Posts with tag zangarmarsh

Some instances and raids, you understand why you're there. Icecrown, for instance, makes a lot of sense to me. I get why we're running the five mans (trying to sneak into the Citadel while the Scourge is focused on the front door) and the raid (that didn't work out so hot so brute force it is!) I always enjoyed Scarlet Monastery and had no difficulty with why I was running the place either as Alliance or Horde. Alliance, you were cleaning out a nasty pack of gibbering mouth-breather sociopathic xenophobes who were totally freaking insane, and Horde... same deal, plus they were killing people you actually knew.

It's time once again for Arcane Brilliance, the weekly mage column that would like to thank its readers profusely for the deluge of screenshots it received last week. Arcane Brilliance sent out the call, and you guys responded in droves. There were so many, in fact, that it was an impossible task to select just one for the column. Arcane Brilliance finally went with this one, apparently of an undead pimp of some type, simply because it made Arcane Brilliance chuckle. Also, the column this week is about leveling through Outland, and this is a pretty good representation of how your mage will look throughout that leg of the journey: like the mutant love-child of the entire cast of Saved by the Bell.

Seriously... you guys are awesome. Sooooooo many good pictures to use. I may have to start writing like 12 of these a week, just to have an excuse to use all of them. Thanks again, and keep them coming. Even if I don't get to use them, I just enjoy browsing through them. So many mages, so little time.

Last week, our mage leveling guide hit level 58 and fled vanilla WoW for the alien landscapes of Outland. This week, we'll tackle the 10 levels your mage will be spending there, amongst the hellboars, sporebats, and ravagers.

For the second Tuesday in a row around the same time (9:00-9:30 pm EST-ish), the US Retaliation battlegroup has crashed. Blizzard has confirmed that it's performing urgent maintenance on the hardware of the affected realms, and they'll provide an update at 11:00 PM EST/8:00 PM PST. Hmmm. Makes you wonder if whatever caused last week's crash was accidentally rolled back during server maintenance earlier today.

The following are the affected realms:

Area 52, Auchindoun, Azuremyst, Blade's Edge, Blood Furnace, Coilfang, Dawnbringer, Exodar, Fizzcrank, Galakrond, Ghostlands, Grizzly Hills, Shattered Halls, Terokkar, The Scryers, The Underbog, Velen, and Zangarmarsh.

My guild's on Retaliation and has consequently found itself without something to raid for the second Tuesday running. Last week their solution was to take off to Mug'thol and do a level 1 Hogger raid, complete with designated tanks and healers, damage meters, and -- to top things off -- a bonafide ninja looter of the Malachite drop. Our server might be down, but our hallowed traditions remain.

The day has arrived. A little while ago, we challenged you fans to get us over 9000 Twitter followers, and somehow, some way, you delivered. So now we have to keep our promises -- tomorrow, the WoW Insider Show, which has only ever been an audio podcast, will include video with our live feed, and you'll be able to see the faces of all your favorite bloggers (for better or worse). Turpster and I will be dressed in our finest threads, we'll be toasting champagne (so bring your own if you want to toast with us, 21+ please), and we'll host a cavalcade of bloggers and friends of the show on live video. We've got some surprises planned, and hopefully Ustream will hold up under the strain -- whatever happens, it'll surely be wild.

The show begins our Ustream page at May 23, 2009 3:30 PM EDT , or you can jump after the break to see an embedded feed. The audio archive of the show will appear here on Monday, and we'll have a video version on Ustream, but unfortunately Ustream will only save one video stream -- mine. So if you want to see Turpster and our guests on video, someone in the live audience might have to Fraps it out. And directly after the show, we'll be spending some time on Zangarmarsh (It Came From the Blog is our guild over there on Horde side, and I'll be hanging out and dueling Peggle if you want to stop by).

Whew. It will be memorable, I can guarantee that. We'll also talk a little bit of Warcraft, and of course we'll talk about the new WoW.com and what it means for the podcast as well. We'll see you (and by see you, I mean you'll actually see us) tomorrow afternoon.

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.

We're going to jump right in today, because we have plenty to talk about this time around!

NarwhalFrenzy asked...

"Referring to the quest Out of Body Experience, we already know what happened to Prince Keleseth and Prince Valanar, but will we ever figure out what happened to the other darkfallen there, like Prince Theraldis or Prince Atherann?"

I have no doubt we'll be seeing them in Patch 3.3, in and around Icecrown. Prince Theraldis (the one on a horse (with an equine-themed pashmina afghan)) seems to have been the overseer of that whole project going on during Out of Body Experience, so I wouldn't be surprised if he turns out to be a raid boss and Prince Atherann is in a 5-man or a group quest elsewhere. Though it would be interesting if they were a side-by-side raid boss, like the Twin Emperors. Hm!

Reader comments – ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week.

(Baby) Spice, spice, baby Readers seem to have cooked up a satisfying solution to the problem of thoughtless creeps who park their mounts atop summoning stones, flight masters and other necessities, blocking them from use. "LOL, whenever I see a giant Tauren on his Humongous Impressive War Mammoth parked on the Dalaran flight master, it's Baby Spice to the rescue," giggles Euphronius. "Nothing more hilarious than seeing him reduced to the size of a Great Dane." Woof.

15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about.

The diminutive subject of 15 Minutes of Fame's inaugural profile, back in January of this year, spent a good chunk of change longer than a mere quarter-hour in the limelight. The life and times of Noor the Pacifist, who levels without experience from kills, garnered widespread attention not only here at WoW Insider but in an onslaught of hits from Digg, Stumble Upon, Fark and even the very cool people at Boing Boing. It seemed like everyone wanted to talk about the guy who plays World of Warcraft without actually killing anything.

Naysayers opined that Noor would give up the ghost of the tedious task of leveling without killing long before he reached level 70. But lo and behold, here we are just post-Wrath launch – and Noor's ticked right past 70, plugging steadily along toward the new max level cap of 80. 15 Minutes of Fame caught up with him to see how he was holding up on the long, slow climb to the top.

Every week, Daniel Whitcomb brings you analysis, opinions, and advice on the world of the Death Knight in Lichborne.

The Death Knight, as is expected, is still very much a class in flux. This sometimes makes it difficult to pontificate too much about certain aspects of the Death Knight class, because they may be completely different in the next Beta build.

That said, a lot of aspects of the Death Knight class are solidifying nicely at this point. Itemization, or at least the way Death Knights use stats, is pretty solid, and worth discussing so that you have an idea of what gear upgrades to look for you as you exit the Ebon Hold and head out into the wider world.

Wrath is upon us, but who cares? Pssh. Expansions are silly anyhow. No, I don't mean that, but let's talk Burning Crusade for a minute. Everyone has favorite zones from WoW Classic, and I've already decided my favorite zones of Wrath of the Lich King. Not many people really talk about their favorites from The Burning Crusade.

I'll completely agree that a lot of the locations in The Burning Crusade don't match up to our favorites in WoW Classic, but there are places I enjoy. Zangarmarsh is by far my favorite zone. No contest. It's the only zone that really gives me the feeling of "I'm on an alien world." It's something I wouldn't see on Azeroth. The blue tones, the giant mushrooms, the strange marsh creatures. It blew me away my first time running through it. It really was a different world there.

Outland was a bit too heavy on the futuristic sci-fi, but I think Zangarmarsh hit the right tone. What did you all think of Outland? Do you have a favorite zone? We're all eager to move on to Northrend, but is there a zone you'll miss when we're all idling in the frozen north instead of on Draenor? What did you like about it?

I always feel bad for the guilds who are so hungry for members, they will invite anyone who sends them a tell. Yet, here I am making the same offer. If you are interested in hanging out on Zangarmarsh (U.S.) with WoW Insider writers, participating in monthly events and wearing a prize-winning tabard, then you are cordially invited to join us in the Horde guild: It Came from the Blog.

Some of us will be on from time to time, but if you want to be assured of a guild invite, please join us this weekend (Edited for accuracy):

• When: 3pm PDT, Saturday, April 19th
  
• Where: Zangarmarsh (U.S.)
• Faction: Horde
• How: Send Robiness a tell for invites

Check out the good times we had last year. While we have even more fun planned for our re-emergence, we would love to hear your suggestions and requests. Leave them in the comments here or email them to me at Robin.Torres AT weblogsinc DOT com. I hope to see you Saturday!

I'm currently working through Zangarmarsh on my Hunter, and this weekend I spent a lot of time grinding two completely different kinds of mobs. The Withered Bog Lords in northern Zangarmarsh were cake for my Hunter -- they weren't exactly gentle with my pet, but he was able to eat the damage, and I could have grinded right away on them all day. At the exact opposite end of the grinding scale, however, were those stupid Umbrafen Eels -- not only were they under water (always annoying), but they've got this on-hit electrical damage thing that just drove me nuts. I stayed to play with the Bog Lords for a long time, racking up the XP, but as soon as I was done with the Eels, I got out of the water and stayed out.

Fighting these two back to back got me thinking: what's the easiest/hardest mob to grind on? Some mobs (like the tigers in Stranglethorn or the bears/spiders in Ashenvale) are super easy to grind -- they have no special abilities, they're spaced out, and they go down fast. But others -- most gnolls, in my experience, and lots of casters -- are just annoying as all get out; they run around, pull others, heal up when they're almost dead, and give you lots of headaches while taking them down. Those are the mobs you don't sit around and grind on -- they're the ones you avoid completely after you've done whatever quest requires you to kill them.

What are your favorite or least favorite mobs to just grind on in the game?

Last week, Insider Trader began the journey from 300 to 375 jewelcrafting skill. While we were able to avoid using recipes that required faction reputation or that had to be farmed, the cheapest methods to 375 from about 365 may require a bit more effort to obtain.

If you are like so many other craftsmen, stuck with 375 seeming far away and expensive, then carry on through the break to examine ways to not only maximize your skills, but to attempt to make a profit while doing so, rather than running on a loss.

Featuring several distinct ways to reach 375, you will find that you have many choices to suit your own needs, your guild's needs, and your server's market. In addition, I've put together some links for further reading that you should find helpful.

Player Cosmokramer of the Vanquish guild on Kul Tiras realm was slogging through the fens of Zangarmarsh when he spied this waterfall. Being a gnome, he knew it he had to take his opportunities to bathe where he could get them.

Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? Because we'd love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. We prefer full screen shots without the UI showing. And please, no more sunsets. This means you. I'm not kidding, yours is not the exception. No, really. Sigh.

One of the first things I checked out on the PTR was the new fishing daily quests. Call me a glutton for punishment, but I actually enjoy fishing in WoW and have been increasingly interested in this quest ever since it came to my attention via the official forums. Now that the 2.4 test realm has been up for a few days, I've been able to do three of the new, randomly rotating quests which start from Old Man Barlo just outside of Shattrath City.

The first quest I discovered, and the one that I've seen the most so far, is called "Shrimpin' Ain't Easy". It requires you to fly to Zangarmarsh and fish up a few Bloated Barbed Gill Trout. You can catch these by fishing in any of the lakes in the zone. Once you reel one in, you can open it like any other package in the game to collect a few shrimp and gray items. One fish can hold multiple shrimp and this quest can be completed pretty quickly, assuming that you don't encounter any bugs. Currently, I often encounter a bug where I'm unable to catch any fish (aside from the special fishing pools, which don't yield the quest fish) in Zangarmarsh while on this quest. Abandoning and retaking it has fixed the problem every time so far.

What was going on in World of Warcraft this time last year? Back in the Day looks into the past of WoW Insider and brings back posts notable, controversial and sometimes humorous reflecting the state of the game one year ago this week.

For the week of January 20 - 26, 2007:

The Burning Crusade had gone live just the week before and the race to have the first level 60 Draenei and Blood Elf was on. In less than four days posts were flying across message boards to claim the title of being the first. This feat is either impressive or pathetic depending on your point of view. Either way, the thrill is gone since the pre-60 increased leveling rate introduced in Patch 2.3 made it easier than ever to level up a new toon in no time at all.

Debates raged over two new issues brought on by the expansion: should the Draenei heal-over-time racial ability be usable by Draenei Priests in Shadowform and should Blizzard increase the spawn rate of quest mobs in Hellfire Peninsula to deal with the influx of half the player base after the same target?

For the first, Draenei Priests felt it was unfair to be cut off from Gift of the Naaru due to their spec choice while priests of other races didn't think it was right for blueberries to get a heal in Shadowform when no one else did. Blizzard didn't back down on this and kept the ability disabled for Draenei Priests shifting into the dark side.