DAWN OF THE ASPECTS PART TWO SNEAK PEEK NOW AVAILABLE

Many WoW lore fans have been anticipating Richard Knaak’s latest work for Blizzard: Dawn of the Aspects. As you may be aware, Dawn of the Aspects illuminates the origins of the five dragon Aspects and tells the story of how they came to be. It also marks Blizzard’s first foray into the world of publishing serialized ebooks and is scheduled to be released in five parts. Part one, which WoW Insider reviewed, became available for download a month ago, on February 19th. Recently, Community Manager Bashiok payed the Story Forum a visit to announce part two’s impending release on March 18th, and to give us some enticing tidbits to enjoy while we wait. Check out the full blue text after the cut.

Malygos flew alone again, the proto-dragon warier than ever. Thanks to images flashing through Malygos’s mind, Kalec quickly understood why. The proto-dragon flew over lands to the east, where there had been several sightings of the not-living. However, as with many other things in previous visions, the exact reason why Malygos was scouting on his own was not so apparent.

As with the last area the proto-dragon had flown over, the landscape below appeared empty of animal life. However, in this bleak place, neither Kalec nor his host had expected to see many beasts. Still, Kalec gathered that Malygos had seen absolutely nothing.

Alighting on a low peak, Malygos peered around. More thoughts crept through Kalec’s mind, filling in some missing pieces. Malygos sought the reason for Galakrond’s frightful transformation into this hungry fiend terrorizing all, and he sought it very near where the behemoth kept his lair.

Kalec questioned the sanity of what Malygos desired but had no choice but to hope that Galakrond was far, far away. Malygos believed that to be the case, but both were aware that there was a chance he was wrong.

Malygos’s heart pounded from tension as the proto-dragon drew nearer to where the lair was presumed to be. The peaks there were so tall it seemed that they were trying to touch the cloud-enshrouded sun. Such giant mountains would be likely to provide caverns large enough to house a monster the size of Galakrond.

Something below caught Malygos’s attention. He dived toward it. At first, Kalec saw only rock, but then he realized that a portion of that rock was of a disquieting and familiar color.

The bones had lain there for some time, possibly four or five seasons. Those that were visible indicated a beast as large as many proto-dragons-or, as Malygos discovered after scraping away the earth from one area, it was an actual proto-dragon.

This one had perished violently. Many of the bones were cracked, and the partial skull that verified just what lay there had been crushed by a tremendous force.

Galakrond, Kalec knew. Here was an early victim. While to him it only served to show just how long Galakrond had been on his murderous rampage, Malygos evidently saw something more in the bones.

Although no one had yet witnessed how Galakrond reduced some of his victims to emaciated corpses that would rise as parasitic undead, the evidence of their existence was without question after Malygos’s battles. Yet Kalec now wondered, if this was one of the leviathan’s prey, why had it not transformed as the others had?

Silence reigned about them, but something made Malygos look to his right. To Kalec’s observation, there was nothing to see. Even a proto-dragon as courageous as Malygos could not be blamed for being jumpy under such conditions.

Returning to the bones, Malygos nudged a few around. With little exception, they revealed that Galakrond had ripped apart and chewed up this unfortunate creature. Malygos’s memories of a much smaller but still imposing Galakrond briefly arose, giving Kalec a startling glimpse of how the latter had changed. Galakrond as seen in the earlier stage had looked much more like a normal proto-dragon and not nearly large enough to swallow others whole. His body also had had a smoother, streamlined appearance. His coloring had been more muted, and the eyes had not had that incessant hungering look to them.

Malygos continued to ferret around among the bones, seeking clues. It was yet another hint-not that Kalec needed one-of how intricate his host’s thinking was compared with that of many of the other proto-dragons.

Somehow, he survived, the disembodied blue thought. Somehow, some of them survived… but how?

The proto-dragon tensed again. This time, Malygos looked skyward.

To the east, a shape already far too massive to be a normal proto-dragon raced toward the mountains-and Malygos’s position.

The mountains were too far away for Malygos to reach before he would be seen. Kalec’s host had no choice but to flatten himself out where he was. His coloring did not blend with the land, but the hope was that Galakrond would not fly near enough to notice.

A constant, heavy beat preceded Galakrond, the sound of his vast wings flapping. Malygos knew that with each beat, the gigantic proto-dragon crossed miles. The beat grew louder, closer. Malygos and Kalec knew that Galakrond was almost upon them.

But then the beat began to recede. Through narrowed eyes, Malygos watched Galakrond head away from him and toward the mountains. However, just as the icy-blue proto-dragon dared draw a new breath, Galakrond halted. Hovering, the behemoth suddenly began heaving as if choking on something.

Neither Malygos nor Kalec paid much mind at first to whatever assailed Galakrond, the giant creature’s physical appearance drawing their initial attention. Although it could not have been that long since the vision in which they had previously encountered Galakrond, Kalec was especially stunned by how much more misshapen the fiend had become. Not only was Galakrond oddly distorted, but he now had several growths randomly dotting his body. There were also a number of gray splotches that made it seem as if parts of Galakrond were decaying.

But just as Malygos and Kalec came to grips with this new, deformed Galakrond, the monster disgorged what had caused him such distress.

Bodies. More than a score of shriveled, limp proto-dragon bodies. They dropped in a horrendous heap to the ground, some flopping about as they struck. Malygos radiated immense distress at the sight, not only because of the awful slaughter but also because among the limp forms, he saw red, brown, gray, and even greenish-yellow bodies.

THE USE OF MORAL AMBIGUITY IN WARCRAFT, WAR IS ALL HELL

There’s a long-standing rumor that Winston Churchill allowed the bombing of Coventry, even though he could have prevented it via intelligence gathered by cracking German war codes, in order to preserve the advantage of having cracked those codes. Is it true? I have no idea. More important for our discussion, however, is the idea of that decision. Imagine a leader having to decide to sacrifice civilians in order to preserve an advantage that might well win the entire conflict. It’s often called the brutal algebra of warfare – you lose 10 million here, so that 20 million will live over there. You send a company off to die so that a regiment can survive and accomplish its mission. One of the great horrors of war is not just that people die, but that other people have to countenance their deaths.
One of my biggest problems with the Alliance/Horde conflict is that so far, it hasn’t really demonstrated this idea. We’ve gotten to see the consequences of war – the survivors crying out for vengeance, settlements and towns destroyed, cities bombed, even the ruthless pragmatism of a leader willing to find and use any weapon he can to destroy his enemies. But while Garrosh Hellscream has played the role of relentless aggressor to the hilt, his opposite number hasn’t shown how far he’s willing to go. Varian Wrynn’s participation in the ‘A Little Patience’ scenario shows that he’s a more measured and contemplative leader than he once was, but we’ve yet to see just how extreme the measures he’s willing to countenance are. So far, the only time the Alliance was willing to make morally questionable choices to win was in Dalaran, actions that were clearly the work of Jaina Proudmoore and Vereesa Windrunner. However you personally found those actions, it can’t be denied that they not only advanced the story but showed a new side to Alliance leadership.

The reason I find myself musing about this is that I think that the 5.1 Dalaran quests did more to move the game’s story forward than we’ve seen in some time, and they did so by making this war one where either side can and will do what is necessary to win. And it is that embodiment of that brutal alchemy – kill X to save Y and accomplish Z, even if X is your own – that makes for a compelling story. Absolutely, there were innocents whose only crime was being Sunreavers, who had nothing to do with the Divine Bell or its theft, who ended up in the Violet Hold for no other reason than that they got in the way. However you feel about the morality of that decision, the narrative weight of it resonates long after.We need more of this. We specifically need more of it from the Alliance, who have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to be good and honorable.
William Tecumseh Sherman was infamous for his pioneering of the concept of total war. During the American Civil War, Sherman deliberately marched a Union army into the very heart of the Confederacy, and his goal was to make war on civilian population centers and destroy the South’s means of waging war. In the process, he waged a terror campaign against the entire Confederacy, burning cities, destroying railways, stealing food and supplies. He did this not in spite of the fact that it was barbaric and inhumane, but because of it. We could sit and discuss how Sherman did in fact give orders to minimize the suffering of the civilians to his own troops, but that isn’t the point. The point is that the entire Atlanta campaign, and those that followed it, we designed first and foremost to win the war. This is where all wars ultimately go. Honor is a fine word and a noble sentiment, but in the end war demands nothing less than total commitment to victory.
The Horde has clearly displayed a mastery of this concept. For all the talk of honor, the battle cry of the Horde is Lok’tar Ogar – Victory or Death. When we first saw Garrosh Hellscream as a warchief, he still cared about honor. But he has since apparently moved past this concern, going so far as to Sha-taint his own people in order to try and harness the power of the Divine Bell, because without such measures victory is in doubt. From a narrative perspective, this is exactly the progression we might expect to see. As the Horde extends its battle-lines further, the war becomes ever more costly to prosecute, and the Horde simply doesn’t have the resources to wage prolonged worldwide war against the Alliance in so many disparate locales. The entire Pandaria campaign is in fact aimed at gaining those resources, because without them, victory is impossible. The Horde fights a total war because the only alternative is defeat, surrender or encirclement and a slow death by strangulation as the Alliance cuts off their resources.

PATCH 5.2 HOTFIXES FOR MARCH 27

Another round of hotfixes for patch 5.2 has just been released on the official blog. It’s a pretty short list, by and large involving changes for several classes. Before you get too panicked, most of the class changes simply involve tweaks to T15 set bonuses rather than direct class changes. Shaman with a penchant for healing, however, should be pretty happy with this round of fixes.
The shaman spells and abilities Chain Heal, Healing Rain, and Earthliving Weapon now all heal for 20% more.
T15 Brewmaster monk 2-piece should now correctly increase Stagger by 12%.
Oondasta’s health has been reduced by 50%. This does not, however, make him any less terrifying or deadly.
Read on for the full list of hotfixes.
RygariusClasses
Druid
Tier-15 Feral Druid 2-piece set bonus should now work correctly with Savage Roar while Glyph of Savagery is active.
Monk
Tier-15 Brewmaster Monk 2-piece set bonus should now correctly increase Stagger by 12%.
Fixed a situation where Tier-15 Mistweaver Monk 2-piece set bonus could cause Renewing Mist to heal more than intended.
Charges of Mana Tea, Tigereye Brew, and Elusive Brew will now be removed after the Preparation buff wears off in Battlegrounds.
Paladin
Fixed an issue where Word of Glory or Eternal Flame did not work when both Divine Purpose and Tier-15 Protection Paladin 2-piece set bonus was present.
Priest
For Discipline Priests with Divine Aegis, Prayer of Healing criticals should now heal for the correct amount.
Power Word: Solace should now correctly have a chance to activate item and enchantment effects.
Shaman
Chain Heal now heals for 20% more.
Healing Rain now heals for 20% more.
Restoration
Earthliving Weapon now heals for 20% more.
Creatures
Itoka’s Strange Metal Ingot can now be looted by multiple players.
Oondasta’s health has been reduced by 50%.
Raids, Dungeons and Scenarios
Throne of Thunder
Fixed an issue where bracers with a random secondary stat may be awarded to the wrong role through Raid Finder or bonus roll.
Fixed an issue where zone drops were incorrectly disenchanting into Haunting Spirit.
Items
Big Bag of Zandalari Supplies is now soulbound.
Dragonmaw, Reborn now has a bonus to spellpower.
The Drakefist Hammer, Reborn now has a bonus to spellpower.
Bug Fixes
Tyrannical Conquest achievement should now be correctly tracking a character’s Conquest gains.

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF A HEROIC DUNGEON

One of the more volatile announcements that we’ve heard so far from Blizzard regarding Mists of Pandaria is the fact that Mists will not include any more 5-man dungeons. In an expansion where new content seems to be rolling out on a much faster, tighter basis than any expansion prior this seems a little bizarre to players, particularly those that enjoy dungeon-based content. Yet one of the things Mists has been doing consistently throughout the expansion is delivering a wider array of things to do. In fact, there’s such a variety in endgame content that players sometimes feel legitimately overwhelmed by the sheer amount of it.
But just because we aren’t getting any new dungeons doesn’t mean we aren’t getting alternate ways to obtain all that sweet, sweet gear we know and love. Patch 5.3 will see the introduction of heroic scenarios, slightly tougher versions of the scenarios we’ve already seen this expansion. In addition to valor, the heroic scenarios will offer raid-finder level rewards for players that choose to participate in them — better than any gear you’ll find in a heroic dungeon at this point.
While this may seem pretty cool for some people, it does make one wonder — what’s the purpose of heroic dungeons?
The history of heroics
Heroic dungeons weren’t introduced until The Burning Crusade — vanilla didn’t see them at all. Presented as a harder version of current dungeons, the TBC era heroics were not only extraordinarily punishing, they had a reputation requirement to even enter. If you wanted a chance to try out heroic dungeons, you had to first reach a certain level of reputation with the associated faction. At the onset of the expansion, it required revered reputation — this was later lowered to honored as the expansion progressed.
These early heroics didn’t offer epic quality loot for all. In fact, the only epic drops were on the final boss of the dungeon. They did, however, offer badges that could be used towards purchasing epic-quality gear from various factions in Outland. So what was the point? Badges, a small chance at epics, a way to garner further reputation, and attunement. Several of these heroics were required as parts of attunement chains for various raids — making them mandatory content for any who wanted to attempt raiding.
The problem with Burning Crusade heroics wasn’t the lack of loot, it was a combination of accessibility and difficulty. These early heroics were extremely punishing — think Mists challenge-mode dungeons. And on top of that, there was no dungeon finder at this point, meaning you had to cobble together your own group for heroics, and hope that it was a solid group that could succeed. It wasn’t until Wrath that the dungeon finder was introduced, which blew the lid off of heroic dungeons and made them far, far more accessible.

GOLD CAPPED, HOW TO MAKE CHEAPER ENCHANTING MATERIALS

WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil “Euripides” Berntsen aims to show you how to make gold on the Auction House. Check out Basil’s gold making podcast, Call To Auction, and email Basil with your questions, comments, or WOW Gold!
One awesome side effect of the latest patch’s new PvP gear is a way to make Enchanting materials much more cheaply. Since all the new gear is iLvl 458 blues, they disenchant into an Ethereal Shard. Sometimes two of them, although that is probably from the guild perk. By far, the most popular profession to use to craft this type of gear for disenchanting is Tailoring. Windwool Cloth is cheap and plentiful, and 20 of them make a single Crafted Dreadful Gladiator’s piece that can be DEed.
The best pieces to make are the ones that take 4 Bolts of Windwool Cloth:
Crafted Dreadful Gladiator’s Cape of Cruelty or Prowess
Crafted Dreadful Gladiator’s Cloak of Alacrity or Prowess
Crafted Dreadful Gladiator’s Cuffs of Accuracy, Meditation, or Prowess
Crafted Dreadful Gladiator’s Drape of Cruelty, Meditation, or Prowess
After these, the materials start going up. That doesn’t mean you can’t use them, just that you’ll have to live with a higher cost than all your competitors.
In any case, if you have a tailor with one of these recipes researched (or know one willing to work for tips), you can turn Windwool Cloth into blues, which you can turn into Ethereal Shards day and night. Each Ethereal Shard you make can turn into a fifth of a Sha Crystal (on a daily cooldown), three Mysterious Essences (no cooldown), or some of the most popular enchants in the game at the moment.
Speaking as someone who has sold thousands of Enchanting scrolls this expansion, I can tell you that the one material I never get enough of from disenchanting simple greens are Mysterious Essences. Until 5.2, the way I would make up the difference was by trading up hundreds of Spirit Dust I got from disenchanting greens I’d make with my Jewelcrafter.
The market is a bottomless pit for Mysterious Essences. Even if you don’t want to sell scrolls, whoever is doing enchants on your realm will need a lot of them, simply because the most popular enchants tend to use more of them than they do other materials.
The availability of Windwool Cloth depends on the number and activity levels of players on your realm. It goes up on the weekends and after a patch, and down on weekdays as fewer people play. That said, historically on most realms, a stack of Windwool is a lot less than an Ethereal Shard, which is typically less than three Mysterious Essences.
Other professions
You can also make 458 blue PvP gear with Blacksmithing and Leatherworking, however they’re far less cost efficient, at least for me. Leatherworking recipes all take Magnificent Hide, which is worth a heck of a lot more than an Ethereal Shard, normally. Blacksmithing’s cheapest recipe needs 8 Ghost Iron Bars, which comes closer, but is still generally more expensive than 20 cloth.
If you do decide to go the Blacksmithing route, the recipes that take 8 bars are:
Crafted Dreadful Gladiator’s Armplates of Alacrity or Proficiency
Crafted Dreadful Gladiator’s Bracers of Meditation or Prowess

3 SILLY LITTLE DEATH KNIGHT PROBLEMS, LICHBORNE

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let’s show the other classes how a hero class gets things done.
A few weeks back, I wrote a column singing the praises of the patch 5.2 death knight. I definitely stand by that column. Death knights remain a solid, fun class to play this patch. That said, there’s always problems. Some of them probably won’t ever be solved by patch changes. Today, we’re going to look at some of the sillier death knight problems I’ve been dealing with lately, and see if there’s any chance of relief for them.
My weapon won’t drop
This is a problem I’ve had for ages. It seems like ever since Wrath, my death knight has had to wait a little longer for the weapon I actually want to wield because either it never drops or because someone else generally wins the roll or pays more DKP than me.
I, of course, do my best to do a little bit of every spec every patch because I want to be able to report on DK issues first hand, but my first death knight love and my main spec will always be some form of two-handed DPS.
This, of course, means I have horrible luck getting two handed weapons. When the latest expansion started, I literally could not get an item level 463 weapon until I get exalted with the Klaxxi and purchased one. My bad luck’s continued since then. Despite having Crystallized Terror waiting in my backpack, I have yet to get my hands on a Shin’ka to use it in. Throne of Thunder has been more of the same. No matter how many Mogu Runes of Fate I spend, that Bo’ris just won’t drop.
So, I’ve given in. Currently, I’m spending most of my time as dual wield frost, wielding axes from Tortos and Elegon. It’s not my favorite setup, but I can’t justify sticking stubbornly with an item level 463 weapon. I’m thinking of spending all my money on a Lionheart Executioner, Reborn though, just so I can maybe justify going back. Unfortunately, most blacksmiths I know are keeping those weapons for themselves for transmogrification purposes and need 30 days worth of materials to make one anyway, so it may be a while before I can do that.
It’s hard to ask Blizzard for a fix for this, because part of the nature of WoW as a game is that loot drops have an element of randomness to them. One possibility, which they have worked with in the past, is making craftable weapons that fill the gap. The new weapons in patch 5.2, which take 30 days to get to a level where they’re usable in end-game content, are a bit much though. Some weapon that could be crafted in closer to 5-10 days, even if it was ugly, might be nicer.
One fix they are implementing in patch 5.3 might help though. By giving bonus rolls a higher chance to give you a drop the longer they go without giving you a drop, it at least tilts the odds in my favor that I might get a weapon eventually, as long as I do the dailies to get the charms.
I want to use my pretty polearm, dang it
Transmogrification has been one of my favorite additions to the game. That said, I also wish it was a lot more permissive than it is. One of the big death knight specific areas where this comes up is the ability to use polearms. Polearms just have a size and power to them that makes them fun to wield as melee weapons. Plus, Draenei males do this really awesome flipping move with them.
Polearms used to be a pretty viable choice for 2-handed strength DPS back in the day. Since most of them came with raw attack power, their stats generally worked for us, and we could do DPS that was at or only barely below what we’d get from wielding a strength-bearing weapon instead. Well do I remember the days of diligently tracking down ever Kalu’ak quest so I could buy a Whale-Stick Harpoon the moment I hit revered.
Alas, as expansions have come and gone, Blizzard reduced polearms to agility weapons, meaning we couldn’t really justify the loss of the attack power strength would bring. They also completely eschewed strength-bearing polearms at the end game because warriors with Titan’s Grip couldn’t use them due to graphics issues. This means that all the awesome polearms I have in my bank just begging to used in a set, from Hellreaver to Black Ice, just gather dust.
Luckily, there’s signs this could be another problem that will be solved in a few patches. We already have one strength polearm this tier, and with the devs aiming to allow warriors to use polearms with Titan’s Grip in patch 5.4, it could pave the way for more. Then we just need them to change transmogrification to allow polearms to transmog onto axes, swords, and maces, and we’ll really be in business.
I miss that old ability from back in the day
All classes have undergone changes. Some of them have been major changes, such as when hunters went from using mana to using a completely new resource system called focus. Still, I’d argue that death knights have had the most drastic changes. As the first new class to be implemented since the game went live, we were certainly given some extra TLC during the Wrath beta, and come out of it a bit overpowered. Unfortunately, the devs decided they couldn’t just tweak numbers and instead took entire skills and abilities away. I will always look back with fondness at the days when I was an unholy death knight with bone shield, a ghoul pet, the ability to turn into a ghoul, and an Unholy Blight spell that did constant damage to all my enemies and counted as a fourth disease to make my weapon strikes that much better.
But even with those skills removed, the biggest blow came with the complete removal of some of our specializations. Blood DPS, frost tanking, and unholy tanking went the way of the dodo. You will still see the occasional forlorn death knight lamenting and wishing for the days of Death Strikes that combined nigh immortality with massive DPS.
It is unlikely we’ll ever see those old days back. You could argue that druids got their feral and guardian specs split out, but that was also a bit more drastic, in that they either had to split the specs or completely remove one of the feral forms. With death knights, you can leave most of the flavor of the trees intact whether they’re limited to DPS or tanking.
The bright side with this one is that while we’re never going to get all our old skills back, Blizzard does seem open to fitting in homages and small adjustments when it can. Unholy Blight, for example, recently came back as an alternate way to apply and spread diseases. It’s not perfect, and it’s not a return to the glory days, but it’s a nice, useful trip down memory lane.

WINNERS ANNOUNCED FOR BLIZZARD STUDENT ART CONTEST

Blizzard’s second annual Student Art Contest has announced its winners. There were three announced winners for environments; Nick Dariano, Daehi Kim, and Kyoungche Kim all won fo their work designing environments. The character design winner was Ariel Fain for her “Old Crow” who I immediately demand as a playable race in the next expansion.
You can see the awesome winners and the honorable mentions (all of which are pretty awesome as well – I especially like the Mole Master character design) at the official site.

China Will Become Guild Wars 2’s Largest Overseas Market

In recent years,as a salient new force in the culture industry,the online game has made outstanding contributions to the entire game industry. More and more overseas game manufacturers turn their eyes to China.The majority of players are dazzled by 3A-Level online games with more exquisite pictures,more exciting PK and more rules of the game.ArenaNet,as a world-renowned game production team, will cooperate with NASDAQ: KONG(the sole agent in China) to introduce its masterpiece “Guild Wars 2” into China.At the same time, the technical mission of ArenaNet arrived in KONG’s Shanghai branch on December 8th and communicate with Chinese operation team and the players face to face in order to exploits Chinese market better.During the communication,Mike O’Brien,the president and founder of ArenaNet,said that he had full confidence in Guild Wars 2′s performance in Chinese market.

December 8th, 2012 is a day to remember.The core team of ArenaNet was invited by KONG to come to China and held a seven—day deep exchange conference.The focus of this visit was understanding the characteristics of Chinese market,customizing featured content for China as well as the progress of localization work of China server and so on.

ArenaNet’s R & D strength is definitely the world’s top level,especially fully considering the characteristics of the Chinese game market and Chinese players’ gaming habits,and after the discussion of the two sides,ArenaNet decided to send the permanent team of dozens of people to dedicate to update and maintain Chinese version.The decision also marks that the Chinese version of subsequent Guild Wars 2 can not only maintain global synchronization but also have its own exclusive contents.

The seven-day exchange and communication not merely makes the two sides reach dozens of consensus,but more importantly planned an ambitious blueprint for the China Server of Guild Wars 2.

A Backstory:Special Crowning Glory for Blizzard Veterans

We recently visited our friend Blizzard and created a special service award for employees with 20 years of employment of Blizzard Entertainment.The award was announced last week for the first time,and the entire company are shocked by this artwork.The crown was a joint effort by Weta artists Will Furneaux (3D modelling), Shari Finn (model making), Bruce Campbell (molding), Dordi Bruland Moen and Sourisak Chanpaseuth (painting), based on a unique design created by Blizzard Entertainment.

Blizzard’s Nick Carpenter, VP of art and cinematic development, shared some additional thoughts:

Coming up with a design for our 20-year service award was no ordinary task. It had to be truly epic and make the recipient feel that he or she was part of something special and rare in our industry. Considering that we award 5-year employees with a sword, and 10-year employees with a shield, a badass crown felt like the right thing do.

We wanted it to draw from all of our games without being specific to any one of them. It had to stand on its own while still feeling true to what Blizzard is all about. So what we ultimately arrived at, after more than a year of off-and-on concept runs with an army of artists from around the company, was a design that has a touch of the Lich King’s helmet, a bit of Imperius’s armor, some of King Terenas’s crown, and a hint of protoss curves for good measure.

After we completed the design and created a detailed 3D sculpture, we passed it over to our good friends at Weta. They had created the bronze orc statue for our campus courtyard a few years back, and we were blown away by how that turned out, so they were an obvious choice for this new piece. It was no small challenge, though. We wanted this thing to be heavy—each one handmade out of real metal, leather, and glass and lovingly polished—in order to represent to every employee who receives it the weight of 20 years’ worth of accomplishments at Blizzard and the company’s gratitude for their dedication and service.

The end result is just spectacular, and I want to thank Weta for helping us honor our longest-serving employees in true Blizzard fashion. We feel that the people at Weta really understand Blizzard. They’re willing to go the extra mile to make sure that every little detail is taken care of, and that’s why they’re among the best of the best at what they do.”

World of Warcraft Tradeskills

World of Warcraft is an extremely famous and popular MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-play game). How dose WoW have so excellent result? That’s all because of WoW has all the features and elements to attract MMO players. Tradeskills is one of these features that can help you gain WoW items, WoW gold and WoW experiments easily. First of all, you must to understand the basic tradeskills in World of Warcraft, and then read this article is necessary for your next step~~~~~
Improve your skills and professions

Basically, players improve their skills through usage, but you must learn the skill firstly. Tradeskills and weapon skills only improve through usage, they aren’t like class skills which automatically increase as a character levels. Thus, in order to improve your ability with swords, you must equip and fight with a sword. Professions and secondary skills operate similarly. In order to increase your skill level in a profession or secondary skill, you must use it. You may be felt that it cannot bring more convenient and WoW money to you at first, but believe us, it is very useful as it level up highly.
Skill caps

Skill caps are the maximum level that you can currently raise a given skill. Skill caps are raised by leveling (weapon skills) and by receiving training (professions and secondary skills). For weapon skills, gaining a level of experience will raise the cap for each weapon skill by 5. For tradeskills, your profession rank – apprentice, journeyman, expert, artisan, and master – determines your maximum skill level. These ranks are gained by receiving training (from NPCs and/or books) and have minimum skill and level requirements.
Learn professions and secondary skills

Professions and secondary skills have some different conditions of learning yet all of them are learned from various trainers around the world. Some tradeskills will be rare and hard to find trainers for, while others will be much more common, with trainers located in multiple cities. Players can learn a maximum of two primary professions. In order to learn a new primary profession, a player must unlearn one of his or her existing primary professions first. Secondary skills are less versatile and robust than primary professions, but there is no limit to the number of secondary professions you can learn. We advice players try your best to learn more secondary skills because of it can offer you more convenient, such as gain World of Warcraft gold and complete WoW power leveling easily. For all tradeskills, you will be able to raise your maximum skill cap by receiving the next tier of expertise.