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Anne Stickney

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Breakfast Topic: Do you take a lot of screenshots?

Once upon a time in vanilla on my very first character, I made the mistake of wandering too close to a door guarded by a very angry dragon. Said angry dragon made quick work of my character, and in running back to my corpse, I inadvertently discovered I could run right through that door and resurrect on the other side. The other side of that door was one of the single weirdest places I have ever seen in World of Warcraft -- it was later shaped and molded into the Caverns of Time for the Burning Crusade expansion. But in that moment, I had no idea what it was -- just that the world had suddenly gotten very strange, and very, very screenshot-worthy, which is when I took the screenshot above. I have a lot of screenshots, guys. Each expansion, I snap screenshots of every cool location, cool armor set, neat people, fun events -- you name it, I'm probably sitting there happily snapping away. And I keep them all. Why?

In vanilla, I just liked taking pictures of things -- pretty things, weird things, strange armor I'd purchased and immediately regretted. In Burning Crusade, it was because Outland was so new, and different, and unlike anything on Azeroth. Somewhere in Wrath, after getting my job here, it grew from a hobby into something I did for cataloging purposes. If I needed a screenshot of a particular quest or a particular NPC saying a particular line, then I was going to make sure I had it handy before I even knew I needed it. Betas are great for testing, but they're also great for getting tons of advance screenshots that I will more than likely use later. And beyond that ... well, it's kind of interesting to have a record of all the places I've gone and all the people I've met over the years. It's like flipping through a scrapbook. A really, really nerdy scrapbook.

Do you guys take a lot of screenshots? Do you save the alt-z for important stuff like boss kills and achievements, or do you snap away whenever you see a pretty piece of scenery? Do you save your screenshots from expansion to expansion, or just get rid of them as time goes on? What's the earliest screenshot you've still got?


Filed under: Breakfast Topics

The Queue: Let's talk about Fraggles and Warcraft

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Anne Stickney (@Shadesogrey) is answering all kinds of questions today!

You know what? I loved Fraggle Rock when I was a kid, and I still do today. When I was a kid, it was all about the music and the story, and as I grew older, it was all about the slow and astonishing realization that a few pieces of felt and a couple of ping-pong googly eyes felt really real. It wasn't the felt or the googly eyes, it was the person operating that device as a vehicle for delivering authentic emotion. More importantly, it was the wide-eyed audience that watched it all and somewhere in their heart of hearts held the little spark of belief that it all was real.

Basically what it boils down to is this: You can set the stage and build the parts, but without that genuine exchange between actor and audience, you've got nothing but a shell. Shells are nothing. The rest of it, that's the really amazing part, the part that can't be easily replaced. With that, let's answer some weekend questions, why don't we?

BaronoftheLake asked:

QFTQ: Where is the Exodar on Draenor? I haven't seen any Draenei ships in Draenor, and I thought that was rather strange.

The Exodar was originally one section of Tempest Keep -- but Tempest Keep didn't arrive on Draenor until after it had already shattered into Outland. It's not a draenei ship, it's a naaru vessel -- it's the ship A'dal and the rest of the Sha'tar arrived on. There is one other naaru vessel on Draenor, but it's half-buried in Nagrand and falling apart.

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Filed under: The Queue

Patch 6.0.3 Hotfixes for January 27

Another round of hotfixes for patch 6.0.3 were released yesterday and posted to the official blog -- including several bug fixes that have been plaguing players for a while now. Plenty of talents and abilities should now be working correctly for several classes, several quests have been adjusted and resolved, and on top of all of that, if you've been missing a certain promised follower, they should be happily ensconced in your garrison now. Good news all around!
  • Players that have completed the quest Primal Fury before the January 21 hotfix should now have either Thisalee Crow (Alliance) or Choluna (Horde) as a follower.
  • All quests should now be awarding XP even if the character is dead at the time that the quest is completed.
  • Swapblaster no longer works while characters are engaged in battlegrounds.
Read on for the full list of hotfixes.

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Filed under: Hotfixes, Warlords of Draenor

The Queue: Twitter Edition

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Anne Stickney (@Shadesogrey) is answering all kinds of questions today!

I've had this song stuck in my head for a couple of days, so now you guys get it. Today's Queue is a special Twitter edition, because oh my gosh 1,700 comments and there is no way I'm going to be able to sift through all of that for questions, guys! But let's get to the good stuff, shall we?

@WarlockTriqz asked:

How do we get that new mount that Blizz announced?

Boy I wish I knew! But I really have no idea -- however, the purple color scheme and books/runes on the kitty make me think it might be something legendary quest related. I mean, we have Khadgar, who's all Kirin Tor which is all about the purple and the runes, and we have the Watchers hanging out with him, and they all ride nightsabers, presumably. So maybe something tied into that? Alternatively, maybe a tie-in for Heroes of the Storm, but I'm not sure about that one.

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Filed under: The Queue

Know Your Lore, Tinfoil Hat Edition: The ordering of Draenor and Azeroth

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.

According to various accounts, the Titans have had their hands on almost every inhabitable world in the universe. Certainly Algalon had to keep an eye on more than one planet in his impossibly-long life -- he says as much when we stop him from sending the signal that would re-originate our world. This fact alone is enough to indicate that in the Warcraft universe, worlds aren't quite as unique as we'd expect them to be. If the Titans had a hand in their ordering, they're likely going to have at least some similarities.

But it doesn't mean that every world we come across is going to be just like Azeroth. We've been presented with the idea, time and time again, that Azeroth is unique in the universe. It's special. There's something about it that sets it apart from every other world. And yet, when you hold Azeroth and Draenor next to each other and take a good long look at what they are, you can see the bare bones of what was once upon a time, a blueprint shared between the two. Unfortunately, the comparison raises more questions that it seems to answer -- but those questions are pretty important.

Today's Know Your Lore is a Tinfoil Hat edition. The following contains speculation based on known material. These speculations are merely theories and shouldn't be taken as fact or official lore.

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Filed under: Lore, Know your Lore

WoW Moviewatch: Like Froot

Look, I'm going to be perfectly honest here: I have absolutely no idea what's going on in this machinima. I'm not sure if it's telling a story or not, or what that story happens to be. But Like Froot, the latest music video from Youtuber Killercookie, still manages to be hypnotically entertaining, story or no. The bright visuals mix well with the song, which I've never heard before -- but it's now thoroughly stuck in my head. As always, Killercookie knows exactly what to do with model placement, animation, and cuts. I guess the lesson here is that sometimes you don't really need a story for a machinima, a pleasant tune and some colorful visuals are more than enough to entertain. If you liked this short, don't forget to check out Killercookie's Youtube channel for plenty more.


Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.

Filed under: Machinima, WoW Moviewatch

Patch 6.1: Finally, you can take a S.E.L.F.I.E.

I honestly didn't know how much I needed this particular item until I finally managed to snag one on the PTR. Behold, patch 6.1 is bringing us the S.E.L.F.I.E. Camera, a marvelous device that finally lets us egomaniacs turn our cameras on the one person in game we care about the most -- ourselves. The camera is a reward from a new, rare level 100 garrison mission called Field Photography -- a four hour mission that requires no special traits to complete. Simply get the mission to show up on your list and the camera is pretty much yours.

The interface for the camera is really easy to use -- simply click the item to use it, and your camera will automatically turn around to face you. You can swivel the angle to whatever you feel is most pleasing, and press 1 to snap a photo. No need to alt-z the frame out of the picture first, the camera automatically does it for you, snapping the screenshot and putting it in your screenshots folder. As the camera faces your character, they'll make a host of suitably emotive faces, so you don't have to worry about smiling for the camera.

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Filed under: News items, Warlords of Draenor

The Queue: Anne's Story Hour

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Anne Stickney (@Shadesogrey) is answering all kinds of questions today!

It's Sunday, the day of rest and apparently of rambling on about stories in my head, and as such I'll go ahead and indulge the few people that asked the question below. Don't worry, I've also got plenty of other far more pertinent questions to answer as well!

Ligkvaern asked:

I made an account just to ask this, damn you! ...What happens in Kharazhan, in your head?

robertjamesftw also commented:

Anne. ANNE. You may NOT tease us with hints about your head-canon and/or the stories you create in there and not share them! C'mon! Give!!

I can take a hint. Please note -- none of this is actually what's going to happen in the next expansion. I have no idea what's coming in the next expansion. This is just stuff I made up in my head that seemed to make sense given what we already know. Okay? Moving on, and continuing from where I left off on Wednesday:

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Filed under: The Queue

Breakfast Topic: Do you stack traits on missions?

I have a method for follower missions, one that seems to have worked out mostly in my favor -- during the day, I'll complete as many of the shorter missions as I can, logging in to cycle through them once or twice. Before I turn in for the night, I'll queue up all the longer missions, because I know they'll be waiting for me at whatever point I log on the next day. Sometimes, though, I get impatient or I want the rewards offered by a mission right away -- which is when I start stacking traits.

I have a lot of followers with the Epic Mount trait. I also have a lot of followers with the Scavenger trait. Used to their full potential, I can easily nab over 1k garrison resources in a single mission -- or I can whittle a mission down to 15 minutes or less. In 6.1, the Scavenger trait is getting a nerf from a 200% bonus down to 100%, and frankly I can see why -- with a 10k character garrison resource limit and the potential of capping that limit in 10 missions or less, it's a little overpowered. Thankfully, the Epic Mount trait is being left untouched, which means I can still speed along missions as I see fit when the new patch is released.

I'm sure I'm not the only person that does this, but I'm curious just for curiosity's sake -- do you guys stack your follower traits on missions? Is it something you go out of your way to try and accomplish, or is it something you tend to ignore? What do you think of the Scavenger change in patch 6.1 -- was it needed, or unnecessary in your mind? What traits do you like the most?


Filed under: Breakfast Topics

WoW Moviewatch: Yellow Flicker Beat

Death knights are inherently kind of creepy. And even with the revamp in Cataclysm, the Eastern Plaguelands are still pretty creepy as well, along with the death knight starting area on the eastern coast. Put that together with a little bit of Lorde and you've got Yellow Flicker Beat, a machinima music video from Time-Lost Productions. Time-Lost Productions has been doing these kinds of music videos for years, and it shows -- the production quality is good, the cuts are sharp, and the only minor critique I can make is that really I think the video would have stood on its own without the text that was added for emphasis. It totally didn't need it! If you liked the video, be sure to check out Time-Lost Productions' Youtube channel for more.


Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.

Filed under: Machinima, WoW Moviewatch