Posts with tag transmog

If you know me a tiny bit or follow my Twitter, you know that I'm sort of a nerd when it comes to shaving. Not content with the Mach 3 quad-blade whatever and desperate to save cash, I decided to search for something better. Like most young men of the internet age, I found mantic59 by way of a forum post or somesuch that lauded the benefits of traditional wet shaving and fragrant lathering, and my life changed forever. If you're interested, start here, and watch them all.

Anyway, I've never considered myself a true shaving fan because the visceral reaction to my fandom was never profound. It was fun for me, sure, but the outward expression of the thing was just not there yet and it was my personal experience. However, when I saw Truefitt and Hill showing off their Jubilee Commemorative Shaving Mug for the Queen of England's Diamond Jubilee in 2012, I wanted it. I want it bad, and I'll do anything to get it. Then it hit me; I'm sure excited about a shaving mug. Could be a whole lot worse.

So, men, I implore you. If you shave, shave like a man. I can give you no better, no more sagely, and no more important advice. You'll be better for it.

Questions?

ancientn00b asked:

What happens if we enter a cross realm zone and someone is there with the same name? Will it be like in dungeons where their realm name is after their name? Also will we be able to join with them in a party to quest together?

I enjoy a lot of aspects of World of Warcraft, and one of those aspects is the actual playing of the game. I like combat, whether I am tanking or DPS, the active working through of encounters and even the unfolding of trash pulls. I like learning what new mechanics do, how fights unfold and how they can be successfully completed. I love all of that -- but what I also love is the period after mastering content.

I shamelessly admit it here. I love when content goes on farm. I was ecstatic as Firelands went from hard to easy. I love feeling my gear improve, seeing my DPS or health go up, looking at my avoidance and mitigation and realizing that yes, I actually can get passive unhittable just through gear. (I'll miss that when the two-roll combat system comes out.) I like going back, months down the road, and tearing Baleroc in half like wet tissue paper. Remember me?

Part of this is simply because I like WoW best when I'm killing stuff. I don't like to sit idle in Stormwind or Orgrimmar, and I'm not terribly moved to stand around hawking my crafting wares or playing the Auction House. These are fine activities, to be sure, but they're most certainly not what I like to do in the game. No, the reason I played seven years ago is the reason I play now, because I like to hit things in the face with the largest possible things I can.

And taking their stuff -- I mustn't forget how much I like taking their stuff.

In honor of the release of Diablo III earlier this week, I've decided to dedicate my next two transmogrification articles to recreating the cast of the game. We'll start with the barbarian first -- but before we dive in, I have to tell you a quick story.

I used to know a mage who wore an enchanted Chef's Hat during raids. The first day he wore it to raid, someone asked him to take it off, but he wouldn't; it was his new favorite hat and he intended to wear it. This annoyed several people in the raid, who repeatedly told him to take the hat off, so the mage told them this: "When someone does more damage than me, I will put my other helm back on."

That day never came, so the hat stayed until he got bored of it.

I mention this story because you'd think with all the plate bikinis and mail hot pants in WoW, the task of assembling a barbarian's costume for a warrior or paladin would be simple. Alas, loincloths don't seem to be that popular with plate wearers, so you'll either have to put on some pants or convince your raid leader that you don't need pants to do your job.

As a raider, I've come to hate the MOBA genre over time. My guild was raiding Icecrown Citadel when Heroes of Newerth first came out, and within a few weeks, I quickly noticed the effect it had. Being in a progression guild, my guildmates were usually patient, focused, and committed when putting in the long hours needed to secure not just server firsts but the highest possible world rankings we could.

After HoN came out, however, it all changed. Core members of the raid were frequently dodging raid nights, and a few times the raid leader even called the night early when progression on a boss fight wasn't up to his satisfaction. The reason? He and half the guild were more interested in playing HoN than raiding.

In the past six months, I've noticed the same thing happening again with League of Legends -- only it's a hundred times worse, because it seems like everyone and their mother is playing this game. As such, I have developed a potential solution to dodgy guildmates. Using transmogrification, your guildies can now transform themselves into two of the most popular League of Legends characters, Graves and Ashe. Who knows? In doing so, maybe they'll actually work on last hitting the damned boss for a change.

I've admitted to my transmogrification habit on a few occasions now. One of the things that it's brought to my attention is that I really, really hate heroic lockouts on content I can easily solo -- like all The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King heroic 5-man dungeons, for instance. Let me tell you a true story.

I have been running heroic Azjol-Nerub once a day for a week now. Every day, I zone in, kill everything in my path like an unstoppable juggernaut of death, reach Anub'arak himself and crush his carapace with wrenching blows from my two gigantic swords, then peel open his husk to find the same exact drops, none of which are a plate helm. It's annoying because it only takes five minutes to do, but I can't devote, say, a half-hour to doing it six times because it's a heroic and locks me out for an entire day. I find this absurd. I especially find it absurd because it's not as if older heroics get a lot of at-level use nowadays. People who ding 80 don't queue up for heroic Azjol, they go to Hyjal or Vashj'ir.

Nowadays, these older dungeons serve purely as repositories of fashion, clothing dispensers we run in order to assemble a look. Well, OK, some of them also serve as a source of frustration when a mount doesn't drop. At any rate, what purpose does it serve to lock up these dungeons behind the mantle of "heroic" and apply the lockout to them when no one runs them when they're anything like a challenge anymore? There's already a system in place that keeps you from running a dungeon too many times within an hour; that should be sufficient for these dungeons. I understand leaving raid lockouts in place, but not 5-mans.

Yes, there could be twinking imbalances here for people who froze their XP, but frankly, if some level 70 or 80 twink can get a level 85 or 90 (in Mists) to carry him to gear, it doesn't really bother me. We've already stated numerous times that the game isn't balanced for PvP at lower levels, let's embrace it. These dungeons aren't heroic anymore. Let's let reality reflect the changing game -- and more important, let's let me get my freaking hat.

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.

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I give up. I can't for the life of me create a transmog for Princess Peach. I've tried and I've tried, but there just aren't enough pink clothes in the World of Warcraft to piece together a convincing Peach. I'm sorry, Mario, but you're going to have to settle for some other princess. Princess Poobah? Princess Theradras? Princess ... I can't think of any more. Someone call Anne!

Anyway, this week I decided to put together a few more transmogs based on Nintendo characters. A lot of readers were asking for more, so I made one for Princess Zelda, Toad, and Roy (you know, from Fire Emblem and Super Smash Bros. -- everyone loves Roy!).

Transmog sets are hot, hot, hot -- just ask the guy who gave away 1 million gold after building his personal fortune by selling gear destined for transmogrification sets. It's the rare player who hasn't caught on to the fact that selling those dowdy old leveling greens can rake in surprising amounts of gold in today's mogging era.

Taking things a step further by assembling and selling full transmog sets, however, is the province of fewer players -- a select few indeed, according to Mickél of The Blackest Rose, a transmog set dealer on Madoran (US-H). "We were the first to do it on our server, and I have a feeling one of the few in game who is selling complete mog sets," he explains. "My partner works on making custom sets from the random greens we have; hers are often very clean and perfect-looking. I use the named sets, i.e. Emerald, Righteous, Abjurer's, etc."

Before you cry, "Aha! Must do this!" -- think upon the sheer amount of time and effort that goes into a transmog dealership done right. Mickél and his partner Aridas have to farm up each and every piece of gear. No set is complete without every last piece that shows, whether it drops quickly or not. The team needs to develop and market customized, themed looks and then farm up whatever's required from the four corners of Azeroth. They have to find a profitable way to offload all the random pieces picked up along the way.

And what about those teeth-grinding runs when a piece that's needed just won't drop? Run it again. And again. And again.

So why would any player in his right mind spend hour upon hour grinding for lowbie gear?

Do alts even count as alts when half of them are the same class as your main and the other half are rarely played?

I have a troubling relationship with the concept of playing an alt. First off, I don't really get alts. I know people who have four or six or even eight level 85 characters, geared and kitted out for raiding or Arena/RBG play. One woman I know has completely filled up two servers with level 85 characters (full character window, a server she plays Horde on and a server she plays Alliance on) that can at least run a random Hour of Twilight heroic. I accept that this exists, but I can't imagine doing it.

See, I'm middling at best about my achievements in game, but there are things I've done that you can't do anymore. I mean, every time I ran the 5-man Zul'Gurub, I kept thinking about how I'm a hero of the Zandalar tribe. Shouldn't they at least try and talk me out of killing them? Shouldn't I at least have the option to say, "Hey, guys, it's me, can we chill out on this?" and then we could express our sorrow at having to come to blows?

I can't do that on an alt. Well, OK, I can do it on the other two warriors who are also heroes of the Zandalar tribe, but you get my point. An alt's not going to have all those titles I barely realized I was earning, or my Mimiron's Head, or a Sulfuras in the bank laughing at me every time I got to the trasmogrification ethereal and get a hit of sweet, sweet gear changery.

Why hello, insomnia. Fancy seeing you around here again. It's been what, a week? I guess that's enough sleep. As is my wont, I tend to log onto WoW and do ridiculous things when I'm tired, like run Dungeon Finder groups over and over again. I don't need the points, as I usually cap valor just by raiding, and I don't need the gear. Sometimes I tank, sometimes I DPS. (I have yet to figure out how to queue my warrior as a healer.) I've figured out, to some extent, why I do this.

1. I test out build ideas in PuGs. That prot spec with all the threat talents, or the other one that cherry picks for Second Wind and Blood Craze. (Yeah, I tanked with that one. It worked OK, but man, I missed Blood and Thunder.) My fury spec that has both SMF and TG for no good reason aside from switching between Gurthalak and Souldrinker every few minutes. (Gurth's way better, in case you were wondering.)
2. I like killing things in video games. No real surprise there.
3. I indulge my transmog jones. There's something about running Well of Eternity in tier 2, then going back and transmogging into level 40 greens and running it again. It amuses me.
4. I get to feel like a superhero. Seriously, a lot of the time I get dropped into a run halfway through that's struggling on Azshara or Murozond, and I can just kind of go completely and utterly bonkers on said boss. Yes, one of the reasons we collect all this gear is so we can feel powerful. I don't go around posting meters or bragging; I often say very little aside from an occasional joke.

Number 4 up there is the easiest one to be obnoxious about, so I try never to be that guy going on about how awesome his DPS is or pulling threat because he couldn't wait for the tank. Yeah, I could probably do more if I opened up sooner, but I don't feel like it's necessary. I'm there because it feels good to show up and help lift a group over obstacles, not to become an obstacle. I did enjoy the one group where everyone was very encouraging to see exactly what I could do, though. It was fun to just cut loose on Dawnslayer for once.

How about y'all? Ever up at ungodly hours? If so, and you see that guy above, he might be me. (I change looks by the hour.)

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.

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You hear me, Curator? I don't care if I have to end you weekly for the next six years -- I will do it. Just ask Ashkandi. I don't stop until I get the drop, so if you decide to be parsimonious with my tier 4 token, I can keep farming you from now until the end of time. I'm OK with it. Just ask General Rajaxx. That dude just would not listen ... and now? Now he's dead for the 10 billionth time, and I have a Manslayer of the Qiraji. Fool of a boss. This could have been over a long time ago.

Yes, this is because of transmogrification. I don't know if a single feature yet introduced has managed to alter my play habits as much as this one. I search obsessively for gloves, boots, belts, capes to match whatever current set I'm trying to build. (At the moment, I'm vacillating between season 1 and tier 4). I even did some Arenas and RBGs in order to grind up a Cataclysmic Gladiator's Greatsword faster, not to use in PvP, but because I wanted to use it for mogging. Yes, I did PvP because I wanted to look pretty.

So now for you. Have you found yourself doing something you never would have, farming a drop, running instances, PvPing, maybe even raiding -- just for the 'mog?

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.

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You just spent 13,000 gold on a pair of purple boots. No, not purple quality -- purple as in the color. What? It matched the subtle detailing on your tier 2 shoulders perfectly. OK, maybe not perfectly, but it's close enough. Wait, maybe you can find something closer? Better go look again.

We get it. You're addicted to transmogrification. Your void storage is packed full of gear that you haven't worn since level 9, and your friends are planning to stage an intervention. You want more -- no, you need more. Fortunately, we're here to help. Like a best friend who brings you a batch of her famous marshmallow chocolate chunk cookies two days after you start a diet, we've compiled a list of transmogrification resources you may find useful in getting your next fix -- I mean, outfit.

Do you like hugging trees? Did you want to see more of D.E.H.T.A. in Wrath of the Lich King? If you answered yes to either of those questions, this week's transmogrification guide is for you. This week, we're going to be exploring that super-chic tribal look the tauren of Azeroth love so much. So if you happen to be a druid who wants to look more the part (or just want to be a rogue who inflicts cognitive dissonance), keep reading.

First off, you should know that at the end of the day, there's a lot of flexibility to this outfit. Anything with wood, leaves, feathers, animal hide, fur, or antlers has the potential to be swapped in. Just be mindful of how you incorporate color. When using earthy-looking armor models, you want to try and keep the earth tones in the same color family. So for example, if your chestpiece is a mustard-colored brown, you may want to make sure most of your browns have a similar hue. When it comes to accents and contrasting color, try to make all of those little details match. So if you get a red headband, trying using a red belt or weapon to tie it all together.

Back when I used to cosplay, I absolutely loved cosplaying in a group. Not only does it ensure you'll always have a friend to help you get through doors, but cosplay ensembles are guaranteed showstoppers. There's just something about strength in numbers that gets the one-up over even the most expertly crafted costume.

So the other day I had this thought: Why not transmog as a group? With your guild or maybe just a few friends, you could pick out a transmogrification theme and then do some activities together -- maybe hit up the Raid Finder and carry the group with your sheer awesomeness. As for a theme, it could be anything that suits your fancy. Maybe a novel series, or a historical era. Hmm ... Maybe your favorite video game characters?

In fashion, coordinates are matching pieces of clothing that are meant to be worn together. Think of a matching suit jacket and pants, or a prom dress and shawl sold together in the same color. Typically, coordinates are for people who work in offices and need to look professional or people who can't dress themselves.

In WoW, there are coordinates too, and they can be used strategically to pull together seemingly unrelated pieces of gear into different looks. This week, I'll be showing you three different looks for your mail-wearing hunter or shaman, all oriented around three easy-to-obtain mail coordinates.