Posts with tag video

In addition to the cinematic and a bunch of previews, the Community Event also handed us a sneak preview of Lords of War, the new animated series covering the history and backstory for each of the warlords we're going to meet when we step through the Dark Portal and confront them on Draenor. The first is the Shattered Hand.

The series has an interesting premise -- King Varian is faced with the same force that destroyed Stormwind under his father's rule and he's desperately trying to figure out how he can beat what his father couldn't. Vindicator Maraad faced them on his Draenor, so he has the dirt on each of the warlords. We get the story from him. I'm not sure how well that works when we're dealing with an alternate Draenor, but it makes for some well-animated storytelling, I'll tell you that much.

So head on over and watch episode one of Lords of War and get ready for the remaining episodes.

Carbot Animations, the creator of the StarCrafts series of cartoons, as well as the Heroes of the Storm trailers, has released the latest episode of his World of Warcraft series, WowCraft. After the first episode dealing with character creation, and the second one handling the joke about toothless dogs that's almost as old as the game itself, this one is diving into professions, and the perils of gathering herbs around higher level characters.

While the episode doesn't detail the corpse camping and judicious use of the /sit command that would likely have taken place in reality, the juxtaposition of the angry orc and warlock and their delightful baskets of pretty flowers is entertaining, and the Imp really steals the show for me! I liked the episode, and am hoping the series will develop into something really fun, just like Starcrafts.

Taking on the entire history of a game like World of Warcraft, from its announcement back in 2001 all the way up to today is a huge task, but TradeChat is up to it. She has created an epic 16 minute video taking on all the famous landmarks on the way, starting with that Leeroy Jenkins incident, the MOAR DOTS video, WoW's appearance on South Park, and the Corrupted Blood incident that's been used as a model for disease spread in countless studies. There's even an appearance in a question on Jeopardy! featuring Jenkins himself!

Panser has done an amazing job here, hitting the pop culture references, the first parodies, the subscription rise and fall, the releases and trailers of all the expansions and major patches. Adverts, both by other companies such as Moutain Dew and Toyota and those for World of Warcraft itself. She has Mila Kunis' famous interview with Jimmy Kimmel, talking about raiding,and countless other tidbits you might not have known before! What I love is how she's taken the announcement videos from all the expansions, and actually shows us all the things she's talking about instead of just marking time.

Several different Blizzard Twitter accounts have lately been suggesting that players cast /helpme on their brand new Alterac Brew Pup to see what it does.

Try emoting /helpme to your Alterac Brew-Pup. #Warcraft

- Jonathan LeCraft (@TheCrafticus) November 22, 2013

So, WoW Insider thought we'd put together a very short video to show you just exactly what the results were of doing just that! The Alterac Brew Pup is a very cute pet, and of course $5 from every purchase goes to the Make A Wish foundation, so he really is helping people all over the world.

But we were a little underwhelmed by the animation. I cast my /helpme from far away at first, expecting the Pup to run over to me, and thought I'd done it wrong, because I couldn't see any result. But from closer up we can see that he yelps a little and shakes his head. It definitely adds to the cute factor of this pet, but with the tweets we got a little over-excited and were hoping for more.

We all love to go on a nostalgia trip every now and then. And this G4 episode which is doing the rounds is a fine example of just that. Kristin Holt from now-defunct gaming channel G4 takes the would-be WoW player on a voyage of discovery through Classic WoW, talking about resistance auras, the factions, hidden quests, the amazing wealth that you can now get from handing in leveling quests.

Kristin then heads into the game's easter eggs, as well as mentioning hidden quests, pop culture references, and more. She explores book references, a quest relating to the original Zelda, Fight Club, Ghostbusters, and more. She also looks at the shrine left in Classic to a departed illustrator in the Blizzard team.

Next up is "a gamer who dared to dream"... she managed to get a noble steed instead of the mechanochicken, by running through a different questing route, and grinding out the Lost Supplies quest in Swamp of Sorrows to obtain Stormwind reputation. 1,000 deliveries later, the gnome has exalted reputation, and a horse to ride. It's great fun to reminisce, and if you want more old-time WoW to smile at, check out WoW Archivist.

We're hedging pretty hard on this one, ladies and gentlemen, partly because I'm trying to rein in my excitement that this could actually be a real video of a new feature. Somehow, Aipok managed to leave what looks like an instance of Temple of the Jade Serpent and zone into Stratholme, taking the option to "Teleport to Instance" while still in an instance himself. Not that weird, right? Well this is when things start getting a bit odd.

Because this has been doing the rounds, I was ready for what was coming. Aipok's health suddenly drops to 11.1k. He wades into the skeletons, as you would, with the confidence of a level 90 in a level 40-ish dungeon, and he dies. Only then, looking through his combat log, does he realize that something is awry. On ressing, his health is even lower, at 5.9k. He opens up his character pane, and all his gear has been downscaled to ilvl 43. His character attributes appear to have been downscaled, too.

Now, this has Aipok in a strange position. Has he just happened upon a very specific and weird bug? Is this an accidental hop into an unrevealed new feature for 6.0? Could players entering old content be downscaled to match it? Or, could this all be an elaborate hoax? Personally, I want to believe, so I'm going to choose to. What's more, Blizzard devs have talked before about this tech being completed. As long as this was optional, and perhaps even if it wasn't, I'd love this. It'd refresh old content and make it a challenge again. And, if you could earn upscaled XP while downscaled, a fun way to reuse old content to level.

But again, remember, this is not an official announcement, or an endorsement, or anything from Blizzard. It's one video of one weird dungeon. It could be a hoax, it could be a bug, it could be nothing at all. I'm excited, though. Are you? And what could it reward?

In this Geek Week special, there's so much going on in World of Warcraft Patch 5.4 that we thought we would put together a brief summary of all the new features we know about so far. We've got the in-game store, virtual realms, the timeless isle, cross-realm arenas, flexible raiding and the proving grounds... and we haven't even talked about the new raid!

If you want more information on any of the content discussed in the video, WoW Insider has a ton of material for you to peruse, just check out the links below:

In a special Geek Week edition, the WoW Insider Round Table is taking on the Timeless Isle. This new zone, located to the south-east of Pandaria, is a max-level content area, crawling with rares, chests, puzzles, gear and exciting items for all and sundry. The Round Table, this week comprising of Matt Low, Olivia Grace and Sarah Pine, had all been out on the new island, soaking up the scenery and enjoying the sights it had to show them.

They discussed, variously, the new rares, the breadcrumb and exploration quests on the new island, the lore quiz content, the many, many ways to get the Timeless Isle's new currency, what you could spend it on, the drops that you could get from mobs to gear alts, and much much more of all the content the Isle has to offer.

We hope you enjoyed the WoW Insider Round Table, and as ever if you have any suggestions for future topics or specific questions for the panelists, let us know!