MMO Champion’s got the tip on the Oceanic first kill of Illidan by a guild called Not Steamboat on Aman’thul. I’d actually call Archimonde the last boss in the game right now, although for the current World of warcraft storyline, Bou is right– Illidan is it, at least until the Sunwell.

But the kill brings up another interesting point with regards to Oceanic players. While they’re often grouped with the US servers (unlike the EU or Asian servers, Oceanic and US servers are in the same place and subject to the same maintenance), are Oceanic servers that different that we should acknowledge a kill like this? This isn’t like in China, where World of warcraft just released. These Oceanic players have had access to Illidan just as long as an EU guild like Nihilum has. Why should we care if they kill Illidan? Sure, it’s an accomplishment (just like every boss kill is, no matter how small or big), but is there even such a thing as “Oceanic first”?

Sanctus emailed Boubouille to argue just that and say that Oceanic servers should be considered separate, in terms of progression, from US and EU servers. He says that Oceanic players have to deal with the aforementioned maintenance schedule problems, as well as huge lag. So what do you hold? If this issue of Oceanic progression as compared to the rest of the world hadn’t come up, I wouldn’t have mentioned this Illidan kill at all– in my opinion, there is no such thing as “Oceanic first,” because Oceanic players play on, more or less, the same realms that US players do. So should Oceanic realms be considered separately when comparing guild progression? Or should they be held to the same schedule and timeline for “first kills” as the rest of us?

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Senior VP Frank Pearce and Starcraft II producer Chris Sigaty sat down with Gamasutra to chat about “The State of Blizzard’s Union” recently, and while there’s not a lot of new stuff (“Team 3″ is mentioned, but no hints are given), it’s always cool to have an inside look at what it’s like running the biggest MMO in the world.

Pearce does talk about a possible Wow burning crusade 2 (not gonna happen, he says, until Blizzard needs a whole new framework, and that’s not going to happen for a long time), and WoW’s competitors– he namechecks Warhammer and Age of Conan, but as I’ve said before, we won’t know how those games will actually do until they see release.

There are a few interesting numbers thrown around in the interview as well– while Blizzard has said they’ve got 9 million before, Pearce specifically says 8.5 million subscribers, so it does seem like they’re dropping a bit. Still, especially with the release of Wrath of the Lich King in the next year or two, they remain optimistic that they’ll hit 10 million before it’s all said and done. It’s also amazing to see Blizzard’s growth– Pearce co-founded the company, and they started out with around 50 employees. Before World of warcraft, they had about 500, and nowadays, they’ve got 2700 people working for them. And the teams are really interesting, too– World of warcraft has 135 developers, Starcraft II has 40, and Team 3 has 50, plus Blizzard has 85 people (also devs, however) that work on their famous cinematics, and extra teams for sound and quality assurance.

Very interesting to get a look inside such an amazing videogame developer. Now if only we could find out what Team 3 was…

[ via WorldofWar ]

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A query on the forums for what the longest questline in the game might be brings up this amazing page over on World of warcraft Wiki– a great collection of “long, exceptional, or hidden questlines” in the World of warcraft. We’ve covered pretty much all of these quests before (including this cool compendium of quests you’ve got to do if you haven’t done yet at 70), but this is a great and well-written guide to (mostly) higher level quests that have to be done to be believed.

As for the actual longest questline, it appears to be the “Fallen Hero of the Horde” line (that Alliance can do as well)– it starts around level 50, and rolls all the way around the world and up to level 60. But I actually agree with some of the other posters in that thread– while Fallen Guardian is actually a great quest, the longest, most annoying questline in the game is probably the Dungeon Set 2 quests (also known as the Tier 0.5) armor. Back in the days of 60, Blizzard wanted to give players a way to obtain Epic armor without raiding, so they invented a long, grueling questline (with multiple branching paths) that would let you upgrade your first set (Tier 0) armor, piece by piece, into an Epic, eight piece set. I never made it any farther than the bracers, although I know for a fact that lots of folks got the whole thing done (and this was after completing the eight piece Tier 0 set in the first place). As long as the Fallen Paladin questline is, I believe the Tier 0.5 questline wins, if only because it seems so much longer.

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Over at World of warcraft Insider we welcome the arrival of the new week in our own unique way — with contests! We’re giving away a 60-day gamecard (first place) and a World of warcraft class shirt of your choice (warrior, warlock, wizard, rogue, priest, guardian, druid, hunter, or shaman) from <a HREF=”http://www.jinx.com/world_of_warcraft”>J!NX</a> (second place). All you have to do to win is to give us the best caption to the above screenshot in our comments before Thursday at 9:00 AM EST. On Friday, we’ll present the best captions for you to vote on.

But now for the official stuff: this contest is only open to US residents of age 13 and up. I’m very sorry if this excludes you, but legal restrictions make it very difficult for us to run a more inclusive contest. Before you enter your caption, you’ll want to read through the <a HREF=”http://www.wowinsider.com/2007/09/17/caption-this-official-rules/”>official rules</a>.

Legal business concluded, what are you waiting for? Get to captioning!
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Over on the forums, poster Berzork makes an interesting point: if both Death Knights and Warriors are designed to be damage-dealers and tanks wearing plate, how will they peacefully co-exist? Though we don’t yet have full details on the Death Knight class, it seems as though there’s potential for a lot of overlap — and the big question is how Blizzard can release a class like the Death Knight while continuing to allow Warriors a viable role. And on my end, I have to wonder if throwing another tanking class into the game mix is going to solve any problems — many Warriors want to DPS rather than tank (see many previous posts on the subject), and can we expect Death Knights to be any different? Bornakk attempts to calm everyone’s fears by simply stating:

By adding another dps/tanking class, the Death Knight will give players and groups more options for what they need to complete their objective(s).

Some Druids tank, some Paladins tank, some Warriors tank — and hopefully some Death Knights will pick up the mantle of tank as well.

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Blogger Melmoth posed this question last week and the answers just keep getting better: what if real life had an MMO UI over it? Here are some of his proposed answers:

• I’d probably have low health, but high mana.
• My bag slots would be nearly full all the time.
• I’d be able to scroll back through previous conversations with my boss and prove that I didn’t agree to work thirty hours of overtime this week, or any week for that matter.

For me, the highlights would be:

• Putting annoying people on /ignore.
• Having a countdown timer on the boss exploding.
• Never losing my keys.

What would real life be like for you if you had an MMO UI on it?

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First we grind the levels. Then we grind the faction. Then we grind the gold. Then we grind the instances for high end loot drops. We also grind out Arena points, crafting levels, bandages for the war (remember those!), potions for the raid, ogres for the Talbulk mount and the daily quests for the flying space ray manta aether thingie from space.

Where does one draw the line? I usually don’t run an instance more than 2 or 3 times. Nor do I kill the same thing continuously for faction. I was enjoying daily quests, but they really are just the same thing every day.

A little grind is ok, but too much makes the game not fun and are we not here to be entertained? Where do you draw the line in the grind that is the base mechanic of most MMORPGs out there?

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It’s a problem: here you are, a master of your very own runed blade, a summoner of an army of undead, an immensely powerful tank and damage-dealer — and yet no one will let you into the lore party over at Starshine Shadowstrider’s house!

“Yuckie!” they say. “He got his powers from the Lich King! …Eww!”

“But I turned against him!” you proclaim in your defense. “I wised up and came back to the Light, sorta. Okay not really but I’m still not completely bad! It’s like… fighting…” your voice gradually gets quieter as party-goers stop listening, “… fighting fire with … fire. Dammit. I’m gonna go kill Onyxia by myself! That’ll show ‘em.”

Yes indeed. It’s looking like the future’s going to be pretty rough for Death Knights. As Nethaera explained, “It’s most likely that Death Knights aren’t going to find themselves being popular guests at the town picnic.”

But Death Knights aren’t alone in dealing with this sort of thing. “Keep in mind,” Nethaera points out, “that Warlocks aren’t generally welcomed with open arms either (depending on the culture of the race in question).” Here we have a good role model for plucky summoners of the undead: Warlocks are magic users who use the powers of the Burning Legion against the Burning Legion itself! Have not the Alliance and the Horde not gradually come to accept that just because some people happen to summon demons, cause agony, corruption and ruin, as well as steal people’s souls — that doesn’t make them inherently evil, right?

So it is with Death Knights. So what if you betrayed all the peoples of Azeroth to go and serve the Lich King for a little while? So what if his taint of undeathiness is still flowing through you while you draw those unholy runes and create zombies? You can now go to Shattrath to have your hold taken with a Naaru! Your profit should be squeaky clean.

While Blizzard may yet find a plausible esteem for Death Knights to be fighting against the Lich King rather than with him, keep in mind that even if that doesn’t work out, you’ve got one magic consider that will make everything okay. Whenever people won’t trust you or play with you just because it would seem that you might possibly be technically evil (on the outside)…

Just say: “Lore, lol.”

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It’s time again for Arcane Brilliance, your one-stop wizard shop for all your magical caster needs. Last time we spoke about the macros mages should know and love, those little additions to your game play that will make you even more uber than you already are. At the end of that article I mentioned we would next talk about the addons that mages simply shouldn’t do without, and even the comments in that article mentioned a few (thanks for stealing my thunder guys.)

This isn’t to say that as a sorcerer it is required that you use mods when you play. Importance of these more as the added features on your luxury sedan, the DVD player and the auto-adjusting seats. The mods I use are an extension of the way I already play, but they don’t play the game for me. Try them out, see if they work for you, and let us know how it went. Like I’ve said before, no one can tell you how to play your class; we can only suggest things that might make playing your class easier or more fun.

Cryolysis: This beauty of a mod is a radial menu that puts every spell you need at your fingertips. The main sphere of the interface can be configured to display info on your health and mana in either numbers or percents, and show your cooldowns on evocation and mana gems.

Cryolysis also has some great alert features, letting you know when your sheep breaks for instance. It gives you a nifty readout that tracks the cooldowns on your spells. You can also have the mod automatically restock your reagents at the vendor so you never run out of that blasted Arcane Powder (not that this has ever happened to me).

Many of the features in this mod seem to be automations of macros I created on my own, for instance the /party alert letting them know you’ve polymorphed a target, or that you’re summoning a portal that will take them to a certain city. All in all, the story for Cryolysis is concise. It coalesces just about everything you do as a sorceress into one simple menu. I call it beautiful.

WaterboyLoc: Until we get our Water Fountain and Feast Table spells, Waterboy is here to help you provide food and drink to your party or raid. You might consequence this is too simple to add to the list, but check about all the time you spend making/trading food and water for the 25-man raid, and you’ll realize that Waterboy really can be a useful friend.

The menu allows you to summon your consumables and when done you drag them to the box to the right and hit trade. That’s it. The addon automatically trades the water or food with your target, saving uber amounts of hassle. The interface will also let you right-click to use the products of your effort, be they mana gems, water or food. Simple, beautiful, and it this hold is available with localization for those with French or German clients.

Quartz: Ah Quartz, wherever was I without you? This is one of the most useful mods I have ever loaded into my UI. At its core Quartz is a modular casting bar, and its most powerful component is its latency information. Basically Quartz lets you know when you truly stop casting a spell, based on your current latency. After you install the addon, you go in and create a stopcasting macro for each of your spells (read up on how to do this by looking at the last Arcane Brilliance.) You are then able to stop casting without actually interrupting the spell, and begin to cast the next one immediately. Quartz’s latency feature can increase your spell damage by up to one-third because you are simply casting more spells.

The other feature I love to death with Quartz is the multiple casting bars. When I cast Pyroblast, for instance, Quartz puts up a bar that lets me know exactly how long my target is affected by the spell. I’ve gotten in the habit of looking at these bars almost more than I watch the health of the target. It’s a great way to keep track of when the Frost Nova will break, or when you will have to resheep that Naga in Heroic Underbog.

Omen Threat Meter: If you’ve ever wondered why you keep dying, chances are it’s because you’re pulling aggro off your tank. A threat meter is the key to keeping you alive, particularly if you are doing decent damage. The key to Omen (or even its low-powered cousin KTM) is having everyone in your party install it. If they are running KTM Omen will read their information, but not the other way around. I find Omen to be more concise, easier to read, and certainly more accurate than KTM. It has a couple of features KTM does not, like that little trick of framing your screen in red when you pull threat off the tank.

Omen is a WoWAce addon, which means you’ll need to download the WoWAce updater to get access to it, but you definitely will want to do that because our last entry is also only available through WoWAce, and you can update both with the click of a button.

Decursive 2.0: The big boy is back from the dead, resurrected with a Soulstone of fabulousness. If you have never encountered Decursive before you’re in for a real treat, because here is where sorcerer addons began. Long ago Decursive would populate a list for you of who was cursed in your party, and all you had to do was click on their names and the curse would be lifted. Blizzard found this to be too much automation for their tastes and stopped the instant decursing in its tracks. That was a sad, sad day for mages, but luckily Ace2 has provided us with a new and improved number of this very essential mod.

Decursive now has a handy set of clickable little boxes that light red when a party member is cursed, and in addition lets you know when someone is charmed. It also has an auditory alert for when sheep break, quite handy I must say. Just about everything about Decursive 2.0 is easier to deal with now, and I just about passed out with joy when I was able to use this beautiful little charge again.

Well, that’s about it for this Arcane Brilliance. I have to go update my addons now and then set about farming money to buy enchants for my newly finished Spellfire set. Next time look for a nice chunky discussion on bonuses to spell damage. Until then, may all the mobs you farm be melee, and may your mana pool never run dry.

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Who knew a piece of cloth on your back could be so badass?

Name: Ruby Drape of the Mysticant
Type: Epic Cloak
Armor: 105
Abilities:

• +22 Stamina, +21 Intellect
• Improves spell hit rating by 18 (hot for a cloak)
• +30 spell damage and healing, which is even hotter, especially for an item from Karazhan. There are better caster cloaks in the game, but they’re all from higher level raids, so get this one and you’ll be set for a while.

How to Get It: As Kirk might say, KarazhAAAAAAAANNN!!! Prince Malchezaar, one of the last bosses in Medivh’s tower, drops this baby. In fact, getting there is only half the battle– because this cloak is so great, you’ll probably have a harder time winning the roll to get this than you will actually defeating the Prince. It’s around a 10% drop, which ain’t bad, but every Sorcerer, Shaman, Wizard, and maybe a Moonkin or two are going to be after this cloak, so it’s really more luck than anything.

But the good value is that once you get it, you’re pretty much set– there are sidegrades coming up, but there’s really nothing that matches up to it until you hit Kael’thas.

Getting Rid of It: Disenchants into a Void Crystal, and sells to vendors for 3g 71s 96c.

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