Posts with tag featured

Submitter and rare tauren priest Cowthlic came off somewhat the worse from his first encounter with Imperator Mar'gok in Highmaul. This is why one generally brings an entire raid to top-level content rather than just doing it solo. Although I definitely sympathize with the desire not to interact with most of humanity. Trade chat has shown me that, as Liz Lemon once said, "All God's children are terrible."

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Seriously, I have like twenty of these people, why can't I loose them as an unstoppable force of destruction? I know we have raid missions, but I'd love to be able to go to, say, Ashran and do a 20 vs 20 PvP Follower match, or perhaps a special raid, just me and my followers. Some actual in the world gameplay for them beyond just sending them on missions or sticking some poor unfortunate in the mine (Sorry, Lantressor) or what have you. I mean, imagine a weekly mission where you have to coordinate your followers on an assault on an Iron Horde base?

Yes, I'm basically arguing that we should be able to play Warcraft III while we play WoW. I just feel like we should get to do something more with our followers, something that helps increase the feeling that we're the commander of this elite fighting force. Do you have any ideas for ways we could more directly utilize our follower base?

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This post originally appeared on Massively from Editor-in-Chief Brianna Royce. At the end of every week, we round up the best and most popular news stories, exclusive features, and insightful columns published on Massively and then present them all in one convenient place. If you missed a big MMO story last week, you've come to the right post.

SOE's H1Z1, affectionately called "hizzy" by gamers generally opposed to syllables, lurched into Steam early access this week. The really-still-in-alpha survival-flavored zombiebox, which boasts hundreds of PvE and PvP mini-servers, provoked outrage from fans who consider the game's airdrop mechanic "pay-to-win," which led SOE to offer refunds and apologies.

Read on for a look at the rest of this week's top stories.

"My shaman was questing in Spires of Arak when she caught a Smoldering Ancient in a tender moment with a much younger tree," writes submitter Lib. "Perhaps they were kindling a new romance?" Eh, I bet he's one of those creepy old trees that considers Matthew McConaughey's character in Dazed and Confused a role model. Or Matthew McConaughey's character in True Detective.

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We're talking a lot about Patch 6.1, of course, because it's the new hotness on the horizon. But because we assume there'll be at least two more patches after it (and who knows, maybe that's a false assumption) I have to ask what you guys think the next patch is going to be.

I'm kind of hoping it'll be either Farahlon or Tanaan, although I suspect Tanaan will be in the last patch of the expansion, whatever that is, along with the final raid. For 6.2, I don't even know if we'll get a raid, but I have to believe we're at least going to see some new five mans.

Now it's your turn. What's 6.2 going to have in store for us?

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The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

What is Draenor, exactly? It's a world beset by war on many different levels -- there's the threat of the Iron Horde, of course, and battling clans among the orcs, fighting with the ogres, skirmishes between orc and draenei. But beyond that, there's another layer of conflict on the world, one that seems like a much larger struggle, one far more ancient and primal than anything the orcs, ogres, draenei, or even the arakkoa could conjure up.

In the wilds of Gorgrond, a struggle is taking place that almost seems to serve as a backdrop to the main Iron Horde-centered story we're concerned with. While we struggle with the Iron Horde and their plans, massive creatures both plant and rock are embroiled in a constant battle with each other, either unaware of our presence, or so intent on their purpose that we are simply being ignored. Or, to turn that around, we are so insignificant in the face of this conflict that to these giants of the world, we don't even register as being anything of importance at all.

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Anne Stickney (@Shadesogrey) is answering all kinds of questions today!

Murmur is still one of my favorite bosses from any dungeon ever, solely for the fact that his sound files are so unique, so weird, and strangely satisfying. Plus, he's essentially an elemental lord of sound, which is a really strange concept -- in a land of demons and dragons and giants and other assorted things that can kill you, a creature that can do so with the sheer force of sound is just a really neat idea. The video above isn't exactly the best video of the fight, but you can hear the strange sounds he makes really clearly.

MartinLongpre asked:

What is the big lore question that we don't have an answer to yet that bugs you the most?

What are the naaru? Where exactly did they come from? But honestly if that question were ever answered, I think it would be revealing too much. The mystery is half the fun, after all -- and it does make for some interesting tinfoil-hat lore articles.

Sunday Morning Funnies is your weekly list of WoW-related web comics.

This week, in comics: Rare wares. A cunning squirrel. Listening to cats and robots. Brothers. Plus: Wise advice!

In comic news this week, Best in Slot finished up Chapter 2 last week, and begins a one-month hiatus this week. However, there may be the odd extra or bonus going up in the meantime, so I'll keep an eye out for everyone!

Also, Trig resumes his review of 2014 over on Gnomeregan Forever, which I highly recommend reading; whether you're heavily into the lore and storylines in WoW or whether you could use a TL:DR, you'll be hooked.

Wondering what else we've got this week? A reflection on New Year's resolutions. A Rug appears! Richard is still baby-wearing. And don't miss Away From Reality (although I feel I can't say why without risking spoiling it for you). Plus, bad poetry and dangerous missions!

Now that that's all taken care of, it's time for the fun stuff. So yesterday I went out and caught myself a clefthoof and a talbuk, with the promise of more creatures to capture and tame as the days go on. I think I'm going to like the stables. It's more quests to do, and it's eight mounts that are essentially free as long as I put in the time to complete all the associated quests and earn the appropriate achievements along the way. Who could really pass that up?

And that's got me wondering -- have you guys completed the stables quests and caught your own mounts yet? Are you planning to do so? If you've completed the quests, did you keep the building afterward? Is the 20% boost to mount speed in Draenor enough of a reason to keep the level 3 stables around? Or did you replace the stables with another building once you were all done catching your mounts? If the stables added more mounts in the future, what would you like to see?

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WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold?

In 2004, I bought a brown box with some discs inside it. On the cover was a close-up of a woman with crazy purple eyebrows and an angry bearded guy -- possibly Matt Rossi -- holding a gun. I didn't know anything about the Warcraft universe at the time. I'd watched someone play Warcraft III once (or was it II?). I remember chuckling at the peons' comments as they got to work. That was the extent of my experience.

I'd been playing Final Fantasy XI and I loved the concept of an online world. I was hoping for a game that was more accessible than FFXI but with all the cool monsters, grouping, exploration, and loot. I never imagined the journey that I was about to take, the people I would meet, the opportunities that would become open to me as a result of that purchase. Many of us who played back then had no idea what was about to happen to the gaming world because of that brown box.

With all the hoopla surrounding Warlords of Draenor, Archivist has been busy covering yesterday's precursors to current content, such as the zombie plague pre-expansion event, patch 3.0, and the original Upper Blackrock Spire. WoW's 10th anniversary events officially ended this week (after an unscheduled extension), and it is past time that I looked back on my own ten years in Azeroth.

Here are ten of my favorite WoW moments, in order.

1. Showdown at Uldaman. One of my first PvP experiences in WoW was a complete accident. In late 2004, a friend and I were questing in the cave outside of Uldaman in the Badlands. We were in our mid to high 30s at the time on our first characters. One of the mushrooms we had to gather sat behind an Alliance NPC. I went to right-click to gather it but instead I clicked the NPC and started attacking him. We were flagged for PvP on a PvE realm. We knew it was now open season on us. And on Khadgar-US, Horde players were heavily outnumbered by the Alliance.