Posts with tag zeppelin

Blizzard hires some of the finest artists in the land to do its designs, concept art, world building, and settings. It's no surprise, then, that I adore the World of Warcraft concept art and am always delighted to see just how close in substance and style that the art team got in translating an image into a finished product. Suffice to say, Blizzard concept art is some of the best in the business.

One of my favorite art pieces from the original World of Warcraft was a crashed zeppelin image that just always stuck with me. While my art book isn't next to me, I remember cracking open the book or at least a website and seeing that shot, analyzing it, looking at that little scale dude at the bottom. I have no idea what about the image is awesome to me. Maybe because the image eventually came back in spirit in the Cataclysm cinematic when that zeppelin over Orgrimmar hits one of the central buildings.

That being said, we have not seen the concept art for the newest mount to hit the pet store, the Heart of the Aspects. I'm willing to bet it's pretty cool, and I want to see it. Which pieces of Blizzard concept art are your favorites? Let's show off our favorite Blizzard art pieces.

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As you saw in our Darkmoon Faire video tour, the revamped Faire is now active on the PTR. It brings a batch of new companion pets and mounts for you to collect, including the Darkmoon Dancing Bear, the Swift Forest Strider, and seven brand new companion pets. Each of these mounts and pets must be purchased with game tickets, which are earned by winning the game attractions once per day.

Hop past the jump for all of the new pets and mounts and their ticket costs.

One of the semi-new concepts in Wrath of the Lich King is the idea of PVE leveling dailies that are available long before max level. One of the first ones that Alliance humans will see is Break the Blockade in Howling Fjord.

Honestly, I feel pretty safe in saying that this isn't one of the most well-designed quests. It's a basic bombing quest, except they seem to have forgotten all the lessons they might have learned from previous bombing quests in Ogri'la and Quel'danas.

First, Instead of a personal flying mount, you have to bomb the ships from a zeppelin that makes its rounds every few minutes, so you have to wait for it dock before beginning the quest. Secondly, the pirates and ships you have to bomb are scattered very far apart, often hidden by icebergs until the last moment, and don't seem to respawn very fast. All of this adds up to making the quest somewhat of an exercise in frustration solo.

However, there is hope.

In today's Ask a Beta Tester post, there was some discussion about the boat/zeppelin crews on the Northrend boats. I'm here to report that transportation crews in Azeroth are back in the current Wrath beta build!

I really liked the idea of the boat crews when they were so briefly implemented before. It was nice to be able to repair or get supplies en route without having to wander all over tarnation to get them, especially if the boat was headed to a discombobulated destination like Booty Bay. And when you'd never been to the boat's destination before, it saved a lot of time. Plus, the goblin crews were just hilarious and I liked watching their banter. So I was very disappointed when they went poof on the live realms.

You can also stay mounted on the boats and zeps now, which is quite convenient. (And, by the way, you can stay mounted in Booty Bay now too!) The crews are level 40 which makes them easily raidable. I'm not sure what to make of the fact that the goblins on the Horde boats are there for the humor but it seems like the humans on the Alliance boats are very serious about their jobs. We've seen some legacy testing items in the Wrath beta -- like the materials quartermasters from 2006 which are still in the beta but not in the live game -- so I hope the crews aren't just leftovers from previous beta builds that Blizzard has no intention of rolling out in Wrath (or in the upcoming patch). We'll just have to wait and see.

Hold on to your hats, ladies and gentlemen. In a sign that Wrath of the Lich King is quickly moving toward release, Eyonix officially announced today that we will see a new content patch "in the coming weeks."

This patch will introduce a good portion of the old world Wrath-related content and UI improvements, and will probably start the pre-Wrath opening event (If you don't mind spoilers, you can get some info on what that event may entail from us). Check out Eyonix's list of what is being implemented and what it may mean after the break.

So like Alex, I figure I probably have a few more alts than your average player. I have 3 level 70s, 3 more characters above level 60, and a few more at various levels of play. I even started a new shaman just this past week, just because I decided I had a really cool character concept for a female Orc shaman.

Anyhow, I've been playing the shaman quite a bit, and I've actually not been twinking her at all, enjoying the challenge of starting a character from scratch and making sure I still have my mojo despite getting all fat and sassy from all that easy daily money from Sunwell Isle. WoW's done a pretty decent job of keeping the lower level game easy enough for characters, but there's a couple things I've noticed while playing that still feel like they need some work. If I could highlight one, it would be the complete lack of Shaman trainers in Lordaeron.

Ben writes in with this zeppelin-filled screenshot from Grom'Gol in Stranglethorn Vale. Though I'm sure some of our readers could do a bit of math and come up with some exact numbers on how often two zeppelins arrived in Grom'Gol at once, I'll simply say it's an uncommon sight. Or, as Ben says, a "memorable event!"

Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? Because we'd love to see your idea of the best looking instance 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!

One of my favorite little additions in patch 2.3 was the boat/zeppelin vendors. Sure, there's a whole crew there, but after talking to them once to see what gossip they had, the vendors were the only ones I went back to. Since Blizzard refuses to take me up on my suggestion to allow fishing from moving boats, it gives me the one more thing to do while waiting for that zone-in screen, aside from chatting and making bandages. Being able to sell trash, stock up on reagents, and sometimes repair during this downtime is really nice.

Unfortunately, the boat vendors have been disabled in a hotfix to the live realms, for vague reasons. Nethaera clarifies that there are "propulsion issues" that necessitate the vendors being out for the time being, but that they'll be "back on duty" as soon as the issues are fixed. Possibly related is a note that the entire boat crew is gone on the 2.3.2 PTR, "for testing purposes." Hopefully the vendors will be back soon; until then, my boat rides will be (even more) boring.

World of Raids once again has the latest breaking news on the latest Patch 2.3 Public Test Ream changes! Today's class changes seem to be mostly happy buffs, especially for hunters and rogues and paladins, as well as a slight nerf to warriors beyond the jump. Also read on below for Guild Bank prices, New Arena Season 3 weapon models, a Field Repair Bot change, as well as a few new engineering toys.

Hunters:

• It looks like hunters get their version of Mortal Strike after all: Aimed Shot now reduces all healing done on the target by 50% for 10 seconds, in addition to the regularly increased damage.
• The dead zone has not been eradicated, but it has been reduced to just about 1 yard. Why not just get rid of the dead zone and be done with it? Is Blizzard paranoid about the possibility of using melee and ranged abilities at the same time through latency bugs or something?

Rogues:

• The rogue talent "Aggression" is being improved so that its damage bonus applies to Backstab as well as Sinister Strike and Eviscerate (at +2/4/6% with each rank).
• Shadowstep now has a 30 second cooldown in addition to being usable out of stealth. Its range has been changed from 0-20 yards to 8-25 yards, and its +20% damage bonus now applies to whatever special attack you make next (i.e. Sinister Strike, Hemorrhage -- even Eviscerate or Rupture). Could this make it beneficial to non-dagger rogues as well?
• Hemorrhage has received a huge buff: It now increases physical damage dealt to its target by up to 36 (increased from 10!), but its number of charges has been reduced from 30 to 10. This should make hemo rogues more desirable in groups, and also increase the benefit from having more than one in a raid -- but is it really enough?

Paladins:

• The "Fanaticism" talent in the retribution tree now reduces the paladin's threat by 30% at the highest rank in addition to 15% increased critical strike chance with all judgements.
• The protection talent "Precision" now gives a +3% chance to hit with spells in addition to melee attacks.

I honestly think I've spent a lot of time exploring Azeroth, but this scene in Stranglethorn Vale is a new one on me. I'm not quite sure exactly where in STV this crashed zeppelin is located, but I agree with Pyrana of Scarlet Crusade, who sent us this shot, noting, "Maybe I'll think twice about taking the zeppelin from Grom'Gol to Undercity from here on out..."

Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! Or perhaps you'd just like to see more of your pics from Around Azeroth.