April 1, 2008 Patch 2.4 Issue

AZEROTH ENQUIRER More than you ever needed to know about Shield of Azeroth members. Really.

Adorable Gnome Slain While 24 People Look On

Blizzard Aims the Nerf Gun Magtheridon Files Complaint with Blizzard - Tier 6 Guilds Whine a Lot

AS WiTh any patch, Blizzard has once again brought out their favorite of all weapons - the Nerf gun. This time taking a big hit are Magtheridon and the keying require-ments for Mount Hyjal and the Black Temple. Karazhan keying has also been eliminated on a per-character basis. Now only one member of the raid will need a key to unlock the instance.

MAGTheridon hAS taken the brunt of the nerfs this patch, with several changes that make his fight actually appropriate for an entry-level 25-man raid. Changes seen include reducing the duration of the debuff caused by clicking the cubes, enabling only 5 people to handle this task for the entire fight, rather than 10 as were previously required. The number of infernals summoned by the warlock channelers has been reduced, and the falling ceiling debris has been made easier to see. “It’s like they want me to be less difficult than Lurker or Void Reaver,” muttered a disgruntled Magtheridon last night. “And that’s not the worst of it. Now they’re making me give away even more set tokens, a 20 slot bag, some gems, more gold, and Badges of Justice. What’s

with that? I used to go weeks with no one bothering me; now people are going to be coming in here every day. I’ve been

working for Blizzard since the BC Beta, and this is how they repay me?”.

MounT hyjAL and the Black Temple no longer require defeating the two most difficult boss battles in the game in order to enter, thus allowing guilds who aren’t filled with perfectionist raid commandos to actually see some of the end-game content. Current Tier 6 guilds have been whining a lot since Blizzard’s announcement. “We worked our asses off to make it that far in the game, and Blizzard is cheapening our achievements by letting the other 97% of the players into those zones”, said one anonymous source. Our source had no comment when it was pointed out that their guild would be listed forever as the first on Alleria to kill every boss in TBC. We here at Azeroth Enquirer think that they just wanted to hog all the fun for themselves. This reporter cannot

remember the last time raiding was so enjoyable, and is looking forward to further expeditions into Hyjal and Black Temple.

SoA officer Lyta was brutally slain by Karathress, Sharkkis, Caribdis, and Tidalvess last Friday while guild members stand by doing nothing.

SoA Raiders Defeat Rage Winterchill“We’re excited to have passed the Junior Olympics of not standing in s**t that will kill you,” reported raid leader Lyta. Saturday marked the first time that Shield

Fury of the Sunwell: Patch 2.4

QueL’dAnAS iSLe. Alliance and Horde forces working together have begun gathering resources for the Shattered Sun Offensive. Demon corpses litter the ground as rabid reputation grinders seek out more mobs to kill. Alleria players have focused on com-pleting the many daily quests available, prompting those on other realms to com-ment, “Jeez, those guys on Alleria need to get a life.” Alleria has made rapid progress towards the eventual goals of the Shattered Sun Offensive, the most important of which is to finally be able to do something useful with all of those stupid Void Crystals.

PATCh 2.4 iS ouT!Blizzard recommends disabling all addons.No one listens. Omen updated 87 times since patch day yet it still doesn’t work right.

BLIZZARD ANNOUNcES BARD HERO cLASS fOR WRATH Of THE LIcH kING ExPANSION!

» story, PG. 2

» story, PG. 2

2 AzeroTh enQuirer April 01, 2008

SoA Member H4xx0rs RNG?MAGTheridon’S LAir, March 30, 2008. In the first raid on Magtheridon since the major changes implemented in Patch 2.4, Shield of Azeroth raid members got their first look at the new loot dropped by Maggie. The bag of gems, gold, and extra set tokens were all dealt with accordingly, then it came time to roll for the 20-slot bag. Mys-teriously, it was won by Tehf “the Bag Lady” Therdien who beat out all the other players in the random roll. This is not the first time that Tehf has been awarded 20-slot bags from boss kills. Her nom de guerre arose from her habit of repeatedly winning these items. She freely admits to having won more of them than any other player in the guild. “ROFL I have 3 of the 20-slot bags cuz

Imz lucky on the rollz. I can has more bagz pleez,” stated Tehf after winning the recent drop from Magtheridon.

“I was busy clickeling the cubes just prior to the roll in question”, stated Palafied, who was one of several eyewitnesses to Sunday’s events. “I don’t know how she would hack the random number generator, but the whole thing is kind of suspicious.” Zinovya, another witness had her own theory; “She probably learned how to do it from my son Bloodsky. That 100 he rolled on Attumen’s horse was just too good to be true.”

Another possibility is that Tehf is some-how related to Magtheridon. Consider the names – Therdien, and Theridon. It seems too close to be only a coincidence. Perhaps these distant cousins were in collusion as to the outcome of the bag drop on Sunday evening. If that proves to be the case, Bliz-zard will have to investigate Magtheridon carefully to rule out questions of employee tampering with random number rolls.

RNG TAMPERING

SoA Defeats Rage Winterchillcontinued from page 1

of Azeroth had attempted Mount Hyjal. It was an enjoyable raid for all, although a number of people had problems with low frame rates and disconnects, likely from the large number of mobs and spell effects. It didn’t help that the popular threat meter addon Omen hasn’t been working reliably since Patch 2.4, despite the fact that we all took time to update it in the middle of the raid.

There were some issues with people standing in the Death and Decay effect cast by Rage Winterchill. This reddish effect on the ground can be somewhat hard to see, and may not be visible at all unless you have your spell detail settings set to maximum. Nonetheless, the SoA raid team pulled together to avoid standing in stuff that will kill us and achieve a victory over the first boss in Mount Hyjal. Unfortunately the screenshots aren’t very impressive, as Rage Winterchill leaves behind nothing but a small black sphere when he is slain.

MounT hyjAL SeCreT unCovered! A closer look at the above screenshot

from the SoA web page reveals a suspicious appearance to the shiny black orb that is all that remains of Winterchill. With the use of top-secret government photo enhance-

ment technology previously only avail-able to Crime Scene Investigations teams in Las Vegas and Miami, we have digitally enhanced, magnified, vastly increased the image resolution and changed camera angles on the above screenshot. The result-ing image reveals a startling secret which has heretofore been kept under wraps by the Blizzard and the guilds who have been raiding in Mount Hyjal prior to patch 2.4. The significance of this finding is being debated by guild officers, but so far, the answer is unclear.

Closeup of the orb from the guild screenshot. Digital enhancement of the screenshot image reveals the startling truth!

Wrath of the Lich King will be introducing many new features including the Bard hero Class.BLizzArd enTerTAinMenT announced Tuesday that they will be featuring an addi-tional hero class for the upcoming expan-sion Wrath of the Lich King. The favored weapon of the new class will be the guitar (axe), and will involve the use of a special control-ler like that used in Guitar Hero™ in order to play riffs to activate their abilities.

It appears that the talent trees will be the Punk Rock, Metal, and Indie trees. People are already speculating as to the PVP utility of the “Nonconformity” ability in the Punk Rock tree, which dispels fear, mind control, and similar effects.

Judging by the screenshots posted in the Blizzard article, it’s clear that blood elves, dwarves, orcs, and tauren will be able to choose the bard hero class. Whether the other races will also be able to select this class remains unknown.

What has been made abundantly clear on the World of Warcraft forums is that a surprising number of people are complete suckers and believe everything they read on the intarweb. Korny, who plays an undead priest on the Proudmoore server

posted the fol-lowing regard-ing Blizzard’s announcement of the bard class, “When Blizzard was bought by Electronic Arts and everyone joked about Guitar Hero merging with WoW, I had gen-uinely thought it impossible. I stand corrected.

My family’s three accounts with WoW just had its days numbered.” Of course he later edited his post to say that he realized it was a joke.

Unlike Korny, long time Shield of Azeroth member Aeristelle realized that it was a joke, but said that all he’s ever wanted in this game was to see the bard class imple-mented. He was grumpy the rest of the day as a result of the Blizzard April 1st article. Poor Aeri, no bards 4 joo.

The Draenei Who cried “Not Ready”disregarding ready checks; all fun and games?

reAdy CheCKS may be a tedious formality during raids, just like logging into Ventrilo, or pretending you were listening to raid instructions rather than adjusting your NetFlix queue.

Once upon a time a draenei in SoA, the shaman Runninrebel, chose to take a stand against monotonous protocols such as the ready check. He invariably ignored such checks, or else clicked “Not Ready” regard-less of whether he was actually prepared for the pull or not. He kept this up for so long that everyone began ignoring it when he claimed to not be ready, and just went ahead and pulled. Then one fateful night, Runnin was eaten by giant slavering dire wolves and no one came to help him, and he had to reroll as a holy paladin, which made him cry. The End.

BARD HERO cLASS

When Blizzard was bought by Electronic Arts and everyone joked about Guitar Hero merging with WoW, I had genuinely thought it impossible. I stand corrected. My family’s three accounts with WoW

just had its days numbered.

April 1, 2008 AzeroTh enQuirer 3

eArTh dAy is coming up on April 22nd, and in an effort to be more eco-friendly, Blizzard has embraced the concept of recycling. A Blizzard developer explains, “We used to have to clean up the floor of Al’ar’s room in the Eye every night with harsh chemical cleaners. You would not believe how difficult it is to remove phoenix crap from that huge glass panel in the center of the room. Now we just cover it with newspapers, which are then processed by a gnomish explosives factory to remove the highly caustic detritus. They

cLASSIfIED ADS joB oPPorTuniTy: Easy work standing in one place clicking on a floating Rubik’s Cube all day long. Breaks every Tuesday from 3am-11am Pacific time. Looking for a warlock with one year of experience, able to summon infernals and cast shadow vol-leys. Send résumés to Magtheridon, Hell-fire Ramparts, Outland.

For SALe: One copy of EQMac with manual and install CD. Hardly any wear.

SinGLe FerAL druid seeking a warm and caring relationship with a stable guild, with an eye towards a long-term relationship. Will not respec, so don’t ask.

BLue PoSTer!!! I no u r there! u hav to anserw me. bliz suxx0rs and u always r nerfing peeple 4 no reasion so tell me y u screwed up my warlcok again. gg bliz.

MeChAniCAL SQuirreLS! Free to a good home. Mechanical yetis, dragonlings, and toads available also with your mats.

GREEN SOLUTION TO A MESSy PROBLEM

apparently use it in the manufacture of those cool red rocket fireworks. The newspapers are then recycled, making the entire process a great example of use, reuse, and recycle. It’s also reduced the medical bills we’re paying out for burned janitors, so it’s great for everyone involved.” When PETA spokesperson Druidia Moontree raised concerns about how exposure to the newsprint might impact the long-term health of Al’ar, Blizzard responded, “Who the f*** cares? People go in there to kill him every day anyway.”