TBC Release Realms

Drysc posted the following information on the official forums regarding the new realms that will be released with The Burning Crusade expansion.

We’ll be launching the following six realms with the release of The Burning Crusade expansion on January 16, at 12:01 AM EST.


Nagrand - PvE, Oceanic - Bloodlust battlegroup


Velen - PvE, Pacific


Coilfang - PvP, Pacific


Terokkar - PvE, Central


Exodar - PvE, Eastern


Auchindoun - PvP, Eastern


The majority of these realms will be placed in a new battlegroup, the name of which has yet to be announced. These are new non-transfer realms and as such the Gates of Ahn’Qiraj will be closed and they will not be open to character transfers for six months.

As I posted the other day, there is a new Oceanic realm that will be added at this time which is good news for us overcrowded antipodeans.

The other good news is that these realms will not be open to transfers for six months. While this doesn’t take as much pressure off the existing servers, players who don’t mind starting anew will find a nice clean economy waiting for them. Prices will be low and everything will be shiny. Blood elves and Draenei will abound.

Popularity: 22%

Draeni, Red Headed Step Children of WoW?

Oops! Since writing this post, I’ve been told that I mispelled Draeni in my search. It should have been spelt Draenei and gets 710,000 Google hits, for a much more respectable ratio of 1.79:1. Thanks to Eliah Hecht of WoW Insider for putting me straight. I’ll leave the original post below to preserve the record.

I mentioned in I’m Too Ugly for this Blood Elf that I’ve been getting a surge in traffic from a Wikipedia article. I’ve also seen a lot of search strings in my blog and awstats statistics for Blood Elves, Blood Elf, and other variations on the spelling. But I noticed my stats didn’t seem to show any search strings for the Draeni.

So I typed ‘Draeni’ into Google and did a search. The search result turned up 863 English pages. Conversely, a search on ‘Blood Elf’ returned 1,270,000 English pages. This works out to 1471 pages on Blood Elves, for each page on the Draeni. That’s a pretty low ratio, suprisingly low in fact. With the popularity and controversy that has surrounded the Blood Elves, I would expect that a search would get more pages, but not nearly 1500 times more.

If noone is writing about the Draeni, it makes me wonder if the Draeni will be a popular class in World of Warcraft.

Popularity: 22%

I’m too Ugly for this Blood Elf

A few months ago I reported that Blizzard had updated the models for the male Blood Elves in a post called Beefed Up Blood Elves. It’s always been one of the more viewed articles that I have written, but over the last few days I’ve noticed quite a jump in people viewing and commenting on that post.

So I checked my stats. Aside from a lot of Google searches, I’ve had a ton of incoming visitors from Wikipedia. Looks like Beefed Up Blood Elves has been referenced in the Wikipedia entry about Blood Elves. I wasn’t expecting that. I certainly don’t consider myself an authority on Blood Elf attributes or their lore. But still, what a blast! Over the last week I’ve had several hundred hits originating from Wikipedia.

Not everyone agrees with my opinion though. In Beefed Up Blood Elves, I put forward that I thought it was a good thing that Blizzard was making them more intimidating, and that I thought it would be good to make them more Hordish. My second post on the matter, Uglify the Blood Elves, Blizzard was a bit more tongue in cheek and built on the theme of making the Belfs more into the Horde mold.

It seems that people are fairly passionate about Blood Elves. I’ve been told my opinion is wrong. I’ve been informed of the intricacies of Blood Elf lore. I’ve even been told to hang myself with my keyboard. lol.

Well, I won’t hang myself because my opinion doesn’t match up with yours. Sorry! But, I’ll give you the reason why I have this opinion.

I simply just don’t care for stylized representations of beauty. Pretty much all the games I play, I pick character styles that don’t look beautiful. In Eve my character looks like he went 250 rounds each with Rocky, Mr T, and a brick wall. My EQ2 character is a Barbarian. Only in Guild Wars do I have a pretty character… simply because it’s not possible to create a character that doesn’t look impossibly gorgeous. My main WoW Alliance character is a burly beer-swilling bar-fighting Dwarf called Klarm.

Even on TV, I have a fondness for the ugly characters. My favorite Star Trek characters are the Klingons. What a great species. Much better than the culturally stagnant Federation. Klingons really know how to have fun. It annoys me that most of the aliens encountered in SciFi look just like humans, but with a tiny difference like wrinkled noses or pointy ears.

That’s the reason I’d like to see the Blood Elves take on a more menacing look. I don’t think World of Warcraft needs another pretty race, on either side. There are three already, and three is enough.

Now I’d like to hear what you think. Don’t just tell me I am wrong, or to hang myself. That’s just lame. Don’t just echo the lore, or even what someone else has said on the subject. Tell me your reasons why you think Blood Elves should be one way or another.

I want to hear what you think.

Related Posts

Beefed Up Blood Elves

Uglify the Blood Elves, Blizzard

Popularity: 31%

Burning Crusade Group Blogging Project

The Burning Crusade swiftly approaches. The wait is nearly over. Soon vast numbers of the citizens of Azeroth will pass through the Dark Portal and begin their adventure in the Outlands.

To commemorate this event, Stropp’s World is taking a leaf from Problogger and is putting on a group writing project. Participation, and the allocation of prizes will use the same format as the Problogger Group Writing project, but will have a World of Warcraft theme.

The Topic

The topic for this project will be The Burning Crusade. Here are a few ideas for topics:

• What will be the first thing you do when The Burning Crusade is released.
• What The Burning Crusade brings to World of Warcraft.
• How to get the most out of the Outlands.
• Seventy or Bust.
• Flora and Fauna of the Outlands.

These are just a few ideas of the top of my head. Feel free to use these, or to make up one of your own. Just make sure it is Burning Crusade related. Be as creative as you possibly can. A post with a creative topic or title is likely to get more love from the blogosphere.

The Prizes

Here are the prizes that will go to three lucky winners.

1. A copy of The Burning Crusade Expansion
2. A copy of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Official Strategy Guide
3. And a World of Wacraft Trading Card Game Starter Pack

The three winners will be randomly selected from all of the participants after the contest has concluded on January 13th. All prizes will then be ordered using Amazon, and shipped to the winners supplied address. The exception to this is the Official Strategy Guide which is being released on the 30th of January. All shipping will be using Amazon’s standard shipping.

The Rules

There are a few simple steps that you need to do to get in the running for the prizes.

• Write a post about The Burning Crusade on your blog. This is the hard part. See the tips section below. Your post must be new. It must be written/published on or after today. (Friday, 5th January, 2007)
• The post must be on topic. Off topic posts will not be considered.
• Submit it to Stropp’s World using the Contact form. Make sure that you provide a contact name and email and of course, a link to your post. I’ll need your email address to contact you for your shipping details if you win. I won’t use your email for any other purpose than to contact you.
• Submission must be by the end 13th of January, 2007.
• Two + 1 links to your post will be published. One on a daily list of posts received (depending on how many are submitted.) The second on a complete list of posts when the contest is over. The plus 1 will be links to the posts of the winners.
• This project is similar in principle to a blog carnival. So read everyones posts and link to them if you find them to be a good read. This linking should help with everyones position in the search engines and hopefully get you more long term readers.

Once all submissions are received by the end of Saturday the 13th, I will randomly select the winners. I’ll get my dartboard and blindfold ready.

Tips

Here are some tips to help you with the group blogging project.

• Think up a unique angle on The Burning Crusade.
• Create an interesting title for your post.
• Check your post for grammar and spelling.
• Link to other posts in the competition. If you like those posts, say so, and why.
• Comment on the other posts.
• Most of all, enjoy reading what everyone has to say.

Popularity: 50%

Uglify the Blood Elves, Blizzard

I know it’s probably too late, but I really hope Blizzard make some more changes to their Blood Elf models.

A reader today was kind enough to post a comment telling me how the Blood Elves have been used and abused, corrupted by the dark magics they wield. They have glowing green eyes, and are covered by tattoos. The plane! The plane!

But the pictures I’ve seen don’t indicate this sort of corruption. These cutesy Belfs look like they’d be more at home in a boy band than in a dark ceremony.

Horde are supposed to be intimidating. Blood Elves are, well, pretty with the intimidation factor of Brittany Spears. I suspect the Belfs will become the red-headed step children of World of Warcraft. When Blizzard realise their mistake and bring out the next expansion race, hopefully Ogres, I’d love a two-headed Ogre-Mage, then the Belfs will be dropped faster than a hot elemental. About the only use a Belf will have is the +15 to enchanting.

Does this mean I won’t create a Belf? Probably not, the + to enchanting is tempting, but if I wanted to create a new ‘ugly’ character and had no free slots, the Blood Elf is likely to be the first to be deleted. I’m more likely to create a Draeni, even if it is Alliance.

My mind might be changed though if Blizzard uglied up the Blood Elf model. Experimenting with dark magic should leave scars and deformities. Make exposure to dark magic have the same effect as radiation exposure. The females should have wispy thin hair, toothless grins, and sunken eyes. They should be hags. The males, burnt, deformed, hunched with terrible growths. Mutants all of them.

Come on Blizzard don’t go the easy path and pander to those who want pretty Horde. Create a race that is unique, not just a cheap knockoff of the Night Elves.

Related Posts

Beefed Up Blood Elves

I’m too Ugly for this Blood Elf

Popularity: 19%

Burning Crusade Release Date

I thought that the BC release date had already been given as the 30th of January, but it looks like I was wrong. This morning there are a bunch of posts around the web stating that the release date for the Burning Crusade expansion is the 16th of January. Excellent, I have been looking forward to this (as you’ve probably guessed.) I’m happy it’s two weeks earlier than I thought it would be.

Popularity: 19%

Burning Crusade Beta Invites

I’ve been digging around on the Net trying to find out how I can get an invite to the Burning Crusade beta. I wasn’t so worried a week ago, but since the expansion has been pushed back to the end of January, I’ve been thinking it might be good to get into the beta, have a look round, report some bugs, and post some of my findings on the blog. I’d love to find out firsthand how the new Hunter talents and changes will change things.

So far though, I haven’t really found anything concrete. It looks like beta invites go out somewhat randomly, though I’m sure there is some method to the madness, as well as to established WoW website owners.

Can anyone shed any light on this?

Popularity: 14%

Beefed Up Blood Elves

According to a post on the official World of Warcraft forums, and some pictures from The Burning Crusade expansion here, Blizzard have made a few changes to the male Blood Elf models. These changes have altered the appearance to beef them up to make them look stronger and more menacing as befits a Horde character.

To be honest, even beefed up, the Blood Elves don’t look at all menacing and Hordish.

One of the reasons that I chose a Horde character, and why I really like the Orcs, is that they aren’t pretty. They’re tough, they’ve been used by evil and have redeemed themselves. They’re fighters, survivors, they have scars, and really big teeth.

Aside from the Dwarves, all of the Horde races have a huge amount more character than the Alliance races. Humans are pretty bland, the Night Elves staid and boring, and the less said about the Gnomes, the better.

Horde society seems to be more oriented towards honor, except for the Forsaken who seem to be more focussed on revenge.

The Blood Elves on the other hand, are pretty. Granted, they’ve had a troubled history, but no more than any other race on Azeroth. It will be interesting to see how their story fits in with the Hordes story, but honestly, I would have preferred the Blood Elves to be Alliance. It just seems to fit better, and in some ways would have given Alliance some character.

Ogres fit so much better with the Horde Warcraft universe. The RTS games allow the use of Ogres as units, revealing the alliance between the Horde and Ogre-kind. They’re big and ugly, some are dumb, and they have so much more character. I’d have loved to be able to create a two-headed Ogre mage. That would be exceptionally cool. Here’s hoping for Ogres in a future expansion.

But we have Blood Elves. I think Blizzard have seen the light a little by beefing up the Belfs. Let’s not stop there. Make them more menacing, beefier. Make them darker, less shiny, more character. Considering how they’re supposed to be ‘bad’ let’s make them look bad. And don’t stop at the males, bad up the females too.

The Horde don’t need a bland pretty race running around.

Related Posts

Uglify the Blood Elves, Blizzard

I’m too Ugly for this Blood Elf

Popularity: 41%

Burning Crusade Delayed

It’s official. In an earlier post I wrote that I didn’t believe the rumors that The Burning Crusade expansion will be delayed. Perhaps I should have because Blizzard have just announced that the expansion will be delayed until January 2007.

I’m a little disappointed because I was hoping to spend a bit of time exploring the Outlands over the Christmas break, but I would prefer a more stable and bug free experience. Over the last few days, since I wrote the first post, I’ve seen a number of reports of broken or buggy quests, amongst other things. Hopefully when the expansion is finally released, there will be a nice shiny experience waiting for us all.

Popularity: 11%

Biting the BC Bullet

I bit the bullet yesterday and dropped in to my local EB Games and preordered The Burning Crusade expansion. I did want to order the collectors edition but they didn’t have it listed for preorder, even though they did have it in the system. I was boggled though when I was told the collectors edition would retail for around 120 Australian dollars. That’s more than a new full game of something else! (Most PC games in Australia go between 90 and 110 Aussie dollars.)

The guy at the counter was a bit surprised too, and thought that it might have been a mistake. The normal expansion pack is listed at around 60 dollars, and collectors editions are generally 10 dollars more. Or so I was told. The release date according to EBG is the first of December. I doubt that is anymore accurate than the other dates I’ve been hearing.

So here’s hoping the expansion comes out before 1/12/06, and that the collectors edition is around $70, not $120.

Popularity: 9%