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Now on Farm or That's a Wipe

Battle.net whining is still going on and Hallow's End has started up. Have you been out there hunting pumpkin buckets? Well, if you haven't or need a guide on figuring it all out click here for our Hallow's End guide.

In other news, you'll have to do a really long quest to get the next legendary. Let's see just how many people pick this one up eh?

Read on down below for more WoW news.

WoW at Ten Ton Hammer

Blues Clues

Medeor's Mishaps and Mayhem

Welcome to another edition of The Overpull, your fun filled fantastically journey through WoW that’s delivered to your inbox each week and also available on our website. It’s much like riding unicorns through a field of verdant pastures, except it’s not. This week we’ve got a lot planned to go over. We have this week’s WoW news to whet your appetite, followed by this week’s PTR news, some WoW trade chat hilarity, the big TTH forum thread of the week, a question about female blood elves and the men who play them, and a look at the kings of Stormwind.

Here’s the lineup this week

  • What’s the Buzz
  • This week we look into The Guild’s latest episode, the battle.net switch over, some excellent WoW art, Azshara’s usefulness, and the latest PTR drama.
  • PTR Roundup
    What’s on the PTR this week? Upcoming raid tests and dungeon achievements are in.
  • It Happened in /trade
  • TTH WoW Forum Spotlight
  • The Weekly Musing
    Female Blood Elves and the Men Who Play Them is the topic this week. What are your thoughts?
  • Loremaster's Corner
    So who exactly has ran Stormwind since the Warcraft series starts? We look into the lineage of WoW kings with our latest lore corner.
  • This Week's Forum Post
    Come join us for discussion this week on the forums!

What's the Buzz

What’s buzzing around town this week? Well, the biggest news is that The Guild is out of control. The latest episode is out of this Azeroth with how the story is going. It’s gone straight from Sleepless in Seattle campy nerd love story to American Pie raunchy nerd drama. Last week I commented on the forced sexuality. You know the kind that draws in more viewers just like game covers with those pretty girls on ‘em? Well, let’s get a recap going of last week’s episode.

So, Vork is still being the traditional ronin except he’s in a van. Bladezz had weapons jammed into his locker and Clara’s husband is still going nowhere even with Bladezz’s tutoring. Zaboo was sporting a lovely dog collar (one from Wal-Mart and not the local adult’s only store) and propositioned Codex for a threeway with his girlfriend. Tinkerballa is still with the Axis of Evil guys and one of them apparently had sex with Bladezz’s mother. Bladezz, already upset that he’s got weapons in his locker, the guild is almost to “casual” levels, and now this, will probably be the focus of the next episode.

Often times I’m all for a show to do things, but The Guild has been changing up their genre. Is it a positive change from past seasons? I don’t know, but I don’t like sellouts or story writing designed to woe watchers over instead of convince them it’s a good show. I’m still going to be watching and it’s entertaining still, but it’s not what I’m used to. What are your thoughts? Share them on the forums.

The Legend of Neil, that totally not safe for work series similar to The Guild just had its season finale. It was pretty good.

In non-entertainment news, the battle.net switchover crisis is still going. The Europe battle.net system had some login hiccups and it’s now part of the protesters screams. Technical support is swarmed with battle.net problems (mostly user error based one) and threats of in-game protests and massive account closures are underway. If you had to sign up with a battle.net account to play WoW when it first came out would that be a problem to you? No, it wouldn’t be. So it’s not a problem now folks. Go get yours switched today before the cutoff. Post your comments on the forums in our battle.net thread if you need help or instructions. We’ve also got a rant forum if you’d like to post why you think it’s a bad idea.

Hallow's End has started! We've got a guide here for it.

In art news, a Pit Lord statue was created as a graduation project at the Chinese Academy of Fine Arts. A Wolpertinger plushie created by auzrill on DeviantArt is rather cute. Horde fleece hat anyone?

In other news, Azshara will be a “full zone” in Cataclysm with lore and quests. You go Blizzard! Finally they’re going to do something with that place. If you didn’t know yet, Azshara is an incomplete unfinished zone with a bunch of go nowhere quests. By a bunch I mean like 3. This will be a welcome addition to the expansion.

Some drama has leaked over from the PTR recently. In some of the changes (such as everyone can manipulate raid icons) you can find a controversial one. Anyone below level ten won’t be able to join a raid. That’s not bad right? Wrong! Player ran events frequently feature raids full of level 1s who make the character to participate in the party, celebration, Hogger raid, whatever. I think this is a bigger buff to Hogger than anything else out there myself. Let’s see if it gets reversed, eh?


PTR Roundup

PTR changes are pretty short this week. Raid testing has been scheduled so we’ll probably see a lot more when that comes out. Anyway, a brief look at the changes. Relics have been data mined or something along those lines and they ROCK. I expect some nerfs to them or “adjustments” in the near future. Achievements are in too, but not a lot is told by their descriptions. You’ll run away from the Lich King in the 5 man it seems. That’s interesting.

There is a 1% HP/3 sec DoT that’s applied to you when you enter the Frozen Throne because it’s really cold. I imagine some Mage somewhere would come up with a way to keep yourself warm while buffing, but I guess that’s too much. Don’t go AFK away from the raid for more than 5 minutes folks or you might have to pop a potion.

Whining about the Rejuv changes on the PTR is going well. I’ll withhold my comments on that debacle until more concrete plans are put in. Battle Rezs/Self Rez may be getting a major cooldown too. That’s an excellent change to decrease uptime.

The starting text for Ice Crown is out. Highlord Fordragon is, indeed, still alive and it looks like your mission is to save him? Well you succeed? Who knows, but there will be purps I’m sure.


It Happened in /Trade

[3. Trade] NINJA NINJA NINJA NINJA HE GOT ME TO SUMMON AND KICKED ME NINJA NINJA HEADLESS HORSEMAN SUMMON NINJA

Have that repeat like 30 times and once every 10 minutes and that's Hallow's End Trade Chat. Seriously people, don't invite people to the group and have them summon then kick them. That's terrible. If you have a bad string of luck with people ninjaing then grab a buddy or two. A hybrid healer not even spec'd can heal a tank. Then get a DPS and you're good to go.


TTH Forum Spotlight

Facerolling is Bad M’kay

Memnock's article is creating quite the buzz on the forums and is well worth the read. Of course, I love showcasing threads by our community as much as our staff so here's another one from the community:

How old is the youngest WoW player you've ever seen

Interesting thread. I've heard of really young players being in really good raiding guilds. I've also heard of some really old players in WoW.


What's the Buzz

This week’s question can be summed up in the topic of “Female Blood Elves and the Men Who Play Them”. It’s an interesting topic because everyone has a different opinion, much like politics, in a world where there is generally a zerg mentality on things.

So the question is as follows:

Do you think that players should play the sex that they are in real life or should they be free of any social stigma to play whatever they want to in the game? Are there situations where you find it acceptable for gender swapping to occur or is it a flat out “no” or “yes”?

The majority of my readers are probably veterans of Everquest if there is any lengthy MMOG history. I however will admit that I did not play EQ as extensively as the majority of you did. Instead I was locked in a time of MUDs before I made my first graphical MMO jump into the world of Ragnarok Online (RO).

MUDs are known as “Multi User Dungeons”. They’re text based games that use Telnet to connect to a server that sends you text. You type in your commands and play the game that way. You do get to select your gender during character creation and often enough it played into your character choices and class description. Flavor text with “he” and “she” would swap depending on your choice and there was usually alternates such as “unknown” or “insertrandomsexcreationhere”.

It was of course a nonfactor in the game unless you made it to be one. Even then, roleplay is all but required in a lot of MUDs to a certain extent.  Roleplaying the opposite gender is a difficult thing to do when you have malicious intent in your heart.

It was not until I played RO and a visual avatar was given to other players that sex began to matter. Guys and girls would frequently pair off and fall in love. Suitors would hand over rare items like candy to win the love of that special someone. Often enough, that special someone was just using their character’s gender as a way to get free items. The drama that unfolded cascaded on forums constantly. Marriages would end when that special bride to be was really a guy who wanted that special wedding gift of the rarest item in the game.

The problem in South Korea is real enough that many game companies that require your Resident Registration Number (RRN) for identification also use it as a way to lock you into one gender or the other. The RRN even makes this easy since the seventh digit is your gender. Think on that one for a bit?

In World of Warcraft the problem is still prevalent, although as a pay to play game you don’t see it that often. Guilds ruined because the guild leader’s special someone wasn’t who they said they were. Items stolen, banks robbed, etc. by people posing as that amazingly cute girl next door or sometimes even that hunk who looks as good as one of the guys on T.V.

You also have a large majority of people who play opposites for the aesthetics. Many people prefer to stare at a better looking character model while they play instead of something that isn’t nearly as appealing to them. A great example would be Male and Female Night/Blood Elves. The male is a stocky strange looking fellow while the female is a very high quality model. Male Taurens on the other hand win hands down vs. the awkward looking females (in my opinion, anyway).

Ventrilo and phone calls often can prove one way or another.  Then again, how many mics break conveniently?

So, the question comes down to what do you personally think? Well, myself I think it’s fine if you play as a girl instead of a guy for a better character model. As long as you don’t try to pretend to be the opposite sex then there shouldn’t be much of a problem. I think people who maliciously attempt to swindle items from people’s hearts are bad people and that’s not cool in any way.

Though, there are other sides to this. Some purists believe that you should be who you are and that gender switching isn’t cool. Others believe it’s a free game and that anything and everything goes. The stupid reap what they sow in the world. Then there are those who think online dating is a bad thing and those who partake get what they deserve when things don’t work the way they’re thinking.

Let us know on the forums!


What's the Buzz

Last week we had a look into the all mighty master of cleave, Saurfang, and just how awesome he was. I think it’s time to switch over to the Alliance side this week and talk about a few major alliance characters. Let’s take a look at the current human capital, Stormwind, and the lineage of kings that have sat in the throne.

Stormwind starts out in the First War as the de facto Azeroth and pinnacle of the human kingdoms. Travel, not being as advanced as it is now, wasn’t easy. So the first king that we really get to know is King Llane Wrynn. His dad gets killed during an orc invasion and he becomes king. He fights for awhile and eventually gets betrayed by Garona. Garona, a half orc, eventually became his friend but does assassinate him on orders from the Shadow Council. You can play as him in Karazhan and Garona isn’t a bad person, per se.

He did have a kid and that kid’s name was Varian Wrynn. He was way too young to take on the throne so Lothar steps up to the plate and becomes Regent Lord of Stormwind. He’s one of the greatest “normal” warriors of all time before we get into Lich Kings and cleave master Saurfang. Lothar goes with Khadger and Garona to Karazhan. There Khadger knifes Medivh and Lothar lops his head off. Of course, in Warcraft III  Medivh still has his head. Anyway, after becoming Regent Lord Awesomepants he abandons Stormwind and runs off to Lordaeron. There he meets with King Terenas Menethil II (Arthas’ Dad) and forms the Alliance with many other human kingdoms. He becomes lord commander of their massive new army and pushes the Orcs back home. Khadger then blows up the Dark Portal, a ton of dudes get stuck in Outland, and Lothar gets ganked by Doomhammer.

Afterwards, Stormwind gets liberated and rebuilt from the money ‘ol Terenas gives them. Remember Varian? Well he trains with Arthas during his stay in Lordaeron and grows up. He then becomes king and has a son himself. Then the Defias start a riot and his wife gets killed. Then he heads to Theramore and gets abducted on the way. Oh, he was going to go talk about peace with the Horde and stuff.

His son Anduin Wrynn becomes king and Bolvar Fordragon takes over as Regent Lord. Fordragon of course “dies” in the Wrathgate and gets brainwashed by Onyxia but that’s pretty boring. He doesn’t have a lot of backstory.

So, Varian Wrynn gets his kingdom razed to the ground, flees across the continent, has his best friend become the Lich King, gets his wife killed in a riot, and then gets abducted. He breaks out and then loses his memory. He becomes a gladiator slave kind of thing with Broll Bearmantle and Valeera Sanguinar. He fights for awhile and becomes “Lo’Gosh”. He goes through a lot of fighting and gets cleansed and finds out he’s the leader of the Alliance.

Well, he goes and sees Jaina who finishes up clearing his mind and sets off with his two friends back home. He arrives and finds out that he’s already retaken the city. They paid the ransom and he was returned once more! My golly, that sounds awesome right? Well, there are now two Varians and one is all but Onyxia’s pet .The Lo’gosh Varian goes to Ironforge and they scheme a plan to kill the “imposter”. Well, Lo’gosh heads to Stormwind and gets past Marshal Windsor and reveals who Onyxia really is. She flips out, teleports Anduin to her lair. Both Varians go to Jaina who finds out one is his calm side and one is his aggressive side. Onyxia split him up.

So he fights, Onyxia and kills her and in the fight merges back together. Now he’s the King of Stormwind and has a pretty good hatred of the Horde. After all, they did make him into a gladiator slave. He’s pretty bitter about that and his “Lo’gosh” personality seems to be the one in charge. Ah well.

That’s the brief history of Stormwind Kings and concludes this week’s Overpull. Hope you all have fun out there in WoW this upcoming week and we’ll be back next week with even more Overpull awesomness.

Forum link again for discussion should you want to come join our community and chat!

-David "Xerin" Piner

WoW News, Quest Database, Leveling Guides, and More at WoW.TenTonHammer.com

To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our World of Warcraft Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

About The Author

Get in the bush with David "Xerin" Piner as he leverages his spectacular insanity to ask the serious questions such as is Master Yi and Illidan the same person? What's for dinner? What are ways to elevate your gaming experience? David's column, Respawn, is updated near daily with some of the coolest things you'll read online, while David tackles ways to improve the game experience across the board with various hype guides to cool games.

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