Posts with tag ghostcrawler-promised-me-a-pony

With Blizzard taking Diablo 3 to the PlayStation, we kind of have to wonder... is World of Warcraft ever going to make a console debut? And before you say it's impossible, that World of Warcraft is too complicated to play on a console, once we would have all said that about Diablo, too. And if Diablo makes the jump successfully -- there's no release date yet, so it's hard to say when we'll be able to judge its success -- maybe WoW will follow. At any rate, seeing WoW come to a console is probably a lot more likely than ever getting that pony Ghostcrawler promised us.

So, fellow gamers, if WoW did come to consoles... would you be playing it? Would it encourage you to buy one of those next gen consoles we've heard so many rumors about? Or would you stick to your PC gaming rig?

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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?

Last week, Archivist celebrated the Ulduar raid, including Thorim's famous IN THE MOUNTAINS speech -- one of Wrath's most memorable memes. In its eight years, World of Warcraft and its players have spawned dozens of memes. Today, Archivist remembers some of the best and most enduring. If you've ever wondered where some of these memes come from, read on!

The earliest memes

WoW memes began almost instantly after the game's release. One of the first was Mankrik's wife. For an early Horde quest in the Barrens, the orc Mankrik sent you to locate her. His directions were rather vague, so many players had trouble locating her. It didn't help that she wasn't an upright and alive NPC, but rather a dead body laying on the ground -- killed by marauding quilboars.

Confused players asked where they could find her in the zone's chat. Many, many players. Because the massive zone spanned 15 levels, everyone leveling through it saw that same question asked over and over again. It got to the point where people would ask just to troll the chat channel.

The quest is no longer in the game, but players can now visit her grave near Grol'dom Farm.

Trolling Barrens chat became something of a hobby for early players. Many in the Horde didn't know about the other leveling zones across the ocean. Some who did ran up against the ongoing Tarren Mill/Southshore lagfest wars and took the first boat back to Kalimdor. The combination of a captive audience and a high saturation of new players made the Barrens the perfect zone to troll. In time, Barrens chat became its own meme, even inspiring T shirts.

Our favorite Lead Systems Designer of World of Warcraft joined Twitter yesterday, meaning we can now get our daily doses of his infamous "nerf me, bro" in 140 characters.

Actually, he's been pretty approachable and has already been answering questions and communicating with players. It'll hopefully end up to be a great medium for him to interact with the playerbase, which hopefully won't go all insane over everything he says (and doesn't say).

Already he's dropped an interesting tidbit when asked if there's a chance they'll remove the requirement to be in a raid when entering an instance: "Yes (meaning there's a chance)."

Follow Ghostcrawler on Twitter at @GregTStreet @Ghostcrawler.

Just don't spam him asking for a pony.

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It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!

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There's so much in Azeroth (and Outland!) just waiting to be found. Tip us off. If you've found a fabulously quirky landmark, hidden treasure, or special hideaway somewhere in Warcraft, drop me a line at olivia@wowinsider.com with your screenshot. You could be featured in a future edition of Where in Warcraft!

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Right. So the last edition of Where in Warcraft I thought was a little bit harder. None of my WoW-playing friends knew where it was just from the picture -- but you, WoW Insider readers, you're just too darn good! The first correct response was from Marcscgm, who correctly identified the chap's final resting place south of Forge Camp Fear and west of Oshugun, even going so far as to provide coordinates!

Well done there, that man! I salute you for your Nagrand knowledge and would like to present you with a ceremonial book and wine goblet, with a lovely rock plinth to enjoy them on.

But it seems we need to get far more serious here, people. You know your way around too well, and it's just no fun if it isn't difficult (well, no fun for me, anyhow!). I want to be the diabolical quizmaster, OK? So, this next edition represents a little jump up in difficulty; we're creeping up gradually. As the title suggests, it's so on! I will find a place nobody gets, eventually!

This submission is from the lovely Eiji, and it's a cave. Oh, yes. I went there. A cave with a rock outside it with a paladin on it. No more clues!

And I loved the suggestion of blocking out parts of the picture! If I'm not successful in my attempts to confound you, I will definitely start doing that.

So a recap: Guessing an entire zone is no good. I have to be able to find my way to this location with your directions. Coordinates are great, but not a requirement! Happy hunting.

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There's so much in Azeroth (and Outland!) just waiting to be found. Tip us off. If you've found a fabulously quirky landmark, hidden treasure, or special hideaway somewhere in Warcraft, drop me a line at olivia@wowinsider.com with your screenshot. You could be featured in a future edition of Where in Warcraft!

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I'm sure you all have seen the latest Dev Watercooler by the big man (Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street) himself. And I'm sure you will all have noticed the biggest news in there (in my opinion, anyway) is the section about the PvP-related changes to resilience.

Disclaimer: This is not absolute. Just like the changes, it's almost impossible to see how they will play out without trying them for ourselves once the beta comes along. But I want to hear your opinions, both on these changes and on my thoughts. Let's talk it out, people!

First and foremost, I don't know about you, but I am really not digging the names. I reckon a tidy solution might be to sling in a PvP section in the character pane. If Blizzard did it within the character pane, it would just avoid the clumsiness of adding the "PvP" into the actual stat, and (I think) it would make it easy for players to understand what they were looking at.

Of course, Blizzard could call the new stats "Bob" and "Vera" for all it would really matter to their performance!

For the record, I did not ask for a pony. When I logged into my account post-4.0.1, though, my cup runneth over with them. Sadly, though, Blizzard is taking all my precious ponies away for redistribution.

WoW Insider's own Matt Rossi had a terrific post yesterday about the class balancing issues that we were seeing with patch 4.0.1. Casters like me were experiencing the thrill of god mode, with reports of mages being able to one-shot their opponents. And while we casters were getting sweet, delicious ponies, melee players got a big pile of pony excrement. Arms and fury DPS were down -- way down. So was retribution paladin and kitty DPS.

Last night, Lead Systems Designer Ghostcrawler let us all know that fixes were on the way. Today, he confirmed that fixes were implemented and explained what was done to each affected class to balance them out. The full post explaining who got buffed, who got nerfed and why is available just after the break.

There has been a lot of debate about some of the announced class changes for Cataclysm this week. Some people absolutely love the announced changes while others are either upset or confused about what these changes mean for their spec.

One important thing to remember (and something Ghostcrawler and other devs have stressed multiple times) is that almost all numbers, coefficients and bonuses are going to be changing when the expansion ships, and none of the abilities are final. This means trying to say that using certain spells or stats is a "horrible idea" because of particular issues in the current game doesn't really hold up, because your class might end up needing that stat or relying on that spell when Cataclysm hits.

Also, being as the entire stat system is getting a revamp (with a lot of the current stats going away or being repurposed completely), all of your current gear's stats will also be changing to reflect this including increased armor for cloth, leather and mail users.

There is also the fact that these previews are not the whole story. There might end up being additional talented spells for your spec or revamps of various class abilities that will change your current rotation. Some classes are getting simplified and others will be getting a little more depth.

All in all, please look at these changes with an open mind and leave any preconceived notions at the door. We still have the entire beta for them to tweak and change any of the current ideas that might be lacking or might not mesh well with your class's existing kit.

Always remember to leave constructive feedback (Note: "This sucks!", "Blizzard obviously doesn't play my class," and "Ghostcrawler promised me a pony!" are not examples constructive feedback.) and tell them what parts seem clunky, good, lackluster or just simply feel "off" of what it should be for whatever reason (and always include the reason why). If you're eloquent in your post (and sometimes even if you're not), you might be the voice that gets things changed.

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it. Nothing will be the same. In WoW.com's Guide to Cataclysm you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion. From goblins and worgens to mastery and guild changes, it's all there for your cataclysmic enjoyment.

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Since there's a lot of you up with the WoW.com staff tonight waiting on the priest class announcement, we've decided to throw up an open thread here on the site. It's our first one of these, so let's see how it goes.

What's an open thread? From Wikipedia:

An open thread refers to a blog post where readers may comment and discuss any topic that they choose.

Basically, talk about whatever you want. I'm going to start posting stupid music videos and 4chan links. The only restriction is that the comments cannot be inappropriate -- both language and link wise. Depending on how this goes, we might do this again tomorrow night or in the future.

So... open thread go WoW multiverse!

First of all, I would like to congratulate Keyra for winning the virtual cookies! This batch is vegan upon request, comes with a nice tall glass of cold soy milk, and I'll even throw in some fresh berries. Khloe Kardashian was the right answer to last week's impromptu trivia question!

Watch out for this week's trivia question, buried in amongst the comics.

Unfortunately, I didn't receive any new comic tips, but I don't think you'll be disappointed!

On a side note, I feel very lucky that photographing one's collection of My Little Ponies is a relatively popular occurrence, for how else would I have found such a lovely epic pony? I had more to choose from than I would have imagined, but I finally narrowed it down to the lucky pony on the right.

We can't believe it either – Turpster has been let loose on WoW.com to bring you videos from in and around the World of Warcraft! You've heard him on the WoW Insider Show, and now see him on TurpsterVision right here on WoW.com.

Drinking alcohol might make you feel big, but you wont be clever! Don't do drugs kids! Now I've got that out of the way, I can leave you all to enjoy the video and to get in game and complete the achievements. If you need any help then make sure you check out Allison Robert's fantastic guide on the Brewfest 2009 achievements!

Also, as some of the less filthy minded of you out there might have guessed from the title, this week's TurpsterVision features the Argent Tournament reward and the achievement of Pony Up! And I have it on fairly good word that this is indeed THE Pony that Ghostcrawler promised us -- well at least that is how I am treating it in-game (RP ftw!).

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Ghostcrawler promised us a pony. He did. Or... did he? The statement became World of Warcraft-famous when Blizzard developer Greg Tiberius Street, otherwise known as Ghostcrawler, used the statement to end a thread that was guaranteed to become a whine and flame-fest. It also became one of WoW.com's favorite quotes -- so much of a favorite, in fact, that when BlizzCon rolled around, we fitted our WoW.com crew with custom-made Ghostcrawler Promised Me a Pony shirts.

It turns out we're not the only ones who like the phrase. Some of our readers who saw us walking around with the shirt asked where they could get one. People who saw the design on the site wrote in, even including some super secret Blizzard blues who presumably want to wear the shirt as an inside joke at the office. Since we love you guys, we're here to oblige. While we won't be able to give you actual shirts, we're making the high resolution file of the image we used available for download right here on the site.