4 Written by
Anna on
July 21, 2009 – 1:02 pm
Back when she was still actively blogging, the lovely Bre introduced me to a concept that I like quite a lot.
Loot Unicorns.
“That elusive piece of loot, that one single object that if you finally, finally receive, will make all your in-game dreams come true. That item that turns you from a nice, loving individual to a raving lunatic. That item that when won will wipe frustrations and disappointments to nothing. All those runs, and countless wipes will disappear the moment that illustrious item makes its way into your bags.”
For me, it’s rarely been a single item (though Hakkar’s main hand axe was definitely one). In fact, it’s not even been a single instance. For me, the loot unicorn which taunts me, peeks at me through the trees and then disappears whenever I try to get a better look?
Shields.
I ran Karazhan for close to a year, got myself a PVP shield (since you BUY those, they don’t DROP), and was happily hurtling towards Mount Hyjal before I saw the Triptych Shield of the Ancients drop from the Chess event. I figured I’d just gotten supremely unlucky, until my Paladin had similar (though not quite as extended) trouble getting that shield to drop.
Enter Game Reboot Lich King
I level the Paladin to 80 and start running Naxx, scraping together enough Badges of Heroism to buy the spellpower shield. And until yesterday, the only other shield I have ever seen drop with spellpower on it would’ve been a downgrade (and thus got passed to our lovely Resto Shaman). Months of Naxx, and TRI did not get a single Voice of Reason drop. And now three months of running Ulduar 10, and though some affiliated raids have been passing out Pulsing Spellshields like candy, my 10 man has never seen it drop.
Until very recently, even my Shaman was healing with a spellhit offhand fob instead of a spellpower shield (though I finally got her enough badges to wear the same one, in her Naxx10/25 mishmash as my full Ulduar paladin was wearing).
And then yesterday I get invited to tag along to the tail end of a short-handed Naxx 25 run, just to clear out the last four bosses. I figure, why not – chances are chances, right?
It dropped.
And I love it. Cement skulls, glowy eyeballs, creepy teeth and all.
22 Written by
Anna on
July 20, 2009 – 2:39 pm
In an attempt to clarify my previously stated position on the possibility of Goblins and Worgen as potential new playable races in WoW (apparently some of you are surprised that I’d make a blanket statement without elaboration) I am posting here my opinion on this particular subject. So without further ado, a full on Anna-rant.
*
Let’s start with the obvious here, ok?
Worgen are a mutual enemy of both factions.
Goblins are a neutral ally to both factions.
Blizzard is now having to face the faction problem. How do you solve the faction problem? Well there’s the potential for two “new” factions – since allying them together is totally out of left field (since when to Goblins ally with anyone?) and makes no sense. But two new factions means new factions to balance (and Goblins already ARE a faction).
Nor does it make sense that either the Horde or the Alliance will magically start loving Worgen (see: Duskwood/Silverpine) or that Goblins will magically decide to start loving the Horde to the exclusion of the Alliance or vice versa (see: Gold Grubbing McGreedyPants). In fact, we can gain reputation with THEM – which, at the current time serves only to make THEM more money, since we do more stuff for them.
The closest to “makes sense” in either race is having Goblins be able to choose Horde OR Alliance, based on some arbitrary decision that they only want half of the gold (what goblin only wants half of the gold?) – and doing so would require twice the quest coding for Goblins alone, as well as allowing one/both races to be either faction, something Blizzard has actively shunned.
Having Goblins act as cross-faction allies – while admittedly a neat concept – doesn’t fit at all with any of the history of Blizzard’s decisions regarding cross faction communication. They’re actively promoting the difference between Horde and Alliance (T9, Isle of Conquest), not building bridges.
All of which still leaves out WTF to do with these Worgen guys that want to eat your children and/or turn them into more Worgen.
Basically, I don’t see that it can work without creating an entirely new lore base and retconning a bunch of already existing history with these two races. And given past experiences, I am extremely dubious that they will do even a remotely good job. The Draenei thing was pretty awful, and I /like/ Draenei – their saving grace is that they just flat didn’t exist in game before Burning Crusade, and so were quite the blank slate to work with, lore wise. DK’s are hard enough to deal with, ICly, and they too (even though they’re a class, not a race) had no actual in game presence.
I honestly don’t see that either race provides anything even remotely interesting as a PC that they don’t already provide as an NPC, unless it’s to cater to people that want to be Wolf-men and Gobbos.
It doesn’t add any great depth to the lore. It doesn’t add any great explanation of some long unexplained race (Furbolg anyone? Now that’s a race that at least has some options for lore background with it). It adds Goblins and Worgen into the game for some arbitrary reason. I know that some people are SOO EXCITED OMFG at a chance to play Gobbos and Wolf-men. That does not make either Goblins OR Worgen make sense as a playable race.
And all that aside – I know that for Burning Crusade, the addition of the new Hallow’s End masks were signifiers for the new race – but what’s to say they don’t just have SCARY THING masks for dressing up this year?
I will be actively moderating posts in light that this is obviously a sensitive issue. Keep it civil – you’re free to argue, as always.
*Artwork by the amazing Katharsis
5 Written by
Anna on
July 16, 2009 – 8:51 am
Normally I don’t do a whole lot with addons. I use them (lots of them even), but most of the time, once I find something that works, I go with it and don’t change things very often. This can result in my missing out on cool things – and occasionally means someone has to bribe me to try something new. (I’m very protective of my memory space, as my hard drive is old, and even with 3GB of RAM, it takes me FOREVER to load into the game)
So last week, the Old Dirty Druid (Aleros) needed some flasks crafted – and in thanks, he usually gives out flowers. However, he told me I had to go get the addon Gryphonheart Items (or GHI) so I could get said flowers.
So I trundled myself off to the internet to find and download it.
It’s REALLY fun. GHI allows you to create items that can then be traded to other players who also have the addon. It doesn’t actually MAKE anything – you can’t equip the items you make, and you certainly can’t use it to propagate stacks of Frost Lotus – but for little flavor items and RP doodads, it’s awesome.
Basically, when you install the addon, you’ll have a little blue bag on your screen. It looks like this:
You can drag it anywhere you like, or even resize it from the options. Inside that bag is… well, nothing yet. This is where any items you create will go, as well as any items your friends create and trade to you. These items can be of any “quality” (even legendary!), and can have both item text and flavor text.
Creating an item is simple – simply open the bag by clicking on it. When it’s open, you’ll see four buttons across the top:
- N – new item
- E – edit item
- C – copy item
- And a button that lets you open the options menu.
If you open the “N” menu, you’ll have a whole list of options where you can select an icon, name the item, and give it flavor text and functions when clicked. “E” and “C” allow you to modify or copy already created items. To trade with a friend, you simply use the standard Trade dialogue like you would with any other item in the game.
You can also create items that will have “right click” functions – things you can use up/consume and can do any of a number of things, from create a non-combat buff to playing sound or executing an emote. These “on use” items can be placed on any of your action bars except the “main” one. You can also create books and letters that can be traded to other players, one of the things I’m most excited about, since reading is important to several of my characters.
The opportunities are endless, particularly with the ability to create small LUA scripts. Does your character make brownies for people? Now you can actually have an item to hand out that they can eat, with a “mmmmmm” emote afterwards. Maybe your character is a priest, and carries Holy Water to bless people with – now you can give that to someone, and they can use the item and actually get a blessing “buff” (even if it won’t be a buff that affects gameplay).
The only major drawback to this addon? You can only use it with other people that are also using the addon (kinda like FlagRSP), so if you want to be able to interact with friends through items, you’ll need them to be running GHI as well. Fortunately, it’s got a pretty small memory footprint!
So give this one a try, particularly if you can get other people to try it out with you. It’s a simple addon that really does give you a lot of flexibility and options for adding realism to your RP.
You can read more about GHI on the info page, or download it from Curse.
This designer also has another addon that interfaces with GHI called Gryphonheart Rep, that allows for player-created reputation factions. Using GHI, you create an item that gives you reputation with, say, The Wildfire Riders. The other player, who is also running both addons, can then use the item like any other reputation token. I don’t know a lot about this particular mod, as it seems to require a good bit of setup and management to use, but for RP guildmasters and group leaders, it’s another something to look into to add flavor and depth to your RP.
