Posts with tag transmog

My favorite dress in WoW is the Arachnidian Robes. The first time I saw them was right after patch 3.0.2 had hit live servers, when achievements were added. I was storming through the front gates of Stormwind in a For the Horde raid, when I spotted a human female wearing the robes near the auction house. She must have been some sort of bank alt, because that's all she was wearing, but I was so impressed by her that I stopped to inspect her amid the battle.

I eventually tracked down the dress for myself four or five months later, but once I had it, I really had no idea what to do with it. It was pretty enough on its own to be a stand-alone outfit, and years before transmogrification, there was no compelling reason to try and match it to anything -- at least until recently, when my boyfriend followed up on a promise to take me to Serpentshrine Cavern. I had never seen the place and wanted an escort who had raided it when it was still new. While we were there, I picked up a pretty little tanking mace called Mallet of the Tides, which just so happened to match the Arachnidian Robes perfectly. Thus, a transmog outfit was born.

With that as my introduction, I decided I'd do something a bit different for this week's transmog column. Just as I did, I now want you to create a transmogrification outfit of your own that builds on or complements a single piece of gear (armor or weapon) that you like. Submit your outfit by Aug. 20 at 11:59 p.m. EDT and you'll have the chance to win fabulous prizes and have your outfit featured here on WoW Insider. More details after the jump.

For those of you who don't know, there is a subreddit for transmogrification. Though the community is relatively small, it's a wonderful place to go if you want to show off your latest transmog or ask for help with an outfit that isn't quite coming together. I like to visit this particular subreddit quite often, and earlier this year, there was one amazing outfit that I just couldn't get out of my head.

The outfit was put together by Hedgewocket on Lightbringer (EU) and is a close replica of the outfit worn by Chromie. Chromie is, of course, the best NPC in the game lovable bronze dragon who frequently takes on the form of a female gnome.

Anyway, when I first saw Hedgewocket's transmog, I knew right away that I'd have to feature it on WoW Insider one day. Fortunately for you (because I know you all love Chromie), that day is today.

Two weeks ago, we took the Stormwind Guard on a shopping trip and got them a whole new wardrobe. This week, we're giving the Orgrimmar Guard the same treatment and then stopping at Gallywix Pleasure Palace on the way back for mai tais.

When I first started planning a new look for the Orgrimmar Guard, I thought I'd look to Garrosh Hellscream for inspiration. Both his outfits in Wrath of the Lich King at Warsong Hold and now in Cataclysm as the new warchief show off a darker look to the Horde that I wanted to capture. Walking through the streets of Orgrimmar these days, you see a city that has become more militaristic and uniform, and the old guard outfit doesn't quite fit in anymore. Even the Horde banners are a darker red than they once were, which doesn't match the red shoulders and accents of the old guards.

Being that I'm a huge transmog junkie, I'm awfully jealous of Dawn and Anne and their cool transmog posts. But I don't generally go around trying to look like an Avenger or a member of the Stormwind Guard or even Deckard Cain. This had me despairing for a bit, because it meant I couldn't really come up with a hook for a transmog set.

Then, while farming Molten Core for the left Binding of the Windseeker (it didn't drop, although the right one did -- again), I got the Flameguard Gauntlets, a pair of gloves I've probably vendored more times than I can remember. And suddenly, it all clicked. I knew exactly what I would do with my transmog post. I would recreate the look of the classic WoW raiding DPS warrior. I would resurrect the clown suit.

The clown suit was the cobbled-together, not at all coordinated, not-matching-well-at-all set of epic DPS gear almost all warriors threw together in classic WoW raiding.

There are few NPCs in WoW more iconic than the Stormwind Guard. Even if you're Horde, it's hard not to like the striking contrast of blue and silver metals paired with the golden lion's head emblem. OK, so maybe not if you're Horde, but I digress. I've always loved the look of the Stormwind Guard, yet when it comes to transmogrification, I find the look is a bit outdated for my own character. The older armor models just don't hold a candle to the new ones in the game, and I like for my character to keep up with the latest stuff coming out.

So I thought to myself, "Why not mix it up and make an outfit inspired by the Stormwind Guard?" I imagine this is what it would look like if a member of the Stormwind Guard decided to become a PC instead of an NPC. Very breaking the fourth wall, right? OK, maybe no to that one too ...

Now here's something pretty cool from the World of Warcraft community team: Blizzard is promoting the WoW Summer Challenge, a weekly series with suggestions for an old raid to run with friends for lore and history, notable drops, transmog gear, and more. There is even an associated forum thread to plan activities or share thoughts on any given week's challenge. This week's challenge tasks you and your friends with hitting up AQ-40.

WoW's focus from here on out needs to be subscriber retention and engaging its players. The two go hand in hand, and the more Blizzard can do to involve the community, the better. These Summer Challenges are a great way to give a little structure to an otherwise unstructured experience.

Blizzard has even included links to Wowhead's excellent transmog set viewer so you know what drops you're looking for. It's good to see Blizzard recognizing Perculia's hard work.

Blizzard's full announcement is below.

I've always wanted to write a transmogrification article in the same vein as Dawn Moore and Anne Stickney, but I never could find the right theme that I wanted to tackle. As I kept trying to find a theme, it suddenly hit me -- no theme is needed! I'll just show you my two awesome transmog sets for my orc warrior, Braggosh.

Who doesn't love Braggosh, the fiercest, most lovable orc warrior ever? No one, that's who! Both transmog outfits that I'm going to show you how to put together today are for plate wearers, and some of the set pieces, while warrior-specific, have alternate color versions available if you'd like to wear one of my cool sets.

Cynwise has written an excellent guide to misrepresenting your gear level in PvP using transmogrification and other nefarious techniques. Of course, the old standby of Noggenfogger Elixir works well for confusion, as do items such as Kalytha's Haunted Locket. But these options don't disguise the level of your gear. While transmogging your gear can give you almost any look you want, dressing up like Ironman is also not going to make your gear appear less than it is. These techniques are just a red flag that further investigation is needed in order to determine your armor quality.

Cynwise suggests to transmog your armor into something that is obviously undergeared, yet still believable. This deception may keep enemy players from investigating further, and they may underestimate your ability to stay alive.

Do you transmog your PvP armor in order to fool the other side? Or do you just go for something fun and make opponents work to determine how good your gear is? Many casual PVPers don't worry about their look -- they're just there to play and earn goodies. Is that you?

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It's been two weeks since Diablo III was released, and if you've got some time to spare, I've got three new transmogrification outfits that might interest you. If you'll recall, two weeks ago we learned how to recreate the witch doctor, barbarian, Leah, and Deckard Cain in WoW. As promised, this week we'll be taking a stab at the monk, demon hunter, and wizard, starting with the wizard.

Making a convincing wizard outfit in WoW is surprisingly easy, provided you keep a few things in mind. First off, you need to be very aware of your character's silhouette. Bulky gloves, spiky helms, and big shoulder armor are essential, and fortunately, they're all in ample supply on Azeroth. Knowing that, you just need to keep an eye on colors. If you look at the sample outfit, you should notice right off the colors don't quite match; the golds are different hues. Let that serve as a lesson on why it's important to leave yourself a lot of options when selecting the right piece for an outfit. Mismatched hues can sometimes break an outfit if it's not balanced right.

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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