Fine feathers make fine birds

...or in this case: scoundrels! Finally Blizzard will add some more stuff for Bloodsailor Pirates with the 1.11 patch. If you got bored of being a pirate, you can repair your reputation with the goblin cities. You'll need to do this for each city and they ask around 100 stacks of clothes plus vendor bought stuff (approx 30g for Gadgetzan) to reach neutral again. If you still want to be a pirate, you can do a new quest to get a uniform fitting to your pirate hat. IMO the uniform is a bit disappointing, as beside the shoes you can "build" it yourself with other items - or at least very similar.

Shield Slam is currently tweaked for the PTRs, but the warrior community is split if it's a nerf or an improvement. Fact is, you only use it when you have a lot of rage to dump and in high-rage situations it does not matter if it's cheaper in costs, but you want some "impact". We'll see how the final version will look.

For raids there will be two minor changes: the release timer in instances will be removed (!) and they will prevent corpse runs during boss fights.

Hehe.. seems the mage community is getting some love as well. With patch 1.11 there will be a new quest from the Archmage in Azshara which will teach you Polymorph: Pig. Rumours from the PTR say it is also possible to get a book drop that teaches you Polymorph: Turtle. Hopefully it will not just the orphan-pet-models being reused.

One of the most mysterious items that showed up on the PTRs is the below crate, a 30 slot container. Will it be possible to obtain it in game or is it just a joke from Blizzard to wave to the dataminers that try to gather data from the patch files? Only time will tell...

War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death

They are back! The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse will ride again... in Naxxramas. Since more and more pictures from Naxx show up, all i can say is wow... looks like the atmosphere will be creepy. That's what we want. ;) Talking about the instance, there is already a map available: Naxxramas Map. Also check out this website with great pics from the new and flashy monster/item models: Naxxramas Models.

And if you look closely at the four riders, you'll realize why the Ashbringer community is buzzing with new activity... yes, it's THE Ashbringer himself. O.o Although the corrupted version looks a bit.. corrupted, the end of this story will be really interesting. Although Blue confirmed that the Ashbringer sword itself won't be implemented in 1.11 the storyline definately continous.

In the Shadow of Naxxramas

With the PTRs up and players running over to see & test the new patch. New infos are pouring in. The first one, is rather sad for us warriors. The new vitality talent will not be implemented in 1.11, as the devs were not satisfied with the placement in the protection tree. The talent (5/5) looks interesting tho: Increases the maximum stamina of the warrior by 2%/4%/6%/8%/10%.
Finally the Eternal Quintessence will be available if you're revered with the Hydraxian Waterlords. I'll miss those trips to Azshara.. NOT.

The new legendary caster staff Atiesh (pic, video) is of high interest of course. Looks like you need 40 splinters (found in Naxxramas?) you can combine for the basic staff, which starts a quest when you need to find two more parts to complete it. Talking about Naxxramas, you can have a look at the new weapon models here. Looks like there is a model for a corrupted Ashbringer sword... all "ashbringer myth" fans are already speculating if you'll be able to cleanse it later on.

For all of us Midsummer friends: Seems Blizzard will add a similar event like Lunar Festival called "Midsummer Fire Festival". Same same but different.. food buffs etc. BUT a few interesting things you'll be able to obtain: Some kind of burning Shoulders (look interesting) and even more fun a pet Fire Elemental! I would have preferred one of the Core Hounds, but hehe... new pets are always nice to take up bank space. With the upcoming Keyring i should have enough space for a few more pets. ;)

The new quest hub for Argent Dawn will add tons of new quests to increase your faction with them or to obtain even new epic items. Although it seems to be the same grind (timesink) again. There will be new head/shoulder enchants for resistances as well plus more useful shoulder enchants connected to Naxxramas. The one interesting for a warrior: "Fortitude of the Scourge - Permanently adds to a shoulder slot item increased Stamina by 16 and also grants 100 armor".

Oh yes, and before i forget about it.. you'll be able to obtain a full Bloodsailor outfit (no hat tho) - that sounds fun. Talking about pirates, finally there will be quests at the Goblin towns to repair your reputation with them. You need to hand in different stacks of clothes plus vendor bought items.

Dirge's Kickin' Chimaerok Chops

Since yesterday Thulf knows all cooking recipes that are known in whole Azeroth. I spoiled myself and bought *cough* me the Recipe: Dirge's Kickin' Chimaerok Chops. Else it would have took me a while until I'd gathered the necessary reputation. The droprate on the meat is not really that awesome, took us 1:20 hour to farm 10 meat with three people. But it's fun as the Chimaerok are tough creatures. Therefore it's no "everyday food" but more raid boss food.... with the +25 sta food buff, very nice tho.

Warriors, cross yer fingers.. with patch 1.12 there might be some talent love in there for us as well, as Tseric hinted. Of course you saw the new Blood Elf dance already. But did you see the Draenei dance as well? As soon as we get a new dance, the community starts to rotate and wants to know what inspired the designers for this particular dance. Well, seems like outsourcing IT stuff to india results also in interesting dances: Tunak Tunak Tun. o.O

As a Dwarf i was amused to see a thread in the forum where a troll lists historical events, when the Elves screwed up Azeroth:
Night Elves: Poor Decision Makers

Taming Razorgore

So finally the servers were running stable enough again to get a serious try at Razorgore. And as expected, we tamed him. After a few rounds of warming up, we took him down. In the sum up a very nice fight, which comes down to that all know what to do. For me, as a warrior, this fight is great fun... as currently we kite the mobs around. Running around with a bunch of Orcs chasing your tail.. priceless. So know we're back at Vael, which is kind of a déjà vu... as this is exactly where we left, when we were leaving TG and started our own raid community. Takes a while to train new people and gear up a community, but our progress has been great so far. Once we filled the last open slots we have, we should progress quickly into BWL. The lower picture shows Seishiro, Olvi and Thulf right before the Vael fight, when Olvi let out his battle cry. I'm very proud of all warriors in EQ, as they do a great job... and even more delighted am i that five of them are from Custodes Fati - a great warrior breed. *grins*

Since the infos about the new alliance race and the tied in lore, there is still a lot of controversy about it. Tseric tried to clarify it a bit more and confessed he made a few mistakes not looking up the "old" lore correctly. Another thing i learned from an interview with Tom Chilton is, that the Draenei did not fly spaceships, but crashed with a part of a dimension-traveling fortress called Tempest Keep they "borrowed". I still think a castle teleporting through alternate realities is utter bullshit and they should have come up with something better.

The two part interview with Chilton you can find here:
E3 interview with Tom Chilton Part I
E3 interview with Tom Chilton Part II

Reading an interview with Tyren reveals the large amount of instances Blizzard plans for the expansion. Lots of small group content sounds very promising to me. Interesting is also that he declines the rumour there will be different combination of socketed gems resulting in different boni. There will be gems that change their bonus when used together with others alike, but no random combination fiddling yet is introduced in the expansion.

E3 Video Galore

Just a quick few updates on the bits and pieces i saw from the E3. I don't have much time, so i only post you some videos. Two interestings things i heard, I'd like to mention nontheless: For one, the jewelcrafting profession will not only be able to craft rings and necklaces, but also fistweapons. So maybe finally we're getting more choices for those. Very interesting also are rumours that there will be a new talent in the warrior protection tree in the form of a stamina buff, which should be patched in before the expansion.



Interviews:
Interview with Community Manager Micah Whipple
E3 2006 Interview with Scott Mercer Part 1 (server might be shaky)
E3 2006 Interview Scott Mercer Part 2 (server might be shaky)

Trailers:
Burning Crusade E3 Trailer
Burning Crusade E3 Naxxramas Trailer

New BloodElf Dances:
Male
Female

Dreadnaught's Battlegear

More screenshots about the new tier 3 sets show up. The warrior one is called Dreadnaught's Battlegear with some nice set boni. All tier 3 sets have 9 parts instead of 8 by the way - a ring builds the 9th part. In the sum up, all tier 3 sets look very nice and i like them much better then the tier 2 ones.


Apparently to get attuned to Naxrammas you need to be at least honored with Argent Dawn faction (then you have to pay a 30g fee) and you'll get it for free being exalted. I also saw the first screenshots from the new jewelcrafting profession, which reminds me very of Diablo but might prove interesting. I'm more interested in info about the specializing of old professions.. hope some bits and pieces will show up soon, but most likely Blizzard hasn't iron out all details yet. From what i hear they're not sure what the new cap for professions will be in the expansion. Check out those two links for lots of screenshots:
ve3d.ign.com
igo.ampednews.com

Take your orphan for a walk...

Blizzard fucked up the servers with the last patch it seems - huge lag spikes and random disconnects are common to ruin our raiding evenings. I never saw so many disconnects before then during our last night in BWL. After getting disconnected myself while tanking Ragnaros earlier, we got the torch to 20% before sons. Without the disconnects, we might have even been able to kill him before sons. So while the servers are acting strange, what to do? Exactly, you remember after a look at the Events Calendar, it's Children's Week. Do a good deed and take your orphan for a walk. After i rode ahead on my epic mount for a while, the small guy got in the travel mood and we travelled all over Azeroth. And sheeeeesh, hes a fast runner. ;)


With the E3 going on in LA, news about patch 1.11 and the expansion are leaking in more and more. The pic above shows the new tier 3 armor set for the warrior. Looks darn nice! The stats shown are from the breastplate from this set. Looks like WoW China was too quick again and they had the news up for nearly a day before they took them down again. Finally there will be a use for high reputation with Argent Dawn and the Hydraxian Waterlords, as you can get the new recipes for Frost Resistance gear from them. More pics and infos about the new tier 3 you can find at WhatAboutPP.com and WoW Guru.

The biggest news from the E3 so far is the revealing of the new alliance race for the expansion. It will be the Draenei. Being descended from the Eredar, they have tendrils hanging beneath the chin. Kaplan said in an interview with the NY Times we'll be able to modify those in the character creation screen. Hmm.. who else thinks of SWG here?

GM tickets unavailable

You must be fucking kidding me... I've no problem with labor day resulting in no GMs being around, although i think an international operating company should be able to come up with a solution. BUT, why does this annoying pop-up has to show up every time you zone?!? YES, i *know* no tickets. If it would have been available, i would have send in a ticket about pop-up harassment.

As I have now more time to play at hand, I'm back into exploring new areas. There are still a few places Thulf has not been to, be it public or hidden. I should contact some old "climbing friends" and see what they are up to these days. Nothing more fun then a picnic in a place that's away from all the trouble and other people to relax and enjoy yourself. And no, I'm not talking about those people just stepping up the hills in Elwynn Forrest cybering. ;)

Tismet started a Argent Dawn (EU) Content Wiki that slowly starts to fill. Interesting idea, we'll see how it further develops. Since i came back i hear about a lot of personal changes in some raid guilds/communities... seems like some burn-outs and drama going on - will have to catch up with the news. It's always nice to be informed what the status on other communities is. And we all know, back in the days everything was more shiny & happy. Following my earlier rant about challenge in instances, and reading about Dungeon and Raid Update, it seems Karazhan might become my new home in the expansion. Might exactly be what I'm looking for... or not. We'll see. Right now Thulf is a bit bored - beside exploring, there is nothing to do solo for him when he has an hour on his own. Looks like I've to find a new hobby. Maybe this will push me to go back in RP a bit more, i have to confess i culpable neglected it for quite a while.

Labor Day

While it is day of the labor, guilds around the globe use the "spare time" to finally kill C'Thun. After the last nerf for him, he was killed by several guilds. European guilds were the first to kill him, as the change went live while their instances did not reset yet. Some US guilds complained about that, but this was to be expected. Although compared to before he seems to be only a cookie and not a tough cookie anymore. While balance between challenge and fun is not easy, it seems that Blizzard so far did not managed very well to do the splits right. I still remember how much fun Scholomance and Stratholme were before they got nerfed down. Even the recently added 5 player limit does not really add to the challenge. Why do all dungeons have to be possible for all players? Where is the dungeon that only skilled players can manage? Will the promised 5-10 player raid dungeons in the expansion be epic hardcore dungeons and yield some serious fun? Somehow i doubt it, or at least they will get nerfed over time. While i can understand the concept of being appealing for the masses, i still think that most dungeons became boring after they got nerfed. But maybe that's just me and a minority group. The most interesting (or shall i say fun) C'Thun loot i saw so far is the Vanquished Tentacle of C'Thun you can see in the pic summoned. Maybe the tentacle will prevent you're getting ganked by paladins. ;)