Posts with tag Hogger

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Hogger's Treasure was created by Bonkey. As the story goes, the most famous gnoll of Elwynn Forest has grown tired of the Alliance (well, mostly gnomes) constantly killing him and his brethren. As any noble leader should, Hogger hatches a plan to stem that tide of blood and goes off in search of a treasure that will secure his people's safety.

This is a fun piece and I was happy to see it. It can be easy to lose sight of this kind of machinima among the sea of satires and music videos, so it's become a breath of fresh air whenever we see a story-based machinima. I definitely enjoyed it and I kind of hope Bonkey continues the story of Hogger's later adventures. I think he could punch Deathwing in the face.

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New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide.

Spoiler alert: Today's WoW Rookie is nothing but one big spoiler of the changes Cataclysm will bring to existing Alliance newbie zones. If you're aiming to hit the expansion spoiler-free with fresh, unsullied eyes, you'll want to re-join us two weeks from now (since next week's WoW Rookie will look at Cataclysm newbie zones Horde-side).

But for those of you who are itching for a glimpse into what's in store for newly created Alliance characters in the expansion, we've got brief highlights and screenshot gallery samplers of the gnome, dwarf, night elf and human starting experiences. There's not much new to report for draenei in the Exodar, save that their flight point has been moved inside the city. And as for the new Alliance race, the worgen, we've given them their own detailed gallery and write-up, and you can head over to our YouTube channel to watch video of several worgen gameplay segments. Come back next week for a similar look ahead at the newbie zone revamps for Horde races.

And now, screenshot galleries (one last spoiler alert for the road -- Cataclysm spoilers abound!) of each starting area plus written highlights, after the break.

This Breakfast Topic is brought to you by WoW.com's guest blogger program. Want to participate in a future call for guest posts? Read up on how to contribute, and keep an eye on the site for program announcements.

It's ironic, but it happens: as we play the game we escape into to alleviate our boredom, we sometimes become, well, really, really bored. The same old dungeons into which to delve, the same conversations in guild chat, the same long wait after another week of bad loot rolls. Start here, fly there, knock down a dozen of those guys, pick up their stuff, and bring it back to the person whose orders we're blindly following to do all this to begin with. Oh, and do it again tomorrow, and the next day, and then for the next few weeks until him and his friends decide they really like you a whole bunch.

It all sounds almost too much like real life, like a real job. Even if our real-world daily commute involved riding a small, colorful dragon between a sweaty, humid jungle and a freezing arctic tundra, and our jobs involved slaying the animated corpses of former friends and allies, and our reward included rifling through their gross, dead pockets for quarters (and, if we're lucky, the occasional attractive pair of shoulder pads), all the novelty would soon wear off and we'd eventually be asking other members of the PUG we just joined, "Are you sure it's Wednesday? It feels like a Thursday. It's really only Wednesday?"

So as dedicated as I can be to gearing up and progression, I like to take a vacation now and then. A break, if you will, and with spring break upon us and summer break fast approaching, what better time to talk about where we like to wander off to when we're sick of standing around in Dalaran trolling trade and LFG? Personally, when I need a bit of time away from it all, I head back to where it all began -- and as a human, that means Elwynn Forest. Yes, I'm in Stormwind all the time, but when I'm on break, I'll head down to Goldshire to check in on the creepy kids, catch a glimpse of (and righteously throttle) Hogger, and then head over to Westfall and treat myself to a solo Deadmines run. It's refreshing, and best of all, I get to keep every piece of copper dropped. Ah, bliss.

So where do you head off to when you need a change of scenery? Where do you escape to when you need an escape in your escape?

Last month, It came from the Blog ran from Orgrimmar to Elwynn Forest in order to punch Hogger and play at the Darkmoon Faire. We took the zeppelin to Grom'gol and then ran north through Stranglethorn Valley and into Duskwood. Continuing north, bypassing the mountains, we crossed the river into Elwynn Forest. Hogger was downed multiple times and there were hijinx to be had at the Faire.

Of course, it was not all fun and games. Whereas most of the lowbies were protected, the stragglers were eaten by fierce jungle fauna. And we could have done without the Alliance funsuckers who KSed Hogger as well as preyed on flagged and naked lowbies. But overall it was a good time.

Below is the gallery for the Elwynn Extravaganza. Stay tuned for the Winter Veil and Battleground Bonanza II galleries.

The Elwynn Extravaganza is today! It came from the Blog will be meeting at Orgrimmar and running to Elwynn Forest for the festivities. Here is the basic info:

• When: Saturday, December 12th, 5pm EST (2pm PST, 3pm Server)
• Where: Meet in front of Orgrimmar on Zangarmarsh (U.S.)
• Who: Any level Horde character
• How: Just send a tell to Robinator or any It came from the Blog Lurker for a guild invite.

Not familiar with the WoW.com guild? Then please read our FAQ. The events are fun and you are all invited. So after you finish listening to the WoW Insider Show, please join us for some in-game fun.

More details are after the break.

The Darkmoon Faire is in Elwynn Forest this week, and that means it's time for another It came from the Blog event. The event will be in three parts:

1. The run to Elwynn: We will be running from Orgrimmar to Elwynn using a path I plotted out for maximum lowbie protection -- also, photo opportunities.
2. Hogger Fist Fight: This is not a level 1 Hogger raid. That's so 2007 (ok that link does not go to a level 1 Hogger raid either, but you know what I mean). All levels are invited to this event, but we will be removing our weapons, and not using spells, so we can punch Hogger and his buddies.
3. Darkmoon Faire fun: We'll buy frog pets, shoot ourselves out of cannons and even turn in stuff if we've been collecting it.

Here are the particulars:

• When: Saturday, December 12th, 5pm EST (2pm PST, 3pm Server)
• Where: Meet in front of Orgrimmar on Zangarmarsh (U.S.)
• Who: Any level Horde character
• How: Just send a tell to Robinator or any It came from the Blog Lurker for a guild invite.

If you have any questions about our WoW.com guild in general, please see our FAQ. There are more event details after the break.

Via GuildOx, we have another big raid achievement coming down the pipe for Premonition of the Senjin-US server, who probably needed a boost after that horrible wipe to Hogger at BlizzCon. They've just grabbed the 10-Man Tribute to Mad Skill achievement, which means they defeated the 10-man Coliseum raid on Hard Mode up through and including 10-man Anub'arak with less than 5 wipes over the entire time.

Premonition has established itself among the solid lead US guilds before, having also been the first US guild to get Heroic: Alone in the Darkness by killing 25-man Yogg-Saron with no watchers. It looks like they're poised to continue that streak now that all the bosses in the Coliseum are unlocked. Congratulations to them, and good luck in the future!

Update: We're attempting to verify this through other means at the moment. Hold onto your pants! -Alex
Update #2: Confirmed.

Michael Gray mentioned it in his writeup of the Premonition live raid at BlizzCon 2009, but this is a moment so epic it's worth mentioning again, and now that there's video online, you can see it: in the final fight, none other than Hogger appeared to take on one of the best guilds in the game. And this was no mere Hogger, nor even the slightly-more-powerful Memory of Hogger seen in the Trial of Champions. No no -- this thing was a foul raid boss from the bowls of Deepholm, a one-shotting maniac that couldn't be controlled even by the best tank. As you can see in the video above, he charges like an angry Rhino -- he was originally pulled by a Hunter who was then one-shot so fast the aggro table cleared and Hogger reset instantly. And after the raid changed their collective pants, they took him on again, and it was all over but the Gnoll snickering.

He was immune to taunt, and he appeared to just pick a target at random, pinging around the raid like Batman beating up bad guys in his recent videogame. He only had about 600 hit points (some say 666, which would make sense), but he was immune to damage, or at least all forms of damage that Premonition tried to throw at him. In the end, even though they'd beaten Thaddius, Anub'Rekhan, and Patchwerk all at once, this level 80 Heroic version of Hogger was the one who wiped them. I saw Ozzy do War Pigs, but this Hogger fight was probably the most epic thing I saw in Anaheim last weekend.

You've probably heard of Premonition, one of the big raiding guilds that everyone follows in "the raiding scene." Among other things, Premonition is the group known for being the first guild in the U.S. to complete Alone in the Darkness. They were also special guest stars this year at BlizzCon 2009.

Similar to other WoW related panels, the stage hall in which Premonition performed was way too small for the sheer number of people who showed up. We stood shoulder to shoulder and necks to backs in order to fit.

Unlike other live raid displays, Premonition's live raid performance was crafted specifically for this convention. Premonition fought a series of four boss teams, with each boss team having at least three members. Some of the bosses featured during the raid included the a team of dragons, Brutallus, Infernus, and other stars from Outland.

Premonition's only real wipe happened when they faced down Thaddius, Anub'Rekhan, and Patchwerk. That three-boss team managed to get Premonition down on their first attempt. After only a bit of recovery, the star raiding guild picked themselves up and easily defeated the trio.

The final bout, however, was with a very special guest star from the old world past. Updated and beefed to represent his full power as a level 80 raid boss, this nightmare memory was met by the audience with howls of joy and nostalgia.

Hogger had appeared.

Despite their skill and coordination, Premonition stood no match against the Gnoll of Gnolls. While noone can dispute Premonition's skill, there are just some basic truths to the world. Hogger is the king boss.

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BlizzCon 2009 is here! WoW.com has continuing coverage, bringing you the latest in Cataclysm news, live blogs, galleries, and reports right from the convention floor. Check out WoW.com's Guide to BlizzCon for the latest!

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Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week.

Patch week? Oh, yeah. Speaking of patch week, we all knew that patch week was going to be rough. We knew there would be delays, and bugs, and restarts, and false starts. We knew that hardcore players would gripe, that newbies would be confused and that there would be plenty of contentious debate from all sides.

What we didn't know is that we could be caught unaware by even geek crafts. Take it from mibluvr13, who took one look at the baby Hordie shirt
featured in this week's World of WarCrafts column and began groping for the Escape key. "Ooooh, god," mibluvr13 moaned. "I never thought WoW.com would punch me in the biological clock. BRB, having a kid."

The week in reader comments, through the bleary eyes of our punch-drunk, patch-distracted readers, after the break.

So, to speak of the future. I'm convinced patch 3.3 will hit before Christmas (I'm guessing around November to coincide with the Warcraft: Death Knight manga). So where does that put us for the new expansion? I can't see Blizzard waiting a year for the next expansion, not without any new content. But, I digress. Patch 3.3 is now officially incoming, it doesn't have a name or an ETA but it's coming. Can you feel it in the air? So readers, what do you think patch 3.3 will herald, aside from Sindragosa and the showdown with Arthas?

All right -- patch 3.2 has been out for a few days now, and I would say that most people who are interested have had a chance to go in and run the brand new 5-man instance. Of course it's not the only change in the patch (far from it), but it's the one I was most looking forward to, and unlike the raid instances, it's all in there and doable, ready for our judgment. So what did we think?

I tried it yesterday, and my first impression was "underwhelmed." I definitely don't feel that way about 3.2 as a whole, but the instance itself seems less than impressive, a one-room fight with almost as many boring moments as there are exciting ones. The fights themselves are actually pretty commonplace for a Heroic -- the jousting fight is probably the least-liked among the playerbase (seriously, whoever really loves the jousting mechanic over at Blizzard needs to take a good long look in the mirror for some self reflection), while the best is of course the Argent Confessor, who summons a random figure from our "past memories" to fight. I got Illidan and Onyxia the first few times I ran the instance, but of course Hogger and Van Cleef and Heigan the Unclean also have a chance at making an appearance. I did like the fight, but I was kind of bummed the old memories didn't bring any of their abilities with them -- they all have the same three abilities to throw at the group.

I was never one for these tabletop strategy games or D&D but thanks to WoW I have become quite a tactician. Tactics are so integrated in the game that they come into play figuring out how to down Hogger without aggroing too many of his numerous minions, to sneaking through hostile territory and avoiding NPCs who want to kill you all the way to confronting KT in Naxx or Ignis in Ulduar. The latter is especially true, Ignis is a nightmare where a knowledge of tactics is life or death. When your raid leader asks if everyone knows the tactics and you all nod heads and mutter yes, it's not actually courtesy, he or she is trying to figure out how many people will survive long enough to down the giant er ... giant.

Once upon a time all you had to do to learn the tactics was play. Wiping on bosses and the depression of death, failure and repair bills can be a great motivator. At the same time, there are few unique boss fights in WoW. They all follow some kind of pattern and sometimes phases are even borrowed from other mobs. Others, such as Shade of Aran's Flame Wreath go down in lore and legend, even getting their own ever-so-catchy (nay beautiful) theme tune. I challenge anyone to move after having heard that (I even have that in iTunes and would play it just in case my raid forgot. No one ever did.).

So I wonder, constant readers, how do you learn tactics? I can read WoWwiki, for example, until I'm blue in the face but because of the weird way my brain is wired (don't ask), the only was I can truly learn tactics is in the fight itself. Yes, there's YouTube, there's the pre-boss-fight sit down where the raid leader does a run though the fight because no one bothered to take ten minutes to do some reading up. What methods do you use?