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Anne Stickney

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WoW bloggers take off and unite with Sixth meme

What's that image above? Why, that's a screenshot of Azshara before the goblins took over, taken for our massive series of Before the Shattering galleries we put together just before Cataclysm launched. It also happens to be the sixth image from the sixth subfolder in my images folder, which leads us to a meme started by Gnomeaggedon from the blog Armageddon's Coming -- a meme that has taken off with alarming speed.

The premise is simple: Head into your images folder, select the sixth subfolder, grab the sixth image in the folder, post the image, and select six bloggers to tag for the next part of the meme. Those people post their own sixth images, tag six more bloggers, and so on. Those of you who are skilled at math can already see where this is going.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion

Weekly Podcast Roundup: Feb. 13-19, 2012

Every Monday evening, WoW Insider brings you a long list of WoW podcasts that were published the week and weekend before. If you don't see your favorite World of Warcraft podcast listed, just let us know in the comments. Be sure to leave a link to it, and we'll pick it up next week.

All podcasts and content belong to their owners. WoW Insider is not responsible for what you hear, and some of the content may not be safe for work.

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Filed under: Podcasting, Weekly Podcast Roundup

Does a video game have to force us to make good choices?

Take a moment and picture this: There's a politician out there, a pretty sleazy politician, who is basically in a position of power to use that power to do whatever suits him or her best -- no regard for anyone that voted him into office, no real sense of caring for those he is supposedly serving. One day, someone comes up to that politician and says, "Hey man, I'll give you $3 million if you start taking an interest in your constituents and doing what is best for them, OK?" The politician agrees, takes the money, and promptly starts doing the right thing.

Is that politician in the wrong? Or is that politician simply learning that if he behaves badly, he'll get a bribe to start behaving correctly? What's to stop him from behaving badly again, if he thinks he's going to get another $3 million out of the deal? More importantly, if all the other politicians out there see this guy get a bribe to behave like a decent politician and all of those politicians decide to start behaving badly in an effort to get that bribe for themselves, are they in the wrong?

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion

Know Your Lore: Cataclysm for Dummies, epilogue

The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

If you've read Act I and Act II of Cataclysm for Dummies, you should have a pretty basic understanding of what happened during Cataclysm, why Deathwing was a threat that needed to be addressed, and what we've been doing in all of those zones, 5-man dungeons, and raids. There was a purpose to every raid that came out with Cataclysm, but that purpose isn't blatantly clear unless you're paying really close attention as you're leveling through the zones. People who love following the lore do that automatically, which is why these guides aren't for them.

However, you might want to know what all of this means or have some questions about the stuff that wasn't really resolved in Cataclysm. Or you may want to know what's in store in Mists of Pandaria and why you should be interested in what's coming next. This epilogue is going to go over a few simple end-of-Cataclysm points that should be of interest to those wanting to know what's next or still have some questions about Cataclysm's story.

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Filed under: Lore, Know your Lore

Q&A with your roleplaying questions

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. In World of Warcraft, that player is you! Each week, Anne Stickney brings you All the World's a Stage with helpful hints, tips and tricks on the art of roleplay in WoW.

Roleplaying is the very definition of a social activity -- it pretty much requires more than one participant if you ever expect to have any fun with it. But if it's something you've never done before, trying to get into roleplaying can be a daunting prospect, especially if you've got a bunch of questions and no idea how to get the answers. So this week, I decided to turn the tables around and answer a few questions from the roleplaying community over on Twitter.

While I got some roleplaying questions, I also got some lore questions as well. Honestly, that's only to be expected, because roleplay and lore work hand-in-hand.

@Sin_Aliaga asked:

Blood Elf Druids.... can they co-exist in Warcraft lore? And if so, why haven't they tried yet?

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Filed under: All the World's a Stage (Roleplaying)

Is there such a thing as casually hardcore?

Once upon a time, I was an MC raider back in vanilla WoW. I raided six nights a week, three to four hours a night. My off night, Friday, was spent gathering plants in Felwood and other materials for potions and flasks. We busted our butts on completing progression content before anyone else on the realm, and if we couldn't manage that, before anyone else on our side of the faction fence managed to do so. Somewhere in the midst of AQ-40, the guild fell apart. People were just burnt out on way too much raiding and all the preparation involved in getting that raiding done successfully.

These days, I raid three nights a week, three hours a night or so. To me, it's far, far more casual than what I used to do. I don't spend a ton of time on farming materials, and I don't spend a ton of time on other things unless it happens to be in game holiday time. I don't usually run random instances unless I'm after something specific, and I don't really do PvP at all. I'd call myself casual, simply based on the time that I play and what I do with that time. Yet there are still plenty of people out there who fling the hardcore title at me.

When I look at how I used to play and how I play now, I can't understand why anyone would think what I'm doing now is anything but casual, and I'm confused as to why anyone would say differently.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion

Graphic and bold hunter pet designs by Melissa

World of WarCrafts spotlights art and creativity by WoW players, including fan art, cooking, comics, cosplay, music, fan fiction and more. Sample the whole spectrum on our Arts and Crafts in WoW page.

Most of the time, when you see a piece of Warcraft fan art, it's either depicting a character from Warcraft lore or the character that the artist plays. Sometimes it's a depiction of a moment in Warcraft history, and others, it's just a chance to draw some really fancy armor. You'll rarely see simple landscapes, but you'll see pictures of characters in those landscapes. And you'll see pictures of hunters and their pets, but rarely will you see pictures of the pets all by themselves.

But for Melissa Bozarth, hunter pets are just far too appealing not to draw. And draw she does, creating intricate, vectored art of dozens of beloved pets from the Warcraft hunter's stable. We've featured Melissa's artwork before with a Corehound piece she created back in early 2010. Melissa's been happily creating plenty of artwork since then and decided to share both her work and her experiences with us.

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Filed under: World of WarCrafts

Transmogrifying an homage to Bolvar Fordragon

Bolvar Fordragon is one of the coolest figures in Warcraft lore (check out our Know Your Lore: Bolvar Fordragon for a detailed rundown). While he was once a noble lord of Stormwind, Bolvar's story throughout the course of Wrath was an epic tale of nobility and heroism in the face of damnation. Today, we're going to create a look based on Bolvar. No, not the extra-crispy, end-of-Wrath version -- and not the shining vanilla-era Bolvar, either. And definitely not the in-between Bolvar that is comprised mostly of Alliance PvP gear.

While I was looking at olden-days Bolvar, I realized his look could not be recreated; his armor is pretty unique, and it isn't something players can obtain in game. But as I was looking at Bolvar then and Bolvar now, I had a idea. What if we take a little of Bolvar's fate and apply that to the look of the shining hero of yesteryear? Take that distinct, filigreed, gold and silver plate look and tarnish it just a little, a reflection of what Bolvar's been through in the course of his lifetime?

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Filed under: Transmogrification

Mists of Pandaria talent calculator updated

The Mists of Pandaria talent calculator has received another update, according to a tweet by Community Manager Zarhym. Preliminary exploration into the calculator reveals that some new talents have been added, though we haven't gotten any details on just how many classes have been tweaked. However, Zarhym also stated that we'll see more details about these changes in a update to be posted shortly, so keep your eyes peeled. And until then, be sure to check out the talent calculator for your class, and see what the new talents have to offer!

Edit: Community Manager Kaivax has posted some clarifications on the changes to the talent system. Shaman and hunters, you may not see a lot of changes on your trees just yet, as they are still being worked on. And all classes should be aware that spells or mechanics not listed may be either automatically rolled into your class or available as a glyph. Follow after the break for the full post from Kaivax.

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Filed under: Mists of Pandaria

Looking for raid, or looking for trade?

My interactions with the Raid Finder have been limited, for the most part. I'm in a raiding guild, and we were told when the Raid Finder came out that we would do guild runs to start out with. This was to make sure that all drops benefited everyone in the guild, and honestly, it was a smart idea. Players got their set bonuses with relative speed, and we completed the encounters with no difficulty at all just due to the fact that they were relatively easy in comparison to the normal-mode raiding we were doing.

However, after we began melting more gear than we were keeping and started working on heroics in earnest, our raid leader let us know that if we really needed anything else from the Raid Finder, we'd have to go run it on our own. So it was with a fair amount of confidence that I queued up for Dragon Soul, looking for a trinket that was so far eluding my rogue in normal mode content. No big deal, right? Easy enough, and by now plenty of people ought to be familiar with the content. Well ... not so much.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion

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