viVijjo
9
WELCOME
THE CATACL ENJOY YOUR
Okay, it seems weird to be euphoric
you know it is ripped to shreds by an angry dragon, but admit it: You're having fun!
Although change can be a traumatic thing in life, in Azeroth it’s mostly good times for us players. We get new
zones to explore, new dungeons to conquer, and new races to play. We have feature articles covering all those things, including a look into how the goblins and worgen came to be playable races — and if you want to know even more about the worgen, check out the Lore Corner, where you’ll find out what happened in Gilneas.
In this issue, we introduce a new feature: the artist spotlight. First up is Samwise Didier, who created the cover of the issue you re holding right now, and who sat down with us to tell the stories behind some of his favorite works.
We also talk with the team that created the Cataclysm intro cinematic and many other movies you've seen in Blizzard Entertainment games throughout the years. Read how the team works together and where they get their ideas, then go watch those cinematics once more. If you're like me, you’ll be amazed all over again.
I know it will be hard to tear yourself away from the latest World of Warcraft expansion, but I hope you’ll find this issue well worth earning some rested experience.
w
WORLD
WaMRAt
Kim Tae Kyeong "Sia
is a writer, an editor, and a dwarf rogue who loves the serial comma, his guild, and Brewfest equally.
is the author of World Leader Pretend, a novel about gamers published by St. Martin's Press. He prefers Horde, but plays Alliance because of his friends.
has never turned	is the dashing editordown a duel, always /dances on night	in-chief of PC Gamer in the UK.
elf corpses, and is currently obsessed with collecting vanity pets on his goblin mage (85 so far!). In real life, he's an associate editor for PC Gamer.
Tim Edwards
iosh Augustine
mes Bernard Frost
essica Cook
Shanna Germain
Michael Craggs
WANT YOUR WORK IN THE MAGAZINE?
FAN ART
COVER
CONTRIBUTORS
This issue’s cover art was created by Samwise Didier, Blizzard senior art director, who has been drawing orcs since time immemorial.
is a glutton for punishment who leveled from 1-80 as a Holy priest and currently leads a very saucy healing team. When not healing, she likes to hit things in the head with her Enhancement shaman.
n is a writer, editor, leximaven and geek of the highest standing. When she's not penning articles and fictions about video games, futuristic societies, and sexy chemicals, she's making steampunk laser guns and running her Shadow priest through dungeons. Visit her at www.shannagermain.com.
Casey Lynch
has covered video games for Gul’dan knows how long and occasionally has to explain why he has a female Guitar Hero character named after him.
fl true identity is as great a mystery as how Shadow priests can run around all shadowy while in bright sunlight. Twisted Faith is the blog that this life-stealing, DPS-mongering shade calls home.
We’re always on the lookout for writers and artists with deep knowledge of the World of Warcraft universe. If you’d like to contribute, send pitches and resumes to mcortinas@futureus.com.
4
IN THIS ISSUE
W 1 FEATURES <
THE WORLD INSIDE A WORLD
The World of Warcraft team has planted plenty* of shoutouts to the world outside of Azcroth, if you know where to look for them.
WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON?
Five new zones highlight Death-wing’s terror and his weaknesses.
38
TOUR GUIDE TO CATACLYSM’S DUNGEONS The Cataclysm five-player dungeons
ing for a story-driven romp through some legendary locales.
48
GUILDS ROLLON EPIC UPGRADES
more than just get by with a little help from your friends.
52
BEHIND THE SCENES AT BL1ZZCON
Blizzards celebration of the Warcraft, SlarCraft, and Diablo franchises brings two days of magic to the player community, hut its hard work that makes it real.
80
THE LORE CORNER
Questions and answers about the history and mysteries of A zero th.
92
THE PLAY’S THE THING From airplanes to ogre suits, here's how to have fun with the lighter side of Azcroth.
110
KEEP YOUR SHIRT ON!
PNX games the system when it comes to making licensed apparel
126
DARK IRON CHEF
Learn to craft in-game dishes in your own kitchen-
SHINING IN THE ARENA SPOTLIGHT
While plenty of strong Arena teams compete, few can hold a candle to LightZ CaMerA ActioN and their leader, who many consider the best war lock in the world-
86
FROM PLAYER TO
LORE MASTER
How Sarah Pine went from healing tanks to writing about tiarrosh Hell scream
116
FOUR INSTANCES OF LIFE
Players discuss how the experiences they've shared in Azcroth expended into the real world.
120
GRANDMASTER CRAFTERS
If you thought that tailoring, cooking, and jcwclc rafting were only for
136
THE OFF SWITCH
There's nothing 'oil" about being an oft-tank—sometimes we have the toughest job in the room.
138
ECHOES OF THE PAST
More than just Azerolh has been shattered by the Cataclysm—how do we survive in a world w*here all the rules have changed?
140
PARTY OF ONE
Yes, it's entirely possible to kill things with a healing spec.
142
В AC К TO THE START Cataclysm offers your guild a new beginning, but don't forget what you’ve learned from the past.
143
THE WORLD ISN'T ENDING
Dcathwing’s emergence has created more opportunities to learn.
144
GNOME VS. GOBLIN COMIC
creating in-game items, then you
In a race between the races, it all
5
GOBLINS AND WORGEN HAVE ARRIVED IN AZEROTH AS PLAYABLE RACES — HERE’S HOW THEY GOT THERE
6
7
When Cataclysm was announced, the ostensible star of the show was Deathwing, but what many people really wanted to talk about was the new playable races. Who was rolling a worgen? How could you not make a goblin? Mission accomplished, right?
While it might seem easy and natural to work those races into the game, like most anything that’s worth doing, it’s really not that simple. The process started well before the announcement at BlizzCon 2009 and drew upon talents from multiple Blizzard Entertainment teams.
The first task? Compile a list of candidates for possible playable races from the breadth of the World of Warcraft universe — a list that could turn out to be quite long, even when limited to the
ч ogres, centaur, arakkoa, murlocs, vrykul, ethereals, naga, magnataur, gronn, kobolds, trogg, earthen, taunka, tuskarr, furbolg, quilboar, wolvar, sporeling, rock flayer, yeti, goblins, and worgen — and that s just a sampling of the creatures that inhabit Azeroth and beyond.
Some on that list are easily dismissed, but there are a lot of juicy choices in there. What factors come into play when paring this list down to the two winning races? (Spoiler: It will be the goblins and worgen.)
First, the team asks themselves whether the choice will make sense as a playable race. “Does the race feel like something.players would be.excited to play?” asks Tom Chilton, game director of World of Warcraft. “There are plenty of creatures that are exciting, but players don’t have a fantasy of playing that race. We
humanoids. You’ve got gnolls,
start narrowing it down based on
what we really get excited about as a team, what really geeks us up. Ogres were on our list, for example, but the Horde already has the big scary races with the tauren and orcs Goblins brought something completely new to the Horde, which is a smaller, more comical kind of race.” It pays to be funny.
was not entirely clear-cut. Most goblins in the game pre-Cataclysm were neutral, had their own cities, and provided valuable services to players of both factions. There are banks in Area 52 and Winterspring, for example, and goblins run the neutral auction houses in Gadgetzan and Booty Bay. “We
to both factions, with players picking one way to go,” Tom says. “They could have gone either way, but ultimately we had to pick a side. In the end, they added more to the Horde than they would have [added] to the Alliance.” For one, the Alliance's pint-sized comic relief spot was already ably filled
CLASSES
Although Cataclysm expands the class choices for the existing races, there are still limits on who can be what. One thing was certain, though, and that was that the Alliance needed more druids.
“None of the current races, aside from the night elves, made any sense as druids,” says Alex Afrasiabi, lead world designer. “So we wanted to design a new druid race from the ground up — that being worgen r-and infuse the story from level 1.”
s
§ TIME FOR ACTION g
§ Once the selection of the new races
* ,
• has been made, it’s time to roll up к
.g sleeves and answer a few questions.
S “Even if a race is already in the
« game, we have to consider a lot of
- differences when we’re talking about making them a playable race,” Tom
| says. “What about mounts? What
about armor sets? What does a goblin mage look like? You don’t see goblin mage NPCs running around. What does a goblin look like when he’s wearing a tier-5 armor set? Does it look cool or does it look silly?”
To help answer these questions, concept artists generate sketches for the rest of the team to
consider. Sometimes it’s just a first step on a long journey, but sometimes you catch lightning in a bottle. “I remember we got one set of sketches [senior artist] Mark Gibbons did of close-ups of the goblin face with different hairstyles,” says Cory Stockton, World of Warcraft's lead content
designer. “We all saw that and said ‘That’s the look!”’
The concepting is important, but there are many things going on in parallel — the process is not a simple, step-by-step operation. Models need to be created, textures and animations developed, and classes vetted.
15
н
ч
► NEW RACES
The look of a new race is just part of the total package. World of Warcraft is a huge, sprawling universe, but it’s not a random one. Races need some sort of explanation of what they are and why they are there.
For the worgen and goblins, that meant story and lore had to be developed, and starting zones created to help tell those stories to players.
“There’s already history, and goblins have always been a zany, eccentric race,” says Alex Afrasiabi, lead world designer. “We just punched that up.”
Although it might not seem obvious, the goblin and worgen starting zones depend upon each other to an extent. While the goblin zone is high on levity, the worgen area is much darker. “The worgen have a much more
serious, strait-laced experience,” says Alex. “We wanted to have that contrast because a lot of players will do both."
This goes beyond just the tone of the areas. The current goblin starting experience begins in Kezan and moves to the Lost Isles, but early in the development process, the goblins didn’t have Kezan; things started up in the Lost Isles. (This is what players got to see at BlizzCon 2009.) But as internal testing got underway, the developers sensed an imbalance in the races.
“We originally weren’t going to do Kezan,” Alex says. “But we found that the Lost Isles didn’t have the punch and impact to carry a starting zone as
15
well as Gilneas did for the worgen.” So	’
what do you do m a situation like this? ''' ‘The solution was to do Kezan It would totally fit the goblin style. It would be
what the player wants to see. But in this	'
case, it came way late in the process.”
Thus Kezan was born, with its rags-to-riches-to-rags storyline. The designers let their imaginations run wild. Kezan introduced scenery that couldn't be found anywhere else in the game — yachts, lounge chairs, garish neon signs, and inflatable pool toys — yet it still doesn’t feel out of place in World of Warcraft. "A lot of that stuff is what we see goblins doing in their free time,” Cory says.
For Gilneas, a lot of preparatory work needed done. The team started with a race...and little else.
“All we really had was a big-ass wall,” says Alex, referring to the Greymane Wall near Silverpine Forest. “There wasn’t anything behind it. It became a pretty big challenge for our art team. What is the style? What happens when you put people behind a wall for a decade? We wanted to make sure they were differentiated from normal humans. You want to make sure the new race has an identity.”
To tell the stories of the two races, the starting areas rely heavily on phasing technology, that was introduced in Wrath of the Lich King and which has since been steadily refined. Both the goblin and worgen experiences owe much to lessons learned from the death knight starting zone.
"The death knight starting area changed the way we designed quests in the game,” Alex says. “It changed how we design environments. We looked at the linear nature of the death knight area and how that helped tell the story of the death knight and we really wanted to apply that to the goblin and worgen.”
Taking full advantage of phasing, the developers turn players into time travelers of a sort. “Both those starting zones start in the past; they don’t start at current-day Cataclysm. We wanted to build up the characters and the races themselves to tell a story about how the worgen came to be and how the goblins came to be.”
And it definitely feels like a story, as your actions influence not only the narrative, but in some cases the environment. For example, as a goblin you wind up in what must be the most destructive football game in history.
“The process has definitely been refined and evolved, and what you see now is the World of Warcraft design process six years out,” Alex says. “It’s guided, it’s a bit on rails, but that’s what you want to do for a linear storytelling type of environment.”
WHAT У DU SEENDW IS THE WORLD DF WARCRAFT DESIGN PROCESS SIX YEARS OUT
16
NEW RACES
17


considerable amount of thought goes into the mounts the new races use — or don’t use.
A tricked-out trike was a natural fit for goblins. “The earliest concepts
had a goblin driving a little hot rod,” Tom says. “Really early on we had a feeling that that was going to fit the goblins perfectly. So we ran with that the entire expansion and never really debated it much because it just felt right.” The hot rod eventually morphed into the trike, but a series of quests in Kezan provides you with a hot rod so you can pick up your friends for a party. Alas, it’s just a loaner.
Worgen transportation was much trickier. “In some of our earlier concepting, we had them riding a boar-like mount we jokingly called the man-bear-pig,” Tom says. “As we started to model it and take a closer look at how the worgen would look riding something like that, we became increasingly dissatisfied.” Although the worgen spend a good amount of time looking human, when traveling they take on a more beastly form...which makes for some awkward moments.
“We were starting to feel like it fit better for a worgen to be running on all fours because that’s how you see them running around in the world as a creature,” Tom says. “It looks so cool when ... you come upon worgen running on all fours. They look really intimidating.”
The team wanted worgen to hit all fours when they accelerated, like when a rogue Sprints, but that had issues. “It doesn’t look that cool when he’s got a sword and a shield m his hands,” Tom says. “It starts to look real goofy, and you can't always get the animations to translate correctly to sheath the weapons when you might be running during combat.
“So we started to realize if we took that approach to their mounted travel, it would solve a lot of those animation problems that we didn’t know if we’d be able to solve otherwise. That increasingly became the frontrunner, rather than to force them onto some mount that we didn't have a strong vision for.”
When a worgen gets to a certain level, instead of getting a mount, it learns a travel spell: Running Wild. Problem solved.
THE WORLD INSIDE. A WORLD-. i
THE WORLD OF WARCRAFT TEAM
HAS PLANTED PLENTY OF SHOUT-OUTS TO THE WORLD OUTSIDE OF AZEROTH, IF
YOU KNOW WHERE TO LOOK FOR THEM
World o f Warcraft is chock-full of tributes and sly winks to the things that we do for fun outside of Azeroth. References to movies, TV shows, music, books, sports, and even other games can be found hidden in the quests, NPCs, and items scattered throughout the world. We’ve compiled a collection of some of our editors' favorites, but there are tons more. Keep your eyes and ears open!
MEN IN BLACK
IN THE
IF YOU CAN’T MAKE IT TO THE LOCAL THEATER, NO WORRIES, SOME OF THE FINEST CINEMA IS NOW PLAYING IN AZEROTH!
О STARSHIP TROOPERS У^Д STARWARS
If you get to Toshley's Station, come for the power converters, but stay for the bug invasion, fended off by Razak Ironsides and his Roughriders. "You don’t do your job, 1'11 shoot you myself." Say hello to R 3D0 on your way in.
О RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
Tributes to this movie and its sequels abound in Azeroth. Harrison Jones pops up everywhere, which is appropriate for a man of action. Hit bo naya’s chamber in Uldaman to relive the Staff of Ra scene (think model cities and lasers). In Storm wind, Harrison is in education mode as an archaeology trainer, so watch out for frisky students!
A
ZOOLANDER I-
Nothing says epic like a good-natured gasoline fight. Head on over te Kezan (you’ll have to roll a goblin, but it's a short walk from the starting point) to watch ridiculously good looking goblin supermodels have some fun.
л
O BAMBI Ж t4
Bambma is frolicking with pals Thudder and Flo ra near the Westfall Brigade Encampment in the Grizzly Hills. It’s idyllic, at least until a hunter cuts down Bambina’s Mother. Now someone is going to pay!
THE BIG LEBOWSKI
The Dude (an Alliance NPC named Lebronski) abides in the Howling Fjord, sometimes tormented by Walt. A little further north is Donny, who starts the quest "Out of My Element?". Bonus point: The Horde engineering trainer in Hellfire Peninsula is Zebig while a gnome named Lebowski is the Alliance trainer.
THE WIZARD OF OZ
Head to Karazhan’s opera house and speak to Barnes. Quick, you’re on! There’s no guarantee that you’ll see Dorothee and Tito, but come back next week for another shot. The Big Bad Wolf or Romulo and Julianne aren’t bad shows, either.
> CULTURE
GLENNGARRY GLEN ROSS
AUSTIN POWERS
You won't find Austin in Azeroth (not if he’s a good spy!), but you will find some of Dr. Evil’s best pals. Mr. Big-glesworth lurks in the Naxxramas entrance, and smiting him is a temptation most raids can’t resist. In the goblin starting area, the quest "A Goblin in Shark’s Clothing" tasks you with operating a mechanical shark — a mechanical shark with a Freakin’ Laser Beam’
If you're looking for a motivational speech, Blakelow is the guy to give it to you. Hang out with the siege engineers in Warsong Hold in Borean Tundra and you’ll be treated to a performance by the goblin Alec
Baldwin. "Put the Morning
1 Glory Dew down! Morn
1 ing Glory Dew is for  \ к crafters only.” SsSSi
QUESTION 1
WHAT DO KRISTIN SCOTT THOMAS, LESLIE ANN WARREN, JAMIE Щ CURTIS, AND OUVIA NEWTON JOHN HAVE IN COMMON?
к ANSWER ON PAGE 27 J*
21
He’s stranded in a cave without a drum kit in sight. "With a Little Helper from My Friends" he can get back to safety.
RINGO Beatles Un’Goro Crater
EXPERIMENTAL PILOT Elton John Area 52
'All this science, 1 don t under-
stand. ... Look, it’s just my job, five	AH
days a week.”
- T
HALL OF FAME
LOLLAPALOOZA HAS NOTHING ON WORLD OF WARCRAFT. SEE THESE FAMOUS ARTISTS, PERFORMING NIGHTLY!
x
GIMME SHELTER
VASHJ’IR QUEST
AIN’T TOO PROUD TO BEG
THE ROLLING STONES
VASHJ’IR QUEST
ROCKET MAN
AREA 52 NPC
ELTON JOHN
CLAM MASTER К Jam-Master Jay
RETURN TO SENDER
DRAGONBLIGHT QUEST
The Clam Master resides deep underwater near Valiance Keep in Borean Tundra. The Jam-Master is a founding member of hip-hop legend Run-D.M.C.
ELVIS PRESLEY
WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE
GUNS N’ ROSES
SKILLS TO PAY THE BILLS
PROFESSION ACHIEVEMENT
BEASTIE BOYS
THE SAFETY DANCE
NAXXRAMAS ACHIEVEMENT
MEN WITHOUT HATS
THE KILLING MOON
THE BATTLE FOR THE UNDERCITY QUEST LINE
ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN
22
AMBASSADOR BERRYBUCK, COUNCILMAN MILLSTIPE Darkshire
is pair may appear to be two local politicians, but they're actually ed after four guys: Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Michael Stipe, the orig nbers of R.E.M. They go gardening at night.
BRONJAHM
Godfather of Soul(s) James Brown
He's the hardest working boss in the Forge of Sou . If you still have doubts that this is a tribute to James Brown, looting Papa’s Brand New Bag should erase them. Hey!
SIOUXSIE THE BANSHEE Scarlet Enclave
Formerly a knight trainer (during Wrath of the Llch King testing), now a tribute to the influential p ik b Siouxsie and the Banshees

WHEN YOURIOE AMAGNIH CENT FLYING CARPET OR A FROSTY FLYING CARPET?
ANSMB0NPASE27
SEWER SHARK
This was one of the first titles for the Sega CD game system. Segacedi is a shark in the Dalaran sewers. Ah. now it makes sense.
GAMES
О PLANTS VS, ZOMBIES
Unis turns into a series of quests in the Hills-brad Foothills in which players pit pcacebloom vs. ghouls. Sucked and you'll earn yourself Brazie's Sunflower, a companion to make your
0 CHESS
Deep in Karazhan, there’s a game room where you can take on Medivh in a nice game of chess. Careful, he cheats!
quests more melodious.
WORLD OF WARCRAFT ISN’T THE ONLY DIVERSION IN TOWN, BUT YOU DON’T NEED TO LEAVE AZEROTH TO ENJOY THESE!
► 0 joust
A series of quests in Mount Hyjal serve as a tribute to this arcade classic, which sort of de ties description. Imagine knights jousting while riding flying ostriches.
0 PORTAL
Tire achievement The Cake Is Not a Lie con tradicts graffiti found on a wall of the Aperture Laboratories Enrichment Center. The book Thinking with Portals A Memorandum on Proper Portal Usage spawns sporadically in Dalaran. "Now you're thinking with poitals!” is the closing statement in the Portal teaser.
CULTURE
YOGG-SARON ET AL.
JUST BECAUSE YOU HANG OUT IN DUNGEONS OR BATTLEGROUNDS DOESN’T MEAN YOU CAN’T READ. MEET AZEROTH’S LITERATI!
While there’s no H.P. Lovecraft character in Azeroth, the horror writer’s influence is clear. Uldu-ar’s Yogg'Saron is a tip of the hat to Yog-Sothoth and the Cthulhu mythos. Also of note is C’lhun in Ahn’Qiraj, Dextren Ward in the original Stockade, and various Faceless enemies.
О ARCANIST GINSBERG AND
ALCHEMIST BURROUGHS
You'll find this pair chatting in Dalaran’s Purple Parlor. They don't appear to be howl ng or eating lunch, but they are referencing Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, two influential beat writers.
0 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Although you could make an argument that pretty much anything in English is a Shakespearean reference (Pound of Flesh, anyone?), Romulo and Julianne are definitely a tribute to Romeo and Juliet. They are part of the rotation in Karazhan’s opera event.
QUESTIONS
WHY DOES THE NAME OF AREA 5ZS INNKEEPER REMI КОШ SOUND VAGUELY
HEMET NESINGWARY
ALIEN?
ANSWER ON PAGE 27
American writer Ernest Hemingway was noted for his rather macho way of life, which included safaris, hunting, fighting, and consumption of alcohol. Quest lines and an achievement (Hills Like White Elekk) related to Nesingwary reference Hemingway’s body of work.
О FUTURAMA
Icecrown Citadel boss Professor Putricide sounds eerily similar to Professor Farnsworth. Especially when he shouts “Good news, everyone,” when what he's going to tell you isn’t good news.
О MACGYVER
The secret agent is busy repairing a plane at Valgarde, cleverly disguised as McGoyver. We say “cleverly" because it appears that McGoyver is using real tools.
£ THEX-FILES
Alien shenanigans abound in Area 52, but you won't find Mulder and Scully there. Deathguard Molder is near Venomspite in Dragonblight. Agent Skully is a bit south of him, in New Hearthglen.
C LOST
Those poor people were more lost than you think. Head to Bittertide Lake in Sholazar Basin, and you’ll find a vault marked “5 9 16 17 24 43.”
WHEREVER YOUR QUESTS MAY TAKE YOU, BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR SOME EXTRA DRAMA OR COMEDY!
MONTY PYTHON’S
FLYING CIRCUS
Terry Palin in the Eastvale Logging Camp in Elwynn Forest is a lumberjack. And he’ll tell you he’s okay. If you’re a might peckish, when the Darkmoon Faire is active, you can nosh on some Crunchy Frog.
2d
CULTURE
NORMAL
ANSWER
Just keep swimming...
There is no spoon.
From beneath you it devours.
QUIZ ANSWERS
V9 'DS ‘at ‘d£ ‘az ‘GT
QUESTION ANSWERS
RED RIDER AIR RIFLE
SHARK
BAIT
THE SEAL OF DANZALAR
STRANGE
ENGINE PART
Destroys technological terror constructs.
CRUDE EATING UTENSILS
POWER CONVERTER
Firefly. One of many references to the sci-fi TV series. "Don't pay anybody in advance. And don't ride in any thing with a Capissen 38 engine, they fall right out of the sky." - Kaylee Frye
Finding Nemo. Dory sings the text to Marlin. The icon is Nemo.
QUESTION 1: They are referenced by the family bankers in Stormwind: the Westmills, the Wainwrights, the Cresters, and the Burnsides. QUESTION 2: “A Whole New World” from Aladdin. The mounts’ buffs are lines from the song. QUESTION 3: Her name is composed of the notes (in the solfege scale) used to communicate with the aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Re-mi-do-DO-so!
It reads "Capissen 38" on the bottom.
The Matrix. From a conversation Neo has about how the Matrix works. Spoon boy: "Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead ... only try to realize the truth." Neo: "What truth?”
Spoon boy: "There is no spoon. "
A Christmas Story. This is 9-year-old Ralphie's object of desire.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A gateway to hell was closed by the Seal of Danzalthar, and the flavor text here was a cryptic warning of the apocalypse.
Star Wars. You can get this item at Toshley's Station. Luke had to pick his up at Toshi Station. Vader on the Death Star: "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed."

ППП П|Ю What are each of these in-game items referring to? If you’re a pop-culture genius, you can try Heroic Mill» |lll|/ difficulty, which is naming the references only by the item. Using the flavor text provides a hint, ”	dropping the difficulty to normal.
HEROIC
An official Red Rider Carbine-Action 200-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!
27
ZONES
Beathwing’s emergence has shaken Azeroth to its core, drawing the elements
themselves into the fray. The awakened Dragon Aspect seeks to
destroy Azeroth by manipulating
the elemental lords from the
Skywall and the Abyssal Maw,
turning them against the Alliance, theTTorcje, and all mortal life. During !hc Elemental Invasion, the lords found a way to break through the Elemental Plane, a prison built by the titans, to send armies into rpajor cj^ies threjjghout the land. Yet it was when Deathwing made his return to Azeroth, shattering
the World Pillar in Deepholm, that the Elemental Plane collided
with the physical realm resulting in drastic geographic upheaval and natural disasters. However, Deathwing’s chaps may be his own undoing..-The changes Jo Azeroth's landscape have opened up access to new zones where players can take the offensive in the struggle In Vashj’ir, Mount Hyjal, Deepholm, Uldum, and the Twilight Highlands, the Alliance and the Horde have the opportunity to take down Deathwing the Destroyer •anct Jus* followers and restore balance to a world thfit-b.as bee'n.rippbd apart.
20
50
ZONES
F
UNSTABLE WITH
EART OF STONE
SEISMIC ACTIVITY, CAVESAND TUNNELS FILL THE CRAGGYAREA
agnaros is certainly a threat and Neptulon needs your help, but eventually you’ll have to leave these zones to travel through the Maelstrom to Deepholm. For years, Deathwing
was contained within the Temple of Earth, nursed back to health by the Twilight’s Hammer with Elementium armor bonded to his broken body. Then, he escaped.
“Each of the elemental planes, if you recall your titan history,” says lead content designer Cory Stockton, “are prisons to hold the elementals. And prisons have locks to keep inmates, or elementals in this case, inside. The World Pillar was essentially a huge lock to keep Deepholm locked down. When Deathwing broke through into Azeroth, he
shattered the whole pillar. And that's one of the reasons why Deepholm is threatening to
expand into Azeroth and elementals are pouring into the world.”
Therazane the Stonemother, the . earth Elemental Lord, commands a 1 central hub with daily quests in this I level 82-83 zone that has one five-player dungeon, the Stonecore. The zones, and even the creatures within them, are made of strange crystals, rocks, minerals, and ore. Unstable with seismic activity, caves and tunnels fill the craggy area. Cory describes the zone as “basically a planet that’s blown open from the inside out.” Though it may be awe-inspiring to look at, the citizens of Azeroth don’t want it on their front porch. “So it became a principle quest line within Deepholm to put the World Pillar back together. To help the Earthen Ring, to help Thrall in the Maelstrom up above to control this crazy void that threatens to overtake the world.”
51

ORGET THE RAINFORESTS SAVE THE WORLD TREE
ount Hyjal, located between Felwood and Winterspring in Kalimdor, acts as the second starting zone for level 80 players to pick from. The stretch of land was previously unreachable, though players could enter the Hyjal of old during a Caverns of Time raid. However, as a main undertaking for Cataclysm was the reworking of Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms, it made sense to revisit Hyjal — and make it accessible to players in the present tense.
“Mount Hyjal is interesting because some form of it has been in the game since World of Warcraft shipped; the basis was there in the world,” says Cory. “With these other four zones, we were creating them completely from scratch based on brandmew ideas With Hyjal, we were working with an existing idea.” In Cataclysm, after Deathwing lets Ragnaros loose to destroy Nordrassil, the World Tree, it's up to the
players to protect it — but the designers felt that there was more at stake than a sacred tree.
“Whenever we do content that the players are familiar with, it becomes more about managing expectations,” says lead world designer Alex Afrasiabi. "You have to be careful that you don’t veer too far off into crazy land, because it already has a layout, it already has a base storyline, a foundation. We had to be really careful that there was no question that this was Mount Hyjal, and then we had to bring it up to date in terms of ’Why couldn’t we go into it before’ Why now? What’s going on?’”
1
Until Cataclysm, Malfurion Storm rage kept the outside world at bay by covering Hyjal in a protective overgrowth, but with the region threatened, Azeroth must come to his aid. “Ragnaros was going to come up, Deathwing was bringing him out, and he was going to burn Hyjal from the bottom up and ultimately try to burn the World Tree to fuel his crazy war machine,” Alex explains. Mount Hyjal uses terrain phasing, and when you arrive in the zone smoke already fills the air. Alongside Malfurion and the Guardians of Hyjal, players cool off fire elemental, cross paths with worgen, step into the Emerald
IT FEELS AS THOUGH RAGNAROS MAY BE LURKING AROUND ANY NUMBER OFBURNTAND SMOLDERING TREE
TRUNKS
Dream, and meet the twilight dragonflight, all while trying to stop the forest from burning. The top of the mountain is lush and beautiful with spariding pools, elegant night elf architecture, and the massive roots of the World Tree clutching the hillside. Below, fire elementals burn paths through the woods, lava creeps across the ground, and shrines, landscapes, and ruins are ablaze — Ragnaros’s vision of the world come true. Though players cannot yet venture into the Sulfuron Spire and the entrance to Firelands, it feels as though Ragnaros may be lurking around any number of burnt and smoldering tree trunks.
52
ZONES
ELEMENTALS, DEAR WATSON
A crash course straight from the Elemental Planes on everything you need to know about the Elemental Lords.
RAGNAROS the Firelord Exiled back to the Firelands after being defeated in the Molten Core, Ragnaros has since aligned himself with Deathwing and now leads the attack on the World Tree on top of Mount Hyjal.
AL’AKIR the Windlord Within the Skywall, the second of Deathwing’s elemental allies is the final boss in the Throne of the Four Winds raid.
THERAZANE the Stonemother While the Temple of Earth is crumbling around her, she offers daily quests in Deepholm that reward reputation for a faction sharing her name.
NEPTULON the Tidehunter Naga are knocking at his door in Vashj ir and he needs your
ton-
help to repel the cursed beasts and Ozumat, a kraken with a bad attitude.
ataclysm offers players two starting zones for level-80 players to choose, Vashj’ir and Mount Hyjal. Quests leading to both starting zones, and all of the new zones as you reach the appropriate level, can be found at a bulletin board in the factions’ capital cities. Alliance players should look for the Hero’s Call Board, and Horde players will want to find the Warchief’s Command Board. Vashj’ir, the sunken city once populated with night elves, now overflows with violent naga, which players will have to face in the depths of the ocean. Though his power is strong, Deathwing was not able to lure all of the Elemental Lords to his will. In Vashj’ir, players are not leading the charge against an Elemental Lord; rather they are defending Neptulon the Tidehunter, lord of water, from waves of naga who seek to control Azeroth’s oceans.
The zone begins with a shipwreck that leaves you and your crewmates trapped underwater,
where naga patrol in every direction. Giant sea pens, kelp, and bioluminescent plant life, all a variety of bright colors, sway in the current and riddle the underwater landscape. Tropical fish dart about in schools, and algae covers Romanesque ruins so the whole thing looks like a huge, extravagant fish tank. The only thing missing is a treasure chest that spurts out bubbles.
In the very early stages of the zone, Erunak Stonespeaker of the Earthen Ring casts a spell that allows you to breathe and move more effortlessly underwater so you can freely roam the three sections of Vashj’ir: Kelp’thar Forest, the Shimmering Expanse, and the Abyssal Depths. As you work to defend Neptulon and close the Abyssal Breach that connects the Elemental Plane and Azeroth, you’ll discover more than just beauty in the treacherous waters. Kelp’thar Forest introduces a race of underwater goblins, a Jams-like quest line, and an aquatic seahorse mount to help you zip through
the water. The Shimmering Expanse features a high-speed seahorse chase, the crumbling ruins of the city of Vashj’ir, and Nespirah, a mysterious and enormous demigod enslaved by the Twilight’s Hammer and the naga. The Abyssal Depths house another suffering demigod, L’ghorek, as well as the Abyssal Breach and the entrance to Vashj’ir’s five-player dungeon, Throne of the Tides. Inside the instance, a force field keeps water out of many of the magnificent hallways, but the clear structure allows a glimpse at the monstrosities attacking Neptulon’s last stronghold while naga burst through the watery walls and a kraken blocks your every turn.
Throne of the Tides’s structure is unique to the instance; the rest of Vashj’ir is an open water environment where players can explore in any direction. A simple quest involving taking an item from point A to point В is made more interesting due to the fact that point В could be anywhere above
54
or below where your character is floating. This, combined with the idea of an entire zone relying on underwater combat, may make some players nervous, but the quest objectives and paths are intuitive and the combat and movement mechanics have been revamped to create a more seamless experience.
“In the original pitch for the zone we had three huge underwater bubbles,’’ says Cory, “and when you stepped into them, you were going to play in them. They were similar to what we had in Neth-erstorm, but much larger — four times the size of those. The gameplay would be just like you were on land. Essentially, you were in this bubble full of air under the water. It turns out those didn’t feel right for Vashj’ir. It made no sense with the story or the lore going on there. So we basically scrapped
that and came up with the idea of snapping players to the ground so that whenever they get close to it, they stick to it and play as if they're on normal land.” The design team also improved underwater movement by increasing swim speed in Vashj’ir compared to other zones, allowing your character to jump off the ground and immediately begin swimming, and including a unique hopping animation for walking along the ocean floor. Now you can swim off a ledge above an enemy, hit the ground behind them, and unleash your attacks effortlessly.
Though you do fight some enemies in open water, Cory says that this	I
combat experience is the	I
exception, “ ihe quest guys were very careful to try to not make you kill creatures that swim around a lot of the time The majority of creatures you kill are on the ground because it’s very hard to perceive 3D space underwater.”
For Alex, grounding creatures was a matter of necessity. “We played the zone repeatedly and initially we had a lot more quests that had you swimming around. Depending on the class — with ranged classes being less terrible — it ranged from being fun to not fun at all.”
“The art in Vashj’ir was amazing from the beginning,” Cory says. “The level design team just went completely crazy working with the artists and dungeon groups to create all of the assets for that. We were just trying to make sure that the gameplay was up to the same standard.”
PLAYERS ARE DEFENDING NEPTULON THE TIDEHUNTER, LORD OF WATER, FROM WAVES OF NAGA
55
ALK LIKE A TOL’VIR
World Pillar was not the only thing 11 damaged during Deathwing s escape into ’hr Azeroth. Uldum, previously hidden southeast of Tanaris by a titan cloaking device, appeared like a mirage in the desert once Deathwing broke loose. Inhabited by the tol’vir, a race of stonelike cat people, Uldum is a depository of titan knowledge and lore. Within the Skywall above Uldum is a five-player dungeon, the Vortex Pinnacle, and the Throne of the Four Winds raid that offers players a chance to face Al’Akir the Windlord.
Deathwing’s presence can be felt on the sands of Uldum as well, where the tol’vir race has split into two factions. Those who pledge their loyalty to the fiery dictator are "rewarded” by having the Curse of Flesh removed from their bodies, transforming them into living stone, while those who do not swear allegiance remain flesh and bone. Players can fight alongside the latter faction, the Ramka-hen, as they make their way through the zone.
This level 84-85 zone is marked by a blend of Egyptian-inspired structures and bizarre technology. "Uldum is a titan zone, and whenever we say titan zone, the first thing that comes to mind is architecture," Alex says. “Titans have a very specific type of architectural style, which is similar but distinct from location to location. If you go from Uldaman to Ulduar, for example, there are pillars and huge monolithic structures but they all represent that Roman or Grecian look. With Uldum, being in the south, we wanted to do what we really didn’t hit on in Silithus with the Qiraji.”
“When you look at pictures of the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, everyone is awestruck by that look and feel,” Cory says. "The giant river that runs through the middle of Uldum is a huge part of that. We wanted to have a Nile-hke river that goes through and flows out into a delta in the end. We had a lot of really solid reference pieces that we knew were going to be awesome if we just put the World of Warcraft spin on them.”
36
ZONES
л
V1CT<
VERMILLIO
REDOUBT
DUNWALD /•RUINS'^
EOF, GE
' И t ' CRUCIB CARM
OR1MBAJOL’
^THE BASTION
PORTALS PUT NEW ZONES A CLICK AWAY
After accomplishing a few steps in the quest line that takes you into a new zone for the first time, a portal will open outside of yaur capital city so that you can easily return to the new area without chang ing your Hearthstone location. Mount Hyjal, Vashj’ir, Deepholm, the Maelstrom, Uldum, the Tw ilight Highlands, and the PvP region Tol Barad are all ultimately accessible this way. In Stormw ind, head to the small islaad northeast of the Dwarven District. The Horde can find Orgrimmar’s portals in the northern part of the Valley of Wisdom.
ft
TEAM DEATHWING
THRALL


0eathwing began his destructive arc in Deepholm and blazed a trail through Vashj’ir, Mount Hyjal, and Uldum, but it all ends m the Twilight Highlands. Deathwing’s strongest foothold and his last line of defense, the Twilight Highlands is home to the twilight dragonflight, Twilight’s Hammer cultists, and their leader Cho’gall. No one yet fully comprehends Deathwing’s plans for his newly bred twilight dragonflight (previously seen in the Obsidian Sanctum and the Ruby Sanctum), but within Twi
light Highlands, their numbers are growing. The Twilight's Hammer may be disorganized throughout Azeroth, but within the Twilight Highlands, they’re ready to strike out on Cho’gall's order. The only way to stop them is for members of the Alliance or the Horde to enter the Bastion of Twilight raid dungeon and defeat the twisted ogre mage who stands as the final boss.
While Deathwing’s and the Elemental’ chaos reaches across continents, the Twilight Highlands paint a more disturbing picture of what may come
of Azeroth. Ghastly gaping mouths and tentacles mar the landscape in the Maw of Madness, and old magic and darkness grow more powerful every day. There are still a few rays of hope, such as the hillside towns in the Thundermar region, but the Twilight Highlands are a sign of Deathwing s ultimate goal. As he tightens his grip on the world Azeroth must retaliate as one by traveling the globe and bringing aid to the highest mountains, deepest seas, crumbling planes, and plagued deserts. Only then will you extinguish Deathwing’s fire. X

FEATURE
DUR DUIDC TO CRTRCIVJITTJ
опт
DUNGEONS
THE CATACLYSM
LOOT, MAKING FOR A STORY-DRIVEN ROMP THROUGH SOME LEGENDARY OCALES
hether it’s for the loot, the leveling, or simply the fun, five-player dungeons in World of Warcraft offer a sweet spot for players looking for a cooperative challenge and have featured some of the most-played and well-known PvE content in the game. Tire seven new instances in Cataclysm, along with updated classic dungeons like the Heroic Deadmines (see sidebar), run the gamut of looks and lore, but each has its own specific place in the World of Warcraft canon For the discerning .nowledge hunter, each new Cataclysm dungeon sheds more light — and sometimes more darkness — onto'111, war raging between the four e\t ental planes and the titanic sti ugg'e elween Azeroth and the greateSbreat it’s ever known: Deathwing. X . Make sure to take the time to ее the sights, too. “Our artists and designers put a lot of time, sweat, blood, tears, and love into these dungeons,” says Alex Afrasiabi, lead world designer. “There are so many little details all over our dungeons that it would behoove you to stop and look around.”
If you’re nostalgic for Blackrock Spire, Blackrock Caverns sends players into Blackrock Mountain for a brand-new adventure. For those who frequented any of the game’s original lava-laden instances, the look of this series of subterranean tunnels will be instantly familiar. In addition to the volcanic aesthetic, caves and tunnels give way to grand winding halls of stone that bear the glowing violet influence of the Twilight’s Hammer.
One of the first instances players have access to in Cataclysm, Black
rock Caverns is home to a variety of interesting denizens, not the least of which is Raz the Crazed. An ally and friend of Finkle Einhorn (who first appeared as a questgiver trapped inside the belly of The Beast in Upper Blackrock Spire), Raz might be better named Raz the Insanely Angry judging by his inclination to pummel every living thing in his path. Despite his incredibly large fists and accompanying anger-management issues, Finkle thinks Raz needs saving, which becomes the throughline for the Blackrock Caverns story.
Then there’s Beauty, the giant core hound counterpart to the aforemen
tioned Beast Being the grand dame she is, Beauty has a full court of puppy mobs — Buster, Lucky, Runty, and Spot — none of whom are very interested in playing fetch.
The rest of this Deathwing-sanctioned labyrinth serves as both a supply chain and experiment center for roaming mobs of cultists, priests, and zealots, all of whom are hard at work churning out a steady stream of Evolved Twilight Zealots (some of the more formidable foes in the dungeon), cultists turned into deadly drakonids. But making the
perfect drakonid requires a secret ingredient: twilight energy, which the cultists have learned to farm from Twilight Drakes Toward that end, the cultists keep a captured Twilight Drake near the entrance to the Halls of Awakening. Somebody call D.E.H.T.A.!

40
DUNGEONS
The differences between Throne of the Tides and Blackrock Caverns couldn’t be greater, Set inside the Abyssal Maw, which players can reach through the new Vashj’ir zone, the Throne of the Tides boasts a shimmering, Atlantean look. Replete with aquamarine tones and sea-inspired architecture, many of the walls are lined with opulent and mysterious shields that keep the air in and the water out, though errant
naga warriors can (and do) pass through to attack.
This underwater bestiary is understandably stocked with troves of naga, water elementals, and yes, even new kinds of murlocs. The ornate oceanic halls are also stalked by various servants of the Old Gods, who line the way to Ozumat, the final of four bosses. A giant squid-like thing, players get a glimpse of Ozumat fairly soon after entering the instance, but he really comes into play during the concluding standoff between he and Neptulon the Tidehunter, the elemental lord of water. Neptulon controls a legendary weapon of Frostmourne-ian proportions that is said to have the power to control the very seas themselves.
41
mixing titan culture and Stargate-esque
Egyptian chic, Halls of Origination is an ancient construct designed to protect a host of Old World antiquities dating back to (’spoiler*) the origins of the world, and specifically, a secret treasure that could threaten all life on Azeroth were it to fall into the wrong hands.
Like the Lost City of the Tol’vir, the exterior of the instance reads Egypt, with a processional pathway leading to a rather understated pyramid. But like Naxxramas’s deceivingly diminutive superficial size, the small stature of the building doesn’t
really convey the breadth of its content. That is to say, this titan stronghold is a larger instance with multiple wings and seven bosses who are based loosely on well-known gods from the Egyptian pantheon. Inside, the stone floors of the winding halls peek out through heaping piles of sand, while oversized architecture (see the skyscraping blue tubes in The Maker's Rise for a glimpse) and Egyptian relics adorn the walls. The rooms go heavy on gold and green in both wall treatments and lighting, and the music would make a good soundtrack for a road trip to the Well of Souls.
Experienced lore hounds will immediately recognize Brann Bronzebeard from his role in both the five-player Halls of Stone dungeon and Ulduar raid. Bronzebeard helps parties uncover the mysteries of Uldum and face off against the constructs of magic, life, chaos, and radiance.
As in any self-respecting Egyptian enclave, an assortment of hieroglyphic-inspired baddies round out a desert-themed bestiary, including scarabs, snakes, vipers, and troggs. There are also camels, and not just NPC camels either. These are of the variety that players can ride.
42
DUNGEONS
HEROIC DEADMINES
The Deadmines is one of the most-run instances in World of Warcraft, so it makes sense that the developers chose to head back out to Moonbrook to give this classic instance a Heroic makeover that both factions can enjoy. Much of what players know and love about the dungeon remains intact, though there are enough changes to offer a renewed sense of challenge.
One of the challenges of updating Deadmines was that Westfall went through a lot of changes in Cataclysm."We were very careful to keep Deadmines in mind as we redesigned Westfall, to make sure that whatever happened in the zone made sense and resonated in the Deadmines,” Alex says. “The story informed the revamp completely.” Players are encouraged to play through the current Westfall before running the new dungeon.
Most of the bosses and mobs have been replaced or updated, though nostalgic players will be happy to learn that many of the original drops are intact. The most notable changes appear over the course of several encounters, and not just boss fights. For instance, there is the pair of incredibly tough oafs who provide a gear-check mid-instance. We won’t give away the ending, but suffice to say, the developers have used some serious elbow grease completely overhauling the Deadmines, so much so that old-timers and newcomers alike will eat it up like so much of Cookie’s fresh meat.
4$
To get to this aerial instance, players need to head back to the old world — Kalimdor, specifically — to a citadel situated in the sky, floating high above the desert of Uldum. Deathwing has sweet-talked the air elemental of Skywall, the elemental plane of air, into a dark alliance (along with their ground-dwelling tol’vir neighbors) bent on seizing
control of the territory as a part of the foul Dragon Aspect’s ongoing bid for total domination.
Aesthetically, the city in the clouds includes nods to both Dalaran and Ulduar, and is comprised almost entirely of outdoor platforms intersected by tornado funnels that players must use to launch themselves from platform to platform. The ornate decor goes heavy on ceremonial staircases, open-air landings, and giant buttresses, but favors light and muted tones over brighter colors. Large columns line otherwise open, dais-like stages with precariously unprotected edges.
In combat, parties will face off against the vast army of Al’Akir the Windlord, a force made up of all things gust, vortex, cloud, storm, and tempest. Being the domain of the sky, it wouldn't be complete without dragons, so expect to tangle with young storm dragons on the way to the second boss, a large winged guy named Altairus. And that’s not to say the Vortex Pinnacle is all airy and scaly things. The third act of the dungeon is rife with tol’vir adepts, templars, and weird winged beasts on the way to the final fight against the elemental djinni Asaad, Caliph of Zephyrs.
44
I
ituated in the chasms of Deepholm, the
elemental plane of earth, the Stonecore marks the site of Deathwing’s ascent from the caverns he called home while the Twilight’s Hammer worked their elementium magic on his battered body. The cultists have remained here even after Deathwing’s departure, considering the location hallowed ground. There’s also some unfinished business with Millhouse Manastorm, the gnome mage that needed a serious escort out of The Burning Crusade dungeon The Arcatraz. The Stonecore finds Manastorm double-crossing his faction and serving as a higher-up in the Twilight's Hammer (et tu, Millhouse?).
This subterranean instance is cave-like and rocky, with groupings of crystalline stalactites and stalagmites lining the corners with eerily muted splashes of purple, green, and blue. Stonecore Flayers and Crystalspawn Giants skulk
the burrowed tunnels, which may have been hollowed out by creatures like Corborus, the first boss, who is a badass giant gyreworm. Eventually the tangled enclosure of pathways gives way to larger, more open rooms, all teeming with hammer-wielding T Stonecore Bruisers and sneaky Stonecore Sen-tries, the latter of whom will alert reinforcements if not stopped quickly. Farther inside come the era- Л zies, Devout Followers who will gladly give their own life to protect their sacred trust. There’s a ton of them, too, which is fortunate
considering that the related "Followers and Leaders" quest tasks players with killing 101 of them. The instance comes to a zerg rush of a finale in the throne hall & of the High Priestess Azil, who gets support from a seemingly neverending И swarm of devotees, all set against a magma tastic backdrop.
45
The home of the catlike tol’vir, the Lost City bears an immediately recognizable Egyptian influence, complete with ziggurats, courtyards, and temples peppered with palm trees and desert flora. The tol’vir in the city have joined forces with Deathwing and Al'Akir, but their motivation is different from their airy allies; the tol’vir here believe they suffer from the Curse of Flesh, a vex created by the Old Gods to help stony or metallicskinned races assimilate with all the squishies. But everyone knows stone is better than flesh — and the promise of being freed from the curse is all the convincing they needed to join ranks with Team Deathwing.
The only outdoor Cataclysm
instance other than the Vortex Pinnacle, the Lost City features a very civilized-looking network of streets and plazas like you’d expect to see in places like Zul’Farrak and Zul'Aman. The fiend folio here includes everything from camels to crocodiles to pygmies, with many of the mobs toting pets and traps, especially in the — wait for it — Trapper’s Enclave!
The most notable characters are Augh, one of the aforementioned pygmies,
and his swarm of cohorts. The pygmies stack up in threes, one on top of the other, like a pygmy Voltron, each with its own attacks and casting abilities.
DUNGEONS
ooking like a darker and purpier version of Ironforge, this dwarven hold is filled with all kinds of nasty things (not that dwarves aren't nasty, too). The story behind Grim Batol dates back to the Second War and Deathwing’s clash with the other Dragon Aspects. Though Deathwing was temporarily stopped and suf fered the destruction of the Demon Soul, he fled with Alexstrasza’s eggs, leaving the dwarven locale to the red dragonflight. But soon the Twilight’s Hammer returned with the muscle of the black dragonflight to recapture Grim Batol, using the stolen eggs (and red dragonflight!) as lab rats in their quest to build the twilight dragonflight and dragonkin.
In kind, the instance is very dragon-oriented, and almost im mediately, parties will run into a nice little mini-event in which a handful of captured red drakes can be freed and used for a single-pass bombing run to thin the ranks of the bad guys. Along the way through the dungeon players can expect to go toe-to-toe with a wide variety of very disagree able twilight cronies and a handful of enslaved gronn brutes who hit like a truck. Really all that matters, though, is that fire elementals can now take fire damage, which fire-dealing casters will make heavy use of herein. Huzzah! X
GUILD FEATURES
ROLL ON EPIC UPGRADES
WITH NEW GUILD FEATURES, YOU CAN DO MORE THAN JUST GET BY WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM YOUR FRIENDS
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the
Ghostbusters, and the Golden Girls; life is better when you’re surrounded by friends. Cataclysm changed everything, and you’re going to need a few trustworthy warriors (and shamans and rogues) at your side to battle the onslaught of Deathwing the Destroyer Guilds have always added a social aspect to leveling completing raids, and unlocking achievements. Now, in the wake of Deathwing’s reign of destruction, guilds are stronger than ever. A guild can level alongside its members while they earn guild-specific achievements and unlock perks and rewards. Some of the new benefits add convenience and others are designed to be staples of endgame combat, but to benefit from any of the changes, you can’t go it alone.
Whether a guild has 200 players who have been playing together for years or a small handful of people that only recently banded together, all guilds begin at level 1 and can advance to level 25. “Your guild’s advancement rate will be similar to the individual leveling curve,” explains Cory Stockton, World of Warcraft's lead content designer. “In other words, earlier levels require
less experience and are gained more quickly than later levels.” Guilds earn experience through Battlegrounds, dungeons, raids, and quests. A single player can complete some activities, while others require help from guildies. When a player completes a quest that grants experience, the guild also receives a small percentage of that reward. Additionally, guilds have their own achievements that a single player or the combined efforts of any number of members can accomplish Some achievements are grandfathered in so a guild doesn't have to start from scratch and can benefit from the previous work of a new member.
Guild runs (parties in which a certain percentage of the members come from the same guild) are the main way to obtain experience through PvP combat, dungeons, and raids. There are some tricky cases, however. Older 25-player and all 40-player raids require only eight guild members to qualify only rated Battlegrounds count and every member of an Arena team, regardless of size, must belong to the same guild. To create a balance between small and large guilds, a daily experience cap controls the pace - until a guild reaches level 23, at which point the cap is removed.
While you're helping the guild earn experience, you’ll also be increasing your reputation within the guild. Guild reputation increases from neutral to exalted, the same way it does with any other faction. Practically anything that gives experi ence will raise your reputation; you don't need to group with guildmates According to Cory, guild titles, such as Veteran of <Guild Name>, are one of the reasons to raise your guild reputation — but more importantly, a higher guild level and a higher guild reputation mean better rewards.
Captain of Bloodsail Buccaneers ! x]
View:	Professions ♦
Guild Alchemy
ANYTHING YOU CAN DO, A GUILD CAN DO BETTER
I eveling a guild and completing guild
I achievements unlocks a variety of bonuses
L ranging from cosmetic items and mounts to gear and buffs. “These are intended to grant a variety of useful benefits, allowing you to generate more gold, earn experience more quickly, and buff your parties and raids cheaply with longer-lasting abilities,” Cory says
These benefits come in two flavors: perks and
Name	Zone	Skill
—	/Me emy	[View
Keelhaul	The Cape of Strangletho... [525]
Wailingmary	Orgrtmmar	[525]
—	Blacksmithing	[View	All]
Crosby	Tlrisfal Glades	[525]
* —	Enchanting	[View	All]
Gurlgl	Naxxramas	[525]
Catelyn	Tanaris	[450]
дц q. Search
Filler ►
jp Engineering		
—	Herbalism		[View All]
Squawky	Orgnmmar	[40]
-	Inscription		[View All]
Squawky	Orgnmmar	[30]
, Wailingmary	Orgrimmar	_J525J
5/ Show Offline Members		Members Online: 2 / F
Rewards
Elixir of Water Breathing	-*•
Elixir of Minor Fortitude
Weak Troll's Blood Elixir
Elixir of Lion's Strength
Elixir of Minor Defense
Flask
Fiask of Endless Rage
Flask of Pure Mojo	v'
Lion' s Strength
Reagents
Earthroot	Silverleaf
Э/1	0/1
Empty Vial
View Crafters	Exit
Guild <
Wailin Keelh.
rewards. Whenever a guild levels it unlocks a perk. Almost all perks are passive and automatically applied guildwide. Many perks make leveling a low-level character easier. Perks that award an increase in experience, a reduction in durability loss, increased materials gained from professions such as mining and enchanting, and increased honor and Justice points all work towards lessening
News
Bloodsail Buccaneers
Level 20 Horde
A HIGHER GUILD LEVEL AND A HIGHER GUILD REPUTATION MEAN BETTER REWARDS
Guilcj News
•M MotD: YARRRRIIIII
Eh Guild achievement earned: [Dwarf Slayet|
Guild achievement earned: [Guild Level 20]
ТЭ1 Gary/runns earned the achievement [Level B5J
4&i Wailingmary ear-ed the achievement [Level Я5|
Friday 9/24
-	Squawky earned the achievement (Level 60]
	Salth^of earned the achievement [Level 40]
-	Garygunns earned the achievement [Professional III
Wednesday 9/22
-	Keelhaul crafted
the strain on new toons. For dedicated raiders, Mass Resurrection, the level-25 perk, can bring your entire raid back to life with a 10-second cast.
Instead of buffs, guild rewards tend to be gear, pets, and heirlooms. Select achievements unlock these and, like perks, some carry reputation
requirements. Once the guild unlocks the item, anyone in the guild can purchase it, even if he or she didn’t complete the achievement. Rewards usually provide convenience, not power. For instance, after the guild crafts 3,000 flasks in Cataclysm, players can purchase the Big Cauldron of Battle, which essentially turns 12 flasks into 17 flasks. Instead of granting a new, more powerful flask, the guild reward recognizes that the group has the need, determination, and ability to create a large number of flasks and helps them keep up with demand. A few rewards do provide essential buffs, such as the Seafood Magnifique Feast that comes with the achievement for catching 10,000 fish from fishing pools. The recipe, which adds 90 stamina and 90 to "another useful stat,” replaces Fish Feasts as the go-to raid meal. All of the guild rewards, with links to the achievements that unlock them, are in the Rewards tab of the new guild user interface.
Captain of Bloodsail Buccaneers
Armadillo Pup
Visit a Guild Vendor in any capital city to purchase rewards
Banner of Cooperation
Standard of Unity ll
Battle Standard of Coordination
Recipe Broiled Dragon Feast
Recipe: Seafood Magnifique Fe... 50#
Recipe Cauldron of Battle
Guild Reputation: Honored
Guild Roster
News
I Rewards il
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Rewards Info
[Click to set news niters]
Squawky earned the achievement |l.evel 60] - Guild achievement earned: [Guild Level 15]
Bloodseil Buccaneers has reached level 151
Monday 9/20
- Keelhaul earned the achievement [Classic Raider!
Bloodsail Buccaneers defeated
Ros,er  News 11
Recipe: Seafood Magnifique Feast
Binds when picked up
Requires Cooking (525)
Use: Teaches you how to cook a
Seafood Magnifique Feast.
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Seafood Magnifique Feast
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Requires Level 80
’ Use: Set out a seafood feast to feed " your entire raid or party!
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Restores 92307 health and 72000 mana over 30 sec. if you spend least 10 seconds eating you wl become well fed and gain 9 and 90 in another useful hour.
Requires Mountai^ Shrimp (6) Sell Price:
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50
GUILD FEATURES
WITH GUILD POWER COMES GUILD RESPONSIBILITY
Managing a guild and understanding the roles everyone plays is one of the biggest challenges a guild master faces. The addition of guild achievements, perks, and rewards increases the importance of an individual player’s involvement Tire revamped guild user interface allows not only the guild master, but also every other member to keep track of their guildies’ activities. The guild window is now broken up into five tabs: Guild, Roster, News, Rewards, and Info. Each gives insight into the guild s progress and can help players efficiently level the guild and earn perks and rewards.
The Guild tab gives a bird’s-eye view. Tire top of the tab shows the guild experience bar and the bottom shows a player’s guild reputation. Sandwiched between are a
brief breakdown of recent news and achievements and a list of unlocked Guild Perks so you can quickly assess what’s been going on.
Need a Beaming Earthsiege Diamond cut but can’t remember which of your 300 friends has the recipe’ Tire Roster tab lets you sort players by profession, so you can find every jewelcrafter (or blacksmith or enchanter) in the guild and search their recipes. You can look at one player’s recipes or search all of the recipes known throughout the guild and see who has it and who is online. Tire Roster tab also sorts by guild activity, settling any disputes over who does the
most work for the team.
Expanding on the information in the Guild tab, the News tab generates a customizable list of recent activity. Options include Guild and Member Achievements, Raid Encounters, and Epic Items Looted, so you can see if that helm you ve been hankering for di opped when you missed the raid last week.
Largely unchanged, the Info tab is still the place to find the Message of the Day and Guild Information. Here, the guild master can set rank levels, customize permissions such as guild bank access, and require certain guild ranks to use a Battle.net Authenticator. The
Info tab also houses an easily readable list of upcoming guild events, which were previously only viewable in the calendar.
While guilds now have access to more information, special buffs, and epic gear, the fun won’t stop there. "We’re also looking into implementing a shared guild chat system that will allow multiple guilds to share custom chat channels,” Cory says. “We’re also considering a Looking for Guild system to help both existing guilds and new players find great guilds. Both of these are in addition to new levels, rewards, and achievements.” So grab a few friends and get to it; you re going to need all these bonuses if you want to stop Deathwing from wrecking Azeroth.
MOUNT IIP!
GUILD MOUNTS LET YOU SHOW OFF AND PLEDGE YOUR ALLEGIANCE
Walking, running, and the Deepiun Tram are all antiquated modes of transportation. These days, all of the cool play ers hit the streets — and skies — of Azeroth atup their favorite mounts. Whether you like a little flash or opt to show your allegiance, Cataclysm has you covered with new mounts ready for guild members to tame and conquer.
If your guild takes down the raid bosses in Blackwing Descent, Throne of the Four Winds, and Bastion of Twilight, you’ll rise from the ashes on a Dark Phoenix. This bird glows with a purple flame and tells the world of your accomplishment. The guild that has to have everything can raise 55 of their members' reputations to exalted and receive a minia true version, the Dark Phoenix Hatchling companion.
Looking for something more customizable? When a guild reaches level 25, everyone receives one of two mounts depending on their faction. Those loyal to the Alliance find themselves bestowed with Golden King, a lion with a prominent and regal mane. Reminiscent of the blue and yellow flag, the lion exudes pride, nobility, and dominance. Guilds whose motto is “For the Horde!” receive a mount that feels right at home in Durotar. An oversized scorpid with armor plating, the Kor'kron Annihilator represents the power ful, deadly, and cunning nature of the Horde masses. Both mounts carry a guild’s tabard, perfect for charging a Battleground to start the fight with a little intimidation.
With these mounts, guilds can ride off into the sunset, fully prepared for battle. Or, at the very least, an epic screen shot.
51
TRACKINGANETWORKOFTHOUSANDS
four halls of the Anaheim Convention Center encompass 800,000 square feet of space. To get an idea of how big that is, just know that if you're walking from Hall A to Hall D and a friendly worker driving a cart offers you a ride, you take it without a second thought.
of work are put in each year to produce BlizzCon, and it all comes to a head in the days and hours before those doors open to the public. What does BlizzCon look like before preparation begins? If you can imagine an airplane hangar, you’re not far off. The
Thousands of hours
World of Warcraft
StarCraft
Diablo
Thousands of players
each year make the trek to
“We know there’s a sort of a lottery-winner feel
Each person working the con gets a document
Anaheim for two days of fun. Due to the amazing demand for tickets, many of the attendees treat their BlizzCon badges like precious gems.
Don’t expect that to change. Although it might appear that there’s room for more in the halls, there’s a reason for limiting access—partially to ensure players have a better chance to interact with Blizzard developers and employees.
for getting BlizzCon tickets, and we feel a responsibility every minute attendees are here to make it the best experience it can be,” Steve says.
Even though they’ve got a lot on their plate— Cataclysm, anyone?—Blizzard employees consider BlizzCon to be the highlight of the year. “People look forward to working at BlizzCon,” Steve says. “We get geeked up together.”
outlining the importance of attendee relations. Feedback stations are set up, and the results are studied carefully. For example, the 2009 feedback showed how popular the cinematics theater was, so it was redesigned for 2010.
All of this is done with one goal in mind, Steve says. “We want people to say, T went and it was great, and I want to go again.’”
BLIZZCON
COSTUME CONTEST PARTICIPANTS V WATCH JAY MOHR ON THE BIG SCREEN AS THEY WAIT BACKSTAGE FOR THEIR TURN IN THE SPOTLIGHT.
V ' f I II ul I ▼
YOU'RE AN IDIOT...
I DIDN'T SAY “LIZARDS
Jack Black to Kyle
Gass
Tenacious D pulled out the big guns for the BlizzCon closing ceremony, recruiting Dave Grohl, veteran of Foo Fighters and Nirvana, to play drums.
ESPORTS
By Andy Salisbury
fflthe World of Warcraft Arena has been a bastion of PvP combat in Azeroth, Outland, and beyond. It effectively ushered in an era of competition that allows players to display not only their own individual skills, but also their ability to work as a cohesive team. Their rewards? Some of the most prestigious mounts and titles in-game, and massive cash prizes in real life. Among those able to revel in the cutthroat atmosphere are the members of LightZ CaMerA ActioN who, with the help of the “best warlock in the world,” have been extremely successful despite being such a newly formed team.
That warlock, Patrick “Inflame” Costales (center), has been heralded by eSports outlets around the world as the best warlock to ever set foot in the Arena. A tall order to be sure, but Costales is more often than not the common denominator of good play. He has managed to bring an entirely different team with him to BlizzCon each year. Inflame is so confident with his skills, that he even admitted that he and his team hadn’t practiced much in preparation for BlizzCon. “We (LightZ CaMerA ActioN) played like five practice games for BlizzCon, lost most, and then logged off," laughs Patrick.
ince its inception,
WHILE PLENTY OF STRONG ARENA TEAMS COMPETE, FEW CAN HOLD A CANDLE TO
LightZ CaMerA ActioN
AND THEIR LEADER, WHO MANY
CONSIDER THE BEST WARLOCK IN THE WORLD
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JENO TANOS Lopaay/ Druid
PATRICK COSTALES Inflame / Warlock
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 practice for a tournament of this magnitude may come off as cocky, but each member of LightZ CaMerA ActioN lives in a different country and speaks a different language. Patrick, the team’s warlock, lives in Germany. Anton Kudryavtsev, the team’s shaman, resides in Russia, and the team’s druid, Jeno Tanos, is from Hungary
“It makes practicing hard, but we all speak English,” says Patrick. “It’s not our native language so it can be difficult to understand each other at times.”
Regardless of borders, each player comes into the Arena due to their unquenchable thirst for competition. They took a moment to think about their favorite moments from past seasons. “Season 2!” exclaims Patrick. “Seemingly, warlocks just couldn’t die. If we spammed drain life we could take two warriors for at least a minute straight. That was a blast.” Anton, the team’s shaman, reminisces of his days playing a shamanwarrior composition in the 2v2 bracket in The Burning Crusade. “It was a lot of fun,” he says. “Windfury totem with Mace spec was practically unstoppable! Add in a Stormherald? Game over.”
HI пни nr
While most players generally understand the growing pains involved in each patch, Arena players have to consider each change carefully. Even something seemingly small in a hotfix can make what was once an unbeatable team configuration completely unviable for Arena play. Despite challenges that updates have brought, each of these players stuck with their classes through thick and thin. Patrick states, “Despite changes that have happened during patches, I’ve always stuck with warlock. Even in Season 5 when they’d undergone some drastic changes, I still stuck with my class.” Jeno adds, “Same here. In Season 5, druid was extremely difficult.” Patrick concurs: "Oh yeah! Death knights could just dispel all of your Heal over Times with one Scourge Strike! That was brutal.”
ESPORTS
PICKING THE BRAINS
Magicians never reveal their secrets, and neither do good Arena players. Sure, you can watch their matches, pick apart their videos, and watch live streams of your favorites playing, but it’s difficult to find out exactly what makes them great. And while the members of LightZ CaMerA ActioN are difficult to read, they did reveal a few of their secrets, and their thoughts on how one should approach Arena matches.
“We don’t really have difficulty with any particular team. If an opposing team is good, they’re just good,” Patrick explains. “Sure, there are some compositions that are better than others, but that should never be your excuse for losing. It's never fun getting cheesed but if you prepare enough you can defeat even your most direct counters by playing at a high level.”
LightZ CaMerA ActioN is a very good team with very good players, but they’re not perfect. In fact, during the Bliz
Patrick cashed in, as usual, at the 2009 regionals.	Even though you’re
dller combatant, you’ve got some time to laugh a little.	Communication
is key to winning, even if it’s shouted in a language you don’t know.
zard 2010 EU Warcraft Invitational, rival team *aAa* managed to defeat them in the final round, setting the stage for BlizzCon 2010’s U.S. tournament. And while those on the outside saw a fierce rivalry growing, Patrick notes that they actually practice against each other on a regular basis. “They beat us out earlier for
T’S BENEFICIAL TO PLAY AGAINST THE BEST OPPONENTS POSSIBLE WHEN PR A CTICING
first place, but we’ve got a good relationship with them. Rivalries are important, but it’s beneficial to play against the best opponents possible when practicing. It makes both teams far better players.”
When asked for words of advice for up-and-coming players Patrick was, for once, a man of few words. “Just play, play, play. Watch PvP videos. Try to bind everything, and understand your global cooldown. Practice won’t make perfect, but it’ll give you one heck of an advantage.”
THE FINAL COUNTDOWN
While LightZ CaMerA ActioN were among the favorites walking into BlizzCon 2010’s Arena tournament, they unfortunately fell short of their goal of first place. An early loss in the main bracket dropped them to the consolation bracket. While they managed to decimate the other teams there, they fell to the powerhouse of compLexity.Red, who made it to the final round. The team that managed to take first place was a familiar name: *aAa*.
The outcome isn’t what they had hoped for, but it’s likely that at least Patrick will be back next year. By then Cataclysm will have been out for some time, and the Arena will once again undergo
massive fundamental changes. As for who will accompany him to BlizzCon 2011? Only time will tell.
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THE MOST AMAZING THING THAT WE'VE DONE.
• JEFF: Basically, what'll happen is the game team will Come down and we’ll jam a few ideas. From that meeting, we don't always neceeearily come away with one solid idea, but something might spark a great idea for Marc, and he'll run off and get with our storyboard artists. We have a full
because they're so close to the game andfcnow certain aspects of it that even we don't know because they’re building it.
• MARC: The reason that it all works is because everybody is very single-minded about their passion for the game and their passion for quality in general. We can have many minds, and
going to do something, but it’s all because everybody wants to be the most amazing thing that we’ve done.
What's your personal favorite cinematic?
• JONATHAN: I like the Wrath one quite a bit, because I’m from Canada and it was all snowy and awesome-1 like ' Building a Better Marine,' the StarCraft II trailer, quite a bit
hat's the process you go through to create a cinematic such as the Cataclysm trailer?
MARO In this case, the World of Warcraft team comes down and hangs out with us in cinematics. We get Chris Metzen involved, too, because he's kind of the creative juice behind a lot of this stuff. Then we'll just start talking about ideas. Usually, the game team comes with a basic idea of what the expansion
to think of some really cool way of encapsulating that and spreading that essential idea to the world. It's one part film and one part commercial, but the important thing is that it’s all heart. It's really trying to put the best face on whatever the latest expansion for the game is.
So you work closely together at tins point?
FAUSTO: On this project, we really had to communicate well — have meetings and look through the work and constantly be exchanging ideas.
”:::TSALLBECAUSEEVERYBDDYWANTSITTOBE •••
full-on animatics that we can then play for the guys who were
guys want?" Then, it goes from there and usually iterates a few
• JONATHAN: The Cataclysm cinematic had three general phases. Prototyping was overseen by Chris on the art-direction side of things, and that includes everything related to the look, colors, Composition, shapes, and just the general procass from paper or storyboard to the first frames that have colors. Then we would go into more of a manufacturing phase where we'd actually build all the sets and all the creatures, and that was overseen by Fausto. At the very end. It would fall in my area: the visual effects. That was more about lighting and colors.
• JEFF: Usually, when we're getting pretty close to done, probably within the last month or two of the project, we’ll bring in the game team that we're building the cinematic for and just see what their reaction is. Often, that's led to really good feedback. For instance, with the Wralh of theLith King piece, we showed it to Chris Metzen and the game's lead designer and they said, “We love everything but you really need to change this one thing,” which was that you could see Arthas’s face too much. We'd been looking at it for so long, it never even really dawned on us — and as soon as we did, it was
• JEFF: 1 think the one in Warcraft ill, where Arthas Comes back and kills his father, was pretty moving. Pretty powerful. 1
to ahoot that was really, really powerful.
•	FAUSTO: Showing the shadow only.
•	JEFF: Yeah. The shadow on the wall or just him walking down the corridor and having that last moment where he’s checking out the rose petal and thinking,“Am I really doing this**" Then, just on a personal note, the first Warcraft ill teaser was pretty fun mostly because it was the first project I worked on here.
•	CHRIS: For me, it's always the one we’re currently working on. There's always that urge to raise the bar a little further the next time around- It's a bit of a motivating factor. The one that
6$
CINEMATICS
CINEMATICS
TO RAISE THE BAR А Е1ПЕЕ FURTHER THE NEXT TINE AROUND.
99

I Ш HERE'S ALWAYS THAT URGE
made me conscious of Blizzard was probably the Warcraft III cinematic with the crow. That was the first time I had seen anything from Blizzard, and that's where it registered that there’s somebody out there doing really cool stuff. The StarCraft II teaser, that one was pretty sweet. It just worked so well. It’s all happening in that one room. It’s tight. You’ve got that one character, and it’s all about that character.
♦ MARC: I have a favorite shot. For some reason, I’ve always totally dug the dwarf coming over the rise with the bear in the first World of Warcraft cinematic. That whole opening shot is awesome to me.
• FAUSTO: I just watched that cinematic because it was on the website. Yeah, that shot is really good.
♦ MARC: Everything about it, the way the bear moves, the way the dwarf kind of goes, "Hey, come on.”
• FAUSTO: I’m from Brazil. Seven or eight years ago, Blizzard wasn’t shipping anything to Brazil. I really wanted to get the box of DVDs that Blizzard has with all the cinematics,
so I had to hire a company to open a P.O. Box in the United States to ship the box to me in Brazil because that was the only way for me to watch it. That’s how hardcore I was about the cinematics. And when I watched all the Warcraft III cinematics, I was just so amazed by them. That shot where the camera is panning up Arthas’s sword — I watched the shot over and over-and over.
Was there a moment for the rest of you when you knew you wanted to be in this profession? Are you computer geeks, or are you art people who just know how to work a computer?
• JEFF: My brother at a very young age showed a lot of promise in computer programming. So my parents always gave him a computer. And I was always the guy that was using it for the other end of the spectrum, like making little ninjas run across the screen or do kicks and stuff like that. He challenged me at a young age. He said that if I ever designed an entire game — and this is back in the Commodore 64
days so it’s not that hard to do back then right? — he would program it. And so I probably designed like 15 games. And he was always, "That’s too much like the Bruce Lee game,” or whatever. Sold have to start all over again. So even from an early age, I was doing computer animation and computer graphics that way. I just kind of giew up into it, 1 guess.
I grew up watching lots of cartoons and I was really inspired by that. I always wanted to animate. I animated a lot on the computer, but I remember that right when I was starting college, 3D became a little bit more accessible on a home computer. There was a videotape called The Mind’s Eye, and it was all these artists making really, really early CG. If you were to watch it now, you’d probably think it was horrible — but at that time, it was just phenomenal, right? I found out it was accessible at the computer lab in college and it was a brand-new study there. So I joined. 1 haven’t stopped since. • MARC: I’ve never wanted to do anything else. All I ever wanted to do since I was a kid was make movies.
Storyboarding was kind of a means to an end When 1 came out here to L.A., I wanted to get into the film industry. I could draw, so I started drawing Actually, I started out in makeup effects, but' I quickly realized that storyboarding would get me closer to the actual filmmaking process the core of it and the storytelling part. I was a pencil-and paper guy until I got to Blizzard. And then my buddy Ben Dai, who was our main storyboard artist before me, intioduced me to some animation/drawing programs and working on a Cintiq tablet, so I'm working digitally now, and it’s like I’ll never go back to paper again. It’s just too intuitive. It’s too fun.
• JONATHAN: I think I was in elementary school. I had a buddy who had a Nintendo and he would play Castlevania and 1 would draw side-view levels. I put them in the mail and sent them to Nintendo and told them, “You guys should do that.” I was like nine years old, right? I would draw guns — all these crazy weapons like in the game Contra on the Nintendo. 1 would draw rocket launchers and show them to my buddies,
ENTER SINDRAGOSA
The opening cin ematic for the Wrath of the Lich King expansion depicts
Arthas Menethil using Frostmourne to raise the frost wyrm Sindragosa. As with all World of Warcraft cinematics, players can view it any time from the login screen.

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CINEMATICS
movie. One of the things that we wanted to try to stay away' from was the idea of not doing enough justice to those races; having tiny, little guys leaping off of buildings and stuff like that. I think that would minimize the value of those races and I just felt like that the whole thing was cleaner if it was really just about Deathwing and the environments.”
72
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2 Midground swell pushes left, nsmg and falling through spires
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inspiration strikes in the strangest places. "I’m at this restaurant,” Jonathan explains, “and I ordered the lobster tail. After eating it, I flipped it upside down and the shell was so hydra-lisk-looking. ‘I need to bring this back and show' this to the guys,’ I thought. I asked for a to-go box for an empty lobster tail shell, and the cook was like, ‘Whatever.’
“The next day, I’m in the sunny parking lot taking close-up photos of this lobster tail and people are like, ‘What are you doing?’
“'Hold on. I’m not done yet,’ I told them. ‘I’m also going to film it to see how light moves around it.’ Then it ended up in the fridge because I figured I’d use it for later testing.”
"That’s right,” Fausto recalls, “But after a while, something started to smell really bad in the kitchen area and we went in there and found a rotting lobster. We all started yelling, ‘Jonathan! You forgot your lobster, dude!”’
No one would confirm if Jonathan had nicknamed his inspiration Mr. Pinchy.
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and everybody said, "Later in your life, you're going to be someone that draws that stuff, right?” And I would say, "That doesn’t exist. That job doesn’t exist. Don’t worry about it.”
After that, when I was a teenager, my friend and I would film each other skateboarding a lot. I started editing clips because we would miss our tricks nine times out of ten.
We’d have to cut them off the tape. So I used to use two VHS players and I would stop, record, stop, record, to get only the good clips.
Then I saw Jurassic Park. I said, “Who did that? And how? I want to make dinosaurs that look completely real. That’s it. I want dinosaurs in my skateboarding movies.” It combined the whole editorial process of the film medium plus drawing. I dan’t want print; I want to draw on films; how does it work? My mom did research about Jurassic Park and found they used this program called Softimage 3D, which was a local product done in Montreal. They had a training center, and I went there and did the whole computer-animation program. One of my teachers said, “You can draw. You can draw the
real stuff. You should do a Disney school.” I went to Sheridan College for a classical animation filmmaking degree, which is how they make the Disney movies, and then came back after that in the 3D medium. When 1 was doing films in the 2D world, all the tools were very accessible. Then you go to the 3D world, and all the tools are much more complicated. And you can’t do it yourself; you need specialists to help you out. I’m always keeping on top of my game so I can go back to the kid inside me who just wants to do his own film over the weekend.
•	CHRIS: I was always interested in movies, but it felt really far away from me growing up in East Germany. I didn’t think I’d end up here.
•	JONATHAN: I remember the first time he came into Blizzard he brought me a piece of the Berlin Wall.
♦	CHRIS: Yeah.
♦	JONATHAN: That was pretty memorable.
•	CHRIS: It was probably phony, but that’s what they said it was. ♦ JONATHAN: That’s all right. To me it was completely real.
•	CHRIS: 1 never actually realized this was something I
could really do for a living until I came over here to witness early pre-production on a movie — one of those Chucky movies. I think it was Chucky Vor something. I got to walk into one of those L.A. warehouses where they build a lot of the animatronics, a place called Yagher Shop [named after special-effects creator Kevin Yagher]. It looked like nothing from the outside. I walked inside; the walls were filled with latex puppets, and I recognized a ton of them. There were the Starship Troopers, people with their heads caved in, the Crypt Keeper, and all this stuff I had seen in Germany a long time ago. There were all these guys working on it, making molds and putting little hairs in with needles, one by one. And I was like, “These people are getting paid for this sort of stuff. There must be a way to do this for a living, right?” And that kind of kicked it off for me. Drawing is my kind of thing, so from then on I just worked towards it.
Blizzard cinematics have a distinctive look, but all of you
IN THE FLESH
Before you can place the star of the show into a cinematic, you have to figure out what he or she looks like. On the right is a high-resolution rendering of Deathwing made by Blizzard artists.
probably have your own personal influences. What has
influenced your work?
•	FAUSTO: I can say that for a lot of us, movies are a huge influence.
♦	JEFF: Star IVfrrs, Lord of the Rings, anything sci-fi or fantasy. We all dig that a lot.
♦	FAUSTO: Aliens. Blade Runner.
♦	JONATHAN: Definitely, more recently, Avatar — because they use a similar pipeline [to what] we do. So it shows you what someone-else is capable of doing with the same tools you have in your hand. And when you see it, you’re like, “Okay, what are the differences here? How many people do they have? Do they have more budget? Different ways of approaching it? What is it?” That always makes more of a ripple effect than the other movies you get to watch more as a spectator enjoying the finished product.
•	CHRIS: Besides that, influence is really everywhere, right? I mean, we see it on trips, we look at the classical paintings. We go out and shoot whatever it is that we need to wrap our heads around. A lot of us grew up with pop-culture influences, obviously, but we really want to look at any type of
™ftost
personal computers are loaded with 16 gigs of RAM, but some effects designers working on the Cataclysm trailer’s walls of fire needed to upgrade to 64 gigs of RAM to handle hundreds of frames each packed with about 60 gigs of data.
ithin cinematics,
CINEMATICS
inspiration out there and just take it all in.
•	MARC: One of the challenges with some of the effects on Cataclysm was that we didn’t have a whole lot of frame of reference for what things should look like. What does the sky look like when it’s completely full of fire? What does a dam breaking a giant head with all this water coming out of it look like? Where are we supposed to go on YouTube and find a video of that? There was a lot of research and development to try to figure out what that should really look like. One of the hardest shots in there is the shot where we pull out and the three battering rams are all coming in and pounding on Deathwing. Then the hand comes out covered in lava and slams down and all the rocks go flying, and then we pull back and all this smoke is rising up around Deathwmg’s head. I think everybody in this room and practically everybody on our team had a hand in that shot because it was such a big deal. It was such a big camera move and encompassed so many different things Iwppening. I think for that reason it stands out in my mind as one of the most successful shots that we did, because it was truly a team effort.
♦	JONATHAN: I get a lot of inspiration from the Navy, funnily enough. I think they have some of the most sophisticated
EREAILYWANTTOLOOKATANY TYPE OF INSPIRATION OUT THERE AND JUST TAKE IT ALL IN.”
“You’re only as good as your reference,”
design. It’s because the Navy is a business, right? And they have a very precise task. All of the design around any engineering they do is to fulfill a goal. There’s no sort of artistic input in any of their design — or very little. It’s just forms full of function. To me, that’s such a strong visual language because you look at a piece and know exactly what it does. Sometimes, as we design something, we try to just make it look cool. And then sometimes, it’s hard to make it read well in terms of what it’s going to do. I have a whole new sort of respect for the designers and engineers from the Navy or anyone who's a transportation designer ... people who design cars or a car dashboard, the whole functionality behind forms and the layout of how things are placed.
♦	CHRIS: Goes with the principle of not designing out of thin air, right? Having something to base your ideas on, something that people will recognize in some way, shape, or form.
♦ FAUSTO: Yeah. The challenge for us is always combining that to make something memorable. You want to make sure whatever you’re doing, especially for the main character, is something that’s going to have a memorable, powerful
silhouette. It’s like, "Okay, that’s Kerrigan.” So combining and balancing all those elements is the challenge we always have in front of us.
♦ JONATHAN- Yeah. Designing something that has a lot of character in its appearance or the details reveals more and more information about the personality behind it. That’s always very fun. Every time you add an item on a character or adjust a layout on a film set, it’s like asking, “Who lives here? Are they tall? Are they short? Who made Deepholm? Was this a thousand years ago? If they crafted these crystal combs, what tools did they use? What were their resources? How tall were they? How big were they?" It’s a study of who’s responsible for this — because that’s not me. I’m not the engineer here. I don't live here. It’s these people, and how can you make any item recognizable in terms of who drives it or lives in it?
* JEFF: There are so many great artists at Blizzard, any time you get artwork from another team, it’s just so inspirational. You get a 2D illustration of the new Diablo or something, and you’re just like, “We can’t wait to build that, to tell that story.” ♦ JONATHAN: One of my biggest inspirations, funnily enough, is the game. I don't play the game at all. I had never
L
RESOURCES
played World of Warcraft until I had to make a character when Derrick Simmons, an ex-producer, came and gave me the CDs for World of Warcraft. I was getting coffee in the morning and I didn’t know how to name my troll priest, so I named him Konablend because that was the type of coffee I drank every day. Every time I played the game, I wouldn’t actually play the game. I would just look around and say, “I get it. Now I want to see the movie version” And there goes the cinematic.
When we go to a movie theater and we see the photorealism, it's such a deep visual language, and there’s an insane amount of detail, but the ideas are sometimes not that cool. In the game, you see these crazy layouts and scenery and the ideas are really, really cool. We take that and deliver it in a language that people see every day. That, to me, is the reason why I’m in cinematics. I don’t play the game, but I watch people play. I don’t want to be a tauren; I just want to go have a Coors Light while sitting on my siege tank. I want to see that and take a group photo of my character with a siege tank. To me, that’s the dream.
Jonathan says. To get the look and feel of a cinematic right, the team takes regular field trips that in the past included a tank museum to handle missiles and the zoo for a chance to pet a rhino. Marines (no, not Jim Raynor) have even visited the Blizzard offices to walk the group through a helicopter’s weapons system.
UM Е
ШНПТ'Е THE STORH Ш1ТН
HIORGEH НПО GILHEHS?
UflRET
ORGEH TH
RHDHOTELSEIllHEREinnZEROTH?
Уон have io go back a bit to fully grasp what is happening with Gilneas and the worgen.
The worgen are essentially the result of druidic experimentation, thousands of years ago, druids were a much more freeform and experi
number of forms. But back then, druids would try
One of these experiments led to the wolf-like pack form, though the druids quickly learned that the form was highly unstable- Druids of the Pack were ferocious, filled with rage, and had a tendency to turn even on their own kind. Once this was discovered, night elf leader Malfurion Stormrage called a halt to use of the form.
War of the Satyr, fighting against satyrs and other demons from the Burning Legion, and the War of tiie Ancients. An offshoot group continued to
work with the pack form, trying to smooth the rough edges by teaming with a priestess of Elune, thinking that the form was the only way to defeat
become full wolves, but half night elf. half wolf— and thus the worgen were born.
Unfortunately, all-consuming rage filled those who adopted this form. Malfurion decided to banish the worgen to the Emerald Dream, where they could find a measure of peace.
And that was where they resided, mostly forgotten, until the Scourge marched on Azeroth. The Kingdom of Gilneas, led by Genn Greymane, built a wall in an attempt to keep the Scourge out, but they knew that eventually Gilneas would be overrun. Greymane, desperate to save the kingdom, turned to Archmage Arugal, asking him to find a
Arugal consulted the research of the mage Ur
and found a way to summon extra-dimensional beings to Azeroth — and though Arugal didn't fully understand it at the time, he had found a way to
Greymane gave his approval, Arugal summoned the worgen, and they proceeded to obliterate the Scoutge.
However, the worgen didn't just go away once the Scourge were taken care of They quickly turned on the Gtinea ns, who tried to get back behind the wall and close the gate again. Not everyone made it, and some who did were bit by the worgen. dooming them to transform into worgen
was often dismissed by Gilnean citizens as crazy
But as we know, it’s true — and some of those bitten play an important role in the story that players experience in Cataclysm.
$2
ШНИГ8 THE DEAL Ш1ТН
THE TEACHINGS OF BISHOP NATALIE SELINE
Hftcr the First War, a bishop from Lordaeron began to delve into workings of the orc necrolytes who had poured through the Dark Portal and desecrated their hal lowed dead. While at first this was done in order to provide Azeroth with the knowledge it needed to fight against such dark magic, the bishop's studies over the years became increasingly obsessed with finding out why such dark energies existed at all, and why she began to see the ebb and flow of such energies in the world around her. She began preaching about the necessity of balance between dark and light, but after her death, her books were locked away in the Kirin Tor’s vaults in Dalaran.
Illustration: Mark Gibbons
ШИПе many priests draw on powers such as the Holy Light or the goddess Elune, shadow priests turn to dark energies to accomplish their goals
The Cult of the Forgotten Shadow, a group considered heretical by most, believes that dark energy practitioners are just as vital to the survival of life and reality (which they call
"the Shadow”) as wielders of the Light. The cult preaches balance, mandating that shadow priests must never forget the dangers of falling too deep into the dark energies they manipulate, for it is often too hard to find one’s way back to the Shadow from the deep reaches of the darkness.
The cult was created through the (rediscov
ery of the teachings of Bishop Natalie Seline by Forsaken priests in Lordaeron after the capture and refurbishing of the Undercity. Shadow priests generally do not practice openly and not all members are Forsaken, although they formed the cult. Within the last few years, the number of non-Forsaken (and non Horde) members within the cult has grown sharply.
$4
There haven’t always been troll druids, but they have been hiding for a little while.
It all starts, not surprisingly with Zalazane. Zalazane was a gifted witch doctor who covertly attempted darker rituals in an attempt to prove himself. He was not prepared to handle these rituals and eventually went mad, using dark voodoo to rob the Darkspear trolls of their free will and bolster his forces. Fearing that all the tribe would fall under Zalazane’s influence, Volpn ordered the Darkspear tribe to abandon the Echo Isles.
The tribe s priests and witch doctors at the time grew ever weaker as Zalazane’s voodoo spread and severed their connections to their loa (see sidebar). By the time Vol'jin made the decision to abandon the isles, many priests and witch doctors had already fallen under Zalazane’s power, and many that had not were physically cut off from the main body of the Darkspear tribe.
Led by Zen’tabra, these priests and witch doctors moved to the untamed southern Echo Isles. The few dozen trolls were easy prey for the jungle’s predators that first night. Zen’tabra, despite the anxiety and stress consuming her, fell into a deep slumber. When she awoke, she gazed upon a completely different jungle — one of immense and forgotten flora, tinged with a green haze of magic unfamiliar to her. She had been called to the Emerald Dream.
The summons came from an ancient raptor loa
LORE
HAUE THERE (UUAUS ВЕЕП
TROLL DRUIDS?
IF SO, WHERE ШЕКЕ ТНЕУ HIDII1G?
WHAT’S A LOA?
named Gonk, the Great Hunter. Gonk explained that he and some of the other loa had become trapped in this part of the Emerald Dream due to Zalazane’s magic. To make matters worse, Zala-zane's mindless minions had begun to slaughter the beasts of the islands, further infuriating the loa. To combat this, Gonk had devised a solution: Since the voodoo limited the amount of power that could be drawn from a single spirit at a time, he and the other loa would teach the trolls to draw strength from all the spirits of the world and the Emerald Dream — a practice referred to as druid-ism.
The other loa were less than pleased with losing their worshippers, and it became clear in the following months of training that Gonk had somehow tricked them into agreeing to this arrangement Ultimately, it served everyone involved well: The trolls gained the power to protect themselves and live under the nose of Zalazane with their new powers, while also protecting the beasts of the islands as the loa requested. Zalazane proved too powerful to ovei iow directly, however, so they were forced to bide their time until Vol'jin and the rest of the Horde finally came to retake the Echo Isles.
If you create a troll druid in Cataclysm,
Zen tabra will fill you in on the story of the troll druids. X
Loa are spirits that grant the faithful extraordinary powers, though they are not as powerful as full-blown gods. Different troll tribes may call upon different sets of loa.
85
HOW SARAH PINE WENT FROM HEALING TANKS TO WRITING ABOUT GARROSH HELLSCREAM
ntil last year, Sarah Pine was just another Resto druid on the Dragonblight-US realm, an avid player who enjoyed healing tanks in guild raids once or twice a week while she worked on her master’s thesis in vertebrate paleontology (yes, dinosaurs) at the University of Oklahoma. In April of 2009, though, Sarah would respond to a forum post that would catapult her from everyday player to the role of guest writer for one of World of Warcraft’s most controversial NPCs.
Sarah is a longtime member of the LiveJournal community WoW Ladies, one of the largest World of Warcraft communities online. In March of last year, a member posted a link to a Blizzard creative writing contest — submit a 2,500- to 7,500-word
short story written in English and set in one of the Warcraft, StarCraft, or Diablo universes, and maybe win some sweet gear and a trip to Southern California to meet the Blizzard creative team. Sarah didn’t consider herself a writer — other than a high-school class in creative writing she’d had no formal training — but as a child she’d composed story outlines and character sketches, and as a regular player she’d spent a great deal of time thinking about World of Warcraft lore. It sounded like fun and Sarah began to work on a story.
“A lot of the storyline in World of Warcraft, from my perspective, revolves around atonement for past sins, and around the races finding their place in Azeroth,” Sarah says.
87
he story Sarah wrote for the contest reflects this psychological focus. In the main scene of "In the Shadow of the Sun," the de facto leader of the blood elves at Silvermoon, Lor’themar, visits Renthar Hawkspear and Aurora Skycaller at the Quel’Lithien Lodge in the foothills of the Plaguelands. Much of the scene is written in sharp, tense dialogue, bowstrings stretched, where it quickly becomes apparent that the blood elves’ abandonment of the high elves is not something easily forgiven. Lor’themar escapes with his life, but not without regrets.
Soon after Sarah turned in her story about Lor’themar she heard that the contest had received over 1,800 entries. She didn’t think much about her chances
of winning; she was just happy to have completed a piece of fiction. Meanwhile, the contest sponsors were blitzed. Micky Neilson, publishing group lead, says, "It took us by surprise — we had like 2,000 entries and only a month to read them all. We had to recruit a whole staff of volunteers to do an initial
read-through. The amazing thing was, when we finally got through
them all and sat down to discuss the stories, Sarah's was at the top, or near the top, of all of our lists. The decision to choose her story as the winner was unanimous.”
Director of creative development Jeff Donais came up with the idea of a creative writing contest as a way to engage the World of Warcraft community, and give members a chance to contribute to the story behind the World of Warcraft universe. The idea that they might uncover a new talent was an afterthought.
Meanwhile, back in Oklahoma, Sarah was getting a phone call from her friend Jeremy O’Brien, her housemate in college who had introduced her to World of Warcraft, telling her that she was the winner. "Best phone call ever,” Sarah says.
This could easily have been the end of the story — Sarah’s epic tale proudly displayed on the Blizzard website, a sweet
Frostmourne replica sword mounted on her
wall, and a weekend trip to sunny California.
Something about Sarah’s writing stuck with the folks at
Blizzard, though.
James Waugh, a senior story developer, says, "We thought about
ARAH
SARAH’S ENCORE
CANNOT DESCRIBE HO
FLOORED Mi THRILLED T
Sarah’s story about Garrosh Hellscream, 'Heart of War,” can be found at the World of Warcraft website: http://www. worldofwarcraft. com/cataclysm/ features/garrosh.
html
\ STORYTELLING
MUCH THIS YS. “I WAS ATH TQBE ASKED

bringing in a big-name writer for our next project, but it can take months to explain the characters and world to them. Sarah’s story showed a clear passion and understanding of the internal motivations that drive the World of Warcraft races. Plus, her characters just pop on the page.” The team decided to bring Sarah in.
In December of last year, Tommy Newcomer, associate publisher, made the phone call inviting Sarah to work with Blizzard further. Her assignment: Write another short story for the website, this time starring Garrosh Hellscream.
“I cannot describe how much this floored me,” Sarah says. “I was thrilled to death to be asked, but also incredibly intimidated, mostly because Garrosh was, and remains, such an unpopular and contro versial character. If you watch the trailer that was released for the Secrets of Ulduar update, Garrosh is a jerk. He’s undiplomatic, he makes ridiculous demands, he insults people. From a player point of view, Garrosh makes it hard to defend the position of the Horde.”
Micky and James agree that it was tough assignment. Micky says, "Part of the reason wre chose Sarah was because of how divided the community is over Garrosh. People either love him or hate him.” James adds, “It seemed like Sarah had the ability to get into the complexity of Garrosh’s character. Part of the problem with Gar
rosh is that people don’t understand his motivation; we thought Sarah could get into his head.”
In January, the publishing group flew Sarah out to Irvine to meet face-to-face and discuss the character. From there she spent four-and-a-half months working on her story while tossing ideas back and forth with the publishing team.
“I found writing Garrosh very, very challenging." Sarah says. “But eventually I hit on a story and structure I liked, and gave my draft to publishing at the end of May. From what I understand it has been well-received, which is a huge relief! We ll see how the players like it.”
Micky concurs that his team's work with Sarah was a success. “We were lucky to find her. Besides being an amazing talent, Sarah was a delightful person. Beaming, funny, smart We hope to find more like her in future writing contests."
What advice do Micky and James have for aspiring lore masters who would like to follow in Sarah’s footsteps? According to Micky, “You want readers to feel an emotional connection to the characters. When you reread your work, ask yourself: Do I care what happens to these people?” James adds, “Show us something new about humanity.”
MF
Rommath was more detached; he had met Sylvanas before and knew what to expect, but his horror was distant and impersonal, unlike Lor’themar and Halduron’s. To them, Sylvanas’ fate was a wound ripped raw again every time they looked upon her, and its pain had yet to dull.
In the hall where she stood, the light seemed to fade; it was not that it dimmed or dulled but that it collapsed and sunk into the space she occupied, coalescing instead into her eyes — not blue like the quel’dorei she had once been, or even green like the sin’dorei, but red like the flame of a funeral pyre. Their glow threw the pallid skin of her pinched face into even more horrific relief. She did not come alone, of course. A number of what Lor’themar assumed were Royal Dreadguards accompanied her, their blackened blades no less cruel for their condition.
They awaited him in silence. All Lor’themar could hear as he walked into the hall was the echo of his own footsteps, and even that seemed to fade unnaturally quickly in the presence of the Banshee Queen. There was no point in showing her to the meeting hall as he had Aethas, no point in doing anything but addressing her as she stood. She had no patience for such formalities.
"What brings you to Silvermoon, Sylvanas?” he asked.
She fixed her gaze upon him.
“I have just returned from Orgrim-mar,” she said. Her voice scraped against the walls. As her mouth moved, Lor’themar could see the skin around it crack and peel like a snake’s, as if it
were made of brittle parchment.
“Arthas has dared to strike at the heart of the Horde.”
Lor’themar's mouth went dry, and a great tide of unease began to rise in his chest as he realized what was coming next. Sylvanas paused a moment, scrutinizing his face for a reaction. He clenched his teeth but remained quiet.
“The attack was successfully repelled,” she continued at length. “But Arthas is only toying with us — we must bring the war to him. Warchief Thrall at last sees what we have long known.” Her eyes glittered with a dangerous eagerness. “The Horde prepares for war. And the sin’dorei, Lor’themar, comprise a portion of the Horde.”
Her words fell upon him and clattered to the floor like stones. He knew what she was asking, had always known that this day would come. And yet, as he stood in the hall, suddenly conscious of how its grand space swept up and above him, swallowing his presence, he found himself unable to respond.
“Lor’themar.” Sylvanas’ words shattered around him in impatience. “We go to destroy Arthas — once and for all.”
Slowly, Lor’themar shook his head.
“I appreciate that you and Warchief Thrall wish us to join you on the initial front in Northrend. But we are stretched too thin. We have already received a similar request from the Kirin Tor, but I cannot in good faith send our forces north. Since the events at Quel’Danas—”
“This is not a request, Lor’themar,” she interrupted. “You will send troops — they will accompany the Forsaken.” X
OR'THEMAR FROWNED.
Halduron and Rommath would have come themselves, and Aethas probably too, at this point. Had j Liadrin returned from Shat-trath? If so, she could wait.
“I am not available,” he replied flatly.
"My lord,” said the courier, “the Banshee Queen will not wait.”
Lor’themar felt his heart sink like a stone to the pit of his stomach. He swallowed and hoped his face did not appear as pale as it felt. He rose to his feet.
“No," he said quietly, “of course she won’t. Show me to her.”
The courier turned on his heel, but not without one uneasy glance at the regent lord. Lor’themar steeled himself as he followed.
He took the minutes that they spent walking to the front hall to collect himself, to remember his presentation. During the years he had now spent ruling Quel’Thalas, he had found it to be very nearly a physical action the way he had to draw the mantle of authority about himself. He could feel the change, right down to the tips of his fingers. It had gotten easier, of course, as time had passed, but where Sylvanas was concerned, it seemed all his careful diplomacy and guarded authority shrank and failed before the force of her presence.
Halduron and Rommath joined him silently as he walked the hallway, and this time Halduron did not try to convince Lor’themar to wear the Sunstrider tabard. The ranger-general wore a hard face.
STORYTELLING
HIS HEART SINK THE PIT OF HIS
DR’THEMAm
LIKE A STONE ________
STOMACH HE SWALLOWEto AND HOPED HIS FACE DID NOTAPPEA
PALE AS IT FELT.	^9
Thefollowing is an excerpt from “In the Shadow of the Sun,” Sarah’s winning entry.
TOYS
t's all too easy to get so excited about beating bosses and taking their stuff that you forget about all of the trinkets, gizmos, and consumables that you can have fun with along the way. Almost everyone has a few "just for fun” items stowed in their bank that they've acquired from quests or vendors they've bumped into while playing. Whether your personal stash only has a couple leftover snowballs or is bursting at the seams with every item you’ve ever seen that seemed even the slightest bit funny, there are plenty more fun and funny items out there in Azeroth for you to collect and enjoy — you just have to get out there and find them!
These sometimes-silly, always-entertaining knick knacks can be found just about everywhere in Azeroth, from starting zones to the corpse of the most powerful raid boss. Plenty are even earned through achievements, purchased from vendors, or crafted with your own two hands. But no matter where they come from toys like the
Noggenfogger Elixir (which can transform you into a skeleton) and Bhx s Eyesight Enhancing Romance Goggles (which make every other character in the game appear as female orcs; the gnome version is Belbi’s Eyesight Enhancing Romance Goggles) are the perfect way to have fun, entertain other players, and inspire envy in your friends and foes.
It’s easy to spot a toy collector — they’re the ones always pulling out a cool new pet or drinking a potion that does something you’ve never seen before (and frankly didn’t even know was possible). They’re the ones always entertaining friends in the capital cities and during raids.
Sound like something you might be interested in? If not, lighten up and read on anyway! Whether you’re looking to liven up your raid, turn heads at the auction house, or have some mischievous fun entertaining bystanders, clear out some bag space — your backpack’s about to become a toy chest!
FROM AIRPLANES TO OGRE SUITS, HERE’S HOW TO HAVE FUN WITH THE LIGHTER SIDE OF AZEROTH
tqe tqing
THE GNOME IN THE MIRROR
First things first: If you want to become the life of the party, you're going to have to start by revamping your character’s looks. You’re not going to be
bunny ears won’t burn your eyebrows off and will still put a few tricks up your sleeves, like letting you place bunny ears on other players, plant flowers, and turn other players into rabbits.
All you need to pull off that particular inspirational transformation is an old-school Gordok Ogre Suit. Crafted by
stabbing the amusement into your guildmates, so consider trading in those deadly daggers and pragmatic shoulder pads for some totally impractical-yet-stylish clothes.
Tailors can craft all manner of fashionable getups, from tuxedos to ball gowns, but the holidays offer some of the most eye-catching clothing options. And there’s no flashier holiday suit than the Midsummer Reveler set, which lights your character’s extremities on fire and makes him or her dance. If that sounds a bit too wild for your taste, Noblegarden might have a better option for you. That set’s earthy robes, flower bouquet, and
FRONTLINE ENTERTAINER
Of course, you can’t always afford to leave your armor behind. Between raid nights and downtime in Battlegrounds, the true toy collector is always prepared to entertain the troops between waves of enemies. And don’t underestimate the power of high morale in a battle — something as simple as turning your soft-spoken gnome into a massive, belly-dancing ogre can inspire your friends to great acts of heroism. Even if it doesn’t, at least you all had a good laugh together before your trip to the graveyard.
tailors and leatherworkers from
a recipe learned in the Dire Maul dungeon in Feralas, the suit turns you into a huge ogre for 10 minutes, with all the animations and emotes befitting your new bruiser body. These suits can be given to friends and are particularly great for use en masse during large-scale events like a guild race across the continent or a group screenshot after defeating a major raid boss.
Morpsend on the Moon Guard-US realm found a particularly fun use for the ogre suit: “I formed a raid to get the For the Horde achievement and made enough of the Gordok Ogre Suits for all 40
TOYS
4
members to wear while raiding the Alliance’s capital cities to kill each of the five leaders... It was totally worth it. Epic fun times.” Sure, the ogre suits didn’t technically make the players more powerful, but it’s amazing how much fun something as simple as a costume can add to a group activity like raiding the other faction’s capital cities.
► BACKUP WARDROBE
Of course, World of Warcraft lets you morph your character into a lot more than just ogres. Some other great ways to completely change your appearance are the Iron Boot Flask, a consumable purchased in Storm Peaks that turns you into an iron dwarf, and the Orb of the Sin’dorei, an item dropped by the bosses in Magisters' Terrace that gives you the appearance of a blood elf.
0 PARTICIPATE IN HOLIDAYS
Just about every in-game holiday has some fun toys that can be earned by participating, whether by collecting tokens and tickets or by killing holiday bosses. Highlight: Brazier of Dancing Flames (Midsummer Festival)
О THE TOY STORE
There’s no easier way to get started than visiting the master of toys himself — Jepetto Joybuzz. You can find him in his shop, The Wonderworks, in central Dalaran where he sells a sampling of what the wonderful world of gadgets has to offer.
Highlight: Grindgear Toy Gorilla
О BECOMEAN ENGINEER
Engineers make a few gizmos that anyone can use, but if you want to get the most out of this fun-oriented profession, you’ll have to learn how to turn those gears yourself. Everything from pets to disguises to bunny rabbit decoys that explode when attacked can be crafted by skilled engineers.
Highlight: World Enlarger
Build U our □tun Collection
0 BEFRIEND AN ALCHEMIST
Players skilled in crafting magical potions from herbs, fish, and anything else they can liquefy are capable of brewing some incredible consumables that anyone can enjoy. Visit the auction house or hit up an alchemist friend who will share his or her recipe list with you to start sampling from their “fun” list.
Highlight: Elixir of Giant Growth
THE QUICKEST WAYS TO FILL YOUR FIRST FEW TOY BAGS
Continued on 98
P5
Dressed for fun
HIGH-POWERED FLASHLIGHT
Even the smallest gnome won’t be ignored when the spotlight’s on! Turn attention to yourself or someone else with engineering’s brightest light.
ELIXIR OF GIANT GROWTH
Bigger is better, especi illy when it comes with a Strength buff like this potent potion from alchemists.
TITANIUM SEAL OF DALARAN
Tough decision to make? Hie faltering fisherman can flip this quality coin for a heads or tails result after they’ve fished up every coin from Dalaran’s fountain.
CRO’S APPLE
Join Cro’s crusade to destroy the fruit vendor of Shattrath by purchasing these apples from him and crushing them everywhere you can (especially useful as a taunt in PvP).
SLEEPY WILLY
This cute fella can be adopted from Shattrath’s orphanage during Children’s Week. He’ll even fry up some critters for dinner!
BREWFEST PONY KEG
Long raid nights can wear on a guild’s morale, but if you've mastered Brewfest, you can cheer everyone up with some free drinks!
BLUE CRASHIN’ THRASHIN’ RACER CONTROLLER
Jepetto’s own remote-controlled racer can crash and thiash with the best of'em. Battle other players’ racers anywhere in a makeshift demolition derby.
FOAM SWORD RACK
You won’t poke somebody's eyes out with these soft foam swords that can be used for child-friendly sword fighting. The first to three hits wins!
RED RIBBON PET LEASH
Dalaran’s esteemed pet owner can give you all sorts of wonderful accessories to show off your pet, including this scarlet leash.
IT’S NOT EASY BEING THE LIFE OF THE PARTY, BUT SOMEONE’S GOTTA DO IT!
X-52 ROCKET HELMET
Given to hardy adventurers who aid the star-struck goblins at Area 52 in Outland, this rocket helmet launches you into the air with a fiery blast and lets you safely float back down to the ground. It's usable anywhere you can fly.
TOYS
dr Rig t]t log for ItjeJob
IN TOWN
OUT AND ABOUT
WINNING?
Questing
Frenzyheart Brew
Explore / Gather
Just Chillin'
It s Nice Here
Need New Scenery
Disco Ball
I’m Fine, Need Some Pizza
Whoa, need help!
Workin' It
Yes
Maybe
Oops, that dance move a bit too dirty?
KUPOTHi RS Bl SY
Steamroll
How bad is it?
ж
Close, Need Edge
Disgusting Oozeling
Cro's Apple
Tabard of thb Protector
Orb of the Blackwhelp
Hide
How bad is it?
ж
Сом е Relhf
Orb of Deception
Lifegiving Seed
Super Simian Sphere
They aren't buying it
Romantic
Picnic Basket
Last Relic of Argus
Raid party
WINNING?
YES, SCREENSHOT NEEDED
We're Not Getting Along
Foam Sword
We're Having Fun
Brazier of Dancing Flame
Spring Flower
Levity
Fewer Players
More Toons
Baby Spice
Archmage Var goth's
spin your character in a random direction...er, that is, the exact direction destiny has determined you travel in!
beams to point at whichever mob you’re talking about.
Alternatively: Elune’s Candle
► Focusing Lens
Don’t leave any room for error when explaining tactics before the fight. Use these harmless laser
There’s no lack of mysterious potions, food, and oils you can consume to alter your appearance (and destroy your liver, no doubt). The Noggenfogger Elixir (sold in Tanaris) and Savory Deviate Delights (cooked к by players) are two of the most popular, but you’ll want to dig иР deeper if you really aim to surprise players with something new. Fish up Magic Eaters in Dalaran to turn yourself into all manner of weird animals, or chug some Pygmy Oils (made by alchemists) to turn yourself into a tribal gnome.
THERE’S NO LACK OF MYSTERIOUS POTIONS, FOOD, AND OILS YOU CAN CONSUME TO ALTER YOUR APPEARANCE
PLAYTIME!
Alright, so you’re dressed up and ready to party — but now you need some toys that you can actually play with! You’ve got a lot of options. Feeling lonely? Pull out a Romantic Picnic Basket (complete with red-and-white blanket, basket, and umbrella) and sit down at it. You’ll receive a Looking for Love buff and will fall in love with any other character who joins you for a romantic meal. Feeling lost? Pull out your Unusual Compass (earned from Dalaran’s fishing quest) and use it to
for the a« Raid tender >
► Green Smoke Flares Great for marking locations that play-er^ need to run to (or avoid) during a boss fight. The green variety is easiest to kpot, no matter which dungeon you’re in.
Alternatively: Elune Stone
► Wind-up Train Wrecker Inevitably, some joker will pull out a train to disrupt your inspirational speech before the big fight. Shut it up quick with your robot wrecker. Alternatively: Turn off your sound.
KEEPING THINGS ORGANIZED AND UNDER CONTROL
► BEING MISCHIEVOUS
More interested in grossing out the other players around you? Why not pull out your Disgusting Oozeling pet, which is so disturbingly gross that it turns you a sickly shade of green. Oh, and while you’re at it, toss some Dark Iron Ale or Bloodmaul Brutebane Brew (purchased in Blackrock Depths and looted from ogres in Blade’s Edge, respectively) on the ground. These place visible, oversized mugs of brew on the ground, and the Disgusting Oozeling
will even slime its way over to drink the Dark Iron Ale mugs with an emote!
Another way to have fun with the people around you is to stock up on Happy Fun Rocks (looted in Dire Maul), Heavy Leather Balls (made by leatherworkers), Rotund Relics (pickpocketed by rogues), and any of the other varied items that you can throw into other players’ inventories. Find a few accomplices and then all of you jump one of your friends at the same time, hurling as many of these objects at them simultaneously as you can. Not only
►Decahedral Dwarven Dice
The unbiased solution to all loot-related or personnel arguments. Everyone gets a number range, you roll the dice, and whoever it lands on gets the loot.
Alternatively: Worn Troll Dice
► Baby Spice:
That joker’s distracting your raid minions with flashy costumes and effects again? A quick dose of Baby Spice will shrink the troublemaker down to a size that’s easy to ignore.
TOYS
for The Raid jester
KEEPING PEOPLE ENTERTAINED AND
will it fill their inventory with toys, but the wave of objects flying at your friend is sure to turn a few heads and get some laughs.
►	Plump Turkey
This little guy is eager to be eaten — bring him near a cooking fire and he’ll make a beeline for it, dive in, and turn into a roasted turkey ready to eat. I bet your raid chef didn’t see that coming!
Alternatively: Stinker
►	White Smoke Flares
You’re not luring your raidmates to their death, you’re testing to see if they remember which color flare they were supposed to run to: white or green.
Alternatively: High-Powered Flashlight
►	Empty Brew Bottle
Using your own Focusing Lens is too obvious: You have to channel it and it points right back at you. Instead, chuck these bottles at friends and foes for some flashy effects.
Alternatively: Snowball
MORE THAN ONE WAY TO EARN LOOT
►	Toy Train Set
Sure, some uptight goody-two-shoes is going to smash it, but it’ll take them a little while to find their wrecker. Enjoy the mass train emotes and deafening choo choo sounds before they do. Alternatively: Piccolo of the Flaming Fire
In addition to all the routes within World of Warcraft to collect the fun items discussed in this article, you can earn some sweet gadgets through the official World of Warcraft
Trading Card Game. Each booster pack has a chance to contain Loot cards,
which give you a code to enter on the website to unlock unique toys, con
sumables, and other awesome stuff within the game. Items only available through the Trading Card Game will be noted with
this icon: Т/ next to their names in this article.
►	Super Simian Sphere
Gnome, orc — whatever you are, it’s not as awesome as a gorilla in an oversized purple, sparkly ball. The transformation only lasts five minutes, but you’re a party-in-a-ball while it lasts!
Alternatively: Time-Lost Figurine

MAKING YOUR OWN FRIENDS
Maybe you chose the wrong target for your “objects flying into your inventory” prank and suddenly you find yourself down one friendship. No big deal! You’ve got plenty of friends in your toy box to replace them! Consider the fabled fjjfa Imp in a Ball, which summons a poor little imp crammed into a tiny ball that floats in front of your character, answering any question you ask it. Its response might be cryptic or laden in insults — but can you blame it? The thing's stuck in that tiny ball all day long.
Don Carlos’ Famous Hat (dropped in Old Hillsbrad Foothills) will not only make you look like a mariachi star, but will summon a ghost wolf to follow you around. Not spooky enough? Check the auction house for a Haunted Memento. These items were only available for a limited time during the events surrounding the launch of Wrath of the Lich King, and cause an untargetable ghost to haunt whoever’s carrying it.
FIGHTING FOR FUN
But how good are these friends, really, if they won’t even fight for you? Luckily, there are trinkets galore that’ll bring you allies ready to lay down the hurt in all manner of surprising and hilarious ways. The Tiny Voodoo Mask (the best loot a toy collector can find in the troll temple of Zul’Aman) summons three female gnomes in full tribal outfits to overpower your enemies! If their lightning bolts don’t kill them, at least you can pick off players in PvP while they’re busy laughing at your tiny tribal gnome army.
If you’re uncomfortable with the black arts, you might find it more comfortable to call upon three peasants to fight for you (with all the skill expected of untrained domestic servants), using the Barov Peasant Caller trinket you earn questing in Western Plaguelands. Hmm, maybe you should've kept that friend. Ж
CT FEATURE
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SAMWISE DIDIER
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SAMWISE DIDIER
— IN HIS OWN WORDS
ou're already well-versed in the work of Blizzard senior art director Samwise Didier, but did you know that Warcraft _ ▼ was named after one of his Dungeons & Dragons characters? In addition to being the lead singer of Blizzard’s in-house band, Samwise has been helping to craft the Warcraft universe's distinctive visuals since the original Orcs & Humans. While his most recent work has been providing the art direction for StarCraft II, his influence can be found across the entire Blizzard family of games.
"I think the Warcraft franchise is my favorite just because we've been working on it since the very beginning of Blizzard," he says. “Warcraft just has it all. Its lots of colors, superheroic proportions, not a lot of fuss over the minutiae. Everything s big scale, right? The stories, the philosophies, everything. Rawr!”
We now present a collection of art hand-picked by Samwise Didier, with his comments on what makes these images special to him. Enjoy!

Sentinels vs. Scourge
Lone Panda & Cub
The First Pandaren
The Legend Reborn
LONE PANDA &CUB
SAMWISE DIDIER
The picture that started it all.
OUR HEROES
Epic battle picture. Hidden in here is a hydralisk from StarCraft, the initials T.E.E and a pandaren. Can you find and collect them all?
This pandaren-inspired piece pays tribute to one of my favorite stories on Earth.
This is just another day in the Eastern Plaguelands for our heroes. Note how the youngster is still asleep on his father’s back.
my friends in the metal band Hammerfall. It’s a reinterpretation of their mascot, Hector. Originally, Hector was a more traditional medieval knight on the band’s early album covers, but the more the band and I worked together, the more the guys were cool with me fleshing him out into the metalwinged, flaming-hammer-wielding hero he is today.

Dwarven Party Machines
Vie Giant Slayers
In Memory
АлК Д
SAMWISE DIDIER
DWARVEN
PARTY MACHINES
Dwarves are without a doubt my favorite Alliance race. They're squat, bearded brawlers with an affinity for ale, battle rams, and metal. Note the pink haired gnome and the cute night elf trying to keep up with the mighty bearded ones.

People have asked me what I like to draw in my spare time, so here’s an example. It’s an artistic interpretation of the classic fantasy hero shot done in reverse. Instead of one hero standing triumphantly on a pile of bodies, it shows a pile of heroes standing on one body. The art is very Warcraft in style and people have asked if this is World of Warcraft-retated. It’s not; this is just the way I have always drawn. Warcraft is in my blood. To draw any other way feels forced.

1 did this the night I found out Frank Frazetta died. His influence on me was immense, though our art is radically different in style. Here, the Alliance and Horde honor the Frazetta icon. Among the mourners is a pandaren and Rexxar, who was my artistic tribute to Darkwolf, a character in the Frazetta movie Fire and Ice.


This reworking of King Magni of Ironforge was created for the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game. He’s entering his avatar state, growing in stature and slowly transitioning into his stone form. The female dwarf in the picture is directly inspired by one of my woman’s World of Warcraft characters.

SAMWISE DIDIER
GATHERING OF THE TRIBES
DUEL AT THUNDER RIDGE
TWO-HEADED OGRE NINJA
LORD OF THE CLANS
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This art was created for our “Circle of Honor” commemorative stein that will be given out to Blizzard employees on their two-year anniversary. The picture incorporates our company’s original mascot from when we were called Silicon & Synapse. He’s the quasi-hip brain guy wearing the shades. I never liked his design — I mean, come on, he doesn’t even have shoulder pads!
Lord of the Clans
1
This is one of my favorite paintings. It’s a duel to the death between my two favorite races and my two favorite hero classes. Orc vs. dwarf. Blademaster meets Mountain King. Victory or defeat is insignificant compared to the spirit unleashed within the battle. Wow, that was some pretentious crap right there!

OBLE, YET SAVAGE. STRONG BUT RULED WITH INTELLIGENCE
The silent and deadly ogre ninjas have plagued Azeroth for ... never. This was a joke idea I came up with for Warcraft III and it eventually turned into a trading card for the TCG. The ogre is so proficient in the art of concealment that even the wisp is oblivious to him and goes about its business.
Duel at Thunder Ridge
Inspired by the "King Conan on his throne’ shot at the end of the Conan the Barbarian movie. Instead of the brooding Cimmerian we have the newly risen warchief, Thrall. At the time this was an important image because it showed the world what we were trying to achieve with our orcs and what the new Horde was all about. Noble, yet savage. Strong, but ruled with intelligence. Our orcs weren’t the typical mindless bloodthirsty brutes. We were pushing the boundaries of what people assumed about orcs.



SAMWISE DIDIER
TERRAN UP THE NIGHT
PALADIN
—
Z-OQt
I0P
This piece was created for an amazing band called TAFKAL80ETC (The Artists Formerly Known As Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain). Obviously the picture is a little more comical than the serious nature of the band’s musical work.
BLASTING
THROUGH THE STARS
►
It has been my honor for years to create the art for our annual Blizzard holiday card. I love it when our worlds collide. Note the zerglings and pink-haired gnomes оГ Santa orc has tallied up on the side of his bike.

We created night elves as a new playable race for Warcraft III. Since their addition to the Warcraft universe, they have become one of the most recognizable and iconic characters for Blizzard. I remember we had some difficulty selling the night elf concept that's been so embraced by our players. Yep, our elves are seven feet tall with blue and green hair, purple skin, and can shapeshift into predatory forest animals. Not your average elf, no sir!
This character really exemplifies to me what a paladin is in World of Warcraft. He’s a stoic and stern soldier who’s mighty in faith and in strength of arms. This art is based on the Warcraft III paladin hero, but juiced up a bit more. I believe this armor was modeled for one of the very first PvP sets one could attain in World of Warcraft.

108
®

HIS PALADIN IS A STOIC AND STERN SOLDIER WHO’S MIGHTY IN FAITH
ND IN STRENGTH OF ARMS


Broil the Druid

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By James Bernard Frost
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4ЖЕЕР YOUR? SHIRT ON*
GAMES THE SYSTEM WHEN IT COMES TO MAKING LICENSED APPAREL
ac ScuHham plays a level-85 troll druid in World of Warcraft, where he is a guild leader for JINX, a guild that concerns itself primarily with progression raids. In real life, though, Zac isn’t a healer, but the fashion and trending analyst for a company called JINX, a high-end manufacturer of officially licensed World of Warcraft T-shirts, hats, and other goodies.
JINX.COM
"fish" W4 On I

JINX
Zac Scuffham and Kyle McCarthy enjoy the chaos on the floor of BlizzCon.
“IF YOU PLAY A LOT OF GAMES. YOU JUST START TO SEE YOUR LIFE THAT WAY.”
hese guys are serious about
their craft. As Zac describes it, “We represent a lifestyle, and it is important that each and every person here is living and breathing that very lifestyle.”
JINX employees are gamers and self-described eggheads. Brolo, the resident programmer, is a first-person shooter aficionado. Rogan, an
illustrator, is a StarCraft 11 player. Oracle, a customer service rep, is a literature geek. And half the employees are max-level members of the company World of Warcraft guild.
JINX employees don’t so much have job titles as they do character names and classes. Brolo’s real name is Scott Benner, and he’s not just a programmer, but the progiammer-at-arms. Oracle’s real name is Kacia Castelli. She’s not a
customer service representative, but customer care-a-lot. And there’s an illustrator named Chris Hope, who enters mustache-growing contests, goes by Moustachio, and who’s known as the Photoshop warlock.
Employees at JINX wouldn’t be working there if they weren’t into games. We ask Sean “Jinx" Gailey, the co-founder and co-owner of JINX (his character class is creative overlord) if this

was a conscious approach or a more organic one. Sean laughs. "You know, it wasn’t something we planned, but I wasn’t surprised. If you play a lot of games, you just start to see your life that way"
The company even tries to turn their website (www.jinx.com) into a game. Visitors can earn JINX gold when they
buy products online, and JINX expert ence points for participating in contests, trivia, and blog comments on the company website, all redeemable for discounts later on. With experience, visitors can even earn titles and recognition.
Here’s how the JINX team goes about creating a T-shirt, in guild leader Zac’s own words: ]
112
115
BACK
FRONT
BACK
EXTERIOR LABELS
RATION
FRONT
EHRRD5H -
BACK
LEVEL ONE
LEVEL TWO
LEVEL FOUR
LEVEL THREE
FAMILIAR FACE?
You can check out what JINX is up to in Azeroth thanks to the magic of the Armory. The JINX guild, led by Hanimal, fights for the Horde on Runetotem-US.


HELLO WORLD
Most of our ideas get generated as part of weekly "think tank" meeting. We all meet in the Great Hall, a big open space at the center of our office that doubles as the location for epic ping-pong tournaments. The entire creative staff rolls in chairs and sits in a circle around a conference phone on a stool so people who work outside the office can listen in. We start by just checking in: Someone like Brolo will bring up some Internet meme he picked up on 4chan, and it’ll spark up ideas.
After a while, it gets more formal. People write down their ideas for T-shirt designs on Post-it notes and stick them on a white board, sort of
just letting their brains bleed out Thrall with a warhammer sitting on a wolf, for example Once we’ve got a whiteboard of stickers people come up and explain their idea If an idea is good, it kind of resonates, and people add more stickies on top of the original. It’s an informal voting system, and by the end, the good ideas are represented by big stacks of colored notes.
THE CONCEPT
We get about 10 or 15 ideas out of a session, and from there the idea moves to the art room. The four guys in the art room go all out. Mousta-chio’s got a wall full of skateboard decks that he designed Borador s


desk is covered with Diablo and Spawn action figures. Rogan is a Star Wars nut. His space is jammed with AT-AT walkers. This room has seri ous personality.
So Moustachio will take one of the ideas from a Think Tank session — say a worgen symbol — find an image of it, and pass it over to Lunch Box, our project coordinator, who then packages the concept and the image and sends it over to Blizzard s people for their opinion.
► THE SPIRITS INTERVENE There’s a lot of back and forth with Blizzard during the concept and sketching phases. Blizzard is serious about authenticity, and as the
resident World of Warcraft expert, part of my job is to make sure the perspective of gamers comes into play in our designs. Once we get past a simple "yes" or “no" on a design concept, it's a matter of nailing the detail. Maybe a gnome’s nose is too wide, or the phlogiston boiler on a zeppelin is missing. While this is going on, Lunch Box is making sure we re on schedule.
DRAWING, INKING, AND SAMPLING
Nothing happens without the talents of our illustrators. These guys bring a lot of influences, from skate culture to hip hop to high fantasy, to the drawing board. Borador, for example,
LEVEL FIVE
loves zombies, so his output is pretty gory. Physically, they’re on their computers using different Adobe tools: sometimes transferring work using a digital pad or sometimes hand-sketching, but really it’s about getting their imagination onto paper.
While they’re sketching, I’m deciding on the cut and color of the T shirt and placing an order through our warehouse people. Maybe a teal V-neck for a dragon design.
5
THE PRINT ROOM
Our screen printing is outsourced to a local printer. We send off the art, color blocks, and instructions — basically a blueprint — and then our truck delivers blanks to them from our warehouse. The place is super-noisy and industrial, with these spider-armed machines, each arm transferring a different-colored ink onto a T-shirt. Oftentimes, guys like Rogan will go down there to oversee the process, say if we want a vintage look that requires some care, where the inks need to absorb some of the garments color.
Before the entire run gets done, there’s a press check where we send a sample over to Blizzard to inspect the quality. Let's say we get the orange wrong — it gets sent back.
Before the shirts come back to us, they go to a finisher who puts tags on the tees, folds and bags them, and labels the bag by size. Sometimes, they’ll do some cool stuff, like an interior print of a logo or a clip label.
6
► TEAM WAREHOUSE
The warehouse is as full of characters as the rest of the office. Merlin is the warehouse manager. The warehouse guys are a bunch of
LEVEL SIX
amateur fighters: They have strength competitions and weight-loss charts down there. It’s like they take gaming to a physical level. They like to throw parties, but they’re serious about the place, too. You wouldn’t believe how elaborately organized it is. There’s a completely custom mobile cart and bin system so that multiple orders can be done at once. A printout comes organized so they can put an order together on the carts as they come down a row The warehouse is 18,000 square feet and all of it’s utilized.
LEVEL SEVEN
INTO THE UNIVERSE
The great thing about JINX is that everybody is spreading the word just by doing what they do best. Superfly will be on Facebook talking about last night’s episode of V, and it might seem natural to mention one of the latest print designs.
Online, we’ve found that our number-one source for new visitors is people telling their friends This led to the thought that our website could be a game, so we created the EXP program, where you essentially get experience points for participating in community activities on our site, such as a trivia contest or posting comments From there, you level up and get rewards and discounts. It’s like a kick-ass version of store credit.
We also do a lot of things that we’d do even if we weren’t at JINX. We throw or sponsor local events here in San Diego like the Street Fighter II tournament in North Park or a retro game night in La Jolla, and then there’s all the conventions, like BlizzCon and PAX. Technically, we’re there representing JINX, but we don’t mind being able to play Diablo III before it’s even in beta Ж
communfiUTE
OF LIFE
BY SHANNA GERMAIN
FOUR
INSTANCES
PLAYERS DISCUSS HOW THE EXPERIENCES THEY’VE SHARED IN AZEROTH EXPANDED INTO THE REAL WORLD
ow has World of Wai craft affected your life? If you’re anything
like most players, you’ve met new friends, kept in touch with some old ones, and maybe even learned a little someth people in the service of a common cause. Maybe you’ve found love in-game, or overcome your fear of heights by gaining your Going Down? achievement. Here are four World of Warcraft players who have tales of their own to tell.
Z
I JU


AZEROTH DOES A BODY GOOD
At the age of one, Mark Palermo was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. Seemingly healthy, his diagnosis only came after his brother was born with the disease. He lost both his brother and sister to it. “I very nearly joined them less than a year ago,” says Mark, “and this is where World of Warcraft comes in.”
Although Mark played online games, he didn’t try World of Warcraft until his need for a lung transplant at 22. Mark opened a trial account on his laptop and rolled a dwarf paladin named Masse. “My intent was originally to make him as close to Santa Claus as I could, since I didn’t intend to get too invested in a paid subscription game,” he says. “My rea soning was that my life expectancy at the time could be measured in months or less, and leaving my parents with a recurring payment and no knowledge of how to access the account was not something I wanted to do.”
At nearly six feet, he weighed just 112 pounds. “The transplant team was
I’D SAY A FEW HUNDRED GLASSES OF MILK WERE
CONSUMED!’
unwilling to operate on a patient that was so underweight and decreed that if lungs should become available, I must be at least 150 pounds to receive them.”
“I pledged that I would gam the necessary 40 pounds as quickly as possible by normal means,” he says. “Masse had just passed level 10, and was finding Ice Cold Milk left and right. I decided that every time Masse drank a glass, I would drink a glass. If I had to guess, I’d say a few hundred glasses of milk were consumed. Roughly a month later, my weight was up to the requisite 150 pounds and Masse was almost level 20, and still drinking Ice Cold Milk.”
On April 1 Mark was flown to another hospital for his transplant. After a month of intense rehab he went home, nearly two months ahead of his recovery schedule, and began playing regularly as Phoroneus, a draenei paladin on Silver Hand-US.
“I have no qualms about subscribing anymore, as I can once again expect to live years,” Mark says. “It’s cliche to say that World of Warcraft players have no life, but in my case it’s at least partly because of World of Warcraft that I have a life at all.”
PLAYER STORIES
both when they were together and when they were on opposite sides of the world. “I can’t describe how painful it was to be apart,” he says. “But we could travel this wonderful world, escape for a while, and forget that we were apart, because when I was tanking and she was burning souls, it felt like we were together.”
In the end, the couple made their Azeroth dreams a reality: They got married and now live together in England, where they’re still playing World of Warcraft as Torgsunstorm and Scarletsun on the Nordrassil EU realm. “We love the lore, so we take our time,” he adds. “We read about a zone, about its towns and stories. About the evil that lurks around, the instances and rare mobs. It might take us a bit more time than most people, but for us it isn’t about getting to level 85, it isn’t about raiding or getting rich. For us, it’s about the ride. We want the adventure to last as long as possible.”
There’s a lot of love flying around Azeroth, but not all of it is strictly in game. For Tomas Roldan, true love started in Argentina, flew to England, then landed smack in the middle of Azeroth.
While living in Argentina, Tomas met Catherine via an online social app, and fell in love. It was during Tomas’s first visit to England that World of Warcraft came into the picture. “At first, 1 was I too scared to openly reveal how much of a geek 1 was, because she wasn’t one,” says Tomas, a selfproclaimed game aficionado and lore hound. “Then, about four weeks before I returned to Argentina, she asked if I’d
I ever played something called World of Warcraft. She pulled i out a 10-day trial from her J drawer. As it turns out, she had a geek inside her and didn’t even know it.”
The two began playing,
“WHENI WAS TANKING AND
SHE WAS BURNING SOULS, IT FELT LIKE WE WERE -
TOGETHER!’

MARKS OF HONOR
While cancer prevented Michelle Anderson’s late father, Donald E. Foster, from playing World of Warcraft with her, the two shared the game in other ways. “I would talk to him about World of Warcraft, and he would chuckle as he listened,” she says. “If my dad could have played, he would have picked a night elf druid. He loved druids and elves since before I can remember. He gave me my passion for reading and fantasy lore at a young age.”
After her father passed away in October, she created three new characters, all dedicated to his memory. “As I play each of these characters, I remember lovely things about my father," she says. For Cataclysm, Michelle plans to make a male tauren paladin, strictly because of the dance emote.
I LAUGH EVERY TIME I SEE A TAUREN MALE DANCE...
“My father would dance like that when he was trying to be cute or funny/ she says. “I laugh every time I see a tauren male dance. It also brings tears because I can’t see my father do that dance anymore.”
Michelle shares the same birthday as her father and plans to dedicate the day to playing the characters she’s made on Shadow Council-US. “This will ease the crushing pain of having my first birthday Avifhout being able to share it with my father,” she says. “If it hadn’t been for World of Warcraft, I think I would be lost for a tribute for my father. When I get so sad or depressed because he is gone, or when I miss him so much the ache is crushing, I hop on one of the characters I made for him and it brings a smile, because it brings so many loving memories.”
118
Ji
RITE OF VISION
PLAYER STORIES

“I CAN DO MY JOB AND DO IT WELL WITHOUT BEING BOTHERED BY limitations:’
World of Warcraft is known for its distinct visual style. For Andrea Carrier, who was born with cataracts that rendered her blind, the game’s simple, clean lines were more than just stylistic choices — they made it possible for her to play despite her visual impairment. “Before World of Warcraft, my real-life social experiences were limited,” she says. “I was shy, withdrawn, had few friends and no close ones at all.”
Andrea, who’s had a number of surgeries to give her some limited sight, says the discovery of World of Warcraft changed everything. “With World of Warcraft those problems were pretty much solved. I mean, my friends and I can’t hop in a minivan for a weekend road trip, but honestly, raiding is a great substitute for that. We’re all together working for a common goal and having loads of fun in the process. For once, I feel like an equal member of a team. I can do my job and do it well without being bothered by limitations.
OUR BLIZZCON GUEST
I feel like a normal person with a normal circle of friends.”
The changes the experience brought didn’t stop in-game, however. “Along the way, I grew more involved and became more open in social situations,” she says. “This actually led to me being more capable in real life as well. I didn’t notice at first, but looking back over the years, I’m much more open and can speak more comfortably with people now.”
After playing Iscarix on Maelstrom-US on dial-up for years, Andrea and her sister even organized a campaign to get high-speed Internet in their area. “I had to take charge and call several people, most of whom I didn’t even personally know,” she says. “The conversations were smooth and the anxiety I used to feel was pretty much gone. I think World of Warcraft is a great character builder — and not just with pixels! The game gave me a lot of what I was missing, and thus allowed me to level up in real life as well.”
Sometimes you just need a break from real life, and that’s what we offered in our BlizzCon trip giveaway.
We plucked Diane Corringfrom her job as a certified nurse aide in Nebraska for a few days to let her and a friend have the run of BlizzCon. Diane says she plays World of Warcraft so she can “meet new people, then make trips to meet them!” “This was my first BlizzCon, and I had the time of my life!” Glad we could help you out, Diane!
communiry
F
IF YOU THOUGHT THAT TAILORING, COOKING, AND JEWELCRAFTING WERE ONLY FOR CREATING IN-GAME ITEMS, THEN YOU HAVEN'T MET THESE TALENTED ARTISANS
OSXXD XXSVD
REAL-WORLD CRAFTING
Жп exquisitely detailed sculpture of Grom Hellscream, roaring in battle rage. A cartoonstyle plush purple replica that gives a bonus to spirit. Hearthstone cookies, designed to transport players to the Plane of Mouthwatering Bliss with just one bite.
Whatever their in-game professions, World of Warcraft players around the world are bringing the game’s weapons characters, places, and stories into the realm of reality with modeling clay, foil, felt, fabric, inspiration and a little help from their friends.
For many, taking the Azeroth experience and bringing it into the real world with hands-on creations offers crafters a way to get closer to their characters and friends. For others, it’s something else as well: a way to give back to the World of Warcraft community.
crafts to make the world — in-game
saw the moonkin on my desk and the
► JANA STOUT, who plays Serthi-da, a tauren druid on Bloodhoof-US, often makes plush recreations of her and her friends' toons. From her first Horde moonkin to her fuzzy felhunt er (a gift for her boyfriend’s sister, and which she named Thoodrum) to her in-progress Onyxia pinata (“She won’t be full of hats and weapons — probably just candy.”), Jana uses her
and out — a better place.
"I believe that if you're given a creative gift, it should be used to make people around you happier,” she says. “Making people smile with my creations is the most rewarding part of crafting them in the first place.” To that end, she recently crafted a pink recreation of an Alliance moonkin for Raid for the Cure’s Susan G. Ko
men fundraising raffle. The moonkin went all the way to Scotland, where he now lives on his new owner’s
desk.
She also spreads the word about both World of Warcraft and crafting, via in-person exchanges and online meetings. “I've encouraged and advised guild members on their own crafting projects, even doing
“I BELIEVE THAT IF YOU’RE GIVEN A CREATIVE GIFT,
IT SHOULD BE USED TO MAKE PEOPLE AROUND „ YOUHAPPIER.”
1
streaming video chat before raids to let guildies watch me work on sewing projects,” she says. "And while we were settling into our new apartment, 1 met two World of Warcraft players in two days — my downstairs neighbor recognized the plush moonkin, and our cable guy told us all about his paladin when he
screenshots on my desktop. 1 love meeting other players in real life!”
She especially likes to help non-crafty players find ways to represent their passions. “Simple things such as the colors of your faction’s battle standard can be applied to all sorts of different mediums,” says Jana. "I'm wearing a friendship bracelet that’s based on the colors of Serthida's tier
9 Runetotem gear. I loved the warm browns with the cyan, which are also the colors of Thunder Bluff.”
That's one of the great
>s about real-life rafting — you don’t have to raise your skill level to 300
I before you I can fashion
H something worthwhile.
"1 think it’s
W important that anyone aspiring to make their own crafts just tries,” Jana
says. “Even if your first project doesn’t come out perfectly, the whole thing will have been a learning experience, and you can apply that knowledge to your next endeavor. Be brave! World of Warcraft is an amazing, vivid, and huge world that is easy to get wrapped up in, but it’s also a great source of inspiration.”
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paladin on Frostmane-US, has a great deal of experience both gaming and sculpting, so it made sense to combine his two passions. “When I was younger, I played the original [ Warcraft] RTS games and loved them,” Michael says. “They influenced me to create entire armies of orcs, ogres, dragons, and humans out of modeling clay and LEGO blocks. I even made a LEGO Blackrock Spire — all black, of course.”
Michael’s newest sculptures including the likes of Grom Hellscream and Thrall, are much more intricate, elaborate, and time-consuming projects. He starts with a wire frame and then builds the creations with polymer clay and aluminum foil. "I find with sculptures like these, I can do a better job when I cut them in half,” he says. “I do the lower body, from the hips down, in one sculpt, and from the waist to the neck in another. I have to make the weapons separately as well because of their weight. The head is last usually. After that I just make sure it looks right, then I make sure it feels right. After all, I want an orc! Then I bake the whole thing together, and my wife paints it.”
Michael, who says it took him about a month to create his detailed replica of Grom and quite a bit longer to build his Thrall, takes his design inspiration from the best place possible: the source. “I used Blizzard’s very own cinematic to create Grom,” he says. “I just kept watching it over and over, pausing now and then. For Thrall, I actually used the cover from Lord of the Clans. The armor and look of Thrall is quite different now, but I went from the book."
“When it comes to World of Warcraft, I could create anything,” he adds. “The look and feel of the game is so incredible and unique.”
“THE BOOK ЖЖВ nn ОТ SHI ОЖЗИЕ IS SO INCREDXB1E ХЖВ V1KXOVE “
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REAL-WORLD CRAFTING
► APRIL WALKER, who maintains a number of characters on various realms to keep up with her friends, but mostly plays as Mightykiwi (“one of those elusive female dwarves’’) on the Staghelm-US realm, has also found crafting to be a great way to combine her two passions of art and gaming. “1 love World, of Warcraft, and I love making custom toys, so a World of Warcraft-themed one was bound to come along sometime,” April says. “I have all different kinds of hobbies, but making custom toys is probably
"IT'S НТК TO SHKRE EXPERIENCES BOSK 1Ж-СХЖЕ XKD XBOVT OVR PROTEO TS."
one of the most rewarding.”
April has a number of real-life friends who share her dual passions of gaming and custom toy creation. “It's fun to share experiences both in-game and about our projects,” she says. “And it’s super-fun to surprise them with your new-
est World of Warcraft-inspired project.” While some of her toys have ended up as gifts for her friends, she’s designated the majority of them for a unique project. "I have kept most of my customs for my own collection and display, and am
Й planning on basing a gallery around them next year as part of a senior thesis for college,” she says. “Now if only I can get an achievement for finishing a custom!”
LIANE BEHRENS
I I JmS^^ffi^fen't any achievements for out-of-game crafting, there are innu merable rewards for newbie and grand master ciafters alike Role-players, for example, find that crafting can help them get deeper into the game and into the mindset of their charac ters Or, in the case of role-playing enthusiast into the mindset of a
character’s minion. “1 was really getting into playing my warlock,” says Behrens, whose level 74 warlock, Antigone, resides on the Sentinels-US realm. “Antigone’s voidwalker was her only friend, really, so 1 was spending a lot of time with him out while Antigone hung out in inns and taverns and the like.”
While she played, she started noticing the simple design of the creature. "I drought about how easy it would be to make a little felt voidwalker, so one afternoon I set to work,” she says. A short time later, Antigone's in-game friend took physical form.
Since that first minion, she’s made half a dozen purple plushies — and one hand crafted felt ghoul — for other warlock friends. “All of my World of Warcraft craft s have been made into gifts,” she says. “Most of my friends expected their voidwalk ers, but they were still always so excited to get them. I started adding individual nametags, and one voidwalker even had
a felt pineapple attached to it, since his recipient lives in Hawaii. There s also a voidwalker in California and one in Washington state.”
ijv

COOKING:
REQUIRES: LEVEL 1
INSCRIPTION:
REQUIRES: HORDE OR ALLIANCE FACTION
Source:
Artisan Inscription Trainer
Source:
Artisan Cooking Trainer
sugary goodie format. How could that not be enjoyed?”
Of course, sometimes good intentions can go a little awry. The shape of a particular berry gave Jocelyn a spark of inspiration for a new way to support her husband's Horde character, but the end results, while still delicious, weren't exactly something to crow about on the chat channel. “I've spent several hours trying to make Horde logos out of strawberries,” she says. “So, just in case anyone has a sudden urge to make a strawberry Horde logo, they should know that it’s awfully tricky. I’ve yet to make it work, but that’s okay. Strawberries are delicious in any form, even if it’s a botched faction logo.”
Xn Azeroth characters have to pick their primary professions carefully, since they’re only allowed two. On Earth, player crafters don’t have to narrow their choices — which is a good thing, since many find that they can't just stop at one or two types of art. Some get excited by the possibilities and start seeing everything in terms of “How can I make that?”
Take, for example, NICOLE FOWELL, a level-80 night elf priest on Korgath-US, who plays alongside her husband, her brother, and a group of close local friends. She’s made everything from a chocolate and fondant Alliance cake to miniature hand-sculpted gryphons to a World of Warcraft clock that displays both realm time and local (Australian) time.
“I'm a mad crafter in general, so I don’t have a specific type of craft I prefer,” Nicole says. “Making World of Warcraft-inspired crafts was really a natural progression from my love of fantasy art. Many of my sketches and paintings are fantasy-based, and when I began sculpting miniatures my first inspiration came from the game graphics I spend so much time admiring.”
For her, the diversity provides her with just one more connection to her many friends and family that play. “Crafting allows me to make one-of-a-kind items as gifts for my gaming friends and family,” she says. “Gamers seem to be really hard to craft for since their main hobby is intangible, so World of Warcraft crafts allow me to show my love by making them something really special that means something to them. Also, I spend a lot of time admiring the artwork that goes into the game, so I use the amazing talent of the World of Warcraft artists to inspire me to achieve greater successes. So much time goes into the imagery and story, it seems a waste to just zoom through without stopping to smell the Frost Lotus.” Ж
Whil JOCELYN ANDERSON
doesn't play World of Warcraft herself, her boyfriend, Jason Waters, has been playing since open beta. With several level-80 characters on different realms, he is a dedicated aficionado — and she’s a dedicated baker. So what better way to restore Jason’s health and mana than by whipping up some World of Warcraft cookies, cupcakes, and cinnamon buns?
“Jason is a big fan of World of Warcraft, so I thought to make something along the game’s lines,” Jocelyn says. “I used the Horde’s faction logo, as that’s what he was playing at the time. The World of Warcraft items are put to good use — they're devoured! I mean, World of Warcraft items in
REAL-WORLD CRAFTING
Jocelyn Anderson
Nicole Fowell
1. Mix brown sugar and cinnamon until well blended
2. Add blue food coloring paste until mixture turns blue (tliis will take quite a
USE: Temporarily satisfies your desire to eat co< les. If eaten while already in <home location:*, it will transport you to <home location:*.
4. Tape your image onto a piece of craft foam and carefully cut out your stamp. Use a new blade in your craft knife for a clean, snag-fiee cut.
5. Glue your foam stamp onto a piece of scrap timber or very firm cardboard. When dry, ink up and get stamping!
USE: Make custom cards, gift labels, and wrap ping paper Artisan crafters can try their hand at stamping fabric to produce faction bandanas, hats, shirts, and bags.
3. Dust the area wt :h flour and roll out the dough (aim for a rectangle shape)
4. Sprinkle the dough with the sugar mixture, then roll it up carefully
5 . Chill the dough for a few hours to let it stiffen
6. When ch lied, slice into sections that are about 1/4” thick
7. Lay on cookie sheet with a few inches between them 8. Bake for about 8 minutes at 350°F, or until the cookies are golden brown
REAGENTS:
Sugar cookie dough (home made or store-bought) for 2 dozen cookies
Blue food-coloring paste
1 cup light brown sugar
2 tablespoons cir namon
REAGENTS:
Glue, tape, pen, craft knife, stamp pad, picture of your faction logo, foam sheet, scrap of timber
1. Get a clear picture of your faction’s emblem. Simple is best!
2. Print out the image at the size you want and trace around the picture, simplifying it if you need to.
3. Color in the areas you will be removing.
conimuniTM
' -/X /a
COOKING


LEARN TO CRAFT IN GAME DISHES IN YOUR OWN KITCHEN
ШкЬ all due respect to Common and Orcish, food is the universal language throughout Azeroth. Whether a group of friends is sharing a Romantic Picnic Basket or you re scarfing down a Fish Feast before toppling Sindragosa, the cooking skill brings players together, awards achievements, and provides useful buffs. While there I 'may not be an Azeroth aisle in your local supermarket yet, many players have found ways to bring the in-game recipes to life. With a little creativity, inspiration from “'’'.fellow gamers, and our recipes, you’ll be able to throw a World of Warcraft dinner party that would even impress Katherine Lee.
"There’s nothing we can’t cook,” says Shelbi Roach, who plays on the Dark Iron-US realm. Along with her husband, Jon, Shelbi has been crafting their take on Warcraft menu items since 2007.
Shelbi and Jon have been playing since the open beta, but neither brings any professional culinary experience into the kitchen, choosing to let their taste buds guide them. “We’ll often start out with a basic existing recipe to determine any additional ingredients we might need,” Jon says. “We'd then try to match up the in-game ingredients with a real-world counterpart, like substituting crab for spider legs in the case of the Gooey Spider Cake.” From there, Jon explains, it’s a lot of trial and error. Sometimes the couple has to rework a recipe over and over until they are satisfied that it lives up to the game’s model, but their ambition and determination always win out in the end
“We actually ended up doing a Winter Veil Feast for a family gathering,” Jon says. The spread included Chocolate Squares, Winter Veil Roast, Cookies, Egg Nog, and Shelbi's favorite dish, Spice Bread. “It was a pretty big hit even with the non-gamers in attendance.”
The Texas couple aren’t the only gourmets who enjoy the holiday spirit.brewmaster Fundqja of Hyjal-US recently lived up to his title when he threw a Brewfest party with his friend^. “We had root beer in steins instead. And a friend brought fake mustaches,” Funden says. “ e also had a sample of, or the closest we equid et to, the foods needed for the Brewfest Diet achievement.” To round out the festivities, Funden organized a foot race to simulate the holiday ram races.
Running around the living room or donning a dwarven mustache doesn’t meke a great dinner party by itSelf, though it can’t hurt. The proof is on the plate Using Shelbi's and Jon’s techniques, Fundens spirit, and our recipes as a jumping-off point, you'll have everything needed tp become a Grand Master Cook.
SULFURON
Slammers
Makes i drink
Г old by Plugger
Spazzring in Blackrock Depths, this drink promises to set you on fire. Here, we opt for fire safety with only a touch of flames. Everclear is extremely flammable, so completely wipe down the sides of the glass and table before lighting. Always blow out the flame gently, but completely, before drinking. Use a thick shot glass to avoid cracking. For a non-alcoholic version, top peppermint cocoa with whipped cream mixed with a few drops of orange food coloring.
11/4 ounces Kahlua or other coffee liqueur 1/2 ounce cinnamon schnapps
1/4 ounce Everclear
DIRECTIONS
Spiced Chili Crab
Makes 24
DIRECTIONS
Critter Bites
Makes 24
Pour Kahlua into a 2-ounce shot glass. Layer with cinnamon schnapps and then Everclear.
Carefully light the edge of the shot glass. You may need to dim the lights to see the blue flame. Carefully, and completely, blow out the flame. The rim of the shot glass will be hot. Shoot the drink.
DIRECTIONS
The Alliance should plan ahead and purchase this level-40 recipe when questing in Westfall and store it in the bank, while the Horde can pick it up in Swamp of Sorrows or Stranglethorn Vale. This version uses the flavors of a popular Singapore street food and pairs it with cucumbers that provide a refreshing relief from the strong heat of the Thai chilis. If you’re hesitant about the heat, you can start with one or two chilis and add more to taste.
6 Thai red chilis, stems removed
6 garlic cloves
3 tablespoons ketchup 1 tablespoon sugar 2/3 teaspoon red miso paste 2/3 teaspoon lime juice 1/2 pound lump crab meat, picked over for cartilage
11/2 spring onions, sliced
(or substitute 3 green onions, sliced) 1 cup cilantro, coarsely chopped, divided
2 English cucumbers
In a food processor, finely chop chilis and garlic Add ketchup sugar, red miso and lime juice Puree until evenly incorporated.
Mix crab onions and 3/4 cup cilantro together. Stir in the chili mixture. Cover and refrigerate for at least two hours (can be made 1 day ahead).
Wash the cucumbers, drying with a towel afterwards. Leaving the skin on, cut them into 24 1-inch thick slices. Gently press the cucumber slices with a paper towel to absorb some of the water. With a melon bailer or a spoon, scoop out a small crater in the center of the slice, about three-quarters of the way through. Be careful not to carve through to the opposite side. Fill each cucumber with a heaping mound of crab mixture. Sprinkle with remaining cilantro. Can be refrigerated, covered in plastic, an hour ahead. Cucumbers will leak water so do not store on the intended serving plate.
This Northrend recipe gives you control over critters, but our ver sion will have guests, not just turkeys and squirrels, following you around the room. The grape jelly adds a surprising sweetness that pairs with the spice from the chipotle and barbecue sauce.
Meatballs
1 pound lean ground beef
1 pound ground pork
2 cups bread crumbs 1/2 cup 2% milk 1 cup red onion, chopped 3 eggs
2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, finely chopped
4 tablespoons adobo sauce
1	1/2 teaspoons salt
2	cups vegetable oil, divided
1/2 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
Sauce
1 cup spicy barbecue sauce
1 cup grape jelly
With your hands, combine the first 9 ingredients (ground beef through salt) so everything is evenly dispersed. Form the meat into 1 1/2-inch balls, handrolling with gentle pressure.
Over medium heat, barely cover bottom of pan with oil. Heat oil until hot but not smoking. Working in batches, add meatballs to the pan without crowding. Brown on all sides and cook through. Set aside cooked meatballs, scrape up, and discard any scraps from the pan. Add more oil if necessary and repeat until all meatballs are cooked. If making ahead of time, cool to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate (can be made 1 day ahead).
If refrigerated, bring meatballs to room temperature. In a large saucepan over medium-low heat, whisk together barbecue sauce and grape jelly. Add meatballs, tossing to coat in the sauce, and heat through. Once warmed, keep on the stove over a low heat, stirring occasionally until ready to serve. Sprinkle on chopped parsley and serve with toothpicks.
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COOKING

Dirge’s Kickin’ Chimaerok Chops ► Makes б pork chops
Г peak to Dirge Quikcleave in Tanaris for the quest that will reward you with the only Epic cooking recipe in the game to date. Dirge uses hard-to-farm Chimaerok Tenderloin, while we opt for the easier-to-find pork chops. However, even Dirge would envy the heat these bring. Goblin Fuel has nothing on the combination of habanero, rum, brown sugar, and pineapple that kicks up the grilled meat. The alcohol in the rum will cook off, or you can substitute a low-sodium chicken stock.
► 6 Rib cut pork chops Marimlde
1/4 cup vegetable oil
6 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
► Relish
2 cups pineapple, chopped
3/4 medium red bell pepper, chopped
3/4 cilantro, coarsely chopped
1 1/2 habaneras, finely chopped (wear gloves when chopping/handling habaneras)
► Glaze
11/2 cups dark rum
11/2 cupspineapple juice
11/2 cups brown sugar
л-2
DIRECTIONS
In a zip-top bag or plastic container, combine marinade and chqps, tossing‘to coal. Refrigerate overnight.
Combine ingt<?3ients for relish and Refrigerate, covered, overnight.
Heat a grill to 450’ F or a cast iron pan over medium-high heat. Sear the pork chops on both sides (scrape off garlic pieces if cooking in a pan so they won’t burn) and reduce to 400 or medium heat and cook until the internal temperature reaches 160 F. Cover loosely in foil and let rest 5 minutes.
While the meat rests, in a large saucepan over medium-high heat combine rum, pineapple, and brown sugar. Stir frequently until the glaze thickens.
Pour glaze over pork chops and liberally top with relish.
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COOKING
Mystery Stew
► Makes 6 servings
Г art of Ле fun in stew is the variety of ingredients you can use. Tire surprise in the Desolace recipe and this version is a full-bodied stout that brings depth to the mystery meat. Feel free to experiment and make it your own by adding potatoes or substituting buffalo meat. The alcohol will cook off, or you can replace the stout with low-sodium beef broth and add 2 additional prunes.
2 pounds lean beef stew meat cut into 1 -inch cubes
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon black pepper 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper 2 large, red onions, chopped 4 cloves garlic, chopped 2, 6-ounce cans tomato paste diluted in 2 tablespoons of water 4 cups Guinness or any stout beer, divided
2 tablespoonsWorcestershire sauce
2 bay leaves
2 cups low-sodium beef broth 3 cups carrots, coarsely chopped 6 pitted prunes, finely chopped 1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 cup fresh flat-leafparsley, coarsely chopped
DIRECTIONS
Toss beef in 1 tablespoon oil. Mix together flour, salt, and black and cayenne pepper. Dredge the beef in flour mixture.
Heat remaining oil in a large, 8-quart pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Saute onions, stirring, until soft and slightly translucent. Add garlic and saute for 30 seconds.
Add tomato paste and reduce to medium heat. Cover and cook for 5 minutes.
Add 1 cup of Guinness and deglaze the pan by scraping up any brown bits with a whisk or wooden spoon. Add the remaining beer and next six ingredients (through thyme) and stir. Reduce heat to low and cover, keeping at a simmer. Stirring occasionally, cook for 2-3 hours, until meat is tender and pulls apart easily.
Remove bay leaves, sprinkle with paj-sley, and serve. A
Sporeggar Mushrooms
Makes 6 servings
In World of Warcraft, these little mushrooms found throughout Outland and Northrend don’t grant a buff, and are often vendored. However, here they perk up a dish and bring a rich earthiness to the meal.
24 ounces brown mushrooms, sliced in half vertically
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted 2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons black pepper
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons fresh thyme, chopped
DIRECTIONS
Pre-heat the oven to 475” F.
Toss mushrooms with melted butter, salt, pepper, and lemon juice. Line a baking sheet with foil and place mushrooms in a single layer. Sprinkle with thyme.
Bake for 8 minutes or until mushrooms are firm but easily pierced with a fork. Serve.
DUICIOUJ
DKinKJ
KUNGALOOSH
Makes 2 drinks
Runn Tum Tubers Makes 6 servings
If you’ve finished the prerequisite quests in Sholazar Basin, the Washed-Up Mage in the Dalaran sewers can teach you how to make this fruity delight.
2 ounces vodka
1	1/4 ounces coconut rum 3/4 ounce Midori (melon liqueur)
2	ounces pineapple juice 3 ounces orange juice
4 cups ice
3 drops green food coloring (optional)
DIRECTIONS
Blend first 6 ingredients, through ice. Mix in food coloring for an unnaturally green look. If watery, add additional ice to reach the consistency of a daiquiri.
These tubers, only found within Dire Maul, receive a real-world interpretation that takes an underappreciated vegetable and turns it into a showstopper. You can substitute carrots or other root vegetables for the parsnips.
18 medium parsnips 3 tablespoons olive oil 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
4 tablespoons fresh rosemary, finely chopped
DIRECTIONS
Pre-heat the oven to 400” F. Line 2 baking sheets with tin foil. Lightly grease the baking sheets with cooking spray or a small amount of oil.
Cut off the ends of the parsnips and cut into 1/4-inch slices.
Toss the parsnips with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Sprinkle liberally with rosemary.
Bake until edges are slightly browned and a fork easily pierces the center. Serve.
Non-Alcoholic Kungaloosh
Makes 2 drinks
This fruit smoothie is
closer to a milkshake in consistency and richness. Add the sugar gradually as the sweetness of the strawberries will determine the flavor.
2 cups frozen strawberries, slightly thawed 1/4 cup orange juice 1/4 cup pineapple juice 6 ounces vanilla yogurt 1/4 cup sugar
DIRECTIONS
Blend first 4 ingredients (through yogurt) in a blender until smooth. Stir in sugar to taste.
151
By Casey Lynch
CRUTIDUJ! THt cnncrui FRTH TO
FOR MOST, LEVELING A CHARACTER TO 80 PRESENTS ENOUGH OF A CHALLENGE. BUT FOR ONE STALWART PLAYER, THE PATH TO 80 WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN THE SAME UNLESS HE DID IT WITHOUT DYING
152
UNDYING WARRIOR
I
aining experience. Leveling. Amassing reputation. Dinging.
If you’ve been playing World of Warcraft for a while, you’ve likely progressed from a
gray-toting level-1 noob to a level-80 deathdealing machine. What you probably haven’t done is attempt to do so without dying. And why would you? There’s currently no in-game
SO HOW DOES ONE GO ABOUT GETTING TO 80 WITHOUT DYING?
VERY, VERY CAREFULLY
achievement, no title, and no easy way to show off your accomplishment. For Cautious, a human Protection warrior on the Kirin Tor-US role-playing realm who’s done the deed and lived to tell the tale, going
"undying" wasn’t about a quest for glory. He did it to break a self-imposed family curse.
"I figured Cautious would be an appropriate name for a character who never dies,” says David Nicholson, the 41 year-old web developer from Halifax, Nova Scotia behind the quasi-immortal female warrior. Nicholson created the character with the specific goal of never dying, complete with a meta-narrative fit for the Warcraft canon. "In my mind 1 came up with a mini backstory that involved a family curse which prevented Cautious from being resurrected. Any time she died, it was permanent and a new family member (with the same name) was forced to begin from scratch.”
So how does one go about getting to 80 without dying?
Very, very carefully. “I chose a warrior simply because I figured they would have the best armor and most health, making them hardest to kill.” David invested a huge amount of time in doing it right. "In-game time was approximately 200 hours.”
It didn’t take long for David to discover handy tools of the staying-alive trade, specifically some of the perks of the engineering skill. “Target dummies saved my neck on
TIPS ron THE rnUTIOUJ
0 You don't have to complete every quest you encounter. Most quests can be finished without incurring too much risk. Learn to recognize the dangerous missions and avoid them.
countless occasions. My favorite close call was in Howling Fjord doing the quest 'The Delicate Sound of Thunder. While in a cave on the side of the cliff I lost my disguise and suddenly found myself being attacked by a dozen or more dwarves. I tossed down a Target Dummy to distract them, used my nitro boosts (this was back before I realized how deadly they could be) to flee to the cave entrance, and then made a mad leap off the side of the cliff and used my parachute to land safely on the beach far below. It was actually so much fun I almost wanted to do it again!” In the end, for better or worse, David says patience is the key. “Trying to rush things tends to get you killed. If I felt even slightly nervous in an area it meant that I shouldn’t be there yet. The safest (and most boring) way of succeeding is to kill creatures eight levels below your current level. Doing just that would, of course, take forever and drive you completely nuts. The secret is finding a happy medium.”
0 Know your environment. If something appears to be too much of a challenge, then give it a wide berth. Accidentally tangling with elite dragons in Alterac Mountains or startling that elite orc who wanders near Honor Hold is a no-no.
0 Avoid instances. Even with a decent party it's far too easy for things to go south and it's usually an awfully long escape run back to the entrance. Unlike those in other areas, instance-dwelling creatures will not give up the chase.
Q Never fight with your back to the edge of a cliff . You just never know whwt an ogre might have the ability to punt you off the side of a mountain or when a mage has a spell to blow you off the top of their tower.
155
FAN ART
SWITCH.
THERE’S NOTHING "OFF" ABOUT BEING AN OFF-TANK — SOMETIMES WE HAVE THE TOUGHEST JOB IN THE ROOM
When people find out that [ tank in raids, I can predict the next question with a high degree of certainty: Are you the main tank?
No, I'm not die main tank. Sometimes l*m a main tank, sometimes Cm an otf-tank, and Cm proud of it.
Don’t get too hung up on the slightly oil-putting tennuiology. Otf-tank" is really just shorthand for "the lank managing the zillions of other things running around the room aside from the boss," and these days, no guild or standing raid group can survive by propping up a single damage sponge. T he encounters don't support single tanks, and people (being people) have this annoying tendency to sometimes simply not be available on a raid night. And often, tanking the ostensible boss (that's the main tank's job!) isn't the most demanding tanking task in an encounter.
Recall Wrath of the Lidl King raiding... how many encounters were one-tank allairs (at the appropriate gear level, of course, not when you’re so overgeared the contest is just a formality)? And in how' many encounters did you find tlie off-tank frantically running around the room while the main tank stood at center?
Take Anub'arak, where the off-tank's role was to manage the Nerubian BuiTowers — snagging them as they spawned before they could wander over to a hapless healer, keeping them on narrow ice patches so they didn't burrow Movement, timing, and communication were all critical pieces of the job, and missing a stun was nearly always fatal for somebody.
1 hink back to the Lich King himself, where your job was to tank everything but Arthas-. Grab ghouls,
position horrors, and snag two types of spirits in such a way that they don’t silence die raid. Stun val'kyr, watch the Defile, Intervene on Soul Reaper, and be ready to taunt the Lich King if the other tanks cooldowns go awry. There is so much to do, so much communication needed, that you can't do this without some level of skill.
Dragging these little dudes into the fire, then to the watcu and not getting blown up could either be amazingly frustrating or hugely exhila rating.
And that's not to mention the countless times where your job is to swap a boss back and forth between your main-tank counterpart- The big baddie wasn't pulling punches when it came to be your turn.
While main tanking often seems like the "glamour’1 role in any raid team, don't let the label shortchange the contributions of die other lank (or healer, or DPS, or crowd-controller) who brought just as much, if not more, to a successful fight.
Sure, some jobs are harder than others. Some days, laid healers have the weight of the world on their shoulders. Other days, some poor warlock has to play a tricky ranged-tank role. But don't get too hung up on who is "main.” Wear die'otf" brand proudly! Ж
соштп ◄
MFTHEPKl
MORE THAN JUST AZEROTH HAS BEEN SHATTERED BY THE CATACLYSM — HOW DO WE SURVIVE IN A WORLD WHERE ALL THE RULES HAVE CHANGED?
By Natakumah
first time you enter a dungeon in I Cataclysm, it feels a bit like stepping I out of a time machine The world has changed, and the way we handle dungeons has been completely overturned from the way things worked in Wrath of the Licit King. In order to survive in the present, you have to look to the past
Take a deep breath Think back to the very first dungeon you ever entered: the anxiety upon encountering the bosses, the exhilaration of the first loot drops, the challenge of managing threat and crowd control.
Well, those days are back.
This of course also means that we as damage-dealers have to keep some things in mind that may have been forgotten during high speed dungeon runs in Wrath of the Lich King.
The dungeon philosophy in Cataclysm revolves around control. Our area-of-clfect spells are downplayed in favor of more em phasis on crowd control-
This requires a more tactical view of the dungeon’s denizens, as tanks need a little extra time to mark the kill order and avoid patrols before pulling it in. Give them
always, while new glyphs ensure priests and warlocks don’t send mobs in all directions when using their fear effects. Paladins can also glyph their Holy Wrath ability so that it stuns dragonkin and elementals, which are big players tn Cataclysm.
Remember that many tanks have had their ability to manage large groups of mobs reduced to make crowd control more appealing. That means it's best to let the tank control the pull and to practice your control abilities.
Get familiar with the typ of crowd control you can offer, and check your talents for useful Л tools that you might have skipped for more DPS-oriented talents. Especially early in your dun -geon career, this can mean the difference between a hard fight and a manageable one.
Threat, the one monster constantly breathing down our
r CHECK 1
YOUR TALENTS FOR USEFUL TOOLS THAT YOU MIGHT HAVE SKIPPED
that your tank has everything under control.
► BE A HERO TO A HEALER
Cataclysm encourages healers to watch their mana much more closely and to make smarter decisions about whom to heal using what spell. Damage-dealers have a tendency to beat the bottom of healers’ priority list, so try dodging damage whenever you can. If taking a hit is unavoidable, remember that everyone has some way о heal themselves, from Recuperate to Enraged
к Regeneration to healing Ж spells to passive health В regeneration. Use M these to spare your healer’s mana for В when a real emer-Ш gency strikes. Since T dead damage-dealers deal no damage at all, being responsible about your own health bar pays olf in the end.
that time, and your run will go a lot more smoothly.
► KINGS OF CROWD CONTROL
Every class now has some form of crowd
control to deal with larger packs of mobs, getting a few of them out of the way while others arc being killed. Traps, Sap, and
Polymorph are useful as
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necks, has not vanished As our DPS improves, tanks will have a harder time keep' ing our foes from eating careless damagedealers alive. Cataclysm gear may have given us more health than ever before, allowing us
to survive the occasional slip-up, but we have to pace ourselves to keep up with what our tanks can handle Keep one eye firmly set on your threat meter until you are convinced
‘>0 hone your edge, reach back into your most primal World of Warcraft memories, and remember w here you put those crowd-control abilities! X
Natarumah’s true name is as great a mystery as how Shadow priests can look all shadowy in sunlight Twisted Faith is the blog this life-stealing, DPS-mongermg shade calls home.
DPS
YES, IT’S ENTIRELY POSSIBLE TO KILL THINGS WITH A HEALING SPEC
HEALING
1
г
By Jessica Cook
Jessica Cook is a glutton for punishment who leveled from 1 to 80 as a Holy priest.
With the launch of a new expansion comes leveling and building reputation — but don't switch to that DPS spec just yet, my healing friends’ Even the most dedicated healers occasionally feel compelled to switch to a secondary spec while soloing, but it’s not necessary. I lealers, even when using a healing spec and gear, are just as capable of questing and earning reputation as any DPS class.
Sure, we may not have the raw DPS output of a max-level rogue, but with a little care and an understanding of our role’s strengths we can have the best of both worlds, carving a path through quest mobs and then hopping into an instance without giving it a second thought- When soloing as a healer, i recommend kiting targets, avoiding damage, and using a bit of hit gear
Kiting is a great way to handle multiple mobs. In my case, as a priest, I’ll put Shadow Word: Pain on a few targets and then run in circles a bit while the silly creatures follow me around until they die. Any area-of-effect or instant-cast spells work well for kiting, though. Druids can use Moonfire, and shaman have their various Shocks. Paladins are in a slightly different situation since they wear plate and have more limited spell-damage options, but they can still use Consecrate and Holy Shock — and lake more hits than the rest of us while doing so.
For non-paladm classes in particular, a big
part of successful soloing is avoiding being hit. Fortunately, we healing types have some tricks to help us accomplish this goal Priests can use Power Word’ Shield and Psychic Scream, druids have Entangling Roots and Nature’s Grasp, and shaman can drop an Earthbind Totem- Paladins who are being pum use he
bubble or Protection spells.
When I’m soloing I have to remember to heal myself. I tend to get so focused on what I’m pulling, where Гт kiting, and how healthy my opponents are that I eas-ily lose track of my own health bar Slowly dying as an able-bodied healer is a very ironic death, and quite an embarrassing one. Don’t make my mistake — keep an eye on your own health bar, too, not just your enemies’.
The I iealing-to-Spell- Power conversion implemented in Wrath of the Licit King helped healing-specced soloers a great deal, as Cataclysm's Intellect-to-Spell-Power change does now. Intellect is on almost every piece of healing gear now, and each point obtained is
WITH A LITTLE CARE AND AN UNDERSTANDING OF OUR ROLE’S STRENGTHS, WE CAN HAVE THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS
another bit of damage done to your foe. There is an additional benefit. Damage spells are frequently expensive to cast for healing-specced characters and having a larger mana pool can be very useful Critical Strike and Haste ratings are helpful as well for both heal-ing and d amage
This means th at m ost о f th e crucial damage stats appear innately on healing gear, hut there is one area where
I we fall short* Hit Rating.
| Л low 1 lit Rating means I yo ur sp ells a re m ore likel у I to miss, wasting mana and effort. T his won't make inuch оf a d iffcrence if you just need to kill one F mob, but during a long soloing session throwing on a piece of J lit Rating gear can help speed things up.
Il takes a bit of extra thought to solo quests and reputation mobs in a healing spec, but I find I get a greater satisfaction for that effort. [ can use the gear and spells that I know' so well, and be prepared for any sudden healing needs. And hey, if all we wanted to do was demolish everything in our path, we wouldn't be playing healers in die first place/ Ж
HI
uilds arc amazing things, Leading a great 1-4 guild is a privilege and honor Being in a
guild is the most fun I’ve ever had tn a game, ana I can’t wait to introduce more players to that experience tn Cataclysm.
As I write this, our guild is reassembling and reorganizing, There’s anticipation in the air It feels like the calm before the storm, the darkness before the dawn. Cataclysm is coming, and hundreds of our members have begun to sharpen their rotations, read up on their classes, and prepare for the bosses- We can’t wait
If you’re thinking of creating a guild for Cataclysm, I’d like to impart a tew lessons, and how we learned them.
►	MOST IMPORTANTLY
The guild isn't about the officers or the guild leader. It's about the players as a group. As Spock once said, the needs of the many outweigh the fe w This is true. In PUG, we get dozens of requests from our players asking to be made an officer. But in our guild, the officer role isn't about fun. It's about checking up on boss fights, sorting out calendar's, making sure everyone is on voice chat and motivating a raid or I’vP team following a wipe or loss. We ask our officers to be servants to the community first, leaders second.
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►	THE SECOND POINT
All Wbr/rf of Warcraft players have the fundamental need to have fun and to feel rewarded for their effort The game has dozens of reward mechanics, including experience, achievement points, new gear, dungeon tokens, and loot. The guild should be about the fun part. If you ensure you have a fail' loot system4, and you rotate players in and out of your activities fairly, World of Warcraft's own systems will motivate players to take part and to enjoy themselves.
►	THE THIRD POINT
Consistency rules. When we first started raiding, our groups were ad hoc, and we didn’t settle on repeating raid nights This was a major mistake, it took us months to progress through Naxxra-mas. Kel'Thuzad kicked us to hell and back But once we said 25-player raids would take place on Sunday and Tuesday nights, players started setting aside an evening to focus on a fight Our rosters solidified. We shared the experience, shared the learning. And our progress was slick.
►	THE FOURTH POINT
We want to support good ideas. Given our shambolic first attempts at 25 player raiding, we were
prepared tor our newly toughened raid teams to quickly demand 10-player raids, too. At first we didn’t create a structure for them to play within, it was an equal, if more dramatic, shambles. Players saved to one raid would be recruited to another I lealers and tanks were in high demand. Groups fell apart before they'd even finished forming.
We decided to formalize 10-player raiding.
Groups owned by player leaders would select a night to raid, calling themselves Team Awesome, or Team Wm. They worked on their own, with or without officer input- Their success was staggering.
►	FINALLY
Expect to fall in love. What I love, what 1 can't get over, is just how many friends we’ve all made. Now, at night, when I'm not playing World of Warcraft, I’ll log on to voice chat. Not to talk, but to listen in. To hear and celebrate our progress, to listen in to their jokes, and their casual teasing Because the most important lesson is that a guild is a group of friends. And if you respect that. shared victories	g
and failures will become unforgettable.	|
4 Ol ( GOD, W1IAT DID WE DO’ X	£
Tim Edwards is the dashing editor-in-chief < of PC Gamer in the UK. .1 e
Well, it is — or rather, it did but that's not what I'm talking about Cataclysm has been released, the world has been shattered, and as people level their characters, create goblins and worgcn, and dig into the new dungeons and raids, one thing should be clear: This ain't Wrath of the Lich King.
In Cataclysm, the dungeon and raid philosophy has further evolved, just as it did w ith each expansion before it- While Naxxramas, Wrath of the Lich Kings first raid dungeon, had a fairly low barrier of entry, and Wraths Heroic dungeons could be readily bested if your group had a basic understanding of the boss mechanise, Cataclysm's dungeon and raid game is a different beast With an overall boost in difficult)', more purposeful pacing « of gear upgrades, and increasingly ij complex fight mechanics, it s о more important than ever for 5 players to understand their classes’ abilities and mechanics, and skills ~ like crowd control are all but a g ts necessity, even in I leroic dungeons.
Wrath o) the Lull King made raiding more accessible to a wider range of players, but Cataclysm closes around raiders with a scaly black claw — and squeezes the m tight
The intent is not to create joyless, soul-crushing content — in fact, the goal is quite the opposite. While raiding in the original game and The Burning Crusade may have ultimately proven too demanding,
EACH WIPE SHOULD TEACH YOU A LESSON
AND GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO IMPROVE UPON
Wrath of the Lich King swung the difficulty pendulum too far the other way. With Cataclysm, we’re attempting to find a balance that ensures that the game is challenging to a point where victory is achievable, but not so difficult that raids are a daunting experience to anyone but the hardest of the hardcore
One major catalyst for the philosophy shift was that in Wrath
of the Licit King, players lost their sense of accomplishment too quickly. Most players were able to roll through dungeons as they leveled, completed most Heroics with little difficulty, and in many cases jumped straight into Naxxramas with little or no preparation — and were able to progress fairly well without much need for coordination. The
opposite can be true as well, of course- If content is tuned to be too difficult, a group of players may eventually feel they have no way to progress, leading to frustration and discouragement. The goal with the end game in Cataclysm is to find that elusive middle ground
Take note: You will die. Your groups will wipe, probably over and over. But each wipe should teach you a lesson and give you
something to improve upon. We want Cataclysm's challenges to be surmountable, but we also want to make sure players need to take the time to learn the encounters, understand them, and work together to overcome them — and feel like they've accomplished something great when they finally do.
World of Warcraft is never going to be perfect. There will always be class adjustments to make and bosses to balance. But each expansion, each laid, and each encounter tuaches us another valuable lesson, and we 11 continue to make our changes with that cataclysmic goal of "difficult but achievable' in nund We believe that the sense of accomplishment you'll feel when you do finally achieve that goal of a boss down or wing cleared will make it all worth it You'll celebrate with your group, feel proud, and know that Dcathwing is that much closer to the blade of your sword. X
Baslnok is a community manager and lover ofMexican food.
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GNOME
ANG
MEH, MEH t . MEM'
UEHILLE flLQUIRED
"Slow and steady wins the race!" | Story by Micky Neilson & James Waugh | Art by Stan Sakai

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