(Dell is holding a machinima contest, which we'll discuss shortly. They asked me to write a tutorial to help new machinimators get their start.)
Every day, I feature a video by some brave soul that dived in head first into the world of machinima. For those that aren't familiar with the term, it stands for machine and cinema. The literal definition is movies made in a 3D gaming platform. Using this basic guide, as well as the other tutorials and resources available to you, you'll be creating your first project in no time!
Here is what you'll need if you want to make a machinima for free:
Halaa is like a set of jumper cables. Most of the time, you don't care whether it's there or not -- but when you suddenly need access to it, it's the most important thing you can possibly think of. Borings, from the Dark Iron server, was recently forced to take Halaa alone. While waiting for the final cap, he felt moved to climb up the city's flag pole and proclaim his victory. His voidwalker, Tanggrave, seems to be even more excited. Why is his voidwalker called Tanggrave? According to Borings, "he is after all a big blue grave full of tang." Ah, the joys of Blizzard's random demon name generator. At least it's better than Krakho or Nublok..
Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We'd love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!
Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing -- use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more sunsets.
With how fascinated players are with using Onyxia as a benchmark, it was only a matter of time before our new legions of Death Knights tried their hand at it. Scarblade, a poster from the MMO-Champion forums, seems to hold the prize for world first solo Onyxia kill by a Death Knight. At least, as far as we know, and as of the latest beta patch. Will it count when Wrath goes retail? Who knows? We're a fickle bunch. Either way, I sincerely doubt many others attempted this as a Death Knight before Scarblade, because running around doing those attunement quests on the beta realms must be brutal even at level 80. You're just going to have to do it all over again!
Still, Scarblade was a trooper and went through the whole ridiculous attunement process. He says he tried both Frost and Blood specs before ultimately settling on an Unholy build that won the day for him. Personally, I expected this kill to have been done using a deep Blood talent spec with how well they solo. I suppose Onyxia isn't the same as your random elite thug hanging out in the middle of a field somewhere, so it makes sense that what works there might not be best in Ony's Lair. Unholy does make sense though, controlling those whelps can make or break an Onyxia attempt no matter how many people you take with you. Unholy Blight is a beautiful thing.
Yes, Scarblade did earn an Achievement for killing the ol' gal. Two, actually. One for just plain killing her, and one for killing her solo.
Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the Hunter class, sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary.
Worms. We're not gonna mess up the pronunciation of THIS one. Yeeha!
But really, worms? Hunter pets? Tenacity pets?
Worm-Tanks, that's the concept Blizzard wants to sell us. Are you buying? How about you watch our little movie and then make up your mind.
You are invited to download the YouTube version (81MB) of this movie here, and the full-sized version (295MB) here. They're big files because the movie is almost ten minutes long; we wanted to give worms a fair-shake.
As always, a great big Thank You to the WoW Insider editors for allowing us to publish this movie both here and on our little blog at the same time!
One of the coolest things about the World of Warcraft are the various NPCs that we see all over the place. Players who've played Warcraft 3 get an extra thrill when meeting characters from the popular RTS, for example. There's Thrall in Orgrimmar, whose life story has been all over books and re-told in past Blizzard games. In Dalaran, the overrated Rhonin and his wife, whose lives have been chronicled over several Richard A. Knaak books, make an appearance. Lor'themar Theron first appeared in the Warcraft manga and subsequently showed up in Silvermoon City when The Burning Crusade was launched.
Of course, not all NPCs get the benefit of books or comics to tell their story. Our favorite Griftah only has his story told through the game. Then there are those NPCs whose origins come from somewhere closer to home -- real people who have made some impact on the game one way or the other. These include quest giver Ahab Wheathoof, who is an homage to young fan Ezra Chatterton, and Dalaran pet supplies vendor Breanni, who is a nod to the creator of the popular WarcraftPets site devoted to vanity pets. There are many, many more NPCs in the game world we all love. Whose story would you like to know more about? Is there an NPC that has piqued your curiosity? What could be the story behind the unassuming Kaja? How about we learn more about Cro Threadstrong and his hatred for apples? There are so many stories in WoW... which one would you like to hear?
It's not an iPhone Armory app, but Blizzard did release some official content for your mobile phones. They've set up a mobile.blizzard.com site, at which you can buy wallpapers and ringtones from WoW and the other Blizz franchises. At this point, you're probably asking yourself one question: can I get a murloc gurgle ringtone? The answer, thankfully, is yes. Yes you can. (Though I can't guarantee it's a good idea.)
There is a big catch: the ringtones are priced at $2.99 each. Yikes. I know ringtones are big business, and I know Blizz is all about the tie-ins, but this is foolishness. Who would pay this over recording an MP3 and sending it to their phone? The wallpapers are $1.99, which is equally dumb for something I could just as easily screenshot off Blizz's concept art pages and email to my phone. Also I can't find the USA or Canada on the list of countries; it seems, at least at the moment, that these are not available here.
It's a shame that these are so oddly expensive, and that they're not even available in the US, because some of them are pretty well-done. It would be awesome to play the WoW intro theme when my guildies text me to go raid. I guess I'll just have to make my own ringtone for it.
Videogame Price Charts (who?) has compiled a list of seven videogame conventions to attend before you die. Unfortunately, the list seems unattainable by design, as they want you to attend E3 before 2007, but besides last week's Leipzig Games Convention and this weekend's upcoming PAX, Blizzard's own BlizzCon is right there on the list.
We're not sure why you'd want to go to BlizzCon if you didn't happen to be a fan of Blizzard's games, but then again, who isn't a fan? They list the legendary costume contest and the chance to try out PC games as reasons to go (along with meeting your guild -- I did all three at BlizzCon last year), though they forget all of the great Blizzard panels and the entertainment offered at each 'Con (where else can you see Level 70 ETC, besides, you know, in-game).
Especially since it's going to be bigger than ever this year, there's no question that BlizzCon is going to be awesome. And even if you weren't able to grab a ticket (we're hearing just now that lottery winners are being notified), we'll have everything you need to know and see from Anaheim this October right here on WoW Insider.
I've just rejoined an endgame guild (my Hunter just recently hit 70), and while I used to run Heroics pretty often on my Shaman with my old guild, my new guild is much smaller -- while I like them a lot, they aren't as much into running instances as I am, so endgame instance runs are few and far between with them.
So I'm left to PuG Heroics on my own, and I'm having the same problem deviate_delight is: getting into PuG Heroic groups isn't proving to be easy. I'm a good player, and my gear is pretty good (OK, to be truthful, it's probably a little low, and I just need to keep running non-Heroic stuff a little more until I get luckier with loot drops), but for some reason, I'm having a tough time making my way into Heroic groups.
So let's put the question out to you readers: any advice for players like me and d_d on how to start Heroic dungeons without guildies to run with? Anyone have a strategy for getting a good, regular Heroic group together, or how to make it so that Heroic runners seek you out when they need a DPS (or tank or healer or whatever you are)? Heroics are great places, full of good loot and badges and all kinds of things that can help immensely with the endgame, but with the wrong people, they can really ruin your day. How can we get a group that works?
So. Arenas. How have your Arena campaigns been coming along? Lately, we've been encountering a lot of melee teams in our bracket. Melee has been enjoying a rise in popularity since Season 3, when Armor Penetration made its debut in Arena gear. Of course, with Armor Penetration stats maintaining status quo across the board in Season 4 while Armor values went up, this has become less of a factor. Nonetheless, the melee pain train continues to chug along, with more double melee teams having a strong showing in 3v3 and of course the popular triple melee Cleave setup in 5v5. For the most part, any team comp with two or more physical DPS classes is technically a Cleave team.
Melee in 5v5 was popularized by Serennia in his Warrior / Rogue / Enh. Shaman and 2-healer set-up which he tried to dub 'Trifecta'. Trifecta never stuck, of course, so Cleave became a more popular term coming both from the Warrior ability and the fact that a target descended upon by multiple melee will feel like she's being cleaved in half. More than a few clothies have cried foul, and some have accused such comps as being brainless, skill-less, and -- pardon me quoting the term -- "gay". [EDIT: No, it is not okay to use the term "gay" in a derogatory manner, let's just make that clear.]
David B covered the PetEmote addon way back in the beginning of this year, and now the Great Green Hunter has posted some really great ideas for custom pet emotes, for a few different families of Hunter pets. PetEmote lets your pet automatically show up in your emote text randomly, and is really good for giving your pets a little more personality of their own -- instead of just doing what you say all the time (and eating all of the food you've got to buy), PetEmote can make it seem like your pets are doing their own thing: chasing a stray bug that passes by, flicking their tails, or "giving you a sly look."
GGH's descriptions are really great, but of course whatever goes in the "Localization LUA file" in the PetEmote addon folder is what shows up in the game, so you can customize it as necessary. If you want to say your cat "waggles his butt, ready to pounce," you can do it.
Of course, if you think of your pet as just a DoT you have to feed, you might not be so interested. But having a pet and keeping track of where it is is such a huge part of the Hunter class (though PetEmote works for Warlocks as well) that giving your pets a little more personality goes a long way in game.
There's always been quite a few folks who'd like to be able to play WoW on their Xbox or Playstation. But, according to J. Allen Brack in an interview with VideoGamer.com, that's not going to happen any time soon. "World of Warcraft is designed as a PC game," Brack said. "It's designed to have a keyboard and a mouse. So the controls and the control scheme that you have are very PC centric. If you think about mapping those controls and all those different type of buttons that you have to a console without a keyboard for chatting, it's a very challenging proposition."
I think that makes a lot of sense. When you talk about keybinds, control combinations using the Shift and Alt keys, mouse buttons, Addons, customization -- it just seems like an awful lot to try and cram onto a Xbox controller. To even make it feasible, it seems like you'd have to add some kind of keyboard to the device. And even then, AddOn customization wouldn't be the same.
Tom Chilton summed it up by saying "It's just more like a square peg round hole thing for our game. "
A lot of people (including some folks here at WoW Insider) are super concerned that when Blizzard does release a 3.0 patch early, it'll basically break everything we're doing now. Potion sickness on the live realms? Shield Block cooldown extended? With those changes, it seems bosses like Illidan would be basically unbeatable.
But Blizzard says, as they always do: don't worry. The latest word is that 3.0.2 is heading to the PTRs, and it's pretty clear that if 3.0 is going to break everything in the game, that's where Blizzard will find out. Don't forget that we've got months until the expansion comes out (and likely even a few months until the actual patch hits the live realms), which means there's tons of time to tweak and twist and get all of the new changes working with the old content.
This doesn't mean that things won't be broken -- we're curious to see, especially in even older instances like AQ and Molten Core, what things are like with all of the 3.0 updates. But it does mean that they'll likely be broken on the PTR -- in a few months from now, when this patch finally goes live, Blizzard should have most of the wrinkles evened out.
This week's round up of WoW-related posts on our sister site Massively covers many different angles of the MMO universe dominated by World of Warcraft. You can click on the links below or subscribe to a special WoW-only Massively feed.
World in a World of Warcraft With Wrath of the Lich King coming out very soon, and four years of the game's history behind us, it's nice to just sit back and read something about the basic fundamentals of World of Warcraft.
Urban exploration in MMOs Urban exploration and free running are activities normally associated with the real world. In recent years, however, MMOs such as Everquest 2, Age of Conan and World of Warcraft have become a digital stage for the arts.
Player Consequences: Why We Subscribe There are many different choices when it comes to picking out a MMO nowadays. The genre is no longer limited to only a handful of games based on old Dungeons and Dragons manuals.
Can't get your World of Warcraft Battlechest fix because Recruit-a-friend has sold out all the copies at Target? Worry not, because Target has got just as great a substitute for you: Paws and Claws Pet Vet 2: Healing Hands. Because when you can't conquer the tower of Medivh or slay beasts in Nagrand, the next best thing is playing a mediocre attempt to grab the money of kids who want to grow up to be vets.
Yeah, it's pretty sad, but then again, Target employees aren't necessarily videogame players. And even more sadly, what exactly does it say about PC gaming when the next best seller to WoW is a vet simulator?
Every Wednesday, Encrypted Text explores issues affecting Rogues and those who group with them. This week Jason Harper, the Rogue feature blogger, discusses a new feature in Wrath, Glyphs and the opportunities for Rogues.
As you'll see in the list below, Rogues get a wide variety of both lesser and greater glyph options, and in a lot of cases can greatly effect your talent choices in a way that gemming or enchanting never did.
One of the coolest things about the World of Warcraft are the various NPCs that we see all over the place. Players who've played Warcraft 3 get an extra thrill when meeting characters from the popular RTS, for example. There's 
Videogame Price Charts (who?) has compiled a list of 
I've just rejoined an endgame guild (my Hunter just recently hit 70), and while I used to run Heroics pretty often on my Shaman with my old guild, my new guild is much smaller -- while I like them a lot, they aren't as much into running instances as I am, so endgame instance runs are few and far between with them.
David B 
We love diversity when it comes to controlling our WoW time. There's a seemingly infinite 
A lot of people (including some folks here at WoW Insider) are super concerned that when Blizzard does release a 3.0 patch early, it'll basically 
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