How Blizzard Plays - The Tauren Shaman2009-09-22 00:00:00One of the consequences of Blizzard making World of Warcraft the kind of "friendly" MMO where (according to the developers) "you can get something accomplished in a lunch hour" is that a lot of people are going to be playing the game who have never played an MMO before. As a result, many of these players may be unfamiliar with the basic terms and concepts of MMOs, to say nothing of the higher level strategies and combinations of skills and equipment that can make you a truly formidable player. That's why we asked three of Blizzard's Community Team to give us some advice based on the way they play the game. Today's entry comes from Caydiem who has clearly attended one too many Earth Days - thus the decision to tread softly on Azeroth as a Tauren Shaman. Tauren Shamen are actually a very versatile class, tough enough to hold their own in a scuffle but also very welcome in groups because of their healing abilities. If you'd like t...
The Movie (2008)2009-09-17 00:00:00Do you hear that, Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability.
Aaaactually, that's the sound of about 1 million WoW players screaming in orgasm and "wooting" around their living room and screaming "NOOB!" at their cat until their throats go raw. (The other 6 million are screaming in Chinese because they'll get a fraction of a cent raise from their gold farming jobs when the title hits the big screen.)
I doubt the cat cares. It'll just hide under the couch until the retardicane ebbs, lick it self clean of dust bunnies and then throw up mouse parts in their shoe. But me?
I care. I care a LOT. Why?
Because now I have to hear about it from every WoW fan who writes me and tells me that I didn't give it a fair review, that I am an SOE fan boy, and if EverQuest II is soooo great, where is *their* soon-to-be-blockbuster movie? To its community Warcraft getting a movie is the cherry on top of the heavily iced cupcake that is the ruling MMO.
Well then. Allow me to point out that nobody puts frigging cherries on cupcakes and lets get down to the good stuff shall we?
The Warcraft movie is going to be a shining beacon of awesomeness in a sea mediocre movies and boring sci-fi? I don't THINK so. Five little words to snap you out of your little victory dance there Pwnie Pwnerton;
"The Dungeons and Dragons Movie"
Oh, that's right. I went there.
Do you even REMEMBER the Dungeons and Dragons movie? No, better yet - do you remember the hype *before* the Dungeons and Dragons movie? Geeks everywhere tittering with excitement and they rapidly change their underpants only to soil them in anticipation once again. This was going to be OUR movie. *OUR* time, our vindication to the world that we the geek were not only COOL, but what we LOVED was cool ...
WoW: Paladin Class Guide v2.02009-09-05 00:00:00Updatedfor Patch 3.1
Paladin talent trees, oh the places you’ll go.
At level 10 characters receive the first of 61 talent points. Thepoints can be spent in one of three talent schools. That is the easypart. What a player does with those talent points is the hard part. Thevolume of forum dissertations and single-purpose websites created foranalyzing the talent trees is staggering. Sticking with the concept ofˇ°simple wins the day,ˇ± this guide is for thosewanting to understand the Paladin talent schools (with some biasedopinions along the way).
The talent schools can seem daunting at first, and with mistakescosting gold to rework them, it’s best to have a plan beforeplacing points into talents willy-nilly. Most of the hybrid classeshave a leveling spec (ˇ°spec" is the short form of TalentSpecialization) which is then changed to the desired end-game speclater on. For leveling, the Paladin is able to use any of the threetalent trees, although most find it easier to level using theRetribution tree. I have leveled using all three talent trees ...
