Posts with tag flying-machine

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?

Blizzard likes to talk about their "iterative" process, meaning they make many small improvements over time to produce the best possible result. In the case of the lackluster patch 2.2, players were disappointed that more was not done. With the game's subscriptions still skyrocketing, Blizzard felt pressure to deliver a major dose of new content and improvements.

In November 2007, Blizzard answered the bell and unleashed an iteration that reshaped the game from top to bottom. Players of every level experienced sweeping changes to their play experience -- many of which are so integral now that it's hard to believe we played without them for so long. If you ask players about patch 2.3, they'll call it the "ZA patch." Zul'Aman was a great raid, but 2.3 offered so much more than that.

Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. Today, we are convinced that archaeology's RNG won't apply to us.

There are a number of interesting (and by interesting, perhaps I mean "occasionally very expensive and likely to drive you insane via RNG-laden accessibility") mounts available from professions, though for some of them, you'll have to be a practitioner in good standing before you'll ever be able to learn them.

Regrettably, I am the bearer of some very bad news this week concerning the Vial of the Sands for all those of you who like circumventing the highest costs in the game.

Also read:

• Combining The Ambassador and Mountain O' Mounts
• Mountain O' Mounts in Outland
• Mountain O' Mounts in Northrend
• Mountain O' Mounts in 5-man dungeons
• Mountain O' Mounts in raids
• Mountain O' Mounts from achievements
• Mountain O' Mounts from PvP

For some reason, crafting has always been a big part of massively multiplayer games. Maybe it's their quality as loot-collecting simulators, but from the very early graphical MMOs, players have almost always been able to create and modify and trade and sell items of their own. Though we don't talk about it as a mechanic much (you press a button and get what you crafted, what's the big deal), it's certainly one of the main reasons people play World of Warcraft, and the crafting system has come to not only fuel the economy, but has ended up becoming one of the best ways to show off and present your customized character.

So our question today is: what's your favorite or most important crafting item? I'm in the middle of leveling my paladin, and he's just now reaching the highest reaches of Engineering, which is a skill I've never leveled up before, but have always wanted to. I haven't gotten together the gold for epic flying yet (well on my way at level 73), but I did make normal flying machine as soon as I could. And my big goal with this character, other than getting him raiding ASAP, is to make the Mekgineer's Chopper -- ever since we first saw it in the early days of Wrath, I've planned to get a character up high enough to make it. I know, I know, I can buy it, but for me it's a crafting thing -- I want to go out, find what I need to find, and craft it with my own virtual hands.

Any other crafted items that have you wanting to make something for yourself?

An interesting post popped up on the forums, mourning the passing of racial mounts, which apparently nobody uses anymore. The poster pointed out that most people now using bears or mammoths, every Death Knight using their cool Deathchargers, and a rare few actually still using their faction mounts. This sparked a flurry of responses and even had Eyonix chime in with his thoughts (and enviable epeen stroking when he casually dropped his Spectral Tiger in the conversation).

I'm actually guilty of not riding my faction mount, the closest I ever got being the Swift Warstrider. I currently use the very awesome but all-too-common Black War Bear (every day, it's like 40 more people pop up with the mount), and for flying I use the not-so-common but also not-very-awesome Albino Drake. On my engineer I'm enjoying the Turbo-Charged Flying Machine and I plan to get a motorcycle when he dings 80. If I could afford Salvaged Iron Golem Parts and everything else, that is. There are really quite a lot of mounts to choose from, which is probably why the easily acquired, 'vanilla' mounts aren't as popular.

I don't have much to say with this comic this week, thank goodness. With a two page reaction paper due tomorrow, and two exams Friday, I greatly enjoyed the time I took from my week to sit down and do this comic. With that said, I would like to send out a sincere "I'm sorry for your loss" to the five of you whom have recently (read as: within the last month) experienced something similar with a very different piece of hardware. At least that made one of you turn your World of Warcraft subscription back on.

Anyways, have you ever wondered what it would be like if things in Word of Warcraft worked the way they did in real life? Like if for instance some large corporation made your Mechanostrider instead of that nice little Milli Featherwhistle? You could be minding your own business, enjoying a nice breeze from running through Nagrand when, Bam!

What do you think? Have you ever just thought about something like that? Standing there one day being shocked back to life and thinking "Gee, what if these jumper cables malfunctioned?" Maybe it's just me, but when I see my Engineering friend zooming around in his Turbo-Charged Flying Machine while I'm stuck on my poor, unflying kodo, I sometimes giggle at the thought of him crashing.

At least he's not our healer.

We've been receiving a constant stream of news from the ongoing Worldwide Invitational in Paris, France, and we've gotten hints of changes coming to the game that promises overall improvements to PvP. In the developers' panel discussion, we learned of a Shadow Priest talent called Dispersion, which Blizzard hopes will allow the underrepresented Shadow Priests to become more viable in Arenas. The dungeons and raids discussion yielded plans to further continue the purchase of PvP gear through PvE, such as from reputation.

The panel at the WWI earlier was cleverly titled "PvP Game Systems", where Tom Chilton and Corey Stockton discussed Lake Wintergrasp, new Arena maps, and the new Battleground. It was a rather uninspired panel compared to the previous ones, revealing very little that anxious players didn't already know. Because of the suspiciously lengthy yet predictable presentation, very little time was left for questions (of class balance, I bet), although a few good ones were asked -- and surprisingly answered -- during the session.

Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.

With news of new recipes and crafting tweaks in patch 2.4 flooding in, it's hard not to get excited about what Wrath of the Lich King might hold for our favorite professions. The trades in WoW aren't currently necessarily aging very gracefully, yet fresh directions seem perfectly attainable with a little design effort.

In the meantime, plenty of new players (and new characters) set off on the trade road every day. Many of them naively believe that a trade that complements their chosen class will provide them the gear and cash they need for the road to 70 and beyond. But with today's accelerated leveling curve slingshotting players past Old World content into gear that's positively steroidal compared to crafted options, crafters often don't see any significant return on their investment until the end game.

So why pick up a trade? We've got three good reasons, immediately ahead.

If you haven't checked the World of Warcraft official site in a few days, some new goodies have popped up that you might enjoy. Blizzard added a gallery for photos of players dressed up in WoW-themed Hallowe'en costumes, including several cute pictures of children (can you say baby murloc?), and some nifty ideas.

They also added an engineering mount gallery, to both the engineering and the flying mount pages. Of course, the WoW Insider turbo-charged flying machine gallery was up first, and we're not gloating about it. No; we're merely linking to Blizzard's! Actually, they've compiled some unique and truly beautiful shots, so it's definitely worth perusing.

Although Blizzard is always open to receiving your screenshots, at the moment, they're quite interested in shots of the new Cenarion Expedition mounts. Check out our mini-guide to taking screenshots if you're not sure of the technicalities, and then mount up for the camera! Alternatively, start grinding in Coilfang, and begin saving your gold. If you fancy one of the flying hippogryphs, it'll set you back some 2000g.

If heading out and snapping some fantastic shots is not your style, or if you simply do not have the time, then perhaps you should head over to our Caption This contest page and try your hand at winning a 60-day WoW gamecard.

With new engineering toys comes the race to gather enough materials to make them, preferably on patch day. The complete list, while daunting, is a necessary checklist every engineer will want to work through.

Assuming that you will want to craft the new Field Repair Bot 110G, as well as the Flying Machine and, if you're a wealthy engineer (oxymoron, I know), the Turbo-Charged Flying Machine, you will have some prep-work in addition to gathering materials. For the bot, you will want to be revered with the Consortium and already have flight, as you will need to farm Gan'arg Analyzers in Blade's Edge Mountains.

If you are only crafting basic flight, you will want 350+ engineering skill, level 70, and expert riding skill. If you are looking to make your epic, you will need to make both mounts, as the original is used in crafting its successor. You will also be needing artisan riding skill and engineering 375. If you're not quite there yet, check out Lisa's guide to maxing out your engineering in order to be ready for patch day.

Now that you have all your Gnomish Battle Chickens in a row to make everything that is new, it's time to tackle the hefty list of ingredients.

Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.

Today's special issue of Insider Trader is all about business. Your profession? Engineer. Your goal? Engineering (375) and a Turbo-Charged Flying Machine. We'll show you how to get there as quickly and painlessly as possible. Link over to our favorite 0-300 leveling guides, and then mull over our collection of tips for the final stretch from 300 to 375.

Before you begin, consider this: As with "recommended" powerleveling paths in all professions, your mileage may vary according to your individual server's current pricing and demand for both the materials you need for crafting and the products you create as you go. A non-traditional path to 375 may just be the ticket, depending on what's hot and what's not.

No matter how you choose to get there, it's never too soon to start collecting your Flying Machine mats and getting ready to take flight in style. Prepare for liftoff!

A poster on the forums asked about whether people would like to see spider mounts in the game. It's true he was just asking out of boredom, but to me this actually an interesting question. We have the Black Qiraji Resonating Crystal, of course (pictured here, courtesy of Wowhead), but that's more or less impossible to get now, and it's not exactly a spider in any case.

What sorts of new mounts will there be then? Nethaera responded: "I couldn't tell you what possible new mounts there will be. :( Perhaps a little further along we'll have information on more of the fun features that are getting added in with Wrath of the Lich King."

What mounts would you ask Blizzard to put in the new expansion? Flying machines are already going in at some point, and bats and hippogryphs have already been mentioned. How about rideable owls? For land mounts, maybe you could ride on the shoulders of your very own yeti! Better yet, what if we could pilot our own slow, yet moveable siege weapons?