• Champions' Carnival Coverage
• Scourge Invade the World of Warcraft TCG
• WoW: Recent In-Game Fixes - December 2009 - 12/14
• Warcraft Anniversary: New Battlecry Mosaic Tile Revealed

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• WoW: Popular Mounts and How to Get Them!
• WoW Priest Guide - How to Play a Healing Priest: Discipline
• WoW: Pit of Saron Video Walkthrough
• WoW: Guide Portal Relaunch
• The Feast of Winter Veil Guide

Blues Clues

• Removing all the RP from CoT: Stratholme (Link) : "This is something we'd like to do and we may do it in the future, but it's not something to expect just over the horizon. This kind of change would require a fairly large technical overhaul of our existing dungeons. When it comes down to it, we'd rather have the story in the game for those who want to see it and work on making it something that you can bypass at a later date."

Welcome The Overpull. That’s right, your mighty feedback this week has empowered me with enough spirit to regenerate my mana quick enough to kick it enough times to make the name not sound stupid. I congratulate all of you and continue to urge you to send me feedback at [email protected] about the site and about The Overpull. 

Here’s the lineup this week

• What’s the Buzz
• It Happened in /trade
• TTH WoW Forum Spotlight
• The Weekly Musing
• Loremaster's Corner
• This Week's Forum Post
  Come join us for discussion this week on the forums!

We’re in the middle of the holiday season, so I’m placing an embargo on talking about World of Warcraft news. First and foremost, this is a time to be spending with your family and not playing video games, at least in my opinion. Secondly, well, there isn’t any news. For everyone out there who plays WoW through the holiday season like me, you may as well just work on Winter Veil content and enjoy the game. We’ve got nothing else until New Years.

We still have that premium special running. You can read about it here. It's ending soon, so hurry up if you're interested.

The only two pieces of news this week revolve around the hot topic of merchandising. First up, The Guild has posted a series of YouTube videos where they “sellout” by selling various The Guild themed products. Each of them is fictional, obviously, and it’s all a marketing stunt to get their DVD sold. Which, you know what, I’m fine for. That’s right people; the great Xerin who complains endlessly about sellouts is perfectly fine with them making videos to sell DVDs. Why? Because the videos are entertaining and enjoyable and their product, a DVD, is actually pretty cool. Because you donate money to the show which keeps them motivated and you get something for your cash.

That isn’t to say The Guild isn’t a sellout of the highest accord. This last season has had a ton of product placement and you pretty much have to swear fealty to Microsoft just to watch the episodes. But, comic books and DVDs I am always fine about. Another web series, Unforgotten Realms, may actually save itself off of the sales of DVDs, but I might argue that $30 is a bit much for a DVD, especially considering that The Guild’s price is only $10 and comes with a ton of bonus content. Then again, it’s not such much of a donation with a gift as it is just buying their DVD outright.

Legend of Neil and the Angry Video Game Nerd are often selling signed merchandise/set parts. I always wonder about how you’d feel after buying something like that. Something is only worth what someone else is willing to pay for and the signature of an Internet star isn’t nearly worth as much (heck celebrity signatures aren’t worth a lot most of the time as well).

Moving onto our next topic…  prepare yourselves and steady your nerves. This news will shock and awe you.

HOT TOPIC IS SELLING WoW MERCHANDISE

Yes, that’s correct. Oh, wait never mind, they’ve been doing that for a bit now. Murloc plushies have been in Hot Topics for a long time now. They’re just carrying a line of hilarious Murloc shirts now and stuff about girl gamers.

MC Lars, the nerdcore hip hop rap rock comedy artist of post modern punk rock, once sung a fitting song for Hot Topic. That song went something along the lines of “Hot Topic isn’t punk rock.” Which is true, because being punk rock is pretty hard since the definition is both very loose and tight. Wikipedia, the freely editable and entirely untrustworthy source, says this about Punk Rock:

Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed the perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock. They created fast, hard-edged music, typically with short songs, stripped-down instrumentation, and often political, anti-establishment lyrics. Punk embraces a DIY (do it yourself) ethic, with many bands self-producing their recordings and distributing them through informal channels.

You can’t argue with Wikipedia, because Wikipedia is totally free and editable. They’re sellouts too, their latest fundraiser is hilarious and the amount of money they demand is obscene. That money should go to Citizendium, because at least they have an editing process and logical rulesets. I digress, back to our subject.

I think the big issue with Hot Topic isn’t how a major corporation often tries to pretend it’s punk rock when punk rock is all about doing things yourself and fighting the system. I think the big issue is that now that punk rock and vampires are devoured by the masses it has moved on to devouring Internet memes. You can find a lot of stuff in their store that goes on and on about dead Internet memes and just sigh to yourself as the tween population, who are now feasting on those memes (because they’re the last ones to “get” them), buys the store out.

Parry Gripp, one of the big viral video makers (waffle song, nom nom nom song, etc.) is a sellout too, though. He did a video for G4 about girls working in video game stores. Sigh.

Anyway, I’m digressing too much. Let’s talk about the murloc site real quick before we touch on some WoW stuff. The Save the Murloc website takes my above few paragraphs and wraps it up into one nice neat box. If you watch the video you can see some Chuck Norris jokes and a lot more WoW related memes from ages ago placed together in one sickening video.

Then again, as I said above, something is only worth what someone else will pay for it. If people want to buy it then I say all the power to ‘em.

Last week I said we wouldn’t talk about the Dungeon Finder, but on this off week in WoW news I figure I’ll make a few comments about it. I’m normally a pessimist, if you can’t tell, and I really don’t even see the glass half full. My glass right now is empty and needs to be refilled.

I would like to say that I’ve met a lot of wonderful people through the Dungeon Finder. A lot of players who are either well geared or at least make an attempt to play their class. The only problem is that for a lot of people the bad incidents are a lot more visible in their minds than the good incidents. I can say that I’ve had way, way, way more good random dungeon runs than I have bad ones.

Yet, the bad ones weren’t just bad, but instead TERRIBLE. Terrible to a degree that makes you question just what these people are thinking when they’re playing. I met a Enhancement Shaman leveling up his weapon skill and screaming at everyone when they were upset about this like it was his given right to level up his weapon while we were trying to get through an instance. I’ve met so many people who ninja loot through the broken Need before Greed system and brag about it, then wipe the group and leave. I’ve met a good few who leave when “their” boss is dead (mostly related to The Frozen Halls).

I’d like to say to all of you normal players, no matter your gear, that you’re awesome. For everyone else who tries to abuse the system… well, I don’t’ have anything to say. People who purposely do those kinds of things don’t care.

As for Need before Greed, it needs to be fixed. My feral set has mostly 245+s, with 232 filling in the weak spots. I don’t need anything but if I wanted to I could easily roll on all the leather that drops and ninja it all which is unfair to others (and I don’t do it). Yet, my resto set, has a lot of weak spots that could really use cloth that drops in ToC/The Frozen Halls but I can’t need it on it. Mages and Warlocks can, even if they don’t truly need it.

I would complain more, but I’m sure Blizzard doesn’t care and there is only so much gear out there and so many classes this applies to. However, I think it should be a little bit more robust on who really “needs” what.

Well, that’s the non-news this week. Hope you enjoyed. See you next week with more non-news. After the New Years things should pickup. Seriously, I just checked, there is nothing. Just silence.

Hey our forums are open if you want to talk about any of this. Click here to find your way over to our community and put your two cents into the news this week.

Due to the Christmas holidays there is no comic this week, but I am instead making a pretty awesome script for my stick figure story:

:D|-< : MY ARMS LOOK WEIRD

:O-|< : AT LEAST THEY ARE NOT AS WEIRD AS MINE

8)-< : RELAX GUYS, IT'S COOL

Auto Dungeon Finder {Frackin Awesomesauce!}

This thread is still pretty rad. You should join in and talk about it.

Runaway Tanks

So here is a problem. Some people can't keep up with a fast moving tank. Some people don't want to wait around, med up after each fight, etc. So you have the problem of tanks moving too fast or too slow.

Here's "Xerin's Tip" for running instances. If your tank is a runaway you can still drink between pulls. Spam your food the second you go out of combat and you'll start to regen and it'll usually last while they pull.

For the tanks that keep running stuff out of your casting range then well, either stay closer to the tank, or say something. A lot of other good advice in that thread.

Guys, it’s the holidays and there are so many different holidays going on right now and everyone is caught up in it that I think it’s unfair to launch into a thought provoking article about something and have you answer it when you’ve got so much more on your minds.

So for this week I want to hear your stories about Winter Veil or anything holiday related. Go forth to the forums and post! Fret not, in the weeks to come I'll regal all of you with a thought provoking story, but for now it's the time to enjoy the holiday season. So go forth and enjoy!

I was going to talk about the lore behind The Feast of Winter Veil, but there isn’t much to talk about because the holiday really isn’t “real lore”. As in, it doesn’t affect the story and was more so designed for WoW to have a winter holiday. So instead let’s talk briefly about power levels.

No, we’re not going to pull out our scouters people. Put them away, although Dragonball Z is an excellent study for this discussion and how power levels are figured out post-Freiza saga. Yet, I wouldn’t want to ramble on and on about that.

The power of any given enemy determines what they’re capable of doing in WoW lore and where they stand. For instance, The Lich King is much stronger than Illidan. If Illidan had stayed in Azeroth then he would have been destroyed because the LK is much, much stronger than him now. Arthas, as a Death Knight, defeated him. Arthas as the Lich King would have sought vengeance against him without an issue. Ner’zhul, who has been consumed by Arthas, would probably power through Arthas’ spirit to take out an agent of The Burning Legion.

Everyone has a relative power level and that level determines who they fear and who they don’t. For instance, adventurers are non-factors power wise. Your power, as the “adventurer”  in WoW lore, is weak. You’re considered to be one of the faceless minions pounding on something as the big bosses of the lore actually kill an enemy.

Thrall is one of the most powerful city leaders, yet he isn’t as powerful Grom Hellscream. Hellscream was capable of taking down Mannoroth. Mannoroth was weaker than Cenarius, who was always defeated by a blood raged Hellscream, so that puts Cenarius near equal ground. Of course, Cenarius can retreat into the Emerald Dream and regenerate his mortal body. We’ll get into that later one day.

So Thrall isn’t that powerful. Him combined with Sylvanas and a legion of adventurers were able to defeat Varimathras. So that puts Thrall a bit above a dreadlord. So playing with what we know now, we can assume that Thrall isn’t a guy to be messed with, but isn’t the most powerful guy out there.

Deathwing’s power is what I’m curious about. Old Gods are much more powerful than Titans, which puts their power at a level above everyone that we’ve currently dealt with. Deathwing is greater than Malygos in power, but doesn’t have the Dragon’s Soul anymore. So we know that he’s pretty powerful, but has been defeated many times already. Knowing this, we also know that he’s been corrupted by an Old God which makes him more powerful than the Lich King himself, as in the Lich King’s physical body.

Don’t forget, the Lich King isn’t powerful just for his character. It’s the army he controls and the nature in which his army is invincible. It grows constantly as it defeats you. It doesn’t stop and it’s grown to a point where he could easily take on demon homeworlds with no resistance. Assuming demons can be resurrected by the Lich King. Powerful beings such as Kel’thuzad take powerful magic to be able to bring back.

Speaking of The Lich King, and yes I digress once more, where does Mal’Ganis belong in the story now? Mal’Ganis is alive, he controls the forces in Onslaught Harbor, and he’s mad. He’s very, very, very mad. Arthas killed him awhile back and he’s probably being blamed for the entire failure of the Third War. Had he succeeded then Archimonde wouldn’t be dead now. I must ask just how powerful is Mal’Ganis? We know other dread lords are as powerful as city leaders, but Mal’Ganis was defeated by Arthas when Arthas’ power wasn’t nearly as mature as when he fought Illidan. So that puts him below Illidan on the power scale, which makes sense. If he was as powerful as Illidan then he’d pretty much wreck havoc himself, but he hasn’t.

Then again, he might have died to Arthas on purpose. Who knows with dreadlords and he does talk about going back to the homeworld. So I imagine he’s not in too bad with his breathren. Nevertheless, I ponder what his role will be. It’s obvious that he has to play some role because he was the key instrument in driving Arthas mad. He led Arthas to Frostmourne, he gave Arthas something to hate, and he was “ruined” by Arthas.

Well that’s the lore corner this week. We’ll return to our fun rambles about various hilarious lore facts after the holidays.

That’s the lore corner this week and concludes The Overpull. Stay tuned next week for more awesome news, funny stories, lore, and questions rolled together in your ultimate WoW newsletter.

-David "Xerin" Piner