heroic instances, then you might very well acquire some of these armor pieces without ever visiting those Amani trolls even once.
What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is the appropriation of the Amani clothing design brand by the Shat'ari Naaru in Shattrath, copied illegally by G'eras, and put on sale with no proprietary settlement with trolls they are mimicking. Who knew that the Naaru could be capable of copyright infringement? If the trolls were down with that whole "I'll see you in court!" thing, their lawyers would be all over this right now.
Seriously, why is a being of pure holy light selling trollish armor with skulls and tusks and voodoo dolls on it? -- or does nobody care?






Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Michel Oct 15th 2007 4:09PM
I care (a little ;) )
it's too easy for blizzard to simpley sell it by G'eras.
by the way, funny article. It was surprising. but true
Greengreen Oct 15th 2007 4:16PM
It looks like utter crap.
Todd Oct 15th 2007 4:16PM
The face for the plate looks a lot like Venom.
Shalmaneser Oct 15th 2007 4:20PM
The Naaru are secretly evil. Get on board.
Argent Oct 15th 2007 4:20PM
i had a nice chuckle when i saw the graphic of a plate healing helmet -- it looked like a wooden tiki mask.
Byron Oct 15th 2007 4:25PM
Looking forward to seeing female characters in the cloth and leather sets. [runs out of room]
Stop Oct 15th 2007 4:28PM
I believe it's because the bosses in ZA can drop the new badge reward items. So selling them for badges is just a new alternate way of getting some raid level gear.
Xonate Oct 15th 2007 4:29PM
The mail set looks pretty good, especially for shamans. The plate looks good as well, except for the helm, which looks retarded. The leather and cloth looks... blah... at best. At least that's my humble opinion.
esumiwa Oct 15th 2007 4:31PM
Just a mild cultural correction: voodoo is not dark and evil. Nor is it as menacing or corrupted as protrayed in the movies. Yes, it is an intense ritual based practice, but that doesnt make far from the light the naruu.
Also, in STV, the voodoo trolls there are on the alliance side - in a sense - so the troll voodoo isn't necessarily evil either in the WoW universe.
Esu Miwa (an actual Lucumi priest)
New Orleans
luchifer Oct 15th 2007 4:32PM
looks like an angry duck
Sylythn Oct 15th 2007 4:35PM
Why do you think the Blood Elves enslaved one? Stealing the power of the light is just an added bonus - he's actually imprisoned down there for copyright infringement.
Neowar Oct 15th 2007 5:13PM
Now you are saying that the plate set looks cool, but let me ask you this: does it look like plate? Hell no! Its made of wood and cloth, and a lot of paint...
How is wood going to protect me from swords and axes? And what about those fire mages who will just set me on fire...
---
A concerned warrior.
daniel Oct 15th 2007 5:44PM
@2 - agreed, this is what happens when you substitute game designers for monkeys to save a buck.
luchifer Oct 15th 2007 5:48PM
@12 You really should be complaining about wearing plate next time you got struck by a lighting bolt.
Nati Oct 15th 2007 6:38PM
I was afraid this would happen - it's another AQ with horrible looking armor. I mean, okay. I can see how that'd look cool on an orc or a troll. But that plate set - on a human or blood elf paladin? Seriously. Blizzard needs to understand that there are some of us who actually do care about how we look, and that themeing -all- equipment from a particular dungeon around that dungeon's theme is a bad idea. I mean, sure, it makes sense to have troll armor there - but even the stuff specifically named as "elven" gear (that the trolls have stolen from the high elves) looks trollish!
draeth Oct 15th 2007 6:42PM
Naaru please, them sets is off the heezey. I think they look cool, and it will mix up the look of things around major cities when you have venom running around in his tribal skull emblemed samurai gear w00t
Anonym Oct 15th 2007 8:01PM
What makes you think this is from badges? This cleatly must be the design that actually drops in ZA. They just datamined it out. Jumping to (your own totally wrong) conclusions FTL.
Wlerin Oct 15th 2007 10:21PM
We know it's from badges because people are actually playing on the test server right now, nubling.
lordfrikk Oct 16th 2007 2:55AM
I actually like the looks a lot and I hate such nickpicking at things you do.
Pål Oct 16th 2007 5:12AM
Reminds me of Ryuk...