Posts with tag trolls

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.

It's good to be Horde. All over the world of Azeroth, the Horde is conquering new territory, claiming new land and expanding far, far beyond the few holdings it had in vanilla World of Warcraft. Back then, the Horde merely eked out an existence, defending small outposts where it could. Sylvanas and her Forsaken stayed by and large in Tirisfal Glades, with a tiny outpost in Silverpine and a slightly larger one in Hillsbrad Foothills. The tauren stayed largely confined to Mulgore, with a few settlements to the south and southeast. The trolls took refuge in Orgrimmar, with no real land to call their own save one tiny village on the coast and another small outpost in Stranglethorn Vale.

Now, the Horde is branching out in a major way. Sylvanas has dominated the forests of Silverpine and the rolling farmlands of Hillsbrad and is working her way east through the Western Plaguelands. The trolls have taken back the Echo Isles, and the orcs of Orgimmar are claiming new land to the north and the east, moving in a tidal wave of barbaric conquering. The Horde is flush with the glorious victories in Northrend, eagerly seeking more territory. In Cataclysm, it's very, very good to be Horde.

Or so popular opinion states.

Trade chat on almost all servers is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. But you can advertise items for sale and look for groupmates there as well. Sometimes you can even get answers to your questions -- if you are very lucky and willing to sift through the lies and mockery. General chat in the MoP beta can be just as bad, as it can in any MMO, beta or otherwise. (See SWTOR.) And even if chat isn't full of obscene references and spam, there's the whining. The whining!

Another problem with trade and general chat is the feeding of trolls. Perfectly decent people will get into a rage war because Trollmaster and Trolliscious demeaned a class, profession, race, favorite sports team, etc. Trolls love that. Any attention is good. And then everyone else has to put up with the arguing and insults flying back and forth. I know. It's hard to ignore when the trade chat villains start calling anyone who likes the female pandaren "chubby chasers," but going verbally postal in public chat isn't going to help anyone. I fought the urge and so can you. (Though my Twitter followers heard all about it.)

Guild masters and officers often keep trade chat on to make sure that no guildies are misbehaving in public. This can be a painful experience and usually not worth the time. Personally, I turn public chat off in live and keep it on in beta. Beta general chat often answers questions I have -- in between all the misogyny and malicious pranks.

Do you turn off the public chat channels? If so, do you turn them back on again to conduct legitimate business, or do you just stay away? Do you find chat problems in other MMOs? Or are you one of the ones causing the problem? /glare

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If you didn't read Mat McCurley's post about another draenei ship (and you should), the premise of this little series of ours is to explore things we'd like to see added to the game. While there are a lot of Outlandish and otherworldly elements to World of Warcraft, not every exciting piece of unexplored content is on the other side of a portal or infinite gulfs of darkness away. Some are right on Azeroth, just waiting to be explored.

Ever since I played Warcraft III, I've wondered about the dark trolls. They're the tallest race of trolls, they live on Mount Hyjal, and according to the World of Warcraft Magazine, the dark trolls are ancestors to the night elves, making them a kind of living link to these two species. Supposedly, many dark troll settlements have been wiped out by the Twilight's Hammer in recent months as part of their assault on Mount Hyjal, but that's no reason we couldn't see them make a return.

Possibly even an angry return.

Here at OQ, I receive emails all the time about people acting like jerks. Jerks are everywhere, and MMOs certainly have their fair share. Of all the jerks I've heard about, the player from this week's email has to be among the all-time worst. Fortunately, his terrible behavior has a bright side: By sharing this guild's story, other officers can avoid the same fate.

From the start one of our members started to complain about the guild at the start of raiding early cata. However the officers and GM has brush it off as him being annoyed at the game because he hated the expansion. Things went from bad to worst when we started Firelands.

He started to make plans to overthrow the GM of the guild and made fun behind him. He complains the GM is never there supporting the guild because he took a month off due to work reasons. He made fun of our progression even though we manage to get at least 1 heroic mode down. When we got to dragon soul he stop raiding with us all together. Which is fine because our guild is a casual raiding guild and members are free to choose to raid or not. However he complains even more that people in the guild are stupid and we won't ever progress. It got to the point where we kicked him from the guild but the problem didn't stop there.

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.

The past is prologue. Melodramatic, perhaps, but it bears stating. The world of Azeroth, known to us for the three most recent wars, has in fact seen many -- the War of the Ancients, the War of the Shifting Sands, the war between the ancient troll empires and the aqir. One of these wars went far to set the stage for the First and Second Wars by creating, in effect, three of the major players in those conflicts. Without the Troll Wars, there would today be no Silvermoon, no human nations (and thus no Forsaken), and the troll nation of Zul'Aman would rule all of northern Lordaeron, perhaps all the way south to Khaz Modan.

The Troll Wars were named by their victors. To the trolls of Zul'Aman, they never really ended. Pushed back by the elves of Quel'Thalas and their human allies, the once-great northern troll empire receded but never actually died. Technically, even after repeated raids by outsiders, the Amani still hold onto their ancestral home. But all around it, the direct descendants (barely two elven generations) of their conquerors hold the Ghostlands, forests scarred by the Scourge during the Third War. War seems to never leave the gates of the troll kingdoms.

However, to be fair, it's not as if the trolls are shy about warring on others, either.

Pop law abounds in The Lawbringer, your weekly dose of WoW, the law, video games and the MMO genre. Mathew McCurley takes you through the world running parallel to the games we love and enjoy, full of rules, regulations, pitfalls and traps. How about you hang out with us as we discuss some of the more esoteric aspects of the games we love to play?

Oh my, look at the time. Mailbag-o'clock already? That means we have questions to answer! If you'd like to send me a question for The Lawbringer, point a message from your email client of choice to mat@wowinsider.com with something having to do with Lawbringer in the title and ask away. This week, we've got some fun questions to go through.

Our first email comes from Lee, who wants to know if the Diablo 3 currency trading on the real-money Auction House could ever be big enough for a foreign currency exchange-type of marketplace for Diablo gold.

Lee asked:

You've talked at length about gold farming and the repercussion of gold farming in mmos. Much of it is related to currency trading. You've pointed out that Diablo's new model of selling cash on the auction house will eliminate gold farming and selling as we know it by creating gold to blizzard dollar currency exchange. Do you think we'll see the development of Forex style black box trading, using a Trading API add-on most likely?

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. In World of Warcraft, that player is you! Each week, Anne Stickney brings you All the World's a Stage with helpful hints, tips and tricks on the art of roleplay in WoW.

Trolls are interesting characters to roleplay. There are a few major reasons why Trolls are at the top of my list for roleplay. First and foremost is the fact that for all the Trolls in Azeroth and all the story we've been given about all the various Troll tribes, there's not a lot of real information out there in terms of day-to-day Troll life. Traditions, ceremonies, tribal bonds -- it's all sort of a mystery. Yet the sheer amount of culture we've been given is just enough to play with, within the context of what little we know. Storytellers, practitioners of voodoo, the kaleidoscope of Loa and their relation to the Ancients -- it's all up in the air to fiddle around with.

The other reason Trolls are just so entertaining is that they've come so far from so little. In vanilla, the Trolls seemed like a vague addition to the Horde, with no capital city of their own and very little in the way of backstory. Troll reputation vendors were placed in Orgrimmar, where the Trolls had a tiny corner of the city to call their own. Vol'jin sat in Thrall's chambers and never really did much of anything. When Cataclysm was announced and events started coming out in preparation for the expansion, the Darkspear got a huge jolt of storyline, with elements that can and should affect every roleplayer.

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.

The Gurubashi trolls were once the greatest empire of jungle trolls in the world, rivals to the great forest troll empire of Zul'Aman to the north and a power to be reckoned with. Their tens of thousands of years of history have seen wave after wave of humiliation, defeat and loss, and they are without a doubt responsible for much of that defeat. They have consorted with powers not to be trifled with and driven their neighboring troll tribes into slavery or exile.

The empire of the Gurubashi, centered in their great city of Zul'Gurub, was founded after the great war with the Aqir that forever divided the insect state into the distant northern Nerubians and the southern Qiraji. While this defeat was near-total for the arthropod empire, it also fractured troll society forever. Before the war, the Zandalar tribe had stood preeminent, although it was the Amani and Gurubashi who led the charge against the Aqir. Theirs was the hereditary rulership of all troll tribes, theirs was the way of scholarship and it was to them that the hereditary priesthood of the trolls derived its furthest development.

Yet none of these facts could prevent the division of the trolls. After the war, a weakened and shaken Zandalar tribe found itself no longer the center of troll society. It still ruled the ancient birthplace of all trolls, it was still respected ... but the power had forever shifted to the Amani and Gurubashi, and it was not to shift back for tens of thousands of years.

(Spoilers for the Zul'Gurub 5-man are in this post.)

The leader short stories Fire and Iron and The Judgment were great pieces of Cataclysm lore and recent history that shed some light on the motivations of Outland hero Kurdran Wildhammer and embattled troll leader Vol'jin of the Darkspear tribe. Each of the Cataclysm leaders is getting the short story treatment as time goes on.

We don't know many of the stories left to tell in Cataclysm. The future of the blood elves lies in the unpublished prose of Lor'themar Theron's short story. Sylvanas' potential madness and craziness can have explanations hidden in those words. While the Firelands will continue the story of the rejuvenation of Hyjal, we still have much to learn about Malfurion and Tyrande and the night elves in general. So what comes next?

Will these stories shed light on these leaders and their peoples' futures? Can we expect timely lore reveals through these stories that will do part of the story advancement? Personally, I'm really excited for the next story.

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Patch 4.1 is all trolls, trolls, trolls. You know what? I love the trolls. With the emergence of the Zandalari trolls as stewards of a new troll empire, the rearming of the Gurubashi and Amani tribes, and Vol'jin's staunch opposition to the direction of the troll peoples of Azeroth, we've got a lot on our plate in terms of lore.

Blizzard's leader short story series continues with "The Judgment," written by Brian Kindregan, which chronicles Vol'jin from his years as a young, would-be shadow hunter to his exodus with the orcs across the sea. The series has been a success with WoW lore buffs, adding to the various faction leaders' histories and canon. Hit the jump for a spoiler-filled summary, and be sure to read the whole ordeal.

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.

Around this time last year, Know Your Lore did a series on the politics surrounding both Horde and Alliance, along with some predictions as to what was going to come to pass. Some theories were right, some were wrong -- but as far as the Horde is concerned, there has never been as tumultuous a time as right now in Cataclysm. While some of the conflict is out in the open, other signs of discontent are found in hidden away or in discreet areas, out of sight unless you're directly looking for them.

Garrosh Hellscream's reign as Warchief kicked off with a bang. The first few weeks of his rule as Warchief saw the destruction of Orgrimmar and its subsequent rebuilding as a result of the Shattering's devastation. In addition, the Horde found a new set of allies in the quirky, greedy, and often bizarre goblins, something that could be construed as either good or bad, depending on which way you look. On top of all of this, the duel with and subsequent death of Cairne Bloodhoof affected Garrosh deeply and caused him to create a closer alliance with the tauren race, giving them a special section of Orgrimmar in contrition for what happened.

Garrosh seems to have a somewhat level head on his shoulders and the best of intentions at heart, but a closer look reveals that the Horde is no longer as united a front as it was in the days of vanilla ... and some of that blame can be placed squarely on Hellscream's shoulders.

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.

We covered the ancient aqir and their qiraji descendants last week. What we didn't really cover was the group of arthropods who headed north, enslaved the Ulduar region's tol'vir and founded ancient Azjol'Nerub. From the time of their expulsion from the central part of the ancient supercontinent of Kalimdor by the Gurubashi and Amani trolls, to their defeat and subordination of those tol'vir, and up to their recent near-total destruction by the Scourge during the War of the Spider, the aqir offshoot calling themselves nerubians have existed apart from their southerly kind. While the qiraji serve C'thun, the nerubians seem wary of the Old Gods and their Faceless Ones, even when gripped by the Lich King's undeath.

Furthermore, while many nerubians ended up in the service of the Lich King, forcibly resurrected by him, it's telling that the nerubians were immune to the plague of undeath and waged a war against him for over a decade, only losing when they found themselves trapped between the servants of the Old Gods and the dreadlords that at the time served as the Lich King's advisors and jailors. Their immunity to the plague did not confer immunity to undeath when directly raised, and so Anub'arak, last king of the nerubians, ended up a slave like much of the rest of his race.

As of the pre-Cataclysm world, nerubian undead can be found in the plaguelands serving alongside the Cult of the Damned as well as in Northrend itself, while the battered and hateful remnants of the empire of the nerubians are so desperate that they'll accept help from the races of the Alliance and Horde.

Choose the adventures of the WoW.com staff as we level our characters in <It came from the Blog> on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H).

This week, we have trolls. No, I don't mean the trolls complaining that <It came from the Blog> is a Horde guild. I mean our lovely troll ladies are telling us stories of their recent encounters. But first, the schedule for the rest of the week:

• Robin Torres as Robinemia, the undead mage: Wednesday, 11 p.m. EDT
• Amy Schley as Patent, the troll rogue: Thursday, 10 p.m. EDT
• Fox Van Allen as Foxlight, the blood elf paladin: Friday, 8 p.m. EDT
• Michael Sacco as Sahko, the orc warlock; Christian Belt, as Selfloathius, the blood elf warlock; Elizabeth Harper as Faience, the troll shaman; Matthew Rossi as Andrenorton, the troll mage; Michael Gray as Grayfields, the tauren hunter; Adam Holisky as Adammentat, the tauren druid; and Gregg Reece as Yakkowakko, the orc warlock, will be making appearances as they can

Turn the page if you want to read about Annephora and Patent.

All right, we've seen over the past five weeks the current political activity in all of the Horde races; orcs, trolls, tauren, Forsaken and blood elves. Needless to say, there is a lot of conflict just beginning to rear its head -- not just from one race to the next, but internally within those races as well. What does all this mean in regards to the Horde, when Cataclysm comes into play? Today we'll be looking at what (given all the information we've been presented previously), if anything, will happen when Cataclysm finally launches and the world gets thrown into chaos.

Please note I've put a spoiler warning on this post. This is because the following content, while mostly sheer speculation, may or may not end up being correct and will also directly address several rumors regarding Cataclysm that have not yet been confirmed. If you see a "TFH" demarcation on any future Know Your Lore posts, these are "Tin Foil Hat" predictions based on current lore and are in no way actually indicative of anything officially from Blizzard in regards to the game or where it's going to go. If anything presented here does end up being correct, these will actually become Cataclysm spoilers; if not, we've still had plenty of fun trying to predict how things are going to go down! Potential spoilers start immediately after the break.