Posts with tag undead

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.

Undeath in Azeroth and beyond it (such as the hordes of angry dead in Auchindoun on the former world of Draenor, now Outland) is a terrible condition. Undead are not supposed to be undead; undeath is an imposed condition that creates a moving entity that does not live. (Even in those few who achieved undeath themselves, like Meryl Felstorm, undeath is still imposed on their flesh or spirit -- it's simply self-imposed.) Undead spirits do not hold perfectly to this mortal coil, and as a result, they often suffer greatly.

Undead who manage to maintain any fraction of their former will and sapience are beings who simply cannot truly feel the world any longer. Their spirits dwell forever trapped in between the rest they are unable to achieve and the sensations that life brings, sensations they can no longer fully experience. This separation from life is due to the fact that their souls are, in essence, forcibly conjoined in some fashion. Necromantic magics fix the spirit to whatever form it maintains, be it a ghostly one or a prison of rotting flesh. Heat, pain, flavor, all the subtle and gross aspects of life are denied them.

With all the upheaval regarding death knight abilities and DPS happening right now, it's sometimes a good idea to go back to the basics and figure out some of the stuff that underlies a good, solid death knight.

One of the most basic cornerstones of choosing a death knight is choosing your race. Since every single race can be a death knight, you have your pick, and since there's a race change service, you don't even have to stay the same race forever. Personally, I tend to say that you choose whatever race feels right for you -- but for those who want to pick a race (or change your current race) based on what racials are "best," this guide is for you.

A new build for the Cataclysm beta is pending and should be hitting servers fairly soon. In build 12984, we're going to see several races getting a few updates.

Racial changes

Human

• Perception is gone.

Undead

• Cannibalize now also regenerates mana. (7% of total health and mana every 2 sec for 10 sec)

Tauren

• Cultivation still increases your Herbalism skill by 15, but also lets you gather herbs faster than normal herbalists.

Gnomes

• Shortblade Specialization Expertise with Daggers and One-Handed Swords increased by 3.

Human Perception is gone? My poor dwarf will have extra reason to be Cannibalized? Gnomes becoming experts with daggers and one-handed swords? And the change no one could have seen coming, taurens can pick flowers faster? Anyway, enough with the amazement. What do you guys think of these changes to racials so far?

[via MMO-Champion]

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.

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

Note: Above is the video of the live stream that occurred Wednesday night. It is pretty much one big Cataclysm beta spoiler video. You have been warned.

Well, Robinka the dwarf shamanka turned out to be a complete yawn. I take full responsibility for not being able to fake enthusiasm for a quest area that is more concerned about food collection than lore. Peenk the gnome priestess was nothing but fun, however. This week I will be polling for next Wednesday's stream. More details on that after the break.

Adventurers who play when they can

• Fox Van Allen as Foxlight, the level 25 blood elf paladin
• Lisa Poisso as Prupher, the level 11 tauren druid
• Michael Sacco as Shockbroker, the goblin shaman
• Christian Belt, as Selfloathius, the level 16 blood elf warlock
• Matthew Rossi as Andrenorton, the level 17 troll mage
• Michael Gray as Grayfields, the level 17 tauren hunter
• Gregg Reece as Sandwichdoc, the level 16 troll shaman

If you want to see more of our adventurers, please write them a letter in the comments and I will make sure the letters get to them.

Turn the page for the polls.

WoW.com's prestige in the community has afforded us the opportunity to speak with major Azerothian leadership figures on any subject, and we're letting you, the reader, Ask a Faction Leader!

We recently spoke to Chromie, ambassador for the Bronze Dragonflight, and he shed light on several key issues, including gender identity, dwarven futures, Mary Sues, and going back to the future. In this installment of Ask a Faction Leader, we'll be sitting with Sylvanas Windrunner, Banshee Queen of the forsaken.

Our first reader question...


Dear Sylvanas,

There have been rumors that your elder sister Alleria had a son with the Alliance paladin Turaylon. How do you respond to this?

Sincerely,
Wylendrin of Blackwater Raiders

Sylvanas responds:

With the opportunity to ask me anything, of course the blood elf paladin asks me tabloid questions.

All the World's a Stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. They have their stories and their characters; and one player in his time plays many roles.

As you know, the new race and class combinations coming up in the Cataclysm will open a whole new set of doors to people who want an alternative character choice that goes against the grain of their typical racial customs, to one degree or another. With the exception of a couple combinations that feel as though they should have been there from the beginning (such as blood elf warriors, which need no discussion here), each new possibility presents roleplayers with an opportunity to play an outcast of sorts, a character who has made a significant break from the traditions his or her race usually represent.

The lore behind each combination is not yet fully clear. We know tauren paladins will probably worship the sun and call themselves "Sunwalkers" for instance, but not much more than that. Some things are clear, though, and there's a lot to get the imagination going for those roleplayers who yearn to play something a little different.

Blizzard has been having all kinds of issues trying to bring World of Warcraft back online in China, but here's one piece of good news for them: China's Ministry of Culture has gone through the game and approved all of the content in it. They apparently were concerned about some violent content (we know they've already made changes in the past to the Undead models), but that's now been cleared, and the only thing left is final approval by the General Administration of Press and Publication. There's no date on when that might happen, but it seems that will be soon (not soon(tm), just soon).

Blizzard should be extremely happy to see these content checks cleared, as it means that they're not only that much closer to bringing the servers back online, but that they can also finally bring out Wrath of the Lich King there. The whole issue with Netease and The9 backed things up, and then these content checks were a problem, but hopefully most of the obstacles have been cleared by now, and Chinese players can soon start making their way back into the game and up to the snowy shores of Northrend.

We're all still slaving away on WoW.com, finding bugs and filing feedback. To help that process along, we're going to try a little experiment. I'm going to level a character from level 1 to level 80, and all of it will be documented on my WoW.com profile. The hook is that you guys are going to decide most aspects of this character, such as race, class, and talent spec.

Such things will be determined largely via polls right here on the front page of WoW.com, where I'll be giving weekly updates on my progress along with what I've learned about the class and the world and any other observations I might have. If you want a little more detail on the process such as where I'm going, what I've done, and any other little notes I make via the Adventurer's Note feature, you can follow that on my profile. If you don't dig our profiles portion of the site, hey, no problem. You'll still get weekly updates right here on the blog until I'm level 80.

There are two polls: Race and Class. I will play whichever choices are the most popular. If the chosen race can't actually be the chosen class, I'm going to go with whatever is the most popular class that I can actually play as that race. The polls are below, and there's a little more information behind the cut underneath them.

Update: Polls will remain open so those who voted can still see the results, but as of May 22nd, Gnome Warlock won the polls and the adventures have begun.

It's been a little while since we've had a guild recruitment video on Moviewatch, so I was pretty happy to get a note from Horror. He told us about the Scytheguard Recruitment Video, which he'd built for his Forsaken-only roleplay guild on Sentinels.

The video's got a few good ideas behind it, and has a few things that could be improved. First, I liked Horror's idea for a voice-over. Since his guild is exclusively for the undead, starting off with that nightmarish "you can't breathe anymore" idea is a great start to roleplay. That being said, I think the opening went a little longer than needed. Anyone checking out a trailer needs fast-paced action, or they'll wander off.

I think showing snippets of Northrend is also a good idea. There's enough random footage of gameplay out there that you want your prospective recruit to know you're progressing, and enjoying current content. Otherwise, they may assume your guild's just a few friends who threw a Fraps up on YouTube. (And while there's nothing wrong with that, it might get in the way of recruitment.)

Now, this was Horror's first and only video so far, so I can see why he's using an unregistered Fraps. But if he does more videos, he should go ahead and grab the registered version, and get the watermark off the top of his video. The video looks neat, but the watermark's a little distracting.

If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.

Previously on Moviewatch

I apologize for the grim picture accompanying today's column, but I found it fitting. You know, even if it does have an artificial grain filter thrown over it to make it extra creepy. Chernobyl is creepy enough as it is without the filter, but I happened to like this particular shot. It's relevant, too! I promise!

Sal asked...

"Why don't the level 80 gnomes take back their home and clean up the toxic in it? We're able to run through at level 24 or so and clear the place, but a bunch of level 80's can't?"

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

Good afternoon, ladies and gents! Before we get started today I just want to thank everyone for participating in my Hawaiian Pizza poll. It was a silly, spur of the moment sort of thing, and it really made my day to see it creep up to around 11,000 votes! Thank you all very much for humoring me.

Again, there are a few Ulduar spoilers in this post, but only minor. Be warned. Also, vote Alex.

Adrexani asked...

This has always puzzled me, Arthas is a Death Knight, Death Knights are dead, yet no where in lore do I see that Arthas died, so did he die or is he still alive?

One of the things that caught my eye in the Ulduar preview that was posted awhile ago is the description of Yogg-Saron. The flavor text describes him as 'the Old God of death.' Considering our big target in this expansion, the Lich King, that's extremely interesting.

Wrath of the Lich King has heavily hinted at some sort of connection between Yogg-Saron and the Scourge, though we never quite find out what it is. The Scourge make heavy use of Saronite, an ore with Yogg-Saron himself as its origin. When the Alliance investigates this ore in the Dragonblight, they discover the Scourge says Yogg-Saron's name with some degree of hate and contempt.

A lot of people fear there's a "puppet of the master" thing surrounding the Lich King, that he's not actually his own power, he belongs to Yogg-Saron. I find this unlikely for one really big reason: The Scourge hates Yogg-Saron, and everybody else that we've run into that have fallen under Yogg-Saron's will either love him utterly or serve him faithfully. If you go to the Saronite Mines in Icecrown and do the quest Slaves to Saronite, you see just how faithful some of his servants become once they've been controlled. If Yogg-Saron were controlling the Lich King, we'd see a very different Scourge.

This installment of All the World's a Stage is the twenty-sixth in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class (or profession!) well, without embarrassing yourself.

Too many people roleplay alchemy as a glorified fast food restaurant, with typical phrases such as, "Would you like some healing potions to go with your strength elixir?" or "If you give me just one more herb I could throw in a mana potion too..." Of course, the game mechanics often put us in the salesman position. Limited supply and demand force us to compete with other alchemists for herbs and customers, so to some extent we may have to deal with the capitalist food chain to matter what we do.

But there's so much more to an alchemist than just magical boosts and bonuses! An alchemist has the potential to be the other mad scientist! Why should they let engineers have all the fun? Just because engineers can craft their own vehicles and whatnot doesn't mean that alchemists don't have something (or someone) of their own to experiment on.

Today we shall take a closer look at the depths of madness which alchemists are capable of reaching, if only they dig a bit into the unlimited supply and demand of the imagination.

Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, where each week blogger and columnist Alex Ziebart answers your questions about the lore and history of the World of Warcraft. Ask your questions in the comments section below, and we'll try to answer it in a future edition.

We seem to be plagued with Scourge and Lich King sorts of questions lately, but that's to be expected. We're all playing Wrath of the Lich King, so it's far more likely we'll get Scourge questions than, say... Naga questions. I welcome your love of undeath with open arms.

Nic asked...

What do the tally marks on Highlord Bolvar's shield represent? Battles? Years in exile? One night stands? Or are they there to just look cool?