Big News Of The Week
The Lich King Likes You And Wants To Be Your Friend
As you may or may not have heard, a little change came to World Of Warcraft yesterday, with the launch of a mostly insignificant patch that even has it’s own title – Wrath Of The Lich King. We’ve rarely seen something so small create so much hysteria.
Rumors And Scuttlebutt
My Bull Wants To Be A Cow
At the Wrath launch event early yesterday, Oli Welsh from Eurogamer got to speak to Blizzard’s Paul Sams and Lee Sparks, who indicated that Blizzard is close to allowing players to go back and reverse decisions made in the character creation process. They added that the charge was intended as a “deterrent” to stop players using the feature all the time, similar to the existing name change and server transfer services.
Even Cowgirls Get Realm Queues
For many players, logging in to play Wrath Of The Lich King for the first time meant enduring something painful for the first time – a queue to get into their realm. Blizzard has a lot of free transfers now available for both US and EU players, and we don’t know if they are going to solve the crowding problem, but if you’re looking for a new home, it might just be Fizzcrank.
Want To Start Over Completely?
Surprisingly, Blizzard opened an all-new realm this week: Grizzly Hills. It’s a PvE (normal)in the US Eastern time zone, and belongs to the Retaliation battlegroup. Before you ask, yes, the Ahn Quiraj gates on Grizzly Hills are closed, and they are not allowing transfers of existing characters into the realm. Ever wondered what it felt like when WoW first went live? Wondering what a realm with only 5 pages on the auction house and ZERO death knights feels like? Here you go.
Here’s Your Random Mount Macro
This could have been the drop of the week, but we’ve got bigger fish to fry, and the question has been coming in all over the place: How do I get the right mount in version 3 of WoW, what with Northrend not being flyable yet and all that. Answer? Use this macro:
#showtooltip Swift Red Wind Rider
/run if IsMounted() then Dismount() return end local t if IsFlyableArea() then t={7} else t={1,2,5,6,8} end CallCompanion(”MOUNT”,t[random(#t)])
/dismount [mounted]
Drop Of The Week
Can You Smell What The Lich King Is Cookin’?
You need sites. We has them.
WoWInsider’s Wrath 101 Post
The WoWHead Complete WOTLK Guide
MapWoW’s Northrend Revelation
Additional show content provided by Mean Gene, Patrick from France, Shawn Basic, Darrell the Tipgiver, Steve “Buxley” Pietrowicz and the outstanding Instance Community.
Special thanks to TypeFrag and Godaddy, and DogHouse Systems for sponsoring this episode.
Wow, that’s a helluva shirt ya got there…
Ok… ELR made me want to watch Dragonball. Now The Instance makes me want to watch Lucky Star. I’m not used to so much subtle anime influence when I’m on the EL side of the intertubes.
And just so people know, there is a shirt like that each and every release of Lucky Star… that one is simply the ‘Winter Uniform’.
Its a Sailor Moon shirt… frightening.
Also, the Women’s Perspective chick sounds like Lara Croft (one of the voices of Lara Croft, anyway).
Jeez… I didn’t know Randy was so anti-fun.
Just go to Northrend, level a Deathknight… let yourself go and have fun dude!
It is a pretty sweet shirt, and it won me 50 bucks. I’d call that pretty fucking sweet indeed.
I have to complain about this new “female” perspective segment that has been added.
I am a regular listener to The Instance and I truly love the podcast, I think it’s awesome. But I have never ever thought it was male chauvinist podcast. Now I just heard this “female” segment for listeners that are tired to listen all these male voices. She even starts with “Things that are important for me as a female player” – Eh what?
Personally, I find this really stupid. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against females, female players, or female males, etc, but why is there a SPECIAL segment concerning a woman’s perspective of World of Warcraft.
I did not even know that this podcast was towards male players and how male World of Warcraft players experienced the game. Obviously it was, if a female segment was added to balance things up. Right?
Besides, is there ANY difference between female and male World of Warcraft experiences? If there actually is a scientific proof of this, why even to highlight this in a special female segment? Why try to draw a line between the player genders? In my opinion a World of Warcraft player is a World of Warcraft player, no matter sex.
I demand a segment that talks about how us males experience World of Warcraft, if you guys are now included a specific female segement!
Please let me remind you guys, before the flaming starts, that I am not against female World of Warcraft players. I am against that this podcast needs a specific female segment (like its needed anyway) if not males gets one specifically. Have her on, but let her on for a more fun reason – like she talks about the weeks n00b story, or something.
Comments please!
Randy obviously didnt understand, that when you start a deathknight, YOU ARE EVIL. you have to roleplay evil, you like arthas and he is your nice friendly boss. only later do you renounce your arthas serving ways. when you started your bloodelf, you didnt say, NO, i dont want to be a magic addicted elf, i dont want to renounce my human elf ties and serve the horde. Randy, you came into the deathknight experience all wrong and ruined it for yourself.
@Fyurae: Most Japanese school uniforms look like that. But I can assure you that my information is 100% accurate.
@MeanGene: Lucky Star is a fantastic show. Don’t be turned off by the first episode being 22 minutes of talking about food, it gets better. Also don’t forget it’s a complete mockery of “otaku” culture. The show Exists to poke fun at it’s loyal viewer base.
Slight correction however, the shirts are only packaged in the Limited Edition releases of the DVD, the first 3 are hanging in my closet right now, to be honest this contest was the first time I’d ever actually worn it, I’d say it was worth it.
But seriously, that was the WORST of the pictures I’d taken… they HAD to use that one… ;_;
Yah it’s a Japanese girl’s school uniform shirt from the Lucky Star collectors edition. The other collectors editions come with the swim uniform and the P.E. uniform. I actually really want to get them all haha
I really enjoy Randy’s take on WotLK. “Northrend? Haven’t been. Death Knight? didn’t bother.” I’m looking forward to his opinions of WotLK after he actually experiences some of the content!
I was a bit upset that someone like Randy had such a negative motivation for heading to Northrend. So I just wanted to help give him a push in the right direction, so he could enjoy the glory of Wrath of the Lich king.
I took the time to log onto both alliance and horde toons in order to experience the invasion events. There were reasons the invasion was happening. There was a reason I went to Northrend. It all unfolded through the events that happened every 20 minutes.
If you missed it, I can see why you would have no reason to want to go to Northrend. But through the marvel of MMO Chamion, I hope you can find the reason to head out there.
Now if you were roleplaying.
A dwarf stares into your vacant eyes and wonders why you aren’t getting on the boat to Northrend.
He examines you up and down and admires the rings you wear, the armor you have assembled, the weapon in your hand. He comes to the conclusion that you are a hero of Outland. He knows that the cause would be served best if someone like you got on the boat.
He is certain you must have bumped your head in a bad way, that you may have lost your short term memory. He gently places his hand on your shoulder and asks you if you’ve heard the news about Arthas.
Still thinking you phased out of your memory he unrolls a copy of the latest Stormwind herald and begins to read.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=25730.0
You listen to the dwarfs story. Your memories of the past years begin to return to you. You thank the dwarf for jogging your memory.
The great boat to Northrend approaches, it docks itself nearby. The dwarf bounds up onto the ships deck and beckons to you.
“Lets get on with it”
Will you take that first step onto the plank?
Only thing I’d like to point out is that although you got around 4 bars of experience for turning in 25 completed quests at 70 after installing wrath, you get much less gold. Since training professions and the like is expensive its probably better to turn in those quests before you install wrath, get the gold, and go out and level in wrath, the experience is easy to get but the gold can be a real help.
I kind of enjoyed Randy’s take, however I can’t say that they didn’t “open” Northrend. The events in the weeks leading to Northrend were that lead in. The Monday before release opened the war on Arthas for both factions. Unless you lived under a rock leading up to release, you’d know what was going on. There may be a slight failure in no heralds running through the capitals saying go to Stormwind harbor or whatever to join the fight, but I think the absense of people where there used to be people should be enough to ask (especially on an RP server) where did everyone go…. “GO TO WAR!”
***Maybe a Spoiler below***
As for the Death Knight argument. They are supposed to start evil, part of this story line is that the Death Knights themselves are turning against Arthas, (much in the same way that Blood Elves and Draenei were added to the flow of BC). You are following the path of an evil character turning to “good”. I’m having a hard time swallowing someone being upset about playing an evil character when they play a Blood Elf. The horde itself is full of races that themselves used to be “evil” and have turned “good” between the Orcs and Undead/former-Scourge. Randy, I suggest going back and playing out the Death Knight line and start out with the same hand holding that all characters get with their starter quest standing right in front of them.
The link about the mount macro is incorrect. The correct link is:
http://www.qqpewpew.com/2008/10/28/the-new-mount-macro-and-a-couple-old-macros/
Thanks for saying I look to young to be called a “lady”!
I’m 23 and I have a little spawn on the way. If I had won a gift certificate, I would have used it to buy a Orgrimmar Orphan one-piece for him/her. Well, I’mm gonna go buy it anyways.